I was born in Steubenville, Ohio, the third of eight children. My two brothers died when they were infants so I was raised with five sisters under petticoat government! When I was twelve years old I met the Lord at a Nazarene evangelistic meeting in Roanoke, Virginia with my older sister, Diane. A couple of weeks after that encounter, all my father’s friends and employees were making fun of my faith and severely taunting me because I was a new Christian. I remembered hearing that if you cursed the name of God, His presence would leave you, so one day, I stood in the middle of the street and cursed God, hoping that He would leave me alone so the pressures would cease. My, did it work! For the next 12 years I walked as a backslider in deep spiritual darkness.

When I was 19, I joined the Navy for four years as Pharmacists Mate. My nickname was “Gomer Pyle” because I thoroughly enjoyed everything about the Navy especially being a Pharmacist’s Mate, which had a lot of advantages. Of my three closest friends, two were storekeepers and one was a cook, so between us we had the run of the pharmacy, the galley and all the stores on the ship. It was really a racket! If we couldn’t get the extra food or special privileges we wanted, I would call the guy up to the sick bay and hold his inoculation records out the porthole and say, “If I let this go, all your shot records will be missing and you will have to get them over again.” They would nervously laugh and ask, “What did you say you wanted?”

While stationed in San Francisco and Japan, before I came back to the Lord, I would spend a lot of time with my buddies in bars. It has been said that alcohol is a kind of truth serum. On several occasions when I had had more than enough to drink, I would start telling the people in the bar about the love of Jesus. They would all agree, nodding their heads, many with tears in their eyes. A heavy anointing would come over me and the Holy Spirit seemed to powerfully convict everyone within earshot, but I didn’t know enough to lead them to the Lord!

While home on leave, my older sister Diane begged me to go with her to an Assemblies of God church in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The Pastor happened to be an ex-Navy man and I was wearing my uniform. He preached a very strong salvation message, seemingly directed at me alone.

Without an invitation I went forward and was the only one at the altar. From behind me I heard this cry like travail and thought it was a woman in labor. I turned around and saw a beautiful young black lady in intercessory prayer for me. She kept crying, “O God have mercy! O God have mercy!” As she travailed I could literally feel the weight of sin and transgression lift off me. I stood up and said, “Well, I’m free.” Everyone rejoiced, especially Diane.

Within a few weeks I had started a Bible study on the ship and a short while later was asked to hold Sunday morning services. The Captain granted permission and within two months of my conversion I was holding church services in the mess hall with 40 or 50 guys in attendance. I wasn’t trying to be a preacher, I would simply open the Scriptures, share and pray for their families. I still have the notes of the first message I gave on that ship from Romans 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation.” They really responded to this word of freedom because they knew my own history. In the following ten months, 29 of the men came to the Lord. Some were putting in for transfer to another ship just to keep from getting saved!

My desire and intent was to make a career out of the Navy, however, the Chief Warrant Officer said to me, “If I have ever seen anybody who is called to the ministry, you are.” It grabbed me. Upon my discharge, I enrolled in Valley Forge Christian College to begin studying for the ministry. During this time the Lord said to me, “Your greatest reward will be a hungry audience.” I have lived to see that fulfilled many times.