World Bible School

My idea of going on this mission trip to Ghana was to remain in the background (where it was safe!) and take pictures (with my new camera) of the Team encouraging students, preaching, and baptizing. We weren’t in Ghana for more than an hour when they told me I could take all the pictures I wanted, but here is an interpreter and some students who need to know about Jesus! That started it.

It was so easy to share the scriptures! Paul writes, "I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase"

Baptisms happening every day! So exciting and I was hooked. The next step was street preaching, which built my confidence in sharing Jesus even more. Thousands of people of all stripes wanted Biblical information on how to be saved and were asking us to help them. I personally got to study with many of them, witnessed hundreds baptized, and my faith increased by leaps and bounds.

In 1988 and 1989 I went to Malawi, C. Africa twice, and to Zimbabwe once with WBS campaigns, while Diana stayed home, managing our business and taking care of our youngest son.

In 1990 I had plans to go to Malawi again. I had been trying all year to encourage other men from church to go with me and learn about foreign mission work. I had the funds but no takers. We were out of time, and I received a call from Mary Ann, our travel agent. She said “Am I buying one ticket or 2?” I said “I’ll call you back in 10 minutes.” I turned to Diana and off the top of my head, with no thought of flying halfway around the world with a month's notice, I said “Why don’t you just go with me?” To my surprise, she said “I don’t know. Why don’t I?” Until that moment, she had never even mentioned an interest in going to Africa!

A month filled with immunizations for Diana, buying special clothes and supplies, and preparing lessons to share with the women, and coordinating details with Eric Dickey.

One of the most memorable events for Diana was when she found herself in Malawi, in the back seat of a rental car with an African woman she’d never in her life seen before… Diana asked Sister Thindwa where we were going, and the answer was “Sister Diana is going to speak to the ladies at some rural village church” !!! Diana said ‘Oh? What’s she going to talk about?! And who will interpret?” (Diana had not yet learned how to enunciate properly so her interpreters could understand her) Sister Thindwa said “don’t worry, I have 2 sons who went to Texas A&M and I can understand Texas just fine. We’ll study from the chart you have.” When George and Geoffrey drove away and left Diana at that church miles from nowhere, Diana said “Okay, Lord, here I am! Show me what to do.” There were 127 ladies there that day to listen to Diana and Sister Thindwa, and every one of them shook Diana's hand and thanked her for coming to talk to them!

Okay - God has made his choice and the founders of the future SEE Ministries have been revealed!

Okay. That’s how Jesus and the Holy Spirit worked things out to get us both on the same path, and that path led to Africa. Looking back at our experiences brings up some really great memories – preaching in brush arbors, under a tree, in nice church buildings, at refugee camps… taking people by the truckload to be baptized in the river, in baptistries, in the ocean, in ponds, and in pools of murky water… Diana teaching the ladies about being good mothers and women of God… singing and taking communion while sitting on a rock or a low wooden bench… Diana sitting with the ladies, separated from the men…

Then, to our disappointment, we were not able to return to Africa to do WBS work for lack of personal funding. Diana became an optician in 1995, and in 1996, as we were finishing a meal with some old friends and talking about Africa, our friend Larry Foster asked us how long it had been since we had been to Africa, and would we like to go back? We said we really wanted to, and he said he knew someone who might be interested in helping. 10 days later we had enough money for me to go to Malawi!

In 1997, using this new-found opportunity, I travelled to Malawi alone to teach seminars about Jesus. Because of Diana’s opticianry job, we knew a lot about the Lions Club glasses recycling program, and the availability of free glasses for distribution in the Third World, and we wanted to investigate the need for eyeglasses in Malawi, so I took a few pairs of readers along to see how they would be received.

When we reported the extremely enthusiastic results of my survey trip to Larry, he asked the same question, “Wanta go back to Africa?”, and that same friend provided funding for the 2 of us for another trip to Malawi, this time to start an eyeglass clinic ministry.

We had hoped that we could do both WBS and eyeglass clinics, so people could read their Bibles. In the picture below, we tried that - in the picture below you can see boxes of glasses under the communion table - but it turned out we had to do one or the other, not both. Glasses were just too labor-intensive.

We were getting ready to go to Malawi in July to start eyeglass clinics. The last Sunday, we met a missionary who was supported by our church, and was part of the Mbale Mission Team in Uganda. When he heard about our plan, he told us he was born in Malawi, and he said 'why don't you come to Uganda and do your program there?' God was looking forward and knew there was going to be a problem with the church in Malawi, so He introduced us to Ian Shelburne! Problem solved before it happened.

Our first morning in Ghana, rested & ready to go