Great Things He has Done!

GREAT THINGS HE HATH DONE
Chapter One
BORDER CROSSING!
It was a very warm day, of course that is not unusual for Reynosa Tamolipas Mexico, Francille and the girls are quite busy getting the last things packed, I have been busy checking out the Ford Station Wagon. We had been waiting for the bus to be delivered from Oregon, at first we waited in McAllen, Texas but the brothers had delayed in bringing the bus and the money was running low so we were waiting on the Mexican side of the border because we were able to rent a much cheaper room. I had just called the guesthouse in McAllen where they were to bring the bus and sure enough it was there, praise the Lord Jesus. We were all quite anxious to see this bus, we had prayed for the Lord Jesus to provide us with a bus that could serve as a motor home and now we were to take it down to Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, where we had been living for the past year. The car was about ready when my wife and mother of our five children pulled me aside to ask me a question. James you know that it is about 650 miles to Guadalajara and we will be driving two vehicles that require fuel and right now all the money we have is ten dollars, what are you going to do? I then had a flash back to one year earlier when that same question came up so I replied with the same answer that our Father had given me then. That is not our problem, that’s the Lords’ problem, and he will take care of it. Then we proceeded to McAllen and sure enough the bus was there and it sure was a beauty. The brothers had done a very good job painting it and completely fixing it up inside with bunks for the kids just their size some short and others longer. It had a nice complete kitchen and even a small bathroom. A tremendous demonstration of Gods faithfulness and love of the Saints who had gone to such work and care. This was such a great day the kids were so happy they loved the bus. Precious moments like these are much appreciated by a family that has entered into a life of totally depending upon God for everything in this life and the life to come. Then our thoughts went to the task before us, go to the border for our tourist visas (that’s the only way you could go into Mexico to preach the word) we were just getting in the rigs to go when a man came up who I had never seen before, he asked if we were going to Guadalajara and I said yes, he said that he also was going there and asked if could ride with us I said sure we have lots of room, he replied, I will buy all your gas. I said O.K.
Everyone had to go into the immigration office at the border crossings all five children, my wife Francille, our new traveling companion, and myself. We must have looked a little different than your average tourist, with two vehicles and a large family. At first they were really friendly but I knew that would change for I knew they would want to know our financial status, for traveling into their country required that you be financially capable. Now from all appearance we looked like we had money. I was sure that they would not understand that when you travel under the commission of the God of heaven you have nothing to ever worry about. However I was remembering our Lord had shown me the year before that he was the God of all flesh and that they would do his will. For even the heart of the King is in the hand of God. The officer was asking the normal questions and pulling out the forms for tourist visas, everything was fine until he came to that all important question: how much money do you have? I said, not very much sir and he then asked how much money we had in the bank in Oregon and I said, none, then he asked how much money do you have in the bank in Guadalajara, I gave him our bank book which showed about four dollars in the account. By this time he was becoming very impatient with me. He then asked just how much money do you have on you, and asked to see it and I showed him the ten dollars. He then put away the forms and told us we could not travel into Mexico without money. This of course was very embarrassing for everyone, the gentlemen who had offered to buy our gas was very uncomfortable and quite surprised that we had no money and suggested that we go back to Texas. I said no, they will give us the papers, the immigration officer said you better go back home because we will not give you the visas, yes you will I replied he said no way. He then began attending to some other people, my family and friend went back out to the bus, and I remained there and was praying to our Father in heaven. I was sitting and praying quietly with my eyes open and soon the officer acted very nervous and said you should go back home and I said no I am waiting for my papers, he said that the Chief Officer would be in at eight o’clock (it was then about 7:15 in the morning) and if I wanted to I could talk to him but he was sure he would not help us. When he said this I knew the Lord Jesus was doing something and I replied he would give us the papers. I then went out to the bus and we ate breakfast. After breakfast the time was approaching to go back in and talk to the Chief Officer, I was getting cold feet, thinking about the questions they would ask and the wondering what I would say then the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said don’t worry about what you will say for in that moment I will give you what you are to say. I went back in, not knowing what to say but believing my Lord Jesus had a plan. When I walked up to the counter I did something that even surprised myself, I pounded on the counter and ask, are you going to give me my papers or not? I was looking the Chief Officer in the eye and what I saw was quite frightening, he was angry and I do mean angry and he stood up from his desk and walked toward me asking all kinds of questions faster than I could answer, I thought that I had just made a big mistake but something inside of me said everything will be all right. He asked all the same questions as the other man and I gave the same silly sounding answers and he was madder than anybody you have ever seen, saying that we could not come into his country with no money and that we would need to return to our country. He was so mad he did not realize what he was doing because he was saying no, but all the time pulling out the forms and filling them out and signing them and stamping them, giving us all a full six month visa into Mexico. I took them and he said, now go back to your country and don’t come back, I just smiled and went out rejoicing in “the one” who holds even the kings heart in his hand.
This was the third time we had crossed the border into Mexico each and everyone was a u nick experience, the lack of money always made things interesting to say the least, it was always very challenging, scary, treaded, and rewarding. This had become our way of life that would go on for 19 years living in Mexico and Central America, for the purpose of preaching the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ but required to make these trips a least twice if not three times a year. Strange I know but what is normal? What I always thought was normal had turned upside down. I had thought what a man needs to do is work hard provide for your family and be a good neighbor. Live and let live but this easy lackadaisical life I would never see again. I couldn’t live any longer just for what I wanted to do. Their had been born in me a keen desire to do only the will of God and I knew it was his will for me and my family to be only about his business, and his business had brought us to Mexico where their was living eighty million Catholics who needed to hear the good news but they didn’t realize that they needed this news, and the authorities had made strict laws about anyone coming in to preach this message. The Priest and even the Pope himself did not want us there but our Lord Jesus did. You might wonder how did you know this, well it all started back in Oregon, the year of the big snow.
The Year of the Big Snow Fall.
It was in October of nineteen and sixty-nine at Lea burg, Oregon and the snow did fall day after day night after night. The children of course loved it and played and played in it. Thirty-six inches right at the front door, it was a big job keeping the walks clear and the path over to Grandmas house (Francille’s folks lived next door) the path was almost like a tunnel for the children. This type of snowfall is very rare for the Willamette valley, fortunately the shed was full of firewood, and the two-bedroom house that we lived in was very warm. This self-employed logger knew he was in for a long quite winter. Thirty-six inches of snow on the lower Mackenzie River meant that up in the high Cascades where the job was the snow would be ten to twenty feet deep. O well, it had been a real good summer and there was a fair amount of money in the bank. If I can just keep from getting cabin fever everything will be fine. Keeping the fire going, enjoying the wife and kids and reading Louie Lamour would be my greatest excitement, I thought; however things don’t always go just the way you think they will. Everything changed one afternoon when Orville Tadlock came for a visit. He was a logger whom I had worked with on several occasions, a good worker, proud but a nice guy. He loved to arm wrestle, play poker, and many such activities that had been much grief, for his dear wife Blanch, who was a devout Christian and had been praying for him for a long time. Now we had heard that Orville had seen the light and was going about preaching the word but who knew if that was really true, after all he was a much worse sinner than most, taking trips to Reno Nevada enjoying the things that married people shouldn’t do. Well he was caring a bible and talking about God, as if he knew Him, his language was really strange why he wasn’t speaking one cuss word. He was quoting scripture left and right and his eyes were so bright there really was something different about this logger. Then he looked me straight in the eyes and said; “ Jim you are a Mormon right?” I said, “yes” but thinking not a very good one. Orville said; “You will go to hell, you need to be born again, your religion cannot save you.” I thought, who does he think he is coming here in my own place and telling me such things; I will just tell him off and throw him out. But maybe he is right; in fact these Mormons don’t have me all that convinced that they have the truth. I know there is a hell and who is to say I am not headed there.
Neither my life nor my family’s life would ever be the same again and this winter is not going to be like any other we will ever have. This Orville, he kept coming back and I hated to see him come but I really hoped that he would. I didn’t know what to believe but I was becoming aware of my need for knowing the will of God. Sometimes I thought the preacher was speaking the truth and sometimes I was not so sure. Then I had a bright idea; why I will just study all the religions in the world and then I will know which one is right. Then my bright idea turned into a dark dismal cloud when I realized just how big a task it would be, after all I had been a Mormon for many years and still didn’t know for sure about their teaching, and the world is full of religions, so how could one ever really know the truth. I didn’t know why but for some unknown reason I just had to know the truth about all this. I was reading all the time but not Luis Lamour for Orville kept me supplied with all kinds of books, that spoke a lot about God and people getting saved and how they were being persecuted for their faith. I however still wasn’t sure about all this. Then I became very concerned and felt totally confused and lost, then I had a thought that brought me great comfort and I believed it was God who gave me this thought, The thought was you know the Bible is the word of God just read it and you will find the truth. I dove into the New Testament with great anticipation of finding the truth, I read it all the way through then read it again then I read the book of Revelation through several times because it was fascinating to me and made me think a lot about the end of the world and coming judgment. I was somewhat surprised when I thought about the New Testament for I didn’t find exactly what I was looking for, but found something much better. I found that the Bible was talking about one person in particular and that was this man from Galilee Jesus Christ the Son of God. I was falling in love with this man from Galilee. The thought that he was the Son of God yet he was made flesh and lived among us really fascinated me. The way he had mercy on the poor and the sick and healed them of all their diseases was very impressive. I liked his boldness to speak the truth to the religious people of his day. He never turned anybody away, when the leper said if thou will you can make me clean, he said; “ I will, be clean,” When they brought the adulteress woman to him saying she had been caught in the act of sin and reminded him of what the law of Moses said and wanted to know what he would say about it he said; “ He among you who is without sin can cast the first stone, then they all left one by one, then he looked up from writing on the ground and asked the woman where her accusers were and she said; “They are gone.” Then Jesus told her that he would not accuse her either but go and sin no more. I had never heard of such a man as this man, he was everything that any one anyone could ever hope to be, in the way of holiness and righteousness he certainly stood alone. I admired his faith, his courage, his love, his mercy and his judgment. In my pursuit of the truth I was encountering the one who would lead me to the truth, for he is the way the truth and the life.
I was twenty-eight years old, with a very lovely wife, four children and quite content with the logging business that we owned. I had a real good deal going with the US Forest Service, doing salvage logging. The white pine through out the Cascade Mountains was plagued with beetle rust and was dying, it grew in little clumps scattered among the dominant specie of Douglas fir. The bigger loggers did not want to be bothered with such small jobs. But in reality it was quite a big job for my small operation and we were doing quite well indeed.
Things are not always the way they appear. In many ways I was happier than ever. At the same time I was very uneasy and concerned with the way I was changing. I didn’t like the man I was becoming. I remembered all to well the greed I had seen in my grandfather who I had loved and was so disappointed to see this weakness for the love of money. At the time I was ten years old and had already lost my father in an industrial accident when I was nine. It was a real shock to see this love of money displayed, and it took away the respect I had for the one who I really needed at the time. I had determined that I would never let money do that to me and now I didn’t like the changes that were taking place in my heart. It was becoming far to easy for me to take trees that had a few needles turning color and simply say they are dieing anyway. The burden of my guilt was more than I wanted to bear but I didn’t find the resolve to do anything about it. The guilt went back also to when I was twelve when the Mormon elders had convinced me to sign a paper saying that I would keep the word of wisdom and that I would not smoke or drink any liquor or coffee or go to movies and a long list of other things. Of course I did all those things and the guilt was always there. I always had it in the back of my mind that some day I would get right with God.
The reading of the word of God was having a big effect on me, it clearly was showing me that Jesus Christ the Son of God is the Savior of the world and no religion could change the sinner but he who created me could. In spite of all this there was something holding me back. Something that had a very strong influence in my life and was bigger than I was, at first I didn’t know what this was that kept me from doing what I knew was the right thing. But now I know it was my pride, it’s amazing how strong of a hold it had on me.
Orville continued to come by and one day he was quite excited because he had been offered the use of an old church building up at Finn rock in the logging camp of Rosebourgh Lumber Company, Orville and I both had worked for Rosebourgh in what we call high lead logging. The supervisor when he heard that Orville was preaching asked him if he would like to use the old church building because it was not in use. Orville of course said he would. I understood to some extent why he was so elated about this offer of the building. He had explained to me how he had wanted to go to bible school and become a preacher. He went up to Portland to a very well know college and attempted to enroll but when they discovered that he hadn’t completed his high school education they told him that he would need to do that first. Then he went down to Texas for a while hoping to serve the Lord Jesus there but this was not the plan of God either. These things had been a big disappointment to him for awhile he was set back by this but then one day he realized that it didn’t say any where in the bible that you had to go to bible school in order to preach, so he determined to continue going up and down the river telling people about Jesus and now he was given a building to use. He told about some different people that said they would come and hear him preach and wanted to know if Francille and I would like to come. It would have been quite rude to say other wise so we graciously accepted. We went and we were quite impressed with his ability to expound upon the word of God. I was under a lot of conviction and I don’t think I would have gone back but we were then invited by a couple in the church to come the next Sunday for dinner and we realized it would be quite rude to just go for dinner and not go to the church service. Then on the following Sunday another family invited us for dinner. They were very crafty and this way they kept us coming and on the third Sunday Orville was preaching a message that was putting me under very heavy conviction, I knew that I had to go forward and give my life to Christ but something was holding me back, I don’t know how to explain the struggle that was going on in my heart, it was a real war, and I was determined that I would obey the Lord even if nobody else was going to, I was sure that Francille would not want to, but I knew what I had to do. While going forward I was surprised to see her walking down the isle with me. Then this tough proud logger broke and began to weep like a baby, the tears ran down my face and then I felt so ashamed that I ran outside and wept out there, then Orville came out and brought me in, and now we are in the Lord Jesus. The burden of my guilt was lifted that day in such a way, that I really felt the weight taken off my shoulders. The assurance of salvation was their from the beginning the assurance was not from any physical experience but it was much deeper work of the spirit of God giving a witness to my spirit that God was indeed present with me. This work of the spirit was the result of the work of faith that came from reading the word of God. I had come to understand the promise of God was that Jesus Christ had paid it all; it was just left for me to believe and repent of my sin. The resurrected Jesus was now ready to live his life in me and I knew that things were different now. It was a winter that we cannot forget, in the following months Orville kept coming by and he always would ask things that kept me on my spiritual toes; what has the Lord been teaching you? How much have you read of the bible today? How is your prayer time coming? He never told me I should be doing these things but I knew it was expected of a believer to live like a believer. I didn’t like it when he came on days when I hadn’t managed to take time out for prayer and the reading of the word. I also realized he expected me to be hearing from God, that was a real challenge, for I knew in order to hear from God I would have to keep my heart right and be ready to obey him, in what ever he wanted of me. There was no excuse because I had all kinds of time to read the bible and pray. The reading of the word of God was having a big effect on my life, especially the teaching of Christ in his gospels, Matthew five, six, and seven where chapters that captivated me especially chapter six. Jesus did not teach like anybody else his ways were so different, he transformed my thinking or renewed my mind with a whole new approach about life. I was to no longer be concerned with anything in this life not even give it a thought what we were going to eat or what we were going to wear, I could no longer serve two masters only Jesus, I could no longer be concerned about self, I must deny self and take up my cross and follow him. I am to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all things of this life that are needed (not wanted but needed) shall be added unto us. That winter I also learned that if you loved Jesus you would be bold and speak for him, Orville was such a good example of this he had no fear to speak for the Lord in public places, to give thanks for the food in the restaurant or to go down town and preach to the people on the streets. True love is without shame, I boldly put my arm around my wife in pubic, and I love it when Jesus puts his arm around me in public. The Apostles Peter and John also demonstrated true love for God, in the fourth chapter of the book Acts we read that the rulers and elders warned then not to speak in the name of Jesus. They then prayed;” And now, Lord, behold their threatening: and grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy word. By stretching forth thy hand to heal; and that signs and wonders may be done by the name of thy holy child Jesus.” And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they speak the word of God with boldness. Acts 4:29-31
SPRING
My good friend and neighbor Dale Coutierier was also my logging partner, I had worked with Dale for a logging outfit out of Sweet home, Oregon. Dale had got me on with them and I really enjoyed working with him. He had taught me a lot about logging. Therefore when I had acquired my own company, I invited Dale to come and take full partnership in the business, he was a very valuable man to have has a partner so I told him he didn’t need to invest any money just come to work. It had been a very long winter and we were very anxious to get back to work, we had the job, equipment, everything but we still had snow on the job lots of it, from 10 to15 feet of it. We would get in my old “corn binder” 1956 international pickup, about the best rig in the mud and snow you can find, and go for a ride and see how far we could get up the mountain. Each time we went we would be able to go a little closer to the job. Then the day came that we carried up with us the battery for the skidder the 400 Case Skid King, we had left it up there all winter, we managed to get fairly close before the snow became to deep, then we walked the rest of the way carrying the battery. The skidder was completely covered it took awhile to remove enough snow just to put in the battery and start it up, and then we began plowing the road out. Wow, it felt good to be back to work. Winter was over spring was here, spring is the time everything begins to bud out and that is the way it was for me as well, budding out into the new creature in Christ Jesus. I had no idea what it was that Jesus had prepared for us. Before long we had trees falling and log decks all up and down the road, then we called the truckers out and soon the money was rolling in. But it was not the same as before it all seemed so vain, just work and make money, what is that? There must be more purpose in life than making money. My friend Dale couldn’t hardly believe the change in me I understood because I wasn’t used to this new man either. I talked him about Jesus and he listened but wouldn’t say much, I really wanted him to become a Christian and I began to pray for him, at times he seemed close to coming around but then he would grow cold toward the things of the Lord, I couldn’t understand that. That is the way it was with many of our relatives too, it was hard for me to believe people didn’t want to believe on the Lord Jesus. This was the first encounter I had with people rejecting Jesus; I was to learn that many would reject him now just like they did when they crucified him years ago. I also had to learn to trust the Lord to work in their hearts and not try to force them. When you know this is the right thing its hard not to become pushy. Its difficult to watch the people you love take the course of destruction and not say anything, we must speak but only with genuine concern and remember if it were not for the grace of God, no one could ever be saved.
THE LOVE OF GOD
This first year in the Lord Jesus was a very special time in our lives, I believe the things that Jesus was teaching us were the foundational things that would set us on the course of life, the lessons were clear but yet I have been slow in learning them. One such lesson came in this way I was reading the gospels and I came to the text that says “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Mat. 22:37-39 I read this then I began to realize that I certainly didn’t love God this way nor did I love my neighbor as myself. I knew that I loved God but I also knew that there still were other things that I also loved and God was not going to be satisfied until he became first in everything. When I thought about my neighbors I knew I wasn’t so concerned for them as I was myself. I couldn’t see me taking a check that I received from the selling of our logs and giving it to my neighbor. I began confessing this to the Lord and asking him to change me, I prayed this prayer for many days and it was a real burden for I felt like a hypocrite the days turned into weeks. There was a prayer meeting that we were going to every week up a Bernice and Odell Rogers. One particular time we were there and Odell asked me to stay after the meeting because he had something he wanted to ask me. I stayed and he asked me if I would like to go visit his neighbor with him. His neighbor was a man who had a very serious drinking problem and his mother was in the hospital dieing of cancer. It turns out that the mother was a Mormon and had been for many years and his neighbor wanted to know if his mother was going to heaven or not. Odell knew that I had been a Mormon and he thought that perhaps I would have something to tell him. I said I would go with him but I didn’t know what I could tell him. I didn’t tell Odell but you see I could never tolerate a drunk; I had no patience for them at all. After arriving there this gentleman began to tell me about how his mother was suffering and wasn’t expected to live and at first I had a very indifferent attitude then the gravity of it all hit me, what could I possibly tell him to comfort him I was sure that his mother was not going to heaven unless she came to know God and the Mormons don’t believe that Jesus is God but just a prophet of God. And no man can come to the Father except through the Son. I began to speak unto him explaining these things and the Holy Spirit came down on me in a very surprising manner, I don’t remember what I said to him but I know the passion of Christ was there in a very powerful demonstration of the love of God. The Father was pouring out his Spirit on me in strong waves it would come until I couldn’t hardly stand it then it would stop then come again and again and I had to tell the Lord that was enough, I couldn’t take any more. I believe it was a baptize m of the love of God. Odell wasn’t aware nor this man but the father had answered my prayer. I confess that I still fall way short of being filled with the love of God but at least I know now where to find it, because it is not in me but in God for God is love.
This was a very special time in my life, prayer was something that was very special, at first I was so proud, I didn’t even want to get on my knees to pray and I didn’t, until I realized why I was reluctant to do so, then I humbled myself and began to pray on my knees. Later I begin to have some real good times of prayer, I would be praying and feel the presence of God in a very physical way, kind of like electricity was flowing through me and it was great but one night after such a time the Holy Spirit revealed to me that, this wasn’t going to continue to happen because God wanted me to walk by faith and not by my feeling, that was the end of these experiences but it was a real challenge to walk in faith. I knew that without faith you cannot please God and I wanted to please him so I prayed that he would help me and he did and I found it was even a greater satisfaction knowing the faith of Christ was at work in me.
The Lord Jesus was teaching me the importance of my priorities being in order, I had always told myself that I needed to work and make money for my family, that is true but money could not do everything and their were many things, he has commanded us to do in his word that I knew I was not doing. For example love your wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. Giving my wife and children money did not prove my love for them, they needed to see me giving them my time personally and providing for them spiritual guidance, an example to follow. It seems these lessons are so hard to learn because later on in my life the work of the Lord or the ministry would take priority even over my personal time with the Lord Jesus and my family. It seems to me that Christianity can be summed up in the word relationship, when I am in a good relationship with Jesus I will be in a good relationship with my family, friends and neighbors.
CHAPTER TWO
SENT OUT!
The logging business continued to go well, Dale and I had four men falling timber for us, all four of them were going to the little Church Orville had started. Orville was one of them. I was quite content because now it appeared that the Lord was pleased with our business and perhaps he would be pleased to allow us to continue, it seemed to me that if our business could supply work for the Lords people, that he would bless the business. We were working real hard but we still had some real good times of fellowship and we even would have some time of prayer. Hines Timber Co. had given us a contract to log some sales over by La Pine, the good part about this job was that we would be able to work almost all winter, the snow doesn’t get near so deep on the east side of the mountains. The plan was that we would work on the west side about as long as we could then move to the east side when the snow became a problem.
One night I had a dream, I don’t dream much nor do I put much stock in dreams but I do know that Our Lord Jesus, spoke to me this way, probably because I wasn’t accustomed of hearing his voice, as well as one should. Francille and I had purchased an almost new Ford LTD Station wagon.
In the dream we were traveling in our car and their was a real good spirit in the car everyone was excited and enjoying the trip. The dream was very realistic so very clear and we could see this large sign a very large sign and it had only one word on it and it was MEXICO written in large letters. That was all there was to the dream, but it impacted me significantly. I tried to convince myself that it was just a dream and decided not to tell anyone about it. I went on about business as usual, however in my going about I kept meeting people who would be talking about Mexico. I would be waiting in a spare parts store and pick up a magazine and it would be talking about vacation in Mexico, too many occasions for it to be just a quintessence. I was quite troubled by all of this and it was becoming difficult to simply keep ignoring it. Then one evening while praying I dared to speak to the Lord Jesus about it. I started out saying something like it looks like you are calling me to preach the gospel in Mexico, What followed next really surprised me for the Holy Spirit said to me; are you going to obey me or not? I was between “The Rock” and a hard place. The fear of God was very present, I realized that I could not say no to The Lord God Almighty. I knew in my heart what God had been saying to me, which left me only with this simple but so difficult a question to answer. At times I had entertained the thought, that I might enjoy going to preach the gospel, then I would think, what? Who am I? What do I know about preaching? I would remember the many things that Jesus had been teaching me about seeking first the Kingdom of God and not caring about the things of the world and I would think that’s why He has been teaching me these things. But now that decision was no longer mine for God had told me to go. I then told Jesus, yes, I will go. As soon as I had said that great joy came into my heart and the peace of God, for I knew that Jesus was commissioning me to go and preach his word to the lost and to be occupied in his business only.
In the days that followed I continued with the peace and the joy of God in my heart but there was a lot of questions that kept coming to mind? How could I ever preach? I had never been trained in the ways of God. What is my wife going to say? Will the brothers think I am crazy? Will anybody really understand that the Lord is calling me? What will I do with the business? Should we sell our house? I didn’t know the answers to these many and frequent questions but I believed some how it would all work out. I then decided that I needed to tell my wife Francille. By this time I was quite excited about the whole idea. I wasn’t prepared for her response at all. When I finally told her that, I believed God was calling me to go and preach the gospel in Mexico. She said, well he hasn’t called me; I am not going, nor the children. I said we have to go, because I have told the Lord Jesus I would go. She insisted that she wouldn’t go. This really confused me for I had believed that The Lord Jesus was indeed telling me to go but now my wife is saying she will not go, and I knew that I was to love my wife in the same way that Christ loves the church, I also knew that I was to be the head of the house, what should I do? I couldn’t force her to go. I knew that the only thing I could do is pray and ask the Lord about this. The word that Jesus gave me caused even a greater searching of my heart. He gave me the verses in Luke 14:26,27 “if any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.” I knew then that Jesus expected me to love my wife but I also knew that I could never let the love of my wife or children or anybody, not my own life ever come between us, I knew I had to obey him, even if it meant that my wife and children wouldn’t go with me. I prayed O.K. Lord I will go even if my wife doesn’t go but please Lord Jesus make her willing touch her heart. I found the grace of God to be firm and continued in the planning of going with my whole family, my wife kept insisting that she and the four children weren’t going, Not to much was said for quite awhile but soon I saw that my wife was beginning to have confidence that God was at work. I realize now that Francille had no way of knowing what God had spoken to me and I had only been a Christian for a short time, why should she believe that I was hearing from God? I thank God for her, she loved her children and her husband but she wasn’t going to do something stupid if The Lord wasn’t in it, and it caused me to really count the cost. I learned that the Lord wanted me to be the head of the house and provide spiritual guidance for the family. If I falter in my love for Christ I will not be a good husband and father. Jesus, help us to love you always with all of our hearts.
CONFIRMATION
I told Orville about what was happening how the Lord Jesus was speaking to me about Mexico. After my experience with Francille I was a little bit concerned how Orville would respond. He said I am not surprised, then he went on to tell me about a vision he had of me preaching the gospel to a large crowd of people. He new that we would be going into the ministry; he didn’t realize it would be so soon.
Orville had invited a friend of his to come and teach in church several times, his name is Dick York and I learned a lot every time that he came, he is a very gifted teacher and he and his family had spent five years in South Korea as Missionaries. He taught a lot on family, husband wife relationship, training of our children and many good things concerning church life and etc. It had been quite awhile since I had seen him. One thing that was troubling me was my lack of preparation, how could I preach the word? This was a big concern to me and also I was concerned that the Christians that I knew would have an amen in their hearts.
We had sent some men over to start falling trees on the job in La Pine, snow wasn’t falling but we had decided that if I was going to be leaving, it would be best to get this obligation taken care of. The day had come that I moved the skidder over and started logging we had decided to work both jobs; we had another skidder on the other job. I was pleasantly sup prized that day when Mr. York showed up on the job, I saw him come walking across the unit stepping over the logs with little difficulty, he is very tall and his long legs were at an advantage in this type of going. Obviously he wanted to talk so I shut down the skidder so he could be heard. For a while we discussed things about the job, then we began to talk about spiritual things and I told him about the Lord Jesus calling me to Mexico. He seemed quite elated when he heard that. It turns out that the reason we hadn’t seen him for awhile was that he had taken his family to Belize Central America, and that he had really enjoyed driving down through Mexico, he said he was very impressed with the need of the gospel there, and he believed that the Lord had showed him that he was to start a training program in Bend Oregon for training people to go to Mexico. He wanted to know if I would be interested and of course I said that I was very interested.
Praise the Lord at least some of my questions and concerns were being solved. Francille was showing signs of faith in the Lord and beginning to see that Jesus was directing me. And now it looked like the Lord was providing a way to get some bible training, and so far our Christians friends didn’t consider me crazy. However their still remained two things that were a concern, our business and our house. The business was something I had loved and worked hard for and I couldn’t work out in my mind the best thing to do with it, it was apparent that I couldn’t continue in business and go to Mexico as a Missionary. Then I will sell it, I thought, OK how should I do that? How will we divide the business, I had given Dale fifty percent of the business and he had not invested any money, I must confess it troubled me to think that I should give him fifty percent of the selling of it. I then began praying about this matter of selling the business and was asking our Father in heaven for guidance and wisdom. I was laboring in prayer much about this then one day while praying I began to remember some of wonderful promises Jesus had given me and the instruction he had given saying that I should take no thought about these things, in other words I should not be fretting about it but simply seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you. I then said fine Lord I will not take thought about percentages but I will give Dale everything. Suddenly the burden and concern was completely gone I not only had perfect peace but the joy of the Lord filled my heart, I was bouncing around like a school girl with a box of candy from her favorite person. This was a very good lesson for me on giving and it really is true that it’s more blessed to give than to receive. If you are lacking joy in your life go out and give something away, of course you won’t have joy at all unless you give with all your heart.
We had a contract on our house we had some equity and it shouldn’t be a problem to sell. I thought it was best to sell it and not have any payments. The spirit of giving was upon us and we really enjoyed leaving large offering in the offering plate. I didn’t want to be burdened down with things, I thought it best to be free from excess, and I was looking forward to the new life of living by faith.
When I told Dale about our plans of going to Mexico he was shocked and when he asked me what I planned on doing with the logging business, I told him that I wanted to give everything to him, he was really taken back. He had very mixed emotions about it, we had a good working relationship and we were going to miss that. He reminded me that he had not invested any money into it. I assured him that his skills and labor had well earned him a lot of interest in the company. I told him I would stay with him until our contract with Hines Timber Company was completed. Then he could continue with the salvage logging, it was by far the most lucrative and could be done with two good men. In the days following we were working on the Hines contract, during the warmer months we lived in tents and Francille did the cooking for the entire logging crew over a campfire. I might add that the men loved her cooking, she never seizes to amaze me, all the men made sure she had enough fire wood and helped with dishes. They wanted the Cook to be happy and she was. At night we bathed in the Little De Chutes River, the water never got warm it was always freezing cold, I can still hear the complaining and moaning of the men when it was time to enter the water, some would go in very slow with a lot of fuss others would plunge in and then you would hear the loudest yells that man can make, I think that yelling some how made it easier. You never had to worry about anybody staying in for too long. The kids had a great time that summer they kept themselves busy helping Mom, fishing and romping in the forest and catching toads, they would even have toad races. They would draw a line and put their toads down to see which one reached the line first, my son Richard who was four years old, he would get so excited that he would start jumping up and down until he would jump on his toad, this kept them busy looking for more.
Fall brings change, summer is slipping away and the promise of winter is in the cold night air, the contract was completed the units were logged, the men were paid, and now the task of Bible Training was before us with the promise of adventure in the air, of a new life in an old country far away where they speak a funny language and take siestas every afternoon. There were some hurdles before us that only our father in Heaven could clear without falling in a heap.
The house had not been sold yet, we had a hang up as us loggers would say and we are tight lining it, when you are high lead logging and the log comes up against a stump or big rock, the rigging slinger will put in the signal and the donkey operator will apply the brake to the haul back line and pull ahead on the main line it will give you considerable lift, then you are able (usually) to clear what ever is causing the hang up. We were being pulled in two directions and I still couldn’t see over the hang up. By this time Francille and I had given almost all our money away, we had been counting on the house selling, thinking that we would have some income from that. It turns out that we had failed to have a title check made when we purchased the place, after all we bought it from Francille’s parents and we trusted them but they also had failed to have a title check. The people they bought it from had not paid child support and there was a lean on the place. On top of that I still owed eight hundred dollars on the car, we had delayed in paying it off thinking we would have money from the sell of the house. We needed to rent a house in Bend so I could go in to the training program, this all takes money and suddenly this has become a very scarce item. No one was aware of our shortage of money except our Lord Jesus and he had given us his word, that everything would be OK.
One day while talking with Brother York he was asked me if we still planed on coming for the training, I replied, yes, he then asked me if I would be interested in staying in the Pioneer Hotel and managing it for him during our months of training. The owner of the Hotel had passed away and had left the hotel to Brother Dick to have the use of for five years. I wasn’t sure that we were the best candidates for this job, but Dick was confident that we could handle it and Francille also thought it was something that she would enjoy doing. We had been staying in our camp trailer out at Mel Loys, we had enjoyed staying there but winter could be quite long living in such small quarters. We had been praying for a house, but an apartment would do fine.
It turned out to be part of our training for ministry, people from all different walks of life came into the hotel and we had many opportunities of ministering the gospel. Francille did most of the running of the place and she did a very good job. This took care of the need for us to have a place to stay during his time of training. We were learning how our Father is able to prepare provisions in ways that you wouldn’t even think of. I had given up any hope of getting any equity out of our home, because of the lean that was on the place It would be hard to even sell it and we didn’t want to have any payments to make. Therefore we were praying for the release of this burden and our Father put it in the heart of a neighbor to buy the place just the way it was with lean and all. Praise the Lord Jesus we were then free of this burden nevertheless we still remained with debt of the car.
The training was so good the word of God was becoming very challenging and edifying I was being built up in the faith of Christ and his will was being revealed to us daily. The church on the Mackenzie had broken up because almost all of the brothers had come to work in Lapine. All of us had started fellowshipping at the Bend Bible Fellowship. The fellowship was also great, every Sunday we were being brought into the presence of the Lord Jesus in a special way. I particularly liked the open fellowship we had, we didn’t have a paid Pastor but the Lord always ministered unto us through different ones, usually several would minister and the Lord would tie all the teaching of several people into one very challenging message. We could see the different ones developing their ministries each week. The prayer meetings were always well attended and the bible study also so we were being trenched in to a new life that we never new existed. The world had lost its luster and the future of serving God was getting brighter and brighter.
It was another good winter for us, their was a substantial amount of snow but the fiery trials that we were going through kept our thoughts plowing away the doubts and fears that come with uncertainties by remembering the many promises that our Lord Jesus had given. This living by faith was really different, not having any income and having four children to care for kept us in prayer and continually looking to our Lord Jesus for his provision. We were quite encouraged and challenged by Dick and Darlene York they had six children and they also had no salary but truly were living on the promises of God and we saw how God was caring for them. It seems that our Father not only wanted to teach us about trusting him for provisions but also for protection.
One Big Indian
The Bend Police Department had found out that we would take people into the hotel that were in need, so the they would bring us people from time to time.
One day they called and said they had a man who was released from prison for manslaughter, he had killed a man in a barroom fight and had spent his time in prison now he was out and he had a wife and six children who were over at the Bend City Jail and they had no place to stay. We told them that they could stay in the hotel for a while. This man’s father had won many gold medals at the Olympics but later they took them away because they found out he had played professional football. This may have contributed to the bitterness that was being displayed in his son. When he arrived at the hotel I was really sup prized at his size, he was very tall, perhaps six feet nine inches and he was not only tall but big, very big, I have never met an American Indian that big.
Francille and the girls worked real hard keeping the hotel clean and making all the beds it was a big job. Shannon was our first-born and she was only nine but she and Kimber helped. Some people were a lot harder to clean after than others. This family that we had taken in was one of the more difficult to say the least, and they were quite loud, him and her were fighting often and being a real problem. I had shared the gospel with him he listened but didn’t show much interest. It didn’t look like they had any intension of leaving they had a free ride and didn’t show any signs of wanting to leave. Then one day Francille over heard him talking to someone in Arizona, he was talking about going there and leaving his family in the hotel. Francille became very concerned because if he left them there we wouldn’t be able to kick out his family. She came to me and explained about the phone call; we then decided that it was time to ask them to leave. I went to Dick and explained the problem, he said well Jim you are the manager so tell him to leave. I confess to you I didn’t relish that thought at all in fact I didn’t want to do it and the simple reason was that I was afraid of that big Indian. So I gave it a lot of prayer believe me I prayed, it’s amazing how fear can cause one to pray. I put it off as long as I could and still retain my dignity then went up the stairs it was a long walk up the stairs and when I reached their door and knocked, it became obvious that he was expecting me, the door flew open and with one hand still on the door handle he reached out with his other hand and lifted me off my feet and pulled me in and slammed me up against the wall and shut the door all in one fluid movement. He then snapped at me, what do you want? I knew that I had better not show him any fear even though I had plenty, so I looked him in the eye and said I came to tell you that you must leave and if you won’t I will call the police. He then began to tell me what he thought of me and he used some very colorful language to do so, he did go on for the longest time, he was very angry. I was still up against the wall with my feet off the floor and I said you have until one P.M. to leave then I am calling the police. That brought another folly of verbal lashing, then finally he let me down and opened the door and told me to get out and I wasn’t at all reluctant to leave. It was then eleven A.M. And now was the long wait to see what he would do. We had some more serious prayer and thanked The Lord for having protected me and asked him to cause this man to leave without the need for calling the police. The hours were long but the time did come far to soon, I preferred to wait and give him more time but I knew this was something that I had to do, and our Lord Jesus had helped me the first time surly he will again. It was ten minutes past one and they had not come down. I then proceeded to go up the stairs and when I was about half way up, they came down. I walked right on by them and never said a word. When I reached the top I turned down the hall and I could hear him cursing me and he said, “I am going to get that so and so.” Then I heard him coming up the stairs, it sounded like he was coming real fast, I then remembered the fire escape and thought I will just run out it and shut the door. It seemed like the logical thing to do but the Spirit of the Lord said to me, “ Turn around and face him.” I had faced this man just a few hours earlier and I wasn’t real anxious to do it again. Nevertheless I did and he was right behind me, he raised up his arm and tried to take a swing at me but something was obviously holding his arm, he had a very unusual look on his face, in fact he turned pale and stood staring at me, then he turned and left. Praise Jesus for His guarding angel.
CONFERENCE
The Shield of Faith Mission used to hold three believers conferences a year and they were a tremendous blessing to all who participated in them. One of the winter conferences was held up in Washington. All the people involved in the training program were encouraged to go to them and they were encouraged to prepare a message to give during the time of open meetings. We went up on Friday and we were anxious to get the kids settled into their rooms so we didn’t stop and fill up the gas tank, we were down to about one quarter of a tank. We immediately began to soak up the rich fellowship of the saints and the ministry of the word, Shannon had been ill off and on for quite a long time she was suffering with chronic bronchitis the elders prayed for her and anointed her with oil and our father healed her and she never had the problem again. The Lord was preparing us in many ways one lesson was a little difficult for me but it was an important one, it was a lesson in humility. I had prayed for the Lord to give me something to share with the Saints. In the book of Nehemiah I found where the people of God had learned the importance of confessing their sins and I wanted to talk about that. I had never spoken in my life to such a large group and it was taking all the courage I could muster up just to get up front and speak. When I finally managed to get up there I was really nervous and I was saying things I didn’t want to say simply because I was so nervous, I said something about having sins to confess, now I didn’t have any sin to confess, so I just tried to go on and get to the message but one young man in the congregation, stopped me and said Jim if you have sin to confess you had better do it. That blew me away I then wasn’t able to go on so I took my seat, it was very humbling and I thought that would be the last time I would try that, the Father however gave me confidence later to minister His word but not in that conference. The young man technically was right but the Elders must have realized that it wasn’t that big of a deal and wouldn’t have said anything about it, giving me a chance to get on with the message. It was a learning experience. It was a good conference and we learned a lot, but one of the best lessons we learned was after the conference.
OUR FATHER IS GRACIOUS!
We left the conference Sunday night we were going to go to my Mothers and visit her for the last time before we left for Mexico. We were traveling east on Hi-way ninety; we had left Seattle heading for Idaho. It was cold and raining real hard and it was late and we had gone way up the mountain. Then I happen to look down at my gas gage and it was on the big E. I had forgotten to buy gas we had money but now there was no place to buy it, to turn back wouldn’t help it was a long way back and to go ahead was insane because it was all up hill for a very long ways. First of all I began to pray and I asked the Lord to forgive me for being so stupid and careless, some father I was to get my family in such a predicament. Then I began to say O.K. Lord Jesus if you want me to walk in the rain that is fine because I deserve it and if you want my family sitting out here along the road, while I go get fuel that’s fine. I really meant it I knew that I had no right asking for help after all it was my mistake. Then I prayed but if you wanted to you could help us, the question in my mind was, does He want to, not how would He do it? Then the car began to sputter and miss, and then it would jerk and jerk we had slowed down to just a crawl, then all of a sudden it started running good and picked up speed and never missed again. We drove and drove we were laughing and laughing and praising God, we drove for close to an hour then we saw a filling station and pulled in and told them to fill it. It took exactly the amount of Gas the tank would hold. Our father is so very gracious.
MACARONI
We stayed at my folks place a couple of days, my Mother at the time was still not born again Christian, she taught us boys many good things and I am so thankful for the Mother that God gave us. Mom was a hard worker and believed that a man should take care of his family and she was quite concerned about us going to Mexico with no visible means of support. While we were there we were in a large super market that sells groceries in bulk, and she said to me James why don’t you buy some food to take with you, I said no, Mom I don’t believe that will be necessary, she said you might need it, I replied Jesus has promised to care for us and besides our space in the van is limited. She then said,” look at these boxes of macaroni they are long but thin they should fit.” I thought that is true and who knows, we just might need it, so I bought three twenty-pound boxes, sixty pounds of macaroni. I thought its good to be prepared, what I didn’t realize was, it was our heavenly Father who was preparing, He was preparing a very important lesson for this would be Missionary. Our Father prepared a big fish to swallow Jonah, now He was preparing something for me to swallow. I was like Haman who prepared the gallows for Mordecai; he didn’t know that he was the one who would hang thereon. What seems so wise and good in our own eyes can be so foolish, when we see it from a heavenly perspective. Looking back in retrospect its good to ask your self a few questions when you feel the urge to prepare, preparation is of course very good when done for that right purpose. Am I doing this for the glory and honor of God? Or am I doing this out of fear and unbelief or am doing this so I can appear to be wise and prudent? The motive is important because we will reap what we sow.
Spring was approaching and the day we had set for our departure was April 15th, it didn’t appear that we would be able to leave from all indications, we still owed eight hundred dollars on our car and we understood that you have to show them the title at the Mexican border in order to enter their country. It was amazing on how little money we had lived on through the time of training. One day Francille ask me, “Do you still plan on leaving for Mexico?” I said yes. She then ask what if we only have ten dollars, like we have today when the time comes, what will you do? I was surprised at my reply for without even a second thought I said, “That isn’t our problem that’s the Lords’ problem, if we only have ten dollars we will leave and He will have to care for the rest.” Little did I know that about one year later we would be at the border wanting to return to Mexico, we would have two vehicles and only ten dollars to travel with and my wife would be asking that same question.
Because money was so short I began thinking what could I do to make some money. Then I remembered that we had an old car parked over in Leaburg that we hadn’t used in a long time it was a 1963 Studebaker Lark, we had bought it new and it had been a good car but it was almost ten years old and low gear was out of it. We decided to go over and dig it out of the weeds and get it running and see what we could get for it. Tuesday morning, the family and I went over together and they visited friends and I worked on the car, and looked for someone to buy it and I sold it for seventy five dollars, It was feeling good to have at least have some pocket money for awhile. Then when we were leaving to go back to Bend we met our book keeper, he said I am glad to see you, I ask him is there a problem with the taxes or something and he said no they are all paid but he had forgot to charge me his fee. I asked him how much I owed him and he said sixty-five dollars. By the time we put gas in the car to return we were back where we had started and I realized the Father wanted me to trust Him and not lean on the arm of the flesh. The Father was teaching me a new way to live.
We arrived back in Bend a little late and the next morning I met Brother York, he greeted me warmly and stuck out his big hand and shook my hand, when I pulled back my hand there was a check in it. I looked at it and it was a check for a thousand dollars. I said what’s this? He said a love offering. I was very sup prized and I ask him, how is this that you are giving me a check for a thousand dollars? Back in those days a thousand dollars was still a thousand dollars. Besides I knew my Brother Dick never had that kind of money. He said sit down and I will tell you. He said yesterday morning (Tuesday) at the breakfast table; I spoke to the family about you and your planes of going to Mexico. He said, “I don’t know how much money the Lucas’ have Jim has not said but I felt this morning while praying that we should pray for their travel expenses.” He then asked, how much money should we pray for, Steve their youngest son said lets pray for a thousand dollars. Then Ted Matfeld who was staying with them and teaching at the Christian school said, this is the Lords’ working because I also prayed this morning for the Lucas’ to receive one thousand dollars. Dick said they all then prayed for the money. He said that the children also had prayed at school for the same thing. He also explained that he went to the Tuesday night prayer meeting and they prayed again for us and shortly after praying the phone rang, it was Darlene saying that he a had a visitor at the house and he should come home. When he arrived he found an old friend he hadn’t seen in a long time and he visited for a while then as he was leaving he gave Dick a check. When the Brother had gone Dick looked at it and it was for a thousand dollars. I then said but Dick he gave the check to you. Dick said, this check is yours he said Tuesday morning we asked the Lord Jesus for a thousand dollars and Tuesday night we had a thousand dollars brought to the house this is not my money, its yours.
Right away we paid off the loan on the car and bought new tires and made ready for our trip. This took most of the thousand dollars but we both had confidence that our Lord Jesus was taking care of everything. We found envelopes of money on out table, people began handing us money; our Father is indeed Jehovah Jirah. (Our provider)
SUNDAY
We loved the fellowship of the Saints and we had grown very close to them and this was to be our last Sunday before our departure. I don’t think that I realized back then just how important it is for those who are going out into the work as missionaries to be sent out by their local Church. In Acts chapter thirteen we have this example of Paul and Barnabas being sent out, the Holy Ghost said, “Separate unto me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them.” I believe this is what happened in our case as well, the Holy Ghost had been revealing not only to the Elders but also unto most of the believers in the fellowship that He was calling out the Lucas family unto the work, of His calling. The Elders laid hands on us and prayed over us and sent us out. Dick York and Doug Childes sang the song “So Send I You” We were sent forth by the Holy Ghost unto the work. This fact later on would come to mean so much to us. It would become an anchor to our faith, God had spoken and no man can argue with that, even though later on I myself questioned why I was in such a place as our Lord Jesus had led us, because at times it seemed not to make any sense at all, then I would remember why we were there.
CHAPTER THREE
MEXICO
It was April sixteenth, nineteen, seventy two, one day later than we had planned for our departure; we had taken time to build a cover for the back of the pickup. Mel Loy had offered to help build it so we stayed one day longer; this was a real blessing from the Lord. We had our luggage bedding, dishes and personal things in the pickup and it was much better to have a proper cover instead of a tarp. However I didn’t want to delay our departure at all, I believed it to be important to get on with our Fathers business, so it was a struggle to wait another day. The commandments of the Lord Jesus are not grievous, we were going out in faith not knowing what laid in store for us, leaving our families our country and a sure dwelling place, nevertheless the joy of the Lord Jesus was our strength, and the promise of His presence was very real to us. The thoughts of what were leaving behind were pushed back by the many questions that we all had, what would this trip be like? How will we do in a land where they don’t speak our language? Will we be able to find a house and what will it be like? Will we be able to eat the food or will it be too “hot”? How will the kids get their education? How will it be having a baby in Mexico? (Francille was five months pregnant). How will we live not having any means of support? These questions did not disturb us for long. Because the pleasure of being on a mission of God overwhelms all fears and doubts, and brings the peace that passes all understanding.
In the back of the pickup was my old power saw, it was the first one I had purchased when I first went into logging; all the others that I had were much newer and better but this one had sentimental value. The others I had given away or sold and it was obvious to me that it would not be any use to us in Mexico. At the border they would surly question why we were carrying it along. This was not the only thing that I was carrying that I shouldn’t have but there also was my old deer rifle, a 300 Savage that had been a very close companion to me and had helped supply a lot of meat for the table. No doubt this would be a serious problem item for the authorities. We had decided to stop and visit a cousin of mine on the way down through California. Marge and Mel Slack, we enjoyed seeing them and it turned out they had a small tent trailer and they said they would sell or trade it. I know you guessed it, that’s right we traded the power saw and the rifle for the tent-trailer. It was a neat provision of God and I was free at last of the “things” that burden us down in life.
Our first day traveling in Mexico was a total adventure. Everything was so different for us we had never traveled out of the United States before. The border crossing went real well considering that it was our first time to enter the country, more than likely it was because of the prayers of the brothers back home that they didn’t ask for a bribe. In the many years that followed it was the cause of much concern and the way our Heavenly Father taught us of His grace. It was the way of life in Mexico to pay bribes and it was an opportunity for the life of Christ Jesus to be revealed, by refusing to pay, we were able to show them the way. The language barrier was a real challenge to us. When we had to buy gas or food or ask for directions we realized just how important it was for us to learn to speak Spanish. The plan was to go to Guadalajara, Jalisco, located in central Mexico. Guadalajara is the second largest city in the republic of Mexico with a population of two and half million people. That was in 1972 because now they have about seven million. We had prayed about the need to study Spanish and had decided that I should enroll in a language school in Guadalajara. It is about 1100 miles from the border and that was where we were headed. We didn’t know anyone there and we didn’t know how we would get along in the mean time with this problem of communication. We soon discovered that there are many ways to communicate, sign language and body language and drawing pictures in the dirt, facile expressions, pointing, laughing, grunting, moaning, looking up verses in the Bible that say what you want to say. We also learned just how much difference knowing even one word in a language could help. Our little dictionary became our crutch and everybody we met became our teacher.
The first day we traveled a long ways, we didn’t stop because we didn’t know where to park and set up the tent and we kept thinking maybe the next town would have a better location. We traveled way into the night; finally around midnight we couldn’t go any farther. We filled up with gas and I tried to ask this young man where we could park and sleep. At first he didn’t understand me, it took quite along while to get the idea across but finally he understood and he stood on the running board of the pickup and guided us out into an open field. It was a very dark night, we could not tell what was around us but we were so tired it didn’t matter. We set up the tent and crawled into our bags and slept. About five o’clock a.m. I thought I was dreaming because I could hear what I thought was a large herd of horses coming, the ground was trembling and I knew that wasn’t a dream. I looked out of the tent and a large Calvary had surrounded our tent and they were standing their horses and studying us over. I am sure that it wasn’t something normal to see gringos camping out in this field. At first I thought that they were going to tell us to leave but they rode off. And we went back to sleep then about seven o’clock I woke up to what I thought were children talking. I looked out of the tent and we were surrounded with children. We all got up and came out of the tent. Then we could see a school not to far away and about fifty kids staring at us. I took out some gospel tracts and gave to them and they became very friendly and some were trying to speak English. One boy had a horse and he let me and the kids ride it and we had a real good time with them. They made us feel welcome to Mexico.
Guadalajara was a very busy modern city with lots of hangovers of the past. You could see almost every mode of transportation in the same avenue cars, trucks, bicycles, horses and carts, and men with big sombreros riding burros. It was a very beautiful city with lots of roses and bougainvilleas. We found a trailer park in the same area that the language school was located.
FIERY TRIALS
We set up our tent and that became our first home in Mexico. The fiery trials started immediately our finances were depleting rapidly and we had no idea how our Heavenly Father planned on providing for us. We didn’t have enough money left to rent a proper house but after living in the tent for about three weeks we found a small one- room house, at least we had our own bathroom and running water. I had sent a money order of one hundred dollars to the language school. The tuition was about three hundred and fifty dollars a semester and that would need to be paid in advance. We believed it was very important for us all to learn Spanish, and we thought at least I should enter into the language school. It would be very difficult for Francille to go because of our four children. We prayed and asked our Father to make away for me to enter the school. I went to the school and talked to the director, he said he had received the hundred dollars and wanted to know if I still planed on entering the school. I said yes, Lord willing I will be coming to the school. I went on to say that at the moment I don’t have the money to pay the tuition, however if it is the will of God He will provide. Then I asked him if I could enter the school and use up the hundred dollars; if the Lord provided I would continue on if He didn’t I would just drop out. He said he had never done that before but he thought it would be fine.
Montazumas revenge hit us the change of food and water was having a strong effect on us all. Then we found out that in Guadalajara they had a lot of ameba and it can cause some serious diarrhea. The children became very sick and running high fevers. We didn’t know where to go to a doctor and we didn’t have hardy any money. We prayed and they became well all except for Kimberly our second to the oldest. She was eight years old and the fever continued and the diarrhea. She was losing weight and looking real bad, we prayed and prayed, but no improvement and it was obvious she could not go on this way much longer. Then one evening we could see that she wasn’t going to make it until morning. We decided to pray again and while we prayed the fever left and she slept and we had peace that Jesus had healed her. The next morning she was still resting well and no fever. Then Francille asked me if I knew why the Lord had healed her and I responded, I guess He wanted to. She said; “ I told the Lord it was OK for Him to take Kimberly to heaven. The Lord Jesus was waiting for this love offering and when He saw Francille’s heart, He gave Kimberly back, much like Isaac was given back to Abraham. Our heavenly Father was preparing us all and by His grace we were seeing the glory of God. Kimber didn’t tell us until later her side of the experience. That night she did die and she said that she left her body and was going to heaven and she said that she was really excited and looking forward to see what heaven would be like. An Angel stopped her and said; “ Your Mother is calling you’’. She wanted to go on but she knew if her if her Mother was calling her she needed to go back. Praise the Lord Jesus she came back and soon was well and strong.
The Spanish classes were taught in Spanish most of teachers didn’t speak English and the few who could were not allowed to teach in English. Several people in my class had studied Spanish before or lived in Latin America. This gave them a big advantage plus logging isn’t the most academic profession; therefore I really felt like I was over my head. We studied five hours a day and two weeks went by and, I still couldn’t understand the teachers. One evening while praying, I remembered that it was God who had brought in all these different languages at the tower of Babel. I then prayed for Him to give me the ability to learn the language and the very next day I began understanding for the first time.
I thought I was prepared for whatever our Father had in store for us but things were coming fast and furious. Learning to live by Faith sounds exciting and when you are bathed in all the comforts of having a regular income and the pleasure of living in an environment that you are accustomed to. They brought in a nurse to the language school to teach on some of the do’s and don’ts of living in Mexico. The food you eat and the preparation of your food was the one she talked about the most. Of course I was doing all the do nots and not doing the do’s. The nurse gave a real vivid explanation of the amebas that are found in most of the food in Mexico, especially the fruits and vegetables and told us that we shouldn’t ever eat our food without washing it first and that we should never eat off the street and only in the restaurants that are recommended. Then she explained how the amebas are very dangerous to your health and can cause many problems when they get in your brain and can damage your organs. I felt guilty of endangering my wife and children to such things because we had been eating food that was sold off the street and we had not taken any different precautions than normal in washing of our food. Beside this there was the problem of not having car insurance, it was not required by law but everyone assured me if we had an accident that they will put you in jail without a trail and getting out of jail always requires money and because you are from the USA, they will expect you to pay plenty. We didn’t have the money to buy insurance; but Jesus was our assurance that everything would be all right.
Our little one room house was getting smaller as time went on and the food situation was getting very interesting. We were thankful that we had brought the macaroni and it tasted fine for a while especially with nice things like tomatoes and onions. Then we had it with milk but soon these things were all gone and we were eating plain macaroni. That is for breakfast, lunch and supper. I begin to realize that I had not trusted our Lord Jesus when I bought all this macaroni. Then we ran out of salt, and then it was getting quite difficult to swallow. We were sitting down to eat our macaroni and Shannon our first-born said; “ The Lord Jesus can provide better than this”. I replied, “ Yes, and He will as soon as we eat all this macaroni ”. We had a few pesos but very few and we had heard about a large open market and we went looking for it but we didn’t find it because our car was almost out of gas and we weren’t able to keep looking. Several days later we finished up the last of the macaroni. The gas gage said empty but we got in the car to go and look one more time for the market and we were driving along and one of the kids said; “ What is that “. It turns out that we had driven right by the market before but had not seen it. It was a real treat that day just buying the simplest vegetables and fruits. We even made it back to the house without running out of gas.
Our mail was coming to the language school and finally a little money was sent to us, cash in with a letter, not the safest means but it sure caused us to thank our Lord Jesus for watching over us. The need for a house was our biggest concern and we had asked around and were told about an area of Guadalajara called Legaspi. They had told us that houses could be rented there much cheaper than the area of the language school. There were quite a few “ Gringos” (that is what they call someone from the U.S.A.) living in that area therefore the rent was higher. We also thought it would be better for ministry sake to live where the common people live. Praise the Lord we found a two-bedroom house on a quite street called Isla Antigua. (Antique Island)
We had a refrigerator loaned to us and we bought a gas stove. We all slept on foam pads on the floor, we had table and chairs and one piece of furniture in the living, a love seat. This small two bedroom house was very adequate and a big blessing.
There was a man and his wife who came to the language school who lived in the area. We took turns driving to school. One day he asked me if I had insurance on the car and I told him no. He let me know that wasn’t very wise and he kept bringing it up now and again. He also told me he had a good alarm system on his pick-up and he always parked it right next to his bedroom. One morning they came late and they came in a taxi. They came into the house and right away you knew something was wrong, they were very upset, I thought perhaps someone had died or became quite ill but it turned out that their new Ford Pick-up had been stolen. Some how the thieves had managed to steal it right out from under their window. I then knew that assurance in Jesus was much better than the best insurance of man.
Due to the talks in the school from the nurse and to the custom my Mother had of scalding the dishes in boiling water after washing the dishes. I had been insisting that we scald all of our dishes. One afternoon Shannon burned herself not real bad but it could have been bad. The Lord Jesus showed me that we should live the way the Mexicans live and He would be with us and in this way we would reach them. So I told Francille she could wash her dishes just like the neighbors. It was much easier, they just used the water out of the tap and it wasn’t water that you could drink and even smelled at times. We also ate wherever the people eat and at times it wasn’t that clean. This became our way of life to live like the people and our Lord Jesus kept us healthy year after year.
THE BABY
We had been in Mexico five months. The time for the baby to be born was approaching therefore we asked around and we were told about a Hospital called the American Baptist that had been built by the Baptist Church and turned over to the local people to run. They said it was a fairly good hospital and we decided to take Francille there. The plan was to keep gas in the car and when the time became close at hand, I would leave the car at home and if Francille began having any contractions at all she would get in the car and drive immediately to he Language school to pick me up and I would drive her to the hospital. Francille always delivered her babies very quickly and we knew that we wouldn’t have any too much time. It was a good thing that we had this plan and that my dear wife is very brave and able to keep her wits about her and managed to get the children in the car and drive over to the language school. We hurried to the hospital and parked out front, I rushed Francille in and told the receptionist that my wife was about to deliver her baby. (I could communicate in Spanish by this time not without error but I could make my self-understood.) She told us to take a seat and didn’t seem to be concerned at all, we sit there for a while and I kept telling the receptionist that she would have the baby soon but she didn’t do anything. I then went down the hall through some big doors and walked into a group of four or five doctors standing around laughing and passing around a bottle of liquor. They looked surprised to see me and I thought they acted a little guilty. They asked me what I wanted and I told them that my wife was going to have a baby and they told me to go back out front and see the receptionist and I told them, no, my wife is going to have the baby any minute now. Finally one of them said that he would attend her, I asked him if he thought that he was in good enough condition to be able and he said that he was. It turned out that he wasn’t able but one of the younger ones took over and our son Steven was born. He had red hair and soon became the most popular one in the hospital. He was born on September seventh a holiday. Steven brought an air of excitement into the house and neighbor hood, all the children wanted to hold him and many of the neighbors as well.
We had three children that were school age and we didn’t have them in school. We had decided that the best thing would be to home school them. We had heard about some real good Christian Home School Programs but we didn’t have the money to pay for them. A lot of prayer had been made and much discussion, it was a major concern and the months were passing. Our heavenly Father assured us by giving us promises from the word and these promises meant a lot to us. They gave us much hope in the months of waiting upon God. Sometimes I felt very guilty that our children weren’t in school. However I now realize that they were learning many things that would benefit them for the rest of their lives, they were learning to speak the Spanish Language, learning a new culture and most important learning the faithfulness of God. One day Ken Lowery a Brother who was going to the same Language School asked me if we could use some books for our children? I said yes, he then asked what grades were they in and I told him. He looked surprised and said, “I have three complete sets for the same grades that you need and we are not going to use them and I want to give them to you.” We rejoiced much in the faithfulness of Our Lord Jesus.
The books were great with teacher’s edition for each book. Now all we have to do is teach our children. To teach them would require a lot of time and I believed it important for me to continue studying Spanish in order to be able to preach the gospel. I studied every morning and I went out in the afternoons to give out literature and practice talking to the people. Francille was very anxious for the children to continue their studies. She said that she would teach them. We decided to hire someone to help with the housework but the woman we hired wasn’t the best worker and my wife went around after she left and redid everything. Caring for five children and teaching them four hours a day was a monumental task. After a few months of this I told Francille to put the books back in the boxes. We will pray and ask the Lord Jesus to provide us with a teacher. She did but reluctantly.

Sometimes the children would get concerned when they knew that we were out of money. On one occasion Shannon knew that we needed money to buy food so she told us that she had some money in her piggy bank and said we could use it to buy food with, I told her that we really appreciated it but that we couldn’t use it because the banks wouldn’t exchange small change only bills. She said why not its’ money? I then remembered when Jesus fed five thousand people with a small boys lunch, a few fish and a couple pieces of bread. I then told Shannon to bring her bank and she did, we shook out the money and counted it, there was one dollar and twenty-five cents. We prayed and asked our Lord to bless it. Then we went to the bank and asked them to exchange it for pesos, they said that they didn’t take small foreign change. We prayed again and went to another bank, they told us the same thing. We then prayed again and went to the third bank. This time they said no problem and gave us the dollar and a quarter in Mexican Pesos. We prayed that the Lord Jesus would touch the people’s heart at the market because usually when they saw that you were a gringo they would charge you about double the regular price. We went to the large market called Abastos with several shopping bags. The first thing we bought were potatoes, I told the man to give us three pesos worth. He weighed them out and put them in our bag, he looked into our bag at the few potatoes and then at the large pile that he had and put in a lot more. I protested but he motioned for me to be quite, we thanked him and moved on. We were amazed this conduct was totally contrary to previous experiences. We found carrots and asked for three pesos worth, much to our amazement this man did exactly what the potato man had done. The zucchini, cabbage, onions, cheese, beans, rice, everyone had the exact desire to give us much more than what we had paid for. The market is very big and we were moving all about looking for the different things we wanted to buy. Therefore none of the people were aware of what the others were doing, each one thought he had a very unique idea. By this time we were all ecstatic and our shopping bags full. On our way out of the market their was a man who was motioning for our son Richard (who was four years old) to come to him, I told Richard it was OK for him to go. The man gave him a large watermelon it was all he could do to carry it. We were all laughing and waving and thanking the man while Richard staggered back. The dollar and twenty- five cents from the piggy bank bought enough food to last us seven full days. The food tasted better than normal and every day we were conscious of the blessing of God.

The morning of the seventh day we had breakfast and after breakfast Francille pointed out to me that the food was finished. The honeymoon was over and I felt so helpless, so I went back into the bedroom and began to discuss my problem with the Lord Jesus. I reminded Him that it was against the law for me to work in Mexico and that He would not want me to beg. I also reminded him that we had come to Mexico only under His command. I talked to him about the need for food in the house. While I was praying I was reminded of the Prophet Elijah, who was told to go out in the dessert and hide by the brook Cherith during the time of the drought. He was told that the raven was commanded to feed him there. Elijah did as he was told and every morning the raven brought him bread and flesh and again in the evening the same. I could see Elijah on the first morning waiting for his delivery. I am sure his eyes were on the sky- line wondering from which direction the raven would come. I imagined he would come out of his cave and check ever so often for the expected visitor. Faith in the promise of God put great expectation in his heart. I knew then what it was that God was looking for in me. He wanted to see this spirit of expectation, the joy of the Lord Jesus came into my heart and I began to look all around the room, for the money I had asked for, I looked in all of my pockets and kept wondering where am I going to find it. It was time for me to go to the language school so I left for school but I assured Francille that the Lord was going to supply. I was walking because the car was out of gas and as I was walking I continued looking for the money. I had walked for about fifteen minutes when I looked down and right in front of me was laying a hundred peso bill (at that time that was eight dollars) after having the wonderful experience of eating for a week on a dollar and twenty- five cents, this was a sizeable amount. When I saw the bill I reached down and picked it up and jumped in the air and said, Praise the Lord. There was two men and a boy who were there pulling an old cart full of trash paper that they pick up and sell for recycling. These poor people live so meagerly off the trash of the land and Jesus was giving me the riches of His grace. They witnessed the whole event and stood looking in awe; I then began to speak in Spanish way beyond my ability and told them that I had a wife and five children at home with no food or money. I explained to them how I had prayed and that Jesus had heard me and that’s why they were seeing me find this money in this manner. They began to weep and said that they also wanted to believe in Jesus, I had great liberty in sharing the gospel with them and prayed with them in Jesus name. I still had three pesos left from the piggy bank money and I gave it to them.

I walked on with great joy in my heart and a car pulled over to give me a ride it was one of the brothers who I went to school with. I was speaking to him of the great things our Lord was doing, he did rejoice with me in the faithfulness of God. The story then went around the language school amongst the Missionaries and I had mixed emotions about that, in some ways I was embarrassed in others I was glad because I believed it was bringing glory to our Lord Jesus. Before the day was over I had about seven hundred pesos in my pocket from different brothers who wanted to give. Some even came by the house later with boxes of food. From that time on the brothers in the school looked at me a little different, they really couldn’t understand why we did things the way we did but it seems they had a respect for our walk with the Lord.
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Chapter Four
Fields White Unto Harvest!
Mexico is a close neighbor to the United States but the cultural differences are many. The language of course, the food, and the social life; however the greatest shock for me was the multitudes of people without the gospel, and the darkness of their religion. In every village you would see people living in the most humble adobe houses but in the center of town you would find a very large elaborate Catholic Church filled with idols. All of these expensive building were built by the natives with their money. The bondage of their religion was a very grievous thing to see. The Church always charged them for everything, from the cradle to the grave. They paid the Priest for every mass to baptize their babies, for first communion, or weddings. I met a young man one time that was very upset with this costume. His father had passed away and he wasn’t real sure that his father was in heaven. He talked to the Priest about it and he told him that his father was in purgatory and the only hope he could have would be for the priest to have some special masses just for him, and each mass the family would have to pay for. The exploitation did not even stop at the grave. Multitudes of people everywhere you looked kept in darkness by tradition and idolatry these two chains are much stronger than you might think. The only thing that can free them is the truth of Gods word. It surprised me to find that very few people had a bible in their home, I was surprised because after all ninety eight percent of them were Roman Catholic. They had been in this condition for about five hundred years. Obviously The Church was not encouraging them to read the Word of God. When I asked if they were told to read the Bible they said, no, they tell us that we should not read the Bible, that is for the priests to do.

We distributed thousands and thousands of gospel tracts, New Testaments and Bibles. Most of the time the people were glad to receive them and read them right away. Other times they wouldn’t if the Priest was telling them not to. In many villages the people would be receiving them real well then one day you would go back and they wouldn’t take even a gospel tract. We found out later once the Priest told them not to receive our literature and they did, they would come under attack by the Church and the rest of the village.

The absence of the word of God in a nation brings a darkness that is tangible. Man is left with his imagination, superstition, tradition of his fathers and the dogmas of the religious leaders who are blind themselves. After five hundred years living this way, truth no longer seems important, what is important is keeping the tradition and teachings of the Church. The truth of Gods word had little authority (in the mind of the people) in comparison to what the Priest or Pope teach. The word of God however is the final word that all men will be judged by and when it is preached in faith, it will break every fetter and will not return void. When you speak the word with passion and conviction, you can see the darkness flee.

Mary is loved and worshiped and all good Catholics pray to Mary. They are told that she is much more tender hearted than the Father therefore its better to go to her. They also teach that she is the Mother of God. They all have statues of her and other “saints” in their homes and churches, they bow down to them and pray to them daily. They carry crucifixions with a dead Jesus on their necks, much is said about how Christ suffered and how we need to suffer and very little is said about the resurrection of Jesus. They keep the coffins of the former priest in the basement of their churches and I saw people kneeling down and knocking on the coffins and praying to the dead priest. On several occasions I was trying to give bibles to some, who told me they didn’t know how to read and the reason they didn’t know how to read was because their priest had told them it was a sin to read. Much more could be said about the darkness but it isn’t my desire to glorify the works of darkness but it is necessary to understand the need for the word of God.

From our first day in the country we tried to bring the gospel to our Mexican neighbors. We used literature a lot, the children loved giving it out and the people enjoyed seeing the children and would take it and thank them very enthusiastically. Everywhere we went we blazed a trail of gospel tracts behind.

The work in the city was a real challenge you could stand on a busy street corner and give out five thousand tracts in an hour. There were many parks and plazas throughout the city where people always had time to talk.

Daily we were learning to speak Spanish a little better. The children were learning quickly and Francille was learning from neighbors one neighbor lady was a retired schoolteacher who taught her some but mostly Francille learned by reading the labels on canned food and hymnbooks and because she had such a tremendous memory she learned to speak good Spanish. At first I did most of the buying of the food and things for the home. My wife was reluctant to go to the market on her own but she did and then she began to learn quickly.

The villages of Mexico had a strong pull on my heart from the beginning. Sixty-five percent of the nations population lived in the rural communities. I prayed and ask our Father what His will was. Should I concentrate on the City or go to the villages? He gave me the verse that says; “Blessed are ye that sow by many waters, that sendeth forth thither the feet of the ox and the ass.” Is.32:20 Our Father was giving me the ministry of evangelism. I had great pleasure in preaching the word everywhere, cities and villages alike. He showed me to preach His word and those who are His will hear His voice and follow Him. Also He promised; “So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” Is.55:11
We like to see the results of our labor and we have so little patience in the preaching of the word but we must remember we do not labor alone but we labor with Jesus and with the body of Christ. Paul explained it in this fashion; “ I planted, Apollo’s watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither he that planteth is any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase. Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are labourers together with God.” 1 Cor.3:6-8

LABORING WITH JESUS
The gas gage was low so I pulled in to buy some fuel at the Pemex Station. I was going out to a village not to far out of town to preach, there at the gas station were two young guys wanting a ride. They were about fifteen or sixteen years old. They both had long hair (back in nineteen seventy two the real modern guys would follow the hippy trend of the United States.) I told them to get in and we headed down the road. I reached in my pocket and gave them a couple of gospel tracts. Their strong reaction when I did this really caught me by surprise. They looked at each other with a very peculiar look on their faces. I asked them. “Que passa?” (What’s up?) They would not reply, they just looked at each other and acted very strange. I then pulled over to the side of the road and stopped. This obviously worried them, I asked them again why they reacted so strongly when I gave them the gospel literature. It turns out that they were from the state of Colima but had left their homes in order to go to the United States. They were young to set out on such an adventure but they had braved their way all the way to the border of the United Sates, only to be turned back by the Border Patrol. All they could do was go back home. They proceeded back with heavy hearts and their youthful pride almost destroyed. It is 1160 miles from the Border to Guadalajara, which means that they will be riding in a lot of different vehicles with an assorted type of people. In 1972 Mexico was 98% Catholic and the number of born again believers was very limited. They reacted strongly when I had given them the gospel literature because I was the sixth preacher in succession to pick them up and they had the gospel tracts in their pockets to prove it. Good literature that presented the gospel of Christ. They were well prepared to give their lives to Jesus they had been humbled (plowed) they had heard the word from five different brothers, who had sowed and watered and the Lord Jesus was giving the increase. They ended up staying in our home a few days and they were hungry for the word of God and received Christ as their Lord and were baptized and went on their way. We have not seen them since but we will no doubt see them again.

Zanida
In the barrio of the city where we were living there wasn’t an evangelical Church or any Christians, that we were aware of, then one day in a small tendita (store) I met Zanida. It was like finding a lone flower in a big desert, what a delight it was to meet her. She had lived for a while up by the border and had become saved and she really loved Jesus and was not ashamed to speak out for Him. She had eight children and none of them or her husband knew the Lord. She was overjoyed when she found out that we were living right down the street from her. She was very hungry for fellowship and teaching. Right away we started having bible studies in her home. At first things were going fairly good, not all of her children were interested but some were. Jose (her husband) wasn’t at all neither was Jorge (George) their elder son. In fact Jorge was a bit of a problem at times. He ran with a gang in the city and was mixed up in drugs and who knows what all. For example one day he came in while we were having a bible study and you knew right away that he wasn’t to happy about my being there, he went back into his bedroom and fired his thirty eight caliber pistol. With this type of disruptions we decided to move the studies to our home. The ones who wanted to come could and those who didn’t want it wouldn’t be forced to hear what they didn’t care to hear. This seemed to be the best arrangement but the warfare continued. One day Zanida came and wanted to talk; she said I believe I should leave my husband. I asked her why? She said he is standing between God and me. He doesn’t want me to come to the bible studies or to the Sunday service. He won’t let me read the bible to my children; so what do you think, should I leave him? She was very surprised when I told her no don’t leave him. She was saying but I want my children to know the Lord Jesus and he will not allow it. I opened up my bible and showed her 1Cor.7:13-17 “ And the woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy. But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart. A brother or sister is not under bondage in such cases: but God hath called us to peace. For what knowest thou, o wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband? Or how knowest thou, o man whether thou shalt save thy wife? But as God hath distributed to every man, as the Lord hath called every one, so let him walk. And so ordain I in all churches.” Then we read in I Peter 3:1 “Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation(conduct) of the wives.”

Zanida asked but doesn’t the Lord Jesus want us to teach our children and are we not commanded to not forsake the assembling with Christians? I replied that is correct but He also teaches that the wife is to submit herself unto her husband and according to what we just read, the husband may be won by the good conduct of their wives. I then suggested to her to go home and say to Jose, you know that the word of God teaches us to not forsake the assembly of the Saints and you know that I want to do obey the Lord Jesus in this and you also know that we are to train up our children in the way of God. However the bible also teaches me to obey my husband therefore if you say I should not do these things, I won’t, but the responsibility will be on you and the blood of our children will be on your head. She then looked at me and said I will do it; I will go and tell him that I will obey him and that he will be responsible for eternal state of our children.

It was amazing how quick our Father began to honor our Sister in her obedience of faith. Within a very short time he began dealing with Jose. First of all Jorge was arrested and sentenced to five years in prison. Then the bank wanted to foreclose on their home. Their fifteen year old daughter Marta went school one day and didn’t return they had no idea what had happened to her. Jose became very sick and was having heart attacks. Zanida understood what our Father was doing and she took courage in the promise of God. With this type of pressure Jose was humbled and found faith in God he repented of his sin and was baptized. Right after he gave his life to Christ, his daughter Marta came back, confirmation that our Father was pleased. Several of the children made professions of faith and our Sister Zanida was growing quickly in the Lord Jesus. Even Jorge came to Christ but not until he had spent his five years in prison. His conversion came after he was released from prison and he was back on the streets running with his old “friends”. One day he and one of his cohorts was robbing a drug store and was fleeing on a motor cycle and they lost control of the motorcycle on a corner and dumped it. The police shot them and Jorge was hit with a thirty-eight-caliber pistol, five times. Through prayer our Father him back from the brink of destruction, healed him and saved him. Jorge then married a very fine Christian young lady (Blanca) and they have five children. Then some years later were sent out to North Africa as Missionaries.

Ignacio and Lilia Noceda
We had our bus parked on Isla Antigua Street and Francille would make pancakes every morning the window was down and the aroma of her pancakes went up and down the street according to the breeze. Pancakes are not very common in Mexico, people know about them but back in 1972 very few people had eaten them. Lila had been savoring the aroma of these pancakes for several mornings finally she couldn’t resist any longer. She came and asked my wife if she could have the recipe. This is the way that we became acquainted with the Noceda family. Francille taught her how to make the pancakes and they really enjoyed them. They became very friendly and ask a lot of questions, like what are you doing here and then what do you believe? They were all Roman Catholic but they had become disillusioned with the blat ten hypocrisy. Lila especially was confused because when she was a young girl she was very faithful to the church and spent a lot of time with the nuns. There was a convent not far from her home. Then one day they began to tear down the old convent building. I believe they had to remove it for a new expressway. The old building was made of adobe walls, which are about two feet thick. The community was quite shocked when they found the corpse of several small babies buried in the walls of the convent. This plus many other things that she had seen in her life had totally disillusioned her from having any confidence in the Catholic Church. She had studied with the Jehovah Witnesses
But had not come to any conclusion of what she believed.

Ignacio was inquisitive and seemed to really want to know the truth but he also was very careful and wanted to know what we believed on everything. Un like a lot of the people, he had great respect for the word of God. Because my Spanish was so limited every time he would ask me a question I would look up a verse and show him and he would read it. He asked me question after question and every time we would look in the bible for the answer. He testified later that he soon realized that he was not arguing with Jaime (that’s what they call me) but with God. After several sessions like this in there in his home Ignacio was ready to give his life to Jesus. Lila really wanted to but she was afraid, she had been deceived before and totally confused by the Jehovah Witnesses. I don’t think I have seen anyone want to know the truth and yet be so totally confused as her. Ignacio prayed and told Jesus that he was ready for him to take charge of his life. Lila had her head bowed for a long time then she finally lifted up her head and with tears running down her face said; I know now that Jesus is the way. She said while she was praying she saw a white dove, it came three times and each time she heard a voice saying “Yo SoY “ in English means “I am”. Jesus saw her heart and she found Him that day.

Trino and Lupe
Trino and Lupe also lived in the same neighborhood; Lupe was the first one to show interest in her family and invited us over to their house. They had a big family plus Lupe’s Mother lived with them and Lupe’s sister. Over a course of time things were coming to a head. One afternoon I was there in their home sharing the gospel and they were ready to give their lives to Jesus and repent of their sins. Then Gabriela, their twenty year old daughter, came home from work and found us turning her world upside down. She did not like the idea of their family leaving the traditions that they had been taught and she turned on me with a barrage of questions. I finally was able to convince her to give me her questions one at a time. She did this and our Heavenly Father was giving me verses for every question that she brought forth and just like Ignacio she soon found that she was not simply arguing with this American but with God and His word. It wasn’t long and soon the most of the family was giving their hearts to God, Gabriela included. The one that wasn’t there that day was Trino but I was able to talk with him later, on several occasions. He seemed to know that word of God is indeed the authority that we must submit to but refused to do so. He treated me with respect but didn’t show any signs of repentance. Then one day I had opportunity to share a story with him. I told him a story I had heard about a certain Grandma who had a mule and Grandma was getting elderly and wasn’t able to work the mule. The neighbor was interested in buying the mule from Grandma and she assured him that it was a good mule but if you want the mule to work for you, you will have to learn to speak nicely to him or he won’t work. The neighbor agreed to do as Grandma suggested and bought the mule. He hooked up the mule to the plow, and then he stood in front of the mule and said some very nice things to him. After sweet-talking the mule, he then proceeded to work the mule but to his amazement the mule would not budge after a long session of frustrated efforts he gave up. He then returned to Grandmas house and told her that the mule would not work. She asked did you talk nicely to him? He said in a
Desperate voice, yes, I did and he still will not work at all. Ok says Grandma lets go see the mule. On the way over she picked up a large green stick and when they arrived to his farm she walked up to the mule and lifted the heavy stick and hit the mule right between the ears. The mule fell to his knees and the man then looked at Grandma in unbelief and said but you said to speak nice to him. Grandma then replied of course but you must first get his attention.

I said; “Trino the Lord loves you but he will get your attention” When he heard that he looked very frightened, he didn’t say much but I knew he understood perfectly. Just a few days later they came to tell me that Trino had been in an accident. He was a salesman and he would leave very early in the mornings with his briefcase and catch a city bus. There weren’t many people out that time in the morning. He had been waiting for some time for the bus leaning up against the wall. When the bus was pulling up he stepped forward, he said there was no one around when he stepped forward but something hit him very hard on his back knocking him flat and when he hit the side walk he shattered his elbow and did some damage to his shoulder. He was telling me the story with his arm in a cast and tears in his eyes he knew God had sent his angel to get his attention. Trino was quite ready to hear all that our Father had to say to him that day.
Jesus is the Lord of the harvest and the Fields are surly white unto Harvest.

Chapter Five

Our first trip home.
Our Father had done great things, in a year and a half he had enabled us to learn the Spanish language, we had a son added to our family, one daughter given back to us from heaven, we had seen again and again the miraculous provision of our Lord Jesus to provide our every need. Most important, we had the wonderful privilege of seeing people come to salvation in Christ Jesus. I believe we must have become weary and felt it was time to take a break. We had the bus (that was converted into a Motor Home) and it seemed like it would be good to go back to the States for a few months for a little rest.
As usual our financial situation was very poor but we knew that our Lord Jesus could make it possible and if it was his will for us to go he would take care of every need. We prayed and we had confidence that Jesus was saying that we should go. It is about 2600 miles from Guadalajara to Lea burg Oregon. Normally you can drive it easily in five or six days. Little did we know that this trip would take us thirty. We would have numerous breakdowns and run out of money four times. It was always my custom whenever I was on a trip to try and get there as soon as possible. We were only on the road a short time and we had some mechanical failures, I don’t recall now what they were but we had several little things fail on the bus. We were able fix them and continue. What troubled me most was the loss of time, I really wanted to keep going because the bus was slow moving and I thought we needed to keep traveling if we were ever going to reach Oregon. Several days later we were still grinding up the road in the Sonora Desert in northern Mexico. At noon we pulled over in the middle of nowhere and had lunch in the bus. I should mention that we were driving two vehicles. When you are living in Mexico as a tourist you cannot leave the country without taking with you your transport. Francille was driving the Ford Station Wagon. It was a scorching hot day and as soon the dishes were cleaned up we started out again. I pulled the bus out onto the hi-way and immediately the motor made a terrible clattering noise, I shut it down right away but I knew there was something broken in the engine. If I remember correctly we had about forty dollars in our possession. I had tools with me and I had learned quite bit about mechanics in the logging business but I did not consider my self to be a good mechanic by any means. The first thing we did was gather together and pray because we knew we were in trouble unless Jesus would some how help us. A truck pulled over and offered to pull us to a small village down the road a ways that seemed like our only option so we accepted his offer. The village was called Benjamin Hill; it turned out to be about two houses and a wide place to park. We were thankful to at least be off the hi-way. The trucker charged us twenty dollars for his service, now we had the big some of twenty dollars and a broken down motor. Something else that added a great deal to our afflictions was that some how we had contracted pinkeye and it was going through the family several of us were really suffering with some very nasty eyes.It must have been about 120 degrees Fahrenheit at the time. One man who seemed to know some about mechanics thought the timing chain might be broken. I didn’t have a motor manual and I wasn’t sure what I was doing
but I went to work. First I had to remove the radiator it was quite big and heavy, I managed that then I was able to get to the cover that I thought was the timing chain I removed it only to discover that it didn’t have a timing chain but it had gears instead and they were fine. The heat was very devastating for the whole family. It was making my job very difficult; the motor was so hot you could hardly touch it. I thought the problem then must be in the engine itself, so began removing the head, my eyes were really giving me fits with the sweat pouring into them and I couldn’t hardly see what I was doing. Wouldn’t you know it, a verse from the scripture came to my mind. “ Count it all joy when you fall into divers temptations..” It stopped me cold, I couldn’t believe that God would want me to praise him for this. I knew that I should praise him and in many difficulties prior to this time I would praise him in the heat of the situation and give him thanks. I said Lord if I said praise the Lord right now I would be a hypocrite. I knew I had no praise in my heart and I knew that was a serious problem. So I stopped working and went into the bus for my bible. I sat down in the seat of the bus and with greasy hands opened up my bible. I found the verse in James chapter one verse two, I wanted to read it in its context and see if there was something that would help me understand why I should be giving praise to God in this devastating situation. “ My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;” I thought, yep that’s the verse. Then I read on.
“ Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.” I thought I don’t want to hear about patience. I only want to get this bus fixed so we can get back on the road again. Then I read on. “ But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.” The patience, that I was despising, is what I needed most, because patience would make us perfect and entire lacking nothing. The light came on and the joy of the Lord Jesus came into my heart and with tears in my eyes I said to my loving wife; “This is great it’s going to make us perfect.” At first she didn’t understand what could make me so joyful but when I explained she understood. I went back to work even though nothing had changed we were still broken down and didn’t know how or when we would be delivered but we knew Jesus was not only in control but he was doing a very special work, far more important than our petty concerns. It’s amazing how much different it was, understanding God had a purpose and we were no longer concerned about the time. We were content with being in the middle of nowhere but in the center of Gods will and his loving care. It is true that the Joy of the Lord, is your strength. The sore eyes, the heat, the lack of money nor the concern for our children could quench the joy and the peace that we found in Jesus, in this time of trouble.

When the head was finally removed I found a broken valve. We needed a machine shop to clean the head and seat the valves. The closest place of any size was Hermosillo seventy-eight miles back. Some of the children went with me in the Ford and some stayed with Francille in the bus. Thanks to our Lord Jesus our gas tanks were full. I didn’t like leaving Francille, but it seemed we didn’t have any choice. She assured me that she didn’t mind staying. At least there was water and some food in the bus. I drove quite fast and we found a machine shop right away in Hermosillo. I didn’t have a clue how much they would charge for doing this work but gave them the head and told them to fix it. Then I prayed and reminded the Lord Jesus that he would have to pay the bill. The kids and I went to a park and had some prayer then waited and relaxed for several hours while they did the work. We went back to pick it up at the time appointed and when I ask them how much I owed, the man said in pesos how much and it worked out to be exactly twenty U.S. dollars. On the way back I thought, I didn’t buy a head gasket, and then I remembered that in my toolbox there was a tube of permatex and with that the old gasket would be fine. Jesus knows every little detail of our needs and he looks after us.
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I believe it took most of the next day to get everything back together and to get the bus running again. It was a tremendous blessing to hear that old motor running smoothly again. Then the following day we left for the border. The border was one hundred and seventy miles, we didn’t have any money but we had the peace of God and the Joy of the Lord. I was confident that we had plenty of fuel to make it to the border. I was praying however that our Father would enable us to reach Mesa, Arizona where some friends of ours lived, Ben and Maud Singletary, and they also were missionaries and had worked in Mexico for quite a few years. Mesa was about 178 miles beyond the border. It would be close according to our calculations to stretch our gas that far. It looked as if we were going to reach their house after all, we were only about two miles from their house and we ran out of gas in the bus. The bus came to a stop right in front of a phone booth. I had a dime in my pocket
back then that was all you needed to make a local call. I just set there in the seat for quite awhile, Francille ask, why don’t you call Brother Ben? I replied, I don’t know, she said, I know you are too proud. She was right of course, so I made the call. The conversation went something like this, hello Ben, this is Brother Lucas, he replied praise the Lord, where are you? I said I am at such and such a street. He replied well come on over to the house. I was real slow in responding; he said I will be right there. When he arrived he had several cans of gas. Ben Singletary was always full of praise and always ready to serve. He was very sensitive to our situation and welcomed us with such love that you did not feel like you were a burden. We had always enjoyed their fellowship immensely; our time with them was totally refreshing.

I called the office from Ben’s house. I will need to explain about the Mission Office. When we went out as Missionaries we were sent out by the Bend Bible fellowship. Finances that were sent to us were either sent by individuals or by the Church, sometimes this was a little risky some individuals sent us cash in the mail. After our arriving in Guadalajara we received an offer to have our finances sent to us through the Shield of Faith Mission. (The name later was changed to Shield of Faith Mission International or SFMI) They said that we would receive one hundred percent of what was given they would hold nothing out. Dick York remember, is the one who taught the training center in Bend, he had revived the organization that he had established back in nineteen hundred and fifty three. The vision for the Mission was to be a tool, to facilitate the Church in the carrying out of the Great Commission. It was not intended for it to become a denomination. The mission doesn’t have money to support anybody they simply channel the funds to the Missionaries.
I called the office to see if they had any money there for us and they said, yes, there is some money here for you. It was one hundred dollars. I ask them to please mail it to Ben Singletary’s address, and they said they would. We waited at Ben and Maud’s until the money arrived it took close to a week. Ben was overhauling a Volkswagen Bug; we worked on the bug each day and had great fellowship. Ben was always telling us some great adventure he had with the Lord; he had lots of good testimonies. They had a big yard and the kids enjoyed that. I remember one day we came in for lunch and Maud was fixing sandwiches, I ask what are you fixing now? Maud had been preparing some fine meals but I thought peanut butter and dill pickles was rather unusual. She laughed and said, don’t judge until you have tried it. I joked with her about testing the missionaries to see if they would eat what ever is put before them. Thanks to Maud I learned that peanut butter and dill pickles make great sandwiches. (Ben and Maud some years later have passed on to be with our Lord Jesus, we do miss them.)

We had decided to leave the Ford there with Ben and pick it up on our way back down to Mexico. When the money came, we were getting ready to leave and Francille began to have a very bad tooth ache. I said we will take you to the dentist she kept saying it wasn’t necessary and I kept insisting that she see a dentist. A hundred dollars isn’t any too much money to travel with your family from Mesa, Arizona to Lea burg, Oregon especially with a bus that only gets about seven miles to the gallon of gas. I knew she was concerned about the money but I was concerned about her discomfort caused from her tooth. I took her to the dentist and he found two teeth that were bad and he pulled them. It cost us thirty dollars after filling up with gas we were almost broke again. Our next stop was to be Yucca Valley, California this is where Francilles’ Grandparents lived. We had planned on stopping to visit them. Yucca Valley was just a little more than three hundred miles, if everything went well we should be able to make it there on the money we had. The Grandparents were not Christian and we did not want to be a burden to them because we wanted to be a good testimony to them. Francilles parents were also to meet us there. Francilles Dad (Gabe) was working on a job for Becthel Engineering, putting in a rapid transit system, in San Francisco. They knew we were coming out and had decided on meeting us there, at the grandparents place.

Before we had left Guadalajara, a check had been sent down from the States that hadn’t been signed. The bank in Guadalajara mailed it back, I told them to have the check sent to Yucca Valley, thinking it might come in handy. We didn’t know if it would be there or not but we were praying that it would be there. It was so very hot about the only way you could survive was by keeping a wet, wash, cloth and passing it around one to another. We didn’t have an air conditioner, I felt bad for the kids so we stopped at a Dairy Queen to buy some ice cream cones. I remember the ladies face when I told her I wanted seven ice cream cones, I didn’t understand why she looked so peculiar. But I was soon to find out by the time I got out to the bus they had all melted, just a sweet syrup was left in the cones and all over my hands.
The children were very disappointed to say the least. We did have some problems with the bus but they weren’t serious and when we arrived at the Grandparents the check was there. Praise the Lord Jesus, we didn’t tell anybody about the many problems we had or that we were out of money nor how much we needed that check.

Francilles parents weren’t there yet but they came a couple of days later; it ended up that we stayed with the Grandparents about a week. Then her parents decided to follow us up Hi way 99 as far as Modesto, then they would go on to Frisco and we would travel on north to Oregon. We still had almost a thousand miles to travel even though the bus didn’t get good mileage it did have large fuel tanks, it not only operated on regular gas but also propane if you filled both tanks you could travel about six to seven hundred miles. I don’t remember for sure what it cost us to fill up but I think it was about sixty dollars. The check that had finally caught up with us was for…. you guessed it one hundred dollars. Not enough for us to make it all the way to Oregon but Jesus would take care of that problem.

Francilles parents had a couple of the children with them in their car and the plan was at lunch we would stop and fix lunch in the bus. When it was twelve o’clock, I would always pull over and not bother to find a nice place to park, the reason was the children and their dad did not like waiting to eat. Jane that’s Francilles Mom didn’t much like the place where I pulled over. I think this made her just a little grumpy with me. I should tell you that neither Gabe nor Jane was Christians and we had been praying a lot for them. Jane and I had discussed about the Lord, at times I thought she was getting close but then I didn’t know. They had not asked us about our financial status, nor had we spoken anything about it but they both knew that we lived by faith. When Jane came from the car to step up into the bus she looked down on the ground and picked up a brand new bolt about two inches long complete with washer and nut. She said with a very mocking tone “ Maybe God put that there for you” I looked her in the eye and said, “I am sure that he did.” While they were fixing lunch, I decided that maybe I should check under the hood. Was, I ever surprised! The generator had fallen off and was hanging by the wires right in front of the radiator. I didn’t touch any thing until I called Jane, I said, come and look, she came, I then picked up the generator and put it back in its place then reached in my pocket for the bolt she had given me and it was a perfect fit. She was amazed and for many years after that she would say, Jim, do you remember that bolt? And I would reply, yes, Jane I remember. Before Jane died of cancer she gave her life to Jesus. I do believe that bolt had a lot to do with her trusting our Lord and Savior.

Francille’s parents left us at Modesto and went on to San Francisco.
Oregon didn’t seem so far at that point. The plan was to stop in Cottage Grove, Oregon and visit Francille’s brother Butch. The bus seemed to be running fine and our long journey seemed to be ending. However that didn’t seem near so important to us anymore, our Lord Jesus had been doing such wonderful things on this trip and we were looking forward to see what he would do next. We didn’t have to wait long to find out that our Father still had things in store for us. Very near the exit for Anderson California is where it happened, all of a sudden we heard the most horrible sound that the bus had ever made up until then. I pulled the bus over to the side of the road, and got out, there was oil all around the front of the bus on the pavement, I lifted the hood and immediately saw a big gapping hole in the side of the block of the engine, evidently a connecting rod had came loose and busted out the side of the engine. The joy of the Lord came into my heart and I was so excited I could hardly contain myself, I began walking back and forth praising God and thanking him for I knew he was doing great things. I knew that he loved to show me what he could do in the most difficult places; our money was exhausted and the motor appeared to be destroyed. The anticipation of seeing God do what he does best which is the impossible brought great peace and joy unspeakable. The praise meeting went on for some time, I was still walking back and forth and praising God when this pick-up truck pulled over and this gentleman jumped out and asked with amazement; what happened? I told him that the rod had come loose in the engine. He then asked; what are you going to do? I said God Knows. He then asked are you Christians and I replied yes. He then said that he was also a Christian and the he would like to help us get our bus off the Hi way. I told him that would be great, he asked where would I like to tow it and I replied just some parking lot. He asked; how about a church parking lot? I said that would be fine, he said that he was a Baptist and he would like to take us to his church but that it was on a big hill and he thought it would be difficult to pull the bus there but he knew where the Assembly of God church was and that it was easy to get to. I told him that would be fine. After arriving at the church he helped us contact the Pastor and explained to him that we had broken down on the Hi way and that we needed a place to park the bus for awhile. The Pastor said it wasn’t a problem and showed us where to park. It was a Friday and Butch was expecting us to arrive in Cottage Grove, so I called him and told him we were having some problems with the bus, I didn’t go into detail. I told him we would still come by and see him when we got things repaired.

That evening we had a good session of prayer. I remembered that our Lord Jesus wanted us to be patient and not be in a hurry. I knew that it was possible our Father had a plan of using us in Anderson California for an extended time, I really didn’t think that was what he had in mind but I realized that he wanted me to be submissive to what ever his will was. I told him that if he wanted me to stay there for a time I would be happy with that but if he wanted us to continue our journey; that I knew he was able to provide the money and a car for us to be able to travel on. We had peace because we were cast upon our Lord Jesus and his sovereign will for our lives. Saturday I took the oil pan off of the motor of the bus to try and find out the extent of the damage. I found that the crankshaft was flat and that we needed a new motor. Sunday morning we went to the Church service and the people were friendly and we enjoyed the fellowship. One family invited us to there home for lunch that was a blessing.
Sunday afternoon the Pastor came by and visited for a few minutes and wanted to know if we were going to the evening service, I said yes. He asked me if I would like to share for about twenty minutes on what we had been doing in Mexico? I told him that I would.

The pastor introduced me and I began to testify how our Lord Jesus had saved us and called us to preach in Mexico. I then shared with them how some different people had come to know the Lord Jesus, in Guadalajara. Then I sat down. The people began to pray and thank God for his good work. Then women began to pray in tongues, and I thought, oh I hope this doesn’t get out of hand. Praise our Lord Jesus things preceded in a Biblical manor. When she finished praying everyone was quite then another person began to give the interpretation of the tongues. It was a message for the Lucas family, the Lord Jesus was well pleased and assured us that their was a crown of righteousness laid up for us in heaven. Then another person began to pray in tongues and again there was interoperation. It was a very encouraging message for us, our Father knew we needed this word of comfort and hope; it had been a very long journey. When the people finished praying there was a time of silence. Then the Pastor jumped to his feet and said; that does it, that does it. No one knew what he was talking about. Then he said; Brother Lucas has not said anything about his financial situation and I am not going to ask him. But I believe we should take up a love offering for the Lucas Family. They took up an offering for us and prayed and gave us an envelope with one hundred and six dollars in it. While they were praying someone came and called my wife outside. It turned out that Butch and his wife Barb had driven down a car for us to use. I walked outside and he greeted me and tossed me a set of car keys and said I thought you might need something to drive. He assured me that the car was in good running order and he didn’t think it would give us any problems. When he said that I thought only if Our Lord isn’t through blessing us, with these many trails and tribulations. We had a nice visit with them then they drove back home. The next day I looked for a good truck shop to have our bus repaired. I found one that was highly recommended and left it with them; with the instructions to give the engine a complete over-haul. I told them I would call them in a couple of weeks. I then prayed and reminded our heavenly Father that the bus was his and that he would need to pay the bill.

Our space was somewhat limited in the Chrysler so I left my tools in the bus.
We left the next day rejoicing in our Fathers great provision. We had prayed if he wanted us to continue on the trip he would provide the money and a transport. He had done just that; besides giving us many words of comfort and faith. We moved quite a bit faster in the car then we did in the bus and we could be in Cottage Grove in a few hours if the Father so desired. However in my heart I was in no hurry and it wasn’t much of a surprise at all when the wheel bearing begin to make a very high squeal. We made it into Yreka and found a garage to have the wheel bearing replaced. We went to a park and ate sandwiches while they worked on the car. The car was repaired and we filled up with gas but praise the Lord Jesus this almost took all the finances that we had. I don’t recall now exactly how much we had left but it was less than twenty dollars. My heart was full of joy, the whole family was laughing, and we knew that our father was doing a good work. When we crossed the border entering Oregon we all praised the Lord Jesus. We had waited many days to see that border. We could possibly be in Lea burg soon. We were traveling at a good speed when we came into a hard curve all of a sudden the left front wheel was sliding and smoking. A tie rod had broken and the wheel turned completely to the left and there was no control. There was a big canyon on our right and we left a big long black mark around the curve but we came to a stop on the shoulder of the road. We sighed a big sigh of relief for we were not down in the canyon but we were sitting safely in the car. The car was not going anywhere for a while that was obvious. No tools, very little money, the sun had gone down and we were about thirty minutes south of Roseburg. What could we do? It was also obvious we will wait on the Lord Jesus and in his perfecting timing we would be on our way again.

We prayed, sang songs, told stories and settled down for the night the best we could. About mid-night an Oregon State Trooper came by and checked us out. When he saw the broken tie-rod, he knew we would need to buy a new one. He said; “I am going south now but about six o’clock in the morning I will be going to Roseburg and if you like you can ride with me to go get parts”. I told him that would be great. Sure enough at six o’clock the trooper came and picked me up. Francille and the kids would wait in the car, I didn’t like leaving them there but I knew our Lord Jesus would watch over them. They would try and sleep a little longer and Lord willing I should be back before to long. I was learning how to pray without ceasing. The officer said he could take me to the Chrysler garage I told him that would be fine. We arrived at six thirty in the morning. The garage wouldn’t be open for two hours, and I know that the Chrysler garage is going to charge a lot for the part. It concerned me that my family was waiting and I didn’t want to keep them any longer than necessary. I said I don’t know what you are going to do Father but I pray if possible for my families sake please do it soon. About that time a man pulled up in a pick-up truck. He asked me if I was waiting for the garage to open? I said yes. He said they won’t be open for some time but he also needed parts and he knew where a parts store was already open and they were much cheaper than any body in town; if I needed a ride he would be glad to take me there. I consented to his suggestion with very little consideration. For I knew who had sent him. I was very elated when I bought the part and still had two dollars and fifty cents in my pocket. I thanked the man for bringing me to the place; then he asked me where the car was and I told him. He said that he was going out on a job that way and he would be glad to give me a ride. Again I consented to his very kind offer. On the way out there he asks what had happened to the car and I explained that the tie rod had broken. He then asked me if I had the fork for separating the tie rod. I told him no I didn’t have that. He said well I do; then he explained that he was a mechanic for a logging company and that he would be glad to fix it for me. He assured me that it would only take him about ten minutes. Of course, I accepted. Then I felt compelled to explain to him how I had been praying. He was very interested in the fact that we were missionaries and he seemed to know that our Lord Jesus had sent him to do this job. The family was somewhat surprised to see me back that early. We soon were in Cottage grove and as we pulled into Francilles’ brother Butch’s home we knew our long trip was over and I had very mixed feeling about it. In one way I was glad but in another I would be very happy to go on to see some more of the mighty work of God. I felt like we had been walking about two feet above the ground and I wanted to see this grace continue.

Chapter Six

Our time in the States was an encouraging time of fellowship with the Brethren and visiting family. Our Father provided the money to pay for the repair bill on the bus and we brought it up and parked it in Leaburg, on the property of Francille’s folks. The bus was in need of some new tires and we needed a few things. Being an American citizen I had liberty to take a job. I found a job working in the woods running a log skidder for a gyo-po logger up on the McKenzie River. I really enjoyed the work and having money in our pockets was a comfort as well. However I did not have liberty from the Lord to get too comfortable. I knew that we would be tempted to forget the calling we had in our lives to preach his word in Mexico. Therefore I told my employer when I hired out that I could only work for a short time. I could not forget the way Jesus had been meeting our every need, and I didn’t want the
temptation, to rely on anything other than Him. I believe we were in Oregon about three months. Then we planned our trip back to Guadalajara to continue in the ministry of our calling. I remember we were discussing about how much the trip would cost and how much money we needed for the tires etc. In this discussion I felt why are we concerned about this our Lord Jesus has shown himself so faithful. Even when we don’t have money he enables us to travel, make repairs, eat, drink, and what ever else is needed he supplies. I then told my loving wife, honey we are not going to count our money or figure out a budget. We will just buy what we think our Lord approves of and what ever is left we will travel on. I didn’t count the money, whenever we needed money I opened up my wallet and pulled out what was needed. You talk about living on the edge the trip back down was almost has exciting as the trip up. We didn’t count the money until we reached the border of Mexico. The immigration officer insisted on seeing how much we had. He wasn’t overly impressed with the amount we had but gave us permission to travel on. We were ecstatic.

Our return trip went amazingly well. It was much different coming into Mexico the second time now we could speak Spanish and we had friends waiting for us. Our Father had given us a real bond with our Mexican Brothers and Sisters. We moved into the same area just two streets over from where we had lived before. The street was called Isla Mujers (the island of women) you can imagine how much the Brothers teased us about that.

The following year settled down into a good routine for us. Pat Murphy came and taught our children, our Father had supplied the books and the teacher. Pat did a good job and she seemed to really enjoy her work. This gave Francille and I more peace of mind, to put our energies into the ministry that was before us. Fran had good ministry with the women mostly one on one but they really respected her and were always asking many questions. The men and women were growing quickly in their faith and love for Jesus. We held some conferences on a small ranch out of the city, we had Brother Dick York come down from the States to teach. We had baptisms in a small dirty creek but what tremendous blessing seeing faithful Mexicans daring to break the traditions of their Fathers. Some brought their idols out and burned them. The gospel of Christ Jesus was penetrating the strong holds of demonic domain, where darkness had prevailed for five hundred years. I was totally enthralled and ready to labor for many years in this great mission field. However one thing you cannot do if you are truly going to seek the kingdom of God is to assume you know how to build the Church. Our heavenly Father is full of surprises, and Jesus said I will build my Church.

We will learn more about this as we continue in the next chapter of the lives of the Lucas’.