This is it. My personal story. 

The good and the bad.

I am who I am. 

How did I end up like this?

I have worked hard, been through tough circumstances, and survived to be nearly 70.

Although the closing chapter of my life is nearing,

I will continue to fight 

for what is right with all I am.

Called to Educational Leadership

            I have a calling, not because I’m a good person or because I deserve it, but because I see a worthy need and feel inspired to address it. This means I have a vision, a plan, and have developed a method to meet that need. I see the most important need in the world and I’m trying to address it. I feel God has the same need and I believe that I’m doing His work in addressing this great worldwide need.

            The need is for folks to accept Jesus. The problem is that those who seek God are constantly mislead. Religion is mostly misleading folks to hell. Hell is the biggest problem. For me, it was solved. I accepted Christ. But before that moment of salvation, I was lost, really lost and unaware of God’s plan of salvation.

Steadfast Stewardship

            Once I knew how to be saved, I started telling everyone I could. This is the Gift of Evangelism. In seminary, I actually wrote my Master’s Thesis on this topic. I did all the historical and Biblical research. I still have that document. I remember that since this was the time before personal computers, it had to be typed by hand. It had to be typed without one mistake on any page.

            We used an IBM Selectric typewriter, and it’s noteworthy to explain that the professor would hold up each page to the light and if there were any corrections, either using white out or by using white tape in the backup autocorrect mode, if there were any shadows indicating the page was not perfectly typed, it was disqualified. Who can type a hundred-page white paper without one mistake?

            So we hired a professional typist who charged two dollars and fifty cents per page. That turned out to be over two hundred and fifty dollars back in 1985. That’s an increase of almost ten-fold compared to today. So it would have cost me almost one thousand dollars to have that done today. That’s a lot of money for a dirt-poor seminary student. But God provided.

Lifelong Learning

            The first thing I did to support this call was to pray for lost souls. Next, I studied the Bible day and night. Then I attended Church whenever the door was open and went to every Bible study I could. After the Army, I went straight to Bible school. I actually ended up going to seven Bible schools before earning a Master’s in Biblical Studies from the now closed San Francisco Baptist Theological Seminary.

            I have over two hundred and fifty units of Bible including five semesters of Biblical Greek and one semester of Hebrew, where I translated the entire book of Zechariah into English word-for-word. I was trained in Evangelism at Moody Bible Institute where I also worked at the Pacific Garden Mission. I preached on the street in Times Square, the Chicago Loop, the Washington Mall, at Independence Hall, on the Atlantic City Boardwalk for an entire summer, and places like Harlem. I then moved on to the West Coast and preached in downtown San Diego to skid row, in children’s parks to groups of kids, and even on the steps of the San Francisco City Hall. All this was in the 1980’s.

            I then became a Christian schoolteacher and worked at Redwood Christian School in California as a special education teacher for many years. I then moved on to become a computer teacher at Fremont Christian School, also in California, where I learned to master web page design and online witnessing. I earned two California teaching credentials, completed a Master’s in Educational Leadership, and completed four years more of PhD studies in Higher Education Administration. My wife is also a PhD Candidate in the same program, both of us having completed all requirements with a GPA above 3.70 for all courses. Our dissertation proposals were concerning improvement in online education.

Persistence and Perseverance

Now, while still actively employed as a California schoolteacher, I used my online witnessing skills from years debating false doctrines online and developing Facebook pages on all these topics with thousands of comments on many pages, to found an online school of Biblical studies; Doctrine Theological Seminary (DTS). I used my online PhD training to establish a scholarly template for students around the world, in almost any language, to take courses online.

Childhood in Germany

I was born in Germany. I generally lived a happy life as a child. We lived with our grandparents, on my mother’s side, next to the railroad tracks in a small German village near the French border. When I was eight, we moved to America.

My parents had a brand new house and sold it. We took an all-night train to Paris. In the morning, we took a taxi to the airport. I remember looking out the window and seeing the Eifel Tower going by. When we got to the airport, my dad discovered he left a leather portfolio with all of the money, air tickets, and passports next to a bench at the taxi stand. Remember, this was 1965. When he got there, it was still there where he left it. Can you imagine how my life would be different if it had been taken by someone? Unbelievable! We first flew to Vancouver Canada. On the way, I looked out the window and saw icebergs over the North Atlantic.

My brother Andy was crying on the plane. He had been in the hospital for over six months after his birth. The story goes that my mom was dying during birth and Andy was set aside so the team could work on saving my mother’s life. They had ripped Andy out of my mom, breaking many bones. Thinking he was dead, they set him aside.

When my mom stabilized, the nurse called out, “doctor, the baby is moving!” They then rushed over to Andy. Andy ended up in a full body cast for six months. He has Downs Syndrome, and he is profoundly mentally disabled. He can’t talk, and never spoke a word in his life. He is shorter by far than any of his siblings. He walks with a limp as one leg is shorter. However, he is full of love and patience.

Andy has never committed one sin in his entire life. I know, I have lived with him most of his life. When his mom passed away about ten years ago, Andy moved in with us. He has no teeth. He has profound care needs as almost everything must be done for him. Nevertheless, he attends a day program.

The Bank of Heaven

I think Andy is very special. I believe God used Andy to give me insight into how people behave and what their real needs are. Andy is nonverbal. He has never said one word his entire life until he said hi to my sister when she visited us. I’m not sure he knew what the word meant but it sounded like hi and my sister cried.

Think about this. If a blind person gets to heaven, who will enjoy the sights more, you or they? If a person with no leg, like my mom, gets there, who will dance higher? If the deaf get to heaven, who will enjoy hearing more? If the dumb start singing, who will sing louder and better?

Andy is on the level of a six-month-old baby in many ways. He’s still in diapers just in case. He has no teeth. He can’t talk, make his bed, wash his clothes or even independently dress himself. He’s a choking hazard, a falling hazard, and will walk into the street if not intensely monitored; not knowing that a car could run him over.

That’s why I treat him like he’s my boss. He’s taught me to care. Because of him, I became a special education teacher. God put him here. He will instantly go to heaven because he has never done or said one thing wrong. I believe that when Andy gets to heaven, God will reward folks like him more than all of us. He’ll be completely normal up there. He’ll be my boss, so I treat him that way now. I’m sure he’ll appreciate all the love Debbie and I and my parents, brothers and sisters and all caretakers have given him on earth.

You can’t take anything with you when you die. Have you ever seen a Hearst pulling a U-Haul? The only thing you can take with you is what you send ahead. As a Christian, every time you follow the lead of the Holy Spirit, you deposit good works in the Bank of Heaven that pays eternal dividends. Imagine working your whole life on earth to get rich, enjoy it for ten or twenty years before your health fails, and what do you have left when you die? Selfish memories. But those who seek the Kingdom of God will have eternal abundance.

Miracles Still Happen

Fifty years later, after my mom and dad passed, we took Andy in. He lived with us. One day, after months of reduced mobility, he came to a stand-still. We decided to take him to the emergency room since he couldn’t walk. He was sitting in a wheelchair when the doctor came by to give us the prognosis after looking at x-rays. I saw the x-ray. One hip looked normal, the other side, after enduring an agonizing birth, had healed looking like a dried bowl of spaghetti with cracks everywhere.

The doctor said, “I’m afraid, he will never walk again, and be in a wheelchair the rest of his life.” Amazingly, another doctor was walking by. He said that he had overheard part of this conversation and that he is not supposed to interfere, but that he knew someone who might take on a case like this.

What?? Yes! We took Andy to another doctor who, after healing for three months himself from an arm injury, agreed to operate on Andy’s hip. Andy waited in a convalescent center until the surgeon’s arm healed. With assistance, the doctor worked on Andy. After surgery, I was confounded to see that Andy’s legs were the same length.

How could that possibly be? He went in with one shorter leg. Now they are both the same length! It turns out that an actual miracle happened. Not only did God send that other doctor by in the emergency room but this surgeon was able to do a hip joint transplant that lined up that hip joint with the one on the other side.

Andy’s leg was pulled out of his body as it was lowered to match the length of the other leg. I saw the new x-ray. Andy’s metal hip joint implant could clearly be seen reconstructed lower by just the right length, so he now has legs that are the same length!

Unfortunately, after months of healing in the same skilled nursing facility, the physical therapy team was unable to get Andy to walk, no matter what. I finally put my foot down. I had had enough! So now comes the third miracle. I marched into the therapy room, asked for permission to try, walked over to Andy sitting in a chair and gave him a big hug.

I wrapped my arms around him, lifted him up to his feed and started walking backwards. Andy started moving his legs and took his first steps. God used me to put all those therapists to shame as He demonstrated His love for Andy through me! That was the beginning of Andy’s road to healing.

Childhood Struggles

My own childhood brought me through extreme difficulties. I was one of many children from around the world who move to another country where no one could speak their language. We moved into a socially and economically poor welfare housing community. I had difficulty making any friend since I couldn’t speak English. We were the only white family and I was horribly beat up often. Once, I was bit on the chest, another time, hit over the head with a metal lunch box. I felt alone.

Thankfully, a teen African-American neighbor who lived next door made friends with me. Leroy took me under his wing. He was my personal American ambassador and wow, he did a great job. He taught me about sports, American culture, and showed me that America wasn’t a bad place.  I love Leroy. He was black and he was my first real friend in America.

Years later, when I was serving in the Army, I met African Americans from around the country. I shared barracks with Blacks from the Deep South and every corner of the United States. One time, my roommate was from Harlem. Interesting enough, years after that, I ended up going to Harlem myself, after the Army, to actually lead childhood evangelistic park meetings. I had never considered myself to be racist.

Refugee Status

The other day, I found a newspaper article from the Seattle Times dated June, 1965, about my dad, an immigrant and refugee from a communist country, needing to try to find a job without being able to understand or speak English. After World War 2, in the middle of winter in the snow at night, both he and his brother were shot at as they ran through barbed wire to escape to the West. He ended up getting a job with the US military at Rammstein Airbase in Kaiserslautern, Germany.  The same place where my mom was working.

That’s where he met my mom. Mom got a job there after the war as an intake laundry receptionist. Dad offered her rides home with his new Mercedes. However, since he was a foreigner, mom’s parents were very skeptical. My grandmother refused to attend the wedding, so that tells you that my dad didn’t have it easy. Nevertheless, it was he who ultimately brought his family, with six kids and one on the way to America!

Surviving World War 2

My mom, now deceased, also has an incredible story. She was there, in Germany, when her town was being bombed. She worked in a factory and after a night of intense bombing, she told us how the darkness was “lit by flares like a giant Christmas tree in the sky” as her factory was leveled with heavy bombing. On another occasion, while starving, she was in a potato field looking for any leftover potatoes when a fighter plane strafed the field. They dove into a ditch to save their life. She had also thrown herself onto the grass in front of the Kaiserslautern train station when it was hit by bombs.

Prior to that, as a teen, she had adamantly refused to join the Hitler Youth. Her dad, my grandfather, who was a leader in the town, tried to save her from Nazi persecution by attending her trial but he was made to wait outside as she faced a tribunal alone. Irmgard, was condemned to years of slave labor on the other side of the country where, among other horrible duties, she had to shovel manure endlessly.

Mom was a Famous Actress

After the war, she returned to her village of Katzweiler and joined her Catholic youth drama group. This group grew into a regional outdoor theater, the “Freilichtbühne” (an open light or open air stage). This morphed into a popular event with outdoor plays on the side of a hill in the forest. They erected life-sized wooden sets and even used real horses. My mom became the lead-actress and starred in many plays including one, ironically enough, called “Coming to America.” On their 50^th anniversary, my mom went back to Germany on a visit to that celebration as the guest of honor.

Our Journey to America

One day in the backyard garden, my German grandpa, “Opa,” sat me on his lap and told me that moving to America is a great idea. He told me that there is a tricycle on every corner for you to ride and that money grows on trees there. But I loved my life there with the beautiful meadow next to our house, with my grandpa’s train station across the street, my dad bringing home giant ten-ton US Army trucks, and watching my grandma making sweaters and other things in the evenings on her manually powered knitting machine. It was her way of helping to support the family as she created colorful warm clothing and accessories for the whole village.

We lived upstairs. My mom was washing dishes one day when she saw what looked like snow falling outside the kitchen window. But it was a clear spring day. That wasn’t snow. She also saw a group of my friends dancing around and screaming in the yard below. She had told them that I couldn’t go out to play until I finished my homework.

What was it? It was me tearing up my homework into tiny pieces upstairs and tossing them out the window. So how would someone like that end up being a schoolteacher? You tell me!

Earthly Achievements

Here are a few of my greatest achievements as a youngster. I once rode my tricycle down a stinging nettle embankment into a muddy ravine. I remember sitting shirtless on my bed with my aunt and uncle along my mom putting ointment on all the painful blisters.

Near Death Experience

Then there was the time I fell into the deep Kaiser canal near my home. I think I was six or seven. It had very steep sides and a drop-off. I was underwater; I saw the top of the water like a clear ceiling in a room with long grass growing at the edge. I was drifting down into the darkness and was slowly swept away. Suddenly, I saw a hand reach in. I reached up and grabbed it. 

My cousin Klaus was with me on that adventure. He saved my life! That effort reminds me of being saved by Jesus when I was nineteen. We are all drowning in our sins and guilt, being swept away to hell. But Jesus reaches his hand down from heaven and if we take it, we will be saved. Sadly, my cousin was killed in that very spot when coming down the hill on his motorcycle and going over the bridge. A tractor pulled in front of him. He died in the spot where he saved my life. Christ died in our place.

The worst part wasn’t facing my mom. It was the neighbor lady who actually pulled me by my ear all the way home. In contrast, when I was playing in the dark at the large fountain in Kaiserslautern and a lady on a balcony saw me fall in. She took me in, warmed me up and got me home.

Five-Year-Old Driver

Another interesting thing I did as a child was to drive the car at five years old. I don’t think my dad ever found out! How did I do that? When I was very young, my dad worked as an automobile mechanic at a gas station. I found an unlocked car out back. I climbed onto the seat and moved some levers, pretending to drive, when suddenly, the car started to roll forward. I couldn’t stop it. It rolled forward slowly and then hit a brick wall. It was dark. I was standing on the driver’s seat, holding on to the steering wheel with both hands. Of course, the car stopped abruptly when it hit that wall, but I wasn’t hurt. I got out of the car and no one ever found out, except you.

Child Traverses City

My mom was in the hospital for a long time because of severe issues giving birth to my brother Andy. She was gone so long that I decided to go find her. At age six, I walked all the way across a large German city, Kaiserslautern (K-town), asking folks where the “Krankenhaus” hospital is. I actually made it there. Everyone in the hospital was shocked. My mom was delighted!

Traversing an Ocean

My family decided to move to America. My mother had won an immigration lottery. They sold everything they had and got ready to move to America!

Ten Years an Altar Boy

While still in Germany, at age six, I was asked to be an altar boy in the Catholic Church. Our first church service where I was to participate was at Easter, probably in 1962. They dressed me in a long red dress with a white lace smock over the top. They said my role was to ring the bells at the right moment. This was a huge set of six gold bells tied together with a gold metal bar. I picked them up and shook them with all I had. I think I did a good job. I ended up being an altar boy for about ten years until just before I went off to the Army.

Chess Player

My next-door neighbor was pretty smart. My friend Lee’s dad worked as an engineer for Boeing, just like Terry’s dad did. But Lee knew how to play chess. His family was from Taiwan. His uncle was the President of Berkeley University in California. I got very good at playing chess with Lee. That was between times of building forts under the blackberry sticker bushes behind his house.

Canning Fruits and Vegetables

My parents loved to can. My dad had a big garden in the back. He drove his paint truck deep into twenty-foot tall sticker bushes so we could get the best blackberries up on top. We took drives to Yakima every summer to pick all kinds of fruit and veggies. Mom canned them. Dad had every fruit tree possible planted in the back yard, and I died every summer as I had to weed the hill behind my house. I was very much allergic to grass and didn’t know it.

My Dog Died

We had a German shepherd, Prince, who disappeared one day. My parents said he ran away, but I found out later, he was run over. I know my dog would never run away from me. We loved each other too much. Many kids go through the loss of a pet. It’s hard. I know.

Judo Championship

Another notable achievement was my Judo training at the Seattle YMCA. My instructor was a vet who just returned from Vietnam. He had turned into a hippy. When he took his shoes off on the far side of the gym as he entered, we could actually smell them on the other side. Whew! I ended up winning a tournament by beating someone several belts above my level. That’s because I trained with a 200-pound kid while I was about 100 pounds.

Featured in the Newspaper

I took home economics in middle school and made a famous pie. We were divided into teams of two. We were shown how to make a lemon meringue pie. We were each to make a pie. I decided to make my pie the best one ever. I took my time and made little peaks perfectly spaced on the top. It came out beautifully golden and looked delicious. Suddenly, the door opened and a photographer for the Seattle Times showed up. Yes, my pie made it to the front page of the foods section on Sunday.

Unfortunately, after the photographer left, I decided to eat the whole pie myself, all at once. I got sick. So sick, in fact, that if I even smell a lemon meringue pie to this day, fifty years later, I get sick. And guess what my wife’s favorite pie is? Yes, lemon meringue, and she actually was a high school home economics teacher when I shared that story with her. Proof available. I’m not kidding.

Child Construction Worker

My resourceful dad, Georgi, started working with his brother Steve, (Stoiko), who had come to America before him. He started by cleaning roof gutters of dead leaves and then learning to be a house painter.

My dad also made me work hard and build up my muscles. He took me to work with him as early as age nine or ten. I had to do all the actual work he did including working with heavy two handle electric sanders. I’m sure I was exposed to much lead paint. Once, he made me climb three ladders tied together to reach the top of the local post office tower to do sanding and painting.

He made me do all kinds of dirty work. I remember riding to work with him for years as he smoked Pall Mall cigarettes with me sitting next to him in the painting van. I still remember all those paint smells. He made me carry very heavy five-gallon cans in both arms at once as a child. He was very impatient, as he could not speak English and was often very hard to understand sometimes.

Dancing at the Opera House

My dad was from the “old country.” He was raised in Bulgaria, near Sofia the capital. He also lived in Varna but his dad, my grandfather, was a farmer from the mountains between Greece and Bulgaria, a place called Macedonia. Alexander the Great ruled there in 350 BC.

The Baltic culture permeated my family. Our whole family was part of the “Koleda” dance group in Seattle. My father made leather moccasins for all of us. They were pointed in the front. My mom made us all costumes. I felt like a Russian Cossack or Whirling Dervish. 

We performed at the Seattle opera house in front of a sold-out audience. All my brothers and sisters danced with me except Andy. I’m the oldest of seven. I was the lead child dancer. I had a candy cane colored white and red stick. I had one of those Russian style hats. My dad played a traditional flute made of wood. He had to blow over the opening at the very top much like someone can make a sound by blowing over the opening at the top of a bottle.

Learning How Not to Act

But my dad also had a bad side (many of us do). Dad got home late every day. We always waited until he got home at nine to have dinner. He worked very hard. When he got paid for the post office job, he brought home five thousand dollars cash and spread it all over the dining room table like a huge pile of food. My dad had a habit of going to bed after dinner to watch TV in his room while smoking and drinking a half a bottle of vodka straight down.

I ran away from the work site many times because of his physical abuse. Once he appeared to try to chase me down with the painter van and run me over. Another day, after an argument, I returned home late at night, reached the top of the stairs, opened the door and saw him sitting at the table. When he saw me, he threw something my way. I blocked it by opening the door wider. The screwdriver stuck in the door! It would have stuck in me!

Accidental Knife Attack

I got another trip to the emergency room when my brother Leo held a knife in his hand. My parents asked me to babysit while they were out. I told him to put the knife down. He didn’t, so I tried to take it away. He slashed my hand and I ended up with 47 stitches. He’s a blue-eyed blond guy, extremely handsome, and looks nothing like the rest of us brown eyed, brown-haired kids.

A Thief and a Runaway

I was disgusted enough to run away from home many nights. One day, after working with my dad for years after school, on weekends, and over the summer, at age thirteen, I decided to run away for good. I grabbed my Sunday shirt and tie, a few other things, and lifted one hundred dollars, pushed my dad’s extra car quietly down our gravel road, and headed for California. 

I drove down Interstate Five (I-5) until the hills in the south of Oregon. I was so tired, as I had driven all night. It was raining and passing trucks slowly was very hard because they were spraying so much water from their tires. I was exhausted, afraid, and at my whit’s end, when at dawn, I turned a corner. I couldn’t believe what I saw. In one instant, the rain stopped, the sun came out, the hills were golden, spotted with trees, and best of all, next to the blue sky I saw a sign:

 WELCOME TO CALIFORNIA!

On my way to San Francisco, I drove through the California Coastal Range. It was so beautiful to see those golden hills with small green trees; I thought I was in heaven. I actually had some kind of a vision of my future wife who was actually living in those very hills. I saw a beautiful young girl with a huge smile on her face riding a bike with streamers on the handlebars. Later, I found out it was true!

The Way to San Jose

Honestly, I almost burned out that clutch trying to drive over the hills of downtown San Francisco in 1970. I finally found my way out of there, listening to the song “Do you know the way to San Jose” as I actually saw a sign for San Jose, California. I followed it and found myself on Highway One heading south again.

Highway 101 Heading to LA

In Los Angeles, I tried for a week to get a job. I went into many stores asking for work. That hundred dollars lasted me. I slept in my car. I ate bananas to stay alive. One day, I decided to take a break from job hunting and head for Malibu beach. I followed the signs, took a very long drive over a giant hill, thinking I’ll come down on the other side and see the ocean. As I came down, I saw what looked like water as far as I could see but as I got closer, it turned out to be a mirage. It was Bakersfield! Oh well. That’s  not the beach, it’s the desert!

I Fell Asleep Driving

Oh well, I decided to just keep driving up Interstate Five North because I knew it came right by my house. But I fell asleep driving. I woke up in the dark doing ninety miles an hour in the median strip between the north and southbound lanes. The car was bumping around. I grabbed the wheel to get back onto the pavement, narrowly missing a black, yellow, and white striped pole at the edge of an aqueduct, saving my life. I would have surely perished as my car dove across that water onto the sloped concrete wall on the other side. After that, I was very much awake.

Pulled Over by the Police

I was pulled over by the Californian Highway Patrol near Chico, just north of Sacramento. It was in the middle of nowhere. They asked me where I was heading. I had a burned out tail light and didn’t know it. He called my dad. I told him I was heading home. They actually let me continue on my journey.

I made it all the way over the Columbia River into Washington when I got pulled over in Vancouver, just on the other side of the river. This time it was serious. They took me in. I went to prison. Not really, just a holding room for three hours until my dad came to pick me up.

But you won’t believe this; my dad had brought his car, so he let me drive home as he followed me for three hours all the way to our house in Seattle. What a kind man. He never even yelled at me. My mom was so happy to see that I was alive that she gave me a huge hug and much love. I was glad to be home, even though my attempt at starting a new life failed.

Kicked out on my Birthday

One day, I told my dad, “Dad, it’s my eighteenth birthday today.” He said, “Really? Move out of my house today.” He meant it.

I moved out during the middle of my senior year, on January 7, 1975. Fortunately, my mom let me use a spare car they had and helped me find a room to live. I had no money. I worked at a fast food hamburger joint, Herfey’s near the University of Washington. I still went to school. I was the graveyard shift closer. My schedule had me working from 8 pm to 4 am, an eight-hour full time shift and then going to high school from 8 am to 4 pm. When did I sleep? Yes, I did end up graduating. I slept in the break room until the morning shift came in at 6:30 or 7 am. I took another nap after school before work.

DECA President

Before this desperate situation, I had some other notable achievements. I was the high school president of the Distributive Education (business) Club of America (DECA). I went to Montana on a trip for a national convention. I remember, our bus started sliding sideways in the snow off the freeway while crossing the mountains just outside of Missoula. I was also involved in Junior Achievement where we created student businesses.

Teen Entrepreneur

I was also a member of Junior Achievement (JA). We met weekly to plan, design, create, manufacture, and distribute interesting and useful products using available resources such as clay, tin cans, wires, or beads. One of my favorite projects was designing wire trees. These were made by threading beads that turned out to look like leaves and then twisting more strands of golden wire until the branches came together as a twisted golden tree trunk. I thought they were quite beautiful.

My friend John and I worked together as baggers. We collected shopping carts from the parking lot, helped take out groceries, and had a lot of fun competing with each other. We had a great system for bagging groceries. We kept one hand inside the paper bag (they had no plastic bags in those days), and with the other, we tossed groceries into that bag. The hand inside had to catch the item and quickly place it appropriately. We had to toss the heavy items like cans first and we made sure to put lighter things on top. That was a great time.

Learning Job Satisfaction

I took great pride in making our front yard look immaculate. We had a large stone rock wall around our front yard in Seattle. It rains a lot. Once I was watching TV and got mad. Our senator was being interviewed in Washington DC about the weather here in Seattle. He said, “It only rains once a year!” I yelled out, “No way!”

After a moment, he gave more insight. He said, it starts in September and ends in June. That’s correct. That’s why our grass was always so green.

I learned a great lesson from doing that front yard for our family. I learned that if you work hard and care about quality, then when you are done with that job, in some cases, you can step back and look at the outcome and feel a sense of accomplishment, fulfilment, and satisfaction. Job satisfaction is very important. To this day, I take pride in the quality of work I do and I still feel good about it.

Newspaper Carrier

I had a Seattle Post Intelligencer newspaper route near my home in Laurelhurst, wealthy part of town. I had to be at the paper shack by five in the morning. Other teens were standing around smoking, but I avoided them. My delivery route was all the way down to the Beach Club. One day, while doing collections, I came upon large a German gothic looking “Bauhaus” timber-framed house. My German teacher answered the door. I took 8 semesters, all four years, of German and two years of Russian in high school.

Choir Glee Club

While in middle school glee club (choir), I sold more Christmas candles as a fundraiser than anyone else. I sold over two hundred while the nearest person sold only thirty. My close, personal friends and I started a small business in middle school where we put advertisements in the classified ads of the Seattle newspapers asking people to check the attics for old comic books. We ended up dividing the collection. I got out with all 250 Spider man comics down to number one with all of them in plastic. One friend got Superman and another the Avengers, I believe.

Spiderman Bought our House

But what makes this admiration of Peter Parker (my first name being Peter) as Spider Man intriguing is that years later, after my dad accumulated five houses on the same street next to Children’s Hospital in Seattle, and then selling them all at once to buy a hotel in downtown Sacramento, selling that and buying a resort overlooking Palm Springs, he sold that and bought a house there. Here’s where that gets weird.

My mom and dad in their later years had left the water running in the kitchen sink. The house flooded. It was condemned by the city for them to live there. They were going to take Andy out and put him into a state run home. We had to move them up here to San Francisco and sell their home. Interestingly, an anonymous buyer paid cash. It wasn’t until years later that the son of the realtor revealed the name of the person who bought that house to my wife on her Facebook page. It sold for $400 thousand. It is now worth $1,400,000.

He said Toby Maguire, who played Spider Man, bought it. Amazing (Amazing Spider Man). I never thought that house was that special when I visited my parents. Guess the pool overlooking Mt. San Jacinto, a ten thousand foot treeless desert mountain that gives shade in the hot Palm Springs afternoons was worth something. When we drove by after it was refurbished, I barely recognized it. There were tall stainless steel roughly polished privacy walls out front in the stone and cactus garden. I never thought God had been so good to us to have been able to live there like a movie star. The house is located on Starr Road in Palm Springs.

DeMolay Washington State Officer

While in high school, I also joined the junior Masons, an organization called DeMolay. I became a state officer, state Editor, and was in charge of publishing and printing the state DeMolay newspaper in a building called the Heart of Seattle, downtown. We used an IBM ‘Selectric’ typewriter as a word processor and developed a system for inserting spaces between words to justify columns. We used a grid with squares and hand wrote the articles letter by letter into the boxes. If there were two boxes left at the end of the row, we penciled in an extra space between words. It worked like magic. I never became a Mason.

Journalism Team

I was also on the high school newspaper team and took classes in journalism and mechanical drafting including calligraphy and blue print lettering. I was assigned to get advertisements for the school paper at Roosevelt High School. I sold the biggest ad in the school’s history at that time, as our journalism teacher told me. It was a full half page and was about attire for the prom. We had a large high school of 2,700 students and located just down the street from the University of Washington.

Roosevelt High Prom

I took Holly to the prom. A beautiful strawberry blonde who loved horses. We owned one of those classic Chevy Impalas, a lovely lighter blue. It was a convertible. I had it painted at Earl Scheib but when I picked it up the day of the prom; it was barely ready, filled with sanding dust inside. That was a mess to clean up right before I had to pick up my date.

Soccer Accomplishments

I was athletic. I played soccer as a kid in Germany and continued on in the US. But I was always “stuck” in goalie. I hated it. I got so jealous of the other kids who got notoriety and praise for scoring goals. One bad incident was when I was very young at Laurelhurst Park, during a game; a stupid kid mistook my head for the ball as I was bending down to save a goal and tried to dislocate it into the goal to score. That hurt. I had to leave the game and go to Children’s hospital emergency room, which was just a block away.

My jealousy over other positions on the soccer field continued to college, where I played in the East Coast College Division. But they put me out as goalie and benched me because they said I was hesitant to dive during practice. Diving means that you fall on your side to stop balls. I did that only when I had to. I had stopped every ball so I’m not sure why they let the other guy in.

I had been frustrated in that position. Once I kicked a goal from my side of the field. The other team pushed forward; they kicked it towards me. The other goalie pushed forward out of his goal as well. I kicked the ball so hard that it cleared all the players on the field, bounced in front of the goalie, bounced over his head, and went into the goal. Another time, I got angry and decided to take out their leading scorer by kicking the ball so hard out from under him that he would completely flip upside down. That resulted in my knee injury and ended my soccer career. I guess I was too competitive.

Chased by the Police

During my middle school years, my first actual job was working for the City of Seattle as a groundskeeper assistant. For high school after school activities, I joined our high school cross-country team, enjoyed reading comic books and got a job at a restaurant clearing tables. While waiting to take the bus home, I saw a motorcyclist get blindsided by a fast red sports car. The bike kept moving forward but the person flew off and landed at my feet with his neck on the edge of the curb. Blood came out. The bus came. I got on.

Another time, I borrowed my brother’s minibike to return a book at the library. A cop saw me just as I got to the library. I was riding without a helmet so he pursued me. I turned around and headed home. At one time, several police cars were behind me. I saw them dashing around left and right behind me to go around the block and cut me off but if they went left, I turned right at the next intersection. I was going down a steep hill to Sand Point way and got a lot of speed.

Finally, a cop cut me off. I went over the curb onto a lawn, said sorry to a lady working in her yard, and went down a dead end street as fast as I could. At the end, there was guardrail with just a small space between that and a telephone pole. I put up my feet and squeezed through. I looked over my shoulder and the cop was already out of his car jumping the guardrail running down the path behind me.

I was now in a familiar place by the tracks. This is where my friend John and I played in the ravine building dams and then letting the water go. It rains a lot in Seattle, go figure. It’s also where I had jumped the same minibike and came down into a mud hole created by a car’s tire. My front wheel came to a complete stop and I went through the handlebars. That was not a pleasant experience. So I rode my motorbike along the tracks and eventually came out of the ravine, weaving through side streets, until I made it to my back yard. I left the bike there and hid behind the bus stop at Children’s hospital until the bus came. I got on it and went to work at the restaurant.

Featured on Late Night TV

Late at night, after taking the bus home after work, I walked into the family room downstairs. There was my dad and my brothers and sisters watching TV. I was just going to walk by them quietly and go into my room when I heard what was on TV. Do you know how the late night news closes with some interesting story? Well, this is what they said. “Our police department is so bad that five police cars chased a kid on a minibike who wasn’t wearing a helmet, and guess what? He got away!”

While in middle school at Eckstein, I actually did pretty well on the physical test. I did 72 sit-ups in one minute. The official world record is 71. Something wrong there. I also could throw a softball farther than anyone in my class, believe it or not. But I did get swatted my first day in PE in middle school. To this day, I have no clue why. I was doing everything right. I wasn’t talking and I WAS sitting on my number (lol). That reminds me of when I was in the Army and they had a contest of who can blow up their air mattress the fastest, I won.

Rowing With the University

While running around Green Lake for our high school cross-country team, I saw teams of long rowboats out on the lake. I didn’t really like running because I got terrible side cramps. I couldn’t figure out how to get rid of them. I started hanging around the boathouse looking at those racing shells. The guys there needed another person to row so I practiced with the University of Washington row team instead of running.

No Navy!

All my friends went off to college after graduation. Some of the DeMolay guys joined the Navy. I couldn’t afford college, let alone figure out how to apply. I know that seems strange, but remember, my parents could barely speak English and they had seven kids, one of them being disabled. All I know is that we sometimes ran out of Kool-Aid and milk so I admit to stealing a Rainier beer once in a great while because I was dying of thirst. Yes, I know there’s always water, but when you’re spoiled on Kool-Aid, then water just doesn’t do it. No, we never had any soda.

Childhood Friends

But I was so jealous when my good friend Terry brought home a Fillet of Fish sandwich from McDonalds. Our family had never been there, and I really wondered what that tasted like. Our family was from the old country. My dad ate off of a dirt floor in Bulgaria. We never went to a restaurant, never went to a movie, but we did go to Sacred Heart Catholic Church every Sunday like clockwork. I was an altar boy along with my other friend John.

John’s dad owned the Seattle Cadillac dealership. I always got a ride home with John’s mom from middle school in a brand-new Caddy. John and I played with toy plastic soldiers for hours and actually built a log raft, took it to Matthew’s beach and watch it be too heavy to float. I guess the logs weren’t dry inside when we cut down that tree. John eventually passed away in his fifties. I tried to tell him about Jesus many times but he gave into a life of drinking and partying. His liver failed but one of his sons became a special US Embassy Marine guard in Moscow. John enjoyed writing children’s books and loved his kids.

Earnestly Seeking God

I got saved in the Army. You see, I thought I was a good Christian. I went to church, served as an altar boy, attended Sunday school (CCD), and forgot about God when I wasn’t at church. However, my friend Terry, who lived a couple of doors down from us, invited me to go to a Lutheran youth meeting. I did see a difference. These kids loved Jesus in a way I couldn’t comprehend. I could see it in their faces, in their eyes, and hear it in their voices. I wondered what was so different about them and being a Catholic, so I asked their pastor. I went to the pastor’s office and asked. The answer was surprising. There’s no difference. We both believe in the same Jesus. We both believe the same stuff.

Reaching out for God

Amazingly, months later, when I was stationed three thousand miles from home, all alone, and after I received a “Dear John” letter telling me my girlfriend back home broke up with me, I wanted to leave the Army and go home. They referred me to the chaplain’s office. I walked in, and wouldn’t you know it, it was the same guy than was at Terry’s church back home! He told me I couldn’t leave to go back home but to just trust God about what is going on with my girlfriend and to put that in God’s hands. He didn’t ask me if I was saved or not. He didn’t give me the plan of salvation. What makes matters worse, is when I finally got leave to go home for Christmas, I found out that she started dating my best DeMolay friend’s YOUNGER brother. I just let things lie and left. That ended that.

Hitch Hiking for Meaning

So, I became depressed. I tried to drown my feelings by fulfilling my lust to travel and see new things and visit new places. I had never been to the East coast, so I explored Boston harbor, Niagara Falls, Gettysburg, New York, Washington DC including the Whitehouse. One night, while hitchhiking to Niagara Falls, somewhere in the middle of Pennsylvania, I got a vision of my life. Out there on that road at night in the Pennsylvania hills, I saw my past life and realized it was just as dark as my present life, symbolized by the road behind and ahead.

It was cold and dark where I was. I talked to God frankly. “God,” I said, “if you are really out there, PLEASE show yourself to me.” A car came by to pick me up. I got in. It was a homosexual who put his hand on my leg and tried to seduce me. My Judo training came in and I got out of that car. The next car was filled with drunk girls who wanted me to get in. I refused. Finally, a man came by, going all the way to Buffalo. He was a real Christian, and shared God’s love with me all the way to our destination. I had no idea what he was trying to tell me, but I remember that clearly.

Finding God in the Middle of Nowhere

It wasn’t until six months later, in the middle of nowhere, in the heart of Texas, God answered my prayer. If you could put a Texas star right in the middle of a Texas map, hundreds of miles away from any big cities, that’s where you’d find the biggest free world military base in the world, Fort Hood. I was alone, depressed, and bored. I walked off base into the town. It was a gray day and my head hung low.

Suddenly, I saw a light and looked up. The light was coming from the inside of a Christian Servicemen’s Center. Soldiers were inside playing ping pong, playing chess, and eating donuts. All, my favorite things to do. It wasn’t until I was repainting the sidewalk years later that I saw those big yellow words painted on a green background that said, “LOOK UP!”

I decided to go in and help myself to the activities. After returning a few nights, someone approached me and asked me if I was going to heaven when I die. I thought about it and told him that I wasn’t sure.

My Christian Conversion Story

I went into the office with Karl, the assistant director of the Servicemen’s Center. He opened the Bible and showed me one verse. “Whosoever will call upon the name of the Lord, SHALL BE SAVED.” I just didn’t get it. He began to explain, “Whosoever, includes you, doesn’t it?” I began to see the personalized application of the Word of God. God was communicating to me personally. He then asked, “What does the verse mean by calling?” I gave him a blank look. “Like a phone,” he said, “call means to pray.” Ok, got it, I thought to myself. God wanted me to pray for something.

I had always thought of prayer as a wish list. I had no idea that in some cases, when supported by a direct promise in scripture, that God would instantly answer. I started to feel a tinge inside. My heart skipped a beat. Was God using this man to communicate with me personally? This was clearly a challenge. I realized that God was asking me to make a choice, a personal decision. I had to think about that. I walked out.

Now, I see the purpose of this place. It isn’t just to alleviate stress or feed servicemen. It was to share some important message. I started thinking about this a lot. I came back the next day. Again, we were in the office. We looked at the same verse. Now he got into the meat of the message. According to that verse, if I call, there is a promised result, “SHALL BE SAVED!” NO WAY COULD THAT BE REAL. I walked out again, thinking of the ramifications of such a life-changing choice. I really thought hard about this.

As you know, I was a good chess player, so I started to think about what this might mean. As a kid, my Catholic mom said that she had given me to God to be a priest and hoped I would enter the priesthood. My priest at Sacred Heart was a drunk, as far as I could tell. He smoked and drank. I didn’t. Priests have to avoid marriage. I had always hoped to get married. In short, if I accept Christ as my personal Savior, my life will change drastically. I will have to become a priest. I’ll never get married, I thought to myself.

Altar Boy

I was an altar boy for ten years. I went to Catholic Sunday school. I listened to each homily sermon intently. I decided I wanted to get married someday. My priest never tried to molest me. He was always respectful to me. I began to hear a voice calling me to trust him in spite of my concerns. I believe it was the Holy Spirit urging me to realize the seriousness of this decision. The other side must have been from the flesh and the Devil. I felt ripped apart. I went back the next night.

Reaching that Big Decision

Time for another meeting in the office. We opened the scriptures. This was the actual Bible, the Word of God. God does not lie. He keeps His Word! Here, it clearly says, IF I DO SOMETHING, GOD WILL DO SOMETHING. If I don’t, He won’t. I felt the Holy Spirit pulling on one arm and the Devil pulling the other. He said, “Are you ready to call on the name of the Lord?” “What’s the name of the Lord?” I replied. He said, “You know His name.” “Jesus,” I replied. “Yes.”

We got on our knees. There’s something about that position with your eyes closed, that makes things seem very serious. Eyes closed, tunes out light and causes inner focus. I had a vision. I imagined I was at a decision point. I constructed a diving board in my mind with myself kneeling on it in the dark. I remember, as a youth at the “beach club” at the top of a thirty-five foot scaffold, getting the courage to jump. But here I was on the floor. Reality left me. I was in darkness, lost.

“Dear God, I’m a sinner,” came the prompt. I felt myself inching closer to that ultimate decision with extreme benefits. Salvation! But at what cost. The Devil was now pulling hard for me to abandon this effort and retreat to the safety of my sinful life, while the Holy Spirit was continually reaffirming God’s intense veracity. What God says is true. Trust God’s Word. I inched closer in the dark on that diving board. I saw nothing on my left, right, or what lay ahead. I knew the edge of the board was close and there was nothing to hold on to.

My life Bible verse turned out to be the verse I read when I got saved. In Romans 10:13 it says that “Whosoever will call upon the name of the Lord (Jesus) WILL BE saved.” I did that and was gloriously “born again.” The moment I got saved was like kneeling on the edge of a diving board in complete darkness, edging my way forward to the decision point. There is a moment of no return, a tipping point, where you lose your balance and fall forward, with nothing to hold on to. The moment that Christ indwelt me through the indwelling Holy Spirit, I was cleansed. I fell into a “pool of Grace.” I had complete peace.

Only Jesus Meets Our Needs

In my life, I had trusted in many things for fulfillment. I trusted in the government to keep me employed, trained, and deployed in the Army. I had trusted in my mom to keep me safe. But I was far away from home. I had trusted in my girlfriend to eventually join me, but that failed. I trusted in travel to help me satisfy boredom, but that failed because each place was more lonely than the last.

In my first year in the Army, I had been to the top of the Empire State Building, seen the USS Constitution, Old Iron Sides, in Boston harbor. I had gone to see the very rock that the Pilgrims stepped on in 1611. I had visited the Smithsonian and toured inside the Whitehouse. I’d been to Niagara Falls, driven the Blue Ridge Mountains Skyway along the Shenandoah Valley. I’d crossed the Chesapeake, seen Gettysburg, seen Mount Vernon, the Statue of Liberty, the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, and walked the streets of Williamsburg. But each place, though interesting, did not fulfill my need for love.

Only Jesus Really Matters

Here, after God showed me that money, travel, even friends, disappoint, that He was always there, and He was here right now. I came to the edge of that very real diving board, but I had not yet made that decision to say yes. I weighed the matter. It was a dangerous place. I could open my eyes, turn on the light to the real world, but that thought never crossed my mind in the moment. This was my third night there in that office with Karl and I had reached the moment of decision. I determined that if I backed out this third time, this opportunity might never happen again. I know I needed a Savior from my sins. Christ took my sins on His Body on that cross. I had seen that crucifix so many times as an altar boy.

Details of Deciding to Say Yes

I began to teeter, but I knew the final release had to come from me. God had brought me to the point of decision. I understood what was at stake. Really, all eternity depended on this moment! Will I end up in heaven or hell? Will I trust Christ and God’s Word? I took a final breath and let go. I lost my balance and gravity pulled me over the edge. In that complete darkness I fell. I said, YES! JESUS, SAVE ME!” The Holy Spirit entered my heart. I fell into a black pool of God’s peace. I wasn’t breathing, I was just there, with all my sins released and God in my heart. Jesus had moved into my heart through the indwelling Holy Spirit. I was speechless when I opened my eyes, a completely changed person.

For two or three hours after coming out of that place of decision, I just sat in a chair, considering what just happened. I couldn’t say a word. I just knew my life was now different. Later, I would see God working in my life. The things I hated before, I loved now, and the things I loved before, I now hated. I was awakened from this serene trance by an invitation to share Christ out on the street at night. I just went along.

Within moments, we were at the bus stop, a Greyhound station. I hadn’t realized what happens there late at night. There was a parade of prostitutes walking around the building in the dark and I was about to confront them with Jesus. I engaged the first one who amazingly had one sideburn. Now, I’m pretty sure that was a transvestite. I told them of the decision I had just made and how Jesus came into my heart and how they could also be saved.

I went home a changed person. I began to get up very early or stay up very late reading the small green Gideon’s Bible that was given to me in basic training. I read every word of it for hours like a hungry man starving for steak. I attended Bible studies at the Christian Serviceman’s Center. I asked a lot of questions. I decided to become the most religious Catholic I could be.

Leaving the Catholic Church

One day, a fellow soldier challenged me on that. He said that he had a vision in church where a window appeared and he saw the Catholic Church being thrown out the window, literally. I thought, that was dumb.  He said God will show you. I doubted that. But a few weeks later, He did!

I was sitting in Church with the best attitude, listening to the priest give his message when he suddenly asked, “Do you want to know where Jesus is?” I thought, I know where Jesus is, He’s in my heart. You see, for years, I had listened intently to sermons. I took it all in but never heard the plan of salvation. Not really. I heard a lot of great stories and endured a lot of Catholic teaching. I stood next to the priest during mass, held the golden plate under the chins of folks taking communion, and stood by him when he greeted folks as they were leaving.

I remember once, after holding that golden plate for ten years, Sunday after Sunday (not every Sunday) that one time, the priest dropped the Body of Christ. You see, that’s why there was a golden plate. The wafer host actually is transformed into the Body of Christ during the mass and people swallow it and drink the grape juice or wine as a symbol of His Blood. But in the Catholic Church, this is really his Body and Blood.

So I was sitting in this Texas Church in Killeen listening to the priest ask where Jesus is when he suddenly pulled out a loaf of Wonder bread and held it over his head. “Do you want to know where Jesus is?” he yelled while shaking that white plastic bag of bread with those colored dots on the sides. He said, “He’s in the bread!” I thought, no He’s not! He’s in my heart, not my stomach! My friend was right. God showed me I too had to throw the Catholic Church out the window because they had a false gospel. But I wasn’t done quite yet, I had to test my theory.

Acting Like a Priest

As is custom, after the service, the priest and the altar boys exit first in a procession, usually following a tall cross on a pole being carried by a lead altar boy. I knew the drill well. Then the priest would hang around by the door, usually outside, and shook each parishioner’s hand thanking them for coming and other small talk. However, on that day, it was lightly raining
outside. I was the first one to exit. Then, I got an idea. I’ll do what I did with the priest all those Sundays. I’ll shake each person’s hand and ask them one question. Fortunately, they came out one at a time or in a very small group.

The first person came out. I shook their hand, “Sir, can I ask you a quick question? Are you sure you will go to heaven when you die?” NOT ONE PERSON COULD SAY YES! NOT ONE. This is a very sad commentary on the Catholic Church and a strong indictment on their teachings, their doctrines. Not a single person couldn’t say anything more than, I hope so or I think so. None were saved, as far as I could tell. A saved person knows that they are saved.

A saved person has a testimony of receiving Christ. They usually know where they were when it happened and can often tell you when. Why? Because the ‘’Born Again experience found in John chapter three is a real life-changing moment and if you are not born again you can’t go to heaven. You see, Jesus is the ticket, and if you don’t have Him, you can’t get in to heaven.

In verse three of John chapter three, Jesus is himself speaking and makes this very clear, if a person is not born again, they “cannot even see the kingdom of God.” That means you can’t see it on earth or after you leave earth. That means you can’t see the pearly gates or Peter standing there (if that were true). You won’t get a glimpse of heaven. You go the other way.

Hell is Real and Worth Avoiding

The old joke goes, like in the old days in restaurants where they had smoking sections with ashtrays, Saint Peter asks when you die, “Smoking, or non-smoking?” Actually, death is NOT funny for the lost. For the Christian who knows the Lord personally and has repented and received Christ (they have Jesus in their heart), they go straight to heaven when they die. The Bible tells us so. But for the lost, they don’t even get a new body when they die and their body suffers forever in hell.

Most people dismiss that. They rationalize it or excuse it. They find a way to delay a decision or utterly reject the idea. This is called hardening your heart. This is why most people who get saved get saved at an early age. I was born again when I was nineteen. My wife was eight at her mother’s side. If you hear the Gospel of God’s good news of salvation and reject it, it is easier the next time to do the same and so forth. This is how people get set in their ways and end up going the wrong way.

A Fistfight in the Army

Life as a new Christian wasn’t easy in the Army. I took my job as a soldier seriously. Although I had been minding my own business and efficiently performing my duties, I did get into a fight in the Army after becoming a Christian. I was new to a unit while stationed in Texas. A peer was standing over me, telling me I was doing something wrong so I elbowed him to get him off my back. He started punching the back of my head. I stood up and swung back. The command sergeant called us in. He had us shake hands but that wasn’t the end of it.

He spotted me in the mess hall. I left quickly and walked across a field back to the barracks. He caught up to me and started hitting me again. I blocked him. Every time I turned around, he hit me in the back of the head. I imagined my arm going back very far, making a fist, and knocking him out. I refused to follow that impulse. I thought, God wouldn’t want me to do that. At that moment, an officer came out of the mess hall and he stopped hitting me. Later, we became good friends.

Serving in the Cold War

I almost joined the Navy instead of the Army. I went to the recruiter’s office and asked him what it was like being in the Navy. He said, “You get to see the world.” Behind him was a large photo of an aerial view of an aircraft carrier on the ocean. I imagined myself on the deck looking out as he talked. Then I asked, “How much of the world?” He said a lot. I pressed him, “Half?” “More like two-thirds.” I thought, hmm, two-thirds of the world is water. No thanks.

I went to the Army recruiter next door. He said I scored high on the entrance exam and said I could have almost any job I want. I signed up for rockets. My school was Tactical Nuclear Pershing Missile launcher repair. They sent me to NASA at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama for training. While I was there, I brought an instamatic camera to school to take a photo of my beginning electronics training tools. They said that they had an urgent opening in early portable digital computer repair. They didn’t appreciate me bringing the camera. I had carried it in my ammo pouch all through basic training.

Breaking Five US Army Fitness Records

In basic training, I was made a squad leader. I didn’t like telling my peers what to do so I gave that leadership role up. My drill sergeant said that allowing me to resign that leadership role was the biggest mistake he ever made. I broke five of six all-time physical fitness test records for that unit and got thirteen letters of commendation from generals! Wow, I wasn’t expecting that. Guess which area I did not set a record in. You got it. Running the mile. We ran with a full uniform an boots but I still ran a 5:06 mile, but no record.

I was sent to Germany. Lucky me, I’m fluent in German. I got orders for Kaiserslautern,
my hometown where I had been born. But I just received Christ as my Savior and had become a born-again child of God so I spoke up (dummy me) because there was an MOS error on my orders. That means they put the wrong military occupation down. Actually, that would have been great because I could have done a lot of other things there. Nevertheless, they transferred me to a town on the other side of the country by the East German border. Have you heard of the Iron Curtain. Yep. That was my job.

I became a chaplain’s assistant and toured all of the Nike missile air defense posts along that sector of the border. They were hidden in trees within view of the barbed wire border. I knew where they all were. I was given a jeep to take care of and drive around the chaplain, who had graduated from seminary. I also became the choir director and put on the Christmas Cantata.

Army Leadership Honor Graduate, Europe

As a Christian, I wanted to serve God by being the best soldier I can be. I sincerely prayed this prayer. I had read Bible verses such as 2 Timothy 2:4 “No soldier on duty entangles himself in the affairs of this life; that he may please him who commands him as a soldier.” Soon, the Lord answered my prayer. There was a last-minute opening for the US Army Europe Leadership School. I took that spot.

Tough Competitors

It wasn’t easy to win that contest. I was notified in the last minute that there was a sudden opening available to attend. The leadership participants from all over Europe had been preparing for months. They had prepared their immaculate uniforms and gear. I was being driven there in a pickup truck across Germany to Nuremburg in the rain. The only thing was, that there was no room for me in the pickup truck because there was only room for the driver and another participant up front. They were Sitting in the front so I had to huddle down in the back under a tarp. They drove at speed on the Autobahn and I was sitting under a tarp, with high winds lashing me under a tarp feeling like I was freezing to death.

Jealous Rivals

The way I won that intense competition was by getting up earlier than everyone else and by following directions explicitly. I had to show that I could perform my professional military duties with the highest excellence. This included marching troops. We had classes and tests I had to score well on. There was a scoreboard posted on the wall in the barracks. And I found myself inching closer to first place. One of the contestants was the commanding general’s personal secretary. She came in a second place. When they announce me as the honor graduate the general actually went to his secretary to console her and congratulated her instead of me. The contestant who was with me in the pickup truck was an African American woman from our unit. When I got back to our base, she was so jealous that she tried to run me over with her car as I was crossing the street.

Europe Tour Guide 

This happened during the Cold War. That’s when the Iron Curtain between the Soviet Block countries and the West were at a nuclear standoff. Because there was no hot war I was able to work as a chaplain’s assistant for the remainder of my time in the Army. Since I was fluent in German, they allowed me to be in charge of a tour program where soldiers and their dependent families went on bus rides on weekends sponsored by the Department of the Army.

I got to pick various locations all over Europe to visit. We even went to Holland. In order to motivate attendance, I made announcements on the steps to over three hundred First Calvary Battalion soldiers from the top of the headquarters stairs. That helped me get over stage fright. I actually looked forward to these announcements about visiting places like the Alps including that famous Disneyland castle in real life; Neuschwanstein. 

The Fast Platoon 

Because I was in good physical condition, they put me in charge of what’s called the fast platoon. I thought it was quite an honor. After morning physical training we had to run past all of the Apache helicopters along the airfield runway and back. My assistant squad leader, David, was also a good runner (he was better than me) and we passed up the rest of the battalion while they ran to get to the mess hall first before anyone else got there. That’s how through experimentation I found out that milk makes me sick and that I was lactose intolerant.

That explains a lot because as a child, I went to the emergency room several times within intense stomach pain. It turns out that my wife Debbie had the same issue as a child. We’re both lactose intolerant.

Relieved of Duty

I had been Section Chief of a radar and computer repair departments in our maintenance company. Because it was the Cold War, we didn’t have much to do except sit around and wait. Finally, after six months, a part came in to repair a radar.

My radar technicians were In a class on the base to get their GED. Our warrant officer in charge ordered me to get them out of class right now. I disagreed. I said we’ve been waiting for this part FOR SIX MONTHS and I think we can wait another hour or two for them to get back here after class. He was a red headed muslim and knew that I was a Christian. Michael was One of the guys I sent to that class. He was originally from Northern California. I don’t think he realized what I went through to let him stay one more hour in that class

I had been praying for Michael and others to be saved. I offered a Bible study in my room but had no takers. One night, when I was in charge of the entire barracks (CQ), I was starting to get sleepy. I prayed to the Lord to keep me awake so I could do a good job for Him. I never got officially reprimanded with what they call an Article 15 and ended up getting out of the Army with a Good Conduct Metal. One of my duties that night was to go around and keep the noise down after hours.

I found Michael in a room where everybody was drinking and playing loud music. I ordered them to be quiet. When I started getting sleepy again, I saw a young man running down the hallway of the barracks In underwear covered in blood. Apparently, a fight broke out in that room. While on the plane to Germany, I was warned by fellow serviceman that if you complain about drugs what the druggies will do to you what they did to a lieutenant. They stuffed him in a wall locker and threw him out the second story window.

Army Drugs

Drugs were a huge problem in the military back in the day. While stationed in Texas where I got saved, I stopped people from using marijuana in the barracks. When I came back in the early afternoon, I found that my entire desk, every drawer, was completely filled with marijuana seeds to overflowing. Usually about a month after a female recruit came to our unit they were on heroin and having indiscriminate sex. The men quickly seduced them in almost every instance. It was very sad to see these pretty young girls get ruined. They looked like skinny pale faced drug addicts within a few months. I think their parents would’ve been extremely disgusted.

We Were Asked To Take Over

One Christian girl I know escaped that madness by going to the Christian Serviceman Center on weekends or after work. It was a refuge for us and I was a board member. That’s why I gave almost my entire paycheck every month to help keep the Hospitality House going. Years later, when we went there on vacation to visit, the retiring leaders asked us to take over their ministry but that didn’t work out. 

I Could Not Drop that Letter 

I had a girlfriend in Texas named Debbie, same name as my wife. But she was the wrong Debbie. I promised to bring her to Germany. Fortunately, the Holy Spirit would not let me do that. I had even bought the airplane ticket for her to come. But when I tried to put the letter in the mailbox, my fingers wouldn’t it let me drop it. God was definitely in control.

That Was Not a Date

I went to an actual German youth group at night at a church. I walked a girl home once. On the way home she told me her name was Kristina Luther and she lived on Luther Street and played the organ at the Lutheran church. In 1521, the Pope Leo X excommunicated Martin Luther from the priesthood. He refused to recant and was declared an outlaw and a heretic. Luther went into hiding neat his hometown at Wartburg Castle which was located about an hour and a half drive from here.

Door-to-Door Evangelism in England

One time I desperately want to visit England, not just because they spoke English there, but because I want to see what true Christianity was like there. I visit the All Soul’s Church in London and got to go on door-to-door visitation with a pastor in southern England. He always introduced me as an American Christian from Texas and I obliged him with a Texan accent.

Lecturing the Torchbearers

While visiting England I met the head of the Torchbearers organization. I confronted him for not having a solid doctrinal statement, in writing. I said, “What happens if you leave? The organization will fall apart theologically.” He disagreed. Bad decision.

The Eagle’s Nest

On a Christian retreat to the Alps at Berchtesgaden, Germany. There, I met Chaplain Steffy. He was living in the very small hometown where I grew up, Katzweiler. He counseled me over my tearful desire to attend Dallas Seminary from where he had himself graduated. Unkown to me, he had set up a scholarship. We prayed together that I might attend there someday.

One morning early before breakfast, my assistant squad leader (who was also at the conference) and I decided to go for a morning run in the Alps. He was such a good runner, and he would often leave me in the dust. So. I begged him not to run ahead but he did, as usual. I thought I’d get smart and go straight up the side of the mountain. Because I knew the road would probably double back.

A large animal ran across my path through the forest but I still don’t know what it was. I worked my way up hill looking for that road even through the clouds and above the clouds. Suddenly, I came upon a stone wall that looked like the road was up on top. I climbed up that wall and found the road. I was near the top of the mountain and here was this road.

It turns out that I had made it up to Hitler’s hide out. The Nazi Party built the Eagle’s Nest between 1937 and 1938 and Hitler had visited there with Eva Braun, his mistress, many times. I actually did all that before breakfast and Dave was nowhere to be found.

The Ghost of Crazy King Ludwig

Years later, I took my wife there on vacation. We also visited Word of Life Bible Institute Germany. King Ludwig II of Bavaria built Neuschwanstein Castle in 1869 and drowned in Lake Starnberg just outside of the Word of Life castle, 1886 in the middle of the night.

They say his personal doctor did it. Debbie thinks his ghost visited our room. The room we stayed in had been refurbished for one million dollars. It was the room where the king slept. In the morning when we woke up, we found that our toothbrush had been Is flared open like a hairbrush. Scary, huh? Maybe the ghost king had to brush his teeth. We have visited Neuschwanstein Castle many, many, times.

Mad King Ludwig, also called the Swan King or the Fairy Tale King, was King of Bavaria and had an obsession with the operas of Richard Wagner giving cause for building lavish, fairytale-like castles but neglecting his duties and spending exorbitant amounts of money on extravagant projects, leading his advisors to declare him mentally unfit and remove him from power. Nevertheless, “New Swan Stone” (translation of Neuschwanstein) castle is worth a visit.

Transitioning to Civilian Life

After four years of training and serving as a soldier, it was time to make that transition to civilian life. I was processed out at Fort Dix, New Jersey. I had made E-5 Buck Sergeant in record time, after only two and a half years. I had broken basic training records. I was the Europe Leadership Academy honor graduate. I had prayed to be the best soldier for the Lord. Now it was time to transition.

After the Army, I went to Bible school, completed four years of college in just three years, earned two California teaching credentials, am one class away from a third Master’s degree, and am a PhD Candidate, having completed four years of PhD work and my dissertation proposal. I entered the field of education.

Evangelizing Friends and Family

My mom and dad were pretty good Catholics. They gave a lot of money to the Church and made sure we were all dressed for church and on time every Sunday. They lived a pretty good life. They never killed anyone, stole anything big, or cursed their parents. They were good people.

My grandmother was the best Catholic I ever met. She used to cry when she saw a picture of the Shroud of Tehran. I witnessed to her when I was stationed in Germany with the Army and I witnessed to my parents and brothers and sisters.

            I prayed hard daily that my family would come to know Jesus. But the answers came slowly. First, my sister Silvia, a beautiful violin player, became a believer.

Then my younger brother prayed the prayer but didn’t mean it. His life totally rejected Christ especially after his best friend died right next to him when his TR3 convertible flipped over on the way to school with him driving. My sister Maria also became a believer and so did my brother Leo. Andy had never sinned once in his life since he was mentally disabled. But my mom and dad, that’s another story.

A Fifty Year Prayer Answered

            I prayed for my mom and dad daily for almost fifty years to find Christ. When I first got saved while in the Army, I wrote my mom weekly, if not more often, telling her of my changed life. I include many Bible verses on how to know you are saved. I shared my faith with all my relatives in Germany whenever I visited. They got so sick of seeing me that one person even put a note on their door saying they were out of the country when they weren’t.

            Debbie and I, years after my stint in the service, witnessed to them on our trips to Europe. My aunt Trudel (Trudy), my mom’s youngest sister, prayed with us but we never saw much fruit that she had a true change.

If you become saved, everything changes. Old things pass away, all things become new. My life completely changed the moment I met Christ. That was all I could think about. I wanted to make sure that everything I said and did was like Jesus wanted it. I was loving to everyone and prayed for everyone I met.

While traveling home on leave, I finally had someone else ask me if I as saved. A beautiful young blonde girl came up to me at the Dallas airport, looked me in the eyes, had a sweet smile on her face, handed me a pamphlet, and asked me, “Are you sure you are going to heaven when you die?” My heart jumped for joy as I vibrantly exclaimed, “YES, I’m sure, I know Jesus.” I had to make my connecting flight but I found out she was part of an outreach ministry by Jews for Jesus. That was a great experience.

            But it wasn’t until my parents were retired that an emergency at their home started the motion of their actual conversion.

Debbie and I had been married many years. I had finally bought my first brand new car. It was a large green SUV, perfect for the adventure I had been planning for a year. We were going to drive all the way to Alaska.

Go South Instead

            I packed up the car with everything we would need, the dog, Debbie and all kinds of survival stuff. We even had one of the first car phones. It was shaped like a brick in a soft vinyl case and it was located between our seats. It was hooked to an antenna outside of our car and it had an actual telephone handle you could pick up, hold to your ear, and then hang up. On the way to Interstate five, that phone rang. We had crossed Altamont Pass and I saw the I-5 sign ahead of me.

It was my mom. “I’m very sick. I’m in the back bedroom and I can’t get off the bed. My leg hurts too much.” We had moments to decide. Should we go south to Palm Springs, about 500 miles south, or north on I-5 to Alaska? We turned south. South!

We found my mom just where she said; sitting on the bed. I threw her in the car and drove her to the hospital while my wife and Andy waited with dad at their home. A surgeon approached, “We have to amputate her leg right now.” Huh? He said the infection was very bad. There were seven bacteria they found including gangrene. I asked, “Above or below the knee?” “Above.” I went down on my knees. I said, “Please, do your best to amputate below the knee.” I then went to prayer. Debbie prayed. We prayed hard.

After the surgery, he said they were able to amputate below the knee. Thank God! After my mom stabilized, my sisters, who lived in the same town or very near, took over her care. Debbie and I had only four days left on our vacation.

Going to Alaska Anyway

I decided to drive as far as we could on our first day. We drove from Palm Springs past San Francisco and Sacramento on I-5 until I just couldn’t drive any farther. We stopped at Roseburg, Oregon.

We found a hotel. I got up early and found a computer in the lobby. I looked up stuff on Alaska and found that Alaska Airlines had some specials. There were some super saver specials from a couple or small-town locations and Roseburg was one.

Their small airport was on the other side of the freeway from the hotel but even better than that, a veterinarian was across the street. Early that morning, we knocked on their front door and grandma and granddaughter fell in love with our redhead Rozie, a loving chow. They gladly took her in until we would be back in five days. 

Grand Glacier Tour.

We parked the fully packed SUV at the airport and caught a small commuter plane to Seattle. We flew up the winding Willamette River, saw the snowcapped Cascade Mountains, and a few notable peaks on that clear morning. Flying to Alaska, we were seated on the right-hand side of the plane. The weather was clear, and I got a close up aerial view of every glacier in crystal-clear detail. That’s how our vacation began. We drove to a wild animal park on the way to Seward and saw grizzlies and other great inhabitants of the wild close and personal.

We stayed in the historic Ballaine House in Seward, past Resurrection Bay and on the Kenai Peninsula. We went on a Fjord boat tour. I remember telling the captain that the weather is going to be so perfect today due to a strong high-pressure system (I had been tracking the systems) that he would be able to go place he’d never been today. After the trip, he told me, he had never seen the water smooth as glass like that and had never been able to go as far as he did on a tour.

We entered a fjord, got right up to a glacier as our hull silently slipped in, making a gong sound every time we hit a small iceberg. Almost every iceberg had a little seal on it. The cliffs on both sides were filled with Puffins. They’re like penguins with short thick beaks and orange flipper feet. Suddenly, in complete silence, the glacier calved. Everyone was in awe as a huge chunk broke off of a two or three hundred foot cliff.

Midnight Fishing

The next morning, I woke up and was out the door fishing on the bay by two in the morning. Why so early? It was already light out. I fished for eight hours watching salmon jumping, a cruise ship come in and the sun finally breaking over the hill around ten. I went home and saw that Debbie was sleeping. Hey, we were in Alaska, and I was ready to explore.

We had booked a cruise on Prince William Sound. We drove to Whittier but first had to drive in a train tunnel under a glacier to reach the port. There was a waterfall on the far side cliff with thousands of birds everywhere.

Heavenly Halibut

In the middle of the sound, our chef prepared the most delicious halibut lunch one could ever eat. In the middle of Prince William Sound, a native Alaskan man cooked our meal.

On the way back to Anchorage to catch our flight, I took a nap in the back seat. It had been a very long day and only Debbie was up to driving. She couldn’t wake me for the life of me to even get a glimpse of a fantastic fuchsia pink with ribbons of green Aurora Borealis. She watched it all the way while driving north to the airport. We spent one night and flew back in the morning.

How We Pulled That Off

            That’s one day driving to Oregon, a second day getting to Seward and that fjord cruise, a third day fishing in the morning and a cruise in the afternoon then driving back to Anchorage. The fourth day was flying back to Oregon, picking up our dog and driving back to San Francisco. I double-checked with my wife. That is right. I still can’t believe God did that for us. Amazing.

My Wife Led My Parents to the Lord

After fifty years of praying (I got saved fifty years earlier when I was nineteen), it wasn’t me that led my parents to Christ, it was my wife. Debbie led my dad to Christ in his bedroom. I was praying while in the living room. She led my mom to Christ while she was in a skilled nursing facility. Again, I was in the hall praying. Where does one find a wife like that? This is priceless. 

My mom got saved after my dad did. She was found slumped over in the bathroom. We rushed her to the emergency room. They eventually sent her to a skilled nursing facility to recover.

Love While She’s With Us

I decided to show my mom lots of love while she was still alive, at 89. I bought her the biggest bunch of long stem red roses, three or four dozen, I think. It filled the entire cubby in her room. The nurses said they had never seen so many roses. I was in a hurry to go do something so I said goodbye to mom but mom called Debbie back into her room.

It was then that I saw that Debbie began sharing scripture with her. I decided to stay away in the hall and just pray. Moments later, Debbie came out and said that my mom had just accepted Christ.

They said her vitals were fine and left her in a gurney in the hallway. She said she was leaving earth and wanted an emergency ‘last rights’ by a priest. That happened. In the meantime, I panicked.

The charge nurse, a man, said there was no availability to put her in a room. I had seen the priest come. I ran upstairs to the head of hospital. A brave lady followed me down to the emergency room, examined my mom and found her diaper to be completely saturated with blood. No one had noticed she was bleeding out. They immediately put her into a room and surrounded her with an army of staff working to save her life. She died in that hospital.

The Door to Earth

Amazingly, every time I went into the hospital to see her, a mother and newborn came out. Mom and dad were always smiling. The hospital is a place where people come and go from this world. It’s just a thought, but are you prepared for that journey? You would be a fool not to be.

Sharing My Vision

2 Timothy 4:1-2 “I charge THEE therefore BEFORE God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick (living) and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; PREACH the WORD; be instant in season, out of season; REPROVE, REBUKE, exhort with all longsuffering and DOCTRINE.”

I take this verse personally, do you? I’m a Bible teacher and THIS is my calling. Those who preach a FALSE Gospel are NOT preaching (teaching) the Word correctly and must be confronted. We must open a debate and present the TRUE Gospel and confront FALSE Gospels. Really, for those heading to an eternity of hell, the most loving thing you can do for them is to tell them the truth.

Founding Doctrine Seminary

God has fully prepared me for the work He has led me to do. Both I and my wife, Debbie, are both PhD Candidates, each having completed four years of PhD coursework and all tests to attain “PhD candidate” status in Higher Education Administration (HEA). 5,000+ word scholarly papers on topics related to higher education were required weekly. Each paper was required to have mandatory “peer reviewed” citations for every point presented throughout the essay and was electronically screened for plagiarism. No artificial intelligence (AI) program was used.

PhD Dissertations Delayed

The dissertation writing process was conducted through an additional two years of revisions before acceptance by qualified faculty. We have both submitted their PhD dissertations for final approval. However, because the University of Phoenix cancelled their program, they have not yet been awarded the title of “doctor.” They (Peter and Debbie) are considered “ABD” which stands for “All But Dissertation” having each earned over a 3.70+ cumulative GPA in all coursework.

Peter’s dissertation proposal was a case study of a “Comparison of Audio-Visual Online Education (conferencing) to Text-Only Online Classes.” Debbie’s dissertation explored the phenomenon of “Online Peer-to-Peer Mentoring in Online Education for Program Continuity and Enrollment Longevity” Both having been Christian, Charter, and Public school educators each for over 25 years, along with earned California Teaching Credentials and Lifetime Christian School Certification (ACSI), fully qualifies them to start, maintain, and run academic institutions from preschool through post-graduate in Christian and secular education.

Was it religious persecution that both proposals, after working on them for two years and getting approval by cohort professors, that a separate rater delayed the process until the PhD program closed for good? But we have the intense training without the “doctor” title.

Social Media Presence

My online alias is “Doctor Doctrine” because of his work in rooting out false doctrines and unbiblical teachings regarding salvation and the fundamental truths of the Bible. I also hold four degrees in Bible including a Diploma from Word of Life Bible Institute (with honors) in upstate New York where I served as a dormitory supervisor. I was trained in Evangelism at Moody Bible Institute, Chicago, and in Missions at Philadelphia Bible College (now Cairn University). I earned a double Bachelor’s degree in both Pastoral Studies and Biblical Studies (including Biblical Greek) from Christian Heritage College (CHC) in San Diego (now known as San Diego Christian College) as well as Church history at BIOLA and Talbot Seminary (in Los Angeles), Hebrew at Golden Gate Seminary (now Gateway Seminary in California). I earned a Master’s degree in Biblical Studies from San Francisco Baptist Theological Seminary. I also hold a Masters in Educational Leadership from Patten University in Oakland, California and am one class from a third Masters in Education from the University of the Pacific. I hold two earned California State Teaching Credentials and am relatively fluent in German.

The Call To Witness

I love the Lord. I only have one life. In my early years, I searched for truth. At nineteen, I found it. God taught me more details and I asked questions. I attended Bible studies and read the Bible on my own. I found a call just like Peter and Andrew in the Bible, God used my brother Andy to bring me, Peter, to Christ. Jesus asked me to follow Him to be a fisher of men.

Being a fisher of men means we need to cast out the “Net of Good News” to draw people into the Kingdom of God. We use the largest net in history called the Inter-‘NET’. Online witnessing and teaching have the potential to fulfil this vision of reaching the world for Christ.

This is why
I had to found Doctrine Seminary.
I had to confront the false teaching
that HAS corrupted the Gospel
and crept into the churches
and most Evangelical schools.

But the road to reaching this academic pinnacle passed along a precipice of challenges. When I got out of the Army, I had only twenty dollars left by the time I made it to the Bible Institute. When I was stationed in Europe, I donated almost my entire salary to our local Christian Servicemen’s Center ministry in Schweinfurt. But the Lord took care of me.

Word of Life Bible Institute

During class, we were all in one room sitting on wooden bleachers. I was way in the back. I was usually the only student saying Amen out loud to every new truth I heard. We had many famous visiting professors and pastors across America come to teach us weekly modules. We also had a Bible survey class where we went through every book and every verse in the Bible.

I once had tried to get into West Point Military Academy, since I had all those unit records, but was denied (guess it’s who you know). To Me, Word of Life Bible Institute was like West Point for Christian officers in the Lord’s Army. I believed God had something for me to do on earth and it had to do with Bible training, study, and teaching Bible.

Dormitory Supervisor

When I arrived, I found out that I had been chosen for Dormitory Supervisor training. My first meal after getting off Greyhound was a steak at the welcome dinner. I couldn’t believe how God had taken care of me. They assigned me to be in charge of Kenya Cabin, right on Schroon Lake in upstate New York, in the heart of the Adirondack Mountains near Canada. I was to be in charge of the college kitchen cleanup crew. We ran a tight ship and got everything perfectly clean every night. Then, when everyone was gone, in the winter when the lake had frozen over, I walked across that frozen lake, often under clear starlit skies in the snow, back to the cabin.

A Tornado Passed My Front Porch

We had classes in one huge wooden barn style auditorium. One interesting story that comes to mind was during registration day when all the students showed up. I was standing on the porch of Kenya Cabin when the rain started going sideways. I thought, this is very strange. In a few minutes, the rain returned to its normal downward pattern. Turns out that an actual tornado had passed right in front of me as a water spout on the lake just on the other side of a small row of trees between me and that lake.

Many years earlier, while stationed in Texas, I was standing on the back porch of the barracks and saw a tree get struck by a powerful lightning bolt. The tree exploded with steam and sparks and a large branch blew off the side and fell. A time before that, when arriving at Redstone Arsenal, I asked, “What’s that huge slab of concrete for?” They told me that a tornado had come through and took out the whole gym. Then they pointed to Green Mountain and said, “See that large path going over that mountain? That’s where the tornado went.” I thought, that looks like someone took out all those trees to make a freeway over that mountain.

After the wind died down, I walked to the registration building. No one was outside but all of these huge trees were laying down neatly, all facing in the same direction on both sides of the building, like sleeping giants with their roots like huge feet. Where was everyone, I thought. Everyone was inside. All registering students and parents and staff were in the large wooden registration building and no one was hurt. Can you imagine if the tornado hit that building when it came off the lake? The entire college enrolment and their parents and the college staff would have been killed. If that wasn’t a sign from God, I don’t know what was. We spent that fall chain sawing trees.

Open Air Evangelism

During the summer, I got to pick a ministry. During the school year, I went to stay with a local pastor on weekends and enjoyed learning how a church works. It was a large church in Glenns Falls. But during the summer, I went off to Moody Bible Institute in Chicago for Outdoor Evangelism training through a ministry called Open Air Evangelism (OAE). We stayed at the Pacific Garden Mission, helped prepare and serve meals to the homeless, and went to Moody for classes daily. We also went out on the streets practicing preaching there and leading folks to Christ.

Preaching in Times Square

Our next stop was New York City where we preached in Times Square. I remember the sidewalks were very wide. We preached from the side of a van. There was a pull-out stage and we used black lights at night. Once a large Black man jumped on the stage and pulled up his shirt to show us his scars. He said, “I died for your sins.” He was likely a veteran who endured the horrors of Vietnam.

In another incident, when I was standing in the front row with the crowd, a man jumped onto the stage and held a large knife to the neck of our leader. During one of my times preaching, I talked about aliens and space ships and how God sent His son to earth to pay for our sins. That time, my crowd was so big it covered the entire sidewalk by twenty feet both directions and people were squeezing by along the stores in the very back.

Here is where we also went to Harlem to do children’s park ministries during the daytime. We stayed at the Newark New Jersey Rescue Mission in those days, preaching to the homeless after a meal and before bed. We then moved to a beach ministry for the remainder of that summer before graduation.

Preaching on the Boardwalk

We lived in tiny wooden shacks under some trees, tiny one room cabins you would call them, no air conditioning, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Every night, after idling time during the day and getting ready, we preached from an actual stage between two casinos. Trump began purchasing property there around the same time. Later, he bought a casino there. I often think that people like him walked by at night and listened to us present the Gospel. I pray for them.

Missions Major

During the short break from graduation near the end of the summer to enrolment at Philadelphia College of Bible (PCB), I did a private preaching tour at tourist spots such as Independence Hall, the Washington Monument, and so forth along with another student from our open air preaching student team. I tried to raise financial support to further this ministry but that never happened. I used some of the money I had from my Veteran’s education benefits; what was left over after paying my school bill.

Elijah’s Mantle

I was not supported financially by anyone except the kindness of God’s people. A pastor in the Philadelphia area allowed me to stay upstairs in his house. I was very lonely there and listened to Family Radio as much as I could for comfort. One time I went downtown in Philadelphia to seventeenth and Arch streets where Philadelphia College of Bible was founded. I attended church services there once and heard Dr. James Boice preach on the Elijah and Elisha. I hoped for the power of that mantle times ten in my life. I prayed to God for success in my walk.

A Hole in My Shoes

Circumstances found me working a job in trash collection in the cold rain of Pennsylvania at an apartment building. It was miserable being out there but being from Seattle, I was used to such harsh conditions. I humbly walked around that wet grass with a hole in my sole. Water came in and made my foot wet. They were nice shoes except for the hole in the sole. I put cardboard, plastic, anything in there, but to no avail.

Finally, I got my first pay from that job. It was all I could think of to go to the mall and buy a pair of shoes. The mall was empty. I was standing there, inside, so happy to have new tennis shoes. I had that feeling once before when I got my first check in the Army. Even as a Sergeant, when I was ending my career, it was only five hundred dollars a month.

Shaking Ronald Regan’s Hand

I stood there in the middle of that empty mall looking down that large empty hall when I noticed a small group of well-dressed men walking towards me from far away. I had been in the Army and I decided that I wasn’t going to move on. I was just going to stay there and watch them come nearer. When they got close, I recognized the man in the middle. It was Ronald Regan. He had actually used the slogan “We can make America great again” even before Trump. I stood there and he approached me. It was the fall of 1980.

“Hello” he said. I told him I was from California and he was delighted. I told him I was a Bible college student and how I’d served in the Army. He was thrilled and with a big smile, patted me on the back as he shook my hand, thanked me for my service and wished me the best. What a kind and gentle man he was and I’m so glad to have met him. I haven’t washed my hand since that day. Just kidding.

Leaving Philadelphia

Circumstances caused me to leave Philadelphia. The man who led me to Christ in Texas has a lovely godly wife named Gladys. She used to be Jack Wyrtzen’s personal secretary. Jack started Word of Life (WOL). She had graduated from Philadelphia College of Bible. I took missions classes there including World Missions, Cultural Anthropology, and others. I loved a girl I met at Word of Life on the Open Air Evangelism Team. I wanted to marry her but I was very poor.

Her mom didn’t like me. Once they gave me thirty-five dollars as a gift. I spent it on taking care of personal needs. I had no money, no income. I was the poorest Bible student three thousand miles from home with no job. No wonder she didn’t like me. I found it hard to fit in with the youth group at their church because everyone had a family they lived with and had at least limited financial support.

When her family found out I spent the money on myself instead of her daughter, her mom, who was a big-time nurse at Johns Hopkins, talked the girl, Sharon, out of going with me as a girl friend. That broke my heart. I decided that this tough life alone in Philadelphia with no support and no hope was hopeless. I decided to leave and moved home after Christmas break. I had $450 left since I just got my last veteran’s educational benefits check from the Veteran’s Administration. The pastor took the whole amount from me when he dropped me on that snowy night at the airport, saying I owed it to him.

A Vision of My Future Bride

That chapter of life closed. I took a deep breath and moved on. During the flight to California, I had a vision of a beautiful girl with long golden hair. I had a vision of Debbie before when I had run away from home and while driving through those golden California hills. I saw her riding her bike with streamers in front of her home. This time, she was a bride dressed in white sitting on a white brass bed. I couldn’t believe my mind. What was that all about? While I was on my way to California, Debbie was a student at Christian Heritage College in San Diego. She was to become my wife someday but neither of us knew that. Perhaps these so-called visions were nothing more than wishful thinking somehow.

My False Profession of Faith

While I was overseas, my family had moved from Seattle to California. My dad had sold his home plus the five homes on the same street behind Children’s Hospital, and bought a hotel in downtown Sacramento. I had visited there on leave shortly after becoming a Christian. It was there my brother made a false profession of faith. He prayed the prayer but, since he was new to the idea, didn’t really mean it, didn’t face up to his own personal sin, never really repented (was sorry for his sins), and never meaningfully asked Christ into his life. He wasn’t saved, and today rejects anything religious. He loves money now.

I myself had once made a false profession of faith. Mine was dramatic. In the foyer, a fellow soldier tried to lead me to Christ before the church service. I prayed the prayer with the man and sat in Church. To my surprise, he stood up and praised the Lord that he had just led me to Christ at Memorial Baptist Church of Killeen, Texas. He had me stand up and the entire church clapped for me. They tried to clap me into heaven, I guess, but I was not saved. I was still spiritually deader than a doorknob, as they say.

It’s one thing to profess Christ, but another to possess Christ. The Bible says, “He who HAS the Son (Jesus) HAS life (shall be saved), and he who does not, does not have life,” 1 John 5:12. I always love to ask folks, “Which one are you?” People just don’t understand that it’s not what we do (good works) to get saved or remain saved, it’s what’s been done by Jesus on the cross. That’s evangelism. That’s good doctrine. That’s the doctrine of soteriology, salvation.

From Below Zero to Summer in 24 Hours

            My dad eventually sold his hotel in Sacramento and moved to Palm Springs. The family owned a beautiful twelve poolside unit natural hot springs resort overlooking Palm Springs. It had three pools that were filled with subterranean geothermal water at three different temperatures and in three sizes, the largest one being the coolest and the spa by the Palm Springs overlook was the hottest.

Once, while stationed on the East German border in what seemed like seventeen below, I went on Christmas leave to visit my family in California. On Christmas Eve, I got stranded at Chicago’s O’Hare airport because of weather. While flying all the way across the country, I noticed the entire country was white with snow until we came to the other side of the mountains by Los Angeles. It was eighty degrees at my parent’s place and the natural hot springs Jacuzzi was 103 degrees.

Move to San Diego

My parents sold their Palm Springs resort and bought a new Palm Springs home. They had some issues and split up for a while. My dad started a business at the border of Mexico in San Ysidro fixing cars. He gave me a beautiful burgundy TR7. When I first saw that car, I fell in love, I leaned over the hood and gave it a big hug. I loved the pop up headlights and the luxurious tan leather interior. God used that car to help me get a little clout at college.

When I showed up at Christian Heritage College in El Cajon, I was a big man on campus because I was about four years older than any freshmen. I had served in the Army, was in good physical condition, and had been a leader. I became the head of the Europe Missions prayer group. I was asked by the faculty president to lead in prayer at a school wide meeting.

Dating the President’s Girlfriend

Debbie was in student leadership, and she was seated near the stage seated next to the student body president. That’s the first time I noticed her, and she noticed me. The next time I saw her; I saw this bush of golden hair walking down the hall and disappearing around the corner. I investigated. In the meantime, I began dating a wonderful tall girl from LA. However, she had theology that disagreed with mine. I was willing to put that aside. It had to do with the ‘Full Gospel’ Spirit gifts issues such as tongues.

Broken Off Engagement

Her mom didn’t like that and made her break up with me. The school dean counseled me to let her go if I love her. I did. I went into a deep depression for six weeks. I stayed in bed, facing the wall. I had given her a ring. An engagement ring. I honestly didn’t like what she picked out and she gave it back.

One night, my roommates, Byron and Caleb, begged me to get up and go to the Harvest Costume Party. Reluctantly, I dragged myself out of bed and pieced together a Tijuana border guard disguise. With leftover money from the Palm Springs house sale, my parents bought a beach house in Rosarito, Mexico, just south of Tijuana. I used to love going down there alone, listening to easy listening music with violins (I confess) and watching whales swim by in the blue ocean outside the window.

Meeting My Future Wife

I saw a girl, man was she ugly, dressed as a Spanish senorita with thick black hair and an authentic looking Spanish costume, at that party. In the spirit and part of my assumed Mexican identity, I began to flirt with her.

She had so much cake makeup that I didn’t realize it was Debbie. She wore her aunt’s authentic Spanish costume. Her aunt was a teacher at BIOLA in LA. She had a giant black wig covering her hair. I had no idea it was my future wife.

Debbie went there for five years. She was completing her fifth year for teaching and her second Bachelor’s of Science. She earned a Bachelor’s of Science in Home Economics and a second Bachelor’s of Science in Secondary Teaching. She went to Mexico as a summer missionary and contracted Rubella and Scarlet Fever being very ill at the hospital in California.

Chasing Down Debbie

When I found out the Debbie had signed up for one of our Children’s outreach teams going to share Christ at local parks, I ran down the stairs. My roommates had informed me of this and I ran out the room to get on that van before it left. I had set up five Open Air Evangelism Teams and I was required to give them academic ministry participation grades. I made it just before they drove off. My heart was pounding. This was my chance.

At that park, I showed off for Debbie. I had fun with the kids until one of the kids accidentally tore buttons on my shirt. That was weird. I enjoyed my time there and decided to pursue her. However, I did pray, after the last incident, that God would take her away before I got close and would not let this work out if it wasn’t His perfect will. And I seriously meant that.

First Date at the Symphony

A second opportunity was the offer of free symphony tickets for college students. I had two. I isolated her from her friends. She was always surrounded by her posse. My ex fiancé, Elizabeth and I attended a Valentine’s Dinner that Debbie decorated and was in charge of. I was thoroughly impressed down to the pink and blue chairs to the table decorations, the music, and the guest speaker. Debbie was there, in the background.

At the symphony, Debbie went to the restroom. Later, she told me that all the girls in the restroom talked about me with Debbie. They had all dated me and said I was a great guy. How did this come to be? My friend Mark and I decided to not date a girl twice in a row. We double dated. Mark and I used to get ice cream together to discuss the date after we dropped the girls off. This time, I dropped Mark off and got ice cream with my new best friend.

At the San Diego symphony with Debbie, I fell head over heals in love. I turned my head to look at her sitting next to me. I had been staring at the brochure cover of a sailboat sailing into the sunset. When I turned my head, my cheek brushed her golden hair and that was it for me. I went to la la love land. I bumbled the words, “That’s you and me sailing into the sunset.” That actually came true on our first visit to Hawaii. I was in love! That was the last time I dated anyone else.

Courageous or Foolish

I had grown fond of Debbie but I heard through the grapevine that she was leaving school mid-year in January. I put together the courage to say goodbye and gave her a call. All my friends considered her ‘untouchable’ because she was a senior and extremely beautiful. They told me I was either crazy for being interested in her, or I was the bravest man they knew. I was just a fool for love.

A Great College

Debbie was also a founding member of “Concerned Women of America” started by Beverly LaHaye, Tim LaHaye’s wife. Pastor LaHaye helped found Christian Heritage College and wrote 85 Christian books including the Left Behind series. Pastor Peters and Dr. David Jeremiah were also presidents of the school while we were there. Debbie’s brother also attended CHC and dated Dr. Jeremiah’s daughter for a time.

I loved Christian Heritage College not just because of the sound teaching but also because they had the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) on campus. How wonderfully fortunate was that? I took classes there and so did Debbie. We became staunch Creationists. We asked lots of questions in class. I even went on a student study tip, a fossil dig in the Chocolate Mountains. I was so well trained in Creationism that I was able to debate online with all levels of folks including scientists to support the Bible.

A Year Long Engagement

Her dad was very reluctant to say yes. After Debbie completed school in January of 1982, she returned to San Francisco. She had invited me to a going away party with all of her friends at the Old Spaghetti Factory restaurant in downtown San Diego. We were just acquaintances at this time but I offered to pay for her meal. She accepted. It wasn’t until years later (and I have heard this many times), that she didn’t have enough cash to pay for gas to get back to San Francisco until I paid her part of that meal. I’m so grateful I made that small gesture. This it meant so much to my love who would someday become my bride.

I was in love, broke, but really in love and ready to get married. I was completing college in 1982. Since her parents wanted us to wait a year to get married, we were engaged for a year. I stayed in a trailer on the property of one of my professors at CHC and became a youth pastor. That summer, Debbie moved back to San Diego and lived as a home helper with her sister. We did some youth activities together when we were engaged. We have one photo that was taken as part of the church directory that turned out well. It’s now in our hallway in our home.

Motivation for a Master’s

I decided to get a Master’s in Bible. I decided to move in with my roommate Byron’s family in Los Angeles and attend the Bible Institute of Los Angeles.  I took US history classes at BIOLA and Church history at Talbot Seminary. I drove up to San Francisco for Easter Break to visit Debbie. I took her on a drive to the coast. I picked her up in the morning and brought her home by eight in the evening. Her mom got very mad at me for bringing her home so late. She was twenty-three years old. Go figure.

When we got married, I took her to the Virgin Islands. Debbie was a virgin when we got married. We dated respectfully. I still remember our first kiss. It was on her porch when I pecked her on the cheek. I had one of those ‘singing in the rain and dancing in the street’ moments from the movies. After we were engaged, at our engagement announcement party with her immediate at a local park, I kissed her on the lips on a little bridge. I never heard the end of that, amazingly.

Attending Seminary

            I already had a diploma from Word of Life in Biblical Studies, Evangelism training at Moody, Missions at Philadelphia, Creationism at ICR, and two degrees at Christian Heritage  (Biblical and Pastoral Studies) where I had two and a half years of Biblical Greek. I now moved on to obtain a Master’s to please Debbie’s parents and earn their respect. I started at Talbot Seminary, then on to Golden Gate Seminary where I took Hebrew, and finally to San Francisco Baptist Theological Seminary where I earned my Master’s in Biblical Studies and Evangelism.

Leaving a Liberal Seminary

I had left Talbot to move closer to Debbie up in the San Francisco Area. I had left the Southern Baptist Golden Gate Seminary because they were too liberal. I translated the entire book of Zechariah from Hebrew to English. I still don’t know how I managed that. Having some knowledge of the original Biblical languages has allowed me to be able to access deeper innuendos of Biblical constructs and contextual meaning as needed. This skill comes in handy at times of critical doctrinal pursuit.

Terrible Theology

Golden Gate was very liberal. It was Southern Baptist. My roommates sometimes accused me of worshipping the Bible instead of Jesus. They called it “Bibliolatry” as an affront such as “Maryolatry” (the worship of Mary) in Catholicism. Jesus is the author of the Scriptures. I worship Him, not the printed Book. The Bible has worth only because it is the Word of God. It does not merely contain the Word of God. It is the Word of God. Jesus is the Word of God. Every word in the Bible was spoken by Jesus to faithful men who were moved by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit breathed into them the thoughts of God. They were inspired by the breath of God. The Bible is the mind of God. Do you want to know the mind of God? Read the Bible.

My Old Testament professor, Dr. Canon, once told me that he envied my faith. He said that he just couldn’t believe in a physical resurrection of Christ and that many things in the Bible are just allegorical or symbolic. He taught the JEDP theory of higher criticism. This dissection of the Bible according to writing styles has penetrated seminaries across the world in both Europe and America. It’s a false teaching that denies verbal (word) plenary (totality) inspiration (God breathed); the belief that every word of the Bible is dictated by God.

They even hold to the JEDP theory that the first five books were written by multiple authors and that the Bible is a book of stories that were loosely passed down by tradition at campfires, thereby denying the superintendence and preservation of God’s Word. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran also defies this logic as of the preserved portions, every letter is the same as today. Jesus himself said not one jot (a dot on top of the i) or tittle (a tiny stroke above any Hebrew letter) would pass away speaking of his Word. There is a joke about this. A grave mark is a tiny accent mark in Greek; You know you are deep in “cemetery” when you find the grave.

Dallas Seminary Teaches Heretical Theology

Even the famous Dallas Theological Seminary (DTS), most renowned in Evangelicalism, is enveloped with false doctrine. They allowed Calvinism to creep in. Calvinism is a satanic teaching that permeates most Bible schools. They are confused about the inspiration or interpretation of scripture. They don’t usually hold to the concept that “if the plain sense of scripture makes sense, seek no other sense.”

They tend to read into the scriptures what isn’t there. They pick and choose what is literal based on the traditions of men instead of simply comparing scripture with scripture. 

Adding theological tradition perverts Biblical exposition. 

Doctrine Seminary Mission Statement:

At Doctrine Seminary,
we hold to the truth of scripture
in its literal and historically
contextual reading.
We hold these truths to be self-evident.
We compare scripture with scripture
and determine the Biblical
consensus of correct doctrine
apart from theological traditions.
We are steadfast in the
defense of the power of the Gospel
and of the verbal plenary inspiration
of the full canon of scripture.
We rely on the guidance
of the Holy Spirit through
vibrant faith, fervent prayer,
and actionable love while
enthusiastically sharing
the true Gospel (good news)
of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Wrapping it all up:

Other Bible verses about teaching and preaching include Galatians 6:6, Romans 12:4–8, 2 Timothy 2:15, James 3:1, and Matthew 4:23.

Teaching is often a classroom-style way of imparting knowledge and applying it.
Preaching is a way of sharing the Word of God and calling people to action.

Although the Holy Spirit guides us into all truth, more than likely it’s by employing those who are experienced in God’s Word to answer questions and teach Biblical truth. This is why Bible schools are important.

 

It would an ignorant response to simply read the Bible without wise folks helping us to stay on course. When people teach Scripture, we hear their words and discern truth as filled with the Holy Spirit, who guides us into all truth.

2 Timothy 2:2 “Build up disciples who can teach others.”
Teach others? Yes, Bible schools are Biblical.

At Doctrine Seminary, we provide a framework for online students to explore the scriptures themselves using a proven writing tool. Qualified teachers supervise and approve these essays. Therein lies the solution. Students are encouraged to search the scriptures (using the Internet) to systematically form correct theology. 

Contact us for a Free first class and a Free application. Send an email to info@doctrineseminary.org

Upon completion of the program, students will receive doctrinal certification.

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