Gwynelle Ariail sat with a Yorkie named Lizzy on her front porch, surrounded by the sound of tinkling windchimes. She told how both her and her husband, Daniel Ariail, had come to Plains. “My husband and I, we both felt called to the ministry. We were in the ministry 45 years, and we came to Plains in Maranatha in 1982.”

She gave one of her first impressions of President Carter. “When we first came to Plains, the first, came on a Wednesday night, and the church was having their business meeting and it was so interesting to see, to hear President Carter give the business report.”

Ariail told how it reminded her of seeing him on the news. “Like it was the national budget or something.”

She described meeting him. “That’s the first time I had met him in person, and of course, he’s a politician, he gave me a kiss on the cheek.”

Ariail and her husband had initially pastored a much larger church. “I told Dan, I said, ‘it’s killing you. We need to find a smaller place to go.’ He came home one day and said ‘what would you think about moving to Plains?’ I said ‘not much.’”

She talked about the transition coming to Maranatha. “It took some adjustment to come to Plains, small town. In Perry we had 550 families. We came down here with fewer than a 100 members. And then I had to drive a lot further to work, teaching in Leesburg.”

She told how she felt now. “Wouldn’t be anywhere else in the world that I could be. I just love it here.” She talked about the experiences she had. “We got to do so many things that we would never have done had we not been in Plains.”

Ariail mentioned one opportunity her husband had been given. “At 911 when they had the service at the Cathedral, President Carter called Dan and said ‘would you like to go with me to that?’”

She told how quickly the trip unfolded. “Plane picked him up in Americus in the morning and brought him back in the afternoon.”

Ariail talked about one memory that stood out in particular. “I guess one of the biggest highlights of being here is that he invited us to go to Norway when he got the Peace Prize.” She described the experience. “Fabulous. It was unreal.”

She described the event. “During the time that we were there. . . there were meetings, there were parties and all that and we, one morning when we were at breakfast, President Carter came and sat with us and apologized for not having spent more time with us, just as Plains people.” Ariail mentioned how there were movie stars in attendance, as well as their supporters. “A lot of different people there, and supporters of the Carter Center and supporters of theirs that were there that he could spend time with. But anyway, that’s how thoughtful they are.”

Ariail also recalled everyday encounters. “Not long after we moved here we had a big pecan tree that had fallen during the night. Ice storm. Next morning Dan and some of the people were out here, looking, and deciding what to do and all that, and I looked out there and saw somebody on a bicycle, with blue jeans. It was Jimmy Carter. He’d come over to check it out.”