My Life as a Child, PART ONE: Sampling from my Autobiography

Throughout my life I have tried to multiply all my efforts. I just finished writing a 480 page Autobiography which will never be published but I thought I would share a sampling of it with you.

MY LIFE AS A CHILD: PART ONE


Born on December 24, 1935, I was nurtured by a loving and devout mother and father who was the pastor in the Mennonite Brethren in Christ Church in eastern Pennsylvania, in the Pennsylvania Dutch (German) part of the State.

Church played a major role in my formative years and in the years to come. Since my dad pastored a circuit of churches (Graterford and Harleysville), we attended two worship services every Sunday. One church had Sunday School first which enabled my dad to lead the service and preach in one church, then drive to the next one and do the same. Sunday evenings we had church with the two churches joining together for that service. Every week we attended two prayer meetings.

I first attended worship service, both morning and evening in Graterford Mennonite Brethren in Christ Church, February 16, 1936, being less than two months old. On Sunday April 12, 1936, Presiding Elder H. B. Musselman dedicated me to the Lord in the Harleysville Church. For ten years my life revolved around these two churches.

Our Mennonite churches were plain with simple frosted windows and wooden painted benches. These were simple meeting houses for worship and not cathedrals with ornate and expensive murals, carvings, stained glass windows or solid oak carved benches with cushions.

Every quarter the Presiding Elder, H. B. Musselman, came to our church and led in the Communion service and the Washing of the Saints Feet, the only time we observed these ordinances. The circuit of churches would join together for those Sundays. These were ordinances, that is, commandments by our Lord to perform, not sacraments which imparted grace through the partaking. Our Mennonite view of these ordinances was a further step of reform away from the received Roman Catholic tradition and the Lutheran/Reformed tradition. We were Anabaptists.

Christ and the Gospel were central in our home. Not only did my parents teach me God’s Word and pray with me and teach me in family worship, they also brought gospel truths into every day conversation. God's love and grace were foremost. The imminent return of Christ must have been a prominent emphasis. Not only did I dream of his return and conclude that the bright, shiny jet stream I saw in the sky was the return of Christ, some of my earliest sayings reflect my thinking. At the age of three and a half years, I said, “If Jesus comes for me, then Richard can’t go to school and Richard wants to go to school and camp meeting.” I asked this question, Does Jesus have a red school house up there? How Jesus get down? On a step ladder? Jesus fall in grass.” “If Jesus take Richard up, then Richard does not know where mama is.”

Divine healing, though not central, was believed and practiced. My dad would take a vial of oil along on his visitation and anoint people with oil if they requested prayer with anointing with oil. This must have become part of my worldview. On Labor Day 1939 at the age of three I became sick. I told my mother, “Pray to Jesus to make me well.” I was then asked, “Will you be a good boy?” My response was, Yes, I think so, I hope so.”


On one occasion I had a persistent case of appendicitis which kept me home from school. I lay around with a sore abdomen and loss of appetite. Our doctor was not quick to decide on surgery. On one visit to the doctor, however, he decided that if I was not feeling better by the next morning I would need to go to the hospital for an appendectomy. That night my dad reportedly spent much of the night in prayer for my healing. He prayed until God gave him a sense that God had actually healed me. When he retired to bed he determined that he would not ask me in the morning how I felt for he believed that God had healed me. In the morning the first thing I said was, “I am hungry,” something I had not said for a long time. That marked the conclusion of illness. To this day I still have my appendix.


TO BE CONTINUED