The mail came today and in it were magazines from the two
most important organizations in my life, the Young Life Relationship magazine
and the Penn Stater. I spent about an
hour reading them and being reminded of my past, my present and my future.
In July of 1963 I went from Washington D.C. to Buena
Vista, Colorado to Young Life’s Frontier Ranch.
What happened there was a lot of fun, tremendous activity and very
meaningful conversations about Jesus Christ.
On the side of Mt. Princeton on July 3, 1963 I responded to all that had
been going on in my life and at camp by giving my life to Jesus.
Within a few months the change began to occur. I was reading the bible regularly and
discussing it with our Young Life leader and other high school guys at a “campaigners”
weekly meeting. I went from being pretty
much a loner to becoming part of something, Young Life club. And instead of wishing I would not have to go
to college I began to realize that I wanted to attend Penn State to become able
to help others.
My original college purpose was to go through a pre-med
course of study and end up a psychiatrist.
A few struggles in college trigonometry deterred that but I graduated
with a BS in psychology. But the big
influence during those four years was being drawn in with four other guys
who were from Pennsylvania and had been involved in Young Life too.
Together we started and established the
Centre County Young Life organization and in the process saw how powerfully God
could bring things together to reach high school kids with His gospel.
Here I am now at 66 years of age and still the things
that impact me the most are the relationship with Jesus Christ that got started
through the ministry of Young Life and the education and social experience I
had at Penn State that set me up to practice leadership throughout my life.
I am so very thankful to walk with the God of the universe whose desire is to fill me and lead me to be
the very expression of who he created me to be and to be connected to the
organizations through which He primarily influenced me.
