God's ways...

We had been in Houston for awhile and were not pastoring a church for the first time in many years.   Our Sundays had been crammed full of meetings and people for decades. Ted was loving being free to watch sports on TV like every other jock in America.   I, on the other hand moped around on Sundays when we weren't at Round Top, in Monroe, Louisiana ministering to students at Louisiana Tech (Yep! the home of the "Duck Dynasty" family),  or at Shakey's Pizza Parlor on Sunday morning where we met with singles who hang out on Westheimer Boulevard.  Ted was known as the "Pizza Pastor". Through the week we were all over Houston, having "Search" meetings in homes.  I was on KSBJ, a kid's heavy metal music station. How?  Why? We had moved to Kingwood hoping I wouldn't be bedridden some days from allergies to mold and pine, but it didn't work. I was still sick; however the beautiful woods, lakes and biking trails gave me relief from the fire engines and helicopters and never-ending sounds of traffic. Copper head snakes were on the trails.  I just squished 'em with my bike tires and went on pedaling. ...sort of like what we do with the devil: squish him with scripture! One afternoon I listened to KSBJ, the new heavy metal station that was located right down the road and thought that something should be done to break the monotony of hours of ear-blasting music.  ...so I called Buddy, the manager whom I had met all the way across Houston in Missouri City on a Sunday night where a renegade Church of Christ crowd met to lift the roof right off  "The Barn" as they sang without instruments.  ...not unlike the Kenyans in Africa who sing with only a thrum of the drums in the background.  That's where I had met Buddy...and Mike Richardson and his beautiful wife, Cynthia.  Mike, a Christian conservative had been on radio for years and was then running for Senator; ...or something.  We were meeting all kinds of people.  With that card to play I walked into Buddy's office at KSBJ radio and said: "Buddy, you need some variety on your station.  How about giving me some time every morning to interview interesting people I'm meeting?"   "Uh...Well, .O.K., Jo, let's try it!" Now, that's the kind of Christian I love to hang around.  For three years I lugged my little tape recorder all over Houston, interviewing people I had met that I knew would bring the radio audience, kids and all some perspective and encouragement.  I found those old KSBJ tapes the other day and put them aside for a snowy day next winter when I am feeling useless.

The music on the station sounded just like what the world plays so I was getting calls from kids in the drug-selling business, one of whom asked: "Who is this Jesus you keep talking about?  I've never heard of Him."  I told her to go buy a Bible. She did and called me back. I told her where to turn to scriptures that led her to Christ.  For a year she called me once a week from a pay phone,  I fed her scriptures that began to heal her wounded soul. ...but she wouldn't leave her live-in boy friend who headed up a drug gang.  One time he caught her reading the Bible, beat her up and left her for dead in a ditch alongside Highway 59.  When she regained consciousness she crawled up onto the highway,  a Christian woman truck driver saw her,  picked her up and took her to Baton Rouge, carried her into ER,   paid for her treatment and went on her way. Several weeks later Jill  (Let's call her "Jill".)  called me. She was back in town. "Why did you come back?"  "You don't understand. They will find me and you will read in the paper that an unidentified woman has been found dead in a dumpster. Besides, you are here."  We continued our once-a-week discipleship-by-pay-phone. ...then came a day when Jill didn't call. I had met another young woman who was connected with this same drug gang. She called me and said, "Jo, Jill called me screaming as her door was splintered open by her boy friend. He shot her. She's dead!"   No. She isn't. I will meet Jill for the first time. ... in Heaven

Ted and I were together on a more traditional radio station: KHCB. Once a week we fielded live questions that ran along the line of needing help for basic couple disagreements.  Ted and I had had a few of those and shared openly; ... which isn't exactly what Texans do.  The audience loved us because we didn't preach to them. Ted was meeting in the early mornings with business men, with pastors and all through the day with all kinds of people that heard us on radio. So was I.  ...but silly me, I missed the pastorate!  Here's a little FYI about some pastors. ... lovable, flexible, faithful Ted Stone, for one. These guys will travel thousands of miles to preach to a handful of people but won't walk across the street to listen to another pastor preach.  I tried to start a home church. It fizzled. I tried to start a church in a community center. It went belly-up.  About this time, we had to move back into our city house because our renters were trashing it out and had not paid one cent of rent in the year and a half we had lived in Kingwood. As Ted was ready to put the last finishing coat on the hardwood floors, an arsonist came in the night, threw a match in a bucket of varnish and all of our work was turned into one black gooey mess.  A wonderful family who specialized in restoring burned houses and I headed into turning that home into a light  home with lots of glass that sold to the first people who came to look at it. ...in a totally flat market where no one was selling any houses.  Because an arsonist did the damage our insurance paid for all but $50 of the restoration cost.  Then Dee came back to California, my health went further into the pits and I went into a depression.  Ted Stone realized he had to get me to a dry climate. The Lord had already taken us to Houston by way of a  pastorate in order to turn us loose to disciple people. I should have suspected He would do it again.  He brought us to Bear Valley where a church building was needed. Ted and the people went to work and after three years a beautiful church was ready to receive the lost and the found. The price of the rental home in which we lived was lowered $130,000  by the doctor and his wife who owned it and wanted us to have it. Doctor Knudsen developed a brain tumor (just as did my Ted) and couldn't commute any more to Bakersfield.  His wife Joyce and Antje, our former neighbor up the mountain came yesterday for lunch and to meet the  "Thursday Girls".  They were blessed and they blessed us.  Joyce feels a part of everything that goes on in this hallowed house. ...and she should!  People were coming from many places for counseling and safety. We were on our way out of the church with walls, and once more in the ministry of the "church without walls".  Over the exit doors of the first church in Bakersfield that we pastored is this sign: "You are now entering your mission field!"  We brought them up that way. God has seen to it that we practice what we preach.  We joined the Associate Staff for training foreign missionaries with Campus Crusade for Christ.  Hundreds of those outstanding young candidates began to pour into our home.  Part of my on-going ministry by blog is to those precious people who are scattered around the world.

We belong to a Royal Family: the Family of God. ...and what a Family we are!  I am not quite gentle enough to get to go Home.  It took a lifetime for Sarah to be called "gentle and quiet".  The Big Battle we face started with her taking God's business into her own hands,  hating the result and blaming everybody else. ...same with Eve. ...so does God use every terrible and wonderful thing we have ever experienced?  Oh, yes, He does. ...everything!.   It's part of that Romans 8:28 verse we all know in our heads that moves deep into our souls as we discover the depth of the meaning of the word  "Sovereign".

A CD will be available of the Old Time Gospel Singalong will be available.  Let me know if you want it and I will send it to you.

                                  OLD GOSPEL SONG:  I SAW THE LIGHT

I wandered so aimless, my heart filled with sin
I wouldn't let my dear Savior in
Then Jesus came like a stranger in the night
Praise the Lord; I saw the Light.

I SAW THE LIGHT; I SAW THE LIGHT
NO MORE DARKINESS; NO MORE NIGHT
NOW I'M SO HAPPY, NO SORROW IN SIGHT
PRAISE THE LORD; I SAW THE LIGHT.

Love,  Jo