The best day of my life (aside from the day I was born again and had my name written down in the Lamb’s Book of Life!) was when a beautiful 20-year-old pastor’s daughter, Ellen Martisha Beshears, walked down the carpeted center aisle on a warm mid-August evening in 1965 and exchanged sacred wedding vows with me before our God and a packed house of witnesses in a small, white, steeple-topped church in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina. Following a couple of weeks of weaving our way through national and state parks on our honeymoon—pulling the small trailer Dad had loaned us, using the ’59 Impala he had also loaned us—we headed for the Twin Cities with all our earthly goods packed into a 4×6 trailer that I pulled behind my ’64 Volkswagen Bug!
We did not know a soul in Minneapolis. We did not have a place to live when we arrived; I did not have job, and we had only a couple hundred dollars in cash—no credit cards, no bank account, nothing! But we did have each other and the assurance that our heavenly Father would lead us—and He did! Four years later, upon graduation from Central Baptist Theological Seminary, we loaded up everything in a U-Haul again. Ellen and myself—with our three-year-old and one-year old daughters, Sandra and Martisha, in the back seat of the ’64 VW bug—headed for Dallas, Texas, where I had been accepted into a two-year Bible Exposition program. J. Dwight Pentecost was the lead instructor. All our bills were paid, and we had a thousand dollars in our checking account.
We knew a family there whom we had met in Minneapolis, Ron and Bev Anderson, Ron being a recent graduate of Central Seminary. Ron and Bev opened their hearts and home to us for about three weeks as we searched for housing and I went job hunting. After about two weeks of the two families sharing a three-bedroom home (they had three small children), Ron got busy with me in searching for a place to live. Soon we found just the perfect 3 BR rental for about $125 a month—and moved in to this brick beauty on Dixie Lane in East Dallas. I found a job as “night manager” in a Burger Chef restaurant. Life was good. I was going to classes in the morning and pushing “Big Chef” burgers until closing at about 11 p.m.
Our third child was due in June. Back then, you just waited until the baby was born to find out the gender. We had two girls, so of course I was hoping for a son; and with my high hopes I visited Macy’s to purchase a little going home from the hospital outfit for our newborn, a baseball uniform. Sure enough, that little boy came right in the “nick” of time, a baby boy that we named Theodore Marvin, after his two grandfathers. The health insurance we were covered by in Minneapolis was set to expire 9 months after my last day of work there—or June 5, 1970. And Theo (as he is now called) was born on the afternoon of June 5, 1970! Just another reminder of God’s provision in ways that we could never manipulate or even predict!
After graduating from DTS in the spring of 1971, I continued working at the Dallas County Detention Home as we waited on God’s leading for the next move in our journey through life. That came in the late summer, when the seminary contacted me with information about an independent Baptist church in Wichita, Kansas, that had inquired about any graduates that might be interested in pastoring there. I responded, flew up to preach and get acquainted, and was extended a call. Flying was a new experience for me, and I did not even think about flying with a wife and three young children. So I was solo—but of course confident that when and where God would lead me, Ellen would be OK with that. I did accept the call extended to me from Gideon Baptist Church in Wichita, and we loaded up another U-Haul truck and moved to the “Clean Air Capitol of the World” (at least at that time) to begin pastoring on the first Sunday of September, 1971.
Gideon Baptist had been a “megachurch” before they were heard of. The auditorium would seat 900 or so, and the church had been involved with all kinds of ministries. But in the course of time, when the church “bonds” started maturing and payment was due, there was not enough money to make timely payments. The church suffered the results of a “vision” with no boundaries. Its once sizeable membership had fallen off, and when I and our family began our ministry, about a hundred of the faithful were trying to hold things together. I was not totally without a briefing as to the history; but when you are young and full of energy and steeped in faith, you (I) think there is no problem too difficult to handle. So, yes, there we were.
The group that greeted us there was the finest any pastor could have asked for. They were positive, loving, kind, and faithful. If they were aware of the monumental debt that hung over their heads, it did not seem to bother them. We all “rattled” around in that huge facility with joy, love, and trust. The new pastor, fresh out of seminary, felt that there was no problem that consistent Bible exposition would not fix. So, with his head in the Word and his heart in the work, he began studying, preaching, teaching, and visiting week after week.
More later . . .
“But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be glory both now and forever. Amen.” (II Pet. 3:18)
YOU and GOD 