“…I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”
—Hebrews 13:5
Our first year in Belize was one of great personal
sadness for me. We arrived in August2000, and in October I received an e-mail from my
brother-in-law, Bill Phillips, informing me that my dad had
suddenly passed away. I had actually tried to call my
mom and dad that very morning but had not been
able to reach them. Later I discovered that they had
gone to the doctor for a routine examination, and as
the doctor was examining my dad, his head began
aching badly. Although they immediately rushed
him to the emergency room, he died from a burst
aneurysm in his brain. Then, in December of the
same year, my mom passed away from congestive
heart failure. Consequently, we had two emergency
trips to the United States within three months. Mom
and Dad, bless their hearts, had invested heavily
into our ministry, which was a real blessing to us.
After a few months, we started feeling the financial
effects of my parents’ deaths. As the months passed,
our financial situation continued to worsen until we
were actually in the red. By 2002, our financial situation
was dire, and we had to do something. That
something was prayer.
We prayed about our finances and concluded
that the Lord would have us go to Texas to raise
additional support. Angie, our oldest daughter, was
helping in the ministry in Belize at that time. She
agreed to take care of the church in our absence, and
Stanford, our young preacher man, would do all the
preaching. We soon took steps to put the plan into
action.
Since we did not have much money, we decided
to take the bus through Mexico to Brownsville,
Texas. What a ride that was! By the time we arrived
in Brownsville, we had only enough money for one
meal and a cheap motel. I called a local pastor in
town, and he invited us to present our ministry in
his church the next Wednesday evening worship
service. The next day the pastor took us out to lunch,
and then we headed to his church. Linda and I had
only twenty dollars between us and the poorhouse,
but we were trusting our Lord.
During my presentation of our ministry, I mentioned
that we needed a vehicle to drive while
trying to raise much-needed support for our work in
Belize. That night the church gave us a fifty-dollar
love offering, and the pastor took us out to eat. We
were tired from the thirty-two–hour bus ride through
Mexico and more than a little discouraged.
We still had nothing to drive, and the pastor had
no place for us to lodge except in the church nursery.
He offered us a blow-up mattress, sheets, pillow,
and a blanket. Inflating the mattress, we turned in,
but within thirty minutes, the mattress deflated and
we were on the floor. We inflated the mattress again,
but in another half hour, we were back on the hard
floor. We decided to use a mattress from a baby crib.
Can you picture two grown people sleeping on a
mattress that small? It was a close-knit night for the
two of us but we were able to get some sleep.
The next morning I left for the bank in order to
cash the fifty-dollar love-offering check. I was on
foot and noticed a man working in his yard. The
Lord prompted me to speak to him. Remarkably, he
was a member of the church where I had spoken, and
he remembered me. He knew we needed transportation
and offered his old truck, but he encouraged me
to stay in the valley since the truck wasn’t all that
dependable. “I would let you use the Windstar van
over there, but I’m having some transmission problems
with it,” he apologized.
The old truck had enough mud on it to grow corn,
but I simply said, “Thank you,” got into the truck,
and headed toward the bank. God reminded me that
this old truck was better than walking. I contritely
answered, “Yes, Lord, and thank You very much for
providing it for us.”
We drove that old truck everywhere, trying to
meet pastors and set up meetings to present the ministry
in Belize. Thankfully, we were able to book
some meetings. By this time, we were staying in
a small house that Brother Jack Henderson had on
his farm that he used as a motel for missionaries.
Things were looking up, and we praised the Lord.
We had something to drive and a nice place with a
bed to lodge.
Two weeks passed, and we received a phone call
from the pastor who had let us sleep in the church
nursery. He said that the owner of the truck wanted
to see us. I thought grimly, “Surely, he wants his
truck back.” When we arrived at his house the next
day, he said what we were expecting. He needed
his truck back—and we felt like crying. Thankfully,
he then offered us his Windstar van—and now we
felt like dancing a jig. He said he had worked on
the transmission and hoped it would hold up for us.
We thanked him and left riding in a Cadillac, so it
seemed, and praising the Lord for His greatness.
We were able to book some more meetings, one
of which was in San Benito, Texas, not far away.
It was a missionary conference, and a man named
Dr. Joe West was preaching. We enjoyed Dr. West’s
preaching so much that we went back to hear him
again the night after we had presented our ministry.
After the service, he told me he had enjoyed our presentation
the night before and then asked how our
meetings were going. I admitted they were going
rather slow.
To my surprise and delight, Dr. West said he
would like to help us arrange more meetings, though
he did not normally do that. He provided me with
the names of pastors and churches that had funds to
take on additional missionaries. “Tell these pastors
that I recommend you, and they will let you come,”
he instructed. I thanked him and praised the Lord
for a man of God who was willing to help another
man of God, even one he did not know very well.
The next day I began calling the churches whose
numbers Dr. West had given me. The meetings
started rolling in, and our faith increased as we saw
God’s hand upon what we were trying to accomplish.
One meeting was scheduled for a Wednesday
night in Waco, Texas, about 450 miles away. We
left early that morning, and just as we were entering
Waco, the van stopped running. It was getting close
to service time, so I called the pastor.
“Hello, Pastor, we have broken down on the
side of the road,” I quickly explained. The pastor
responded by saying he would send a man to tow
our van to a repair shop and bring us on to the
church. We used the ten minutes until he arrived to
dress for the service, where we then presented our
ministry to Belize. At the close of the service, the
pastor collected a love offering of $750 to help out
with the van and travel expenses. He then loaned us
a vehicle and met us for a meal. We had a great time
of fellowship that evening.
The pastor said that he and one of his men
would meet us at the repair shop the next morning,
which they did. By ten o’clock, the van was already
repaired. An alarm wire close to the exhaust had
shorted and made it seem as though we had a bad
timing chain. The cost was only a hundred dollars,
which was a real blessing because it could have cost
much more. We thanked the pastor for letting us
present our ministry and for the good love offering
and headed out.
We were praising the Lord for the wonderful
meeting, a comfortable motel room, a delicious
meal, the repair of the van, the promise of seventyfive
dollars a month in support of our ministry, and,
of course, the generous love offering. We were now
off to Houston, Texas, where we would lodge at a
modular home that a local church was allowing us
to use while in the Houston area. We were rejoicing
greatly in the Lord for all that He had accomplished
on this trip.
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