4. A Season of Preparation

© 2017 Christ Revealed Bible Institute

January 1976 - February 1977 

Reflections
This has been quite an experience for me to open up again my childhood and youth. As I write these things, it’s as if I am back there again with all the primary feelings of those times. Yet as I place every one of these moments into Jesus and He into them, Jesus Himself calms the raging storms and brings everything to a wondrous peace. After that, I can see everything with a new understanding, and I realize that at no point was I ever outside of the Way of Life, a Way that is not dependent on us, but is, in fact, Jesus Himself.

Those parts of this time that I once thought were major, I now see as relatively minor. And other parts that I thought were small and incidental, I now see as the true ruling points of these years. Dural Sylvester seemed to be minor, yet of all the non-Christians I knew through these years, I continue to hold him before the Lord as belonging to Salvation. The real major points, of course, were every instance of God with me. And the truly minor points were every instance of my own folly.

You see, for years after, I held a secret fear that, because my fantasizing was so great and because I had invented myself as a “god” by scientific knowledge and power, that the day might come that I would turn my back on God and become “the Antichrist.” At times of great self-pity, this was a voiceless terror. Now, I can see that none of that ever had any meaning. God made us the way we are, and He brings all that we are into His goodness. Certainly we went in wrong directions, but what little one growing up has not? My grandson wanted to help his mother, so he put all his clean diapers into the dirty diaper pail. – Good things turned momentarily in the wrong directions.

Having opened these times back up in my consciousness, I have been zealous with the Lord that His peace would come into every turbulent moment. And so He is and does. The turbulence is there, buried deep inside, even if we stay unaware of it in the present moment. But when Jesus redeemed us, He purchased from us all that we are and every moment of our lives. It all belongs to Him, even those most desperate times. What needs to be in His empty grave we count as being only there. But everything that was actually me becomes one seamless story of Christ.

A Slow  Beginning
I was fully returned to the Lord Jesus, but Asperger’s meant that I could not tell my parents so. It only took them a couple of weeks of evidence, however, before they knew. I was sneaking every Christian book into my room and going off to a church somewhere on Sunday mornings. I’m sure there was also a peace upon my face.

From the moment I threw that pack of cigarettes out my window, I never had any addictive need to smoke again. I still had two cigarettes in my glove box, however, and did not know how to get rid of them. Asperger’s is very restrictive in things like this. So, I solved the problem by smoking them. Doing, that, however, did not recreate any need to smoke. I had gone without cigarettes for a few days several months earlier and it was unbearable. This healing was a gift from God.

There were other things that I now know as Asperger’s, but then I thought were just weird me. I could not turn my headlights on in the evening if there was another car coming my way, for they would see my “presumption.” And I never got a hair cut for five years, not until just before I went north to visit Graham River for the first time. At first it was because I was by nature a long-haired hippy, but more than that, for others to see that I had altered my appearance would have been overwhelming to me. It would have been “presumptuous.”

People often interpret Asperger’s as being arrogant and haughty. We come across as harsh and rough at times, but our reasoning is NOT what people think. If you judge an Asperger’s by outward appearance you will get it wrong. But – that’s true regarding everyone. The little boy who said that the emperor “has no clothes,” was likely Asperger’s. You can see that blurting out honesty in the wrong places does not go over very well at all.

Probably by the second week of January I went to see Andy Wyatt again. He was living back home with his mom on the south side of Lebanon. Andy had his own room above the garage separate from the house. When I arrived, I was welcomed with a huge surprise. 

Andy also had an experience with the Lord when he was younger, as had I. When he heard from Tim Steele that I had become a “Christian,” that bit of news threw him into the proverbial “between the hammer and the anvil.” As a result, he also had surrendered his heart back to the Lord. Andy became another awesome gift of God to me, that we had each other to begin our walk in this new life to which we had each committed ourselves. 

After further reflection, another perspective that has come through this exercise of laying out the patterns of my life is that I can now see the very short time period between, let’s say, September of 1975, when I first began to run from God’s pursuit into every awful hiding place – until, say, September of 1977 when I sat in the glory of an open heavens with a Feast of Trumpets word entering into me by an anointing upon God’s ministry beyond anything I have known. That’s just two years, from age 18 to age 20.

Now I can see that what I imagined to be aimless wandering was never anything of the sort. Rather, I can see God’s building blocks, step by step in my life, taking me always upon His path and making me that pathfinder He created me to be. And so I have titled this period of my life as “A Season of Preparation.” I am looking for how my Father took me from one place to the other in such a short time.

However – I want to insert a brief caution. I just went looking for information from these times on an Internet search and found an obituary for Andy Wyatt, who passed on March 23, 2019. This picture is of him, probably still in his twenties. There is, of course, no mention of our time together, but it does describe him as he was – the laugh of the party. 



Never imagine me as being some sort of “man of God.” As I ponder these things, I see just how much of a failure I am and have been in so many things including friendship. I am able to give hope to God’s people ONLY because if Jesus takes all my misery into Himself, then it is a simple thing for Him to receive you as well.   

I sought the Lord for one reason, and that is because I so desperately needed a Savior. Yet the difference with me was that whatever it was that satisfied others never, never satisfied me. I must go a different way; I must have God’s real and final answer for everything in my life.

A Pentecostal Experience
Once Andy and I were connected together in this new life, we decided to attend Lebanon’s primary Pentecostal Church, the Assembly of God Church at the north end of town at the corner of Highway 20 and Highway 34. When I look on Google maps, the satellite view shows the old building, but the street view shows a large empty lot; this landmark of Lebanon’s history is gone.

The pastor of the church was H. D. Robeson, with C. O. Branson as his assistant pastor. This was a large and vibrant congregation. Pastor Robeson was of the old Pentecostal persuasion, and both he and Pastor Branson could preach up a storm. This church tended in the direction of the “holy roller” style. Now, as I place my time in this congregation, I am changing how I see. I have judged this church as “shallow,” and certainly there was a level of “hype,” of pretend performance. Nonetheless, as I look at all things, I am seeing Christ rather than outward appearance. 

The Lord had put us in the right place. Lebanon’s First Assembly church under Pastor Robeson was just what Andy and I needed at that time. And through our time there, the Lord did good things in our lives. Every season in our lives is a bridge connecting the prior season with the upcoming season. In each season, weeds are pulled out that would hinder a word yet to come. And important things are planted in our hearts out from which the season to come must grow.

Andy signed up for the pastor’s ministry study program soon after we started there. Pastor Robeson was a wiry little man, filled with fire and passion. He was a strong Calvinist, of course, and the books he fed Andy, and through Andy to me, were Calvinist, which most Christians are, in spite of what they might imagine. 

Right off the bat, Andy and I were prime candidates for receiving the Baptism in the Holy Spirit as the Pentecostals conceived that experience, that is, an experience to be sought with much tarrying and much laying on of hands and loud and fervent assistance. Andy and I, though good friends, were very different. I was an introvert; Andy was an extrovert. As an Asperger’s, making myself subject to such a thing was not possible, but Andy was their perfect candidate. He gave them what they wanted and was filled with the Holy Spirit gloriously.

I had begun to read Watchman Nee right away. My mother had many of his books. During this time I read his book on The Release of the Spirit. Watchman Nee presented a different approach to the fullness of the Spirit, not as a “receiving,” but as a “release.” Since the Holy Spirit is one spirit with us the moment we are born again, Watchman Nee was seeing it correctly, that this experience is a release of the Holy Spirit into our souls, something for which God requires our permission first. In that book, Watchman Nee taught me that we ask God to fulfill His Word in our lives, and then we believe that we have received, waiting in full expectation of faith that what we have asked has already become ours. You can see that this mighty SEED planted in me by the Lord in the early months of 1976 has grown to a full-fruited tree that places that same seed of life all through everything I share with you.

So – when they asked me if I had received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, I was caught between two things. On the one hand was a wrestling match with a chair if I said, “No, not yet,” and the other was this word from Watchman Nee, to believe and to confess that I have received, since I had asked. My answer was a quiet and strained, “Yes,” but it seemed to satisfy.

Now, God requires moments of surrender from each one of us. He does so because He never forces Himself on anyone, but rather He enters into our knowledge only through our express and willing permission. That permission, however, from our point of view, coming out of our unthankfulness as humans, seems to us to be a “terrible” surrender of ourselves to an “indomitable will.” That moment of surrender does not come easily for most.

My own real surrender to God did not happen when I asked Jesus into my heart at age seven. It did not happen when I asked for forgiveness of my sins, for Jesus to take me back to Himself at age nineteen. It happened, in actuality, a few months later, I am guessing in April of 1976.

I was driving to work, framing houses with Jimmy, minding my own business, when another PERSON intruded Himself into my awareness. That Person stuck His bony finger into my forehead, so to speak, and spoke these words in question form, but it did not feel like a question. It felt much more like a fierce demand. – “Will you surrender all that you are to Me?”

That was a bit much. I did not like the sound of that at all. I managed to put the Fellow off through the hours of work, though my heart was much battered by that very insistent “question.” On my way home, I continued to wrestle against such a thing, but, as I turned into the driveway, my stubbornness gave way. Before I came to a stop, I said, “Yes, Lord.” I did not know then that I really said, “Let it be to me according to Your word.”

As soon as I came to a stop, I HAD TO run up to my room as fast as I could, but before I could drop to my knees beside my bed, rivers of living water were already flowing up from my heart in a heavenly language separate from the control of my mind. I had known a measure of the release of the Spirit at age fifteen, after learning to give thanks for all things. This full release came as God’s seal upon that Seed in me of asking and then believing we have already received. 

I have not seen this before, how God set the demonstration of His Spirit upon the planting of His Word as mighty Seeds inside my heart, to confirm and to establish that Word in me, seeds that are now found all through all that I share with you.

There were strains taking place inside the ministry and congregation of Lebanon’s First Assembly through those months, but Andy and I saw none of that. This was a good place for us and a good time of being grounded in the Word and in the Spirit.

The Bible and I
I was a reader of books; the Bible was a book, and so it seemed to me that one would read the Bible from beginning to end. Right from the start, I determined that I would read the New Testament through a second time before beginning again at Genesis 1. And so, over the years, I have read the Bible through 24 times, but the New Testament, 47 times. When I am finished with the Jesus Secret version, I plan to read it as the second reading to bring my count to completion, although 25 and 50 sounds like a better set of numbers.

Prior to my conversion in December of 75, I had read Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings through 18 times in six years. I put those books completely aside after my conversion. Reading the Bible through more often became a goal. I’m sure my first time was through the King James Version, but during our time at the Lebanon Assembly of God, I began to use the New American Standard, and thus it would have been my second time through, starting that probably by April.

In my childhood in the Mennonite and Baptist churches, the Bible was just there. It was God’s word to us. Though I was taught it and though I memorized some verses, I had little more thought than that. But when the Lord turned my heart back to Himself, I turned to the Bible as my life.

I can be a very intense person in directions that are of supreme importance to me. I have never been more intense towards anything else than I have been towards the Bible from that time on. The Bible has always been God sharing Himself with me. I am simply uninterested in anything presented as “truth” that the Bible does not actually say.

Knowing God is and has always been the center of my life, and the Bible has always been the source of how I must know God. I have been taught by many Christian teachers and have read many outstanding Christian books, but the Bible, for me, is the only authority of truth.

I began reading the Bible from the first page to the last. In the first months after my return to the Lord, I spent little of my spare time doing anything else. I remember reading the Psalms in one sitting and the joy I knew afterwards. When I arrived at John 16 for the first time through the Bible, something wonderful happened. As I read “and the Spirit of Truth will guide you into all truth,” those words leaped off the page and entered into my heart by the Spirit as a personal word from God to me. You see, if the Word is not personally ours, it’s not anything. I have never doubted that word, a word that the same Spirit, who first spoke those words through John, made personal to me over 40 years ago. God has given us the Bible and the Spirit that we might know Him.

The idea that there are things in the Bible that are hidden from us or that we cannot know now, the idea that we cannot really know all “truth,” not while we live on this earth, this idea is illogical and contrary to everything God says. It is an idea that I rejected from the start.

Even more than that, I did not read the Bible in order to know the Bible. Right from the start, I also conceived of God as a Person directly involved in my life. Even though at that time, I saw only dimly, still, my purpose in reading my Bible was always to know this Personal God and what He meant by being involved with me. I read the Bible because I had to know what this God actually says to me.

I also frequented the Christian book store and brought home many large tomes for Bible study, some of which I still have. One of those was The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, by Alfred Edersheim, of which I read nearly half (it was very dense). I also collected the same books Andy was studying in his course with Pastor Robeson, one of which was a large book on Romans and another was The Total Depravity of Man by Arthur W. Pink. This was a fascinating book to me, but before I could get half way through, it vanished. I bought it again a few years later, but before I could even begin reading, it vanished again. This was a way of thinking, placing utter depravity upon the Christian, that is, presenting a salvation of very little meaning, that God did not want planted in me alongside of the seeds of Christ.

My mother had all the popular charismatic paperback books, so I read those as well. Of these, Watchman Nee’s books continued to be the most important. I do not remember when I first read The Normal Christian Life, through these months, but it had a major impact on my thinking from then until now. Whenever you read of me setting forth Blood – Cross – and Resurrection, you are reading of the Seed planted in me through Watchman Nee.

But more importantly at that time, I read from Watchman Nee that Christ was IN us. When I shared that with Andy, he rejected it instantly. You see, although we had little connection with the young people at the Pentecostal church, what little we had showed us levels of hypocrisy that did not fit with our zeal to know the Lord. Andy rejected the idea that Christ might be in them; it certainly seemed improbable to me. Then, later on, I think when Andy and I were sharing a house together, I read something more in Watchman Nee, that we are IN Christ. Again, Andy dismissed this idea as nonsense; it certainly was not part of Pentecostal Calvinism. But I pondered these things deeply not knowing at all what they meant.

Broader Charismatic Experiences
We became involved with other charismatic people and gatherings beyond the Pentecostal church. Through friends we knew at the Lebanon Assembly, we met other families in the area who gathered for fellowship in their homes. I connected with some of these more than Andy did, and continued fellowshipping with them even in-between my forays into faraway places. I connected with one family in particular, the Travers. 

Mrs. Traver introduced me to Madame Guyon. I read her autobiography as well as her book, Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ. Here is something of great importance to know. Jesus said that we find what we seek. Those who seek to know Him find Him everywhere they look; those who seek other things, whatever those things might be, find Him not at all. I was looking for a direct and personal connection with God; Madame Guyon showed me that such a thing was real.

An anointed and godly young man we knew moved up to Portland, Oregon, so we went up a number of times to visit him and to spend time in the Lord with those whom he knew there. We also went up to Portland more than once to attend Full Gospel Business Men’s conferences and Christian concerts. One well-known ministry I remember was Jack Hayford, a leading charismatic pastor from southern California.

We went up to Seattle one time to attend a Billy Graham crusade in the King Stadium, the largest stadium at that time, but a building that did not last long. We went in my car. I had a map. My map said that CANADA was only a couple hours up the road. During an off time I drove up by myself and crossed the border into British Columbia, went inside a short ways, turned around, and came back to Seattle. I did not know then that I would be a resident of British Columbia for twelve years and that I would make that drive dozens of times.

Through all these things a great tension was opening up inside of me, a travail for something I did not know. I will share more of that in the next chapter. Here I want to mention three things that created a deep cry for REAL inside of me.

First, although I was blessed by all the teaching I was receiving in the Pentecostal and charismatic circles, I went away from every such time with a sense of incompleteness. I could not put it into words, but there seemed to me to be such a shallowness, such a desire not to offend people, such a lack of authority in the speaking of the word. This sense was subconscious, but it increased a growing agony inside of me.

Once when we visited our Christian friends in Portland, we went with them one evening to a public park where some were “preaching the gospel.” A young man got up on a little pedestal and began haranguing the people passing by, “You are sinners, you need to repent and turn to God.” A young woman sauntered up to him and said, “I love sin.”

I was seated with some others just behind this young “evangelist.” As he began speaking, everything went haywire inside of me. I KNEW that his words were NOT Christ, though I did not know what Christ might be. His false face towards these non-Christians caused such distress in me that the brother sitting next to me had to calm me down.

This was one experience, but it was part of God’s laying the groundwork in me for that great distress that would become the definition of my life.

Another time I went with a young man from the Pentecostal church to visit with Dural Sylvester. This young man was from our same class in school and Dural had known him well during his wild years separate from the Lord. Dural did not have a good memory of him, but he received us with an open face because of my friendship with him. At first we just visited, but before long this young man stood forth in all religious fervency and declared to Dural that if he did not repent, he would go to hell.

I cringed all through myself, most certainly, but what was even worse was watching Dural’s face. The soft light towards us vanished and a dark hardness took its place. Dural soon sent us on our way, and he was right to do so. I knew that this young man had abused Dural just as he had done when they were younger, and I was ashamed that I had been part of such wickedness. 

I knew that such was not the gospel of Christ, but I did not know what was.

Working with Jimmy
I continued working with Jimmy every week-day framing houses. Jimmy took my “conversion” in good stride, although, I can assure you, he also bore with a bit more nonsense from me. Jimmy’s heart was towards the Lord, and he willingly confessed a simple belief in Jesus. Others were with us on the framing crew including Jimmy’s dad for awhile, Jim Barkley. Then, in the late summer of 1976, we hired Andy as well to be part of our framing crew. Andy did all right on ground work, but he left running around on the tops of the walls and trusses for us.

It was an important foundation for me to begin with framing. By doing the same parts of a house frame over and over until they were utterly familiar gave me the basis out from which I could add every other part of construction in later years. Because I came to know every board in many different house designs by heart, I gained a fundamental part of designing homes. At the same time, I was busy creating a whole series of “house plans” for myself in my spare time. 

From the time I was 18, I longed to build a house of my own design. I had no idea, however, that I ever would have such an opportunity. That type of thing is not typical in the commercial construction world. The desire only grew year by year, however. It would not be until I was 26 that I had the wondrous opportunity to do just that.

Framing houses is hard work. We were paid by the square foot, not by the hour, so in order to do well, we had to go at just short of a run day after day. We worked in all weather. In Oregon, if you don’t work in the rain, you don’t work; the rain was rarely heavy, however. As an Oregon boy I never considered either rain coat or rain hat. We just dripped.

I had a bad back, however, from my childhood. This problem was increased by one aspect of how we did the job. I wore a single pouch that hung heavy on my left side. I used my right hand all the time, so that side of me became very strong. My left hand, however, was the one that received all the missed blows and cuts and whacks. Anyhow, we would frame and side the walls as they were laid down on the deck. We had wall jacks, but often, we would all run over, grab a wall, and thrust it up. Sometimes it took all our strength and more. This put great strain on the lower vertebrae of my back. One time we did not have enough strength (although Jimmy was incredibly strong), and a large wall came down right on top of me.

My back went out bad and often. There were times when I just lay in bed for a couple of days unable to move. This problem continued for years. 

There was a young man whom we knew at the Lebanon Assembly who moved in great faith. Once, when my back was way out and very painful, he asked to pray for me. He had me sit and stretch out my legs. He picked my feet up in his hands and showed me how one leg was far shorter than the other. He asked God to heal, and immediately, by sight, the short leg “grew out” to match the long one, but in reality, all the disjointed vertebrate in my back went right into place. I could work and run without hindrance.

A number of times on the job site, when my back went out, I asked Jimmy to pray for me in that way. My back always went into place, and I could return to work without hindrance. One time, however, I thought to impress a non-believer that God works in power, so I said, “Come and watch.” Of course, that time, nothing happened at all.

Then once, after I had returned from Nebraska, having witnessed the confidence of faith in the power of God in which my brother, Franz, moved, I was on the backside of a house we were framing. This time Andy was above me on top of a high wall. He fell off and landed hard on the ground just in front of me. He was unconscious, twisted in pain, and his face was pale, almost grey. I did not know what to do, so, in desperation, I went up to him, placed my hands on him, and said, “Be healed in the name of Jesus.”

Instantly, Andy came wide awake, his face suddenly alight, and he stood up with no pain nor any effects from the fall. This was certainly not “of me,” but God, who was always with us, whether we knew it or not.

Gone to Nebraska
My brother Franz had met Audrey, his wife, when she came to Oregon to attend college. After they were married, they lived in Oregon for a short time. Audrey, however, was from the corn region around Shickley, Nebraska, not far from where my dad was born. Her father owned a large corn farm, but they fed their corn to pigs and made their money by selling the pigs. Through Audrey’s father, Franz was able to buy a small farmstead that included an old farm house and a number of large barns and outbuildings. They had moved there with their first two children, Jason and Rachelle, a couple of years prior. During that time, Franz had completely remodelled the old farmhouse, and had done a lot of work setting up an efficient pig-farm operation. He needed to do some more work inside his barns, so he invited me to come to Nebraska to work for him a couple of months. 

Jimmy was always agreeable to whatever I wanted to do, so in August, I hopped in my car and away I went, by myself, across the country. Now, you must understand me. If I have a destination 2000 miles away, then the only option for me is to drive all over the place, adding hundreds of miles to the distance. If my map says something is sort of along the way, then I want to see it. I had been the long distances to Michigan and back with my parents when I was younger, along with the trip to Nebraska for my brother’s wedding. Dad was actually a little bit like me, and thus took a different route each time. But the direct road from Oregon to Nebraska is almost the bleakest route in North America. 

So, I headed up through the Idaho mountains towards Montana. I stayed in a motel in Salmon, Idaho, and then drove into Montana. I spent a bit of time at the Big Hole National Battlefield and became awed by the story of Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce. Standing on top of the hill where Custer’s arrogance gave the Sioux a total victory was also a necessity. About half way across Montana, I picked up an Indian boy, about my age. He was on his way to Oklahoma. He was a good companion. When we got into the Black Hills, we found that all motels were filled. I tried to sleep alongside the road, but could not. We kept driving, all through the night and half the next day. I went 1500 miles in thirty hours. I left him along the road partway through Nebraska where he could catch a ride south.

I spent about two months working in Franz’s pig barns, building doors, etc. I really loved their house, how they had transformed it. And I gained a fair bit of knowledge about raising pigs. 

My brother was connected at that time with the teachings of Oral Roberts, and he moved in great confidence in God. God did some mighty things with them in Nebraska. I want to share a couple of instances that I experienced. Franz had some cattle as well as the pigs. One time, he needed to separate a particular heifer in order to treat some problem. He and I ran around and around, but we could not get the heifer away from the others. Then Franz stopped, pointed at the heifer and then at the open pen where we wanted her and commanded, “In the name of Jesus, you will go in there.” The heifer stopped and looked. Franz repeated, “In the name of Jesus, go in there.” Immediately, the heifer left the herd, went across the open space, and into the pen. 

One time when I was at one end of a very heavy gate, carrying it with Franz, my back went out really bad. I could not stop, however, so, inspired by Franz’ example, I said, inside myself, “In the name of Jesus, be healed.” Instantly my back went entirely into place and was perfectly fine. The point is not that I experienced “miracles,” but that I was learning to live in the full awareness and reality of God with us.

On my way home, then, my map said that the Colorado Rockies and San Francisco were sort of between me and home, so that’s the way I went. The heights of Rocky Mountain National Park were beyond amazing. This was my first time to drive through San Francisco. I learned right away to keep the windows closed, eyes straight ahead, and to stop for nothing. I had visited the Redwoods once with my parents, but this time I walked awhile in their presence and was in awe of entities far, far larger than I. When I returned home, I went right back to work with Jimmy.

A Disaster between Two Dreams
From the time I was a boy, the dream of my life was to be married. From the time I gave my heart back to the Lord, I wanted to be married most every day. You see, my mom and dad were an incredible testimony to me of marriage. They loved one another. Never, in all my years, did I ever hear either of them speak a cross word to the other. Sadly, I have not measured to my father. My problem was simple, however. Hardly being able to talk with girls was normal, but the moment I thought I liked a girl, I could not get one word out from my mouth, no matter how hard I tried inside. 

I saw girls in the Christian circles in which I moved who were attractive to me. They were entirely beyond my reach. At the same time, I struggled with Paul’s ridiculous statements in 1 Corinthians about marriage. I feared that it might be “God’s will” for me never to be married. I cannot express the despair such an idea brought me. One time, I was lying on my bed during the day. I thought this was September, but it had to be either before or after I went to Nebraska. I lifted up my heart in a deep cry of desire to God. I heard him speak to me. “Son, what does My word say.” The only thing that came to mind was “Delight thyself in the Lord, and He will give thee the desire of thy heart.” Then the Lord said, “Is not My word My will?”

It would be fourteen long years before God fulfilled His promise to me, as Maureen came down the aisle to stand by my side, but in this moment He planted that Seed inside of me that God does what He says He will do.

After about six or so months at the First Assembly of God in Lebanon, Andy and I switched over to Skyline Assembly of God just south of Scio, Oregon, where my parents attended. My dad was an elder in this church. This had also been the church where Jim Buerge and his family attended before they went to Canada. 

Skyline, pastored by Bob Adams, was a peaceful place, in contrast to the somewhat hyper Lebanon Church. But before we were there two weeks, some friends from the Lebanon Church broke some incredible news to us. All the pastors had resigned, and the church split apart with half of the congregation now going elsewhere. Andy and I had seen absolutely none of this. All we knew was the Lord meeting us in that season. The Lord had moved us on just before, since all that had nothing to do with what He was doing in our lives.

After I returned from Nebraska, Andy and I decided to rent the old Ede house where Jimmy and his family had lived. I had gone there with my dad when the Ede’s still lived there, to pick apples and to get bales of twine from them. The house was little and old, but the property was amazing. Mr. Ede had started to plant an apple orchard in a large field, but had gotten only the outer row in, all the way around. That was still a lot of apples.

We moved in the first of November, my second foray away from home. I lasted three months. 

I took the downstairs bedroom, and Andy took the upstairs room in the attic. There was a very old fashioned kitchen and a small living room. The house also had a large front porch. Now, Andy and I were living in the same house, working on the same job, and going to the same church doings. Needless to say, we did not know how to communicate in practical everyday life. I later described it as taking two Tom cats, tying their tails together, and slinging them over a clothesline, although it was never so extreme as that. We just never talked things through, and so disagreements and frustrations only grew. There were things I blamed him for, but I am certain it went the other way as well.

But through that summer of 1976 and especially while I was sharing a house with Andy, another dream was growing inside of me. There was a large older two-story house for sale in Lebanon for $40,000, not far from the high school. My dream, which I shared with anyone who would hear, was for the Lord to give us that house so that we could establish a community house, a place of refuge for those needing such a place. I dreamed about such a community, but I did not even know how to get along with Andy.

At the end of January I moved back home; Andy did not stay much longer before returning to Lebanon. We did not speak to one another at all for another year. Yet after I had spent time in the move of God Christian communities, I think that Andy saw me as infected with the virus of heresy and seemed to want little more to do with me. 

HOWEVER – here is one tiny, but wondrous part of the glory of our Salvation. When I found Andy’s obituary and included his picture in this letter, I still felt remorse over the shadow that seemed to be there through all these years. For that reason, I engaged with the Lord Jesus in faith, bringing Him into my relationship with Andy. The second morning after, I opened this letter to continue working on it. I looked at Andy’s picture and saw no shadow at all, only a dear and good friend.

That is the power of an endless life. Nothing is ever lost. All that is ours will return in its season. I will walk with Andy again through the beauty of Oregon’s country paths, and we will know such joy.

In early February, Pastor Bob Adams of Skyline Assembly read a letter from Jim Buerge that had been addressed to the church. Most everyone there knew him and his family well. Hearing this letter being read awakened a great agony inside of me, a NEED to know a God I did not know, for I could not be found not knowing Him. 

Hearing this letter changed my life forever.