24. Finding Myself

© 2020 Daniel Yordy

January 1994 - March 1995

Johanna’s Birth 
As I am writing this, our daughter, Johanna, just brought forth her second child, another little boy, Konrad Martin Schneider. He was born at 11:45 PM at home, in the midst of Christ Community, at the same time and in a similar way in which Johanna was born.
 
In the beginning of January, 1994, I drove Maureen and Kyle up to Blueberry, a distance of around 1100 miles. I had taken time off from work, so I could not stay long. Steve and Michelle Ebright had moved up to the downstairs of the Austin cabin, where we had first lived after our marriage. They opened their home to Maureen and Kyle for their stay at Blueberry.

While Maureen was at Blueberry carrying Johanna, she spent time with her good friend, Cindy Schneider from Graham River, who was also at the same place in carrying their first child, a little guy named Matthew, who would be born around the same time as Johanna. We have a picture of Johanna and Matthew in their mommy’s tummies, right next to each other.

While Maureen prepared for Johanna’s birth, I drove back to Oregon and continued working for Terry Williams in construction. During this time he hired two other fellows who were aggressive in taking a leadership position in his business. I continued as the lead, but I was now working with several men who were quite foul in their expressions. 

My sister Frieda, along with her two children, April and Ryan, made plans to go with me back up to Canada. They had become interested in the Shepherd’s School of Music at Graham River and wanted to check it out. We left on a Sunday morning for the long drive up to Blueberry, arriving there around 5 PM on January 31. 

Maureen had woken up at 5 AM and had been in early labor all day. She was fervently praying that we would arrive before the baby would be born. Right around the time we arrived, she knew that Johanna was on her way.

We had supper with the Blueberry family. Right after supper, the contractions began in full earnest. I had designed a nice nursing station in the back corner of the new washhouse and that is where we went. Terri Rehmeier would preside over the birth, and Rebekah Lincecum was also there to help. The main room of the washhouse was spacious and comfortable. By about seven or so, members of the family began to fill up that room, altogether around fifty to sixty people. They sang praises as in a deliverance service, filling the birthing room with the singing of God. 

All through Maureen’s labor, they sang. I went out for brief times to sing with them. I remember Jennifer Hanna and Sister Barbara James, Donovan Van Gorkom and Dani Maldonado with his brothers, their faces in the light of the Lord. All through that evening they sang the praises of God until Johanna came into the world at 11:45. It wasn’t quite as difficult a birth as Kyle’s, but it was difficult enough. Nonetheless, when it is over, there is such joy. Johanna was the cutest little girl you could imagine. And little Konrad is quite the guy as well.

If it could be, I would see all children born into this world in the singing of the Church.
I had taken at least a week off. We could not return until Maureen had a few days to recover. Meanwhile, we went over to Graham River so that Frieda, April, and Ryan could visit. They all felt very welcome there and liked what they saw. In fact, Ryan decided to stay. I would guess he was around twenty at the time, around the same age I was when I first went to Graham. Ryan soon caught the interest of a young lady named Heather, who was attending the music program. They were married a few years later and, in fact, Ryan lived in move community for around fifteen years, both at Graham River and then later at the Lubbock community. 

After a week, we returned to Oregon, minus Ryan, and I went back to the construction job.

More Transitions
Having a new little baby girl was a lot of fun. Kyle was about two-and-a-half, the big brother. Mom enjoyed her new granddaughter. 

Meanwhile, my work situation was becoming more difficult. While I was gone for a week, Terry Williams gave the leadership position to the two new men. They gloated over their now superior position over me. This was all inside the dealings of God with me. The question is always how do we respond. 

I remember one incident very clearly. We were working on a two-story roof. Those two fellows were putting the gable rafter on the overhang while I was nailing plywood on the back part of the roof. They called to me to come help them. I had done what they were doing many times with just Jimmy and I, so I said, “You don’t need me.” After a bit, they did succeed. Then, the larger one came and stood on the roof above me.  He positioned himself to have the advantage. He said to me, very tensely, “When we say come and help, you come and help!” 

I realized that I had been wrong. “I apologize,” I said, “I was wrong.” This was not what he was expecting. The tension slowly dissipated, and he went back to work, having accepted my apology.

Then in mid-March, Terry Williams sent me back to that house to do some interior trim work by myself. It took me a lot longer to complete the job than he expected and I did some of it wrong so that the other guys had to go back and redo that part. The next day, at the end of the day, the two guys were waiting for me with my final check. Williams did not have the decency to fire me himself.

It was humiliating, but the work environment had become impossible for me. I was so relieved I no longer had to return. I was home, then, about a month before I found another job.

Let me explain my mother and I. One problem was that we were so much alike; another problem was the idea I had latched onto that some of my so-called “problems” came from how my parents had related with me. Mom was not expressive. She was often misunderstood and had learned to keep her thoughts to herself even as a child. When I showed my mom some building plans of a house I had designed, she was able only to point out some faults, without any word of encouragement or praise. Again, I imagined that this lack in my mother had contributed to my present difficulties. 

One of my own children, now, is much like my mother, prickly, or so it seems to me, and like I was towards Mom, expressive against me in putting me in my place. And so I did towards Mom during this time, shutting her up very meanly when she tried to contribute her thoughts towards our situation. This happened a number of times. In my frustration, I was unkind. It is clear to me that the Lord is showing me in the present my own wrongfulness back then, with a reversal of roles. 

I am afraid that Mom began to think that she could not be at home with me. I cannot say “with us,” because Maureen is always giving and kind. That March, Mom flew to Minnesota to spend a couple of weeks with Glenn and Kim at the Detroit Lakes community. 

While Mom was gone, Maureen’s sister, Jessica, was coming through, on her way from British Columbia to Texas (or vice versa). She spent a couple of weeks with us and her niece and nephew, Johanna and Kyle. 

Having services together had been a sporadic thing through all the comings and goings of the prior few months, but by April, we were back to having regular Sunday services. Frieda and April would come down to our home each Sunday. 

During her visit to the Detroit Lakes community, Mom made the decision to move there to be a part of the community and to be close to Glenn and Kim with their children. In fact, except for these few months when Mom was with Maureen and I, from the time that Glenn and Kim were married, Mom was with them or nearby for many years, and then in their home through her final years. 

Tim and Frieda agreed to drive Mom to Minnesota with all her stuff in my blue van. This was around mid-April. Mom had been given a bedroom in one of the homes in the community. It would be over a year-and-a-half before we visited her there and saw her situation.

I so appreciate Glenn and Kim in their years of service to our mother. And I am ashamed, in the Lord, regarding my own lack towards them and towards her. Expressing myself out from behind my own difficulties has been an impossibility to me, even now. 

“Lord Jesus, I know that the love of God has been poured out to full measure inside my heart, whether I ‘feel’ it or not. Lord Jesus, I was so wrong in my treatment of my mother and some of the hurtful things I spoke to her. Please forgive me. I place my mother, even now, into that love of God shed abroad in me, I draw her into that love, that she might dwell in peace and joy inside of You. And Lord Jesus, I ask that you honor and bless Glenn and Kim for their faithfulness to Mom over many years. May they know Your close goodness even now.

“Lord Jesus, I thank You that You carry all my lacks and inabilities inside Yourself, inside that same love of God poured out. I thank You, that, as I continue in confidence inside of You, we together are turning all that was difficult and even hurtful into goodness and blessing for the sake of others.”

“And Mom, I would still be unable, even now, to work through my own outward difficulties into a proper caring relationship towards you. This is my fault, alone. You have always stood by me in my needs and given so much to me over many years. I am confident in the resurrection that the day will come when I can return to you manifold what I could not give in my present inability. Indeed, our hope in Jesus is our entire hope.”

Before the end of April, soon after Tim and Frieda had returned the blue van, Frieda showed up at our door, needing a place to stay. A difficulty had arisen between Frieda and Tim, and Frieda felt the need for a season of separation. That difficulty does not belong in this narrative, however, only my ongoing relationship with my sister. I am so grateful that within a few years they were back together again, inside Christian community, and have enjoyed the continuation of their marriage inside the Lord until this day.

We gave Frieda the downstairs bedroom that had been Mom’s. April came a few days later, to share that room with her mother.

I have always had a good relationship with my sister, Frieda. It’s not that I haven’t had a kind relationship with my other siblings; it’s just that Frieda was always the easiest one to talk with, the one who seemed to understand me best.  

I Write a Book 
A number of topics inside this two-year time in Oregon are spread out over a year’s time or more. For that reason, I will share these things topically, rather than chronologically. The first is the devotion of my non-working hours, and that is, my new-found joy of writing. 

I first titled my book The Unveiling of Jesus Christ; I had also titled it The Third Man. If you were to peruse it now, you would see that it is very similar to much of my published writing; nonetheless, as I look through it now, I see ways of thinking that are contrary to the faith in Christ in which I walk now. The three “men,” in my layout, were first, Adam, then Jesus, and finally the sons of God at the end of this age. My purpose was to show the common thread through all, and how you and I are called now as the second witness of Jesus Christ in proving Adam and the serpent to be false. 

I wrote the chapters slowly over nearly a year’s time. I alternated between fictionalized accounts of the Bible story with chapters explaining the truth of the revelation of Christ as I understood it then. You would find a lot of similarities with what I teach now. Nonetheless, I also understand now what was missing and what I was seeing wrong. 

By this time I had completely embraced, in my mind, Buddy Cobb’s viewpoint and teaching. I was not wise enough then to understand how the knowing of Jesus in my heart stood in contradiction to that mental theology. If you want to know what Buddy Cobb taught, then read John Calvin. Their teaching was almost identical. John Calvin made Nicene theology hyper; Buddy Cobb made Calvinism hyper. 

Nonetheless, God was teaching me and dealing with me all through my first foray into writing His word. And so I must share something of critical importance that God worked into my knowing through this time.

Korah’s rebellion, in Numbers 16, became a chapter in my book, and in writing that chapter, God made the issue of rebellion very real to me personally. “We all hear from God, Moses. Who do you think you are?” Korah was right; he and many others in the camp of Israel did hear God speaking to them and leading them. That was not the issue. The issue was a simple one, the same issue from the beginning, arrogance in self and contempt towards others versus humility in self and respect towards others. 

Yet the real proving of God is our response towards those who are “over us” in the Lord, especially when they get it wrong or perform beneath our expectations. 

During this study, I discovered a little statement Moses had made in his sermon to Israel forty years after Mt. Sinai. Moses told them a secret that they had not known for forty years. He shared that all of them would have perished back then – except that he had placed himself before God for forty more days that God might spare their lives. And God had given him what he had asked for.

Moses, through his outpoured care for them, saved the lives of two million people. Korah was alive only because of Moses; he was disrespecting the man to whom he owed his life. 

Here is a more accurate rendition of Hebrews 13:17. Have confidence in those who are leading you, and yield to them as they watch over your souls, as they restore word to you; that they might do this with joy and not grief, for that would be unprofitable for you. Of course, the Calvinist translators phrased it contrary to the Greek wording as “Obey those who have the rule over you, for they watch out for your souls.” But that is how I knew it and received it.

God writes His word upon our hearts, according to the gospel. There are few words found in the Bible etched more deeply upon my heart by the finger of God than these words of David, “Touch not Mine anointed and do My prophets no harm.” When I hear anyone speaking against any minister of Christ, regardless, all I want to do is get far away from them in horror in the same way Moses cried out in fear when he heard Korah speaking those awful words.

God taught me something else along these lines. One Saturday morning, as we were preparing to go out, I had thought to myself, in a boastful way, that I had not had a traffic ticket in years. I felt pretty proud of myself. But as we left home, I became aggravated with something. As we turned onto the street that went by the high school I had attended, I pressed the gas way too hard. There was no one on the streets that morning – except one, a cop who nailed me with a speeding ticket. We did not have the money, but I had to pay it anyhow. From then until now, any time the thought has come to me to boast in something of myself, I have always turned it towards giving thanks for God’s good grace to me.

Again, if you were to read the chapters in my first book, you would find the same things I teach now. I had one thing horrifically wrong, I included a chapter of the cover being taken off and Christ being seen as filling us with all of His glory. What I could not believe was that this is true now; I imagined "someday" only. 

Nonetheless, writing these things and placing them out in book form was central to God’s intentions, for He needed me to carry the truth of Christ into utmost despair inside that whole arena of Nicene thinking.

One further thing in regards to my writing. The little typewriter that Paul Austin had given me was too small to hold many chapters of a book in its memory. So we went shopping for something bigger. A full computer was out of our price range, but we found a larger electric typewriter with a larger screen and memory and full word processing software. I could store my chapters on a floppy disk, and about a third of a page would appear in the screen. This new typewriter cost about $450. I advertised my smaller machine and it sold immediately for $150, a very good price. This meant a lot to me because I was able later to tell Paul that I had recouped the majority of what he had paid, and thus my new typewriter continued to be his gift to me. 

This new typewriter would be my writing machine for four years, until I replaced it with my first computer. We had no television, and most of my spare hours were spent on writing the word.

Yoder’s Woodworking
After a month of recuperation from my prior job, I went looking for a new job. I saw an ad for a cabinetmaking position, which interested me very much, and I drove over to Tangent, Oregon, about halfway between Lebanon and Corvallis, to interview for the job. Warren Yoder was a young man just a few years older than I. He was a Mennonite, and therefore a man of peace. I seemed to him to be exactly what he was looking for and after only a few minutes, I was hired.

Warren Yoder was the best boss I have ever had, and the year I spent working for his cabinet business was the most enriching and meaningful to me of all such construction jobs. Warren needed an assistant cabinet installer to work with his main installer, Amos Stoltzfus, also a Mennonite. I worked with Amos for a year, again, the most meaningful work relationship in my life. I showed up with my tools the next day and went right out with Amos to an installation job. 

As a woodworker, I know how to take the initiative as well as how to fit myself right with the lead of another woodworker. Within a couple of hours Amos knew that Warren had found the right man to assist him. On my side, I was to learn so very much about, not just cabinetmaking, but fine woodworking and supreme quality as well. It would not be possible to find two bosses so opposite as Terry Williams and Warren Yoder. 

Warren had started his cabinet business in his twenties. On his first job, he made a mistake and there was a minor defect in the final installation of the cabinets. He negotiated with the customer for a lower payment to compensate for that defect. This really bothered him and so he re-thought his philosophy of work. From that time on, he charged a high price and then installed only the highest quality of work. This philosophy meant that if a mistake was made, you simply redid the job until it was perfect. 

This was a wonderful philosophy to work under. You see, when I (or anyone) made a mistake, which was not infrequent, all we ever heard from either Warren or his foreman was, “Oh, okay. Well, just do it again.” Once I wiped out an entire sheet of laminate that had to be re-ordered. Again, “just do it again,” was all I ever heard. The result of such a response was two things. First, we made fewer mistakes and second, I learned what quality workmanship really is. Quality workmanship is not “doing it right.” Quality workmanship is doing it again, patiently, until it is right.

Warren rented two large bays in a warehouse. In the first bay, the raw materials came in where his saw man cut them into pieces. In that same bay, another man constructed all the cabinet doors. Then, in the second bay was the assembly benches, the loading area, and then the finishing area. One man was hired to assemble all the cabinets and another to do all the spraying. There was also a foreman who oversaw all the in-shop work and filled in the more complex tasks. Only two of the men were not of a Mennonite background.

Warren had his office in the second bay. His role was to find the work and interface with the customers. The foreman did most of the drawing. Warren was very meticulous in how everything was to be done. Nothing was left to chance. Everything was drawn out. When any cabinet was not rectangular, that is, if there was any angle at all, the layout would be carefully drawn first to full size on a sheet of particle board and both the measurements and the assembly happened on that drawing. For that reason, everything always worked out perfectly in the installation.

And that’s what Amos and I did. Each kitchen job was assembled first in the staging area to make sure everything fitted perfectly together. Then Amos and I would disassemble the cabinets and load them into the truck. We would drive to the worksite, unload the cabinets, and begin the installation. The majority of the time, Amos and I were installing. In-between installations, on occasion, we would work at various jobs in the shop. There I sometimes did cabinet or drawer assembly. Having all the best tools and setup for building cabinets was a dream.

Most of the jobs we did were in the Corvallis area. There were enough wealthier people there who valued fine custom woodworking in their homes. Of truth, we were artists, and Amos and I installed many beautiful kitchens, bathrooms, and other woodworking. Oak was the most common, but we did a lot of maple cabinets and some cherry. We fitted everything perfectly to the walls. Warren did not allow any trim or caulk to fill in unnecessary cracks. When we installed cabinets onto crooked walls, our joints were seamless. I have not known anyone else to work in that way.

The Howat’s and the Clarke’s
As I shared, Don and Martha Howat had moved to Sequim, Washington at the same time that Maureen and I had moved to Oregon. Maureen and I went up to Sequim at least three or four times during these two years to spend a few days each time with them. And Don and Martha came down to our home with their children sometime during the summer of 1994. 

During our first couple of visits, Don and Martha were staying in an apartment at his brother’s place. Later, they found a house with a small acreage on the slopes a few miles north of Sequim, which is situated above the Juan de Fuca Strait on the north side of the Olympic Mountains. 

Don is very outgoing, very joyous, filled always with overflowing faith in God, and welcoming and inclusive towards everyone. Within a short time of his arrival in Sequim, he had become the center of a gathering of believers who did not fit into the established churches. They met for services in the home of one of the couples, probably around twenty to thirty people. Maureen and I participated in the services every time we visited. 

Don and Martha were like a fountain of living water to these brethren and their meetings together were times of great joy in the Holy Spirit. As I think now, I remember distinctly five different couples. There were others as well, and their children. I was often able to share the word when we visited. Don and I both had a heart for God’s people and we were careful in what we shared, that it would be in such a way that they could receive from us in joy. In fact, we talked about that. Don shared with me that God had sent the two of us out because we would not dump “movism” on His people in the way that too many in the move did. We shared only as much as they were able to receive in their own connection with Jesus – and that was quite a bit.

I remember one visit in particular. We were gathered together in one of the homes. We had a good praise service together, then I shared a word, after which Don shared. Meanwhile, a visitor sat in the back of the room, a young man. We could see that there was a shadow on his face; he was not receiving from the Lord. Before the service was over he left. The sister in whose house we were visiting was one of the leaders of this new little group. She went out to speak with this young man when he left. She came back in and shared with us what he had said, that we were just following ritual and form and that it wasn’t the Lord. She said, “That might be something we should think about.”

Don responded immediately, gently but firmly. “No we should not,” he said. “We have moved in faith in God, and we cannot allow darkness to cause us to doubt the presence of God with us.” I learned much from that God-filled response. 

When Don and Martha came to visit us, then, he spent awhile sharing with me, imparting to me the need to be confident in the Lord and in the ministry of Christ. Don’s words to me of confidence in God meant so much to me; they more then made up for that brief season when he, for whatever reason, had been unable to help me.

John and Nathel Clarke visited with the Howat’s a number of times and to share with their little group. Away from Blueberry, they were very encouraging in their ministry to others. On two more occasions, they came down and visited with us on their way to the South. 

I learned an important lesson during their first visit with us in June of 1994. Maureen and I had some deep concerns for which we needed counsel from the Clarkes. At the same time, Frieda and her children also needed to counsel with them concerning the difficulties they were facing. I did not communicate this need to the Clarkes, and they arrived late in the evening, having to leave early the next morning. We had waited, imagining that they would have a sharing service with us before we could all have time to counsel with them. As it turned out, Maureen and I had only a short time with them and Frieda and her children none. 

My lack on this occasion was so very sorrowful to me. I learned, however, the importance of asking and of communicating your expectations clearly in such situations. I’m sure that if they had known, the Clarke’s would have arranged for more time with us. – You have not because you ask not.

Even More Transitions 
During the first part of June, Ryan had returned from his visit at Graham River and moved in with us. He slept on the couch in the living room.  

I must bring in now the issue concerning my brother, Franz. During these years in Oregon, Franz had become involved with some other Christians who understood the darkness of this world and who moved in a deliverance ministry towards people escaping from Satanic ritual abuse. In this ministry, Franz learned of the incredibly dark ways in which numerous power people in business and government moved, including the performance of Satanic ritual in certain spots throughout the Willamette Valley and on the top of specific hills.

Much of what Franz shared with us was true. However, we did not understand at that time the mental disability that had begun for him. Now that I do understand it and know as well the great difficulties inside my own soul, I have nothing but compassion for him. At the time, however, my only thought was that our older brother should know better. 

The point is that any visit we had with Franz and his family always veered entirely into hearing him share all sorts of dark things going on all around us. Somehow, he was losing the confident connection he had once known with the Lord Jesus.

One time after Frieda had come to stay with us, Tim must have communicated with Franz because when I went out next to the home place, needing to pick up something, Franz stopped me in the driveway. He spent several minutes telling me how wickedly I was moving and how, if Tim went to hell, it would be entirely my fault. 

I did not respond, but I was very hurt by his words, for they held no connection with the reality of the situation, as is always the case when people are moved to speak “Thus saith the Lord” in a corrective manner. I was able to talk it through with Frieda, however, and came to peace. 

There is no question, however, that I should have moved in more clarity and grace towards Tim through this time than I did. On my part, I gladly take upon myself whatever offensiveness I might have been. In whatever way I was wrong, I do ask forgiveness.

That June was also the 20th year reunion of the class of 1974 from Lebanon Union High School. We attended the inexpensive gathering, but did not have enough to pay for the formal meal at the main gathering. For that reason I did not see everyone, but I did see my friends, Andy Wyatt, Tim Steele, and Tim Greiner. I had become something very different from all of them, however. I invited Andy to come by to visit with us while he was in Oregon. He agreed, but did not come; I don’t fully know why. Yet the wholesomeness of my family life was unmistakable to everyone. 

When we took our children to a restaurant on occasion, people would comment to us in amazement at how well-behaved and wholesome our children were. 

And on that note, yes, I took Maureen and the children exploring up in the mountains as often as we could. We even had a service in one of my favorite spots, just Maureen and I with the children. In fact, during this time, I had become interested in the small vale beneath the two waterfalls on the southern slopes of Snow Peak and we spent a number of times exploring and hiking this area. Kyle and Jo were not always appreciative, however, of their dad carrying them through thick brush and across streams and up onto great rocks. We did have picnics as well, and good times along the rivers and streams of my youth.

Meanwhile, that July, Tim had found a different residence, and Frieda, April and Ryan moved back up to their home in Canby. That August, they went with us again to the convention in Vancouver, British Columbia. Frieda, especially, was much blessed by her time there. She visited with D and Ethelwyn and thus applied for her and Ryan to enroll in the Shepherd’s School of Music. Frieda and Ryan drove up in their own car that September, and I followed after with all their stuff in my blue van. That included the piano that had been in our home growing up, a piano originally bought for Frieda, which now sits there in the cold north, probably unused, all these years later. 

Ryan was glad to return to Graham. He had connected well with Bill Alter, one of the elders there, a good man with whom to work. I think that Heather had caught his eye by this time as well. Frieda fitted right in and thus began with several courses in the music school. I did not stay long, but returned back home and to my job at Yoder’s Woodworking. April continued, however, at their house in Canby.

Christian Renewal Center
Sometime that July, Maureen and I were driving down the main street in Lebanon on the north side of town. I glanced at one of the houses along the way, a small brick house, and saw a sign, “New Beginnings Fellowship.” The name intrigued me, and I was always willing to check out any new thing God might be doing. So we attended their next Sunday morning service. 

It was a pleasant little Spirit-filled group, led by a young pastor and his wife, named Lou and Rhonda Mimone, who were out from the Assembly of God. We attended that little group quite often over the next few months and visited a number of times with the pastor couple.

The Mimone’s had connections with a place near Silverton, Oregon, called Christian Renewal Center, having attended their gatherings on prior occasions. Christian Renewal Center was staging a Thanksgiving get-together, a long weekend with around 100 people sharing together in a community type experience. They invited us to attend with them that November of 1994. And so we did.

This Thanksgiving at Christian Renewal Center was a primary turning point in my life. 
Christian Renewal Center is situated on a south-facing slope just above the North Fork of Silver Creek before the creek enters Silver Falls Park and flows over the Upper North Falls. The road enters at the bottom of the property, which means you drive up a gravel lane through fir trees with an occasional house or lodge along the way, up to the main lodge in the center of the property. As we drove up that lane, there were banners spaced every so far, and written from one banner to the next was “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts.”

My heart was caught in God.

Here is a quote from their website. “CRC was founded in 1970 by Pastor Allan and Eunice Hansen and is now being carried on by Tim and Julie Hansen. Christian Renewal Center has been the fulfillment of a life long dream of providing a place of spiritual refreshment for people thirsty for more of God.”

Lou and Rhonda Mimone had a room in a lodge further up the slope, but Maureen and I, with Kyle, now 3 and Johanna, just 10 months, were given a room in the downstairs of the main lodge. Since the lodge was built on a slope, our south wall was level with the ground, but the main floor above was level with the ground on the north side. Above the main lodge was a cabin in the woods belonging to Allan and Eunice Hansen. And below us on the slope was a rose garden and in that rose garden was a prayer hut, an A-Frame building, overlooking the slope below down to the creek.

All who were in attendance ate our meals together in the main lodge, and there were sharing times and service times and times of thanksgiving together. It was community, and Maureen and I came alive, for we were right at home. The Mimone’s did not have the same view, and it seemed to us that they observed things from a distance.

There were several lodges, cabins, and chapels on that wooded slope. We had a number of services in a round chapel surrounded by trees. The Hansen’s had invited in different Spirit-filled ministries from the local area to share in the various services. There were times of great praise and of good things in the Lord. One who shared was Pastor Swan of the Silverton Episcopal Church, who was a Spirit-filled man. I really enjoyed what he shared and visited with him a bit concerning my book. Later I mailed him a copy, and he was kind enough to reply that there were some good things in it.

But it was the people that Maureen and I enjoyed, God’s people, from many different churches and backgrounds, all of whom loved Jesus and upon whose faces was the light of the Lord. As I looked across their faces in the worship, my heart was deeply moved. “Your Church, Father, Your Church. Who will care for her?”

One thing I loved at CRC was the plaques all over of words of God and grace. On the entrance to the rose garden was a plaque that said, “I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses.” I knew the song – “He walks with me and He talks with me and He tells me I am His own and the joy we share as we tarry there none other has ever known.”



And so I went to that prayer hut a number of times through that weekend. (These pictures are from the CRC website.) Inside, it was about 8 feet by 8 feet. There was a chair and a desk in front of the window, a cot to one side, and an electric heater. And in that prayer hut, I talked with God, and He talked with me. I knew that these precious people belonged utterly to God, and yet they did not know His fullness. I knew that God had placed a word inside of me that His people needed more than they understood. 

But I also knew that until that word was pure and utterly of God, He would never enable me to give to her the things He had planted in me. 

And so I covenanted with God, there on my knees in that prayer hut, that He would accomplish His purposes in me so that the Word that His Church, His precious people all over the world, so desperately need will be there for her in the time of her affliction.

As I arose from that prayer hut, God took me into the worst years of my life. I had no idea that His answer to my covenant with Him, a God who answers by fire, would bring me back to that same wooded hillside two years later, in November of 1996, shattered and broken, having failed utterly in all things.

I must add this note, however, that the layout, purpose, and functions of Christian Renewal Center lodged deeply inside my heart. This experience provided me with a model of an aspect of Christ Community that I have carried until now.

Expanded Services 
I also shared my book with Lou Mimone, the pastor of New Beginnings Fellowship. He did not care for anything I had written and shortly after, he closed out that little church.  

My niece, April, had connected with a young man in the Canby area named Jacques Potter. He had come with her down to our home several times for the services. During our time in Oregon, we had also gone up to Portland a few times to visit with the only remaining couple in the move fellowship that had been in Portland, Lee and Tommy Rutledge. In our visits at this time, we decided to have services together at April’s house in Canby, partway in-between us and the Rutledge’s, who lived in Gresham. 

From December through May of 1995, then, we had services together each Sunday. Typically they were at April’s in Canby, but sometimes they all would come down to our place or we would all go up to the Rutledge’s. We were able to buy a lovely acoustic guitar for Maureen to play as she led the praise. It was the six of us, along with Kyle and Johanna. And so, through these months, I was practiced in sharing the word every Sunday. At the same time, my little “congregation” looked to us for pastoral care and counsel, and the Lord gave Maureen and I a heart of wisdom.

In these services I gave a series of teachings on what I would later call “The Two Gospels.” In that teaching you will find many wonderful things similar to what I share now. My problem was simple, however; I had the “two gospels” switched. I was teaching the false and repudiating the true. Nonetheless, my focus was on union with Christ; the difference is how union happens. I thought it was by our performance.

Meanwhile, through these months, I continued working on my larger book, The Unveiling of Jesus Christ, now in it’s third draft. 

Amos Stoltzfus 
I was continuing to work with Amos Stoltzfus installing beautiful custom cabinets.  I want to share a bit about my working relationship with Amos. Amos was a few years older than I, around Don Howat’s and Jimmy Barkley’s age. We worked so smoothly together. Amos was the lead, but he did not “have to” be. When we tackled a job we both went at what was next to do. I guesstimate that maybe forty percent of the time I followed his lead and about forty percent of the time he followed my lead in a smooth back and forth. Then, maybe twenty percent of the time it was clear to me that the decision was all his as the superior. I had worked with Jimmy in a similar way, but not so instinctively as with Amos.

Amos and I did some beautiful work together. It was astonishing to me some of the difficulties we faced and how Amos would come up with the right solutions. One time, the cabinet would not fit through the passage into the house. We had to saw it in two and then piece it back together. After we had finished, no one could ever discover that we had done that.

One time, however, Amos and I ran into a very knotty problem installing cabinets in a house. The owner was there and had become very distressed because we were not finding the solution. Amos stopped and called Warren. When Warren arrived, I watched one of the most amazing displays I have ever seen. He came in, inside of the peace in which he always walked. He spent a brief moment looking at the problem, then went over and spoke quietly to the owner. Afterwards he came to Amos and me and said, “Do this and this.” Then he left. His counsel was perfect, the problem was solved, and the customer was thrilled.

Amos and I had a reasonable personal relationship as well. Amos was a sceptic of most everything, so I could share only a little with him of my life. But as long as he was producing the topics, we had good conversation. 

In December, Maureen and I wanted to attend the convention in Lubbock, Texas. I asked Warren for the time off, but, after looking at his job calendar, he said, no, that there was too much work needing done. I submitted to that as to the Lord, and so Maureen flew down herself with Kyle and Johanna to the convention. Warren did give all of us workers with our spouses a very nice Christmas dinner at a fancy restaurant.

Then in the spring of 1995, Amos had a week’s vacation. During that time, I continued installing cabinets as I had before. EXCEPT – nothing went right. I made mistake after mistake and took way too long to finish a job. This experience was key for me later on, when I had to know why I was anointed of the Lord when I worked with others, in order to counter the awfulness created in my mind from endless failure by myself. 

One time as well, when I was working by myself, I tracked mud into the home of a customer and into the entry of a business in Corvallis with whom Warren worked. This was the only time Warren corrected me. He asked me to go back and apologize. He was completely right, for it was his good reputation upon which I had tracked mud. I humbled myself and apologized to both parties I had wronged.

In March, Warren brought in some “experts” to review his work procedures and to give him advice on how to improve efficiency. This troubled me just a bit, because I know that if he had found a way to hear things from each of us, his workers, he would have received better advice for free. The experts told him that he had too many workers. I would have told him that one way he was losing money was his allowing some to work overtime at pay-and-a-half. Not only was that work more expensive, but then these same fellows made more mistakes and worked more slowly during regular hours because they were worn out. Another simple thing would have been a ramp for the truck, so that loading and unloading would have taken a fraction of the time.

One day at the end of March, I rode out to a job in the truck with Amos. All the way to the job and all through the workday there was a great peace and anointing of the Lord upon me. When I arrived back at the shop, Warren told me that, because of a slow-down in work, he was laying off me and one other. That was my last day as a professional cabinet installer. Yet, because of that great peace all day, I knew that it was of the Lord.

Finding Myself 
I have titled this chapter, “Finding Myself.” I want to explain briefly what that means to me.

 The Word God speaks, as He speaks it, is the most important thing to me in my life. I look now at The Jesus Secret II, and I weep over how much I love His word. And I love above all things that God has planted His word in my heart according to the covenant I made with Him.

But next to that Word is God’s precious Church, His people all across this earth, and especially His people together in committed Christ Community. 

When I was twenty years old, I heard a word preached concerning God’s people and concerning those who would nourish her in her hour of greatest need. I had no idea how I could be part of such a thing, but I wanted to, with all my heart. 

“Finding Myself” means three things, then. It means writing the Word, that I might see, with my eyes, the truths of Christ flowing across the page. It means teaching the Word to God’s precious people, though in a small and limited way. And it means a heart for God’s Church all across the earth in her time of greatest need even as we see it now unfolding in this year of our Lord, 2020.

For this I write; for this I live.