In August 1981, I became the oldest student to have enrolled as a Fairhaven Baptist College student. I had come from a business career in Marketing and Sales for an international hotel corporation. Needless to say, I was old enough to be the father of most of the enrolling freshmen. I was marked as the ‘old man‘.
On April 29, 2016, I turned 72 years old. I was saved at the age of 27 and was called to preach ten years later. You could say I was a late bloomer. Ever since then we have striven to do what the Fairhaven Baptist College verse says in Psalm 90:12 “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.” I submitted to God’s Call in living according to Psalm 90:12 and other life verses such as Psalm 91:2; Proverbs 3:5,6; Galatians 2:20 and Jude 22. Each verse has had a major impact upon my life walk with GOD. Much of that life walk was founded on the Biblical precepts taught under the pastoral leadership of Dr. Roger Voegtlin and many others who were brought across our life path over these forty+ years. Certainly Dr. Frank Bumpus, Bethel Baptist Church, Schaumburg, IL, Dr. Gary Coleman, Lavon Drive Baptist Church, Garland, TX, and Dr. Wayne Williams, Liberty Baptist Tabernacle, Rapid City, SD, come to mind; where these dear men of God pastored Shelley and I as well.
We have enjoyed our lives under HIS watchful care, where I was allowed to pastor; to serve as a prison chaplain within the USA as well as the former Soviet Union; and now for almost 20 years, serving as Evangelist/Director of the Lighthouse Baptist Press Ministry. From its inception many years ago, LBPM has been printing the WORD of GOD at NO cost to multitudes of Independent Baptist missionaries and their mission works worldwide!
As mentioned above, this past April, I turned 72 years of age and that is when I officially stepped down as the Director of the Lighthouse Baptist Press Ministry. In my retirement years, I am now preaching out as God opens doors of opportunity to do so both stateside and overseas.
Both Shelley and I feel fulfilled with the life God has given us in heeding His call and will in our lives. We have been blessed with two dedicated Christian children, both of whom also graduated from FHBC; our son Matt, who is a church planter [pastor of Mountainview Baptist Church, Custer, SD] and our daughter, Laurie [who serves as a missionary’s wife to her husband, Raymond Jones near Guadalajara, Mexico]…and now a third generation [our six grandchildren] are being raised up to serve HIM as well!
Psalms 78:5-7 says: “For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children: http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Psalms-78-7/That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments:” AMEN!
