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I don’t know, it feels a little funny to get up here and talk about yourself. It’s not ordinarily what I do. So, I thought it was a little better because it’s been done before. Brother Lloyd had his chance, and Brother Ronnie had his chance. I guess I’ve been thinking about it some recently. It’s just amazing how the Lord leads in people’s lives. Well, I think about my own, especially. To get me from where I was, to where he wants to get me, yes, wherever that is. Well, I know where that is, that’s glory. I don’t remember exactly where it came up today. Somebody asked, at the dinner table, they asked, well, did you see this pretty girl at Valley Books and go and apply for a job there? And Eva said, “No, that’s not exactly the way it happened.” She said, “In fact the first time I saw him, I would never have dreamed I’d marry him.” Because I wasn’t a Christian. I was sort of a long-haired hippie type.
And you wouldn’t blame her for not dreaming such thing. But the Lord took me from there to where he wanted me. And I thought about that in relation to along the way.
You know, not everything’s been perfect. I told the people at the Bank here the other Sunday I preached on courtship. Same sermon I preached here a while back.
Well, didn’t tell people that last Sunday night, so you all didn’t hear that. You know, I was married when I was 19. That’s not exactly ideal, I don’t think. And yet I think it was the Lord’s will. Like I told them, if I hadn’t married who I did, when I did, I don’t know where I’d be now.
It’s just you don’t know how things may have gone. But the Lord took me where I was to get me where he wanted me to be. And along the way, he brought me in the right direction. I think that was a good move from where I was at that time.
Well, anyway. One scripture I just thought I’d mention at the beginning here is Psalm 17, verse 8, that I sort of like. David saying, keep me as the apple of the eye.
Hide me under the shadow of thy wings. And I like that idea that I’m the apple of God’s eye. And I’ve thought, well, I don’t know if I’ve thought about it. I just through the years I’ve felt the Lord’s leading. And I felt, you know, the Lord, he takes a real interest in me and I know he’s leading me where he wants me to go.
I’ve said before it’s sort of like the interest that a father takes in an only child. The amazing thing and the wonderful thing is that it can be that way for all of us. Not just me. It’s for all of us.
Anyone who’s a child of God. We know he’s interested. We know he’s on our side.
He knows working for good. Okay. Well, I was born in 1959. Not so long ago. Oh, yep. Any of y’all rid of it? Mom wrote, you know, a little about my home life.
Life with an alcoholic is the book title. Oh, and, you know, looking back, to me, my growing up years, I never thought about it being that bad. It was just the only thing I knew. They had drank and sometimes he was drunk. Sometimes he was hard to get along with. I can only remember one time that I ever heard him actually physically abuse mom. That was after I was in bed.
So I didn’t see it, but I heard it. Well, but dad was never a Christian. Mom was. She was backslidden when she married him and then she came back to the Lord about the time I was born started going to church at morning view. That’s where Ernest Gaiman was pastor in my growing up years. So we heard the gospel. That morning view back then was probably a little a good bit more conservative than it was now.
They were. It’s Virginia Conference Church. Long about sixth grade. I became a Christian. Secret Christian.
I never told anybody. Add some Baptist friends from Canada that moved in next door. Well, close to us there and had a boy in same grade I was in a couple younger and they were Christians and that impressed me and I became a Christian too.
And I read my Bible and I marked it up even and I don’t know exactly. I’m not much of a position to analyze that and know exactly what my commitment was like at that time. I couldn’t keep it up and I gave it up.
I remember the one thing I do remember right after I gave it up was the fear that I felt. My sister had gotten a brand new car. Well, it wasn’t new then.
It was new for her. Chevrolet and pall out about a 63 year old and she took some of this for a drive and I got stuck over next to the door. And if you know where I live, you go back over the hill and there’s this sharp turn that goes around that way. And I remember coming around and turning this way and I was against the door and I was afraid the door was going to fly open and I was going to fall out.
Well, fear went along with that. And I don’t know. I wonder if that early experience didn’t maybe save me from some things later that some of my brothers and some of the others that we ran with got into.
I don’t know. The Lord saved me from it anyway. So I wasn’t all that long until, well, my brothers were, I was the youngest in the family. They got in with some of their own company. We had some, some others that went to our congregation, some other young people who got into drinking and marijuana and those kind of things. And my brothers did too. And of course I was running around with them. I was too young to be driving.
So we were all in it together. Oh, I’d go to school. And the friends of mine and me or sometimes be several others would skip school. We might skip all day or part of it or run around and smoke or do drugs or whatever we felt like, whatever you had at that particular time.
I guess somebody else was usually the ringleader and I just went along. But anyway, I know one class. I remember I had 21 absences in that year. So that gives you a little idea how often it happened.
It seemed like it was just real regular. I remember a few scares we had or I had at least. One day we skipped school and we went to, there was a couple other fellows from school. We had a little clubhouse out in the middle of the field where they partied. And that day I don’t know exactly why we were sniffing pipe cleaner.
Which I don’t recommend by the way. Especially after that I didn’t put any. And there was some marijuana there and I don’t know probably some drink.
I don’t know what all was there. And I don’t remember much about the day but somehow or other I remember being drug around between two people. And they were dragging me and trying to get me to walk and stay awake.
And I could remember seeing things out there just kind of all in black and white. And I was scared. I was just scared stiff. I didn’t know what was happening. I don’t know if I passed out before that or anything anymore. I just know I was scared.
Another one that gave me a scare anyway was one night, one evening. There was a fellow that lived a couple miles from us and he told us one night recently there was a policeman came. He saw a policeman coming along the road and he got scared and threw his little bag of marijuana out the window. So he wanted to hunt it up and find it. So we went and helped him find it. Then we pulled off the side of the road and sat down and we were smoking outside the car and the policeman pulled up. And he got out, walked up to us.
Of course we stashed everything out of sight quickly. And he gave us a good talking to. He said, boy, I know what marijuana smells like. And he kind of gave my brother a tongue lashing.
He said, you’re contributing to the delinquency of a minor. And all of a sudden he went but then he let us go. He made us get whatever we had in the car and dump it out in the grass. Which he did. And he let us go home. I can remember from the visions of the police station that night.
I thought, this is it. We’re in big trouble. Anyway, that’s kind of the way we were living at the time. My brother and I kind of got involved with some girls in Harrisonburg. We got so that we would take mom to church on Sunday morning. And then we’d go back out and leave and we’d go see our girlfriends for the morning.
That kind of thing. That kind of thing hurt her a lot, I know. And I felt that.
But you just go ahead anyway. So that’s kind of where I was at the time. That’s the way things were. A number of things that seemed to just work together to bring me back to the Lord. Bring me to the Lord anyway. And I would say this for, you know, if you’ve got children that have gone wavered, just pray for them. Keep on praying.
Your mom never gave up. And I know the prayer meeting at Morning View, they prayed for us often. And I remember, well, after I was a Christian once, we had a special Sunday of praying and fasting.
And the thing that pressed me was one of the young men we prayed for was in an accident that afternoon, got stuck in the hospital. And so he at least had an opportunity probably to hear the gospel that he might not have otherwise. I think probably some people visited him. I visited him. I’m not sure what I said to him anymore. So praying does make difference. All right, back to where we were.
Some things that worked together to bring me to the Lord. Well, my brothers were getting older and I wasn’t. I mean, I was, but I was a few years behind them. I guess maybe the next one up didn’t get his driver’s license quite as soon. But anyway, they had jobs.
I was in school. They’d go to work. And then they’d go off and run around and do their thing in the evening. And they didn’t come home and get me, which didn’t make me real happy because I wanted to run around too. My arrow was stuck at home. So I sat at home and partied by myself. Well, guess what? That’s not a whole lot of fun.
And I don’t know. After a time you get acclimated to marijuana and it sort of loses effect. And you got to go to something heavier. And I wasn’t willing to do that. I guess I’d been taught a little too well in school.
They taught us all about heroin and all that other stuff. And I wasn’t interested because I was scared of it. So I would sit in my bedroom. That’s most marijuana.
And then I’d go to bed. A lot of fun. Anyway, at least when you’re talking about partying, that’s not partying.
Okay? And about that time I had a cousin that moved in with us from Pennsylvania. He was a Christian.
Oh, you know, not exactly what we would call real great Christian, but he professed to be a Christian. And I went running around with him and stayed. My sister was living in an apartment in Harrisonburg. And while he went there some and I went along. So here I was getting in with Christian people. So at school there was a… I was probably a little different than some people that acted like ideas. I guess I like to read a lot and got into an English class. And English classes when I was in school weren’t much, by the way.
You know, I never had Shakespeare and some of that other stuff. It seems like everybody just has. When I was there you sort of got to pick and choose. And I got into a class where they were studying the book Hiroshima. And I read that through the first day and then the teacher called on. I liked to read. So she started passing me other books to read.
Just book after book after book. And right over here sat a show altar girl. Brenda’s show altar was her name. And she got to looking at me kind of funny. She didn’t understand the spell. And I thought, well, I’m going to blow her mind. One day I told her, I said, you probably don’t know it, but you’re my cousin. Any show altar had to be my cousin anyway, Broadway. She was my second cousin. And after that she started taking an interest in me. And we got to talking some time. And the thing that I remember is, so, sitting out in front of school one day during class, we’d probably ask the teacher if we could go outside.
I know what we did. Or maybe she did. I probably wasn’t brave enough.
So we went outside and we were sitting on the grass. And she says, how in the world can you not be a Christian? I mean, how? Just think about going to hell. And why aren’t you a Christian? Well, what do you tell somebody like that?
And I don’t in fact remember what I told her. But the Lord was bringing these things to bear on me. And it seemed like, well, I heard one person say the Lord drug me kicking and screaming into the kingdom. It was not quite that bad, but he was just closing in on me, bringing things to bear to bring me where he wanted me to be.
And of course I could have kept resisting and did for some time. That was during my junior year in high school. I was 16.
That summer, of course, I had a good bit of time during the summer. Well, I mentioned things that scared me. There was another thing that scared me what?
It just scared me pretty bad. There was an older man that wanted me to mow his yard one time. And so he came and picked me up. I was wearing short pants. I wore shorts back then.
Probably, I don’t know if I had a shirt on or not. But on the way he put his hand on my leg and I was on the way home. Well, I forget which it was, but I began to get scared.
He gave me something to drink and I think it was liquor or something. I started to get scared at that time. I don’t know what all the Lord protected me from. I praised the Lord that he brought me through that one.
All right, we’ll keep going here. That summer, one day, I went into my cousin’s room and he had a little copy of a book of Proverbs. Living Proverbs.
Proverbs out of the Living Bible. About this high. I got one at home yet. I didn’t think to bring it. I lay down on his bed and I read it. Probably read most of it. And talks about wisdom a lot. Well, you know what Proverbs is.
You may not know what Living Proverbs is, but it was a good book for me at that time. I came away from that thinking. I think I came away from that thinking. Well, in fact, I know maybe that day or a few days later, I told my cousin, you know, I said, you know, one of these days, I’m going to have to become a Christian. He told me later that sort of blew his mind.
Which I guess I would. But anyway, he didn’t press me any. Well, he probably encouraged me. I don’t remember much about it. He probably said, well, that’s a good idea.
Just keep on thinking about it or whatever. I don’t know exactly what he said, but I think that was June 22nd. Not sure why that date stuck, but it did. And, you know, from there on, I don’t, probably if the right person would have come along and give me a little help, I’d have done it sooner, but it wasn’t until July 27th. But, went along with my cousin to town.
He worked at the connery or connery or had a softball team that was playing that night. I don’t think we found the game then. I think we went to the wrong ballpark or something. Started to come back. We came back home and we stopped by Dwight Heattwells that evening. He had some reason he wanted to stop there. Dwight was the pastor at Morning View then and watched him pull a calf. They had a calf that wasn’t being born properly. We watched that and went on home and I was ready.
But Russ, my cousin, he just couldn’t seem to catch on. I was ready. I was ready for him to say something.
He didn’t. So, a little later that evening, he wondered if he could come into my room and play a couple of his records. Of course, my records. I had Black Sabbath and all these rock records. But anyway, he had Christian records and I don’t know what they were anymore. So, he came in and sat down and was listening to his records. I was laying on the bed. Finally, I just said, you probably don’t know what I’m thinking or something like that.
I don’t know the exact words. But he had a pretty good idea of what I was thinking and he helped me. So, we prayed and talked a little while.
Finally, I just, finally, I chased him out. I said, Lord, I have some things to talk about or something of that effect. I smoked. I was smoking a pack a day. I had tried to stop a number of times in the last few weeks.
I hadn’t been able to. The girl I was dating, we probably had dropped it just a couple of weeks earlier too. So, we never officially broke up. We just sort of came to an understanding without ever saying so.
I don’t know how that worked exactly either. But we talked on the phone one last time. We said goodbye. I think we both understood what was happening. I never was very good at those kind of things. It just happened anyway. I prayed about that smoking business. I remember that. I prayed about the language.
I’d cussed as much as anybody and maybe more than some too. I knew those things were going to be a challenge. The next day I got up and just kind of walked around in the days. It seemed like, I guess probably everybody faces that you’re still the same person. Some ways things don’t seem any different.
Yet something is different. You wouldn’t know it. I had an old smoking buddy that dropped by that day and wanted me to go with him somewhere. Somebody I hadn’t seen for a while anyway. And wouldn’t you know it, one of my brothers picked that day to leave his pack of cigarettes laying in his room upstairs. But I quit.
The smoking never smoked since. Except in my dreams. I did do that for a while and that bothered me pretty much. I prayed about that pretty hard and eventually that stopped too.
I didn’t like smoking in my dreams. I did go around reaching for a pocket a lot. That habit took a while.
I still reach for my pocket that’s where my pencil is and pen. But anyway, it’s a little different. I called Brenda my cousin and told her and she kind of shrieked. Told my sister and she kind of shrieked. I think I told her on the phone and she shrieked. I know they both holler.
They show off their tendency I think. Like Eva said, mom and maybe Irma were in Canada. When they came home, mom told me I should tell dad. So I did one evening. And he had been drinking that evening.
I don’t think he was real drunk but he was drinking. I didn’t know what to expect from him. He said, well good, I hope you stick to it. And that’s all I ever heard from him.
Never heard any more about it. I went back to school that fall and of course there were all my old friends. But they soon called on. I wasn’t interested. I didn’t, I don’t know that I told any of them exactly what had happened. But they called on here.
I was carrying my Bible and wasn’t interested in their company. So it soon became obvious. I was pretty backwards I guess. I had failed a half a year of U.S. history in my 11th grade. History was probably one of my more interesting subjects.
I enjoyed it. But I wouldn’t give oral reports. I would not get up in front of class and give reports. And the teachers finally said, well okay, you’d be that way. And she gave me grades that corresponded with what I would do. And so I failed a half a year of it.
I often thought, that’s probably one of the best things that happened to me anyway. Because I had to retake that half a year the next year. And it got to be toward the end of the semester. And I had to decide what to do. And I took typing. And I’m glad I did. If I hadn’t taken typing, I’d be… Well, I needed it pretty badly in the years that followed. Well, about the middle of that last school year, I started working at Valley Books part-time.
Irma worked there. You don’t know what Valley Books was. It was a bookstore downtown that was run by Arlen and Ruth Snyder, who were part of Southeastern at that time. Worked there part-time, went after school, was out, and then started working full-time.
And somehow or other got interested in that pretty clerk that worked there. I’m not supposed to embarrass her, but anyway. Yeah, okay. All right, well, let’s see. I don’t know things so, seemed to go pretty good once we got interested in each other.
We had our first date in August of 1977. Yeah. The thing that impressed, well, I guess impressed both of us was that people, even people in Southeastern just seemed to be in favor of it. And, you know, here I am in Virginia Conference, this fellow who not very long ago was a long-haired hippie type and still had a long way to go.
And yet, it just seemed that the Lord was working through it and leading. So we were married in September of 1978. I worked there in the bookstore for about six years, and we’d been married what? Four years or so till I left. But the eva quit probably after we were married a few months. Is that right?
Or I don’t know, somewhere in that first year. But the bookstore gave me some problems. They sold some things that I just got to the point where I didn’t feel very comfortable with them. The music department had a lot of contemporary Christian music. And even some of the books that they sold, they were selling some Kenneth Hagan books and things like that sometimes.
That’s Health, Wealth and Prosperity Gospel. And we talked to the Sniders about it. And I think they understood it, but they felt a little like their hands were tied.
Their daughter worked there. And it just… So we were praying about what to be doing. And we were boarding a schoolteacher about that time. Ruth Ann Roar was living with us. She taught first and second grade at Berea. So we were kind of up on what was happening at school. And Eldwin was the school board chairman. He was past the bath and so we heard through him some time with the need they had. And I knew there was a need for a teacher.
And I was getting later in the summer. And one night at the bank, mentioned at the Danny Berea, he was on the school board then too. And he said something about, well, maybe you’d like a job.
I don’t think I laughed in his face. But… Let’s just say it was maybe a new thought. But it wasn’t too long until the thought began to grow a little more. And one day I walked from Valley Books over to Campbell Copy Center in Tuckdale. And that was when the Campbell Copy Center was downtown. We talked about it.
And probably about that time it was pretty well settled. Because usually once I start on something it just keeps going. Not sure why, but… And so I started teaching school with Nathan Good that year in what, 80, what, 20 years ago this year. I think Nathan was new and I was new. All the high school teachers were new basically. And it was a challenge.
Say the least. So I thought there were quite a number of years too. I was there 12 years full time. After three years and Nathan quit, they asked me to be principal. And I didn’t want that job. Never did want it. And never really enjoyed it a whole lot either.
But anyway. And didn’t feel like I did a real good job of it either. And I think some other people felt that way occasionally.
So… In fact, I know some did. I was thinking recently about some of those early years working at the bookstore and married. And the struggles that come in life. We all have struggles of one kind or another. And don’t let them get you down. I was thinking especially about some I had early on with my conscience.
There for probably a number of years. I don’t know why my conscience would bother me quite a bit if I said something just a little bit wrong. One person I worked with in particular was pretty difficult to work with. That person didn’t like me very well. And that person didn’t mind letting me know that.
And that person did and said some ugly things. And seemed like I was forever apologizing for wrong attitudes and things. And it got to the point where I realized that I had a problem with letting my conscience make me guilty for things that ought not be guilty for. Now some of those things did need apologizing for too. But I can still remember one occasion when I finally just got to the point where I was able to say, Lord I know that this is taking care of it. I don’t need to go back and apologize for it.
I’m going to trust you and I’m going to go ahead. And I finally did. And some other people have those kind of struggles. If you have them, don’t let them get you down. Just keep trusting the Lord. He’ll help you through and get you to victory. All right.
Well, let’s see what all y’all want to know. I guess before we got married, I told Eva that you might end up being married to a preacher. I didn’t know that, but I knew that I wanted to serve the Lord with everything I had. And I guess early on I took Matthew 633 as kind of a motto and have tried to live it most of the time. And I realized I failed pretty often, but where it says, Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And all these things will be added unto you. I didn’t tell her she might be married to a bishop, but anyway.
I didn’t know that, I guess. It was a good time that John Weaver was ordained. Even though I sort of expected it to happen sometime, I can hardly say it was hardly a feeling to express what it feels like when someone else is ordained. And that weight just goes off your own shoulders. And I think all couples that were up there that ordained felt that way that night. It was just a relief.
Not that if the Lord had called us, we wouldn’t have been ready. It was just amazing. The load it took off, here I was, what, 26 probably? Children were, the children were probably about 7. And Aaron would have been 6. Caleb would have been, what, 2, 3?
I don’t know if Andrew was there yet or not, but anyway. Well, a couple months later they had a Deacon ordination and my name came in again. And they called me and the bishop that called me said, well, we just met with you three months ago on this. So we’ve got a number of people to meet with. We don’t really feel like we need to meet with you.
I said, well, I think maybe I need to meet with you. I didn’t know about this Deacon business. I told them, I’ve never handled money. I’m a school teacher. Well, they said, it’s obvious you know how to handle money or you wouldn’t be making it. Well, I didn’t tell them we’d had some help along the way.
Maybe I did too. It seemed like we did you a lot of help those years. We needed some I guess, but anyway. So I went ahead and went through the lot. I think there were seven of us in it. I was ordained. So it was a Deacon. We were Deacon at Bethany for a year until another minister ordination came up.
And that time it did fall on. That’s when Gerald Good and I were ordained. We were sent to the pike. That was a little different being sent from Bethany to the pike. Bethany was still probably just 60 or 70 people for them at the most members of the most.
Well, probably 50 members of the most. It wasn’t a real large congregation being sent off to the pike. That looked pretty big.
127 or 130 members. And that was a lot of money. Well, it was pretty big.
I think it was a good, I think it was good for me. I got to work with Charles Heapwell and he was older and wiser and learned a lot. It was two years later in 1990 that they did sort of a district wide shift. A number of ministers got moved around. They tell us that they used to do that more lately.
And I’m not sorry that we don’t do it as a practice anyway. And yet I think most people came out of that one happy. It seemed like the ordained ministers from the district and sometimes you get… It didn’t hurt anyway to shift us around. We got back to the west side of the valley and a smaller congregation again, the Raleigh Springs. And we enjoyed it there.
So we were there until about 1998 when we came here. Some people think we volunteered. I had never really thought of that way. In some ways, maybe we did. I don’t know.
You probably remember some of the details. How the work started here in 1996. They sent out an appeal for people to move here and nothing happened. I don’t know who was it. I don’t know who I was talking to anymore. It was somebody one day who was… We were talking about this thing of moving out of the valley and going to other places. And he said, well, none of the preachers are willing to move.
They’re all tied down and everything like that. So one night I talked to John Risser at church and I said, I heard somebody say, preachers aren’t willing to move out or go anywhere. And I said, just want you to let you know I am.
Not asking for a job or anything. But when push comes to shove, I’m ready to go. Well, they took us up on it anyway and asked us to come here. So here we are. And most of you sort of know what happened since then. And I’ll get here and things change after you’re here too.
I don’t know if I have a lot more to say. Other than it’s looking back and thinking about it, especially in the last couple of years, it’s just been amazing to me how the Lord leads. We like to quote from the eight twenty eight. We know that all things work together for good. And as I look back, you know, I can see how some of those things fit together.
Probably not all of them by any means. And I didn’t tell you about some of the some of the worst times. You can tell you maybe I should.
I think I should have some of the some of the times as principal and when I had to deal with very difficult students with very difficult parents and set through some meetings that I hope none of you ever have to set through anything like. Didn’t tell you about the. Didn’t tell you about the meeting with the mission committee that came up after it was announced.
We were moving here. I’ve told you about it, but I’ve never told you details and didn’t tell you how it worked. But anyway, yeah, there were some concerns raised about Keith Gratter’s moving to front royal. Some of you have heard this, I guess, couple of you at least.
He’s not a people person was one of them. And there were a number of others that people came to the mission committee with concerns and they sat down and talked to us about it. I’ll admit we were just right up against the wall because looking after listening to everything they had to say.
I wonder how in the world can they send us the front royal. And we had a contract on the house already. But they worked through it and.
And came to a satisfactory conclusion. Oh, for a couple of days, it just. We just could not see any way through that thing any good way. It was that bad looking dust and then anyway. But it. They figured out a way to do it with that they felt was satisfactory to the people that have brought concerns and satisfactory to us and it worked out. That’s probably enough said maybe too much say it.
I don’t know. But it was a it was a time that. I think it’s good for it was good for us. These ordination weeks, by the way, are good for you. You ever have to go through them well. You find that it does something for you. Especially when there’s a lot coming at the end and you don’t know who’s going to be chosen. Because for the whole week, you realize that okay after Sunday.
Well, I don’t know what’s after Sunday. And. And you have to have a right attitude in the meantime, you have to realize this. Maybe the Lord will call us. Maybe the Lord won’t call us and it’s a real cleansing time at a time of just realizing Lord this is up to you. You do what you want.
We want what you want. And so when I look back, you know, it’s not the. It’s not the easy times that were the growing times.
It was the toughies. I don’t. I don’t enjoy them anymore. The next person maybe less. I don’t know. Seems like.
I. Like brother David back there. He just hates confrontation, right? Right. I hate it more.
At least it seems like it sometimes. Yeah. Okay. That’s. That’s part of the job description. If you’re a bishop, by the way, that I wonder why Lord me, why put me in such a spot. And yet God knows what he’s doing and I’m happy.
I’m satisfied. I like song we sang this evening. I thought about choosing some for myself to have people lead, but it didn’t. We started out with lift your glad voices. One about Jesus. Well, his resurrection and what he’s done for us.
And then I did get to pick the second one all the way. My savior leads me. A good testimonial song. We sang it in our wedding or sung at our wedding. And I thought, well, that fits well all the way.
He has lead. And then we sang just the seemest good to the choose my path. And whatever seems good to you. To me, it was a first looking to the Lord and then a looking back and then a looking forward. And that’s my desire. Just to seem as good to the Lord. Whatever he wants.
This is what I want. All right. I think I’m done.
Anything you want to ask about that didn’t make very clear. It’s been interesting hearing Ronnie hearing Lloyd and thinking about how God works in each individual’s life to put the things into them that they need. How he brings those difficult experiences to make sure you learn what you need to learn and lead you to the right partner for your life. Just don’t know how the details work out.
Even when sometimes it looks like they’re not going to work out. Okay. Anyone want to say anything?
Maybe you’d like to give a testimony. I’m not sure. I don’t think so. I’m going to stop asking you about the things that happen in the field. Like do you have the right spot, the right place or what? All right.
Well, interesting. The Lord works in different ways and probably we view things differently and we work with the Lord in different ways. You know, Jonathan, we get the feeling that he needs the Lord to hit him over the head to make him convinced it’s time to do something. So we’ve been praying to the Lord to hit him over the head here lately.
But anyway, I guess it doesn’t work that way with me quite as much. I had a student once ask me, well, how do you know it’s the Lord’s will for you to be a teacher? And this was probably in my second, probably my third year of teaching. And I even thought about bringing that letter I wrote to her along and reading it to you just for the cause, but it didn’t.
I was on the van on the way home from school one evening and she kind of hit me cold. So I sat down and wrote my answer, which I still like to do, gives me time to think. Now, that’s what explained what happened. But one of the things I wrote was it just, you know, it was basically circumstances and as time went on, it just became clear. Wasn’t it?
Flashes of lightning didn’t get hit over the head. About moving up here and finding a place. Well, February 23rd, 1998, I think the Mission Committee met with us. I think probably that Saturday we set out about three boys for Warren County. And we came up through Fort Valley because I’ve never been through there. And we drove past the end of the mountain road and then we turned around and came back and turned on the mountain road. And I figured we went past our house that day, but I didn’t know it that day. We drove basically just all over the county looking and we started praying.
Well, probably came back maybe that evening or real soon after we called. I called the real estate company here in Front Royal that had a place that I had seen was sort of interested in. And a fellow I talked to that evening was the one we just kept in for helping us find a place. And he showed us around. We were all over the county and even out of the county a little bit looking at a number of houses.
Not that many. We had our limitations that we couldn’t go both and there wasn’t all that much available. Well, we were pretty picky for one thing. We needed some land. We figured at least an acre.
Yeah, but you had to stay within our budget. We needed a big garden and you know, to the real estate agent in Warren County, that doesn’t mean a whole lot. What’s a big garden?
Well, people here don’t have big gardens. So we looked at quite a few that did in the suit. It came down to just a couple places that really came anywhere near what we were looking for. And one was where we are.
We did get finally and another was down at Raleighville and that’s pretty far away. I’m a show author too. And one of their traits is they like to get things done. So it was time to get moving, time to get going. So we took the one that seemed best and went ahead.
And I tend to operate that way. I figure the Lord wanted us here. We’ll just keep moving. And if we’re moving in the wrong direction, he’ll make that plane.
So that’s a little way we did it. All right. Any more questions? My story, I find it interesting, I guess. All right. We’ve seen a couple songs. Maybe I’ll stay in the little album.