Sharing My Story

In June of 1975 I was asked to go to the CCC staff training
as the staff artist to help produce overhead transparencies
and other visual materials on the spot. The previous year
Crystal Nicol had done the same job. On the way to Fort
Collins, Colorado (Colorado State University campus and
the site of the CCC training) I stopped in the Delta and
Montrose area for a visit with relatives. "I left Arrowhead
Springs on June 8 and spent the following week on vacation
with some of my relatives in Western Colorado (Grand Junction
& Delta). The last time I had visited them was in 1968 so you
can imagine that I had a lot of visiting and catching up to do.
I got to see my grandmother and many uncles, aunts and cousins.
During and between visiting we went out rock and fossil (visited
a dinosaur dig where the largest dinosaur yet found is being
excavated) hunting, horse back riding and ate lots of good food.
All in all I had a great time and was the first real vacation
I have had in a long time." (from my June 1975 newsletter).
This was the last time I saw my grandmother Holden (my
mom's mother) as she pass away a year later. It was a bittersweet
time as I don't think she recognized me. Perhaps my experiences
in the convalescent hospital ministry prepared me for that.

The next month I wrote this. "Just shortly after I returned
from CSU I had an opportunity to spend several days at a cartoonist
(Comics) convention in San Diego. This was a purely secular
convention and I desired to have a testimony to the people at
the meeting. Christians need to be salt whether it is in cartooning,
radio, TV, politics or street cleaning for that mater. Some of you
may have seen the July 1975 issue of the Worldwide Challenge
(Crusade's monthly magazine). In it was an article about a man
named Stan Lynde who is the writer-artist of a syndicated comic
strip called RICK O'SHAY. What better way to have an influence,
a witness at a cartoonist convention than by giving out samples
of this magazine to the conferees. I obtained 100 issues of the
magazine and on the second day I was there I placed them on
the "free" table one morning and they were gone in less than
three hours. I believe that if I had them I could have given out
300-500 issues during the 5 day convention. What effects they
will have only the Lord knows, but if the people who took the
issues read them they will definitely have a Christian testimony."
Fifteen years later I had the privilege of meeting Stan Lynde in
person, a wonderful Christian man who lives in Montana.

This is from the same July 1975 newsletter. "I also took 75 copies
of the Greatest Treasure comic (an evangelistic tool for children
put out by Crusade several years ago) and also placed them on the
"free" table the third day I was there. During that day I was listening
to one of the nation's top science fiction writers give a talk and
he mentioned that his five year old son was really into the "Jesus
thing." He said that the boy would listen hour after hour to the
stereo recording of Jesus Christ, Superstar. Also several months
ago they were watching on television the movie "The Greatest Story
Ever Told" and right before the second part the son asked his dad,
"Is this where we are going to find out if Jesus is truth or fiction?"
The father commented to the audience that day, "Think about it,
that's heavy, heavy". At this point I was praying that the son would
go to the free table and get a Greatest Treasure comic. Before the
author was finished his small son came in the room and hiss father
asked him to come to the platform so that he could introduce the
audience to his child. As the father hoisted the son up to the
microphone guess what the boy had clutched in his hand? That's right,
a Greatest Treasure comic.

You bet I was thrilled."