Sharing My Story

The latter half of 1970s were filled with many activities
and events. Included are some of them.

* In February 1977 I began involvement in a "growth group"
that was sponsored by the church that used Navigator
materials. Heavy emphasis was placed on memorization
which I was never good at. Small groups are an attempt
to help church people become more intimate with each
other. Small groups can be wonderful if people are really
clicking. If not they can become just one more activity to
juggle on an already busy schedule.

* In the Fall of 1977 my church (Faith Bible Church) had
the film series How Should We Then Live? written and
produced by Francis Schaeffer. Dr. Schaeffer presented
the idea of looking at history from a Biblically Christian
point of view. This type of overview thinking deeply
influenced the way I thought about origins, creative
artistic and literary endeavors and so forth. Our ideas
about life and reality were so influenced by the prevailing
materialist, liberal mind-set that the Christian needs to
realign his thinking in conformance with Christian patterns.

* In October 1977 the WWC art staff went on a retreat with
the Publication Dept. and we presented a skit about angels.

* I built a adjustable multi-purpose bench for weight lifting
in the garage that I used for several years.

* My work in WWC progressed as I was made art director
of the News section which meant that I did the layout
and design (photo selection, cropping for that section
of the magazine. I also continued doing layouts for the
feature section. In January 1978 I made a trip to Hart Press
in Lone Prairie, MN which was our printer to supervise
the printing of an issue. This was a pert that everyone
on the team had the opportunity to do during that time.
That was an interesting experience as I discovered what
ice fishing was as well as seeing the magazine being run
off on a large web press. I came home from my sub-zero
journey and got sick with the flu. I also starred in a magazine
ad for CCC's prison ministry as an inmate! My beard at that
time was wonderfully dark.

* During this time I continued as a constant reader.
"I have a confess to make. I am a confirmed bookaholic.
One of the surest signs of self control in my life is to go
into a bookstore and come out empty handed. However,
more often than not I succumb to temptation." (from
my March-April 1978 prayer letter). In this letter some
of the books I mentioned that I had recently or was
reading was Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago, The
Red Decade by Eugene Lyons, An American First,
It Didn't Start with Watergate, Understanding the
Male Temperament by Tim LaHaye, Dinosaurs,
Those Terrible Lizards by Duane Gish, The Assault
on the Sexes, Eat, Drink and be Ready (about civil
preparedness from a end times viewpoint) and
the Four Loves by CS Lewis.

* Along about this time I became involved with
two social groups. One was a Inkling's reading
group (Inklings was not the name of the group
but the writers group we were reading) that were
devoted to reading and discussing the works of
British authors like JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis,
Charles Williams and others. This group consisted
of Kathy Golden, Jacque Donecho, Steve Becker,
Greg and Kathleen Schneider, Mark Bloom,
Rick DePrisco and many others over the years.
I even attended meetings occasionally after I
left Campus Crusade in 1982. It incredibly ran
for around 18 or 20 years. This was a good social
experience as I learned a lot from many other
people. The selection of books we discussed
expanded into many other fiction (fantasy,
science fiction, mainstream) and non-fiction
books from Christian and secular writers.

* The other group was a once a week drawing
meeting of Crusade artists to practice their
sketching skills. This happened during lunch
and we recruited models from other staff
whenever possible. This proved to be a valuable
time also as it helped to retain skills in a very
busy schedule that could easily get lost in the
press of more immediate concerns. Several of
us even took portray painting classes at the
local community college during that time and
even had some plein air painting and
drawing outings.

Here is the conclusion of my August-September 1977 newsletter
concerning my evangelistic comics project.

Then in 1972 several months after I had gone on staff with
Campus Crusade I came upon an idea that captivated my mind.
Why not do an evangelistic comic book? My original thought was
if the gospel could be presented in a form that these fan friends
could understand (and were familiar with) there would be a
greater likelihood of reaching them for Jesus Christ.

I have worked on and off on this comic for five years.
Sometimes I would work on it a lot for several weeks or
months and then set it down for six or eight months before
getting back into it. However in June of last year I decided
that if I was ever going to get it completed I would work on
it in the evenings and the weekends. Over the last year it
has definitely been my largest spare time project. Over the
past several years one of my roommates was a printer and
darkroom technician and I was able to enlist his aid in the
actual printing of the comic. There were 1000 copies printed
and was about to pay for it from my income tax refund this
year. The comic was printed and bound five days before my
father died in May. Six weeks later my roommate left Crusade
staff to move to Chicago to work for Moody Bible Institute's
print shop. God's timing was prefect.

The main idea behind the story was that it took place in the
era before the flood of Noah (henus Tales of Antediluvia).
The strongest themes are the righteousness of God and His
coming judgment on mankind for its sinfulness. In the story
there are there main characters, two adult men and one
small boy. One of the men, Jared is the typical natural man
who has an unregenerate nature. He acts as the spiritual
antagonist throughout the story. He is cruel and bitter,
but surprisingly not completely hardened to spiritual things.
The other man is Kenan who is the protagonist (or godly,
spiritual man) and engages Jared in verbal duels on moral
and theological questions during the course of the story.
The small child is the catalyst that brings the two men
together in the first place. They join forces to search for
him after he has been kidnapped.

The story itself is impregnated with scriptural ideas and
concepts. Also on the back cover I was able to obtain
permission to use an abbreviated version of the Four
Spiritual Laws to present a completed evangelistic
package to the reader.

The summer I attended a comic art convention in
San Diego where I was able to distribute around 600
of the completed comic books to convention goers.
Later I was able to give out another 100 copies at a
similar smaller convention in Los Angeles. I have had
very limited response from these groups but God had
promised to bless His word so I am sure that it will
effect many lives that I will never know about.

I have plans for promoting it further in the near
future and will keep you informed as they develop.
As I have already mentioned this project was very
fulfilling to do and to see completed. It was a dream
come true.

Don

My interest in comics did not cease when I was
working with Campus Crusade. I took a different
direction. Here is an excerpt from my August-
September 1977 prayerletter that discusses a
special project that I'd worked on during those years.

"Have you ever had a dream? A dream that excited
your mind and spirit. A dream that would not let you sleep
at night. A dream that thrust you to the brink of your
own creative abilities. A dream that after years of
struggle to keep alive in one's imagination would
not let itself die, but would continue to resurrect
itself after the primary stimulus had worn down.
A dream that was uniquely yours to see to its fulfillment.
I have had such a dream and with the perseverance
and determination that the Lord has given me
I saw it to completion.

"As a young child I discovered that I had a desire
to draw, to create flat, yet dynamic image on paper.
As I proceeded into my teen years I became
fascinated with cartooning. Also the art of graphic
story telling intrigued my mind. Living outside the
city on a small farm it was difficult for me to get
involved in extracurricular activities at school
(health problems limited my sports involvement).
I developed much to the bewilderment of my
parents at that time an insatiable appetite for
cartoons in all forms, especially newspaper comic
strips and comic magazines.

"Consequently again much to the surprise and
perturbation of my parents I would spend great
quantities of time at the drawing board sketching
my own comic stories. Being naturally creative
and wanting to get involved in the actual comics
process I started doing my own graphic stories.
Working out of my own imagination and fantasies
and putting them down on paper in a two dimensional
form became a consuming passion. Looking at it from
two points of reference this was beneficial. It gave
me a chance to develop the small ability that I have
in creative writing and it provided me something
concrete to illustrate. Also it allowed me a chance
to delve into the problems of drawing and develop
my greater talents in that area. Interestingly enough
elements of my own Christian faith made themselves
apparent in many of these stories.

"I can remember distinctly an incident that happened
in my early teen years. As I was telling my oldest
brother about my interest in this area, he challenged
me with the idea of doing comic versions of Bible
stories. Of course this had already been done by
both secular and Christian publishing companies,
and far better than I could ever do it. But the idea
of having a Christian theme or characters who were
Christians stuck very strongly in my mind. After that
time many (if not most) of the stories I did had in
them some type of Christian theme or characters.

"During this time I began to be involved in what is
called today comics fandom. Through letters and
amateur publications (and only rarely in person)
I made contact with persons of like interests. It
was an involvement that was very meaningful to me.
I had several correspondents as well as writing letters,
doing drawings and comic strips and scripting articles
for various amateur publications.

"I had a desire to communicate my faith in Christi
to these friends, but usually I was quite unsuccessful.
I continued this involvement throughout high school
and college. I was always wanting to share the
reality of Christ with these people."

Continued next week