In the beginning...

 

The Bible starts “In the beginning...” and Mary Poppins says the “beginning is a very good place to start” so we’ll start at the beginning as well. Looking back however, it’s hard to pin point just when the beginning began. But let’s say it all started with our application to International Ministries (IM) of the American Baptist Churches, USA and that our application process began shortly after Ronald Regan became president in 1981.

President Regan ran on the idea of cutting government spending. I’m not sure whether the budget cuts did much to curb the Federal budget deficit but I am sure that both Marcia’s and my jobs were on the line as soon as he took office. I went to work at least twice with donuts in hand to say farewell to my office mates only to get a last-minute call saying more money had been found and I could go on for a while longer. Not exactly long term job security but it still gave us an excuse to eat the donuts. Marcia’s job was to be eliminated but she was able to work up until we left for Thailand.

Marcia especially had been considering mission work for years, and now “Reaganomics” spurred reconsideration of our career choices. Marcia was open to most anything from the get-go, but I had to grow into the idea. Eventually, even I was open to going anywhere and doing most anything. The only thing I was not open to was raising our own support. Raising funds for an organization or project was fine and I would do that enthusiastically. However, I couldn’t see myself raising funds just for myself. So under the threat of unemployment we applied to IM along with a number of other mission organizations.

What still seems remarkable is that International Ministries (IM) had a need for someone with my kind of background. There was a new “Irrigation Project” to build small scale irrigation and village water systems among the Karen people in northwest Thailand that needed help. Best of all, the project was largely funded by what was then called the Baptist Union of Sweden and International Ministries would pay us a salary as was the policy of those days.

Even though our application was relatively fast-tracked, the process took close to 1 ½ years. Of course, in 1981, there were no computers so everything we wrote was on paper, hammered out on typewriters, papers were sent back and forth through the mail and any phone calls were through land-line phones. Thankfully, there was “Whiteout” technology already so we could correct some of our typos as neither Marcia nor I are very good typists. I remember counting the pages we had written to IM but quit counting after we each had completed over 50 pages. It felt like a lot of writing and a lot of waiting. Our local pastor, Rev. Bill Offutt, though was a life saver in that he kept encouraging us and I think he was contacting mission headquarters on our behalf as well.

By March of 1982, enough pages had been typed, wheels had turned and levers had been pulled and we pretty much knew we were headed to Thailand. In May of 1982, we had an “Appointment Interview” at the American Baptist Headquarters in Valley Forge, PA just down the street from the Valley Forge National Park. Pictured above, is the headquarters building as it looked in 1982. It was fairly unique in that it was in the shape of a circle and open in the middle. So it was known as the "Holy Donut" or "Holy Bagel" depending on your preference. 

Finally, on June 15, 1982 we were formally commissioned as missionaries. Here we are in the photo above with (left to right), IM staff Carol Jarvis, Marcia, Duane, Gary Bennett, Nancy James, Steve James and Robin Harvey. It was the end of our beginning but the start of our mission career.