Updated articles
This section contains articles John wrote that originally appeared in Today’s Pentecostal Evangel with a brief introductory note on what has happened since publication.
MIDDLE AGE: A GREAT TIME TO RETURN TO CHURCH PLANTING
Since this article appeared in Today’s Pentecostal Evangel on July 29, 2007, Pastor Dan Estes has once again returned to full-time ministry and church construction is complete. “We’re attracting many young people who weren’t going to church,” Estes said recently. “Stories of people embracing Christ are so refreshing. It helps me realize why I have done what I’ve done.”
By John W. Kennedy in Indianapolis
After 16½ years, Dan R. Estes had grown to love the members of Living Hope Church in Merrillville, Ind. He led an established congregation of 550 adherents that had more than doubled in size since his arrival. He supervised a staff of 37, most of whom worked for the day-care center the church operated. During his tenure, Living Hope hadn’t experienced any splits over leadership, worship style, finances or other issues.
But Estes had grown a little too comfortable.
“I felt I had become the keeper of the aquarium rather than a fisher of men,” Estes says.
By middle age, many pastors are simultaneously looking back wistfully at their careers and carefully planning ahead for retirement. Dan Estes instead set out to find a location where Christ needed to be proclaimed. He found it in Lawrence, a city on the east edge of Indianapolis with more than 60,000 residents and no Assemblies of God church.
A little more than a month before his 56th birthday, Dan Estes embraced the bivocational life he left behind a quarter century ago. He is a church planter — and a full-time car salesman.
In order to support his family, by day Estes is a preferred customer manager at an auto dealership, able to communicate with congregants via his BlackBerry at a moment’s notice. During the evenings and on weekends he’s typing church bulletins, visiting the sick in hospitals, writing sermons and preparing a worship music set.
Sharon, his wife of 35 years, is an English teacher at a local community college as well as the church secretary, janitor and keyboardist.
At a time in life when most people are trying to minimize risk, Estes is living proof that middle age isn’t too late to go out on a limb and pursue a ministry challenge.
“If you’re not afraid to start over, this can be fun,” Estes says. Striking out on his own with no support from a mother church, Estes planted a new Living Hope Church on the edge of Indianapolis a couple of years ago. He and Sharon accessed the money they had set aside for retirement, and those funds are helping as they pioneer the new congregation. They left their home in suburban Chicago for more modest digs in suburban Indianapolis.
The move has meant both sacrifice and stretching. In Merrillville, Living Hope had excellent musicians and singers. At the church plant, Estes is the worship leader and sole guitarist. He’s learned how to be computer savvy. He even helps clean toilets in Living Hope’s restrooms.
Around 60 people attend Living Hope. Although a few have been in a pew every Sunday for decades, most have never attended church, or at least not been in a sanctuary for a long time.
“My target is people who are sleeping in on Sunday morning,” Estes says.
A month ago, Living Hope moved into its own building, after nearly two years of renting facilities from another Pentecostal church nearby. But even more than improved facilities, Estes is passionate about transformed souls.
“I want to see people change on their journey with Christ,” he says. “Sometimes that involves baby steps. I don’t want to lose anyone on the way.”
Estes knows from experience the Christian walk is a process. His parents divorced when Estes was 4. By age 17, living with his mother and third stepfather, Estes looked forward to getting away from his Louisville, Ky., home and going to college. As a senior in high school he already had landed a job with an architectural firm and saw that profession as his ticket to a better life.
He also had another obsession: a 1963 Oldsmobile Cutlass with bucket seats. His sister Pat Walters, then 31, promised to co-sign on a car loan if he would come to church with her. On his third Sunday attending, Estes made a salvation commitment to Jesus.
Despite his architecture desire and skills, Estes opted to attend Central Bible College in Springfield, Mo., for a year to start learning about Scripture. He figured the Lord would bless his architecture career if he made such a sacrifice. However, that year in school changed his thinking. He stayed at CBC for four years.
Upon graduation, Estes, at 22, planted a church in Richmond, Ky., and left five years later. By then the congregation had grown to 175. Later he pioneered a church in Paducah, Ky., that attracted 75 congregants in his two years there.
After pastoring a couple of other churches, Estes settled in for the lengthy stretch in Merrillville. When he arrived, the tight church budget didn’t even allow for the purchase of postage stamps. When he left, members donated $100,000 annually to missions.
“We loved the people a lot, but we thought it was time to leave,” Estes says. “The only logical thing seemed to be to start a new church.”
Of course, it’s a bittersweet experience to leave behind parishioners whose faith has been strengthened, babies who have grown to teenagers, a worship team (including Sharon) that recorded a compact disc, and a full-time youth pastor who had befriended 17-year-old son Daniel. In addition, the couple’s 28-year-old daughter Ashley Monroe, her husband, Sean, and their 8-month old son, Aidan, still attend Living Hope in Merrillville, 150 miles away.
But if anyone can plant a church in the wake of such an upheaval, it’s Estes, who obtained his master’s degree from Assemblies of God Theological Seminary in Springfield, Mo., in 2004. He is jovial yet sincere; tenderhearted but frank; well educated though still in tune with common folks; full of dry humor yet serious when driving home a biblical point in a sermon.
The seasoned shepherd knows the personal touch is key to making newcomers feel welcome. A simple breakfast is served before the Sunday morning service. Children get to pick candy from a box as they are dismissed following worship. Before and after the meeting Estes inquires how various congregants’ jobs are going. If anyone misses a Sunday service he is quick with a follow-up phone call. He sends handwritten birthday greetings to attendees.
The new property is situated on 4½ acres. The initial building seats 100, but Estes has a timetable for growth and eventually believes the church will grow to 400, at which time a daughter congregation will be planted. By then Estes will be a full-time pastor, no longer selling vehicles.
Estes has assured attendees he is staying for the long haul.
“I don’t think about retirement and I have no intention of going anywhere else,” Estes says. “This is going to be a great church.”
FATHERS LEARNING TO GRIEVE ABORTION DECISION
By John W. Kennedy
The following article appeared in the June 17, 2007 edition of TPE. In November 2007, Sheila Harper’s husband, Jack, planted a daughter congregation of Cornerstone Church in Madison, Tenn. Meanwhile, the Springfield Pregnancy Care Center is in the midst of a $1.8 million capital campaign and about to move into its own facilities for the first time. The center’s fatherhood mentoring program is now available around the clock.
In 2002, Timothy Hall, an attendee of Cornerstone Church in Nashville, Tenn., asked if he could be a part of the abortion recovery class Sheila Harper led for women. Even though she hadn’t thought about the impact abortion had on men, Harper agreed to allow Hall — whose girlfriend had years earlier aborted their child without his knowledge — to be part of the sessions.
Before the next course, Mike Goins, another man in the Assemblies of God congregation, asked to participate in the course, years after his girlfriend aborted their child. Goins, a burly NASCAR race team pit crewman, wept class after class about his failure to protect the unborn baby and leaving the decision to his girlfriend. Goins endured derisive comments from his teammates as he did homework in the flower-covered recovery guide during downtimes in the pit.
After counseling Hall and Goins, Harper understood that abortion is as much a man’s issue as it is a woman’s issue.
Following more than three decades of silence, churches and pregnancy care centers are starting to minister to the often-neglected party in the abortion process: the father.
Recent research concludes that men can suffer as much emotional anguish as women because of the abortion decision.
Some sense guilt for pressuring their wife or girlfriend into obtaining an abortion; others are grieved that the mother of their child had the procedure without their sanction or even awareness of the pregnancy.
“Men are designed to protect their families but men have no legal rights when it comes to abortion,” Harper says. “If the man is messed up, the whole family is messed up.”
While abortion recovery still is a topic few churches are comfortable discussing, it’s clear that men who have been through counseling believe talking about it is beneficial. In fact, revelation of a past abortion experience to an unsuspecting spouse can be the catalyst to saving a troubled marriage.
Some men are finding help at AG churches through SaveOne, a program founded by Harper.
Even though deep down she felt wrong about it, Harper had an abortion in 1985 at age 19. For the next seven years, Harper says, she lived promiscuously and abused illegal drugs and alcohol, none of which she had done before.
Three years after her first abortion, Harper became pregnant again, but knew she couldn’t go through another abortion. After giving birth, she married the son’s father, Jackie. Because she feared that Jackie would divorce her, she waited another 18 months before confessing the earlier abortion to her husband.
Ultimately Harper, 41, found forgiveness and restoration through a Bible study offered by a pregnancy care center. Harper began leading post-abortion recovery classes in 1999 after realizing that one in every six women in an evangelical church has had an abortion — and most of them suffer the aftermath in silence.
In 2005, Harper authored a 146-page Bible study curriculum especially for men seeking deliverance from the pain and guilt of an abortion experience. Classes run six or 12 weeks. A total of 80 SaveOne chapters have started at churches or pregnancy care centers in 18 states and three foreign countries. Hall, the first man to take the course, and his wife, Kristy, founded SaveOne Europe and are supervising chapters while based in Slovenia.
“Most women we see say, ‘I wish my boyfriend or husband would have stopped me,’ ” Harper says. “But the man usually leaves the decision up to the woman.”
Men who neglect dealing with abortion guilt typically experience fallout for years afterward. The number one symptom is anger, bordering on rage. They also are prone to forming shallow relationships with women, having trouble bonding with children and exhibiting workaholic tendencies. They likewise have a propensity to pornography addiction.
Greg Hasek, executive director of Misty Mountain Family Counseling Center in Tigard, Ore., says unresolved or unrecognized grief due to abortion is often a root cause of why men become sexually addicted.
“Addiction is an unhealthy way to try to fulfill the longing for attachment that post-abortive men have,” says Hasek, 44. He explains that men cling to an addiction as a way of replacing the attachment they couldn’t have with their aborted child.
Hasek’s girlfriend had an abortion when he was 22, which resulted in Hasek abusing alcohol, being depressed and struggling in relating to women and to God. For five years Hasek says he sought help without success, until an all-woman post-abortion recovery group allowed him to join.
“Our culture conditions men to be strong and to not show weakness,” Hasek says. “Showing emotion and grieving is seen as weakness, even in churches.”
At the counseling center, where men are in treatment for sexual addiction for six months to a year, Hasek makes sure those impacted by abortion have the opportunity to grieve and heal properly. That may involve giving the child a name, even if the abortion occurred 20 years earlier.
Some men benefit from abortion counseling if they’ve never been involved in an abortion — but their wife has.
Mark Ring facilitates a SaveOne chapter with his wife, Melissa, at First Assembly of God in North Little Rock, Ark. Mark didn’t know that Melissa had an abortion as a teenager until the couple had been married 18 months. Despite the revelation, the Rings had a strained relationship for 14 years, time in which he pastored a church. The couple couldn’t pinpoint the reason why Melissa lashed out at her husband in horrific mood swings and sank into deep depression. But after completing a SaveOne study, the Rings realized the emotional roller coaster resulted from Melissa’s unforgiveness over abortion.
“Unless abortion is brought into the open and exposed it won’t heal,” Mark says. “It will continue to be a traumatic situation every day.”
Not that couples who obtain an abortion are doomed to split up. Robert and Mary Cody, who attend Lake City AG in Guntersville, Ala., have been married since 1991 — two years after Mary aborted their daughter without Robert being aware of the pregnancy. Mary told him three months following the abortion.
“I was numb,” Robert, 53, recalls. “I wanted the child.”
Afterwards, Robert looked for fulfillment in illegal drugs, alcohol, promiscuity and pornography.
“But the only way to find healing was through Jesus,” Robert says. Three years after they wed, the Codys accepted Christ as Savior. Three years ago they began helping others heal through Bible studies, including SaveOne.
“There’s a lot of men out there hurting,” Robert says. “God can bring restoration to men who will open up and talk about it.”
“While we never forget our Charlotte, we are at peace knowing we are forgiven by Jesus,” says Mary, 45, a church secretary and Christian radio disc jockey.
Of course the best situation is one in which a father is involved in the decision to carry the pregnancy to term. The Pregnancy Care Center in Springfield, Mo., counseled and mentored 60 men within two months of starting a fatherhood program this year. Before, on the few occasions when a male accompanied his girlfriend or fiancée to the center, he would just sit in the waiting room during the appointment.
“Often how the potential father reacts to the pregnancy is the primary factor in pushing a woman toward abortion,” says Cindi Boston, executive director of the center.
Now, a potential father is involved in a one-on-one counseling session with another man, learning information that mirrors what his mate is hearing in another counseling room from a female. A man who is able to talk with another man about his fears and concerns of raising a child is more likely to be supportive of bringing a baby into the world.
In April 2007, the Springfield PCC launched evening biblically based classes using National Fatherhood Initiative materials, covering everything from how to change a diaper to how to handle the stress of a crying baby.
“When a gentleman makes a decision to support life, then it’s our responsibility to prepare him for parenthood,” says Boston, 45, a member of Central AG in Springfield. “We want to help couples communicate better, get a handle on their finances and avoid domestic violence.”
WOMEN REHABILITATED FROM DRUGS, GANGS, PROSTITUTION
By John W. Kennedy
Since this article first appeared in TPE on April 29, 2007, New Life Farm has continued to expand. A new dormitory opened in November 2007. By July, 20 women students are expected to reside at the facility. Angela Carter has regained custody of her two children — and remarried her husband. Marelyn Garcia now is on staff with the New Life follow-up program in Chicago.
Doris Nazario didn’t start using illegal drugs until age 31. Even so, she became addicted to heroin and crack cocaine for 17 years.
In 2002, the homeless Nazario sought overnight shelter at New Life Covenant AG, a Hispanic church in the Humboldt Park neighborhood on the northwest side of Chicago. There she learned of a new church-sponsored residential facility, New Life Farm for Women. Carmen Colon, a New Life Covenant chaplain who conducts jail ministry, led Nazario to salvation in Jesus Christ.
Once staff pastors Rico and Alice Altiery began discipling Nazario, an amazing change began to occur. Rico allowed Nazario to teach classes even before she graduated from the five-month program. Nazario, who is taking Global University ministry classes, now is administrator of the facility near Cambridge, Ill.
The farm is a Christian alternative to what the former drug addicts, gang members and prostitutes who live there might face otherwise: prison, homelessness or even death.
Many of the women have lost their homes, jobs and families. For some, the farm is a last opportunity to salvage their lives.
Far removed from the distracting influences of America’s third-largest city, the farm’s rustic tranquility helps the women seek God’s restoration. Their mentors have credibility because they have overcome similar situations.
The Altierys have operated New Life since its genesis five years ago.
“We’ve been through storms in life,” says the 57-year-old Alice, a fast-talking bundle of energy. “Rico sold everything we had for heroin. Many times I wanted to leave him, but divorce would have been the simple answer.”
Instead, Alice regularly invited her husband to church as he used drugs with her brother, Carlos, who later died of a heroin overdose. The Altierys’ marriage survived Rico’s decade of illegal drug use, four years in prison for selling heroin, and street gang activity with the Latin Kings.
Rico, 59, accepted Jesus as Savior in 1980 and soon began working with street gangs and in prison ministry. Later he served as Sunday School superintendent, deacon and elder at New Life. During more than 30 years at the church, Alice taught Sunday School, led Missionettes and headed Women’s Ministries.
Then came the day New Life Covenant Senior Pastor Wilfredo “Choco” de Jesus presented a challenging assignment for his trusted lay leaders: Quit their careers and move 160 miles west to a 15-acre cornfield the church had purchased.
The Altierys, who have been married for 41 years, accepted the challenge, sold their home, quit their jobs and said goodbye to their three adult children and seven grandchildren who remained in Chicago.
The Altierys have become selective in whom they accept to the farm because many young women — those in their teens and 20s who have not quite hit rock bottom — flee the program for life back on the streets in Chicago soon after enrolling.
“Women who are here really want a life-changing experience with Christ,” Rico says. “This is not a place for a woman to come and dry out before going back to the same lifestyle.”
Most enrollees have accepted Jesus as Savior before making the trek west, according to Nazario, who interviews prospective clients.
“I’ve been in the world, I know the game,” says Nazario, who has restored relationships with each of her four children. “These women need structure and tough love.”
Marelyn Garcia is at the farm after 13 years of heroin and alcohol addictions, prostitution and living on the streets of Chicago. She lost custody of her three children. After going through three secular rehabilitation centers, Garcia didn’t have a cure and she had an inflamed liver that threatened to kill her.
Nazario suggested Garcia give her withdrawals to Jesus.
The first night in the program, Garcia, who weighed only 100 pounds, begged for medication to help her stop shaking. Nazario declined, and repeated her advice. Garcia, 33, agreed, and slept through the night for the first time in 10 years.
The farm is situated in a two-story house on a state highway. No sign brings attention to the inhabitants. There are no sirens and gunfire, only chirping birds and an occasional rumble of a semi-truck.
Christian-themed posters and paintings line interior walls. Comfy couches and chairs create a homey atmosphere.
Upon arrival, few enrollees know much about the Lord or the Bible. But from the time they wake up until the time they go to bed, they are focused on Scripture. Hour-long devotions occur both morning and evening.
Every weekday at 11, 1 and 3, the women study theology, personal hygiene, housekeeping or job skills in the living room using the Bible as the guidebook.
For the first month on the farm students are isolated from the outside as a way to break from their old life: no television, phone calls, visitors or trips.
“The first couple of weeks we’re still dealing with a lot of attitude,” Rico says.
After the first month, residents begin attending nearby Watermark Assembly of God in Geneseo on Sundays.
Although 25 women have graduated — including two who are now deacons at New Life Covenant — twice as many have failed to complete the course. There are no locked doors or handcuffs holding them here. Although Rico exhorts disgruntled clients to stick it out for 30 days, he will drive them to a bus stop a few miles down the road anytime they demand to leave.
“It’s the drugs that call them back,” Rico says. “I can understand; I’m an ex-junkie myself.”
The farm is designed to be a training ground for women to live on their own and establish routines that will help them become the mothers and daughters they neglected to be before. While daily prayer and Bible study go a long way into reshaping thinking, simple disciplines of taking care of their bodies and their living space are necessary, too.
The sparse bedrooms are immaculate. Words to Bible verses are painted on the walls. It is just the kind of environment Angela Carter needs.
Carter, 30, is confident, charismatic and articulate. The daughter of Puerto Rican and Caucasian parents she came to the farm depressed and at the point of despair.
Growing up she abused alcohol, smoked marijuana, and endured molestations, beatings and rapes. That resulted in promiscuity and work as a stripper.
Yet Carter found respectability. She attended college, became an administrative assistant, and operated a cleaning business for well-heeled customers. Yet cocaine and methamphetamine use contributed to the custody loss of two young children and pushed her into prolonged depression.
“God has been working in my life for quite some time, and I surrendered it all to Him when I got here,” Carter says. “He’s given me an understanding of why I went through what I did.”
Rico developed the curriculum, using some material from Teen Challenge. He puts a great deal of preparation into the classes, which are more interactive camp meeting than lecture. As the animated Rico stands behind a pulpit, he is always imploring the women to think about the consequences of their behavior. The thought-provoking sessions feature almost continual questions and answers. The ladies take copious notes.
By the second month of these gatherings, Rico is blunt and transparent. “If you throw that Bible away you’re not going to find God’s fulfillment,” he says. “You’re going to find pain and misery.” He gives heartbreaking accounts of women who left the farm prematurely and wound up stabbed and strangled.
The women are dressed casually, wearing tennis shoes, sweatpants and T-shirts emblazoned with “New Life for Women” on the front and “Building Godly Women for the Kingdom of God” on the back.
It’s not uncommon for the women to spread Bibles, commentaries and notebooks all over the kitchen table to study between classes, which include Scripture memorization and exams.
The boarders learn to cook a variety of dishes and clean. After meals they leap to their feet and sing praise songs as they work. They also scrub the floors, clean the toilets, and carry out the garbage as part of their weekly chores.
The farm has received county government approval to construct a dormitory for an additional 15 women. Funding will come primarily from New Life Covenant, which has grown to 3,000 attendees from 125 in six years.
Meanwhile, in Chicago, the New Life Dream Center opened in February 2007 and will function as both a first-step orientation before women go to the farm as well as a place for aftercare. The follow-up has been a missing element as some economically deprived graduates return to urban society and the familiar route of hustling and wasting away.
Carmen Colon, 40, is in charge of the around-the-clock Dream Center program for up to 20 women. Aftercare involves individualized Bible study, putting a résumé together and obtaining a general equivalency diploma.
“When they get back to the familiar we don’t want to rush them,” says Colon, a former drug addict who accepted Jesus as Savior after being evangelized by the Altierys.
Meanwhile, the Altierys keep hoping and praying that Satan won’t snatch any of their graduates away.
“When we hear that one of the girls has fallen, it hurts us they didn’t put their whole trust in Jesus,” Rico says. “We can only do so much. The girls have to do their part.”
FROM PRISON TO PULPIT
By John W. Kennedy
The following article ran in TPE’s annual KeyBearers edition on April 24, 2005. Since then, Eric and Shari Earhart have had a son, Mitch, born in June 2006, and a daughter, Mandi, born in September 2007. Upper Room Assembly recently broke ground on an 8,000-square-foot worship center and Earhart has been ordained by the North Carolina District of the Assemblies of God. The AG’s current “Nothing’s Too Hard for God” media campaign features Earhart’s life story. In August 2007, the Earharts escaped a fire that extensively damaged their home.
A passion for Jesus replaces cocaine trafficking in Eric Earhart’s life
On the street, the gregarious Eric Earhart is constantly on a mission. Every passerby he sees is an opportunity for evangelism. Within a few seconds of meeting a stranger, Earhart joyously explains in a booming voice what a blessed life he leads, recounting how his faith in Jesus Christ helped him through a 42-month prison stretch.
A decade ago, a different force drove the muscular, 6-foot-5 Earhart in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Much like today, whenever anyone saw him coming they knew he meant business — but not the Lord’s business.
As a cocaine trafficker, Earhart had little patience for those who owed him money.
On Christmas night in 1995, Earhart went to the house of a man who owed him several thousand dollars from a drug deal. Three weeks earlier he had beaten the guy with a baseball bat and warned him to pay — or face a deadly assault the next time. In the brutal drug business, a dealer who doesn’t collect his debts by enforcing such threats soon is out of business. Earhart didn’t plan to miss a payday the second time.
Slightly intoxicated, Earhart kicked in the front door. Within a couple of seconds he had the barrel of an assault rifle pointing into the mouth of the stunned drug defaulter as he sat on his living room couch.
Earhart pulled the trigger.
The gun misfired, ejecting the round of ammunition, which Earhart caught in midair.
Earhart flung the bullet into the lap of his intended, terrified victim.
“You’re lucky tonight!” a fuming Earhart shouted, stabbing the frightened man in the neck with the gun’s bayonet. “But you better get out of town!”
For Earhart, years of alcohol and marijuana abuse began at age 12. So did vandalism and thievery. Adulthood didn’t change him. In a rural culture where men often are judged by how tough they are with their fists, Earhart’s bruising reputation increased.
“I was as deep in sin as a human being could be,” Earhart recalls.
The U.S. Army even booted Earhart — twice — for his inebriated, violent behavior.
After being discharged, Earhart and his brother, Robert, began a wholesale seafood business to regional restaurants. Although lucrative at first, the enterprise began to fail. Earhart didn’t want his family and friends to see that he had failed yet again, so he began trafficking cocaine from North Carolina to New York in an effort to keep up the facade.
Soon the drug trade grew lucrative, so much so that it attracted the attention of state drug enforcement officials. After a six-month investigation, Earhart got busted and faced 40 years behind bars.
Meanwhile, the mother of Earhart’s live-in girlfriend plus the captain of the shrimp boat where he found work while out on bail both evangelized him. One night on the beach Earhart fell on his knees.
“Lord, I’ve ruined my life,” he cried out. “If You can do something good with it, I’m Yours.”
Immediately Earhart changed his lifestyle. He read the Bible six hours a day as he waited to enter prison. As Earhart began serving a seven-year term for cocaine trafficking, his parents and siblings — who didn’t cut him off during his drug dealing days — no longer wanted to see him. His incessant talk about Jesus proved to be too much. They also told him not to write. They didn’t want to read letters rambling on about the Savior of the world.
In the first cellblock where he lived — the first of eight prison camps — Earhart stood out as the only Christian. Although committing his life to Jesus didn’t abolish his sentence, it gave him peace to endure the circumstances.
“Prison is a dark, evil place,” Earhart says. “But to know the Lord makes all the difference in the world.” His newfound faith also enabled him to cope with his past mistakes.
“Prison allowed me to be humbled and real with myself,” Earhart says. “It wasn’t the fault of my mama, my daddy, my lawyer, the district attorney or my girlfriend that I was in there. I was there because of my sin and my poor decisions.”
Early during his incarceration, Earhart was filled with the Holy Spirit at a Bible study. Bold evangelism has been a hallmark of his life ever since.
“I was always amazed at how Christian literature discipled me in the prison system,” says Earhart, 37. “Whenever I needed to go to the next level, God had always provided free materials and Bibles through the generosity of His people.”
Earhart believes it’s important for inmates to have access to magazines such as Today’s Pentecostal Evangel because prisoners also are inundated with theologically suspect material. “It’s so important in the discipleship process of inmates, especially for those weak in the faith, to be doctrinally sound,” he says. “It’s easy to end up with wrong teaching.”
Shortly before his release, Earhart had the opportunity to be out in the community a few hours every week. He chose Sunday mornings, when he visited The Carpenter’s Shop church, an Assemblies of God congregation in Ahoskie, N.C. For four months no one in the congregation knew he lived in prison. Then after services one Sunday he asked Pastor Wallace Phillips to visit him at his residence — the regional penitentiary.
During their visit, Phillips immediately sensed from God that Earhart had a ministry calling upon his life.
Even though the Lord had cleaned him up, Earhart balked at the notion.
I’m not pastor material, Earhart told himself. I’m a fighter, a redneck fisherman. Earhart had a concept of preachers as meek, horn-rimmed men in black suits, even though the husky Phillips showed up at prison wearing jeans and a casual shirt.
When Phillips offered to mentor him, Earhart initially turned him down. When released, he simply wanted to go home and hang out at the beach. On reflection, he yielded to full-time ministry.
Not that Earhart had held back in prison. There he led 380 inmates and five guards to make salvation decisions.
In fact, revival broke out at the prison camp immediately after Phillips told Earhart about God’s calling. Inmates started coming up to Earhart asking what they needed to do to get right with the Lord.
Prison officials viewed Earhart as the ringleader of this Christian “gang.” The camp supervisor called Earhart into his office and ordered him to stop preaching, unless he wanted to be convicted of inciting a riot and disrupting the function of a correctional facility — charges that would result in an additional eight years to his sentence. At the time, Earhart had only 60 days until freedom.
Just as Peter and John refused the Sanhedrin’s orders to stop speaking the name of Jesus (Acts 4), Earhart responded that he couldn’t stop preaching. In a response worthy of the apostles, Earhart told the warden that as long as he had breath, he would continue declaring the gospel. And he did. The warden backed off his threats, just as the Sanhedrin did.
“Christians face violent persecution in prison, from other prisoners and from staff as well,” Earhart says. “Christians bring a message of conviction to those not walking with the Lord.”
In December 2000, after serving half of his seven-year term, Earhart walked out a free man. The next year he attended an Assemblies of God boot camp for church planters, but he still craved assurance from North Carolina District Superintendent Charles O. Kelly.
“I wanted to make sure he knew what a lying, cheating past I had,” Earhart says. Kelly told Earhart if God wanted him in ministry he needed to heed the call.
After being trained in evangelism and discipleship, Earhart in October 2002 became pastor of the first church planting endeavor of Carpenter’s Shop: Upper Room Assembly, located 26 miles north of Ahoskie in Gatesville. He started with half a dozen people.
“Eric is the kind of guy who lives by strong convictions,” says Carpenter’s Shop’s Pastor Phillips. “His personality is exactly what the county needed for a strong, vibrant Pentecostal work.”
Now, Upper Room, which meets in a newly renovated former auto parts store, has 100 attendees — in a town of 280. Earhart knew a few of his flock while in prison, including James Gresham.
“I could hear him in Bible study about 10 bunks away,” Gresham recalls. “He prayed for me one day and immediately I was cured of my 20-year bondage to alcohol.”
Only one Upper Room family has any kind of Pentecostal background. Around one-third are African-American.
It’s not that Gates County, which has a population of only 10,500, had no congregations before. Although the county has but a single traffic light, there are 62 houses of worship, most of which have worshippers belonging to either one ethnic make-up or the other. The county is 59 percent white and 39 percent black, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Signs of racial division are still very evident.
In such an environment, Earhart preaches that turning from evil is a requirement of salvation. “John the Baptist, Jesus, Peter and Paul all taught to repent and reject darkness first,” Earhart says.
“He is well suited to pioneer a church there because of his passion and his ability to identify with people,” says District Superintendent Kelly.
For Earhart, sin, not skin color, is the black and white issue.
“He’s not one to pussyfoot around,” says Mickey White, a ministry volunteer who met Earhart when he lived in prison. “He’s a real repent-and-turn-from-sin-or-you’re-going-to-hell kind of guy.”
Chuck Small, a paint store manager who doubles as Upper Room’s associate pastor, agrees. “In Christian circles I’ve met so many people who say one thing and do another,” Small says. “But Eric is refreshing. He’s lived what he preaches.”
Upper Room is located less than a mile from where Earhart spent his final months as an inmate. Ironically, state prison officials have started calling him to ask if prisoners being released can spend transition time in his care. So far, three men have stayed with him.
Eventually, Earhart’s family stopped avoiding him, too. Earhart led his father to salvation a year before he died of cancer at age 63 in 2002. Two years ago, Earhart’s brother, Robert, who had a drug abuse history similar to Eric’s, also converted. Robert now is a scallop boat captain.
For Earhart the future is even brighter. On July 1, 2005, he weds Olathe, Kan., kindergarten teacher Shari R. Albertson. And yes, she knows about his past.
GOD’S GRACE: INJURED HUSBAND FINDS NEW PURPOSE AFTER WIFE’S UNEXPECTED DEATH
By John W. Kennedy
The following article appeared in the March 25, 2007 issue of TPE. On Sept. 10, 2007, James John Tingle, was sentenced to three to six years in prison upon being convicted of homicide by vehicle while driving a vehicle under the influence in connection with the death of Linda Whited. Tingle received concurrent terms for two counts of aggravated assault by vehicle while DUI.
Meanwhile, James Whited, who wears a leg brace and uses a cane, says he continues to miss his wife immensely. He is preparing for ordination next spring and plans to travel as an evangelist in a motor home. His son Jim Jr. is in college in Williamsport. Pa., studying computers. Daughter Chrissy is in 10th grade.
James R. Whited Sr. still hobbles with a leg brace. Pain flairs where tendons no longer exist. He suffered permanent damage in what remains a weak left ankle. He has no sensation in the bottom of his foot. Steel plates are inserted in his left arm and hip.
Emotionally, Whited has a difficult time retelling the events that changed his family forever. What troubles him most is the loss of Linda, his wife of 23 years.
On Dec. 4, 2005, Whited drove his wife and two children among the picturesque rolling mountains in central Pennsylvania en route to the Sunday evening service at Gospel Tabernacle, the Philipsburg Assemblies of God church where they are members. An oncoming car driven by Brandi Markel had stopped on U.S. Route 322 to make a turn. In the wintry dark Whited saw a speeding Ford F250 pickup truck driven by James Tingle hit Markel’s vehicle from behind. Markel’s car traveled 120 feet, but she miraculously escaped injury.
However, Tingle’s truck came into Whited’s lane and struck his vehicle head-on. The truck hit with such ferocity that the crushed dashboard pinned Jim and Linda in the front seat.
Whited’s Kia Sportage caught fire and filled with black smoke. John Taylor, driving in the car behind the Whiteds, smothered the flames with a fire extinguisher he carried in his auto. Meanwhile, a passer-by broke out a rear passenger window to free son Jim Whited Jr., then 17. Jim Jr. crawled out, then collapsed. The other backseat passenger, daughter Chrissy, then 13, emerged with only a bruise on her leg.
Emergency workers began laboriously dismantling the crumpled car, cutting off the roof and doors before using chains to pull the dashboard off the married couple.
Linda, pinned for 45 minutes, had two broken femurs, a fractured ankle and a ruptured spleen.
Whited remained trapped, his left arm shattered in eight places and his left foot dangling by threads of tendons.
An hour after the wreck, Whited sensed the end of his life approaching. He felt blood draining from his body. Whited prepared to meet the Lord, but then he says he saw a bright light. He says he heard a voice delivering a message: You’re not through doing My work.
“I felt a renewal in my spirit,” Whited recalls. “I knew I was going to survive the accident.”
He didn’t know Linda wouldn’t.
Workers used Jaws of Life rescue equipment to cut Whited out of the seat and scoop him into an emergency helicopter. Earlier, Jim Jr., then Linda, had made the 12-minute flight to the trauma center in Altoona.
Jim Jr., whose abdominal muscles had been shredded, lost half his intestines. He ended up being transferred to a Pittsburgh hospital where specialists inserted two rods into his crushed vertebrae.
That Sunday night, Whited had a pair of surgeries on his arm and femur. Monday, doctors operated on his foot. Wednesday, he received a plate and bolt in his hip.
Twelve days after the accident, Whited transferred to a rehabilitation center in Clearfield, a town of 6,600 where he has lived nearly 40 of his 43 years. Linda arrived the following day.
Although badly battered, the couple began pondering what life would be like once released from hospitalized care. Would Jim be able to return as manager for a local auto parts store? Could Linda keep working as a medical claims billing troubleshooter once her own health problems subsided?
Whited further mulled whether he would continue as a volunteer chaplain at Clearfield County Jail.
At age 11, Whited had gone to a Pentecostal tent revival with his grandmother and was baptized in the Holy Spirit. At the meeting he felt God call him to ministry. Whited later took Berean University courses and obtained Assemblies of God ministerial credentials. He started a jail ministry where there had been none. On Sunday mornings up to two dozen inmates gathered for a service. Two Bible studies took place on Wednesday nights.
On his hospital bed, Whited remembered the blessing that Linda, the woman he asked to marry three weeks after meeting on a blind date, had been to him over the years. Although this accident certainly didn’t figure in the marriage they anticipated, now they began to adjust and make plans for the rest of their life together.
Eighteen days after the collision, Whited went to Altoona for a checkup. He said goodbye to Linda, expecting to see her that afternoon.
When he returned to the Clearfield rehab center a nurse met him. Whited learned that during his absence his 42-year-old wife had gone into cardiac arrest. He arrived to see attendants performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation on Linda, but to no avail. Doctors later learned of a blood clot in her lungs.
“A lot of people have asked me why God would let this happen,” Whited says in his living room, tears streaming down his face. “I’ve asked that myself. But one night I realized what the greatest gift of God is, second to salvation. It’s free will. Had God stepped in to stop this, He would have had to have stopped the free will of that driver.”
That driver, 49-year-old James Tingle, faces charges of vehicular homicide while driving under the influence of alcohol, three counts of aggravated assault while DUI, and several other moving violations. Police say Tingle’s blood-alcohol content that late Sunday afternoon was more than three times the legal limit.
Chrissy, the only nonhospitalized member of the family, had to select her mother’s burial plot. “No 13-year-old should have to do that,” her father says. Chrissy, who lived with James’ mother during her father’s hospitalization, has assumed many of the household cooking and cleaning duties.
Doctors released Whited from the rehabilitation center 10 weeks after the accident, even though he could barely walk. Once home, he had physical therapy sessions three times a week.
Whited decided not to return to county jail chaplaincy, where many men are behind bars because of drunk driving offenses. He didn’t even know if he wanted to fill in preaching where needed. Just two weeks before the accident he had preached at the Methodist church attended by John Taylor — the man who quenched Whited’s blazing sports utility vehicle.
Dave Knepp, a friend who visited Whited regularly at the rehabilitation center and had a music ministry there, eventually convinced him to preach a sermon to other patients.
“I didn’t think I could ever get back in the pulpit again, but Dave kept pestering me and I finally agreed,” Whited says. “It was difficult, but it was a turning point.” Since then, Whited has spoken at several area churches about what happened.
Although partially disabled from the crash, Whited has sensed a renewed calling from God to full-time ministry.
Gospel Tabernacle Pastor Franklin R. Linton has been with Whited through the difficult times, praying with him, cautioning him against isolating himself from the body of Christ, and mentoring him in his evangelist ordination process.
“The Whiteds were faithful members of the church, and the tragedy hasn’t changed their faithfulness,” says Linton, who can empathize with Whited. Linton has had two brothers and one sister die in separate auto accidents.
Whited also has ministered to other men whose spouses have died prematurely and unexpectedly. He now is actively involved in Mothers Against Drunk Driving functions.
“The pain doesn’t really go away; it just becomes manageable,” Whited says. “Faith is the only thing that got me through this. Now every step I take reminds me of what I’ve been through. I look at it like Paul saw his ‘thorn,’ and Scripture reminds me of what God has done for me, not what He hasn’t.”
Through it all, Whited and his children have grown closer and learned to depend on each other more than before.
Although he spent a month hospitalized and had to wear a back brace an additional two months, Jim Jr. recovered from his injuries. Returning to finish his senior year at high school, he had the opportunity to preach the baccalaureate sermon.
“I know I could have easily died that night, but God spared me,” he told his class. “I fully believe, and wish for Him to use me in the most powerful ways.”
He is now studying at a vocational college.
Despite the pain, both physical and emotional, Whited is grateful.
“I know where my wife is, and I draw a lot of comfort from that,” Whited says. “God’s grace is wonderful. We talk and sing about grace all the time in church, but until we’ve actually been through something like this we really can’t comprehend the grandness and depth of God’s grace.”
PHYSICIAN’S VISION RESULTS IN FREE HEALTH CARE TO NEEDY
By John W. Kennedy
The following article appeared in the March 10, 2002, edition of TPE, when James and Beth Blessman did short-term medical missions trips with HealthCare Ministries. In 2004, the Blessmans transferred to Caring Connection, where James is responsible for e-mail or phone physician medical care consultations with overseas Assemblies of God missionaries. Blessman also attends to the primary health-care needs of missionary families every summer at the School of Missions in Springfield, Mo. The Blessmans also spend four months in each year in South Africa, caring for 300 orphan children whose parents have died from HIV/AIDS.
Tables and chairs are being set up in the waiting area.
Ear-probe thermometers, blood pressure cuffs and tongue depressors are prepared in the screening section. A toy box and children’s videos are readied in an overflow room.
It’s 5:30 p.m. Thursday in the basement of First Assembly of God in Des Moines, Iowa, and a beehive of active volunteers are transforming Sunday School rooms into a free clinic. Although patients won’t be seen for another half hour, they already are lining up for the first-come, first-served ministry. The church has designated a corner for medical exams and supplies storage.
The weekly free clinic is the brainchild of Dr. James L. Blessman, a member of First Assembly. As founder of the umbrella nonprofit Health Care Access Network, Blessman has started free weekly clinics in 17 Iowa locations. HCAN reaches many Iowans who have jobs, but little or no health insurance.
With the vision of using volunteers from local churches, Blessman in the past decade has recruited 200 doctors and 1,000 non-physician volunteers to donate their services. In addition to the free labor, the use of facilities is donated along with most of the equipment and medicines. The state covers malpractice insurance for the doctors providing the free care. The network of clinics provides free primary medical care, no strings attached, to those who likely don’t have a regular doctor. “We’re just a tiny piece of the safety net,” Blessman says.
From an upstairs meeting of young adults, contemporary worship music can be heard faintly. Many patients who wouldn’t set foot in a church for a service don’t mind doing so for free health care that is run as efficiently and professionally as commercial clinics. The patients who gather are a mixture, representing the neighborhood in northwest Des Moines: a white elderly woman, a Hispanic family of five, a black teenager.
Typically, three nurses, one doctor, a medical student and half a dozen non-medical volunteers will be on hand from 6 to 8 p.m. All likely have put in a full day of work in their regular jobs. An average of 15 patients are seen each Thursday night, receiving everything from bronchitis medication to measles immunizations.
Tonight, Diane Messer, a full-time organs transplant nurse at Iowa Methodist Medical Center, is a volunteer at the free clinic. “All patients need to have equal rights to equal health care,” says Messer, who has been in nursing for 25 years. She spends about 10 minutes with each of her patients, doing a basic assessment of what’s wrong, checking vital signs and finding out about allergies and medications.
Messer, who attends First Assembly, volunteers at least once a month. If she has time, she asks patients if they believe in God and pray. “I recognize that illness can be a time of spiritual uncertainty,” she says.
Tonight’s on-call doctor is Dr. James P. Lovell, a cardiologist who has been volunteering monthly since the clinic opened six years ago. For a specialist who spends his daily life in the intricacies of the heart, treating a common cold is a bit of a departure.
“I’m just a cardiologist,” says Lovell, who also sings in the First A/G choir. “Sometimes I wonder if I should be seeing sick babies. But this is a place where God wants me to be. In a sense, this is a missions outreach. This is the place where I can make a small contribution.”
Sometimes a diagnosis and treatment can change a life. At one clinic, a doctor determined that a baby had phenylketonuria, a genetic disorder that results in mental retardation if not caught early and treated with a special diet.
Lovell engages in good-natured banter with a high school student at the clinic for a basketball physical. The cardiologist asks Garrett Gordon, a first-year student at Hoover High School, what position he plays and how the team is going to do. Eventually he asks the patient whether he goes to church.
Before leaving, patients have the option of counselors praying with them. As they are most weeks, Denny and Joyce Spencer are at the clinic ready to offer spiritual guidance. “Almost everyone lets us pray with them after they receive medical treatment,” Joyce says.
Denny believes those who haven’t made a commitment to Jesus at the start of the night will do so by the end. “I have big expectations because we’ve invited God into this room,” he says.
This evening, Robert Gonzales, a good-looking 17-year-old North High School senior who is at the clinic for the first time for a basketball physical, makes Jesus his Savior after talking with the Spencers. “They told me how to accept God in my life,” he says. Those who make a salvation decision receive a free Bible, discipleship materials and church information.
The cost to HCAN for each patient is $21 per visit, one-tenth of what a trip to a hospital emergency room runs. The entire annual $313,000 HCAN budget comes from private funds and no government money is used. The clinics are dependent upon individuals, congregations, patient donations and private grants to keep going. Blessman is continually on the hunt for more corporate sponsors.
Blessman had practiced family medicine in Des Moines for years, but recent overseas short-term missionary health care trips stirred his heart toward poor and spiritually lost people in Third World countries. At 56, he has reached the point in life where most doctors are winding down and looking forward to a comfortable retirement. Instead, he and his wife, Beth, recently became missionary associates with the Assemblies of God.
They will be taking medical team and disaster response trips with the outreach HealthCare Ministries, bringing God’s love and healing to people around the world.
WHEN DEATH BRINGS LIFE
By John W. Kennedy
This article ran in the Sept. 24, 2006 edition of TPE. Brandy Horton continues to work at the school and her daughters are now in second grade and pre-kindergarten. Business route 81 in Rush Springs has been renamed the “Destry Horton Memorial Highway.
During his boyhood near Rush Springs, Okla., John Destry Horton lived across the pasture from Brandy Pittman. In between his periodic teasing and tormenting his neighbor, the 10-year-old Destry turned serious. He told Brandy, then 6, that someday he would marry her.
But that idealistic childhood vow sustained a bump or two along the road to adult reality. At 21, Destry embarked on a new venture: cooking up methamphetamine and dealing illegal drugs.
One day, after he shot up a lethal mixture of crank and heroin, a dazed Destry realized he had pushed too far. In a plea to God to spare his life, Destry promised to serve Him the rest of his life if he survived.
God spared Destry that day in 1996 and the young man made good on his promise, doing everything with evangelistic gusto. From that point on, Destry — who never endured withdrawal symptoms or went through drug rehabilitation — told everyone he met how God intervened to disrupt his descent into death, and how Jesus Christ powerfully transformed him and gave him newfound life.
Unlike Destry, Brandy grew up attending church three times a week. But in her late teens she rebelled.
Destry got her interested in the Lord again. After declining repeatedly, Brandy finally accepted Destry’s invitation to a revival meeting, where she renewed her commitment to the Lord. Destry and Brandy’s friendship blossomed into romance, and the couple wed in 1998.
For a couple of years, Destry and Brandy served as part-time youth pastors in Rush Springs. But Destry yearned to be a full-time firefighter. The day before the birth of their first daughter, Kiley, Destry began working for the fire department in Chickasha, a farming and college community of 18,000. He continued his education and advanced to ambulance paramedic.
The Hortons kept growing spiritually and they began attending Grand Assembly of God in Chickasha in 2003. Destry became the praise and worship leader, and the couple served as youth sponsors.
Destry had a vivacious personality and a contagious laugh. People liked to be around him. With Destry nearby, even the grumpiest person found it difficult to stay in a bad mood.
By early this year, Destry had worked his 5-foot-11-inch, 180-pound broad-shouldered frame into its best shape ever. He lifted weights, jogged miles, and did hundreds of push-ups and sit-ups every day. Seemingly, Destry mastered any physically demanding activity he tried, including snow skiing, water skiing, baseball and basketball.
As 2006 began, Destry anticipated his promotion to engineer (the firefighter who drives the truck), starting March 2.
The Hortons looked as if they had the perfect marriage and the perfect family, which now included 6-year-old Kiley and 3-year-old McKenzie. Life couldn’t have been better. But the perfect life on earth is never permanent.
On, Wednesday, March 1 — Destry’s day off — a series of wildfires swept across drought-stricken southwestern Oklahoma. Destry volunteered to drive a truck for the Acme fire department south of Chickasha.
With that area’s fires extinguished, Destry planned to get in a quick game of golf before the evening service at Grand Assembly. But just as he left the station, Destry received a page that another fire had broken out near Duncan, south of Acme.
“Destry always gave of himself,” recalls Grand Assembly of God Pastor Larry Hatfield. “He didn’t have to go fight the fire. It was his day off.”
Shortly after 4 p.m., Destry phoned Brandy, assuring her that he would be home in time for supper.
Just after 5, the phone in the Horton living room rang. Brandy saw “Duncan Regional Hospital” on the caller identification. Instinctively she knew that Destry had been burned.
A doctor told Brandy he never had seen burns so severe. The physician told her that Destry wouldn’t survive the night.
Brandy rode with a relative to Oklahoma City, 45 minutes north of Chickasha, as a medical helicopter transferred Destry to the Integris Baptist Medical Center in the state capital. At the burn unit, Brandy learned the details.
Destry had arrived upon a surreal scene, where high, dry grass quickly served as tinder spreading blazes from field to field. With winds shifting wildly in tornadic fashion, flames swiftly closed in on Destry and fellow firefighter Larry Crabb.
Inside the hot cab of the truck, Destry removed his helmet, gloves and jacket to drive. As he backed up in the thick smoke, a rear tire of the truck sank into a ditch, knocking Crabb off into a barbed-wire fence.
With visibility near zero, Destry jumped out of the truck to help Crabb. But Destry stepped into a swirling inferno that engulfed his face and upper torso. After the intense flames passed, Crabb saw Destry’s shirt melted to his chest and his boots dissolved onto his feet.
Crabb, despite second- and third-degree burns on his own hands and face, ran for assistance. As he looked back from a hill to check on his comrade, Crabb saw Destry, despite his pain, kneeling by a tree with his hands raised in worship to the Lord.
On the ambulance ride to Duncan, Destry evangelized paramedics and firefighters with some of his final words. At the hospital doctors performed a tracheotomy so that Destry wouldn’t suffocate due to a closed windpipe.
At the burn center, Brandy didn’t recognize her husband because of his enormously swollen, blistered face.
Brandy and Pastor Hatfield mobilized Christians around the country to pray for Destry’s survival and recovery. Destry baffled doctors by surviving the night. And another. Then another.
On the fourth day, doctors removed the mummy-like bandages enveloping Destry from head to toe. They planned to scrape off dead skin and tissue. But Destry had little skin or tissue left. His face had fifth-degree burns, leaving virtually nothing but bone. He had sustained fourth-degree burns everywhere else on his body except his legs.
The wedding vows Brandy had recited eight years earlier came to her mind. This had to be the “for worse” part.
Nevertheless, Brandy assured her husband that he looked handsome and she believed he would be healed. She asked for a sign that he understood. Destry blinked. Brandy implored Destry to wiggle his toes, and he complied. Her spirits soared in the knowledge that her husband hadn’t suffered brain damage and in the expectation that Destry would be restored to health.
Six days into the ordeal, surgeons determined Destry needed both arms amputated at the elbow so that gangrene wouldn’t spread.
After the amputations, doctors told Brandy they could do no more. She consulted with burn specialists around the world in a grasp for a medical solution. None had seen any patient with such critical burns survive so long. They, too, had no cure.
Day after day, Brandy stayed beside her lingering mate, praying and reading her Bible. Over and over again Brandy told Destry she loved him and extolled him for being an awesome husband and father. She encouraged Destry to thank God for binding up his wounds. She saw what remained of his lips moving. As the days progressed, physicians and nurses continued to be dumbfounded.
Visitors packed the third floor of Baptist Hospital for three weeks, openly praying and talking freely about God.
The end came on March 24 as Destry’s weakened heart finally gave out with Brandy standing by his side. He had survived massive injuries for 23 days.
“I would love to tell you he rose from that hospital bed, but he didn’t,” Brandy says.
Initially, Brandy felt anger at God about the length of Destry’s suffering. Yet she is grateful that Destry is no longer in pain in his earthly body. Through the ordeal she grew closer to the Lord.
“God promised He won’t put us through more than we can bear,” she says. “God knows my limitations. Every day I tell God I can’t make it without Him. Now God is my Comforter. He is the One I talk to in the middle of the night. He is the One I run to for help.”
Destry died at 32 and left a 28-year-old widow. Nearly 3,000 people attended a memorial service on March 30, including Gov. Brad Henry. About 1,000 packed into Grand Assembly while the rest watched video hook-ups at four other local churches. Dozens of firefighters, some from New York City, attended the service.
The crowd listened to an earlier church service recording of Destry singing praise and worship. Brandy spoke boldly at the funeral, leaving no doubt about Destry’s final destination. She exhorted those in the audience to get their hearts right with God. Six relatives subsequently made decisions to accept Jesus as their Savior.
People paying their respects lined the 18-mile funeral procession from the church to the Rush Springs burial site.
For weeks afterwards, Brandy received letters from people who attended the funeral describing how a loved one made a salvation decision. The final weeks and death of Destry Horton impacted hundreds of friends, relatives, firefighters, medical personnel, friends and others.
Still, those who haven’t had a spouse die don’t fully understand Brandy’s loss. The oneness of two people joined together becomes most apparent when one is suddenly removed.
The young daughters Destry left behind also have their difficult days, grieving at length. In June, Kiley wrote a love letter to her daddy and sent it up into the sky with balloons. She figured he could see it from heaven.
Meanwhile, Brandy is working as a teacher’s aide in Rush Springs, with aspirations of becoming a schoolteacher. Area residents sponsored fundraisers to help pay for Destry’s medical expenses. News of the tragedy led strangers from around the world to send donations to Brandy.
“I miss Destry every day,” Brandy says. “But I have the peace of knowing that I will see him again.”
For Pastor Hatfield, Destry’s miraculous survival for more than three weeks followed by death has been an enigma.
“It’s been difficult for many people who were praying to understand why he had to die,” Hatfield says. “But we have to trust God. People have been evangelized who wouldn’t have been touched in any other way. There will be more people in heaven because of how this happened.”
A SLOW JOURNEY ON A CHOSEN ROAD
By John W. Kennedy
Since publication of the following article in the Nov. 14, 2004, issue of TPE, much has happened in Steve Kramer’s life. While itinerating in January 2005 to raise missionary funds, he met his future wife, Julie, in Medford, Ore. They wed in June 2005. The couple arrived in the Netherlands in July 2006.
The Kramers completed a year of Dutch language school while simultaneously pastoring a Chi Alpha group in their Leiden home each week. The group eventually grew to 25 students. Then the missionaries began helping a church in Groningen with a new Chi Alpha chapter, handing leadership of Chi Alpha Leiden to missionary associate Emma Hansen. In the summer of 2007, the Kramers accepted an assignment as the first national directors of Chi Alpha Campus Ministries in the Netherlands.
When Steve Kramer entered the world in 1973, doctors gave his young parents little hope for survival of their first baby, born 11 weeks premature.
“If he lives, you’ll be fortunate,” a physician told Randy Kramer, 21 and in the Air Force, and his wife, Linda, just 18. It was an era before medical technology could do much to save small-weight infants. Steve’s weight dipped below three pounds and repeatedly he suffered breathing apnea because of underdeveloped lungs. When his heart monitor stopped, a nurse vigorously tugged on a string tied to his leg to jostle the boy into breathing again.
Those touch-and-go early days also put a strain on Randy and Linda, who lived in Arizona. They were visiting Linda’s parents in Placerville, Calif., when she went into premature labor. The closest hospital that would treat preemies was in Sacramento, and for the first two months they had to make a 100-mile round trip to see their son in a hospital incubator.
When Steve turned 6 months old, the family moved to the Azores, a group of islands 800 miles west of the coast of Portugal. The parents grew concerned when their 9-month-old baby couldn’t sit up and had difficulty grasping toys.
The mounting pressures of marrying young — Linda had been 16, Randy 19 — the growing medical concerns over Steve and the rigorous military life took a toll on the Kramers. The couple separated for 6 months and contemplated divorce.
But a trip to a U.S. military hospital in West Germany unified them. Upon hearing physicians diagnose his son with cerebral palsy, Randy, who had been raised in a strong Christian home, recommitted his life to Christ and thus preserved the marriage. Doctors told the Kramers that their son would never walk.
From that point on, the Kramers stuck together.
Steve’s parents always included him in family activities. They let him go at his own pace, which resulted in him becoming more independent-minded. And Steve didn’t set limits on himself.
“My family never treated me like I was disabled,” Kramer says. “My parents knew that the limitations others set on me weren’t what God planned. God knew before I was born what purposes He had for me. God doesn’t look at the doctor’s chart before He calls you.”
Today, Kramer is one of 764,000 people in the United States with cerebral palsy. Usually the condition is caused by brain damage during fetal development, affecting a person’s ability to adequately control body movement and muscle coordination.
But overcoming difficulties has been something Kramer has done with great regularity. In fact, his impressive career almost makes it seem as though he had been born with a silver spoon in his mouth. The handsome, articulate, good-natured, extroverted young man has pursued and realized his dreams of becoming a television news anchor, associate pastor and now, itinerating missionary.
Certainly an upbeat attitude and stick-to-itiveness have contributed to his achievements. But more importantly, Kramer’s faith in Christ has helped him accomplish goals rather than despair about limitations he faces.
The Kramers returned to California just after Steve’s first birthday. By age 13, Steve had undergone a dozen surgeries on his legs, knees and hips in attempts to loosen stiff spastic muscles. Sometimes he would be in a body cast up to his chest, hospitalized for months at a time. At night his legs would be in splints.
When it came time for Steve to enter school he and his parents had a new battle to fight: prejudice. His parents vociferously, and ultimately successfully, argued for Steve’s inclusion in a public school program. Steve’s teacher, counselor and superintendent had all sought to place him in a school for the disabled. Because of the cerebral palsy, Steve’s movements appeared uncoordinated, prompting classmates to tease him cruelly and even throw rocks at him. Unlike God, people often tend to judge mental capacity by physical appearance. Steve did need to repeat kindergarten, but it was primarily because he spent most of the first year in hospital rooms rather than the classroom.
Steve lived most of his childhood in a wheelchair, on crutches or using a walker. After completing intensive and painful physical therapy, he would improve — only to face another operation which doctors deemed necessary.
Although Steve committed his life to Jesus as his Savior at age 5, four years later he felt overwhelmed as to why God allowed his pain and suffering. “My dad told me, ‘You can know God is good, whatever you go through,’ ” Steve recalls. “That has been the foundation of my life.”
His parents were a constant encouragement. “I would never trade a bad set of legs for a bad set of parents,” Steve says. “God has always blessed me with incredible favor even in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.”
“It’s always been amazing to me that Steve did not become embittered,” Randy says. “Instead of getting angry at God when bad things happen, he has allowed the Lord to build his character.”
The Kramers ultimately found the operations to be more experimental than helpful. When Steve was 13, he had a wedge removed from his left femur and replaced by a steel plate. Immediately afterwards, medical specialists told the family that Steve needed a similar operation on the right femur or he would never walk. At this point Steve’s parents allowed their son to make a life-changing decision.
Steve had recently sensed a specific call by God to become a missionary to the Netherlands. He believes that sense of divine leading helped him focus on a difficult choice. “I believe God knew I would need it to carry me through the tough times,” he now recalls. At 13, Steve determined he would consent to no more operations.
Randy asked members of Highland Assembly of God in Bakersfield (now Canyon Hills Assembly) to pray for a healing so that yet another corrective surgery wouldn’t be necessary.
Six weeks later, X-rays revealed that the right femur had returned to its socket. Doctors couldn’t account for the reason.
“One of my regrets is that I should have prayed more instead of automatically conceding to surgeries,” says Randy, whose faith increased from that point. He went to Bible college and spent 15 years as a pastor.
Soon after the femur healing, the Kramers were at the beach and a giant wave came ashore. The receding water washed Steve’s crutches out to the ocean, never to be seen again. Steve saw it as divine intervention.
Kramer lives independently, but he isn’t against practical help. “A shoe lift didn’t come out with me when I was born,” he says. And there are limitations. He becomes fatigued after a mile of walking. Stairs are difficult to negotiate because of trying to keep his balance.
“I am disabled,” says Kramer. “It’s noticeable when I look into a full-length mirror. But God can be glorified through weaknesses.”
Kramer graduated from the University of Oregon with a broadcast journalism degree. He served sports reporting internships for NBC affiliates in Yuma, Ariz.; Eugene, Ore.; and Seattle.
God then opened doors full-time in television, a medium not known for welcoming the physically disabled. Kramer spent two years as a news anchor for the CBS affiliate in Coos Bay, Ore.
Kramer had hoped to become a professional sports announcer, but his desires were changing. He saw how much ministry transformed his father’s life.
When Kramer heard David Lee, then-director of International Media Ministries, speak at a church missions convention, he felt God calling him again to missions. At Lee’s invitation, Kramer left a promising future in television news and went to work for IMM in Belgium for 15 months. He wrote scripts and narrated videos for IMM. In his spare time he ministered to refugees and homeless people in Brussels.
“In spite of his training in the TV and radio profession, Steve’s number one passion has always been evangelism,” says Lee, now U.S. Relations director for Assemblies of God World Missions. “He is bold about sharing the gospel one-on-one on the streets.”
After his stint with IMM, Kramer moved to Springfield, Mo., where he graduated from Assemblies of God Theological Seminary with a master’s degree in theological studies in 2002. His thesis, based on Philippians 1:29, explored how suffering can be a gift from God.
Kramer served as associate pastor for a year and a half at Abundant Life Assembly of God in North Salt Lake City, Utah.
“Steve has a real good heart for starting ministries that most people don’t really care about,” says Abundant Life Pastor Alex Lucero. “He started helping at a rescue mission here and passed that ministry on to someone else when he left.”
Kramer lived with his parents in Jefferson, Ore. The Kramers have three younger children, all born without complications.
“I always saw great potential in Steve,” says Linda, a county sheriff’s correctional sergeant. “We never wanted him to think he couldn’t do anything, mentally or physically, that he set his heart to do. Other people see that he’s disabled. We don’t see that.” Linda Kramer went to college, even though she never finished high school.
In 2004, Kramer received approval to become an Assemblies of God world missionary in preparation to work with Chi Alpha and church planters in Amsterdam.
“Steve will find a place where there is a real need and that’s what will drive him,” says Lucero, who has been pastor of Abundant Life for 16 years.
Already, Kramer has led three Chi Alpha short-term teams to the Netherlands. Being robbed at knifepoint the first week of his first visit didn’t deter him.
“I’m the last guy who should be leading a street evangelism team through the red-light district,” Kramer says. “I walk half the speed of everybody else.”
Greg Mundis, Europe regional director for Assemblies of God World Missions, recognizes that Kramer takes longer to do some tasks but says that’s not a problem.
“Steve has exhibited an incredible amount of tenacity in the face of obstacles,” Mundis says. “He demonstrates a positive attitude in facing the challenges of life that most don’t experience. He will bring a dimension into his missionary career that few of us have because he knows what it means to endure.”
Mundis finds it especially fitting that Kramer will be living in Holland, which in 2001 became the world’s first country to legalize euthanasia, in part as “mercy killing” for the disabled. “That will provide an added dimension to what Steve can contribute to that society,” Mundis says.
Kramer works out regularly in a gym and believes he’s in the best physical shape of his life.
“But if I have to go back into a wheelchair someday it won’t dampen my testimony,” he says. “The eternal things are more important.”