OK  - first of all my senior picture in the 1981 yearbook was a big mistake!  It was taken during my junior year as they usually are.   But since I had been through Army Basic Training for the Virginia Army National Guard during the summer between my junior and senior year (split option) I looked a whole lot different and I had a new picture taken for the yearbook during my senior year.  I would rather believe that I forgot to give it to the staff rather than to think it was a cruel joke that is a permanent fixture in my senior yearbook! LOL  That’s what I get for having being so vain.  Just for laughs I included the picture that I had wanted in the yearbook to be included in this bio as well as the picture chosen for our album cover (mentioned later).

I was the first Speech/drama III student.  May still be?  That experience along with choir came in handy down the road.

Oh – I also played soccer during my sophomore, junior, and senior years.  I played the first game ever that TCS varsity beat LCA varsity.  Shortly after the coach instructed me to turn in my uniform and I was not invited to be included in the team photo. Bummer!  He never told me why but honestly since I was juggling academics (poorly), drama, a part time job, and National Guard drills – having one thing removed from my plate was a blessing in disguise.   

One month after graduation in 1981 I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Disease which is cancer of the lymph glands.  After chemotherapy which was spread over an eight month period and radiation treatments (cured for 26 years now!) I landed a job with Air Virginia, a locally based airline which does not exist any longer.  They went bankrupt and reformed twice and eventually became an American Eagle commuter.  In all I worked with them for seven years in many capacities including General Manager at the Lynchburg Airport.  It was during my employ with them, specifically June 8, 1986, that I was born again.  I went from being a professing believer to a possessing believer and my life was dramatically changed.  When the airline ceased service from Lynchburg I was hired by a travel agency where I worked for the next eight years.  During my second year at the agency (1990) I married Elizabeth Bowman who was an LCA graduate.  I had been involved in ministry through preaching, sharing testimony and original songs and poems before we met and we began to minister together after we wed.  What do you get when you cross a Timberlake Tornado and a LCA Bulldog?   In this case – a VERY HAPPY couple!

January 1, 1998, knowing it to be God’s will and having prepared the best we could, we stepped out by faith to continue ministry on a full-time bases.  When we stepped out we had $25 per month pledged support and three engagements lined up for the year.  The rest is history.  We have been faithful to serve in multiple capacities but no doubt the most rewarding has been the last eight years in prison ministry in cooperation with Hope Aglow Ministries, Inc.  Though asked to become “Staff Evangelists” we are considered volunteers and are non-compensated other than support we raise through individuals and churches.  Our bread an butter has been free-will offerings from churches when we share our ministry in a concert format and the sale of Tapes/CD’s which we recorded at the Bill Gaither Studio in IL in preparation for ministry on a full-time basis.

Some of the most fulfilling highlights of our lives to mention are:

    Over 1,900 men in Virginia state prisons who have surrendered to Jesus as their Lord and embraced Him as their Savior in the services we have conducted.

   Our recording entitled The Next Step recorded at the Gaither Studio which includes seven original songs – three of our own and four that friends have written. 

   We have had opportunities to open for Jeff and Sherri Easter (with Kings Quart quartet) The Hoppers (me with a men’s quartet from the church we attended) and The Isaacs (as a couple).

    My testimony, produced as a radio drama by the UNSHACKLED desk of Pacific Garden Mission in IL has been a highlight of our ministry. This was released in two parts under a pseudo name to protect the privacy of my family.  We were encourage by their call to say that whatever attacks we had received from the enemy would be worth it as after the first airing they lost count after 250 responses by calls, letters and e-mails.  One such call led to the opportunity for me to drive overnight to Connecticut and visit a young man in jail on suicide watch.  After a couple of years of sharing the word with him and counseling him to surrender to Jesus as Lord, he informed me that he had done so! 

We are in need of additional supporters.  If you’d like a brochure – or if interested in a tape ($10) or CD ($15), or know of a church that may wish to have us in – contact us at gracex2@verizon.net