Last update 1-26-10

I will talk about my journey towards becoming a Christian. I'm not going to try to convert you, convince you of anything or make you feel condemned in any way. I'm just going to tell you about my experiences and story and you can take it or leave it. I realize there are many unexplainable things that take place in the world and also so-called Christian countries and people do some things sometimes you might not think are very Christian-like, including myself by the way. For myself I will use a phrase that has been around for a long time which says "Please be patient with me. God is not finished with me yet". As an analogy; when you go out and buy golf equipment and decide to become a golfer that is the start of your long and difficult journey at becoming a good golfer.

I did not grow up in a home where we went to church every Sunday in fact we rarely went at all and usually only went to church on Easter Sunday. But as long as I can remember I have had an interest in spirtual things and things pertaining to church. I cannot explain to you why that was. It was just the way I was 'built' I guess. Some would say this was a chosen path for me before I came into existence. Anyway; my family lived in a two story apartment building owned by my elderly stepgrandmother Alberta Lee who lived alone upstairs. I used to always hear her singing gospel songs upstairs, sometimes as she stood on her back porch. I used to go up and visit her and she would give me sandwich cookies which I loved and still do love to this day. Sometimes I would go to her Ebenezer Baptist church with her in Chicago at 4501 s. Vincennes Ave., Chicago, Il. That church is still in existence and here is a pix of it from Google maps street view

One Sunday evening I experienced something at that church I have never forgotten even after almost 50 years. I estimate I was about 9 or ten years old. We were sitting there listening to the choir singing that good gospel music just having a good time and something happened to me that made me cry. Alberta asked me what was wrong and I told her I wanted to join the church. I don't even remember what happened after that but I will never forget that experience. I can still picture the whole scene in my mind to this day. Alberta died when I was around 14 years old and was laid to rest in Burr Oaks Cemetery in Chicago which has been in the news recently because of the grave moving that was discovered. Her grave, as well as my grandfather and father's graves have not been disturbed, I'm happy to report.

My older sister also loved to go to church. I used to visit Antioch Baptist church with her. It was a fairly large church and they had some good choirs. That church also still exist and here is a street view pix of it. I don't recall any touching experience there like I had at Ebenezer but I remember some good preaching and singing. I also remember this lady that had purple hair which I always thought looked pretty funny, especially since this was the 1960's.

After high school I joined the Air Force and started drinking beer, partying and fornicating like most young men. I was playing a lot of music in local bands in Wichita, Kansas where I was stationed for over three years. As the years went by I started feeling depressed and having trouble sleeping for some reasons I don't recall nor can explain to this day. I just remember feeling like there had to be more to life then what I was experiencing. I always kept a Bible and I started looking at it more often recalling the influence it and church had on me when I was younger. I had some friends in town and one of their moms was this lady named Loretta who would let her sons and their friends drink and party at her house because she felt they would do that anyway and at least she wouldn't be worried about them getting in trouble in the streets. I can understand that philosophy really, especially after helping to raise three sons of my own. Yet; involvment with drugs and alcohol is dangerous in many ways and they caused Loretta's sons problems which also affected her badly as time went on until she passed in the 90's from health problems. Loretta was a church attender and Christian though and she loaned me this book called The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey. This book is about the second coming of Christ and end-time Christian prophecy from Revelations, Daniel and other books of the bible. I had never heard anything about any of that and found it quite interesting.

On Easter day in 1975 I had been at Loretta's house eating, drinking and partying with her sons. On my way back to the Air Force base I had a car accident in which no one got hurt and both cars involved were able to drive away; although mine had a very ugly dent in the rear quarter panel. I felt I was being punished for partying and disrespecting Easter Sunday, the day in which Christ' arisal from death is celebrated around the world. The work I did in the Air Force was being a member of Titan II ICBM launch crews. We used to drive out to missile silos outside of Wichita in rural areas and spend 24-hour shifts underground on what was called 'alert duty' basically prepared and ready to start nuclear war with the Russians during the Cold War. Sometimes there were intrusions on missile silos out in the middle of nowhere and when the alarms would go off the base would send out security police to investigate the intrusions. Usually it was wild birds or some other animal. They got the idea of stationing the security police at some of the missile sites along with the launch crews to save travel time on intrusions. Afterall we're talking about the midwest USA with real four-season climate so travel can be a problem sometime, especially out in the rural areas where all of the missile sites were located.

June 1, 1975 was an alert duty day for our crew and a security cop named Keith Ashley, from Missouri, was assigned at our missile site. He was also a minister for the Assemblies of God denomination and really 'on fire for the Lord' as they say. Keith, another guy and myself spent a lot of time that day talking about Jesus Christ, Christianity and such and I was primed by then to be a very fertile ground for everything Keith was talking about. That night when I went bed I woke up at one point and decided to go above ground to get some fresh air. When I went above ground nature was awesome. I remember how clear the sky was and the air smelled so clean because it had rained that day. I was beholding God's creation out in the middle of Kansas on a US Air Force ICBM missile site. In my mind I started hearing someone asking me if I believed everything Keith was talking about regarding Jesus Christ, his death for the sins of humanity and his purpose for coming to earth. I remember saying yes that I did believe that and then the voice told me to go to the topside phone, call downstairs and request to talk to Keith. As I started walking toward the phone station I remember hesitating in embarassment and apprehension and then all of sudden my fear and shame just disappeared and I made the call. I told Keith I was topside and had been thinking about the stuff he talked about so he told me he would come up so we could talk some more. He came topside, I told him what happened and he asked me if I wanted to recite the 'sinner's prayer' and ask Jesus to come into my life and be my Saviour. I followed him reciting the prayer, thanked him and we went back down into the silo and went back to bed. Actually before I went to bed I called my new girlfriend Toni, who also was in the Air Force, to tell her what I had done. She and I use to discuss spiritual things also when our relationship was new so she was very interested in what I had experienced.

What I'm about to tell you might be unbelievable but I will never forget it as long as I live. The next day when I woke up and we departed the missile site to end our 24-hour duty I could tell something had happened in my life. Oh; I forgot to also mention the night before I had the best sleep I had experienced in a long time. That first day after accepting Christ the sun seemed to shine brighter, I felt much happier inside and I remember having lost instant desire to use cuss words in my conversations. I became hungry for reading the Bible and it seemed to make more sense than it ever had before. I later understood why that was happening which was because the Holy Spirit was now in my life to help me understand what I was reading. I also started attending a Church Of God In Christ church in Wichita along with my girlfriend Toni and she also accepted Christ and we got married after a few months, just after my discharge from the Air Force. Soon after our marriage Toni got pregnant with twin boys and she was able to get out of the Air Force. We both continued to attend college and started our family. Life was busy and a little tough but we were reasonably happy and still going to church living the Christian life. We had another son after a few years but managed to both finish college.

We slowly drifted away from going to church and I regret that now. We moved to California and raised our three sons without church attendance or Christ in our life and I will forever believe that opened the door to a lot of problems that even resulted in one of our twin sons taking his own life at age 25 in 2002. That of course is a pain that will never go away. I started going back to church around 1997 but my wife Toni has not, and may never, as she doesn't understand why God allowed our son to die. I don't understand that either really and we might never understand that in this lifetime. But I will tell you that the evil spirit in the earth known as Satan, a.k.a. the devil, is real and hard at work in the earth causing a lot of problems. A lot of churches don't even talk about him much but he's responsible for a lot of bad and evil stuff going on. I guess you might be challenged to believe that also.

Thanks for listening.