Making Plans, Taking Steps

I began preaching when I was twenty years old in a little church in Neapolis, Ohio. I was married that same year. Marilyn and I thought we would stay in that town all of our lives.
It was our hometown, our children were born there and our parents lived nearby. I said, “ I will never live in the city.” Be careful with the “nevers.”

In 1964 the Elders from North Highlands Church of Christ on Archer Avenue in Fort Wayne were determined that we were to come to this church. We prayed over it and felt God’s call, so we moved to Fort Wayne.

The Church flourished and grew and helped spawned Christ Church in Georgetown. We soon had outgrown our building so we made plans to build a million dollar building in the suburbs of Fort Wayne: North Highlands Community. We went to a bank that promised financing, we had plans drawn and we held a groundbreaking ceremony with the mayor there. There was even a picture in the newspaper and a contractor on the site. That year, 1973, was a severe downturn of the economy. When we went to the bank to obtain our loan for 800 thousand dollars we were told the money is no longer available. What do you do?

We had made plans and promises. What was God thinking? What did God want us to do?

I said, “We are going to prayer.” I had heard about early morning praying in Korea. I said, “we're going to go to prayer at 5:30 in the morning. and we're going to pray until we get an answer.” Do you know how early 5:30 in the morning is when you start praying at that hour for six weeks, seven mornings a week? I'm a morning person but I was never consistently up that many mornings, going to bed later every night.

One morning following prayer, I was with a group of pastors who heard the mayor of our city, Ivan Lebamoff , speak and challenge each of us to look at the downtown area of Fort Wayne, where everyone was leaving at that time in 1973. The mayor urged us to look at the downtown as a place of potential, of opportunity. God laid it on my heart to remember the empty church building at the corner of Broadway and Wayne, the old Wayne Street Methodist Church.

That morning I went to that building, opened the door, went in, and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. There before me was the floor plan that we were going to build and still intact since1871. It was constructed of sturdy oak, had stained glass, a pipe organ, a wood floor gymnasium, and a commercial kitchen. Altogether it was 48,00 square feet of usable building. For two hours I walked around in there with unbelief, arguing with God, saying, this can't be, how can we do this? I went home and I couldn't talk. Marilyn thought I had been in an some sort of accident.

That night as Marilyn and I walked I said, “Honey, I've dreamed a dream or seen a vision.”
After I shared with her my amazing discovery she said, “Bob I told you two weeks ago we should buy that building when we went past it.”

I hadn’t heard her but God did and the Broadway Christian Church was born.

I am retired from Broadway Christian now but we still live in Fort Wayne most of the year. I look back over 28 years at not only the growth in numbers (2,000 people and five services in two locations) but the organizations and churches that grew out of that one as we tried to be good disciples to our neighborhood and beyond.

It is obvious now what happened back in 1973 when the bank failed to give us a promised loan. God saved us from ourselves.

“A man’s heart devises his way; but the Lord directs his steps.” (Proverbs 16:9)

Pastor Bob Yawberg
Fort Wayne, Indiana

The Lost Wallet

Jim lost his wallet and that affected the whole family. It happened sometime Sunday although he didn’t realize he had misplaced his wallet until he was getting his things ready Sunday night for the morning commute.

He had washed two cars and detailed them Sunday afternoon so that was the first place he looked. The rest of us started the search inside the house, starting with the obvious places like the nightstand by the bed and the buffet in the dining room. We progressed to feeling in the crevasses of the cushions on the couch and inside the levels of the Lazy Boy chair. Soon we were trashing the house. All was for naught.

Monday morning Jim drove off to work without his wallet and of course without his license. I prayed the wallet would be found. Monday night we resumed the search perhaps more frantically than the day before. Jim and the kids went out and checked the cars again and I looked around inside revisiting many of the same places I had searched before. No wallet. I prayed some more

Tuesday Jim was obviously still upset and began grumbling about the prospect of having to apply for a duplicate license and calling the credit card companies to close the accounts. As he stood by the door he said he was going to take my car this morning because the SUV was low on gas. I suggested we pray together, something we hadn’t done for awhile. So we did.

We didn’t ask for the wallet to be found but we praised the Lord for all that we did have confessing that we didn’t have to worry about these things but just give them all over to Him. I felt better after praying.

I walked him out to the car. As he opened the door he shouted, “There’s my wallet!”

I took a step forward and then I saw it too. It was on the floor in front of the back seat right in plain sight. He and the kids had searched both vehicles twice, most recently as last night. That wallet could not have been out in the open like that.

We looked at each other in disbelief. How did it get there? What if he hadn’t decided to take my car instead of his today?

Cathy Pansa
Shorewood, Illinois

Shift Lanes

When I was 19 years old I lived in Tracy, California, and had been out with some friends in Stockton, about 20 miles away. I was driving home alone about 2 a.m. on old Highway 50. The highway splits into two high narrow bridges over the San Joaquin River, one for north bound and one for south bound traffic. The bridges are steep so that you can’t see the other side until you get to the top.

There was no traffic on the road at that hour and I was traveling the speed limit. I was in the left hand lane going up the south-bound bridge when, for some unexplained reason, I steered into the right hand lane. A moment later I was in the middle of the bridge when out of nowhere, a car came speeding the wrong way in the lane I had just left.
If I hadn’t changed lanes there would have been a head on collision in the middle of that high and narrow bridge. There was nowhere to go except over the edge into the river below. I know that I would not have survived the crash or the river.


Decades later I still shiver at the thought of what could have happened that night. There was no reason for me to change lanes. I was saved by an angel that night, I’m absolutely sure.

“For he shall give his angels charge over you,
to keep you in all your ways.” Psalm 91:11

Mary (Kiser) Bartlein
Panther Ridge, Florida

A Raging River

It is June and time for our annual family reunion camping along the banks of the Raven Fork River. Only this one will change the course of my life.

On the drive from Florida to Cherokee, North Carolina my wife and I talk about the offer made by the pastor of our church in Sarasota. He wants me to serve as Interim Children’s Director on a six-month trial basis. I have served the children’s ministry as a volunteer for several years while my paying position is managing a restaurant for a national chain. My heart is with the children but my head and my wife are saying it would be financially irresponsible to take an interim position for six months while a committee searches for a director. Besides, I would have to take a pay cut and with a wife and two children to support that would be financial stupidity.

We arrive at the campsite in a steady drizzle. Most of the families are gathered under a large tent fly. After lunch I decide to go fishing and thinking. The Raven has eight-foot banks opposite the campground and is relatively shallow ranging in dept from calf deep to waist deep. I put on waders and rain gear and proceed into the calm water. Most of the adults are playing cards under the tent fly while Pete, my brother-in-law, watches me fish from the bank.

I was so engrossed in fishing that I didn’t notice what was happening around me. I should have known if it is raining here it is pouring up river in the mountains. Within minutes the river rises from waist deep to chest deep and the water turns brown. Finally I realize what is happening and I turn toward the near bank. This is a big mistake. The river is deeper on this side and my waders quickly fill with water and drag me under like a sinker. My waders hold me down while the rushing river pushes me downstream. I am struggling to regain my footing and get to the surface. Suddenly I hit a rock with such force that it pops me upright like a bobber. I stand there, breathing heavily and deliberately leaning forward with the water pushing against my chest. I am unable to move. This is serious.

My brother-in-law is frantically yelling for the other men who soon appear on the bank above me. They lower an inflated tube with a rope tied to it but it doesn’t reach. me.

Next they throw the inner tube but it blows past me and is punctured downstream when it hits a sharp rock or pointed stump. Someone finds another piece of rope and ties it to the first rope. The men lower a now deflated tube tied on the longer rope. After a couple of attempts this one reaches me and I wrap the rope around my hand. When the men pull on the rope I am immediately projected prone in the water and with the river pushing me and with my extra weight my rescuers are nearly pulled in on top of me. It takes all the strength of those ten men and older boys to hold me against the current. Gradually they ease me to the bank, which is terraced with rocks held in place by a wire mesh. I am able to grab a tree growing out of the bank and I hold on while some men crawl gingerly down the bank and help me out of the river.

Later standing on top of the embankment several of us watch logs, branches and other debris being propelled down river by the rushing water. A large log shoots right over where I had been standing helpless against the river. Ouch, that would have hurt. I learned first hand the power of water and how fast things can change. I see now how people can be caught in a flash flood.
Pete interrupts my musings.

“Chris you have to see this,” he says holding the rope in his hands, “this is how close we came to losing you.” What had been my lifeline is frayed so badly that the rope in one spot is down to a single strand that my brother-in-law proceeds to snap with his fingers.

On reflection I think God was testing me that afternoon. I could easily have drowned if I hadn’t hit that rock, which stood me up providing time for others to help save me. As I thought about my life ending in that river I asked myself, did I want to be known as a restaurant manager or did I want to be remembered as a teacher of God’s children? I decided to take the position of Interim Director of Children’s Ministry.

Chris Cahill
Bradenton, Florida.

( He has been Pastor of Children’s Ministry at South Shore Community Church since 2003-Ed)

"Bob"

“Bob”

I was going through a really difficult time. I was recovering from a divorce, my daughter was living away from home at school and the bank I was working for was going under due to big mistakes in real estate lending.

Then the unthinkable happened. My male friend committed suicide. I found his body slumped over in his garage still in his car. He was a colleague at the bank and I cared for him deeply. I never felt more alone.

The following evening a dear friend from the bank, Noreen, came to my apartment with her husband David. They gathered up a few of my things, literally carried me to their car and drove me to their home.

Noreen was also a good friend of the man who had tragically taken his own life. She made a wonderful bed for me out of the couches in her living room, make a fire in the fireplace and instead of bringing me a box of tissues she brought me all her frilly hankies. She also made a pot of my favorite tea.

While Noreen and I talked about our deceased friend and some of the times we spent together, her son Paul, who was probably five or six at the time, kept coming in and out of the room. Each trip he brought a handful of toys or stuffed animals, which he lined up next to me on the couch. The more I thanked him the more things he brought me. Eventually the couch was filled up and he began placing the toys on the floor next to me. In his little boy way he was bringing everything he had to comfort his mother’s friend who obviously was crying and sad. Lastly he brought into the room his most precious possession-his baby blanket.

I’m a major baby blanket person. When I was a child I had a crib-sized blanket that was very much a part of my life until I was fourteen. I would hold it to my nose; suck my thumb, especially in turbulent times. That blanket brought me comfort and joy. It had been loved to death and by the time I was 14 it had been reduced to the size of a silver dollar.

I understand all things baby blanket. Those of us who were baby blanket people have a way of finding each other. We have a language that only we understand. So little Paul and I immediately had this bond and he showed me his baby blanket that looked like a large blob of shredded rags tied together in large knots.

He called his baby blanket “Bob.” We agreed that the very worse thing that can happen is when well meaning moms wash our baby blankets.It takes weeks to get them back in shape and to properly smell again.

After a while, Paul and “Bob” went off to bed.

When the house was quiet I began reflecting and I began to cry and even sob. My shaking with grief was interrupted by the sound of shuffling little feet. It was Paul walking towards me carrying “Bob.” Without saying a word, he gently laid “Bob” in my arms, turned and left the room, closing the French doors behind him.

At that moment, I knew that God was using this child to comfort me in my time of pain and sorrow.
To this day, I am blown away by that precious little one obeying the prodding of the Lord and lending me his most cherished possession that evening. God manifested his love that night to me.


Joy Holloway
Granby Ma.