A Call to Mission

I graduated from Texas A&M in June of the year 1949.

Immediately, I moved to Fort Worth, where my parents were residing, and began to look for a job. Of course, I wanted to use my studies in horticulture and so I took a job in the floral business in Dallas. After a few months, I looked for and found something more to my liking with a landscape company in Fort Worth.

Equally strong in my shaping of a new life was to find a church. It had not been my experience to ever join a church nor to confess my faith. After looking at and attending different churches, I finally settled on the Oakhurst Methodist Church.

This was a small, working class congregation with an elderly pastor. Brother H.M. Hopkins was the pastor and he had six children, all living in the area. I quickly became friends with all of them and, especially, their youngest son David, who was my age.

My affiliating with the church was important for the rest of my life. Not only did I gain a family, (my own parents had moved to Houston), but I also found my faith. I now realize that since childhood, I had been looking and praying for that moment. Brother Hopkins’ wife became my surrogate mother, and David my closest friend. The Hopkins family followed my ministry by mail all of the time that I was in Chile.

Later, when I returned to the states, I fulfilled a promise I had made to them, and preached at each of their funerals.

When I had converted, I felt an immediate need to respond to God’s love for me. David mentioned to me that his father could put me in touch with the agricultural missionary board of the Methodist Church. I felt like I had heard God’s calling for my life.

For weeks, I lived in a state of exhilaration and began to dream the dreams of the life that I was to live.

Soon, I was in conversation with the board of missions and began to prepare myself to become a missionary. (After years of service, Dr. Mel Williams of the board of missions informed me that I had been so eager that I went off to Scarritt College to study for missionary service before I had even been accepted as a candidate for missions.)

I studied for a year at Scarritt in Nashville and then was appointed to serve in Costa Rica. That gave me time to think about marriage — and I still needed a girlfriend!