This great wrong came at a very critical time in my new Christian growth. It clipped the budding growth of my youth in the Lord. This offensive spirit, thrown on me, quenched the rapid vibrant growth that, by all means, should have propelled me into greatness in the Lord.

For thirty six years I wandered through a desert of my own that was barren of fruit. There were only other hurting souls wondering within the bounds of this waste land to commune with. Others were there who knew nothing of the richness that God has provided for all Christians to take hold of and draw near to their inner being. They were a cohort of lost hurting minimal Christians. No strength was found within this loosely formed band of brothers.

What a dismal time this was. No one ever got excited about the power available from the God of the Universe. No one experienced any great miracles or even itty bitty small ones, just a dismal lonely tiring boring experience. This is just where the evil one wanted us to be. We were quietly pushed out of the way where no one would notice us. Most assuredly this was a place where nothing spiritual would ever happen to or through us. We were just a burden on Christ and the might He had died to give us.

Dying alone in this desert would have been better than just existing over the realms of slowly passing time. But for some reason I was allowed to live, though many death attacks were thrown at me, time and time again, designed to lay me dead and useless for all time. But something kept me going always forward one slow small step at a time, ever onward, ever upward.

(I am right now listening to a message from Pastor Bagwell about the prophets of Baal. He is teaching about the sexual sins they welcomed into their church and the depravity that overtook the then current teachings) WOW! How timely.

What a time of torment this was to my spirit man. Cut off from the Christ that I once found dear and let slip away from my bosom. The closeness that once, for a brief moment, was mine is now seemingly lost forever. Frustration abounded in every area of my life. Nothing seemed to have lasting meaning as I was content to let whatever would happen to happen. No direction and no goals or visions to lead me into the heavenly realm.

Looking back I can now see that I was spiritually dead. DEAD. No growth, no inspiration, no meaning. There was just a lonely waiting for the eventuality of death and the end to take over and relieve me from this meaningless world.

BUT. There was something looming in a secret small place within my being. A small spark of hope. A vestige of spiritual truth. One day a book caught my eye that prompted me to seek out a different church. One with a spirit filled ministry like I saw in the pages of this revelation I had found. I pursued but did not catch on to the reality of what was available.

Many years later, after my job, finances and wife were taken away, I again ran into a message that prompted me to seek help once again. A DVD on prosperity from Paula White propelled me again into a search for a church teaching the wholeness of the Spirit of God as I saw.

God placed Word of Life into my sights. I immediately fell in love with the new teachings found there. I committed my life to the teachings of Pastor Bagwell and became a regular attendee. I quickly became part of the “Church within the Church”.

So the original journey has been begun anew with vigor and excitement as I seek to make up lost time. Stretching forward and upward towards the High Place so frequently spoken of by Pastor.

Where this all lead is the message of another story at a later time. I just know that God is once again with me (actually He never left, I just closed my eyes to His presence) as I fly over obstacles to the goal set before me/us. Oh! Yea! I forgot to mention that my lovely bride, Ana, is faithfully at my side as a partner, companion and fellow traveler as we transverse this marvelous world in search of lost souls to reap for the Kingdom of God

I was born a Catholic. Really that is all that you have to do. The priests take care of everything else except your assurance of salvation, ever.

In 1972 I had moved into a basement apartment in an old three story house. On the first floor there were three young women who were energetic. They kept talking about Christ and salvation and how He changes lives.

In August of 1972 on of them prompted me to watch a telecast of EXPO-72 from Texas. I believe that Bill Bright and Bill Glass were the major speakers.

My life was in a tailspin downward and I found frustration in most of what I was doing. That night after the show I went to bed in misery. I remember the words that one of the Bill’s had said “If your life is not going right to invite Jesus into your heart as Lord and Savior”.

As I lay there in bed I asked Jesus to come into my life (at least for a little while) still feeling the fear of my Catholic upbringing. I immediately fell to sleep.

The next morning I awoke feeling as if I was floating a foot off the bed. I had been born again. Most of what I had heard about Christ and the Bible in the past was actually true. Jesus, Peter, Paul, and John were real. I mean real, not fictitious players in a story.

That afternoon I bought a Living Bible and started reading from Genesis onward. I devoured it. I started attending the Gospel Chapel that Sunday. The first week I was taken in as a brother by Richard Burson, the minister. Richard asked me over for dinner and started meeting with me often for discipleship.

I became totally immersed in the work at the Chapel. Going to church early to meet with Richard and several other young men. Making coffee. Putting messages on the marquee outside. Baking bread for communion. Cooking meals for the entire congregation. Treasurer, Sunday school superintendent.

Richard and I attended the Upper Room Fellowship at the local prison each week. I attended several gatherings and Bible studies. This is where I received the Baptism in the Holy Spirit.

Eventually from there I was sent off to be a short termed missionary with Literature Crusades.     

In the late 50’s when I was 10 or so years old my grandfather got a TV (Black and White of course).

I was in the living room on a Saturday watching TV by myself. We could get three stations, one sort of OK and the other two with a lot of snow.

I remember seeing an Oral Roberts telecast. Being brought up a Catholic my family would make fun of Oral and his healings. They would say that they were all staged and that he was a phony.

I watched the show nevertheless since there was not much else on. At the end of the show Oral asked people in the tent and at home if they wanted to know that they would go to Heaven when they died.

As a Catholic I knew I would go to Heaven if I had not sinned since my last confession, which happened a lot. I never had assurance of really going to Heaven most of the time.

So I raised my hands when he asked us to and prayed along with him as he recited the sinner’s prayer for salvation. I remember being so scared of someone seeing me with my hands raised. What if I was found out? The Catholics spoke hell and damnation on anyone believing anything else that the Catholic Church.

Something happened in my life. The seed was planted and sprouted. It took 20 years before I made a heart felt confession for Christ. But I knew within that God had a plan for my life and was going to use me to do some good in the world.

My fledgling faith and mom’s intense commitment to the Church molded me into a soft spoken deeply driven individual. Yet my life did not play out the part until late in life.

After much prayer and wrestling with God and my past I have broken free from the stronghold which strangled my life for so long. My involvement with Word of Life Christian Center was a major turning point for me, along with meeting and marrying Ana.

In 1975 I came up with a desire to become a missionary. This happened after spending a week in the American Bible Society booth at the Kansas State Fair. There I worked with a missionary from Peru. My interest was whetted but I now see it was all for the wrong reason.

I saw and felt the romantic exciting traveling part and not the reality of what the work would entail. I also did not have a calling from God but a calling from my need to be doing something else with my life.

After a futile attempt to go to Germany I found out about Literature Crusades in the Chicago area. I applied and eventually was accepted. Although I failed the language test and could not go on a team to Bogotá, Columbia.

Six months of intensive, eight hour a day training ensued. We became Bible scholars in short order. Most aspects of mission’s work was covered. We spent innumerable hours at O’Hara Airport and the Schaumberg Mall doing religious surveys. This part of the training was ill prepared and I have written another article about it.

After graduation we were off to Stuart, Florida to set up a church. That was the goal, go somewhere where there was not a church like us and set one up.

This was a very frustrating time. Most of the time was spent fixing up the little house they found for us to rent. Then trying to go door to door and take the survey.

We also struggled with a couple of neighborhood kids meetings. But the most frustrating part was doing church. We rented a building and went early and set things up. After church we had to tear everything down. The WE was the team, the church attendees did nothing to help. It was OUR church not theirs. 

The people there we very uncommitted to what we were doing. Even the Bible studies we held were sparsely attended.

Now comes the part that destroyed my ministry for almost 40 years.

While still in training we were repainting the interior of several of the large team houses. I was in a bathroom and the president and second in command of Literature Crusades were in the bedroom painting the walls. We all took a break and I went back early to continue painting. These two returned not knowing that I was in the bathroom.

They started discussing the team being sent to Florida, which I was a member of. Their discussion was about a co-founder of Emmaus Bible College who was becoming involved in the work in Stuart. It seems that he had received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit while praying privately in a park.

They were discussing the fact that if he moved to Stuart to take over the church that the team would have to pulled out. Literature Crusades could not be involved with a Spirit filled man. They would loose financial support from many of their patrons, who believed as they that the workings of the Spirit were not for our times.

Strange as it seems, I had received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit two weeks after I accepted Christ as my savior in 1972. Unfortunately I had started attending the Gospel Chapel in Hutchinson, Kansas right after my salvation. These churches were of the same mind on the Spirit.

(So I lived a lie for 40 years as I hid my Holy Language from everyone.)

When our time came to move to Florida I knew secretly that our time there could be limited. Indeed it was. C. Earnest T. was indeed involved in the newly started church and was doing a lot of the teaching. Three months later he decided to move to Stuart and become totally involved.

The leaders of LC flew down to talk with him. And then they informed us that the team was being disbanded and we were to go home.

So with bitterness against man and God we left. This started a period of desert like living as I held on to God but gave up on organized Christianity.

It was not until just last year, that I learned through teachings at WOL, about having an Ishmael ministry. One that is started on ones own volition and without direct “Thus sayeth the Lord” vision.

This has dramatically changed as I now set out with Ana to complete the calling God placed on my heart so many years ago.  

When I went to Literature Crusades in Chicago the training was great. We had intensive Bible training for six months.

We studied Old and New Testament, Children ministries, Cults, Homiletics, Exegesis, Apologetics, Etc.

But not much on witnessing. Yet that was what we were to do as we went out as teams during our training. We went door to door, to the Airport (amongst the Hari Krishna’s) and to the mall. Our tool was doing a supposedly Christian survey.

“Hello I am doing a survey” …

I hated it. I felt like I was intruding on people. Finally I gathered the courage and resolve to do the survey but internally hoped they would not respond. If they did!!! Then what??? I would have to defend my Christianity. Yikes!

Some people had results but not most. It was just an errand we had to do as part of the training. But we were not trained to do what we were supposed to do.

Then off to Florida into the midst of the retirement world. Most of the people in Stuart, Florida were retires from the Eastern Seaboard. They had lived their lives in New York and New Jersey.

It was our job to go door to door taking these surveys. Wow! What a failure I felt like. One man tried to convert me. Many told us off “we moved here to get away from you kind of people” “get the h… out of here”, in a New Jersey Italian accent.

My time seemed to be wasted and I had an overwhelming guilt from my inadequacy to do what was thought to be the prime reason for my existence.