I was deposited (I don’t think by a stork) on the day after
Christmas, 1925, into the home of Helena and Abraham Esau in the upper
peninsula of Michigan. I was the third son and the seventh of eight children.
Dad had a scant elementary education but had a love for God and a desire to
preach. That desire took us from Iron Mountain to Wisconsin and finally to Mt.
Lake, MN where I experienced my first awareness of life. For many years we
attended church in a country school house where Dad ministered to a dozen or
more farm families, while earning a living as a plumber.
We didn’t have many of the luxuries of life; but we ate quite well with a large
garden and produce from our farmer friends. I greatly enjoyed my childhood and
have very few unhappy memories of our years in Mt. Lake. I remember living in
at least 6 different houses in Mt. Lake and each move to a new location was an
adventure.
When I was in the 8th grade we moved to northern Minnesota.
There Dad pastored a small church and for the first time did not have to work
while he preached. I hated to leave my friends in Mt Lake but I soon acclimated
and enjoyed living in the country. Life must have been quite uneventful because
I have few memories of those years.
In 1941 we moved back to Iron Mt. and Dad was back to working and preaching,
attempting to start a church with the Christian and Missionary Alliance. I
graduated from High School in Iron Mt. in 1943 and was afraid WW2 would be over
before I could get involved. I volunteered as an army Air Cadet while I was
still 17 and was on active duty 3 days after my 18th birthday..
When I realized being in the Army Air Corps was no going to get me off the
ground I volunteered for and was accepted for training as a paratrooper. I
arrived with replacement troops in Europe in the early spring of 1945. I
narrowly escaped being part of the troops that parachuted into Belgium in the
Battle of the Bulge by taking a course in demolitions after jump training. I
arrived in Germany on May 1, in time to take some thousands of German soldiers
prisoner.
I was on a ship returning to the USA for reassignment to the Pacific theater
when the Japanese surrendered. I was discharged the following year and began
studies at the St. Paul Bible Institute (now Crown College). After two years I
transferred to Taylor University and graduated in 1951, with no plans for my
life.
In 1952 I went to Germany as part of a Gospel Team and participated in
evangelistic activities. While there I met the director of CEF (Child
Evangelism Fellowship) in Germany and became interested in their ministry.
Consequently, I attended the CEF Institute in Pacific Palisades, CA, where I
met my first wife, Betty Long, and began preparations for service with CEF in
Germany.
We arrived In Germany in January 1955, after a very stormy Atlantic crossing,
and spent two years in Frankfurt. Our 2 oldest children, Cyndy and Brian, were
born there. In 1957 we moved to Berlin and opened a branch office . We lived
there for nearly 9 years, with a year’s furlough during that time. We had many
opportunities to contribute through conferences and provisions of literature to
children’s workers in East Germany. When the Berlin Wall went up in 1962 our
ministry in the East was curtailed but not eliminated. I developed a love for
and interest in the work of CEF in Central and Eastern Europe that keeps me
involved to this day.
We left Germany in 1963 because of Betty’s health and I began studies at Dallas
Theological Seminary, graduating with a MTh and a New Testament major. Upon
graduation I candidated in several churches, including an English speaking
church in Mexico City. However, God seemed to be leading in a different
direction. I had been clerking at the Dallas Post Office to keep us under a
roof with food on the table during my 5 years of study. In December of 1969 The
Chief Postal Inspector offered me the position of Postal Inspector and after
thought and prayer decided to accept.
I began my career in Charleston, WV (having given my desire to go to
Charleston, SC) and quickly got involved in various ministries at the Bible
Center. At my request we were transferred to Roanoke, VA in 1975 where I
finished my postal career in January 1990. Soon after our arrival I became very
much involved in the ministry of Grace Church. Grace church came into being
because of a group of true believers who were concerned with the slide toward
modernism of the Presbyterian Denomination. I have been a member of Grace
Church for 36 years.
Betty contacted Parkinson’s Disease at age 49 and struggled with it for 25
years. It was controlled with drugs and she kept teaching kindergarten until
1989. The last 7 or 8 yrs. of her life she experienced severe dementia and
needed constant attention. My fellow members of Grace were a great help during
those years. I especially appreciated, and will remember with love to my dying
day, Liz Williams, wife of a doctor, and Debbie Browning, wife of an executive
with Norfolk Western. They arrived one day a week for quite a few years to
allow me some free time.
Betty died in 2001. Three years later I married Florence English, who had lost
her husband to cancer 20 years earlier. We are living in a comfortable Condo. I
have a very roomy study where “Displaying the Wisdom of God” finally discovered
the light of day.
I came into a relationship with Christ in my teens and the past 70 years in
this relationship has been an incredible adventure. Not the least exciting was
watching (literally) the Berlin Wall go up. And observing (Unfortunately not
literally) the answer to my, and countless others, prayers when it came down,
was equally exciting. The handful of CEF workers active behind the Iron Curtain
in 1990 has now multiplied into hundreds. I have had the privilege of visiting
openly those in East Germany that I once visited secretly. God is doing a
wonderful work in our fallen world and it would be a tragedy if any of us
should fall short of having a part in it.
One of the disappointments of my life was having to leave the work of reaching
children in Germany because of Betty’s health, I had long planned that after
retirement I would return to the work of CEF in Eastern Europe. However poor
health once again intervened. There you have my past and here begins my future.
