Our first real assignment after we graduated Bible College in 1959 was a mission to a six-tribe Indian reservation including Mohawk, Blackfoot, Iroquois and Cherokee in Tonawanda, New York. It was a very rough assignment but now we see the necessity of the experience and training which put “steel in our souls” for the years of conflict and warfare that were yet ahead.

Just after our time on the Indian reservation, Judith and I spent a year at the Medical Missionary Training Institute in Toronto, Canada. We were trained in obstetrics, laboratory procedures, dental procedures and emergency medicine with the intent to be medical missionaries in the jungle when there were no medical doctors present.

In 1961 Judith and I moved to Kane, Pennsylvania where we stayed for two years to pastor a church. Our son Bernard was born in Meadesville, PA in 1962. The next year I took a position as Professor of New Testament and Missions at Elim Bible Institute in New York. I had a classroom with nine blackboards and thought I had died and gone to heaven. Besides teaching a full schedule at Elim and being Dean of students, I was out almost every weekend ministering at other churches to enable us to survive financially. Our salary was $100.00 per month, plus housing and food from the cafeteria. Those were exciting days of living by faith and the lessons we learned were invaluable.

While teaching at Elim doors began to open with the Full Gospel Businessmen, allowing us to teach on the renewal in denominational churches. We also became involved in the Charismatic Renewal gaining a vision of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in mainline denominations around the world and the need to facilitate unity in the larger body of Christ. With much difficulty I left the classroom in 1966 to obtain a Master’s degree from the Reformed Episcopal Seminary. This education prepared me for an amazing acceptance among mainline denominations, especially the Roman Catholics.

Our son, Eric, was born in Wilmington, February 1968 while I was still attending Seminary. During this time we also pastored a church in Wilmington, Delaware and taught a Bible study every Friday night in Princeton, New Jersey, a group which has grown to a thriving church, functioning effectively for some 30 years. More people met the Lord and found the reality of the Holy Spirit in the “Friday night meeting” than we are able to measure.

For the next few years Judith and I traveled and ministered globally and inter-denominationally in the Charismatic Renewal with great zeal, vision and measurable results. While I rejoiced in its great strengths, I also became increasingly conscious of its serious weaknesses.

From Delaware we moved to California in 1969 to work with Ralph Mahoney and World MAP. We were doing leadership and missionary training for third world pastors as well as holding six camp meetings a year up and down the California coast. The Lord used me as a prophetic voice to a wild, unfettered, free-spirited generation. Our teaching content provided training for hundreds of thousands of church leaders in Asia, Africa and Latin America. I also taught at Melodyland Christian Center’s School of Theology. The Bible class consisted of 600 - 700 people every Friday night. It was a truly sovereign experience watching everyone from Jesus people hippies to high church Catholics all flowing together.