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July 1976-August 1977 I was the Pastor at Calvary Assembly Of God Carthage NY (Almon Bartholomew, was my friend and District Superintendent.) (I was Pastor to 75 my first Sunday and this church grew to 150 on my last.)

I enjoyed pastoring in… “Carthage NY”

“Or answering trick Questions, that have no acceptable answers”

My Dear Brother Dudley Danielson,

This is a chapter of our lives. Because we do move so very often, we deem it imperative to build substantial relationships, friendships and ministries quickly and stably! I am telling this narrative surrounding this Carthage-Pastorate, as an inside look at my perspective and the Assembly of God in Carthage NY, concurrent with our friendship, July 1976-August 1977, before we moved to California.

In our most recent conversation, you asked me why I have moved so many times during my ministry; thirty-seven times during the last forty years.

I want to answer your question, honestly. I do not know that there is one answer or an easy answer. Bill Gothard, a Biblical Exhorter, profoundly influences me. Bill Gothard founder of formerly “Basic Youth Conflicts” and presently “Basic Life Principles”, teaches in His Seminar Manual, that “God uses the conflicts, pains, adversities, setbacks, resistances to and hindrances in our lives and our ministries to require perfecting, defining and refining our life-message.”

Ministry does not take place in a vacuum, does it? Our maturations develop during the game of life… not before and not after. Questions always arise as to the validity and worth of a given ministry, and now principally my own. “Why have I moved so frequently?” In rendering a truthful, plausible and accurate answer, what criteria are evaluated? What is the real reason for my frequent Church moves?

I substantiate my self-definition, self-defense and self-analysis based upon the kinds of Carthage-experiences that I lived through. I deem myself neither arrogant nor presumptuous to list myself with persecuted saints, Missionaries preaching in foreign fields of endeavor, faithful Ministers of the Gospel, the Apostles, each having died a martyrs death saving John, exiled to Patmos, the sweet committed to the Lord Jesus Christ characters that line the halls of “Fox’s Book of Martyrs” and multitudes of saints of all spheres of influence, and most Godly men and women who are in love with our Lord and live the life-style of Jesus Christ… not that I had lost one drop of blood, but rather specifically, I join with those prolific multitudes “persecuted for the faith” throughout the annals of Christendom.

(2 Tim 3:12 NASB) “And indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” I believe that I and all other Christians “will be confronted” by our world, a world, that is “out-of-synchronization with God”, and the more Godly, we are, the more resistance, persecution we will encounter. Sometimes the subtleties fomenting this, are not readily obvious! Some have ridiculed this concept as a “persecution-complex”. However, they are not usually the kinds of Christians that move mountains, get burned at the stake, are imprisoned for proclaiming Jesus, win souls for Christ and confront the prevailing world views, as true Christianity must… in my opinion! What is even a greater quandary, is that often it is the most apparently religious that protest and persecute Jesus, the saints, pastors, others and me!

These universal wrestlings between good and evil, right and wrong, and between authorities, personalities, situations the religious and the “Spirit-filled” are set in bold relief in my life, under my influence and during my ministry.

Jesus is the Creator, the Son of God, “the Truth” and yet He wrestled with similar people and circumstance, as I have found myself wrestling. He wrestled with the Jewish leaders, Pharisees, Scribes and the Sadducees, who were the garners, protectors and enforcers of the Jewish religion. His conflicts were never with the political, military, medical, financial, academic or legal world. “The Truth” is Jesus. Jesus is “the Truth”. His true “Truth” confronted the purported prevailing “Truth” of Jewish assumption. His presentation of “Truth” was correct and yet He thereby threatened the prevailing incorrect religious “Truth” and culture of the Jewish faith, then in vogue.

Dudley, I had loved the Carthage experience. My family and I were very happy there. We made so many friends there, and you and yours were among the closer ones. We were only four short hours of travel time from my childhood home. My parents and family were over near Lake George, on the opposite east-side of the Adirondack Forest Preserve from Carthage; it was great for us that my family and we could travel and be together occasionally.

My ministry in Carthage began while I was thirty, and this was only my fourth pastorate, so, young and quite inexperienced in ministry. I continued my early discovery of the nearly imperceptible spiritual contests waging within most of the American-style Churches. Albeit, invisible, I now know these nearly imperceptible spiritual contests exist within all Churches and even people with which we have lovingly, prayerfully and diligently served. Now I am looking back over these first forty years of my ministry, spread throughout ten states, as a credentialed ordained minister within eight denominations. I find this, nearly imperceptible spiritual contest as an “a prior” assumption, yes, true not only of others, but even of myself!

Parenthetically, my very dear friend, AG District Superintendent, Reverend Almon Bartholomew, who had been Zion Bible Institute Colleague and close friend with my Uncle Reverend Ollie Dalaba had delighted to offer to me this “Carthage” opportunity, at first. Nevertheless, he later cautioned me, not to accept this invitation after all, fearing that traumatic intersections were quite likely subsequent to developments. He said he had become privy of something on the “invisible grape-vine,” something nearly imperceptible, but a brewing spiritual contest. Caring for me, his friend’s nephew, he suggested caution.

However, during this candidacy, I honestly believed I could pastor this fine congregation, (we fell in love with them and almost all of them with us), and especially with Pastor and Mrs. Simmons, retired AG clergy elders, with whom we had mutually fallen in love and they were still alive and well, and like my own grandparents they where there for me, and “Ready to assist you at a moments notice!”… these were Simmons reassurances.

I also was feeling some measure of desperation; my fourth child had just been born in Middletown OH after vacating the AG parsonage. He was born at a borrowed home and not in a hospital, because the AG insurance in Ohio, had terminated at the end of that pastorate. Our son, Stephen was born with his mom, “The Great Physician and me” in attendance. Chalmer and Doris Asher, Presbyterian friends from a home Bible-Study, there in Middletown OH, were tending the older three children, 4, 2, and 1, in the next room. There we were, in a borrowed home’s bedroom. Our Wesleyan in-laws were alienated from us over our charismatic-issue, now epidemic nation-wide and now we being with Assemblies of God credentials, with which they took great exception. Our in-laws are wonderful people, but leaders within our childhood denomination, “The Wesleyan Methodists”. They took great exception to our Charismatic development.

We assured District Superintendent, Reverend Almon Bartholomew that we would seek God’s blessing to do well there, in Carthage NY. I was trying not to focus on our despicable plight; we were otherwise homeless and penniless, in OH. But I was rather endeavoring to convince him that we were worthy, competent pastoral leaders. Whether or not, we were defending our right to exist, or our call to the ministry, or our capability to pastor, we needed people to whom we could exemplify the ministry of Jesus Christ.

Also in reality, we needed a home and an income, though at that time in my ministry, I would not even let my mind think of the temporal security… it had always been anathema, to contemplate temporal security!

Having just left a raging storm, in OH, my naive assumptions were that any storm in NY that close to my home, could be weathered. The weather in NY had to better than in OH, besides I supposed I was most used to NY. So I thought deliberating this big move and major transition.

My Carthage predecessor, Chuck Scramalie and my successor, Walter Schell and I, Duaine Allen, have been through Carthage NY, both receiving and granting indelible impressions, from the wonderful people of Calvary Assembly… most all were total blessings.

Residents, like yourselves, Dudley, have “a historical-people-perspective” that itinerant pastors, like me, cannot.

However, after the Carthage congregational election, the Church extended a “high percentage vote” inviting us to come to this lovely place, city, parsonage and pastorate, so, we came. In that day, most other candidates required a “unanimous consensus vote”. I have never been so privileged.

However, moving from Middletown OH, on the very day that we had arrived in Carthage NY, after the “high percentage vote” with our “Ryder” moving truck holding our possessions, readying to back into the Carthage Parsonage-home driveway, three of the Carthage Church women had met me at this Parsonage-home driveway entrance and while I was backing the truck, one of them tapped on my moving-truck window. Stopping the truck, I rolled it down. They said to me, “There is no need for you to unpack your moving truck!” “You will not be staying here in Carthage long enough to make it worth your while!” “We know that this congregation gave you a “high percentage vote”, for you to become our next Pastor. Nevertheless, twelve of us, “We have the “Mind of the Lord””. Moreover, Bonnie Gates has told us and we know with her that, “You are not the man for here.” Therefore, if you do unpack, we will be conducting a monthly pastoral “vote of confidence.” Therefore, you will be moving away from here very shortly, so do not unpack your moving truck!”

Maybe, just maybe the, “We have the “Mind of the Lord”” group, used this Holy Name, to emphasize their appreciated, position.

Maybe they did have the “Mind of the Lord”! Maybe they did not have “”Mind of the Lord”!” But I politely finished this conversations and rolled the window up and backed the truck and while sliding onto the driveway, I was mulling over this interesting scenario, I thought about later, but now we many others proceeded to unload.

A wolf wearing an expensive new sheepskin coat is still a wolf. A lamb on a cross-spit is still a sacrificial lamb. “Me dost think thou dost protest too loudly”, could come from a Shakespearean Brutus because it is carnally natural for the guilty to disclaim and distance. No, that is not possible! No, they were sincere, honest, open and forthright! No I shall not disparage, ridicule nor criticize them. I decided to absolutely love them forgive and pastor them. I would just assume that there was more background than I knew, yet, though warned by the good DS.

The pastoral candidate that she and they preferred, the congregation had already voted down as the new pastor and he subsequently had accepted another call from the next church. This fervent band felt that the “”Mind of the Lord”” had been thwarted. All of this occurred before they even knew of us.

True to their word, they proceeded to conduct a monthly pastoral “vote of confidence”, however, to their chagrin, each month our winning margin continually, grew. I hated that these clouds of dissensions and static tensions had to hang in the atmosphere, from the beginning to the ending of our stay in Carthage. Nevertheless, the emotional tensions, mostly on the shallower side, intensified, and they engaged increasingly drastic measures.

Despite that greeting and realizing that monthly pastoral “vote of confidence”, voting prospect, we did indeed unload our moving truck. Almon Bartholomew, District Superintendent had duly warned me of this frightful prospect and cautioned me, “Please consider this very seriously… before you accept the congregational call to pastor this church family, because I know this church’s history.”

He and I stayed in close communication. I felt that I would be willing to accept this challenge if I received his blessing, while reassuring him I would seek God’s blessing. Therefore, I proceeded to accept this call to Carthage, and moved my family. Whether I moved naively or under Divine-inspiration, only God knows for sure.

“The Carthage Assembly of God “was near “The Canadian Border”, “The Thousand Islands”, “The Saint Lawrence Seaway” and “The Adirondack Forest Preserve”, “The Fort Drum”, mines and mills, geography, history and all else, making remarkable impressions.

Blizzard: While living in Carthage, one Wednesday, I believe it was January 12, 1977 in the evening service; we had missionary guests soon to be in route to their mission station assignment in Germany, do you remember? They were staying in our lovely parsonage-home with us that night, in the guest room. This exquisite parsonage-home boasted a motel style deluxe guest room. While we were in that service a snowstorm began. The storm rapidly developed into what became a remarkable ten-day history-breaking blizzard. This unforgettable episode broke all former records for snows, winds, drifts, cold and all other winter weather records. I remember that the Tug Hill National Weather Station reported over 470 inches of snowfall that winter season. The streets and roads of Carthage were closed to all traffic except snowmobiles, foot traffic and military vehicles. One of our church’s young couples needed an eighteen-mile ride in one of Uncle Sam’s Army tanks to welcome their first in the Hospital called The Samaritan Medical Center over in Watertown NY. Near the end of this ten-day hibernation, you will remember, everyone eventually ventured out just for a walk, and we were all amazed observing a marvel happening… everyone was friendly, warmly greeting all others and actively helping each other… It was wonderful… We were snow bound with our missionary guests for the duration of this fantastic blizzard storm.

My Baptist pastor friend called me early during the storm to see how we were doing and thoughtfully inquired if we needed anything. Like most men there in the North Country during such storms, he kind of was looking for valid reason to encounter the fury of the blizzard, mostly to offset the inevitable “cabin-fever”. He mentioned a TV program that he thought we should see. He was surprised to learn that we did not own a television set. But he owned seven TVs. He carried one of his own on a toboggan to our house, trudging through this wild winter blizzard. He brought the loaner into our home and he turned the TV set on and informed us that we should see this. Alex Haley’s bestseller “Roots” was the basis for the 1977 TV premiere introduction to the “TV mini-series” that aired that week. He had also brought some tea to brew for our Germany Missionary guests and together we enjoyed this series nightly.

Chaplaincy: Carthage Parsonage-home is about five miles from one of the gates of Fort Drum, one of Uncle Sam’s military winter-training bases for the US Army. Here I had also served as an Assembly of God, “civilian US Army chaplain” and conducted weekly chapel services. This chaplaincy was an ex-officious honor, duty and distinction granted to the Carthage Calvary AG pastoral position.

This amusing anecdote happened during one weekly Fort Drum Chapel service. I requested the soldiers to observe that this would never happen again in history. I was not referring to the sermon they were about to hear; though I did intend for it to make an appropriate declaration to them for the cross of Jesus Christ, His statute of our liberty and is reminiscent of a patriotic salute to the Statue of Liberty to later find composition in the ©Words and Music by Neil Enloe, for this independence week celebration.

Statue of Liberty Words and Music by Neil Enloe

In New York Harbor stands a lady, with a torch raised to the sky,

And all who see her knows she stands for liberty for you and I

I’m so proud to be called an American, to be named with the brave and the free,

I will honor our flag and our trust in God, and the Statue of Liberty,

On lonely Golgotha stood a cross, with my Lord raised to the sky,

And all who kneel there, live forever, as all the saved can testify.

I’m so glad to be called a Christian, to be named with the ransomed and whole;

As the statue liberates the citizen, so the cross liberates the soul.

O the cross is my statue of liberty; it was there that my soul was set free;

unashamed I’ll proclaim that a rugged cross is my statue of Liberty.

No, the amusing anecdote was this… “It is now seven seconds after seven minutes after seven o’clock on the seventh day of the seventh month in seventy seven.”

At Fort Drum, different military-war games where fought and battles waged. Throughout days, weeks, and months, bomb blasts shuddered the earth, often lightening the nighttime sky. These became familiar fare.

A Traumatic Miscarriage: During one of these, days long war-games, we miscarried twins. These boys would have been our fifth and sixth children. And tantamount to the blasts and flashes of the battlefield, typically, some of the local Godly ladies concerted at the hospital to inform us of birth-control and to recommend total abstinence for a year or longer, while consoling Pamela at her bed-side, siding with her and while addressing me.

Friends in Christ Jesus: In Carthage, we had poured our genuine love and profound efforts into this little corner of God’s most beautiful creation, and into the hearts and lives of some of the finest people upon the planet. Most Carthaginians were exceptionally hospitable folk. Regrettably, we have lost contact with some of our very close and special Carthage friends. Some Carthage people remain dearest friends still throughout the years, even traveling to distant states to visit with us.

Frank Oliver traveled some 3200 miles via Greyhound to Sylmar CA to visit us at our next pastorate. He had become a Christian and he had recovered from alcoholism. He had lost some of the closeness to his family members during his alcoholic years. His heart ached with the regrets pummeling him from without and from within. We loved him and accepted him into our family, sharing many visits and meals. He just loved to drop by at 5:30 PM to chat and frequently joined in on the Parsonage-home goings-on, with our acceptance and urging.

Carmine Burdick is a delightful friend. She, a widow, mothered seven near perfect children, two we got to know well, Lenny and Carmelita. We emulated Carmine’s parenting skills. We want to stay in touch with her. Her frequent visits were joyous bright occasions accompanied with exquisite cuisine, and she often toted bags of groceries. We instructed her to come to church prepared to overnight in the Parsonage-Home guest room, on any occasion an evening coincided with the many lake-effect snowstorms.

Later, when we were again moving from this loved pastorate and on to Sylmar CA, we faced the prospects of paying a dollar per pound in Mayflower moving costs, so we could replace our excellent appliances with new for near the cost of moving, so we left our appliances with Carmine. She was elated and we felt blessed to have been able to help her in this small way, that in noway compensated her for the great blessings she had poured into our lives!.

Bob & Judy Marolf & their family, Bobby & Amy & Connie, for several years running, shared family picnics annually together with us, and during these exceptional picnics and visits, Judy kept us up on our large circle of Carthage friends, each family, as one by one were remembered to us. Despite our frequent moves, they managed to keep up with us, no matter wherever we had moved to next. We learned updates on all, especially including “George & Lauralee L Passage’s daughters, Lila, Judy and their younger sister, dear girls, reminiscent of Lydia, “the seller of purple”, in Acts to the Apostle Paul, for so they, faithfully blessed us, endeared themselves to us and ministered to us in no small ways. They frequently came to our home to prepare and share meals, babysitting our little brood, housecleaning and pretty much all else needful in home and office, and at the time of our moving to California from Carthage, packing our stuffs.

Grandma Bonnie Gates was like the proverbial “mother in Israel” befriending the congregation, I jest at her expense, as the assistant to the Holy Spirit. She was well intentioned and influential. She made pleasant warmhearted and very much appreciated phone calls, including a genuine apology for the cause of the lengthy scenario herein described.

Frances Crabb, a woman of Godly character, befriended us sincerely and greatly. We jested regarding her name, because she was not at all like her last name, but rather she was a sweet woman, gentile and feminine. Her generosity towards missions and ministry and us, proved her Christian moral fiber! Her visits were encouraging and warm.

All of the friends of Carthage remain dear to our hearts. Through busy lives and schedules some of our dearest friends have fallen off our communications calendar, inadvertently. I am sorry brother Dudley. So now we reconvene our dialogue, sincerely hoping to rectify this breach.

Dudley, after your first attendance I became your pastor-friend, and you became my friend, Christian Brother and Christian business contact in Carthage. My reminiscences of our friendship are nostalgic, warm and pleasant. I enjoyed our lively conversations, yours through your imitable soft-spoken deep bass and balmy voice, the perfect radio voice, where your meanings in sensitivity, were with your caring expressions from your insightful caring heart, mindfully spoken in context to our ecclesiastical situations during our youthful ministry. Your counsel was perceptive, gentle and poignant. I appreciated your photography, your Christian Bookstore, your radio programs, your sharing of the three-nails with each Good-Friday worshiper, the several meals, in our homes and restaurants and so many conversations during our coffee-cup chats and drop-in visits. Our friendship, as now, so then, mattered much!

My Uncle Frances Allen is my Father’s eldest brother. He had spent much time welding on the nearby Saint Lawrence Seaway, and had traveled by Carthage and Watertown from his home in the North-Central Adirondacks countless times and He surprised me, during one Carthage Sunday morning service, when for a first in my ministry, he came to one of my services. Right during my sermon, when for the first instant I recognized him, I shouted, “Uncle Frances!”

After the Morning service we delightfully shared lunch at the Ponderosa Steakhouse in Watertown. During the dinner-table conversation, he sought from me, his young nephew, the definition of a true Christian, the way to the Lord and the meaning of life, the Bible, and of the Christian life, which somehow had evaded him and his understanding, during his long and good life, not having been a churchman, as his own parents, my Grandparents.

My Parents and Siblings and other family members came for church services and meals in the home and restaurants. Pamela’s parents Bill & June Tice, Treasurer and Business Manager of Indiana Wesleyan University, then Marion College, our Alma Mater, came from Marion IN to take us on our tenth anniversary celebration to Ottawa, Canada, just before they themselves moved to the West Coast and to Westmont College in Santa Barbara CA. They finally reconciled with us on the day Stephen was born in our borrowed home, in Middletown OH, when right after delivery, Pamela walked across the street to a total stranger and asked to call her parents, to inform then of Stephen’s delivery… very soon they reconciled and later came to Carthage to visit with us, and stayed in that beautiful guest room.

Dudley, as you may very well know, this Carthage congregation had influenced the closing of all of the barrooms and taverns in West Carthage in the recent past. They emphasized Sunday School and all other ministries to children. For the pastor’s family they had built a lovely two-story parsonage-home with five large bedrooms, four baths, a kitchen, two dining rooms, one for family meals and one for formal meals. It had a lovely guest room with its own bath. It had a very large living room with a very large fireplace, a full-basement with its own fireplace. Between the very large garage and the kitchen there was a pastor’s office built within the breezeway, and so on and so forth, more than most of themselves. The foot-print of the home that I grew up in with my parents and their eight children was smaller that the living room of this parsonage-home. I was a grand honor to live in this lovely parsonage-home.

This parsonage-home project had brought this committed congregation of extraordinary believers together at “their parsonage-home” for the twenty-months or so of time it took to build it together. From what I could observe, this was now a justifiable excuse to be in somebody’s good company and in sweet Christian fellowship with their brethren. They had loved this privilege and after the parsonage-home had been completed they continued to come together at “their parsonage-home”. Nostalgically they felt of it as “their parsonage-home”, their church family home, as it was, for that is where most of the in-depth ministry in Carthage took place.

Time after time they could and did bring a friend, a neighbor or a family member, or any one else for that matter; coming together for prayer, for counsel, for salvation, for caring nurture and even just for fellowship, which cannot be discounted. They all came freely. They came for coffee breaks, they came before and after work, they came for lunch times, and quite frequently they would be carrying a “potluck” with them, with plenty to share.

There always seemed abundance and effortlessly spontaneously this all just seemed to happen. They prepared, served, cleaned up always. Prayers for grace were often prayed sporadically, frequently involving prayer lists. The “coffee break” people pointed out that we only had a two-cup percolator, and so they gave to us a new “Bunn Coffee Maker” to keep pace, with their own demand. Pamela and I had not drunk coffee regularly, until there, with them.

Some came just to chat. All shared prayer requests and answers to former prayers. Frequently, animated conversations were launched with some news article, a report that they had discovered, or some radio message or a teaching or song that had touched their hearts. The atmosphere exuded a delightful sense of wellbeingness. It was a most busy place and it remained full of activity for the entire time we lived in Carthage.

This congregation grew ostensibly, quit on its own, via this Holy Spirit-vehicle, spontaneous fellowship. I could and did feel free to leave them and return at will and the party just continued, non-scripted, non-organized and non-directed. And quite fortunately not announced, not controlled and not shackled. The Church congregation grew from 75 to 150 in our short months there in that lovely little Black River Village.

We found them easily inspired with each others’ and our own excitement of “The Holy Scriptures”, with our own discovery of the Holy Spirit and theirs, and His Spiritual gifts, fruits, beatitudes and virtues. They were consistently in absorbed attention, as anyone would share and I would share my own spiritual journey and what I was learning.

Never sharing pontifically, but always spontaneously enthusiastically, ardently, from the top of my heart and head, I spoke casually. They were especially in engrossed attention on the important spiritual gifts of evangelism, and hospitality, as though a new discovery for them. The Second Coming of Jesus excited generous input, dialogue, and anticipation. They had been very familiar with other exciting spiritual gifts; the mind gifts, the power gifts and the miraculous gifts. They also loved drama as a vehicle for an expression of their favorite Bible Stories. They devoted great efforts at growing the Sunday School with busing. They enjoyed their Christian life with each other immensely.

Pleasantly, I do report, that we as their pastoral family were very popular, with the vast majority of Carthaginians… We loved them, however, and they loved us… whether that was good or not became an issue, a big ugly political issue.

True to their word, these ones with the “Mind of the Lord” proceeded to conduct a monthly pastoral “vote of confidence”, however, to their chagrin, each month our winning margin continually, grew. I hated that these clouds of dissensions and static tensions had to hang in the atmosphere, from the beginning to the ending of our stay in Carthage. Nevertheless, the emotional tensions, mostly on the shallower side, intensified, and they engaged increasingly drastic measures.

Despite that greeting and realizing that monthly pastoral “vote of confidence”, voting prospect, we did indeed unload our moving truck. My Uncle Ollie Dalaba’s dear friend and college buddy, Almon Bartholomew, District Superintendent had duly warned me of this frightful prospect and cautioned me to very seriously consider not accepting the congregational call to pastor this church family, knowing this church’s history. He and I stayed in close communication. I felt that I would be willing to accept this challenge with his blessing. And so I proceeded to accept this call to Carthage, and moved my family, and whether I moved naively or under Divine-inspiration, only God knows for sure.

God did bless Carthage and us, greatly. We did see much good accomplished. We saw many souls saved throughout the community and within the congregation. Our two weekly radio programs were popular and loved. We aired on Watertown NY radio stations WOTT 1410 AM & WNCQ- 102.9 FM.

There was a phenomenal opening within the public school system. HS Principal Tom was a fellow Kiwanian. Geographically, Carthage had one of the largest school systems in NY State. At graduation time the senior class requested a unique “baccalaureate”. Meeting with the fellow clergy and me, in our parsonage-home, the Christian students, (at least one was a son to a local pastor), leaders within this public High School, requested that their “baccalaureate” take place, not traditionally, in a church where they feared little participation in this religious service, but rather in a park with swimming, set in a campfire setting, with energetic games and with a picnic feast to beat all others, and then requested us to include inspirational contemporary singing around the campfire and a rousing sermon presentation to shock the classmates with a confrontation of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ unmistakably and an unashamed call for the salvation of each member of their whole class. This was how they thought they should conclude their High School career. They desired to launch all seniors from their High School and out into adult life with a real meaning for life, and the same Godly purpose they had discovered. This was not their first attempt, to captivate their friends, but they did not want to fail in their last effort. We clergy all agreed, that though novel, worthy. The success was Olympian. God answered prayers most profoundly, theirs, the student leaders and ours, the community clergymen.

Shortly thereafter, on the occasion while I was hosting the same Local Ministerial, each of us had “brown-bagged” and were in discussion regarding the successful “baccalaureate”. Our mutual affirmations to its success were real, but it dawned upon us that our evaluations were on different premises. I shockingly learned that of the eleven present, the Baptist pastor, the Catholic Priest and me, the Assemblies of God, Pentecostal pastor were the only three that believed in the Virgin birth, The Authority and Accuracy of the Scriptures and the Deity of Jesus Christ and other Creedal assumptions espoused by The Apostle’s Creed”.

I am beginning to think, that God’s genius and sense of humor delights in engineering scenarios where we own a situation and in some measure of desperation, we beseech Him to intervene in ours. Ultimately, His answer to our prayers accomplishes His agenda.

Immediately we learn that He succeeded in getting us on His same page. Our needs are the doors through which he leads us to the realization that He is ever present, interested and operative.

God’s answers to our prayers are absolutely profound, miraculous and decipherable “ex post facto law”!

By another example of God’s beneficent hand ever present with us, I share this story which shows how miraculously God moves men and nature, circumstances and events, to His will, honor and glory and for our mutual benefit.

In a monthly board meeting with the “monthly voting segment”, I prayed with them fervently, for a real concern that they realized and propounded, vociferously. Admittedly, my college-days “voice lessons” had not gifted me with melodious talent, but rather only painfully made me aware of what was legitimately their distress in this valid issue… the Sunday morning worship service. I was not a worship leader! Others of their pastors had been quite musical and both played the instruments and sang well. The young beautiful and talented Carmelita Burdick’s exquisite keyboard artistry could not cover my voice, though well-intentioned, but ill-capable… and unfortunately, young Lenny Burdick was still young.

With the urgency, of food, shelter and clothing, looming in the back of this young father, husband, preacher’s mind, I joined the board of elders, in passionate prayer. I prayed loudly, that God would send to us a “minister of music”, a leader of worship! We each took our turn while on bended knee, there in that Church office of the pastor. I prayed for God to send “a man of God”, “a man who would be submitted to God and pastor”, “a man with an excellent spirit for worship”, “a man to bless the Heart of God and this congregation”, and “a man with a gift to sing”, “a man that would be gratifying for all, to worship with and to even take pleasure in” “and that God would send him to us”.

What is more, I prayed that he would come that next Sunday! I felt a couple of the praying elders turn and look at me, on that request. Moreover, God answered and he did come.

David Gibbs newly transferred by the Army from TX to Fort Drum NY, arrived in our church parking lot, amidst a mid winter snow storm, that Sunday morning. Before he even entered the church sanctuary, that very next Sunday, in my exuberance, I greeted him.

“Do you sing and lead in worship?” Before I had learned his name, I had requested him to lead the morning worship and to sing a special song for us. He chuckled at my unique welcome. Carmelita accompanied him in a most majestic rendition of an ordinary hymn, that became extraordinary with his bright and talented God-gifted voice… God had answered my prayer, witnessed by that august board who had prayed with me just days before.

During the next weeks and months, he became our dear friend, sharing rich times with us in home and church, at meals and in prayer and in worship. Well he did sing a special song in solo for us that first Sunday morning and he continued to sing for us for each service and to lead the congregation in worship, accompanied by a most exceptional teen pianist, Carmelita Burdick. David Gibbs ministered for us each Sunday after that, until the very Sunday I left that pastorate, which coincided with his last week at Fort Drum, when he then was transferred to Alaska, I believe.

I still think that he was an angel, sent by God, a black angel and though unique to Carthage, he was our dear brother, David Gibbs. He was a delightful brother, to us. He came to share many meals with those at “their parsonage-home” and with our family. He introduced us to “Evie Tornquist”. He shared excitedly in gospel dialogues. Our hearts soared during his worship services.

The voice of God and the voices of our minds and voices of men conflict on occasion…

Typically, I was out and about dropping in on church families throughout the area and I was at the stop sign closest to my office, when the Spirit of the Lord unmistakably spoke to me to turn my car about face and go back to near where I had just returned from. I sat in my car at the stop sign and actually argued with the Lord and myself. Lord, I have promised Pamela, “I will be home for dinner at 5:30 PM, and I will not be late for dinner.” She said you have promised that before. I promised her that I would be on time… this time… I have got just time now to go home and just make it in time and not be late… it is 5:25 PM…

But the Lord’s voice was emphatic, and overpowered my objections. I had often wrestled with the voice of God and felt a quandary, whether or not this was indeed God’s voice or my own thoughts.

I had made a lifetime commitment, that I would sooner obey the voice of God than not and that I would never regret that. So I turned my new 1976 Caprice Classic two-door sedan, about and went back from whence I had come, and I drove into the driveway of the family the Lord had impressed upon my mind. It seemed that no one was home. I knocked on the door and scolded myself for being late for Pamela’s dinner. But again I still sensed that this was a divine appointment and so, conflicted, I knocked louder and a third time, really loudly. I had waited patiently, maybe 30 to 60 seconds between knocks. Just as I was about to turn and walk away the door opened and my friend and brother stood there with a fully loaded pistol in his hand. He said, “Oh Hi Pastor. I was just going to kill myself. I had asked God to send someone by 5:45 PM, if He could still hear me.” I wanted him to send someone to come and talk with me. Well, he and I and the Lord had a very good and long talk together. He had been a Christian since a child, but had lost any sense of validity in his relationship with God. He felt guilty and unforgivable. He expressed frustration and turmoil. He prayed and cried profusely. He made sincere commitments to God. When we both knew after prayer, he was established,

I left for dinner… late, again! Oh well! My friend and his family pledge love and friendship forever. We love each other.

Despite that greeting at the moving truck window and those voting prospects announced upon our arrival, we had unloaded our moving truck. Nevertheless, with the constant harangue and harassment of the “monthly voting segment”, and their monthly reporting to the District Office, the District Officers’ finally counseled, typically, for me to give in to this minority. What this group required of me, to resign, “post-haste”, was a severe quandary at best weighing in the scales, on one side both our own family’s temporal concerns, and what we legitimately felt the church family’s concerns and on the other side of this scales, against theirs, “the monthly voting segment”.

Although they intensely believed in their own minds and hearts that they were closest to God and very righteous, believing fervently that they did have the “Mind of the Lord”! On any one of their several monthly reports to the District Office, I was informed, lists of criticisms were being levied intending to substantiate their assumptions. I never cared to know what items might be listed. Not that I did not care, but that should I satisfy that list, they should surely find yet new items for their next lists.

I am not prone to preferring the discovering of this entire tally of deficits listed as negatives about me. This was beginning to challenge all of the nice things I would care to tell you about myself. ‘Tongue in cheek’. But I did not know the content of the lists, until the District Officials’ anticipated forth coming visit for such a purpose. He was coming from the Syracuse Headquarter and he should come to reveal my dearth.

Oh! … WOW… Wow… wow! Normally, a visit from District Officials was a Ceremony of “Pomp and Circumstance”, glorious, joyful, but this prospect was frightful at best and devastation at worst. Most clergymen under such visits as I was anticipating have failed morally, theologically, or financially.

That was not me. I have not failed, not knowingly, not morally, theologically, or financially. I am a virgin to my wife still. I practice exquisite exegetical, hermeneutic, systematic and Biblical theology without deviation. Though poor, I am poor honestly, I do not have a gambling problem, but always pastored poorer Churches… I have bilked no funds, laundered no monies, nor pilfered any bags.

So if not the major issues, what else? All could only be fearsomely imagined… and at that, the mind boggles with self-doubt, fearful self-suspicions, dreaded accusations and sinister deceptions… Take that to bed with you, with gut wrenching nightmares, to ponder while spending the dismal nights until this Sunday’s visit.

Unbeknownst to me, I would learn that the District Officials had received complaints, and among them was that I had not polished my dress boots last Sunday. Admittedly the deep and salty snows had worked their havoc on my Florsheim 8” dress boots. But, “All Praise be to God!” God had sent a fellow pastor to my home for fellowship on the day before and he brought with him two pairs of brand new Florsheim 8” leather-lined dress boots that he had picked up at a garage-sale that morning for a dollar a pair. Disappointed, he informed me that they had not fit his feet, but he said for to me to try them on. They were the perfect fit for me! I inherited both pairs. The next morning I praised God as I slipped into the black pair of these Florsheim dress boots.

It had seemed to my very professional, intelligent and Godly District Official-brethren that the constant flow of items for these several lists had been legitimate justification to dismiss me from pastoral privilege and responsibility.

The District officers arrived for the morning service and after their part, they sat with the congregation to critique my preaching, another new item upon their list. After the service, they met with me in my living room to express their concerns for their lists and for our worship service, for our attendance, for my shoes, and for my preaching.

Having heard the worship service, having heard my Sunday morning sermon, having sat with the swelled crowd, they informed me that they had crossed these items off the list. As the long list was read and these typical complaints were voiced, I noticed that the District Officers moved their own feet uneasily about. I sat there with God’s gifts on my feet. And that item too was crossed off their waning list. It seemed miraculous to me that these gargantuan icebergs dissipated into nothingness simply upon their reading… it seemed like they simply evaporated!

All that worry for what later seemed to me, to be like nothing… Do I come across, like what concerns them does not matter, to me? It matters. God knows it matters! I needed and had prayed for and gratefully wore God’s blessings… and do constantly!

The irony that humors me these many years later is “the great gulf that is fixed” between the reasons and the justifications! Because of your shoes leave town. If that had been the problem, then for a few dollars it had been fixed. Why not divulge the factual reasons openly, honestly?

It occurs to me that within every democratically congregation-controlled pulpit and church there will be at least three groups of people within each church;

1> the people who are in love with Jesus, God’s Holy Word, God’s Holy Will, the power of prayer, the righteous activity of their church within discipleship fulfillment of all that Jesus required of His disciples. These are essentially the Theists, seeing life from God’s point of view… The church crept in to the world. These believe with conviction that God’s ways are best and for this they would be willing to die.

2> the people who are in love with people, paper, product, power, pressure, fame fortune, fun, food, frolic, fantasy and prolific politics with “management by objectives business style”, where money, numbers, popularity and acceptance by the masses is tantamount to success. These are essentially the Humanists, seeing life from man’s point of view… The world crept into the church. These believe convenience with consensus that Man’s ways are best and for this they would be willing to fight and argue.

3> the people who are in love with life, liberty, learning, living, and the pursuit of happiness. These are essentially the Hedonists, seeing life from man’s pleasure, peace, and an issues point of view… The world crept into the church. These believe nothing for certain and assume every man’s ways are, right, equal and good, that their ways are as good as all other men’s ways are best and for this they would be willing to lay out funds, write petitions, and carry on discussions as long as no one is considered an authority and every one is considered good.

Think with me… in honesty, as I now recollect, whenever has the majority of any group been holy, Godly, righteous, scriptural and like Jesus Christ? We have these majorities therefore leading the Lord’s Church, for which he bled and died, but most likely they would not be willing to die for but very willing to argue and fight, write lists and petitions, spend funds and buy votes.

The authorities had counseled me that I should “voluntarily resign” not with scriptural premise and absolute law and order, not even for any infraction of ecclesiastical policy, but in order to clear their very busy schedule, busy with more important things than these, but in order to bring cessation to hordes of marching lists and incumbent frustrations of these items listed monthly, but in order to deal with far more important things than this Carthage-storm!

But “What sticks in my theological and philosophical craw” is this, but in order to establish peace not with Biblical assumptions, but with the secular humanistic assumptions “that peace at any price is prerequisite, to premise… that peace is more important than right principle” and that I must allow the disgruntled minority to again be back in charge of the congregation, in order to restore peace.

Authorities must already know that peace is not the absence of conflict but a harmony with God, good and right. Carnally I felt like, expendable, I was fodder, fuel, bullets and coin for the fray. But realistically after all, had I not confessed to the Lord my willingness to be a sacrifice for Him? Yes, but Lord please let me choose when and how I am sacrificed… just kidding.

The needs of the quiet Carthage Church Family, but a settled lot, meeting with the Lord in love and harmony were met by the Lord and each other and despite their apparent loss they joyfully embraced in fact and heart all others on both sides of the scales. The others would also call it peace as soon as they felt peace, mistakenly lack of conflict.

One of the District Officials handed a ten-dollar bill to me with assurance that that would help me and my family of six, with my family’s living expenses, and moving expenses, until my next pastorate wherever and whenever that might be. Embracing me warmly they kindly assured me that they would graciously extend to me thirty days to vacate the premises and if we ever needed them for any thing, to feel free to call.

God will take care of you and yours in ways you could not imagine…

Before our time of departure from Carthage, God again beneficently, prepared the way to sustain us, the Allens all six of us, for what would turn out to be a two-month transition, from NY to CA.

He always did for us what we could never dream nor devise nor anticipate for ourselves.

Later, I learned of a surreptitious agenda and a secret meeting that later ensued between the sweet lady and my wife, Pamela. In 1977, it was not typical or more accurately it never happened, by her own confession, that my wife would have a secret from me. But the sweet lady took my wife into a confidence.

Pamela went with her whilst I tended the four young children. During our secure happy marriage we had not had such a situation as we faced on this occasion.

Needless to say, I was very concerned about both their secret agenda and their enigmatic meeting. Their clandestine manner was very unsettling and regretfully, I feared the worst.

Now I was again putting my wife and our precious four young children into a homeless status, with absolutely no known, nor visible means of support, and absolutely no positive direction, for my life and ministry. I was feeling self-doubt very intensely. I was arguing with myself, profoundest questionings of my very own call from God to the Christian Ministry.

I feared the worst case scenarios imaginable… maybe the sweet lady was helping Pamela to leave such a miserable failure as I felt myself to be at that moment, and not unjustifiably… maybe they were making arrangements in the sweet ladies home for Pamela and the children… ooh these and countless fears and frustrations surged through my raging throbbing heart and troubled mind… I did what I always did… I knelt with the children by the sofa and we prayed… I calmed myself enough so as not to frighten my children to death, but I thought to pray loudly enough for my prayer to reach heaven and the heart of God, as if by shear volume alone… I told them that daddy needed God’s help… I believed that God would hear the simple faithful prayers of my little children even more than me… I asked my children to pray to God to send help right now… They were innocent victims, though they did not understand that… I felt totally helpless… I was to be their protector and provider and more of a good father than I felt myself to be at that moment!

Though with the responsibility for my beautiful family, my wife, Pamela and my four young children; Rebekah 5, Jonathan 4, Michael 3, and Stephen 2, and even though the very last vote was by highest percentage in my favor, I had resigned. “You asked me why I have moved so many times during my ministry; thirty-seven times during the last forty years? Well this happened, and may I share it as an example? This is a typical scenario, for me!

I was still learning the distinctions between the voice of God and the purported voices of God. I was again wrestling with politics. I was wrestling between Theocracy and Democracy. I was wrestling with Theism, humanism and hedonism. What issues are worth dieing for or not?

It remains a given assumption for me, that a pastor must choose to please God or Men but with out compromise it is impossible to do both. I was wrestling between the temporal securities for home, food, money, and clothes versus eternal values. I was wrestling with submission to authority, the authority of the heart and the authority of the church. I was wrestling with the call of God to refuse to compromise on principles, truths, and righteousness; and with the Devil and his legions of evil spirits and army of carnal hearts. I had been challenged to play politics, compromising on principles and to practice convenience and seek temporal security at the expense of right. I had refused to compromise on Biblical principles always before and so now. I again determined that I would not compromise. “God will take care of me and mine.” I must not defend myself, nor attack others, nor do I trust men, nor do I “look to mine own understanding”, but I trust the Lord God Omnipotent.

I knew so plainly that God had indeed called me and I rehearsed my very own call from God to be His Christian Minister. I called back to my mind promises that God had given to me at that call… that God had promised me while still only twelve years old, and hearing His call to become “a man of God” and not yet fully appreciating what that meant, I knew then and rehearsed again now while there kneeled at the sofa, embracing my little ones, prayerfully sobbing before God that in my inmost being, God had called me with reassurances that He would take care of me and of my family!

My wife soon returned with the sweet lady and both were apparently happy and seemingly peaceful. Well, I took some comfort at that. But I still inquired. The sweet lady comforted me and said that it was needful that I not know of their secret, refusing to grant even one hint… but she reassured me profusely that I would most definitely and wholeheartedly approve… but for some reason that did not flood my soul with peace nor alleviate a throbbing heart. What is more, is that she stressed that she believed that God had told her to not tell me of her agenda.

I had complied with the “pompous popeus edictus absurditous”, though at the heartbreak of the Church family and my own family. I had resigned with no prospects of future ministry known to me.

Management by Objectives would “Brand Name” this “Absurd & Bizarre”!

Friends and Family would” “Label” this “Incongruous & Incompatible”!

The curious novel reader would “Voucher” this “Ludicrous & Ridiculous”!

One sweet lady intended for her gift to my Assemblies of God mission’s campaign while pastoring Carthage Calvary AG, to put my campaign in good stead and so as to exceed our goal. There were two poles and both approved of missions, assuredly. But one could not politically freely support my missions-efforts. This sweet lady had donated a designated gift for the missions program I was running. We had raised a little over $40,000 for missions. A private argument happened between this sweet lady and others over her sizable “designated gift”. The other ladies believed that her sizable “designated gift” could not be so designated for missions, but must be her tithe on the sale of her home and therefore belong to the “undesignated general fund”. The argument was serious. Against her usual soft-spoken and quiet manner the sweet lady required then that her “designated gift” funds be returned to her in full, if they would not be placed in the “designated gift” funds for missions. And for all I knew this was a hurtful loss to missions at best and a classic example of carnality winning at worst, or so it at first seemed.

Later, while again alone with me, my wife herself felt it needful to comfort my troubled heart. She confided that the sweet lady had taken her to the bank and had opened an account for Pamela alone and not for me, Duaine, and she had deposited an amount equal to the “designated funds for missions” amount and declared to Pamela that she believed that the Lord had intended this and that this was for “Home Missions”, but that it was not for Duaine but for Pamela.

The District Officials did indeed call me inquiring specifically if I had influenced the sweet lady to give said funds to me. As she had told Pamela, so I could answer honestly and did say that, “No, I had no such influence!” Again I saw the “Hand of the Lord God” revealed in His own economy and right on schedule.

One day while attending a Holy Spirit Seminar in Springfield MO I was chatting with Uncle Ollie Dalaba, strolling in our Motel corridor. On this subject, I claimed, “Historically I have been as loyal a churchman as there is.” He lovingly retorted, “But you have not been loyal! I quipped in testimony, “I have been as loyal to the Lord Jesus Christ and His Holy Word and His Church as any other man I know!” To that he thoughtfully said, “Duaine I did not say nor mean loyal to the Lord, I meant loyal to the AG Denomination over the Lord. You have always sided with the Lord.”

I had been born and brought up a Wesleyan Methodist and educated in two Wesleyan Methodist Colleges and formerly pastored two Wesleyan Churches. (Noteworthy to churchmen, my wife and I had attended the historically significant merging conference in Anderson IN, in 1968 between the Wesleyan Methodists and the Pilgrim Holiness Denominations. It was at that time the name was changed to Wesleyans.)

We had been truly blessed by God, successfully growing each congregation, living and endeavoring to live an exemplary life as behooved upon me by the “Call of God”.

In the three areas where fellow “Called of God” men might fail.

I had been faithful to God;

in theology and Scriptures,

in finances and money management and

in marriage and morality,

The Beloved AG District Officials had recommended that I move to a pastorate in New York City. With my little children on my mind, and in my arms, the country bumpkin farm boy that I am, I thought…”That New York City is no place to raise up little children!” So I turned down their only offer. (However, my next pastorate was to Los Angeles County instead.) Life remains a learning process. I am still trying to get it right!

Discussing my own history with me, myself, I pondered, “What was my failure with the Wesleyans?” It seemed to be, that I had prayed in tongues in the Holy Spirit in my private prayer closet, and for that break with their tradition, I was excommunicated from the Wesleyan Methodists, or to humor myself I say “, “They graciously extended to me the left foot of fellowship”. The facts that I was loyal lifelong to Christ Jesus since salvation, walking in all known light as they had taught me in living the sanctified Christian life, lived the discipleship life-style, college educated to be a Wesleyan Pastor and successfully pastored and grown two Wesleyan Churches within two different Districts, under Reverend Charles Dayton in the Champlain District and under Reverend Donald Calhoun in the Iowa District. It was from the latter that as a fledgling, I was launched out of my comfortable Wesleyan nest where I knew and was know by most others is this very small denomination. What initially seemed profoundly daunting was a rather phenomenally greater blessing in disguise. “God’s ways are past finding out!” “What the Devil meant for evil God meant for good”. What seemed like banishment from my known world, was an introduction into a unknown world of grandeur and service and opportunity and ministry and resolve and purpose not known nor suspicioned.

Subsequently, I had joined with the Assemblies of God, at my Mom’s baby brother’s invitation, Uncle Ollie Dalaba, who lovingly introduced me, an exiled and lonely waif, orphaned from the Wesleyan’s. Now a new Charismatic, these wonderful brethren of the OH District Council of the Assemblies of God, and District Superintendent, Arthur Parsons, became professional friends and brethren. They had an appreciation for my predicament, many of them and extended to me their credentials of ordination and Carthage was my second AG pastorate. After The Wesleyans in Corinth NY, the Wesleyans in Charles City IA, Middletown OH, the Assemblies of God in Middletown OH and now the Assemblies of God in Carthage NY, I was not going to make any move quickly, lest, I repeat this pattern.

I sat down with the Lord, more accurately, I fell face down before the Lord, to discuss with Him that even after my best efforts and successes at each church, more than doubling the average attendance, I always managed to conflict with the herdsmen of the invisible Brahmas, stepped onto the thin ice of imperceptible traditions, misread their colloquial-between-the-lines meanings, those known only by the secretly initiated.

I had then prayed to the Lord, “Lord you know all peoples and times and things and places. You know me. I am not going to be presumptuous, and fill out applications, make appointments, and mail out resumes. I want to know that You are leading me. I want to correctly differentiate between the leading of me, or of men, or of You. I am going to completely trust you to open doors, now shut and to shut doors now open. Lord you have got my phone number and my address. If you want me, You call me!

You know me and You know where I am, here in Carthage NY, even though this may seem a most remote place and in winter even a most inhospitable place, way out in what seems like the middle of no place, you know me and my family, here in Carthage, NY, in what is really a most recherche place and amazing corner of your creation. In Jesus Name I pray! Amen!”

In my weakest moments emotionally, I dared to think that it seemed to me then as always, who were most Godly men and trusted men, the District Officers allowed evil to rule in that church, by preferring to sidestep what seemed like true resolutions in a Biblical pattern and instead requiring the me and the innocent majority and righteous to give in to wicked carnality because the wicked felt so intensely. This is me in my carnality, meanness and in my low-down and dirty moments.

But this is not me! This is not how I shall allow myself to be, think, speak or act. God alone is the judge. And He for sure, does not need my help.

Now I catch myself by the “Knapp of the neck” and slap myself upside the head, stomp on my own little toes and I says to myself, “Self, This isn’t any way to think…” Of course, now knocked back into my senses… honestly now… would it have been better that I had stayed and others would have left or if we had continued to fight on these absurdities…Now, of course not! God’s agenda is always primary.

What is His plan anyway? That I stay at some pastorate forever… and why? what for?

Even though these people may be the longest standing members and the biggest money people, does that criterion defend dictatorial powers over propriety, or a Godly minority? God will answer these and countless other question.

But we reloaded our possessions onto a Mayflower moving truck, just thirteen months after arrival, and we moved on and now to Sylmar CA, some 3200 miles west.

In jest, it occurred to me to buy my own moving truck and to stay packed. On the day I compile these collections we have since now lived in ten states, thirty-eight homes and eight denominations and have completed over forty-seven years, following the Lord in faithful Christian Ministry, 1964-2011.

This chapter is a norm. There may have been naive moments in earlier ministry when I assumed that should I live a Godly life, the pillars of Churches would laud my young ministry, Biblically correct assumptions, and twentieth century discipleship.

But, Jesus walked on water and walked upstream in His religious realm, fighting against the same religious prejudices, proffered by His Scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees. Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hates you.

(2 Tim 3:12 KJV) Yea, and all that will live Godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.

Reverends Lester DUAINE ALLEN, PhD & Misses Pamela Jeanne ALLEN, BS El. Ed.

10 Cole Street Suite 509 Pinnacle Towers Wellsboro PA 16901

570-787-3238

Agape Covenant Ministries POBox 223 Wellsboro PA 16901

Micah6:8 (New Living Translation)

… O people, the Lord has told you…

A> what is good… B> what he requires of you:

#1 to do what is right, #2 to love mercy, and #3 to walk humbly with your God.

Reverends Lester DUAINE ALLEN, PhD & Misses Pamela Jeanne ALLEN, BS El. Ed.

10 Cole Street Suite 509 Pinnacle Towers Wellsboro PA 16901

570-787-3238

Agape Covenant Ministries POBox 223 Wellsboro PA 16901

Micah6:8 (New Living Translation)

… O people, the Lord has told you…

A> what is good… B> what he requires of you:

#1 to do what is right, #2 to love mercy, and #3 to walk humbly with your God.