It’s about my time in South America and Spain. Thousands of miles and many many miracles.
Chapter 1
Every person has a childhood
If we want to be honest, there is no life that is more valuable than another, but we all think about ourselves first. Now granted, some people are more giving and caring than others, this is good, and we may hold them in great respect, but most of us live in our own personal universe, thinking of ourselves most of the time. Here is a peek into my universe.
My mother and father grew up within a few blocks of each other. They became childhood sweethearts and were married very young. After their first child was born, a girl, my father joined the Navy. He served in the Mediterranean during World War II. He was home for a short time, and the Navy called him back to serve in the Korean War. While on the ship, he found out that my mother was pregnant with their second child (Me). It was many months until my mother introduced me to my father. I was born prematurely at seven months, and my father told me they could fit me in a shoebox.
We lived in a small home in Washington, DC. My mother was a very loving homemaker, and my father was a plumber. Finances did not come easy, but they made it work. By the time I was four, they had saved enough money to buy a house in Maryland. Considering that my father was a second-generation Italian, that was very impressive. Taking into consideration that my grandfather came to America on a ship from Naples, Italy. He landed on Ellis Island and, in a short time, was able to establish himself as a tailor. He then sent for my Sicilian grandmother. They moved to Washington, DC, and raised my father and his four sisters.
We had a happy home; in fact, I cannot remember my parents ever arguing. I do remember them playing a lot of tricks on us, though. One time during Halloween, they put a sheet over their heads, burnt two holes in it with cigarettes, then tapped on the living room window after dark. When we looked out the window, we about wet our pants. We had picnics at the beach and played games together. They would do all they could to bring joy into our lives.
We were shocked when mom and Dad split up and were divorced very soon afterward. I did not find out why, until I was an adult. Neither one of them ever got over the divorce. Both told us before their deaths that they wished they would have worked out the incident rather than divorce.
My father remarried within a year. The woman he married had two children of her own, making the members of our family living in the house six. My mother took the youngest daughter and moved to Ohio. She had two other children while living there. For me, the joy in our home disappeared. It totally changed within a few months.
I became very rebellious. I was accustomed to a loving mother who showed her affection daily, with her saying; I love you and giving me constant kisses and hugs. The new woman in my father’s life was hugely different. She had not grown to understand that children need affection. The combination of losing my mother and having another woman come in her place was hard enough, but a woman who did not know how children need love and affection was too much for me to take.
As my preteens went by, I received spankings almost weekly. From the time I was seven to my seventeenth birthday, I spent about two years in my room for punishment. Looking back, I believe they just did not know how to deal with me. They were struggling financially, and my constant rebellious actions made things harder, so they would send me to my room.
I was a hard worker. I served newspapers, shoveled snow in the winter, and cut grass in the summer. I kept money in my pocket so that I could go to the teen club. I loved music and dancing. My money caused me trouble too. My friends and I would convince homeless drunks to buy whiskey and other drinks for us, and we would drink before going to dances. I did use the money earned to do wholesome things, too, like going bowling, skating, and going to movies.
I do appreciate some of the things I was able to do with my Dad during my teen years. He would take Ron, my brother, and me on jobs. At the time, I had a love/hate feeling about it. I loved going out with my Dad, but I hated plumbing.
Some jobs were just disgusting. On some of them, we had to clear out the main sewer lines in Washington, DC. The apartment buildings he had contracted with were multi-unit buildings with one hundred or so people living in them. I do not want to go into details; suffice to say while trying to clear the main drains, some people on the upper floors would flush their toilets. I am sure you get the picture.
(Please note: names in this book are changed to protect the privacy of those in my life.)
Some things happen in my life that woke me up to the existence of God. When I was fifteen, my best friend Mark and I passed by a tent revival meeting, seeing the people on stage sharing how God had healed them. I thought I would trick everyone, so I started screaming, my foot my foot. I received a lot of attention, and then we ran away. A few months later, I wanted to get some money to go dancing at the teen club. It was late in the afternoon, and I needed to finish fast. I knew one of my clients wanted their lawn cut, so I ran over to their house and got the job. While I was cutting the grass on the back of the property, I had to push the mower down the hill while standing on top, and the drop off was about three feet. On one of the sections, my foot slipped and went under the running lawnmower. Lawnmowers at this time did not have the safety stop, so two toes on my left foot were cut like a butcher fillets a sirloin steak.
When my Dad heard what had happened, he ran to my aid. He drove way too fast. While cutting through traffic, I could hear the horns from other cars blowing at him. After getting to the hospital, the surgeon could sew them back together, but the toe next to the big toe is smaller and twisted about thirty degrees. Both toes had metal splints in them, and it took about six months to heal. My cast had been signed by many of my friends as it was five months before I got the form off. But not to worry, I still love to dance even till today.
I went to Bladensburg Vocational High School. I enjoyed working with my hands, so I took different trades to see which one I wanted to pursue as a profession. First, I tried mason work for a year, learning how to lay brick and block. It was fun, but it did not fulfill the need. I tried HVAC next. Again, I was not too fond of it, so I changed to auto mechanics. It was great to learn these trades, as I used them throughout my life, in the USA, and while serving as a Missionary for 17 years in South America and Spain.
One of my best memories as a teenager is when my Dad called me and ask me to come down from my room to help him shingle the roof. I had just graduated from high school and was doing some celebrating the night before. I had no idea dad knew I was drunk the night before. He was making me carry the bundles of shingles up the ladder while he installed them. After about an hour or so, I was getting tired. Dad signaled me to say something. He leaned over towards me and said, “I know you were drunk last night. I will not tell your stepmother, but do not do it again.” This touched my heart more than all the whippings and punishments that I ever received because I felt he was on my side.
Chapter 2
Military service and experience
I graduated from High School at seventeen, and my father gave me a choice. He said, “I know the Military Service will make a man out of you, so you can join the Navy, or I will call the army and get them to enlist you.” This was a tough choice for me. By this time, America had been fighting the Vietnam War for twelve years. There were about 3.5 million war-related deaths, 58,000 were Americans, with nothing to speak of as a result. I believed we needed to withdraw. Knowing my father was a man of his Word (One thing I still admire him for), I knew I had to go into the Navy.
I went through boot camp at “The Keel” in the Great Lakes. I will never forget walking in line to get my Military vaccines. These vaccines were given with air-jet guns and in both arms at the same time. The next morning, I could barely lift my arms. During my time at boot camp, I caught double pneumonia. It was below freezing most of the time. The clothes would freeze on the clotheslines. The pants and shirts would be as hard as a board. I can remember times when the commander ordered to put them on frozen.
After Boot Camp, I the Navy stationed in San Diego, California, on the USS Samuel Gompers (AD-37). She was a destroyer tender, the first of her class. They designed it to be a floating U.S. Navy repair shop for Battleships, either in port or at sea. The vessel got the name from Mr. Samuel Gompers because he was a distinguished American labor leader during the late nineteenth century.
Although I was still not sold on America being in the Vietnam War when onshore, I thought I was in heaven. San Diego’s climate was delightful. People were friendly, and I was free to go ashore most weekends.
The military tours of the Samuel Gompers were Guam, Hawaii, Philippines, Hong Kong, Japan, and off the coast of Vietnam. It was great seeing all these Countries. I began to understand that people are the same all over the world. People of all Nations had families they loved. They all were doing what they could to survive and live a full life. I came to understand how God loves all the peoples of the world.
I will never forget what happened in Japan on the ship. Jim, a buddy on the Gompers and I wanted to go to the 1970 World Expo. It was held in Osaka, Japan, and was called the Progress and Harmony for Mankind. I remember we arrived way before the gates open. It was still dark, and we could not get in. There was no one around, so we laid down on the benches that were outside the gates. We both fell asleep, and when I woke up, I had Japanese people sitting on the bench all around my body: one by my head, another where my knees bent, and another where my feet left space. I could not see Jim as there were so many Japanese people on the sidewalk. It amazed me how quiet and respectful they were.
In the World Expo, Jim being six foot three, could easily see over everyone’s heads, but I could see over their heads. This was something out of the normal for me as I was only five feet five inches tall. There were so many people we could barely walk, so we made a plan of how to change things up. Please remember we were eighteen years old and crazy. We planned to count three and yell. When we did, everyone moved, some to the left and some to the right. We were amazed. We ended up walking right through the middle, and no one said anything, and no one got mad. I guess they realized that we were ignorant young men. Being seventy-four years old now, I understand that they had the gift of humility, something of which we knew nothing.
While on tour, the ship’s medic assigned me to the Hospital in Manila, Philippines. I needed to have research on my foot injury. While there, I met many young men who had returned from the battle. Many had different parts of their bodies amputated. It was hard to see. Many were crying out in pain. Hearing the stories of what had happened to them made me sad and mad. It horrified me to see what one young soldier in his twenties showed me. He had pictures of what he did to a young woman. He made a marijuana bag out of her breast. I will never get these pictures out of my mind. Horrible things happen in the minds of the men that fight hand-to-hand combat. I was devastated, and my life changed after this.
The Hospital in Manila could not help me, so the medics flew me back to the Bethesda Naval Hospital to do a more extensive study on my foot. As I said earlier, I slipped under a lawnmower and cut two toes nearly off when I was fourteen. A box fell on the injured foot in San Diego when I was working in a Navy warehouse. I believe I was having a mental breakdown as I could not stop thinking about a way to get out of the war after seeing the horrors of what the war had done while in the hospital in the Philippines.
Chapter 3
Why do we go through HARDSHIPS?
When on liberty from the Bethesda Hospital, I was walking down the streets of Georgetown in Washington, DC. It was about three in the morning, and I met a woman in a tattered white dress. She started telling me how God loved me and wanted to have a relationship with me. After listening to her for about thirty minutes, I told her, “I have to leave.” In less than a minute, I changed my mind. I looked everywhere for her. I ran up and down the streets looking for her. She was gone; it seemed as though she disappeared. To this day, I believe she could have been an Angel.
A few weeks later, I went out with some old friends. They introduced me to Bill. He owned a fifty-seven Chevy, a great car to drive around looking for girls, so we drove around. We met some girls by a restaurant called Jerry’s Hotdog Stand. As we talked to the girls, a huge man, about six feet five inches tall and weighing nearly three hundred pounds, came walking over to us and started beating up Bill. We were all surprised at this, and we knew we had to stop the fight. All of us together started to do whatever we could to stop him. We were able to stop him, and he left. Later, Bill told us that the attacker was one of the leaders of the motorcycle group called the Pagans.
About twenty minutes later, I saw the Pagan leader coming back. I also noticed he had a knife, so I yelled, “HEY” to get everyone’s attention. When I did, he leaped at me and swung the blade. He might have picked me because I was in my gaberdine Navy uniform. “This was my favorite uniform because I had it made in Hong Kong.” All I could do was lift my hands to block the knife as it came down towards my neck. It cut off my left-hand ring finger at the distal phalanx, the middle finger halfway through, about a third the way through my index finger, and cut the bottom of my thumb on the right hand. When I saw what had happened to my hand, I ran for my life. He was right behind me until I lost him. I thank the Lord I got away.
Looking back if I would have died that night I would have spent my eternity in hell as I did not understand what Jesus did for the world, me included. I know God saved me for His purpose. I returned to the car after I learned the Pagan had left. I went into the restaurant and told the server behind the counter that I needed a rag. He told us to get out of his restaurant. I told him in some very descriptive words if you do not give me a clean rag, I am going to come back there and cut your XXXX fingers off. He gave me a rag and called the police. The police called an ambulance, and then the policeman told me, if you find your finger, the surgeon should be able to put it back on.
Being in shock, I did not feel pain yet, so I yelled, “Finger Hunt.” When my best friend Mark found it, I asked him to bring it to me. He said no way, so I walked over and picked up the piece of my finger off the ground. I put it back in place and replied, “it still fits.” The policeman told me to place the cut off part of the finger in a rag. This was not a good thing to do as the cloth pulled all the blood out of it. The tissues were dead by the time we arrived at the hospital. My hand swelled up to be as big as a softball. The pain was constant and difficult to bear.
When in the hospital, my father told me that the Pagan motorcycle group tried to get to me in the hospital then threatened to burn down my father’s restaurant if the charges were not dropped. I did not want to take this chance, so I dropped the charges. This attacker was put in jail for another offense later.
After my hand had healed up, I returned to San Diego to find my ship. The Samuel Gompers had already shipped out, so the Navy assigned me to a small destroyer. It was so different while underway. Being a much smaller ship, it did not take the open seas as well as the Gompers. I was amazed it did not sink. The quarters were tiny, and it was hard to sleep. When the ship landed in the Philippines, they transferred me back to the Gompers. Before leaving for the hospital, I worked in the boiler room. I was delighted to go into the ship fitter’s unit instead of the boiler room. Then I was incredibly grateful to be assigned to the library. It would be my third and last tour overseas.
After my discharge from the service, I stayed in San Diego for about five months. Then I moved to Akron, Ohio, to be close to my mother, grandmother, sister, half-brother, and half-sister. After getting there, I found out that my mother was going through a tough time. She was drinking a lot, and the man she was with was abusive to her and my siblings. I chose to stay at her house instead of finding a place. I wanted to do what I could to stop this person from hurting my family.
One evening they got into an argument, and it got physical. The boyfriend was six foot three and weighed about three hundred pounds. My mother weighed about one hundred and twenty pounds, and I weighed about one hundred and thirty-five pounds. I knew I could not allow him to hurt my mother, so when I confronted him, I said I am sure I will not be able to beat you, but one thing is for sure I will hurt you before you get past me. I was so thankful that he backed down and left the house.
A month or so passed, and my mother was doing better, so I got an apartment. I started welding school with the vision to get rich by working on the Alaskan pipeline. They were paying a lot of money per day, and I thought after two years, and over time I would be set.
After passing the welding certification test for flat and vertical welds, all I needed was to pass the overhead welding test, and I would apply for a job.
By this time, two girls lived with me, my girlfriend Sally and a friend of hers, Sara. All of us enjoyed dancing, so I took them to a dance on Saturday night. During the dance, we split up, and another girl Kala asked me to dance, so since I could not even see Sally, I danced with her. During the dance, she started talking to me about God and his love for me. I found this conversation intriguing so, I continued talking to her for hours, forgetting all about my girlfriend. We ventured out to her car and proceeded to talk about faith, Jesus, and the Bible. The dance hall closed, and I could not find my girlfriends. I drove home, and the new friend Kala followed me, and we continued to talk until the sun came up. She left, and I never saw her again, but our conversation never left me.
When I went into the apartment, both girls were understandably angry with me. I told them I was sorry that nothing had happened. I was just talking all night long. Sally did not believe me. She said that she was going to stay out all night too, which she did.
Chapter 4
God works in mysterious ways
One-night Sally and I took some acid together. The strangest thing happened, we both were looking out the second-floor window, and we were sharing the same vision. We both saw people running and screaming and fires everywhere. I cannot remember anything else, but it scared us.
The next morning, I had to get to work. I went to my car, and it would not start. During my time in the Navy, I hitched rides a lot, so I went to the main street and put up my thumb. An older man picked me up and told me he was going right by where I worked.
During our trip, the first thing he told me was that the end of the world was coming. Now forty-eight years later, I have to smile, understanding how God moved His hand. God had brought this man to me. God had him say the words that would rock my world. Remember Sally, and I took acid the night before, and we saw this vision together. Therefore, when he told me that the end of the world was coming, I said, “I know we saw it happen last night.” During the ride, he told me that God loved me despite all the bad things I did and that Jesus wanted to show me how to live. Looking back, I understand what he meant. Since that day, I have served God on many continents of the world.
The man asked me to go to his Church on Sunday. He picked me up and took me to his church. After about ten minutes, I got up and walked out of the church. It was just too much for me. Their worship style was hard for me to take. I was raised Catholic and went to Catholic Church “twice a year.” In the Catholic Church, the sermons were in Latin, and I would sit there and get bored. This church was excessively aggressive in their worship style. Thinking that all Churches must use that style of worship, I did not try to find another Church.
By this time, I had shared with Sally and Sara what had happened to me. Neither one was Christian, so this caused many problems in the home, and we split up. I found another apartment.
I continued going to school and working two jobs. One was selling clothes in a clothing store on Saturday. The other was test driving new cars and new tires on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights from midnight to five in the morning. The company would give us new vehicles with new tires to road test and send us out. Sometimes we were told to take it easy and other times to tear them up. I’ll leave it to your imagination on which test we like best. This, by far, was the coolest job any twenty-two-year-old man could want.
Since accepting Jesus, I enjoyed talking about God, but I was too busy to take time to let it go any further. One afternoon about two months later, I went to a Laundromat to wash my clothes. Doing my usual routine, I would go around the room, asking others to play chess after putting my clothes in the washer. To my surprise, I saw three people reading the Bible. I had bought a Bible after praying to receive Jesus in the car ride, but could not understand what I was reading, so I just stopped reading it. I asked them, “Do you people understand what you are reading”? They answered, “Yes, please sit down.” After we talked a while, I shared what had happened to me with the man in the car. They read the Gospel of John Chapter 3 to help me understand what happened to me in the car.
This opened my understanding. It thrilled me to see that everyone needs to be born spiritually if we want to understand the Bible. We continued to read the Bible together for the next three hours. I felt as though I was being fed not physically but spiritually. My mind had been enlightened, and my spirit fed. I loved it.
When our clothes finished, they told me they had to leave. I asked, “where are you going.” They replied, “We have to find a place to stay. We are traveling from Chicago”. My enthusiastic response was, “you could stay at my apartment.” They agreed and stay with me for three weeks. I gave them a key to the apartment. Our daily schedule was they would go out to share the Gospel in the morning, and I would go to school or work. In the evening, we would cook dinner, eat, pray, and read the Bible together. On the days I was free, I would go with them to share the Gospel, and I saw God move in peoples’ lives, as He did in mine. My experience and understanding started to change. I realized that God is alive, and He wants to reach the world with His truth and love. The best way for Him to do it is if we share Him with others.
Three weeks went by fast, and they told me they were leaving. I asked, “Where are you going”? They told me they were going back to The Jesus People’s Mission in Chicago. I said, “and me, what about me”? They responded, “What about you”? I said, “I want to go with you.” They called the Mission and asked if they could bring me back with them. I am so thankful to say the answer was yes.
The next day my life began to take a significant change. I had a yard sale and took things to the pawnshop. I told my mother, siblings, and old girlfriends what happen to me. I told them that I now know that God is real and that we can have a relationship with God through Jesus. I told them that I was going to Chicago to serve God. They tried to talk me out of it, but I knew God was alive in me. I knew that Jesus changed my life forever. I knew Jesus gave His life for me, and I wanted to give my life to Him. I wanted to tell everyone about Him. I packed my Volkswagen bug with their things and my things, and off we went.
It still amazes me how God changed everything that day. I stopped smoking cigarettes, marijuana, and drinking in one day without even trying. I had no withdrawals and very little desire to smoke. In less than a month, there was no desire at all. The schedule in the Jesus People Mission was close to what Teen Challenge Programs are today. We were up at six am, breakfast at six-fifteen, chores from seven to eight, Bible studies and memorization of Bible verses until eleven, break time, then lunch. After lunch, back to Bible studies, then at around four, we would prepare to go out to share the Gospel until seven or later. Then back to the Mission. I would be there for five months. During the five months, I memorized twenty verses on Salvation, nine verses showing that Jesus is the Son of God, twelve about the Holy Spirit. In the years to follow, I was able to memorize hundreds of Bible verses. As David in the Bible said in Psalm 119:11 Thy word have, I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee. And in Psalm 119:105, Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. King James Version (KJV)
When leadership realized that I knew plumbing, electrical, and carpentry trades, they wanted to use my abilities. So, I was sent to Syracuse, New York, as it was ancient and needed work. I was in N.Y. for a month or so, and I told them my desire to go to a foreign field to share the Gospel.
A small Mission in Toronto, Canada, offered me a position in outreach. After being there for a month or so, I met a brother in Christ named Denny. He wanted to open a Christian theater in downtown Toronto. We spent hours working out new skits and theater productions. After a couple of months of work, the costumes were made, and the actors were chosen. The theater opened. On the day of the theater, we put on our costumes and parade up and down Young Street with guitars and signs saying that the free show would be starting at seven-thirty pm. We would fill the upper room where the show/skits were put on. Right after the show, all the actors would mingle with the viewers and share the Gospel. It was an excellent way to share the Gospel one on one. Many people came to Christ in the six months it ran. The finance ran out, and we had to close the doors.
God works in mysterious ways. During the time the theater was opened, a couple asked us if we wanted to care for a place in the mountains of Montreal for a few months. They told us it would be great for a team to go for studies and a retreat. We had to go somewhere, so when Marty, another brother, and I remembered their offer to go to this place, we jumped at it. Well, little did we know the house was a log cabin in the middle of nowhere. There was no electricity, no running water, no heat except for a log-burning stove and a small, poorly built outhouse. H.A., the only store, was a four-hour walk through the woods. Accepting the challenge, we stayed there for four months.
During this time, I was able to study the book of Acts, Romans, and Revelations. At night, the cabin would get cold, so we would take turns cutting wood and getting up in the morning to get the fire going in the stove. The other person could stay in his sleeping bag until the place heated up. It was winter, and we would walk about a mile to get to a stream to fill the buckets with water. We’d put a bucket on each side of a pole, lift it on our shoulder and carry the water back to the cabin. We would stock the cabin with enough food for a couple of weeks. Then when we had to, we would take the all-day walk through the woods to get enough food for the next couple of weeks.
I grew to love it in the mountains after a month or so. Life was all around us; squirrels, birds, and many other animals kept us company. It seemed that my mind was clearer than ever. I could visualize the writings of the early disciples of Jesus. I could take the time needed to slowly read their writings, letting them sink deep within my heart and mind. They came to life for me.
One of the times when we were walking back from town, after walking most of the way, the sun was going down, and the light in the woods became dim. We usually tried to leave early enough not to be in the woods at dark, but this time we had taken too long in town. We had come to know and enjoy talking to the shop keepers. While we were walking, we picked up some limbs. They were straight and perfected to hook the bags on so we could rest the pole on our shoulders with the bags hanging behind us.
I heard a rustling of leaves, and then deer started jumping across the path we were on, one then another and another five or six in all. We thought that is nice, but we did not think it was nice for long, as the lead wolf stopped right in front of me. Every hair on my head stood up. I did not know what to do, but I remember as a young boy, you never turn and run from a dog, so I stood my ground, staring right at him. I slammed my walking stick to the ground, and the bag of groceries fell to the ground. The next thing I knew, the lead wolf seemed to look both ways, then ran off. Then we saw the other three behind him. I think they thought the deer was easier prey. We praised the Lord for keeping us safe, and we kept going.
The months we were in the cabin were some of the best months of my life. (You will hear that a lot in this book). When the owner returned four months later, as we agreed, we went back to civilization. I began talking to Denny and writing to different Christian works and youth homes. I received an invitation to go to a home in Cleveland, Ohio.
This Jesus people location had eight people in it. They were living as it says in the book of Acts, as they had all things common. Any money coming into the home was placed in a common pot. Bills and needs were taken out of these funds. I found this to work very well, as we would pray for our needs, and somehow God would fill everyone’s needs. Of course, nothing elaborate, but we did not feel we needed elaborate things. We worked together to reach Cleveland with the Gospel. We would also share in the many chores that needed to be accomplished, like dishes, cooking, and cleaning. It was amazing how there were extraordinarily little bickering and complaining. We all wanted to please God and each other. We would have witnessing teams going out every day. Our goal was to reach the world for Jesus. The verses we used to open our conversation were John 3:1-8 and Revelation 3:20. People were open to us, and we prayed with many people during our daily witnessing.
While sharing the Gospel, we met a man that had a small farm in Louisville, Kentucky. He needed someone to take care of it for a few months. Since I had such a great time in Montréal, I volunteered and took off for the farm with the owner. He told me all the ins and outs of caring for the farm. He gave me the key to the house and the truck and left me to it. This farm had a lot more than the one I was at in Montreal. It had a big mule whose backside was as high as my head. His name was Red, because of his deep black/red coat. There were chickens and a dog named Judy. Being raised in the city, I was not used to going out to the chicken pen to get breakfast, but it did not take long to get used to it. Big Red and I would ride out to the mailbox every day, and Judy would run right beside us. One day Judy ran off and did not come back. I was distraught after she did not return that night. The next morning Red and I went everywhere looking for Judy, but she was nowhere. A few days went by, and Judy came home. A snake bit her, and she was not doing well. I prayed for her, and, thank God, she got better in a few days. After my time on the farm, I returned to Cleveland. The Pastor offered me the Copastor position, after praying about it, I accepted.
During one of our outreaches, we met a young girl named Sandy, sitting alone in the subway. Her clothes were a bit dirty, and she looked a little stoned, but she listened to each Word while we shared the Gospel. She prayed with us to receive Jesus into her life. After talking with her, I found out that she was a runaway. She was sixteen and lived in another state, and she was on heroin. I told her that we would help her, but to do so, we would have to call her parents.
When we got back to the Mission, we called her parents. I talked to her father for an hour or so. I told him she wanted to stay with us, but I needed his permission. He spoke to her, and she said she wanted to stay. She gave me the phone again, and he told me he did not know what to do with her anymore. I said she could stay with us, and I guaranteed she would not do any drugs. He agreed to let her stay, and we exchanged addresses and phone numbers.
Sandy stayed with us for three and a half months. During this time, she joined our regular schedule. Up at seven-thirty prayer time, breakfast, and then Bible study, afterward out, we went to share the Gospel. She experienced the Holy Spirit using her to help other people, and she was ecstatic. At the end of her stay, we put her on a bus back to her parents. A week later, her father called me and asked me what he could do for me and the Mission. I told him I needed a sponsor to help me financially as I wanted to serve God in a Home Church Plant in Brazil. He said, just let me know what you need, and I will cover it. He funded me to get there and gave me a startup fund, but I took the long way to get there and learned a great lesson.
I knew I felt the Holy Spirit leading me to go to Brazil. I started writing letters to a list of missionary homes in Brazil. Still, after writing many letters, I was getting impatient. I wanted to go into all the world to reach the lost.
I got to the point when I doubted my leading to go to Brazil, so I wrote one letter to Argentina. In a few weeks, a letter came inviting me to join them in Buenos Aires. Excited and ready to go, I booked a flight and was there within three weeks. The flight was long and bumpy. On more than one occasion, I thought the plane would fall out of the sky, but thankfully, it did not.
A brother who was bi-lingual picked me up. The small church was in a small house. There were six men and two women there, but no one spoke English except for the brother from Puerto Rico. I found out later that he was not in the church I was going to be but was asked to pick me up. I was discouraged.
My first six months were brutal, as I had a great desire to talk to the brothers and sisters in the church but could not. The schedule was up at eight, breakfast, devotions, Bible study, chores, then out we went to Share the Gospel. After about a month of not being able to communicate my faith, I had a revelation. I wrote verses on flashcards like John 3:16 and Romans 3:23 and Romans 6:23 also first John 4:8. I painted my face like a mime as I did in Toronto. My Afro went to the streets of Buenos Aries, Argentina, with two or three other brethren. I would signal with my hand for the person to stop, then lift the flashcards one by one to share the great news of Salvation. I did this for months, and little by little, was able to speak with the flashcards until I could share the Gospel in Spanish.
When President Juan Peron suffered a series of heart attacks on 28 June 1974. Isabel, his wife, was summoned home from a European trade Mission and secretly sworn in as acting president the next day. Juan Peron died on 1 July 1974, less than a year after his third election to office. As vice-president, his widow formally ascended to the presidency, thus becoming the first female in the world to hold the title of “President,” although she was not the first female to lead a country. She was popularly known as La Presidente. I landed in Buenos Aries in 1976. During that same year, the Argentine military overthrew the government of Isabel Peron. The 1976 Argentine coup d’état was a right-wing coup that overthrew her as President of Argentina on 24 March 1976. A military junta was installed to replace her. This was headed by Lieutenant General Jorge Rafael Videla, Admiral Emilio Eduardo Massera, and Brigadier-General Orlando Ramón Agosti. It was part of a more extensive series of political coups called Operation Condor.
After I was in jail in Buenos Aries a few times, we prayed, asking the Lord to raise enough funds so we could move. The Lord was faithful, and some of us moved to Santa Fe, Rosario, and some moved back with their families. We moved to Santa Fe because some of the brethren knew some Christians there, and they were willing to share their three-bedroom house with us. It made things easier for all of us as money was short. The schedule was again similar to the other Home Churches up at seven-thirty, breakfast, devotions, and personal Bible study. Then we would make up teams and out to the Harvest fields of God. We knew we did not know much and had not gone through seminary, but we knew we knew the King of Kings, who gave us His Holy Spirit, Jesus. We wanted to let everyone know about it.
One day while out sharing the good news, we met a young man named Juan; he was about thirty years old. We shared the Gospel with him, and he gladly prayed with us to receive Jesus as his Savior. Afterward, he asked if I like to fish. He knew I was American, and he wanted to show me around his town. I said, “sure, I’d like that.” He told me that he would pick me up at our house. I agreed, so we set the time for 9 a.m. Saturday. On Saturday morning, I heard a knock at the door, and it was Juan. He said I didn’t need anything, so I just went with him to the fishing location. I was surprised to see he only had a small paper bag. I thought we’d pick up the rods and other equipment on the way. We got on one bus, then another and a few more. During the ride, I was wearing shorts, as it was a scorching day. He did not say anything about it, but people were looking at me strangely. Later I found out that people did not wear shorts in Rosario in 1976. Ha, just another thing I did not know, but it all worked out.
We arrived at the location, and there was bamboo all over the field. We started our way through them and arrived at the riverbank. The river was about thirty yards wide and flowing beautifully. I still did not see the fishing rods, etc. but he still had the small paper bag. Juan started digging a little six-inch-wide, long, and deep hole. Then he dipped his hands in the water a couple of times and filled the hole with water. He opened the little bag and pulled out a small hook, then an eight-foot-long fishing line. He gave them to me and told me to wait that he would be right back. When he returned, he had a bamboo pole about three feet long. He tied the string to it and then the hook.
This time he came back with a bigger bamboo. He reached in his little paper bag and pulled out another larger hook. In fact, it was a hook big enough to catch a whale (not really, but it was big). Into the bag, his hand went again. This time he pulled out a fishing line that was about thirty feet long. He tied the fishing line with the large hook to the bamboo pole, took out a minnow, placed it on the hook, and threw the line in the river.
Not more than ten minutes went by, and he was pulling in a Boga fish that I believed weighed at least six pounds. He took it off the hook, tied the Boga’s tail onto the line of the small bamboo pole, put the fish back in the water, and then started all over. Again, in a brief time, he gets another one. The next two were Dorado weighing about the same. By this time, the sun was going down, so we packed up. H.A., we really only had to take the fish and the hooks back with us.
Everyone in our small home Church liked Santa Fe, Rosario. The people were genuinely friendly, but the revolution started reaching there too. The police began checking people when there were too many gathered, especially people our age. After being put in jail a few times, we prayed to ask the Lord to lead us as we did not want to cause this family any legal problems. So, we decided that one of the families could stay with the original family and just lay low while the rest moved on.
We contacted a small mission in Cordoba, Argentina, and they said a few could come. A sister and I moved there. Cordoba is a college town, so we thought we might blend in and still do what the Lord called us to do, share the Gospel. We tried to keep a low profile, but the devil was fighting our every move.
One morning at about 3 a.m., The police raided our house. I was sleeping on the second floor, and I was awakened by someone pushing through the shutters on the window. Man, that scared me. I jumped out of bed and was standing naked against the wall. The young man was holding a rifle and demanding me to go downstairs. His hands were shaking, which was making me even more frightened. I kept telling him that I was not a revolutionary, and I did not want to hurt him. I pointed to my clothes, he shifted his rifle, allowing me to get dressed, and we went downstairs.
When downstairs, I saw that everyone was up against one wall. We were all frightened and praying that the Lord would save us from this situation. The police officer in charge told us that we were under house arrest and would not be allowed to leave the property. Then they left the house, leaving guards to make sure we did not go without their escorts. For the next few days, we prayed that the Holy Spirit would touch the hearts of whoever oversaw the investigation. The military guard kept us under house arrest for three weeks as they checked us out. We were only allowed to go to the store with an armed officer. After the house arrest, we were told that we had to leave Cordoba. Again, it was time to seek God on what to do and where He wanted us to go.
I went to the city of Salta in the north of Argentina with a few others. We found a pension, and within a day, we were able to witness to the owner. When she found out that we were Christians and we wanted to reach the city with the Gospel, she was overjoyed. She was a wonderful Christian woman, and she wanted to reach her town with the Gospel too. She offered to do everything she could to help us. She gave us a couple of rooms to use and even served us mate (the regional tea) and biscuits in the morning. We were a small team of five, so this worked just fine for us. She allowed us to have devotion in the open area of her pension and pretty much let us do as we pleased. After our mate and biscuits breakfast, and personal Bible study, out the door we went, going two by two into the city of Salta. Salta was a small city, so we had to go on what we called road trips to surrounding pueblos.
On our road trips, we would share with everyone, as we shared the Gospel, we would also let them know that we needed a place to stay if it was too far to return to the pension. In these little towns (pueblos), there were no hotels and no lodgings anywhere. I remember on one trip. The Martina family kindly asked us to have dinner and spend the night in their home. We were very grateful and accepted. They did not have a bedroom or a bed, so they gave us each a couple of blankets and allowed us to stay on the porch. That night was freezing. Being on the blanket on a concrete floor, I had a tough night. The next morning, I had extreme back pain. The pain made it so I could not stand up. I push myself, and somehow, we were able to get back to the pension in Salta.
The next day my back was even worse. Every time I tried to get up, the pain would be too bad, and I could not stand. This went on for a couple of weeks. The owner of the pension did not know what to do, so she called a local doctor. He was not sure what was causing my pain and told me to rest. The other four brethren kept going out and sharing the Gospel each day, leaving me behind at the hotel. One day I could not take it anymore. I had been praying the whole-time asking God to help and heal me, with no change.
One day I started to claim a hand full of Bible promises and standing on them. I kept claiming them repeatedly. I stood on them. Quoting Bible verses to God like; Exodus 15:26, Psalms 34:19, and 107:20, Isaiah 53:5, Jeremiah 30:17 and 32:27, Matthew 4:2 and 18:19 James 5:14-15. Luke 17:14 says, as they went, they were cleansed. I stood up with tears of pain streaming down my face as I kept claiming these verses. The pain did not go away for four days, but I kept going out sharing the Gospel, and I kept claiming His Word and promises. On the fourth day, it happened, God did it. He healed me. I woke up on the morning of the fourth day, and I had no pain. I praised the Lord then, and I still Praise the Lord now, for His grace and healing that day.
I thankfully kept going out again to share the best news we can give the world, that Jesus is God, and He came to earth and won the battle over sin. He offers to take our sins if we allow Him to do it, and if we do allow Him to cleanse us of all our sins, our eyes are opened to devote ourselves to Him both now and for eternity.
The event that made us leave Salta was when Antonio and I were picked up by the police and thrown into a small dark cell. There were no seats, no beds, just a hard-concrete floor. We were in there for about twelve hours. There were no windows, no lights, only a steel door. The cell was so dark. We could not see our hands. We could not see each other. We talked and prayed the whole time.
Something happens in the prison cell that I have a hard time believing myself, but I know it happened. After being in the dark, cold prison cell for about eight hours, we were hungry and cold. We had stopped talking and were praying silently. Sitting on the concrete floor for so many hours was hard on us. I tried to adjust my position and leaned back. My hand touched something, and I moved my hand away from it as quickly as I could. It was warm and felt funny, so I was afraid to touch it again. After praying and talking to Antonio, I built up enough courage to reach out and touch it again. It felt like Aluminum foil. I pulled it close to me and lifted it to my nose because it was so dark, I could not see it. It smelt like a Milanese sandwich. I opened the foil, and sure enough, it was a warm chicken Milanese sandwich. I told Antonio, and we could not believe it. The cell room door had not opened, and there was no other opening to the prison cell. Yes, we ate it, and it was good. The only way that sandwich could have got in the cell was with God doing a miracle. Amazing, I love seeing God do these little but, at the same time, great miracles.
Our total time in the cell was about twelve hours, but it seemed like days. We shared the Gospel with the police chief, but he did not want to pray with us.
When the police let us go, we went back to the pension and found the other brothers and sisters were desperately praying for us. We started making calls to friends, Christian homes, and other home Churches looking for a place to move to as soon as possible. We laid low because the town was too small, and the military police would see us again, and more than likely return us to the police station.
We all loved the people in Salta as they were very nice, but the revolution against the Military government was too strong there for us to continue in this city. The police were picking up people when there were three or four gathered, especially people in their twenties and thirties like us. They would put them in the police van and take them to the police station to interrogate them.
I stayed in the pension, made calls, and wrote letters to Paraguay and Brazil. Paraguay answered, so off to Asuncion, I went. It was a new home church, and as always, the goal was to share with as many as possible about the gift of eternal life that God gave us through the blood of Jesus.
There were two families and four singles, me being one of the singles. There was a couple from Argentina, an American couple, two singles from Argentina, a young man from Germany, and me, the American single.
While sharing the Gospel in Asuncion, Paraguay, we met a young woman named Cielo, which means Heaven in Spanish. When we were witnessing to her, she told us that the Lord healed her of Polio. When she saw how we were going into the cities and towns sharing the Gospel, she wanted to do it also, so she asked us to take her with us. She was still a bit unstable, so we took it easy.
On one afternoon, we had an incredible experience that I have to share. I went out with Cielo, and as we usually did, we prayed and asked God to lead us to the area where He wanted us to go.
I felt the Holy Spirit was leading us to go to downtown Asuncion. We got on the bus, and halfway there, I felt a strong leading of the Holy Spirit to get off the bus. I rang the bell, and the bus driver stopped the bus. We got off, and I told Cielo, “I do not know what God wants us to do, so let’s pray.” I sensed the Holy Spirit leading me to go two blocks south. When we got there, we stopped and prayed again. I sensed the Holy Spirit leading me to go right another half a block. We ended up in front of an old house. There was an open gate, so we went up to the door and knocked.
A woman, about ninety years old, open the door and said in Spanish. “WHAT DO YOU WANT? It is siesta”, so why are you bothering me. I told her that we did not know why; all we knew is that after praying, God led us to your door. She screams, “I do not need you; he might need you, but I do not need you.” She points to a closed door, so we walked over to the door and opened it. We saw a man about the same age, but he could not have weighed more than seventy pounds. He, too, started yelling in Spanish, “WHAT DO YOU WANT.” We told him the same thing that we were on our way to Asuncion, and God told us to get off the bus, and then God led us to you. He wants you to know that He loves you.
He calmed down, and I began sharing the Gospel. He listened to everything I said, and at the end, when I asked, would you like to know for sure that you are going to heaven. He responded, yes. I said in Spanish, all you have to do is repent of your sins and ask Jesus Christ to forgive you. He wanted to ask for forgiveness, so we prayed with him. Amazing, Praise the Lord. We gave him some Christian literature before we left, and when we were leaving him, he was smiling and thanking us for coming. His wife was still murmuring and complaining, but we had accomplished what God had led us to do. Praise God.
We were not in Asuncion long as the Catholic Cardinal heard about our non-denominational Christian home Church and had the authorities close the home and deported everyone. I was there for about four months. When the authorities came to our house, they gave us two weeks to get out of Paraguay. I was so grateful that after talking with the brothers and calling other Christians, a door opened for me to go to Porto Alegre, Brazil, as I did not want to go back to the USA yet.
I will never forget the difference between the cultures of countries. To help you see what I mean, in Argentina, when you asked someone how you are. They would say bad (Mal in Spanish) the government is bad, the economy is bad, and the business is bad. In fact, everything is just bad. On the contrary, when I asked someone in Brazil, how are you? They would say everything is good (Tudo Bom in Portuguese), and the answer would be everything is good back (Tudo Bien in Portuguese). This amazed me because many of the people that were saying that everything is good were eating rice and beans for lunch and dinner, and cornmeal for breakfast. The Brazilians attitudes were uplifting, even when Brazil’s economy was much worse than Argentina’s. To help clarify this, in the grocery stores, there were, let us say six employees, four jobs would be changing prices daily to keep up with the inflation, and the other two were cashiers.
The people, in general, were very happy. I really loved this, but they were, so none committed when it came to dedicating themselves to follow Jesus. They would listen, but their Christianity was so mixed up. Other religions and traditions were mixed in with their Christian faith. I found it extremely hard to open their eyes to the truth.
In the seventies, they may have called themselves Catholics, but millions of Brazilians also practice Macumba (a homegrown version of voodoo). With a population of more than one hundred and fifty million, Brazil is a multi-cultural melting pot. The two main African religions practiced in Brazil are Umbanda and Candomble.
I moved in with a family that had a small outreach on the outskirts of Porto Alegre. They had four children and wanted me to weld rooms on the bus they bought so they could travel and share the Gospel as they went. We had the same schedule as most Home Churches. Up at seven-thirty, breakfast, then devotions, personal Bible study, and chores. My job was to get his bus setup for trips. The bus was in the yard of our neighbor. He was a banker with four children.
I started working on the bus, and during this time, I found myself dehydrated three times. The first time I felt terrible and did not know why. Roberto, the neighbor, after looking at me, told me that I needed to drink two liters of water a day. I started doing it, and sure enough, I started feeling better. We became good friends over the next few months. One day he told me that he was going to his farm where he raised sheep and invited me to go. I thought it would be a great idea and talked it over with the others in the Home Church. We all thought it would be a good way for me to be able to share Jesus with him, so I agreed to go.
I had no idea what the trip would be like. He drove us in a beat-up Jeep, and after about a six-hour drive, we arrived. It was a tough trip, and when we arrived, we found out that the cabin had hundreds of honeybees flying around in it. Roberto told me it was nothing to worry about as they were docile and would not bother us. So, I went to sleep, but with reservations.
The next morning the cabin was still filled with bees. They were everywhere, on the bed, on the floor, on the table, even on the cups. We tried not to accidentally eat one as we drank our coffee. By this time, I had to agree that they were docile, and they did not eat much, Ha.
After breakfast, we started the search to see where the honeybees were. On the drive up, he told me he had honeybee boxes, so I thought they might be coming out of one of them. After going out the door, it was amazingly easy to see where they were, as there were hundreds of them flying all around the roof eaves.
Roberto put on protective clothing and a headcover he used for extracting honey from honeybee boxes. We had to look up under the roofing to see how deep the hive was. After smoking the hive, we found that the honeycomb was so giant he had to reach his whole arm in to bring it out. We saved the honeycomb and honey. It had a wonderful taste of eucalyptus and flowers.
The reason he asked me to go with him was to help build a cabin for his farmworkers. The first morning he took me over to where the workers were living, I saw why they truly needed a cabin. They lived in what was no more than a metal roof, leaning on a stack of wood. They had already placed piles into the ground so that the floor would be about three feet off the ground level. We built the floor and walls, but we did not get to the roof on this trip.
Yerba mate is a traditional drink in South America, especially in Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, and Brazil. This drink contains mateine (an analog of caffeine). It’s made from an infusion of dried leaves of Yerba mate (Ilex paraguariensis). The tea is typically served with boiling water in a dried gourd and sucked out with a metal straw with a flat bent end that has holes in it.
The workers were sitting all together, drinking mate when we arrived. They would fill to gourd with boiling water, as is custom, drink from it, then pass it to the next person who would fill it again with boiling water, drink from it, then pass it to the next person.
The first time I drank Yerba mate was in Buenos Aires. It was somewhat challenging doing it at first as it just seemed like colds and other diseases could be passed on so easily, but I got used to it and even came to enjoy it with friends. The difference this time was the impoverished worker’s teeth were half missing, and it was evident that some of their teeth were rotten. Their poor mouths were showing a great need of care.
Nevertheless, there was no way I could say no to sharing tea with them, as it would be an insult. I had shared mate with my neighbor earlier in the cabin, and he was sharing it with them now. I also wanted to be a good sample of God’s love and friendship for him and them. So (by God’s grace) when it was my turn, I took it, filled it, drank it, and passed it on. This went on for about an hour. I continued drinking mate with them for the weeks I was with them and Praise God I did not get sick.
We spent three weeks building the cabin. During this time, we drove around his property and looked over the hundreds of sheep, a few horses, chickens, and pigs.
One day we heard the windmill making a lot of noise. We knew we had to check it out because it supplied our water. He asked me to go up to where the tank was. I found it needed an adjustment that did not take too long. Just having to go up and down to get the required materials for the repair was tough, but we fixed it. The trip went very well, and I found out something about his faith. Like many Brazilians, he was Catholic, and he had many misgivings about the Catholic Church. I shared that Jesus did not come to give us a religion, but a relationship with God and others. He liked that.
When I returned to Porto Alegre, I continued working on the bus and going out to share the Gospel for another month or so. The time there was ending because the family doing the bus project ran out of money. He called a small Mission he knew that was in Rio de Janeiro and told them I was looking for a place to serve. I thank the Lord they offered me a position which I took. I was going to work as the school handyman. The first project was to build a treehouse for the children. It was only about three feet off the ground, but the kids loved it. I really enjoyed doing it, and I do not mind saying it came out real nice, although I did have another bout with dehydration.
Chapter 5
Love and Brokenness with an answer
I met a Brazilian girl name Chuva, and it was love at first sight. We worked at the same school for about four months before we knew we just had to be married. We went to the Civil Registry Office and found out we had to comply with the Brazilian Law, which meant I had to have a lot more money than I did. I had to have thirty thousand dollars in the bank. After even more investigation, they saw that my visa was almost up. At this point, they saw that I had a multi-entry Visa, and they would not extend it. I had two weeks to leave Brazil. We tried to get her a passport, but it would cost two thousand dollars. Our hearts were broken.
We knew we would not be able to stay together and get married. The Pastors at this Home Church knew another Home Church Pastor in La Paz, Bolivia. He gave him a call, and he said he could help me with a place to stay until I could find a longer-term position to fill. My fiancée was watching as my bus pulled out, and both of us could not stop crying. While in La Paz, Bolivar, we wrote weekly, but after three months, we found it impossible to get back together. I never saw her again. To this day, I think of and wonder about her and what became of her life. I believe if things were different, I would have continued living in Brazil and would have missed God’s higher calling for me. I came to understand this, as it says in Proverbs 3:5-6 New International Version (NIV) 5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; 6 in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.
A new Mission said they could use my help in Lima, Peru. The Pastor in La Paz talked to the Pastor in Lima about my acting experience, and they wanted to start giving open-air shows sharing the Gospel. The connection was made, and I was offered the job. When I heard about it, I jumped on it. I loved the time I was in a Christian acting crew in Toronto, so I was excited about this new possibility.
On the way, I stopped for three weeks in Montevideo, Uruguay, to visit an American Christian Missionary home. During that time, we had a surprise visit by the president of Uruguay. President Aparicio Mendez had met the brothers from this home a few months prior to my arrival. They had asked him to come by for dinner. When he arrived, I was surprised to hear that he was concerned for his well-being. There had been threats on his life. The brothers asked if he would mind if we prayed for him. He was pleased to hear this and agreed to let us pray. His special forces waited, and he left after we prayed.
I continued to Lima, Peru. After arriving, we started rehearsing the show, and again to my disappointment, the vision for the shows stopped shortly after that. The acting crew was offered other opportunities; mine was to become a handyman for a small school outside Lima. The school was located right outside of a town called Chiclayo. I was amazed to see that after driving out of Lima for a while, the overcast of clouds disappeared. The sun was shining in Chiclayo. It was beautiful. The school had thirty children and eight staff. I found that within a day of travel that I had contacted contaminated food, which gave me hepatitis A. My eyes started to turn yellow, as well as my skin. I was immediately put in isolation. For the next six weeks, I was quarantined to this ten by ten room that had a half bathroom.
The weeks started going by incredibly slow. All I had was a Bible. Now do not take me wrong. I had become very attached to my Bible. I loved reading the Bible (and still do), but I was not reading it for sixteen to eighteen hours a day for six weeks. God knows what He is doing because, for six weeks, all I could do was study it.
I started with the Gospel’s then the book of Acts, Revelations, and Daniel. It turned out to be a fascinating six weeks. I prayed, then studied, then prayed and studied again. This turned out to be one of the best times of my life, crazy as it may seem. The only interruptions I had was when food was brought to me. The food did not interrupt my studies either, as it was so bland. I could not have anything on my whole-wheat grains, which I received three times a day. No butter, salt, or any other herbs, etc. could be put on my food according to the doctor. After the six weeks, I healed completely, felt better physically, and spiritually. It was exactly what I needed. My broken heart was mended, and it was back on the Lord.
There were 30 children, a cook, four teachers, a Provisioner of food and other needs, two running the office, and me the handyman. The schoolhouse looked like it was a converted chalet. It was beautiful, and it even had a pool. I was in the school for five months, and things changed again. The school was forced to shut down. I went to live in a pension and was running out of money.
I called my brother Ron, and he was nice enough to send me the money I needed to fly back to the States. I stayed with him for a couple of months until I got a job working for my father in his plumbing business. Being the elder son, I thought I would have a better part of the company, but my Dad wanted me to learn from the bottom up. I became discouraged. Honestly, I wouldn’t say I liked the plumbing service business anyway, so I looked for a way out.
I was able to find some Missionaries that were on leave in the Maryland area. I started studying the Word with them, having dinners with them, and before I knew it, they offered me to go with them to New Orleans. I accepted and gave my Dad notice, and off I went.
While in New Orleans, we met with another small Christian home. While working with them, I met my wife to be Ruthie. Ruthie was a sweet 29-year-old woman from Texas. Her personality was very close to what Proverbs 31:10-31 says, which describes a woman who fears the Lord, “who can find a virtuous woman? For her, price is far above rubies”. We were married in 1979.
We went back to Maryland and visited my family, then to Texas to see her family. We ended up in Houston and found a young man named Robert, who managed a large apartment duplex. He was a Christian that we met while sharing the Gospel. When he heard that we were trying to raise funds to go on a long-term Mission in Spain, he wanted to help.
Robert had an extra room in his apartment and offered it to us. Then he told us that he needed someone to paint the inside of the apartments when they vacated. We accepted the job. We got to the point that we were painting two or even three apartments a day. He was paying us eighty dollars an apartment. Therefore, within about five months, we had saved plenty to start our venture to Spain.
We had received an offer to come to a small Christian Mission in Andorra, Spain, about four months before getting the funds we felt we needed. Therefore, we thanked Robert and left for Spain. There was a plane flying from New York to London called the Night Train. It cost ninety-nine dollars each. We had to get from Houston to New York. We took a Greyhound bus to New York and arrived many hours early. We sat in the airport for hours until the time of the flight. The flight itself only took about seven hours to arrive in London.
We had to take a train from London to Paris, France. We got to Paris early in the morning. We were so tired we could barely walk. We found out we had another fourteen hours wait for the train from Paris to Andorra, Spain. We found a coffee shop and flopped down with our bags beside us. It was noticeably clear that the waiter was not happy about us being there with our bags, but came by and asked us what we wanted, in French. I do not speak French but tried saying it in Spanish with a French accent. I said, “Coffe con Leche Y media Lunas, por favor.” The waiter just turned around and walked away without taking our order.
About eight students were sitting next to us, and they asked if we were Americans? I said we were, and right away, they ask us what we wanted to eat. We told them coffee and media Lunas. When they found out what we wanted, they yelled at the waiter and got our order for us. While we were eating, they asked why we were there. I told them that we were missionaries, and we were on our way to Andorra, Spain. We told them we had a fourteen-hour wait. They said, come to our apartment and stay with us and we will make sure you get back in time. We accepted their offer.
When we got to the apartment, we saw it was in an ancient building. I believe they told us it was built in the eighteen hundreds. The walls in the hall and bathroom were wet and moldy. It was a shared bathroom with the other apartments on that floor. The bathroom was so small; only one person could get into it. However, all that to say this, we were so happy and thankful for their hospitality. They got out a guitar and started to sing traditional French songs and some songs by the Beatles. We began to fall asleep, so they took us to the only bedroom, which was just a curtain dividing the room, and told us they would wake us when it was time to go to the train. Sure enough, they fulfilled their promise. We had a wonderful time with them, and we were able to share the Gospel with them too.
When we got to Andorra, we were so tired we slept for a day. We stayed with them for a few days and found out that we disagreed with their lifestyle. We asked if they knew of any other missions or Christian homes that may be needing assistance. They told us about a single Christian woman in Valencia and that she had four children and was asking for people to come and help her. We worked out the travel plan and took a bus to Valencia. On arrival, we found that we did not fit in well, so we traveled through other cities, praying that God would lead us to a place of service. We went to Alicante, then Malaga, and finally to Marbella. The Christian woman in Valencia gave us an address to some friends who lived close to downtown Marbella. We were exhausted and were praying that the Lord would provide us with some relief from all this traveling, so we went to see them.
To our surprise, they were gay. We had run out of money, and they were genuinely kind and told us we could stay with them for a while until we could get situated. They believed in Jesus but thought their sexuality was something they were working out. They knew we believed the Bible’s definition of marriage. It is that marriage is a solemn and public covenant between a man and a woman in the presence of God, intended by God for their mutual joy; for the help and comfort given one another in prosperity and adversity; and, when it is God’s will, for the procreation of children and their nurture.
I heard a few years back; one of them married a woman and is doing very well. Praise God. When I reflect on that now, it’s truly a demonstration of Romans 3:23, which says, we all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God, Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord and Titus 3:2-7, To speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, showing all meekness unto all men. For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another. But after that, the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared, Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Spirit, which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior; That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. God loves the world and wants to clear out the sins that divide us from Him, so His love and light can shine through us.
I found a job working to maintain an apartment building. Then some months later, met Sam, the owner of a real estate company who needed a site manager who was bi-lingual. He was from England and did not speak Spanish. For the next three and a half years, I worked for him. The biggest job was tearing down a small house and building a larger house on the hillside overlooking the Mediterranean Sea and the Rock of Gibraltar. The landscaping was terraced, making the pool, garden areas, sitting benches all have fabulous views.
My job as a site manager was to make sure the construction was moving. The men were all Spanish, so I would also interpret for Sam and his brother. The Laborers had a tradition, which I came to love. Each day at the end of the workday, they would talk about who would bring what ingredient for the next day’s paella. The next day, about a half-hour before lunch, the cook would gather the ingredients from every man, then he would gather firewood and cook everything in a giant paella pan that sat on three rocks. It was a great experience and great food.
While living in Marbella, we met two different Christian group homes. They had the same desire as we did. They wanted to share the Gospel with people in the Marbella and the surrounding cities. During the second year in Marbella, we were asked to be district overseers for the three independent home Churches. We accepted and carried that responsibility for about two years.
Our visas were coming to the end date, so we knew it was time to move on. We prayed and felt led to write to the Home Churches I had served in Argentina to see how things were there now. We heard Carlos Menem was president and the government was more stable. We had to leave Spain, so we ended up in a pension in Lisbon, Portugal, awaiting news. A letter came, and we were offered a job with a home Church in Buenos Aries. Sad to say, my wife ate something that made her extremely sick, so we had to stay another three weeks until she was strong enough to travel.
Our flight to Argentina was about sixteen hours. There were some very rough times of turbulence, which drove us to pray. Thankfully, we arrived but shaken up. Foolishly, I misplaced the address and directions to the home Church. We were in an excessively big city of Buenos Aries and knew nobody, and we had no way to connect with them. Back in the eighties, we did not have cell phones.
We found a pension and slept for a day. The next day we were desperately seeking the Lord. I went to exchange some US dollars and got food. We wrote to the brethren; I knew years prior and to others who might have known this Home Church. Two weeks went by with no reply. We started to fast and pray. For the next five days, I fasted. We ran out of money, so we did what we knew we could do. We went out and shared the Gospel, expecting God to do a miracle as we went. After a few hours of witnessing, it was midafternoon, and we were hungry. We walked into a Chilean restaurant and asked to talk to the owner. We shared with him why we had come to Buenos Aries and then shared the Gospel with him. Both Carlos and his wife, Lorena, received the gift that only Jesus gives, and then they fed us. We did the same thing for a week; we would go sharing the Gospel, then around two or three pm. We would go by the restaurant to have fellowship and share the Word and eat. When we found out where the home Church was, we went by to say goodbye to Carlos and Lorena, and they asked us how much we owed at the pension. We told them, and they paid for our pension and gave us some money for our bus, etc. It’s life events like this that the early Christians lived too. God is alive and on the throne. Glory to His Name.
When we arrived at the Home Church, we found that the sewage system had backed up, and there was an awful odor. It took almost two weeks to get everything back in order.
Besides our times for sharing the Gospel and personal study, we also had jobs in the home. My wife started working in childcare, and I worked as a handyman. During this time, we met another couple who wanted to pioneer and plant a Home Church in Posadas, Argentina. We pray about it and sought counsel with the Pastor of the home church. We decided to go and were asked to lead the mission and Pastor the church plant. The couple who had the vision for Posadas had six children. My wife and I prayed about it and accepted the challenge.
Our first step was having someone to go ahead of the small team and find a temporary location to live. The brother who invited us took the job of traveling from Buenos Aries to Posadas, Argentina, about a six hundred and twenty-five-mile trip by bus. He found a ridiculously small six hundred square foot two-bedroom house that we could afford with our joint finances. It had underground water storage, which would fill when it rained, and a septic tank for wastewater, as city water and waste service had not reached this part of the city.
When his wife and their six children, my wife Ruthie and I arrived, we were thankful for the house but knew we had to find another home to rent as soon as we could. Our daily routine was the same as most Home Churches, up at seven, someone cooked depending on the choice of the day while others would clean up and take personal time in the Bible. Then we would eat and have united devotions, pray for the day, organize the day, and go out to share the Gospel. We started going to the local businesses, letting them know that we were opening a small mission outreach. We found that many were Catholic and believed in Jesus but had not come to understand what Jesus did. We shared the Gospel with them, and many started supporting us right away. They would give whatever produce they produced and finance. Where God guides, He provides. Praise the Lord.
We prayed every day that the Lord would do what only He could do, lead us to a larger house that we could afford. Every day we would find people who were not sure about their eternal destination, and we would show them that Jesus promised us eternal life with Him if we would receive Him into our lives. Jesus wants everyone to repent from doing the things that they knew He does not like. We would share what Jesus said in the Gospel of John in Chapter three, that we can be born spiritually. Making sure they understood that the Holy Spirit wanted to lead their lives. If they allowed the Holy Spirit to guide them, they would not want to do things that displease God. We always left them short Bible studies and continued praying for them. It was difficult to connect them to a Bible-teaching church because there were no other churches at this time in the areas and towns we’d go to, besides the Catholic churches. The services were given in formal Latin, which most did not understand, so we would provide them Bible study materials and ask them to buy a Bible and study it. On these faith trips, we took buses and walked for hours, so because of the distance and travel times, we could not do more than this.
One day after three months of living in the very small six hundred square foot house, we saw an abandoned house behind a construction supply business. It was all boarded up, and the grass and weeds were as tall as we were. We asked the neighbors who owned it and were told the construction business owned it.
We went over and asked to talk to the owner and were led to his office. He was a genuinely nice person, and we had a great conversation with him. I shared what we were doing in Posadas and our vision to reach the cities near Posadas and Encarnacion, Paraguay also Foz do Iguacu, Brazil, with the good news of what Jesus has done for us. I offered to clean up the abandoned house at our cost if he would let us stay there for doing it, but he was not willing. We were heartbroken as it was getting to be hard living in such close quarters, and we were not getting water in the small house because it had not rained for weeks.
We continued with our home church’s mission of sharing the Gospel. God did many miracles and supplied our every need, fulfilling the promise that if we asked, it would be given. We continued going to local markets and stores sharing what we wanted to accomplish in their city, and more owners who loved the Lord would sponsor us by giving goods, food, clothing, and the finance we needed to pay the rent. We also continued to pray that God would supply a larger house.
About three weeks later, I sensed the Holy Spirit leading me to go back to the owners of the abandoned house. We prayed again, asking the Lord to touch the heart of the owner. Then I went back to the owner and asked the same thing, even offering to pay rent. He shared with me that he had lost a stepson the year prior to suicide and that his wife thought it was not suicide but that he was murdered. He told me that if I could help her, then he would help me. We agreed to move forward, and we moved in the next day.
It took weeks to get the house fixed up, cutting the weeds and grass, cleaning the windows, floors, and bathrooms. The house had six bedrooms and three bathrooms. It had a small kitchen and living room and marble floors throughout the first floor. It was wonderful to see how God had answered our prayers.
I started working with his wife at the business part-time. She prayed and asked Jesus into her life. Some months later, she came to the point of giving the death of her son to the Lord, but to this day, she still believes he was murdered. We were there for two and a half years until he needed the house to store materials again. When we found this out, we were in a desperate situation again, so we prayed again.
The Lord opened the door to another house much quicker this time. It had four bedrooms and two bathrooms, with a beautiful garden in the back yard. There were even fruit trees, with a guava tree, fig tree, and wild apple.
We were in this house for about two years, and the volunteers at the home Church grew to six adults and eight children. We had a teacher and a person who would be in charge of the daily needs of cleaning and cooking, and all the rest of us would be sharing the Gospel daily. One day we found out the owner’s wife was diagnosed with cancer. We prayed for her, and we saw the Lord do a great thing, He cured her. Praise the Lord.
After being in this house for almost two years, one of the children came to tell me there was a big bug outside. I went to look, and it was a scorpion. I killed it and searched through some wood that had been donated a few days earlier to see if that was where it came from, but I did not see any. A few weeks later, another one of the children showed me another scorpion. I saw it was coming out of a crack in the rocks, and I killed it. Thinking I wanted to kill the nest of scorpions in the rocks, I went to the store and bought a can of insect killer. I went home and sprayed it into the rock’s crack, and I could not believe what happened. Thirteen scorpions came out of the crack. My hair stood on end each time I had to kill one.
I knew I had to talk to the owner of the house to see what he could do. When I did, he said that having scorpions were typical in Posadas. We saved up some money and got an exterminator. When he sprayed in the house, we had a total of forty-three dead scorpions. They were all over the inside of the house. I knew we had to get out of the house as there were children and our teacher was a frail woman. After reading up on the sting of a scorpion, I found that they will make a person ache all over for months and can even cause issues with organs. The study said a frail person could even die. Over the next couple of weeks, we were praying desperately and looking for a place to move. It was harder this time because of the number of people in the home Church, fourteen, so we needed a bigger house and fast.
I met with the owner four or five times, asking him to return our deposit so we could put a deposit on another rental. He refused every time. I was getting more and more anxious. This was one of the times in my life that I needed to get desperate with the Lord and not the man, but sad to say I was losing it. The last time I met with the owner, we met in a small restaurant in the center of town. After about thirty minutes of conversation, I blew up. I just yelled at him, telling him that he was putting lives in danger and that God would hold him accountable if any of the children or teachers were stung. What if they died? It would be on him as we had no place to go. Then I walked away.
On the way back to the home, God was convicting my heart about my actions. My argument was, “Lord, you know he is in the wrong. He is putting Your children at risk”. This conversation with the Lord went on for three days. Finally, I surrendered to the Lord and went to the owner’s house to ask for forgiveness. This was, without a doubt, one of the hardest things I have done in my life. I had to humble myself by asking someone for forgiveness when I knew he was wrong. We had fixed the house up so much that he should have paid us for doing it, but he would not even give us back the security deposit. I was still totally convinced that he was wrong, but God looked at my actions and not his. I am the child of God, and I needed to act like it. I had shown a very bad example of a Christ-follower. So, when I got to his door, I had many emotions. I was mad, sad, humbled, and convicted of my sin. When he came to the door, I could see he was angry; in fact, he did not want to let me in.
When I started to talk, tears began to fall down my cheeks. At this point, they were caused by humility and pride at the same time. When The owner saw this, he opened the door and let me in. I told him with humility that I still did not think he was right, but I knew I was wrong in blowing up on him. That I was going to trust God to do what we needed Him to do, which was helping us get into another house as soon as possible. That God would protect us until He moved us.
When I left his house, it felt as if a three-hundred-pound weight was taken off my shoulders. I felt happy and free of any guilt or pressure of our situation. I knew God was going to do what I could not do.
Sure, enough two weeks later, one of our sponsors made sure we got out of the house. She gave us the money we needed to move to another place. It was too small, but at least we were out of the scorpion filled house. We stayed there for four months until the Lord opened a home on the outskirts of Posadas.
The new rental home only costs two hundred dollars a month. It had sixteen acres and a pond and a swimming pool. We tried to get the pool to work, but it had too many problems, and it would not hold water. The house was strange. It had four floors, but the rooms on the second and third floor had stairs going through the room below it. HA, but the kids and single guys loved it. It had one bedroom on the first floor, a living room and kitchen combination, and the servant’s quarters where I stayed. To get to it, I had to walk outside the house because there was no door to it from the main house. It had its own ridiculously small bathroom. There were pine trees all around the property, and it had ant hills that stood about three feet in diameter and two to three feet tall in about thirty percent of the land.
There was an old tractor with a pull behind mower. It would take me about four hours to cut the grass. We planted vegetables and took care of the owners’ pigs. He had two pigs that weighed about two hundred pounds each. We fed them the scraps from the table.
One day a neighbor gave us a couple of puppies, which made the children incredibly happy, but about six weeks later, they started to whimper. This lasted for ten hours or so, and I knew I had to do something, so I went to the veterinary, and he told me that they had a sickness that might be cured with charcoal, but he thought they would not make it through the night. I stayed up all night with them, giving the Charcoal tablets as instructed, but sad to say they died during the night. It was rough on the children, me, and everyone in the home.
One day the owner of the property and his young son came to the house and told me he had to burn the surrounding fields because it was easy for them to catch fire during the summer heat. He had planted pine trees all around his property, and he did not want them to get burned. While he was burning the field, I heard his younger son yelling for me to come and bring a hoe with me. I grabbed a small four-foot hoe and followed. When I got to the fire, they both pointed to a snake. It was trying to get back into its hole in the ground. It looked like a big snake, about three inches thick. I swung the hoe and missed him, then swung again and hit him once, then sung one more time, and it was dead. I picked him up with the hoe, and it looked to me to be a garter snake, so I told them, and they replied, “no, no,” it is a Carbajo, and it has a deadly bite. I looked at it again and said, no, it’s not. I carried it back to the house on the hoe. When I went to show the owner’s son that it did not even have fangs. I took a stick and the hoe and forced its mouth open. To my great surprise, venom was dripping off its fangs. WOW, I started thanking the Lord that I did not do something stupid like pick it up. His grace has saved me so many times in my life.
During a spring month, we saw a beehive growing daily in a tree by the pond. It got to be about three-foot round in just a few weeks. I became concerned because the children would play in the yard. I talked to the property owner about it, and he told me to get up early, just before the sun comes up when it is cold. He said I could cut it down at that time of the day without getting stung. So, one morning I got up early as I was told and put on a long-sleeved shirt, long pants tucked into my socks, a hat, a scarf, and gloves. I picked up the saw and went to the pond. Our two puppies (this was before they died) were about three weeks old, and they followed behind me. My plan was to saw off the limb and let it fall into the pond. I stood on the edge of the water and reached as high as I could and started sawing the limb. Things were going well; the bees stayed asleep during the whole time I was sawing until the limb fell. It did not do what I had envisioned. The limb fell before the bark was cut through, and it hung to the tree by the bark. It swung over and hit the land and not the pond. The bees woke up and started going after the puppies and me. I think the closest neighbors who lived a half a mile away heard me yelling and the puppies yelping. The bees were not able to sting me in many places except for my face, which swelled as big as a watermelon. It took three days for the swelling to go down. Again, Jesus kept me, sparing my life again. I laugh about it now.
After being in Posadas for five years, my wife became very homesick. Sad to say, I was so busy with things that I was not taking the time I should have with her. She had her duties, and I had mine. The things we learn from our mistakes. She moved back to a missionary friend’s home in Buenos Aries to help with their children and to raise funds to go back to Mexico. She wanted to be somewhere where she could visit her mother more often. My heart was still in the mission of reaching Posadas with the Gospel.
I was training a couple to take my position at our mission. They would care for the mission when I went to visit Ruthie in Buenos Aries. I would leave them in charge of our home Church and property while I was away. The trip to Buenos Aries took twelve hours each way, so I would go for an extended weekend and spend time with my wife then head back. On the last trip to Buenos Aries, a brush fire broke out in the fields. When I returned, I found the pine trees had been partially burned, and the property owner was furious. I promised him that I would stay and trim the trees and take care of the property. The rental agreement was in my name, so I knew I needed to stay. My wife continued with her plans and moved back to Mexico and eventually back to Texas.
It took some months to close the Home Church, but when I did, I moved to a pension, then a small apartment, and finally to a big enough apartment where I could separate it into a bedroom and a small office space. I did not feel it was time to leave Posadas, yet as I had a few people, I was discipling. I started giving English lessons and Bible studies. The classes were going well until I heard my mother was dying. I tried to raise funds to return by offering English classes and doing handyman jobs. I also asked friends and family to help me to get back in time to see mom before she died. Nobody responded as they were not in agreement with what I was doing with my life. They thought I would use the money for the mission and not for the flight home. They were wrong, but I understand now as they really did not understand what I was doing.
The average wage for a laborer was twenty dollars a month, and I had to get seven hundred and fifty dollars for the plane fare. I gave it my all to get back before her death but could not. When I received the news of her death, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I had been trying for five months to get back. So, when I heard she died, I just stopped everything.
I stopped the English classes and Bible studies. I stopped all social events and just shut my doors for three weeks. This is how the Lord brought me out of it. One summer day, while I was trying to write this book (many years ago), it started to hail and not some standard hail. The hailstones were the size of a quarter. The hail started coming into my apartment windows as there were no screens in the windows. I jumped up, ran to the windows, and shut them. I had three windows and a back door, which I had installed so I could go out to the rooftop to sunbathe and hang clothes to dry. I also had a copper wire running across the rooftop so I could hear BBC radio. So, I shut every window and the door and went back to writing the book.
A few minutes later, I heard a knock at the door. The apartment was on the second floor over a garage, so I went down the stairs to answer it. When I opened the door, there was a young boy, about nine years old. He was holding a small bird in his hands. He told me he had to go to school and asked me if I could help the bird. It looked like it was dead, but I told the young boy that I would be glad to help the little bird. I reached out my hands and allowed him to put the bird in my hands. As soon as he did, he ran off.
I took the little bird upstairs, put it in a plant box, got some breadcrumbs and some water, and put them in the plant box then went back to what I was doing. While I was typing, I saw the bird move a little, then a little more, and in about thirty minutes, it started to fly. Now, do you know what happens when a bird is in an enclosed room? It flies until it hits a wall, then another wall, back and forth until it either gets knocked out or dies. I jumped up, opened a window, and out it went. Wow, I just started praising God and thanking Him for allowing this little bird to fly away. Right after I began to praise God for it, God spoke to me as clear as if someone were standing next to me. He told me, “why aren’t you praising me for your mom? She has flown back to me too. Wow, I just stopped cold, fell on my knees, and asked Him to forgive me. I was broken, but at the same time, I was incredibly happy and thankful, knowing that my mother was in heaven. I would see her again. This changed my life.
I started up the English classes and Bible classes again and continued working with the wife of the construction business. We met once or twice a month, and it seemed no matter what I did, I could not get her or her husband to understand the importance of studying the Word of God, the Bible. She helped me with finance when months were slow, and I did not have the finance to cover the bills.
Chapter 6
Returning to the USA
Months after my mother died, I received a letter from my older sister with a five thousand six-hundred-dollar check in it. She said it was from the will of my mother. I used it to come to visit my family and to see Ruthie in the USA. When I got back to the States, I called my wife, and she told me that she had met someone and wanted to move on. It broke my heart when I heard she wanted a divorce, but I did not blame her, and I still do not. I blame myself for not caring for her better. (Just a short note, we are great friends now. I write to her and her husband monthly. She prays for the mission work I do now and financially supports it monthly). I have married again to a wonderful woman with whom I love dearly. We genuinely enjoy life together.
That same day I found out my father was in the hospital and was scheduled to have open-heart surgery. When I asked to see him, he told my family members that he did not want to see me. You see, I had not seen him since nineteen seventy-nine, making it fourteen years. My father wanted me to take over his business, as I was the oldest son, but as I brought out earlier in the book, I did not like the plumbing business, and we did not see things eye to eye.
When I understood he was having a life-threatening surgery, I asked again and received the same reply. The surgery went well, and my father went to live with my younger brother in his house. I was permitted to live in my father’s building. It had his restaurant on the first floor and his plumbing company on the second floor. The building had an apartment and two other rooms also on the second floor. My younger brother, who had taken over the plumbing business, moved the plumbing office out of a room into the apartment, so I was given a small room to stay. I had no money, no credit, either bad or good, and no vehicle. I wanted to stay in the USA to be close to my father, so I stayed, leaving everything I own in Posadas Argentina except for a suitcase of clothes.
My younger brother felt threatened by me thinking I would want the business, but he did not realize that I had no desire to take it. I felt out of place. I was used to studying the Bible and sharing the Gospel every day for twenty years. Now I was around him and his partner, who would take advantage of anyone they could to make money. Their cussing and cursing were nonstop. I felt as if I was back in the Navy; it was terrible. I started looking for work and a Church to attend.
I could not find work, but I found an excellent Bible-teaching Church called Forcey Bible Church. I started volunteering and meeting other Christians. Knowing I could do just about all repairs needed in a house, I put an ad on the Church bulletin board that said, “Handyman services call this number.” Well, sure enough, people started giving me jobs to do. I joined the singles group and met the youth Pastor (this was years before I met my wife, Susie). We hit it off well right away. He took me out on his speedboat to do some water skiing and other things. He was indeed a blessing. After he found out that I was taking buses and caring my toolbox to do small jobs, he offered me a small Toyota pickup to use. This was an answer to prayer. I started getting more and more business. Eventually, he offered to sell me the truck for two thousand dollars. This was a great deal, as it was worth more. I still did not have credit and could not buy any vehicle. I am still so appreciative for his brotherly love. John 3:35.
My father got better, and he offered me a job in the restaurant. I’d do my handyman jobs during the day and stocked the cooler at night. This was no small task as I had to bring up six to ten cases from the basement cooler to the second floor most every night. Then sweep and mop the floors, clear off the counters, and clean the glasses. This took me till about one-thirty at night. Then I’d get up the next day and worked the small jobs that I received from the Church Bulletin board.
This went on for about a year. I was trained in the Church to talk to newcomers and to see if they truly knew what Jesus had done for them and if they knew they had eternal life. 1 John 5:13 This was a true blessing for me as I felt I was back in the service of the Lord. One Sunday, a couple came into the Church, and I was asked to talk to them to see the condition of their faith. I found out they believe that Jesus was the Son of God, but they did not understand what that truly meant. I was able to help them see that Jesus paid for all sin when He died on the cross. Isaiah 53:6. He offers complete forgiveness of all sin to those who believe that He has all power in Heaven and on earth. All He asks us to do is repent, meaning to stop doing the things we know are not pleasing to God. Read His Word, the Bible, so we can understand God’s view of what is right and wrong. Then trust Jesus to cleanse us of all sins, even when we are not perfect because no one will ever be perfect. They both prayed to receive Jesus’s forgiveness and asked for the gift of eternal life.
Afterward, the husband looked me straight in the eye and said, I really could use someone like you in my company. He owned a Mortgage business. He told me he would train me if I would come and work with him. I prayed and thought it over. I called and said to him that I had to make sure my father had the position I was doing filled before taking his job, but I wanted the job.
I told my father, and he was not happy about it. I knew I did not want the plumbing business or the restaurant business. I did not see myself running those businesses for the rest of my life. He had another person take over the night cleaning and re-stocking, and he retook the register. He was now healthy enough to do it. We did not part in peace. I moved to another apartment and began my new job.
When the owner found out that I had computer knowledge, he had me run that department and sell loans simultaneously. He put me in a big office, and off we went. The first loan he showed me how to close was one that the client was charged a high percent. I had no idea that this was way too much, and I pray for the family to this day, some twenty-four years later. I started little by little understanding how loans worked. I helped set up the network for the computers in the office and just monitored them after that.
When I understood loans, I changed the manor I ran the loans. At this time, the mortgage companies and Fannie Mae offered loans up to 125% of their home values. I thought this was great because a lot of people had run up debt. Many had credit cards with fourteen percent or even up to twenty-one percent. With these loads, we could roll their debt into their home loan, saving them hundreds of dollars a month.
After I got the clarity of how I could help people, I started being the two percent, loan man. I loved helping people get back into a place where they were not under so much pressure with their debt. I would share the Gospel with some people but not as many as I would have liked because I was on company time. I showed them I cared by getting them the best loan, with the lowest percentage price that I could. After a while, I went from the large office to a smaller office than to a cubical. After a year or so, I changed companies. This did not help much because I was not willing to lie to the client, saying that because of their credit, I had to give them a higher percentage rate on their loan. You see, at this time, the lenders would give the mortgage companies a kickback if the percentage of the loan was higher than it needed to be. I got fed up with the whole mortgage racket, so I went back to the renovation business.
My younger brother offered me a job as a sub-contractor. He offered me a salary at first, and then it went to where he would keep eighty-three percent of the job and give me seventeen percent. This was after all the cost of materials was deducted. I got into some bad habits as I was hanging around him and his other employees.
I saved enough money to put down a deposit on a house. It was a house that needed a lot of work, so I got it cheap. I told the younger brother I was working with that I found a house I wanted to buy, and I found a loan that would allow me to purchase it. The loan was a no documentation loan that was being offered to self-employed people. Since he was using me as a sub-contractor, I fit in the category. He told me yes, go for it, and I will back you up. I bought the house and moved in. It needed tons of work. It was a true fixer upper. But I knew this when I bought it. Two months later, my younger brother told me he had to let me go. I was mad and sad, mad because he told me he had my back and to buy the house with no fear of losing my job. Sad because I was on a path of losing the house. I have to say he helped me learn the renovation business, and without him, I might not have started my own business.
I told my stepbrother Ron. He has always been a great and faithful brother to me. He got me out of Peru when that home Church closed, and I had no money. He was the brother that took me into his home until I could get on my feet. I told him what had happened, and he offered me a loan to cover things until I could get back on my feet. I was incredibly grateful, and I told him that I would get it back to him in the next few months. Sure, enough, Jesus allowed me to get enough work to pay him back in the time we agreed, two months.
I knew I had to get a contractor’s license to do more extensive renovations and not just handyman jobs. I started to study for the exam. Ron’s wife, Terri, did something incredible for me. She read the complete home improvement book on cassette tape for me to listen to when going from job to job. I will always be grateful to her. I studied and listened to her tapes for three months, then I took my Home Improvement License test and passed it the first try. I opened a renovation business and made it an LLC. I created a website and called the company A Plus Renovations, with the website called the same. I ran the company for seventeen years. I would share the Gospel and about the beauties and realities of heaven with clients as often as possible. During this time, I worked on the fixer-upper while living in it. My brother Ron helped me on the back foundation and the roof. He has always been a blessing for me. I truly am thankful for him and love him dearly.
I started dancing again. I always loved dancing even as a young boy. I would cut grass, shovel snow, and serve newspapers, so I had the money to go to the teen club and dance. As an adult, I found that most of the dance communities were not Christian. When I would bring up Jesus, it was not something that was a topic of choice for them. The dances were always fun and a lot of exercises. We would dance for three hours without a stop on many occasions.
I met my second wife, Susie, at a dance. One evening she came to the dance with her boyfriend. He was a big man, about six feet tall. He told her if you want to learn how to dance, then dance with these three men. He named each one, and I was the last one. When we danced, she was so easy to lead, which makes dancing flow. I told her that I really enjoyed the dance. She, too, said she really enjoyed our dance. I saw them at dances occasionally, and one night I asked her, what is with you and the big guy? She told me she was not sure if it was going anywhere, so I gave her my card and told her to call me when she knew. I did not want to step between a good dating relationship.
About two months later, I received a phone call from her. She said that they had broken up and she wanted me to know. I was happy to hear from her and that she was free to date now. I immediately asked her if she was free the next weekend. She said she was, so we made a date. We both enjoyed the date enough to make another one, and before you knew it, we were a couple.
In Genesis 29:23, there is a history of what happened to Jacob. Jacob served her father seven years to marry Rachel, but the seven years seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her. Well, that is kind of what happened to me, but I did not have to serve anyone. I asked Susie to marry me within a year, but she made me wait seven years. To celebrate our seventh anniversary of being engaged, I found an evening cruise on the Selina II sailboat, that gave evening tours of the Miles River in St. Michaels, MD. We went with two other couples that we did not know, as they signed up online as we did. During the cruise, we found out that the other couples were married. Susie and I are demonstrative with our feeling, holding hands, and hugging. The Capitan seeing this said, you know a Captain of a sailboat can give a legal marriage ceremony. I saw Susie was thinking, and sure enough, she looked at me and said, I am ready. I was stunned that she wanted to marry me now and replied, what do you mean. She said I am ready to get married. Three weeks later, we were married on the same ship, Selina ll. She has been the joy of my life and has been with me through thick and thin. I will always love her.
We both are self-employed, carrying our separate businesses. Susie does custom sewing, and I am a missionary to the USA. Our lifestyles allow us to be together a lot. She has her office in the basement, and I have mine on the second floor. I really loved this from the start, but it took a few years for her to see this as a blessing. She had never had a relationship where they were in the same location day and night. On the other hand, I have lived this way for the many years I was on mission. She has come to enjoy this type of closeness now.
In 2016, I turned sixty-six, and I retired from the renovation business. I started serving God full time again. My new mission is to go to Churches and train them in Evangelism. I don’t just give Evangelism in a classroom, but I take them out to share the Gospel of grace. The salvation of God that comes through Jesus Christ. I have met many wonderful brothers and sisters in the Lord while serving Pastors and Churches. We are so blessed when we share the Gospel of Jesus without fear, but with compassion and love, learning how to listen to others and lift up Jesus at the same time. I’m so thankful to be back to renovating lives full time instead of houses.
Please understand I have not been to seminary and did not go to college. I have studied the Bible and many other Christian materials for the forty-six years since coming to Jesus, so I do my best to humbly share the Bible with others. The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ. We all, every person who has ever lived, have fallen short of the perfection that Jesus lived, taught, and commanded us to live. Jesus told us He was with God from the beginning. God and His Son Jesus created the world and everything in it, including us. He loved us so much that Jesus placed Himself in the womb of a virgin. God, through His Angel, told Mary to name her son Jesus. He then lived a perfect life on this earth, showing us how we are to strive to live. No one has been able to live as Jesus did. This is why He has offered everyone who accepts His offer, the total removal of their sins. We receive this gift through faith. True faith is trusting Jesus, trusting that He did what He said He did. Jesus said he came to take the sins of the world. When we trust what He said, then Jesus leads us through His Holy Spirit into His Kingdom. This does not mean we become perfect. It means He guides us, corrects us, and makes us His children.
Jesus commanded everyone who believes in Him to “go into all the world (This also means the part of the world we live in, the USA too) and preach the Gospel to all generations.” If you are a believer, this means you. It does not mean you have to go to the Seminary or become a full-time missionary. All we need to do is understand the verse John 3:16 and be willing to say it to people. Then tell them what happened to you, how you fell in love with Jesus. Then get together with them and read the Bible. Start with the Gospel of John than go through the rest of the Gospels. When they are ready, inviting them to your Church. In the 17 years on the mission field, our Lord allowed me and our teams to share the Gospel with over 200,000 people one on one, person to person, and about 35,000 prayed, asking Jesus to come into their lives and give them the spiritual birth that only Jesus can give. John 3:1-21 and Revelations 3:20.
If God could use me, He can use anybody.
Here are some of the wonderful things
God allowed me to see and do for Him and His Kingdom.
I am so grateful for the Pastors of these Churches. They allowed me to give training in Evangelism since I been back in the USA.
Calvary Burmese Church, Church of Philippi, Chinese Christian Church of Baltimore, Nazarene Church of Alexandria, New Creation Bible Church, Middle River Baptist Church, Faith African Methodist Church, Forcey Memorial Church, and Fil-Am Community Church. I gave a six-hour Evangelism Workshop to these churches and members in them. By His grace, they have reached hundreds more for Jesus. The Holy Spirit has given us the power and boldness to share the Gospel. By His grace, they are now working in the Lord’s harvest.
The Lord can and will guide us through His Holy Spirit anywhere.
In a Church service, I noticed that a woman sitting next to me did not take communion. After the service, I introduced myself and asked her why she had not taken communion. She said she did not come to church service the prior week, so she did not feel worthy to take communion. I shared with her that communion is a demonstration of what Jesus did for us. He told us in John 6:29, “the work of God for us is to believe in the One He has sent. Jesus’s only command for us is that we are to love God and our neighbor as ourselves. When we believe that Jesus was God and that God came to the world in the body of a human being and that person was Jesus the Christ. By coming to earth and dying on the cross, He fulfilled the many prophecies given about Him. To help you understand this, please read Psalms chapter 22. It is one of the prophecies that tells us of the death of Jesus on the cross. This prophecy was given hundreds of years before Jesus was born.
You see, when Adam and Eve rebelled against God by eating the fruit of the “knowledge of good and evil,” they fell away from God because they did not listen and obey God. We, too, continue to put knowledge before the love of God and before faith in God. This world has continued to eat the fruit of knowledge of good and evil ever since the beginning. Most of the world judges others by the good and evil they do, but this is not how God judges us. If we are not seeking Him, we are living in sin, because everything that leaves God out, everything that leaves Jesus out is evil. God wants us to find Him by believing in Jesus and following what He said while He was here on earth. That is good.
First, by accepting that God loved us so much that He came to earth in the body of Jesus. (see John 1:1-14) He fulfilled all the prophecies and gave His own life to save us. He made a way for us to be cleansed of our many sins.
What is sin? It’s anything we do that is not loving Jesus first. It’s being unloving and not uplifting to others. Sin can be in things we do and something we do not do, things we say, and even all our thoughts. If we are honest with ourselves, we all have committed thousands and thousands of sins during our lives.
Jesus said He could forgive our sins in many places, one of the locations where He makes it truly clear is in Matthew 9:1-8 and Luke 5:17-26.
A few days later, Jesus went back to Capernaum. And when the people heard He was home, they gathered in such large numbers that there was no more room, not even outside the door, as Jesus spoke the word to them. A paralytic was brought to Him, carried by four men. Since they could not get to Jesus through the crowd, they uncovered the roof above Him, made an opening, and lowered the paralytic on his mat. When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” “But some of the scribes were sitting there and contemplating in their hearts, “Why does this man speak like this? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone? “At once, Jesus knew in His spirit that they were considering this within themselves. “Why do you question these things in your hearts?” He asked. “Which is easier: to say to a paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, pick up your mat, and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins…” He said to the paralytic, “I tell you, get up, pick up your mat, and go home. And immediately the man got up, picked up his mat, and walked out in front of them all. As a result, everyone was amazed and glorified God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”
After sharing this Gospel with her, she prayed, asking Jesus to take all her sins away. Then we took communion together.
We all have that same choice; we can believe what Jesus said or not. We can ask Jesus to forgive all our sins or not. If we want to gain a relationship with God, we must choose to accept that Jesus wants us to not only ask for forgiveness but also be willing to change whatever we know is not pleasing to God. This is the only way we can grow into men and women of God. It is faith in Jesus that drives us to be like Him. If you want to be like Jesus, you have to study His Words. If this is not a reality, if your faith is not changing your life, rethink it. The whole reason Jesus came was to show us how children of God should strive to live. I have a wonderful church that I attend, but Jesus did not have a building. He had a walking relationship with God. We need both.
Contents
Chapter 7
Heaven, what is it like?
Isn’t it amazing how technology has changed our lives for the better in so many ways? We can circle the globe in no time, or virtually visit our friends or loved ones in an instant online no matter where they are. People’s lives are being saved every day in ways that just a few years ago would have been impossible. People like you are finding new and innovative ways to accomplish more.
Wouldn’t it be tremendous if you could continue to discover new things without end, or even go back anywhere in time to learn what really happened and see what we as a human race could learn? This, in itself, could take thousands of years. I think heaven is going to be filled with technology, or should I say things we had never thought existed, amazing, powerful, things beyond what we can even dream of now.
I have found heaven to be a topic that nearly always stirs people’s interest. Even if a person does not believe in heaven, just hearing of the fantastic descriptions of how it is there Biblically is usually enough to keep them interested and engaged for some time.
I believe that heaven will be an extension and enhancement of everything good in our lives. This will compensate for every lack, wrong, and pain we have faced in this temporal world. This life lasts less than one hundred years, but heaven will have no end. Hearing about heaven can bring comfort to those who are at the end of their rope at the bottom of their game, those who have no hope for a better future in this life. When someone is feeling down and out, a reminder that there is so much more than this moment, something infinitely better than what they are facing right now, can make a big difference. It can be the ray of hope they need. It can be a sign or a reminder that God loves them, and an appealing reality that may lead them to salvation.
Heaven is a place where everything will be made right. Understanding a little of God’s nature from the Bible and reading what He says about the place He has prepared for us helps us to know that there will be some impressive and amazing things in the next life. God is a loving Father and desires to give His children everything that is good. He loves to fulfill our desires when they are good for us. Considering all this, should we not thank Him for allowing us to seek Him first, even glorify Him for the wonders He has created and the eternal life He offers us as a free gift. To live in this incredible new creation, He has waiting for us.
Here are some thoughts and reflections on how I imagine heaven. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 2:9 (KJV), “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.”
Our human understanding and imagination fall truly short when it comes to picturing the wonders of heaven. The following points give an idea of the incredible variety there could be in heaven. Our lives there will be filled with purpose, love, and unimaginable joy.
I believe these are some of the realities in heaven.
- Other people will fully understand you and not let you down.
- You will be able to communicate with and befriend animals that were wild beasts on earth as Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eve.
- You will be able to walk through history, seeing the full reality of those who went before you. Time is something in this world. Time never existed in heaven.
- There will not be any boredom in heaven. There will be new adventures unfolding for all eternity.
- There will be no more loneliness. Love is part of the heavenly atmosphere, and love brings union with others.
- You are guaranteed exciting and fulfilling relationships with those of common interests and those of interest that are new and unique to you, broadening your horizons.
- Your uniqueness will always be yours, but your ability to connect with others will be enhanced by God’s Spirit of love.
- You will see how important you are in God’s overall plan. How you are not just a small, insignificant person, but one of great value to God throughout all eternity.
- There are going to be new challenges to meet and new ways to be a blessing in the lives of others. There will be no limit to the joy of doing things for others.
Heaven is not the final destination, but a launching pad to greater usefulness, new horizons, new experiences, and dreams to reach for that you haven’t yet envisioned. Heaven is not the end; it is only the beginning.
If you want an engaging subject for conversation. If you’re going to give comfort to those who are at the end of their rope without any hope, or impoverished, or victimized, or fed up with their lives. If you want to offer them a fresh vision of what can be theirs through a relationship with God through His Son, Jesus, what better way to do it than through speaking about heaven?
I think in the depths of the hearts of most people, there is a desire to have an assurance that there is something good beyond this world. 1 Corinthians 15:19 (KJV). Puts it this way, “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.” The Bible says that God has placed eternity in our hearts, and it is a common yearning of the human heart for a better world to come. Ecclesiastes 3:11 (NLT), Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.
Heaven is the full reality of the life that God has prepared for humankind. It is real, vibrant, and full of everything good. It is beyond a person’s dreams for the future, and yet it fulfills every yearning a person might have. Joy and abundant life are what Jesus offers us in John 10:10 (KJV). “I am come that they might have life and life to the full.
This life on earth has many sorrows. Jesus knows them intimately. He lived through what we face. He knows firsthand what people everywhere experience. The life beyond this one will be so full, so overflowing with joy and purpose, that there will not be room to dwell on the sorrow of the past. The negative, the suffering, the loss and pain, and sorrow will be left behind.
If your understanding of heaven has become like a treasure that you have buried somewhere for safekeeping, maybe you’ll want to get it out, dust it off, and proclaim its beauty and value to others. It is there for you to use to help others and to meet the burning need in people’s hearts to find hope, comfort, and truth that will carry them through to the next life.
The choice is yours. If you desire to stop the things you know offend God (repent), then reach out to Jesus right now.
Romans 10:13 says, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Read this prayer, say it believing that God hears,
I know that I have done many things wrong in my life. I have said things that hurt others. I have done things that have hurt others. I have not lived the life of love Jesus taught. I know that I cannot change things of the past. I understand that the Lord Jesus Christ came to remove my failures, things that God called sins. I now take Jesus Christ as my Savior. I am ready to turn from my sins and trust Jesus alone for the gift of eternal life. I ask Jesus Christ to deliver me from sin’s power. I now give Jesus Christ control of my life. From this time forward, I will seek to trust Him and obey Him in all areas of my life. In Jesus Name, Amen.
If you said this to God, then print this page, sign it, date it, and know that you have eternal life and will be in heaven with Jesus. We are perfect in Gods’ eyes because He sees Jesus in us. You will continue to make mistakes because you will continue to live in this fallen world. The verses I continually hold on to is; Titus 3:5-7 “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Spirit; Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior; That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”
If you accept this and claim it, sign, and date this, it is your spiritual birthday.
Signature _______________________________
Date ________________________