Sharing My Story

My next living situation at 314 W. 48th St., lasted for about a year
and a half. I moved in with several other staff men not far from the
Acacia house. These included Gary Hellman, from Oklahoma,
who served with the traveling singing group, Crossroads, which
at that time was touring Asia. Also was Jim Dugan, from Baton
Rouge, Louisiana and worked in the Financial Systems Dept.
The other two staff men living there were Bob Hunta, from
Astoria, Oregon who worked in several CCC depts. including
Mail Systems, Personnel and Technical Services and Jim Winchell,
from Chagrin Falls, Ohio who worked in various capacites in the
headquarters print shop. Also Van Wong later joined the group.
This house was older and smaller with a noisy swamp cooler to
dissipate some of the intense summer heat. While there we developed
a close camaderie (some house Bible studies) and had some
opportunities for witness and ministry to neighbors. This housing
situation proved to be comparatively short-lived as Gary Hellman
eventually moved and Jim Dugan married a young woman
(Wanda Sorensen) he met at the headquarters. One interesting
thing about these men they all found Christ as Savior in college
when someone shared the 4 Spiritual Laws with them and received
their initial Christian training through their local campus ministries.
As this housing situation concluded Jim Winchell, Van Wong and
I moved to another longer lasting and more "homey" living situation.

In the summer of 1974 I made another trip to San Diego. I had
read in the fan press about a comics convention for several years
that was happening in in San Diego. I had previously given little
thought about going as my life was fulled with my work with Campus
Crusade at Arrowhead Springs and in San Bernardino. However that
year I decided it was time to check out this gathering of comics people
and I made a Saturday trip to the convention. I was very plesantly
surprised to put it mildly. The convention then was being held in a
downtown San Diego hotel called the El Cortez. There were a number
of back issue comic book dealers peddling comics and various comic
book artists and other creative people. You could see people like
Jack Kirby, Russ Manning and others closeup and accessible.
I came away very excited about the program and decided that
next year I would return for the entire convention.

During that time my next major project was a transparencies series
on the book of Jonah. This series was commissioned by one of the
military staff members. I basically took the book of Jonah and
translated it into a series of 20 illustrations using a goofy big foot
style of cartooning that I was using at the time. I very much enjoyed
doing this project as the story of Jonah contains a lot of satirical
humor that the cartoonist can tip into. Jonah is the reluctant prophet
who originally rans away from God and at the end is angry because
God forgives and relents the destruction He was going to visit on the
people of Nineveh because of their sincere repentance. As I've looked at it years
later it is roughly drawn and doesn't have a polished inking line that
many big foot cartoonist develop but it still has a lot of energy and the
humorous timing is right on. This series was used by a number of other
speakers at the time and was later included in a hefty catalog of
transparency illustrations that was made available to the CCC staff.

Also in September 1974 I made another trip back to Washington for
support maintenance time with my financial support team as well as
a good visit with my parents. From my November 1974 newsletter,
"I was able to spend time with my folks and had a great time seeing
my oldest brother [Elvin] who I hadn't seen in six years (He and his
wife had a child I hadn't seen)." These were bitter-sweet times as
Dad's cancer had returned and he was in a long several year battle
against this disease. We thought that the operation he had in
1971 on the eve of my departure for California may have played
a part. He had one tumorous kidney removed but it was speculated
that the cancer had spread to other organs before the infected
kidney was removed. He kept active during those years doing part
time custodial work (with Mom helping) at the church as well as
many farm related activities. Though they had gotten rid of the cows
and chickens by that time. The folks also made trips to Alaska,
Colorado and Manitoba during those years. Whenever the topic
presented itself if I should move back home to assist them both
parents were against it. They wanted me to pursue what
God had called me to. Those discussions were very short lived.