<p>Greenwood is a family.</p><p>That’s what Greenwood Mayor Mark Myers said during the city’s 30th annual Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast Saturday morning.</p><p>The prayer breakfast is an event organized by the Christian Business Men’s Connection of Greenwood, where community members, city and county officials, and some state officials gather to pray for the mayor, city and county government, the schools and local law enforcement.</p><p>Each year, after the prayers, the mayor gives a speech thanking the community for their support. Myers said it is humbling to attend the breakfast every year.</p>[sc:text-divider text-divider-title="Story continues below gallery" ]Click here to purchase photos from this gallery<p>“The city of Greenwood is a family, and we stick together like a family. We take care of each other like a family,” Myers said.</p><p>He went on to tell the story of a Greenwood paramedic who had a heart attack while on duty last year, and was saved by his partner.</p><p>“Our people work day in and day out, taking care of people,” Myers said. “But when it comes to taking care of your partner, you’re taking care of your own family, and she did it with skill, with expertise.”</p><p>That instance is just one way of showing how members of the city take care of each other like family, he said.</p><p>“Ladies and gentlemen, that’s the family we have in Greenwood,” Myers said. “We love each other, we take care of each other, we cover each other’s backs.”</p><p>The prayer breakfast has been a city tradition through four administrations, and it hasn’t changed much in those three decades, said Lee Money, master of ceremonies at the breakfast and member of CBMC. The breakfast draws hundreds of community members each year.</p><p>“This is still the same event 30 years later,” Money said. “The success of this event isn’t anything that we have done. It’s the blessing in this community that makes this have an impact.”</p><p>Howard Hubler grew up in Indianapolis and attended Arlington High School. He attended Indiana University and subsequently went to work for the family business, Hubler Chevrolet. He now lives in Greenwood. He was guest speaker during this year’s prayer breakfast.</p><p>He was nervous at first to talk to a crowd in his hometown, he said.</p><p>“This room is full of people who have been through the same thing I have,” Hubler said. “You know, it’s their story too. These people have met somebody in their lives that brought them into the mission field.”</p><p>Hubler told the story of his friendship and spiritual journey with Tom Gabe, who he jokingly called his “redneck friend from Evansville.” Gabe is the CEO of Heritage Petroleum in Evansville, Indiana.</p><p>Hubler started out by saying he and Gabe had a rocky start to their friendship; from him kicking Gabe out of their fraternity to calling him a “Bible thumper” for trying to push Christianity on him.</p><p>Eventually, the friendship developed to both of them going on mission trips around the world, specifically in South America.</p><p>“We were the two musketeers for 15 years,” Hubler said. “Give us the third world and the stench of sugar cane and urine, and you know, that was just us.”</p><p>But their faith was tested recently when both Hubler and Gabe were diagnosed with leukemia. Hubler was diagnosed last year and is currently in remission, and Gabe was diagnosed recently.</p><p>“Anybody can believe in Jesus Christ when your business is booming and your children are growing, but what happens when you get a setback?” Hubler said.</p><p>They prayed for one another on the phone right before he went in for a bone marrow sample.</p><p>“I thought, you’ve got to be kidding me. All the stuff that you and I have done?” Hubler said. “Not only do I spend a year trying to save my life, and now you’ve got to go through this?”</p><p>He credits Gabe with helping him find God, he said.</p><p>“I’d be on the outside looking in if it wasn’t for Tom Gabe,” Hubler said. “I’ve had a friend who’s been with me forever, and we’ve done marvelous things.”</p>
