Hanging at the Well
A Testimony to God's Grace
Chapter 22: Our Adopted Miracles
This is a story that Peggy and I have told all around the world and never without fighting tears (even as I do now trying to type this). There are no words to fully express the joy and anticipation that culminated in Sheila and Scott coming to be a part of our family. The emotions ran from gladness to anxiety and anger. I am not speaking of anger toward them, but the lives they had to endure before coming into our home. Never for a moment have we regretted our decision. We thank the Lord for the miracle of these two lives.
Like most couples, Peggy and I had talked much about our plans for our married life. Peggy would say, “I want twenty children.” I would counter, “Let’s keep it at four or five.” One plan was, “if we had two boys we would adopt a girl and if we had two girls we would adopt a boy.” Because of Peggy’s work with children we were very well aware of the number of children who did not have a family. We thought, “If God allows we would provide a home for at least one of those children.
Dean and David were ten and eight when we sat down as a family and spoke of adopting a sister. They were all for it. Therefore, we contacted the Arizona Department of Economic Security and applied for a “hard-to-place girl.” In Arizona, “hard to place” could mean anything from a child with mental or physical disabilities to an older child (because everyone wants babies, once a child is past three, they are designated as “hard to place”).
Prayer becomes a vital part of the plan to bring a new soul into your home. If God chose us to share in some girl’s life, we wanted to be prepared. Our Social Worker was Connie McDonough, a wonderful lady who deeply cared about her children. In June 1978 Connie called and said she had a five-year old girl who was going blind; would we be interested in meeting her? However, Peggy and I were scheduled for a week at the church’s summer youth camp. Therefore, Connie told us to talk over the ramifications of having a blind child and give her an answer when we returned. Then she said, “There is another couple we are considering for this adoption.”
Things changed so quickly when we arrived home. Connie called Monday morning to tell us that they decided to place the girl in the other home, “HOWEVER, she had a six-year old girl that was in need of emergency placement.” This young girl had been in the foster system for four years and had been emotionally abused. In the course of the conversation, Connie said, “If you will take this little girl, we’ll find another home for her brother.” We immediately told her, “we would be no part of splitting siblings, and if possible, we would take them both.”
Encanto Park in Phoenix was where Peggy, the boys and I first met Sheila and Scott Hunter. They played on the playground for nearly two hours without knowing our purpose for being there. We were just “Connie’s friends whom she happened to meet at the park.” We fell in love with them that first meeting and knew that this was God’s plan.
For the sake of their privacy I will not go into further details about their background. They arrived in our home on July 11, 1978. Sheila had just turned six on July 1 and Scott would turn five on July 22. Because of legal complications with their birth parents, they lived with us for fifteen months as foster children. However, we all knew that permanent adoption was pending and ours was to be their home.
Our court date arrived in October, 1979. We took the boys out of school and Peggy’s parents joined us. We were first on the docket that morning. A huge lump formed in my throat as the judge called us forward. First, he asked Sheila and Scott if they were agreeable to this adoption; they nodded. Then he asked us and we were positive that we wanted them to be a part of us. With a smile on his face, the judge rapped his gavel and said, “It is done!” Celebration was the order of the day. We all went out to breakfast and then to the Phoenix Zoo.
The hallway of our house was covered with family pictures, but Sheila and Scott had no childhood pictures (there are only two in existence prior to their coming to our home). Shortly after they became a part of our family, we asked Peggy’s cousin, a professional photographer, to take our picture. We went to Lakeside Park in Sun City and posed around the trees and rocks.
The day the chosen picture was framed and hung on our wall is a day we will never forget. We called Sheila and Scott to come and see their picture amongst the family pictures. As soon as they saw it they went running out of the house. We were dumbfounded by their reaction. About five minutes later they arrived back in the house with three of our neighbors in tow, “Look,” they said with excitement as they pointed to the picture, “We are on the wall!” They knew that they were now a part of a family.
Every time we read Paul’s words to the Ephesians, the memories of this day come flooding back to our mind. Paul said that we are adopted by God, “I’m on His wall, a part of His family.” What a miracle of grace that is.
Chapter 23: God in the Back Seat
In 1987 I began to get itchy feet thinking that I would like to go back to California where my roots were. I had seen good success in Glendale and the church was going strong. I was anxious to see if I could take another church that was in a difficult situation and “turn it around.” So, I called Floyd Strater, Director of the Southern California Evangelistic Association and told him what I was thinking.
It was about two months later that Floyd called me and said he thought he had the perfect place for me at Golden Valley Christian Church in San Bernardino, CA. The chairman of the Search Committee was Bill Harrison, a man whom I had known while a student at PCC. All was arranged for me to come for an interview.
I flew to CA early one Thursday morning against Peggy’s protests. She had told me that there were two places that she did not want us to go. One was Bakersfield (because anything I ever attempted there would be tied to my father’s reputation as a strong leader in the church and camping program) and San Bernardino, because of the heavy smog that always backed up against the mountains. In spite of her thoughts, I went to “check it out.”
David was a student at PCC at that time and Bill Harrison picked me up at the airport and took me to see him. I remember that a strong Santa Ana wind was blowing that day and we saw several semi-trucks turned over on the freeway. After visiting with David we went to San Bernardino, all the way Bill was telling me about the church’s situation (which was not good). He showed me around the building and the town. I was saying, “I can do this, it doesn’t seem to be the desperate situation that Glendale was in. I can do this.”
We got in the car to head for a local restaurant where the meeting with the Search Committee was to take place. We got about three blocks from the church building and were stopped at a stop sign when I heard a definite voice in the back seat saying, “You will not minister here.” It was so clear that I turned and looked into the back of the car.
I went ahead and interviewed that night with the sound of that voice ringing in my ears. I must have said the right things because that night the committee asked me to return to meet the elders and the congregation. I asked for two weeks to pray and think it through. To say the least, Peggy was not happy that I was even considering this. As I prayed during those two weeks it was as if the heavens were closed. For the first time I felt I had experienced what others had called, “Praying to a brass ceiling.”
I heard the voice again when the two weeks were up and I knew Bill Harrison would be calling. I was praying about the call when the voice said, “I have given you my answer.” That shook me quite a bit, but I did get the message. When Bill called I told him that I was convinced that the Lord wanted me to stay in Glendale. I did stay for another five years and then, God had to prove to me that it was time to leave.
Chapter 24: The Door to Missions
Larry and Judy Niemeyer have been friends of ours since college days. Judy grew up in Bakersfield in what was then called “Eastside Christian Church.” I met her during junior high. With a heart set on missions she came to Pacific Christian College a year after I did. It was there that she met Larry, who was from Beaverton, OR.
They began planning for mission service immediately after graduation from PCC. We were in Donovan, IL at that time and we hosted them for three weeks as they made contacts with area churches, hoping for support. The Donovan church took them on as missionaries and George Hewson, an elder who owned the Ford dealership, sold them a truck that was shipped to Northern Rhodesia where they were going to work. Wherever we were in ministry we worked to get the church to support Larry and Judy. When they moved to Nairobi, Kenya and formed Harvest Heralds mission, they became one of the first missionaries supported by the Glendale Christian Church (and are still supported to this day).
In June 1987, after we had survived some difficult years, Peggy was really feeling burned out and in need of spiritual refurbishment. Larry and Judy were in the states and the Harvest Heralds board had formed a prayer retreat for Southern California prayer partners. Peggy and I went. I thought we were going for Peggy to relax and recharge, but God had more than that in mind.
While at the prayer retreat, Curtis McDonald, one of my life-long friends and Harvest Herald’s Board Chairman, asked me if I would become a member of the board. At that time the Harvest team consisted of the Niemeyers, Wes and Arleta Paddock and Vienna S. I would be the only member of the board who knew all three.
At my first Board Meeting in August 1987, the subject of team disunity came up. I was the new person on board so I was holding back. However, I had been making a study of team dynamics on my own. I finally felt I had to share what I believed was causing the problems. I was surprised when the board immediately agreed with my assessment and began to discuss how to get the message to the team. Several suggestions were put on the table when I leaned over and whispered to G. B. Gordon (my major professor and mentor while I was at PCC), “I’ll go tell them.” A man across the table from us heard that whisper and said, “That’s it; we’ll send Bob to teach the team about team dynamics.” Before I could pick up my jaw, the motion was on the floor and passed.
You have to understand that at this time in my life I had never been out of the United States – not even Mexico or Canada. I had three months to prepare for this trip. Glendale Christian Church also supported Brian and Linda Smith in Herford, Germany, so the plan was made that Peggy and I would fly to Frankfurt and stay with the Smiths for four days and then fly on to Nairobi.
In Nairobi we had a very positive team retreat. Peggy and met with each team member to listen and share. Larry and Judy took us on a camera safari on the famous Masai Mara, it was a great time. The event that rocked my boat happened in the last day.
Ben Okello was the church planter on the Harvest Team. He was a leader among the Luo people and he asked to meet with me the day before we left Kenya. I met Ben in a city park and as we sat down he opened up a day-timer and asked the question that would haunt me for years to come, “When can you return to teach my people.” I was stunned and did not know what to say. Finally, I said, “Ben, I am sorry. This is a once-in-a-lifetime trip for Peggy and I; we will probably never be back in Africa again.”
“Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the LORD’S purpose that prevails” (Proverbs 19:21).
Chapter 25: The Call to Anaheim
I mentioned that in 1987 I had itchy feet and thought it was time for a move. That was not the case in the Fall of 1991. In November of that year I received a letter from Anaheim First Christian Church asking if I would apply for the ministry of the church. With the letter came a profile of the type of person for which they were looking. I took the profile home and read it to Peggy and asked, “Who does this sound like?” She said, “They are describing you.” That is what I thought, but I had no interest in moving and I wrote back and thanked them for their letter but declined their invitation.
It was a busy Fall with us planning for Dean and Leslie’s wedding on November 22nd and the construction of our education building at the Glendale church. Scott was in his senior year of high school, Peggy’s father was only eleven miles away in Sun City and we were very content.
When we arrived home from the wedding there was a packet addressed to me that contained all kinds of information about Anaheim and the church. Along with it was a questionnaire for me to fill out. Well, I had heard a lot of things over the past two or three years about the Anaheim church and it was not all good. Dave and Barb Fifer (Dave grew up in Anaheim and we knew him since he was about ten) were living in Yorba Linda and were members at Anaheim. About two weeks before I was first contacted by AFCC he had been home and shared with me his perceptions of the problems concerning the church. Therefore, because I was not going to go to Anaheim, I had nothing to lose; so I filled out the questionnaire quite honestly referring to problems I had heard from David and others.
Much to my surprise, right after Christmas I got a letter from AFCC saying that they were very impressed with the answers to their questionnaire, would I reconsider and apply? I thanked them and said, “No.” About a week later I received a phone call from Search Chairman, Jeff Wilson, saying, “Every time we pray about the man we need here, your name comes up.” Can we come and talk to you? I consented and in February Jeff and Steve Edgington came to Arizona to interview me. They wanted me to at least come to Anaheim and see the situation.
We flew to Anaheim and Peggy said, “I am not moving to Anaheim unless I can see the sun (i.e. no smog).” Wouldn’t you know it; it was a perfectly clear day. After returning home we talked over all of the events and gave five reasons why we could not accept this offer. 1. We were in a building program at Glendale Christian Church. 2. Scott was in his senior year and we would not move him. 3. Peggy’s father was only eleven miles away and she felt a responsibility to be near him since her mother died in 1980. 4. AFCC’s original financial offer was not enough to live on in Southern California. 5. We had just hired a new staff member at Glendale and I did not feel right in leaving him behind so soon. Not even making our list of five was the fact that I had just completed my doctoral studies at Fuller Theological Seminary and I was in the middle of writing my dissertation.
To our amazement, within two weeks of making that list, all five areas were cleared. Peggy’s father, unknown to us, had decided to move back to New Mexico (where Peggy live until she was thirteen) to live with her younger sister, Judy. Her father was paying for a room to be built onto Judy’s house and it was to be completed by April. AFCC raised their financial offer and said they were willing to wait until June when Scott graduated. I had shared my thinking with a trusted colleague who told me that leaving during a building program is the best timing after a long ministry because it keeps the congregation focused on the project, rather than the loss of a longtime servant. The new staff member at Glendale caught on so quickly and was accepted by the people so well that leaving him was no longer an issue.
Twice before we had considered leaving Glendale and I had talked to Leroy Lawson about it and he told me that Arizona could not afford to loose me. However, now, he called me and asked me to please accept Anaheim’s offer because he wanted men like me in the area for students to have as an example. I received a second call from Steve Richardson, whom I had gotten to know well while he was at First Christian Church of Phoenix and now a professor at Hope International as well as the interim minister at AFCC. He told me he was certain I was right for the position. Well, that kind of talk is good for the ego, but is it what God wants?
After prayer and talks with our family and some trusted friends we concluded that it was God’s will that we move to Anaheim. In April we flew back to Anaheim where we were introduced as the new minister and wife. However, they were going to have to wait two months before I arrived.
Chapter 26: The Anaheim Years
Our six and half years with the Anaheim First Christian Church were some of the hardest years I spent in the located ministry. Our second year there was the church’s Centennial year. The church was declining in an ethnically changing neighborhood and focused on its past as one of the premier church of Southern California. In the eight years before we came, the church had fallen from an average attendance of 700 to 300. During our first year there the decline continued until the church was stabilized at about 200. As an example of what the church was facing, when we arrived there was a young couple’s Sunday School class with ten couples; eight of them had their homes up for sale.
There were many bright spots during the six years in Anaheim. Besides families that were brought to the Lord, we started four ethnically specific congregations that worked as equals under the umbrella of our church leadership team. The first was a Korean congregation; next we started a Spanish-speaking congregation, and then came a group of believers who were refugees from Ethiopia and finally a congregation for Vietnamese. The fellowship with the pastors of these churches was a real joy to us.
When we arrived at AFCC we met James and Marta Khong, Myanmar nationals who were supported by the church and who were here for educational purposes. James was getting a masters degree from Fuller Theological Seminary and Marta was working toward a degree from Hope International. We became very close friends and took them to the airport when they left for home. Little did we know on that day what our relationship would be like today.
AFCC had a very strong missions program overseen by Ken and Shirley Woods. Just before our arrival in Anaheim they had sent a short-term team to Kenya and had one scheduled to go to the Ukraine in June 1993. We were asked to be a part of the Ukrainian team. I declined saying that I could not leave the country during my first year. However, the elders had been told by the Ukrainian missionary that for cultural reasons it was important for the Senior Minister to be a part of the team. Therefore, the elders asked Peggy and I to go. This would be our second “once-in-a-lifetime-trip.”
We spent our first anniversary at AFCC in the Ukraine. The trip was an amazing experience with a very depressing ending. We spent two and a half weeks in a town across the river from Kherson (the mission focus) doing a survey for a new church plant with which the Anaheim church would partner. I had another “jolt” like the one five years earlier in Kenya. There were pastors from eight different churches on the team supporting the Kherson Evangelism Festival (we did not participate because of our assignment across the river, but we did spend time before and after the festival in Kherson). During the debrief/evaluation meeting led by Glen Elliott, the local missionary, and Brother Ivan, the lead pastor for the Kherson churches, we were seated at a long table with five or six men between me and Brother Ivan. During the meeting Brother Ivan leaned forward and pointed to me and said, “This man may return again.”
The depressing part of the trip was the return home. About sixty people had left the Anaheim church during our three-Sunday absence. Some left because the school year was over. Our beloved Music Minister had accepted another position and the Sunday before we embarked was his last Sunday. Others just saw this as a good time to get out of what they felt was a dying church. Average attendance for the rest of that summer was below 200. However, that was the lowest time of our six years. It all started slowly rebuilding from that time.
Andrew Bajenski, a Polish pastor who had come to HIU to work on his masters degree called me in the Fall of 1993. Someone had told him about my doctoral dissertation on Leadership Strategy and he wanted to know if he could study with me. We met every Wednesday for the school year. When we had finished he asked if I would come to Poland to teach his pastors. At this same time we were planting the Korean church under the leadership of Paul Yoon, who had just received his masters at HIU. Paul wanted us to go with he and Kate to Korea to teach at the World Mission Conference for the Oriental Mission Church (the second largest denomination in Korea). Traveling to teach was not at all in my vision.
“Be careful what you pray for” has been a warning I have heard for many years. Where we are today is an example of that advice. In Arizona, when the elders had given permission for me to study for a doctorate I had told the Lord, “This is a great privilege You are giving me; I will use this education wherever You want me to use it.” In my thinking, I was visualizing consulting with some churches in Arizona, maybe a workshop here and there. At the same time, the Glendale elders and I learned about “The Prayer of Jabez” and had committed to praying it (for Glendale – I thought!). I had no idea of going to California. During our first year in Anaheim, two of the elders came to me excited about “The Prayer of Jabez” and wanted to us to start praying it with them. I never dreamed how “our territory” would expand.
1994 found us in Korea speaking for the World Missionary Conference. In 1995 we traveled to Germany and Poland. I had started teaching classes for the new Excel program at Hope International University (Gene Carter had asked me to serve on the Steering Committee during its design and start up) and we would use that extra money to finance our “vacations.” In 1996 we went back to the Ukraine and Poland. All this time, James Khong was writing, “When can you come to Myanmar?” In 1997 we took the Anaheim church choir to the Ukraine for the Kherson Evangelistic Festival and to Switzerland for the International Church Music Festival.
I finally consented to James Khong that we would use one of our vacations to come to Myanmar. When the elders gave their permission we were approached by Paul Grimm (one of the AFCC elders). He had done extensive work in Thailand in the Cambodian refugee camps and he had been trying to get Ralph Brune, founder of New Mission Systems International, to go with him and survey the possibility of helping the new churches that had been planted since the refugee camps had been broken up and the people returned to their homes. Paul asked that if we would be willing to accompany Ralph to the Cambodian border, if he went to Myanmar with us to help teach.
Ralph had been a missionary with Christian Mission Fellowship in Kenya (where the AFCC team had visited in January 1992). However, he had developed medical problems and was unable to return. With the advice of the CMF leadership, he established NMSI church planting mission that concentrated on short-trips (therefore, he would never be far away from medical help if needed). Ralph began in Russia and had expanded to Jamaica. At the time we were to travel with Ralph to Asia, he had recruited former CMF fellow missionaries Phil and Gwen Hudson to join NMSI to help with the work.
Ralph, Peggy and I flew to Thailand and met Ahtapa Sinlee in the Bangkok airport. Ahtapa, a Lisu Thai national, had attended graduate school at HIU and while he was there he and his family lived with Paul and Doylene Grimm. Ahtapa is fluent in many of the Asian languages, had also done much work in the refugee camps. We were not able to go into Cambodia at this time, so we drove to the border town of Aranupethet as twenty-two church leaders made their way across a live battlefield to reach us. Peggy and I laid in our hotel room located about three miles from the border and we could hear the canon and rifle fire. We were totally humbled by what these people were willing to endure in order to get to some training.
It was during this first trip to Asia in 1998 that our world suddenly changed. We had been content traveling to teach during our vacations. Going back to our first experience in Kenya in 1987, we had made seven overseas trips, most of them using our vacation times from the church. While sitting in a Myanmar restaurant Ralph said, “You need to be doing this full-time.” His statement surprised me, but I instantly knew he was right.
When I returned to Anaheim I could not shake the combination of “surprise statements” that had impacted me over the years. I could never shake Ben Okello’s question asked in 1987, “When will you come teach my people?” Brother Ivan’s words kept ringing in my ears, “This man can return.” Now, there was Ralph’s statement about doing this full time.
Later in 1998, Phil Hudson had come to Anaheim to meet with some of the people who had been a part of the 1992 Kenyan team. Shirley Woods, whose husband, Ken, had died in a terrible auto accident while on a short-term trip to India, knew what we were struggling with. Therefore, she arranged a meeting between us and Phil. Phil’s first question to me was, “What has God put on your heart to do?” When I told him, he simply asked, “What is stopping you?” I left that meeting knowing what I needed to do.
Another of God’s surprises came in November 1998 when I submitted my resignation to the AFCC elders. In the letter I simply said, “It is not fair to the people of AFCC for me to sit in my office thinking more about what is needed overseas than what is needed here.” The men said, “We do not want to accept this as a resignation, we want to appoint you and Peggy as our ‘missionaries to the world.’” With that they made a commitment to support our work and offered us six months salary to begin preparation.
Ralph Brune’s medical problems continued to increase to the point that it was necessary for him to resign as the President of NMSI. Peggy and I were officially affiliated at the November 1998 NMSI Board Meeting (of which Shirley Woods was the Chairperson). It was the same board meeting at which Phil Hudson was appointed the new president of NMSI. On January 16, 1999 we closed out our ministry with AFCC and began our present adventure.
Proceed to Chapter 27