How it all began…

Rusty was raised by Christian parents who were very devout Episcopalians. When he was 15 years old, he told his dad he didn’t want to attend church any more.  Rusty’s father was sad at his choice but he said: “You will come back.  I will pray for you every day.

 Looking back now, Rusty knows he did.

After graduating from college in 1965, Rusty went to work, got married, and fathered two children.  His family didn’t attend church.  Some 23 years later, in December 1988, he returned to the Episcopal church in a dramatic religious conversion.  God got hold of him and wouldn’t let go.                 

A friend at work began talking to Rusty about Jesus and one day invited him to listen to a Christian radio program called “Car Pool”.  On Car Pool, a father and son talked about the Book of Revelation.  Rusty’s dad had died a year before and he missed him greatly so this program really appealed to him.  On the program, Ralph Neighbors Jr. told listeners how to accept God’s call.

At that time Rusty had been forced to quit his job and couldn’t find another job in a crashing oil market.  Then came a personal family crisis and he became depressed.  Rusty went and talked to a minister about this crisis but was still depressed.

One morning in December 1988, Rusty got down on his knees and said simply: “God, if you will take my life and do something with it, I’ll follow you wherever you lead me, just as the pastor said on the radio.” At that moment, he felt huge arms reaching down and hugging him.  Rusty knew beyond a doubt God had accepted his cry.

From that moment on, Rusty has never looked back.  God has led him for the past 32 years.  First, he led him to Second Baptist Church in Houston, Texas, one of the largest churches in the U.S., where they taught him to pray, to learn discipleship, and to study the Bible.  Rusty began writing course books on many of the books of the Bible and taught these courses while working as a Credit Manager in the oil patch.  Later, he retired but continued to write his course books and teach from them. 

Eventually he returned to his original denomination teaching courses on the Bible and discipleship at Saint John the Divine Episcopal Church in Houston, Texas–- all courses he wrote himself.  Rusty has thought of God and prayed to him in Jesus’ name every day since, thanking him for all the guidance he has given him. 

Rusty’s story as to how God led him back to himself hopefully encouraging others. He thanks God, his parents raised him with an orthodox faith and how his dad prayed for him to come back to the church every day. God has his strange work of bringing each person to himself in his own secret way. Many of us rebel as he did. But God is faithful. He never gives up calling us, sometimes even at the last minute of life as he did the thief on the cross. Luke 23:42.