by his own admission, he wasn’t yet ready for college. So he dropped out and, at the outset of 1998, hit the road, riding his Harley-Davidson all over the country, working at horse ranches outside Asheville, N.C., and in Montana. In 1999, he moved to New Zealand for a year to attend a Bible school called Capernwray, a decision motivated in part by debates that Hendley often found himself getting into about what was and was not mandated by the Good Book. “I’d get mad that I couldn’t really argue with the Christian folk the way I wanted,” he said, “so I decided to get trained on the Bible so I could argue and know what I was talking about.” It turned out to be one of the best and worst things that Hendley ever did — best because “I actually backed up a lot of my arguments … and even probably added more fuel to the fire,” and worst because the school itself turned out to be one of those by-the-rulebook places against which Hendley had always chafed. Nonetheless, Capernwray instilled in him a fun- damental tenet that later would help guide the character of Wine to Water — namely, that he should “focus on what the Book says for what I believe, instead of listening to other peo- ple and what they tell me.” Take the miraculous story of Jesus Christ feeding 5,000 people. “I see a lot of these Christian organizations that do things so arrogantly and forcefully,” Hendley said, “like, ‘I’ll give you this, but only if you take a Bible and believe in my god and these things.’ It just wasn’t done that way back then. Some- body never dangled a fish and some loaves over people and said, ‘You have to believe in me and eat this.’ No, [Jesus] gave it freely to everyone.”
ate one
night during Christmastime 2003, Dickson Beattie “Doc” Hend- ley was at his parents’ house in North Carolina, trying to figure it all out. This was nothing new for him. He was 24, a semester shy of graduation from North Carolina State with a bachelor’s degree in communications, and already he’d spent years, it seemed, seeking his place in the world. Wondering where the hell he fit in, and what he was supposed to do with himself. “I was at this soul-searching point,” the tattooed, shaven-
headed, roughneck-bearded Hendley said in a recent interview with Convene. “I just needed to get away to figure out what [I was] going to do with myself.” He had realized pretty quickly, while working toward his degree, that he “didn’t want to sit in an office and do whatever it is communications majors do.” He would begin to sort out his life that very night, taking the first steps that would lead him to found Wine to Water, a nonprofit organization that reverses the Biblical story of the Wedding at Cana, and turns proceeds from wine-night fundraising events into a basic, essential human need for which much of the world still remains desperately wanting: clean H2 But first, Hendley went to sleep.
From Bronco-Busting to Bible School Up until that point, Hendley — the self-described son of a “preacher man” and a “great stay-at-home momma” — had taken a somewhat itinerant path toward adulthood. Growing up, his family moved around, with Greensboro, N.C., where he went to high school, the place he could most closely call home. After he graduated, Hendley tried to play it straight, enrolling at Clemson University, in Clemson, S.C., before learning that,
“I started really enjoying the company of the people and trying to learn their background and just love on them, and do what I could to build a relationship with them regardless of differences.”
Another formative experience came from watching his
father’s spirit of service in action throughout a good portion of his childhood. As a youth minister, his father worked with col- lege-age students to, as Hendley put it, “try to help the ones that were like me in the beginning.” When Hendley was in high school, his father left the ministry to work for the family busi-
Groups Giving Back
Site’s Southeast Chapter has hosted several Wine to Water fundraisers. Other groups can do the same with a wine-tasting function, or another event such as a benefit run, a banquet dinner, a concert, and more. To learn more about Site Southeast’s efforts on behalf of Wine to Water, visitwww.sitesoutheast.org/community-outreach. For information on how your meeting can pitch in, visit http://winetowater.org/get-involved.