Sharing My Story

One of the major projects I worked on during late 1973
and early 1974 was doing illustrations for a series of training
transparencies of the Transferable Concepts in Mandarin
Chinese. I was able to work with Andrew Ho who was at
that time the director for Mass Media in Asia.

The Transferable Concepts were the basic teaching about
the Spirit Filled Life written by Dr. Bill Bright. These "Concepts"
were the foundational core of Campus Crusade's teaching
about how to successfully live the Christian life. This was
a great project to work on and I showed a number of the
illustrations I did in my January 1974 newsletter.

In October 1973 I returned back to Washington for another visit
with my parents and support team again I had several meetings
in my folks home for my supporters. After I returned to California
I had a new boss, George Sarris who was working in the Radio and
TV department. George had an excellent speaking voice and was
the announcer on Campus Crusade's radio program. Others of
my co-workers at that time were Rich Buhl (directing slide shows),
Tommy Gleaton (mechanical whiz and slide show producer),
Dave Dooney (Radio and Paul Burton (training).

Toward the end of April 1974 my parents came down for a visit and
stay for a week as guests at the Arrowhead Springs hotel. They were
very impressed with Campus Crusade headquarters and I was able
to take them to Disneyland, Knox Berry Farm, the San Diego Zoo
and other Southern Calif. attractions. This was a wonderful trip for
them and I was delighted to introduce them to the people I worked
with and other friends like Don Franklin.

In early 1974 I received help in my area from another staff member
who was working in film production and video taping. This was Crystal
Nicol who had come on staff the previous summer. Crystal was an
extrovert and a lot of fun to work with. She hailed from Redondo Beach,
California with a Lebonese mother and Irish father. She was quite
artistic and between jobs we draw a satiral comic strip of the different
people in the media departments and posted them on the inside of the
front door of the Quonset Hut we worked in. Crystal would later marry
(in 1975) a big Polish-American former college football player and fellow
Campus Crusade staff member named Ski Kazmierski. Later in 1974
Crystal and I were joined by Judy Caudill from Arkansas whose first
staff assignment was working in the transparency area. Judy proved
to be a steady and dependable worker and was a value member of the
growing sub department of the Overhead transparency section.

For two years from October 1972 to October 1974 I lived in the Acacia
household of Andy Jelmert a(mentioned previously) and other housemates
Dick Lewis (worked in the Campus Office) from Phoenix, Arizona;
Russ Daniels (worked in Publications), from Virginia and
Van Wong from Buffalo, New York. I enjoyed the housemate situation
but Andy wanted to give us a chance to experience other living
situations so several of us moved to other places.

My first year on Campus Crusade staff was an exciting one—
perhaps the most exciting of my CCC tenure. However,
the next year was also filled with many events and exciting activities.

I was given some more responsibilities in the convalescent hospital
ministry and worked for a time with another staff member named
Keith Yates. Dick Berg had married Becky (James) and they
eventually became less involved in the ministry. I also was
involved in the 24 hour prayer chain ministry on the
Arrowhead Springs campus. There was a special room
of the prayer chapel that was dedicated to prayer for many
requests of ministry activities as well as more personal
requests. One of my early prayer prayers was Ron Walburg
who worked in the accounting department. We arrived at
the Prayer chapel at 6 AM Sunday mornings for an hour of
prayer for the various requests. I was involved in this ministry
aspect for most of my time at Arrowhead at various times and
with other partners. Early on we started an Action group system
at Arrowhead that I was a part of. While this was a good idea
Action groups didn't work as well at Arrowhead
as they did on campus.

My work in the Audiovisual Department continued to grow.
I was pretty much out of the tape area and doing transparencies
for the various ministries full time. In January 1973 I went
with two other AV Dept men to explain the merits of using
overhead transparencies to a meeting of CCC Campus staff
at Talbott Seminary. In late June through August I had my
first assistant in the transparency area. She was Molly Houck
from Boyertown, Pennsylvania. "She proved to be a real help
in the very busy time immediately before our All Staff training
at Purdue University in Indiana during July and August."
(from my August 1973 newsletter). Molly left Campus Crusade
a short time later to return home to pay off some debt. The
increase in demand by the teaching staff for overhead
transparencies showed the need for more help in that area.

In late March 1973 I had an operation for which I was
hospitalized for the removal of a pitolanoetal cyst. Some
weeks before I rode in a van that apparently stimulated
and infected the cyst (above the tail bone) so that I had
trouble sitting down without a lot of pain. I was in the
hospital for 5 days and was out of work for a week or so.
As of this writing this has been my only hospital stay
(except for tonsil removal as a small child).

In June 1973 the first annual headquarters staff training
was provided and Dr. Bill Bright, Howard Ball (director
of the Lay Ministry) and other CCC leaders teaching.
Dr. J. Vernon McGee, former pastor of the Church of
the Open Door (in Los Angeles) and popular radio Bible
teacher also taught during that time.

Variety and the wearing of different hats seemed the order
of the day during that time. This is from my August 1973
newsletter, "Also in June I had the opportunity to be present
for the video-taping (then transferred to film) of a new
Andre Kole movie. This film is called "World of the Seance"
and is even better than "World of Illusion", Andre Kole's
first evangelistic film. Andre Kole is a world famous illusionist
who is on the staff of Campus Crusade and speaks to thousands
of people around the world each year about the claims of Christ.
I was able to take slides during and after the taping which
were used at All Staff training in Purdue in July and August."

In early July another staff man, Bob Wanner (from the Marketing Dept)
and I attended a Summer Institute for Scientific Creationism
conducted at El Cajon (just east of San Diego). This was conducted
by the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) and the instructors
were Dr. Duane Gish (Associate director of ICR), Harold Slusher
(Geophysics), Stuart Nevins (Steve Austin-Geology) and Dr. Robert
Franks. I had been interested at least since in the Creation/evolution
debate and this was a real stimulus to that interest. "One day we a
had the film "footprints in Stone" that documents the discovery of
dinosaur tracks and human foot prints found together in the same
strata of rock. Man was supposed to have evolved about 60,000,000
years after the last dinosaur became extinct. These tracks were found
in the Paluxy River in Texas (near Glen Rose). They prove that man
and dinosaur lived at the same time and demolishes the
uniformitarian-evolutionary hypothesis." (from my July 1973
newsletter). Little did I know that years later I would have an
involvement in those very fossil digs. Bob and I returned and
started a short lived creation study group with several other CCC staff.

The rest of my first year on Campus Crusade staff was
filled with moves, work and a trip home to Washington.
Two volunteer staff in the Film department, John and
Florence Hafner asked another staff man and myself
to house sit for them at their home in Crestline. John
Hafner was an older rather plain spoken gentlemen
who had worked for many years as a film cutter in
Hollywood. He had worked on many of the great films
in Hollywood's Golden years. Crestline is a mountain
community north of Arrowhead Springs and is a
destination for skiers in the winter time. I closed out
my apartment on Fifth Street at the end of March and
moved to the Hafner home and lived there until the
Explo 72 in June. After returning from Explo I found
another one bedroom apartment on F Street (in San
Bernardino).

I lived there for around three months and then received
an invitation from Andy Jelmert to share a house with
he and several other Campus Crusade men in a new
housing development on Acacia Street in northern
San Bernardino. Andy worked as an administrative advisor
(he had taught on the college level) with Steve Douglass
(who was CCC VP and much later Presdent of Campus
Crusade after Bill Bright) and Bruce Cook. The house
sharing arrangement was one that I experience several
times during many Campus Crusade years and after.

As a full time CCC staff member I had my own financial
and prayer support team. The staff members were
encouraged to not only write monthly newsletters
("prayerletters") to their supporters but to plan annual
support maintainence and raising trips back to re-connect
with those supporters. In November 1972 I headed back
to my home in Washington and held 3 meetings with
my supporters at my former home. At these meetings I
showed the "One Way" film which was a summary of what
happened at Explo 72 and presented a slide presentation
of my work at Arrowhead Springs. A couple of months
before I purchased a Single lens reflex camera—
a Yashica TL Electro X and shot slides of my work.
This camera was to sure me well for several decades.
It was a solid work horse of a camera. These meetings
proved to be a very good experience as it allowed my
parents to become involved directly in my work as hosting
the meetings. Before this I don't remember our house as
being used for meetings of any kind.

I also visited with friends like Bob LaRievere, Rick Nelson
and of course Scott Campbell. This was a good time.
It was interesting that this was now my former home.
This was the home I grew up in and loved and still loved
but my life was now elsewhere. Things had changed.

This time I'm finishing my coverage of the Explo 72 event.
Following Explo were three television specials that covered
some of the Explo meetings that were aired in the last part
of July and the first part of August. This is from my August
1972 newsletter describing the response to the Explo TV specials.

"About one hundred or so of the headquarters staff from all
of the various departments pitched in to help with the flood
of over 115,000 letters that came in. It took us two weeks to
do them all and on the last day nearly the entire Headquarters
staff (250-300) were working on the mail.

It was an enlightening experience just to see how God used
these programs in the lives of tens of thousands of people
across the country. Letters came in from all age groups,
children, teens, college age, young career middle age and
senior citizens all were moved by the powerful presentation
of the gospel on these programs. Many came to know
Christ for the first time, Many Christians were encouraged
as they saw the enthusiasm of the Explo delegates in the
Cotton Bowl and many back sliding Christians were
convicted of their waywardness and came back into full fellowship.

Here are a few examples of the letters we received in response to
the televised specials. One teenage girl from Newport Ricky, Florida
wrote saying that she was not going to watch the Explo specials,
but 'something' prompted her to in spite of herself. When Bill
Bright gave the invitation she received Christ as her personal
Savior and Lord, and now has real peace for the first time in her life.

A young man from Rochester, N.Y. has this to say;
My name is Steven---- and I'm 12 years old and I just received
Christ on one of your Explo 72 [shows] and I am really happy.
All I can give is one dollar, that's all I have in my piggy bank.

Another teenage boy wrote this from Kansas;
Thank you Bill Bright, Billy Graham and all the rest. Last
night I accepted Jesus and I am so happy. I feel better and
why not I've got Jesus and that's all I need. I am enclosing
one dollar I really can't afford it but really after what you
and Jesus did for me I can. I know that with Jesus I can do
better in school, have better friends and feel better.

This came from a 16 year old girl from Quiney, Calif.;
Thank you so much for just being there when you were
needed. I was on the fence not knowing on which side I
should get off. I prayed that God would send some
answers to my many questions. As I was turning the
channel on my TV I stumbled across Explo 72. What
a stumble it was, but thanks to you and Explo 72 and
most of all Jesus Christ I am stumbling no more. I'm
walking straight forward on the road to the gates of heaven.
And as I enter I plan to have all my friends there by my side.
Those who don't know the message of Jesus Christ soon
will, thanks to Explo 72.

Multiple this by the hundreds and thousands and you can
just begin to understand how greatly God used these
programs in the lives of people around the country. Out
of the 1300-1400 (from all 50 states) letters I personally
processed I did not encounter one negative response even
though a few of the other analysts reportedly received an
occasional one. One very encouraging note to me was that
out of all that mail I came across a letter and contribution
for the TV specials from one of you my wonderful supporters.
This is an experience I will treasure in seeing the power of
God working through the medium of Television."

Explo 72 was a once in a life-time experience for me a
wonderful and thrilling time.