BRAD WALLER

When I was four and Dan two, I was playing with a hoe at one end of the garden while our mother was planting at the other end. I brought the hoe down on my brother's head and he had to be rushed to the hospital and have several stitches in his scalp.

While we lived at that location, I started to school at East Elementary. Kindergarten was half-days, and a taxi took us home when our time was over. My friend, Mike Miller, and I rode the same taxi. One day I was playing with the door handle, when the door suddenly opened and I fell out of the cab. I can still feel my wrist dragging on the graveled road before the cab stopped. Obviously, I was inclined toward risk-taking at a pretty early age. I went to the house expecting consolation and pity but instead got a spanking I guess these two incidents reflect my life-long tendency to "push the envelope."

I have memories of attending the Christian Church in Osceola. My mother made certain of that. I remember the Christmas programs, and squirming in the pew on Sunday mornings, sitting beside my mom. I enjoyed Sunday School because we had refreshments.

Outstanding elementary school memories were of my first grade teacher, Theodosia Gripp, who taught me to read. She was always worried because of my inclination to spend time looking out the window instead of at the blackboard, and for about four weeks moved my desk from the back of the room to a place beside hers. That was her way of making me pay attention. In January 1962, when I was eight, my parents moved to a farm near Weldon, which my father had bought the previous year. It was in mid-year, so one day I was in Lola Hunt's class in East Elementary in Osceola, and the next I was in Margaret Adams' class in the Weldon school.

Just after we moved, I had another experience that helped shape my life then and in future years. It was the fortunate break-down of our television set, with the subsequent decision by my parents that it would be to our benefit that it not be replaced for awhile. For two years we were without TV. This helped me develop a keen interest in reading, which in turn advanced my school work. Daily I read the Des Moines Register front to back, which kept me abreast of current events.

When I was 10, my mother taught me an attitude which has stayed with me the rest of my life. In a farming accident, my father lost the sight in his right eye. This was my first experience with loss and grief. Mom consoled me, pointing out that situations in life are relative. In this case, things could have been so much worse.

I started junior high in 1965. Having grown up on a farm, not knowing any town kids, I had become sort of a loner. My only playmates were John Ellis and Ronnie Lewis. I didn't see much of my classmates after school or on summer vacations, so when I started to junior high in 1965, I felt awkward and socially backward. Through the intervening years, I guess boldness and natural assertiveness took over my shyness but not awkwardness.

During my junior high and high school years, I was quite active in 4-H, winning various awards, particularly in photography and leadership. The most exciting events in my 4-H experience were my election to State Boys' Secretary (1971), along with trips to the 4-H National Congress held in Chicago (1972), and 4-H National Leadership Conference in Washington D.C., also in 1972. At the latter, I had the honor to be the one selected to present Julie Nixon Eisenhower with a bouquet of roses at the White House.

While in 7th grade I entered an essay contest sponsored by the local DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) chapter. The theme was "George Washington's Advice," and I don't know how it happened but my essay won 1st place nationally for 7th grade. Daisy McQuern was the local chapter Regent and she called us to report each level as it climbed to state, regional and then national. My award was a $25 US savings bond.

That event set a high bar for me in terms of subsequent composition and writing for school assignments. It is probably the cause for my being a perfectionist whenever I am writing something. Again, I trace back to influences as I was growing up. My 8th grade teacher of English grammar and composition, Marie Cooper, was also a perfectionist and gave me an excellent education in grammar and composition. She used to drill us on the difference between a main clause and a subordinate clause, exactly where to put colons, semicolons, and periods, and when to choose — a "which" or a "that." We really learned our grammar under her.

My high school years flew by. I somehow got through with a decent grade point, which seems like a miracle because I always seemed to major in extra-curricular activities rather than  studies. I was the high school newspaper and yearbook photographer all four years. Finding a niche in the drama club, I was in various school plays and speech contests. The most salient of high school memories was a trip to Mexico in 1970.. Our Spanish teacher, Connie Hunt Saylor, arranged for our class to enroll for a four week language course in Saltillo, Mexico. The idea was actually born during my sophomore year but it took an additional year to raise the money to go. Six students went: Debbie White, Brenda Holt, Jean Weatherman, Brenda Burgus, Susan Davis, and I was the only boy. Amazingly, Connie had her first child , Nickie, only three months before we departed. She somehow found the time and energy to pull all the details together and drove over 1400 miles to Mexico in order for the six of us to have this remarkable experience.

In the fall of my junior year, I had one of the most enhancing events of my teen-age years, working for Dale Scritchfield at the HyVee Food Store in Osceola. He had a lot of charisma and personality and was such a good father-figure to me. Always loyal to the very end, Dale continued to hire me on during summers when I was in college. He and Erma always kept up with me and even came to see me when I was living in Dallas, Texas. Beginning in the summer of 1973, Dale hired me as the nighttime supervisor. Enid Kendall and I locked up the store every night and took the money to the bank for night deposit.

Upon high school graduation in 1971, I enrolled at Drake University in Des Moines, where I started out with a business major. I soon segued into political science — one of my lifetime passions. Ever since the assassination of President Kennedy, I had been keenly interested in politics, so I was quite thrilled when Cecil Lutz, one of our former state senators, introduced me to Congressman John Kyl. This association led to my congressional internship in the House of Representatives during the summer of 1971. It also led to my active participation in the Young Republicans chapter on the Drake campus. During this time, I represented the 6th District in the Young Voters' Division and assisted both Bill Scherle and John Kyl in their 1972 bids for re­election.

In the fall of my junior year in college, the realization hit home that upon graduation Political Science majors weren't known to get very good jobs. That degree seemed to call for further education, specializing in law, for example. So I decided to redefine my Political Science major into a more saleable category — Public Administration, which is the business side of local, state, or federal government. I had no sooner redefined my major, when in January 1974, I had another life-altering experience that culminated in my accepting Jesus Christ as my personal Savior.

It was January 9, 1974 — a cold, blizzardy day, and I was on the AMTRAK train going to Chicago to visit Steve Ludwig from Park Ridge, Illinois, a friend whom I had met in college. The train had been four hours late, the temperature was sub-zero, and the snow was blowing at the depot in Osceola. The train was crowded with holiday travelers returning from their skiing destinations out west. There was hardly a seat to be found, but soon I spied a vacant seat beside a young man eating his lunch. We struck up a conversation, when suddenly he pulled out his Bible and started witnessing to me. I argued with him all the way from the Mississippi River to Chicago. I asked all the "hard questions" about Jesus, God, the Bible, and Christianity. From his point of view it must have been kind of a fruitless witness because I resisted so strongly.

Just as the train pulled into the station, it seemed as though a bright light was shining all around me, and all that Steve had said came together for me. I suddenly really understood what it meant to accept Christ. as Savior and why Jesus had to die on the cross for our sins. It dawned on me that I'd had a mental block about this for years. But there we were getting off the train, and he was bidding me adieu. I wanted to yell after him, "Hey, I got it!" He left with me three pieces of information about himself besides his name (Steve Salowitz), one point being that his great aunt and uncle (Harvey Kittelman) lived in Creston, Iowa. From the other pieces of infoimation, I was able to find his home address and I wrote him a letter a week after our trip to Chicago. He was absolutely astounded that I would write him a letter, after he had written me off as a resister. He was elated!

It wasn't long after that I knew God was calling me into ministry. I took no little amount of chiding at college when I let it be known that I wanted to go to Seminary. I had jumped around a lot in my choice of majors, but now, with my third year not finished, I wanted to make an even more radical change. I knew, however, this was not a whim. It was a real calling.

In November 1974, members of my home church, the Weldon Christian Church, and the Osceola United Methodist Church made it possible for me to attend the World Methodist Evangelism Conference. A trip to Israel! I was so excited! It was so in line with my plans to go to Seminary and my study of the Bible. At that point I couldn't put Bible down. There were daily Bible studies and I devoured Bible study aids. Now the chance to visit Jerusalem! During our trip I was baptized in the Jordan River by the pastor of the Osceola United Methodist Church, Rev. Ivan Bys.

In February of the following year, 1975, I started looking at seminaries to attend subsequent to my college graduation later that year. One of them was Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary in Massachusetts. In March I went to visit and that was the one I chose to apply for and I was accepted. After graduating from Drake, I immediately enrolled in Gordon Conwell Seminary. Everything I was learning and hearing was a first experience. It was all so fresh and I was glad to have no preconceptions or dogma that had to be unlearned.

At end of first year of seminary, I felt I shouldn't go into debt but I didn't have money enough to go pay my tuition for the fall semester in 1976. I came back to Osceola to raise money. When I got here in June, I asked Dale Scritchfield about a job with HyVee, and he happily obliged me. That summer I also took on a second job with Burlington Northern Railroad. That put me on a regimen of getting up every morning at 6:00, going to work at the railroad at 7:00 until 4:00 in the afternoon. I went home, showered, put on another set of clothes and went to HyVee at 6:00 to work until 10:00. After banking the money, I would get home about 10:30 p.m.

During that summer of 1976, I was also pastoring the yoked church parish of the Weldon United Methodist and the Weldon Christian Churches. I managed all of this by mentally working on my sermon for the following Sunday while physically carrying out my duties for the railroad. Mom helped with all the background issues of pastoring — making sure I would be at the right place at the right time, taking care of details of the secretarial work such as making the bulletins for Sunday services, handling phone calls, organizing church dinners, etc. I preached two sermons every Sunday, one at Van Wert and one alternatively at the Weldon United Methodist or the Weldon Christian Church.

I remember preaching my first funeral message — the memorial service for Paul Simmerman, which was during the week after Christmas 1976. Before my preaching term expired, two years later, I had conducted 41 funeral services (two of which were suicides), and had perfoimed 32 weddings, as well as a family baptism.

In August 1977, I met Dan Meininger. He was a local pastor in Kansas City with no current denominational affiliation. Rev. Bys heard his story and was deeply touched by this man who was attempting to live his life based on the Biblical promise, "God will provide." The giving of the congregation he served was not adequate for his family's needs and he had fallen deeply into debt. Ivan felt this was an opportunity for a mission of the Osceola United Methodist congre­gation, so even though Dan was not United Methodist, the Murray United Methodist Church was without a pastor and Rev. Bys recommended him to the District Superintendent, Dick Pfaltzgraff, who appointed him on an interim basis. Dan was a remarkable Bible teacher and pulpiteer. His Wednesday evening Bible studies were so impressive that working farmers would come in from the fields earlier than usual, to change clothes and attend. People of all denominations were driving from other communities to hear him.

I first met him on August 4, and he and I went for coffee at one of the local restaurants. I, as everyone else, was very impressed. He was so articulate, so competent, so Scripturally knowledgeable, and seemed to have so much faith, that I felt I wanted to mentor under this man. I thought I could learn what I needed to know from him rather than going back to seminary in 1977. Mom didn't like the idea, nor did my sister, Bonita, but I got "thumbs up" from most of the other people with whom I conferred. So I became Dan's eager assistant doing visitation as well as pastoral and evangelistic calling on prospects and local residents. What none of us realized was that by the spring of 1978, this man who had such promise, hope, and excitement would be leaving a tremendous wake of disappointment with many unmet expectations by almost everyone who knew him.

I was rescued from this "debacle" by the District Superintendent and other leaders in United Methodism from around the county, and was appointed to serve the Woodburn congregation, where I preached from Thanksgiving 1977, to Memorial Day 1978. Ruth and Otis Stearns, Raymond and Ruth Reynolds, Charles and Katie Rodgers were of great help to me during this period of disillusionment and fog, but God uses all experiences for his goal and purpose for our lives.

When I finished my term with the United Methodist ministry, I joined the United States Marine Corps. I wanted to serve my country, and I felt the military training and experience would be beneficial to my life generally. That experience began in March 1978, when I met with an Army recruiter and Marine Corps recruiter. I was most impressed by the Marines, and when it became known that I already had a college degree, they recommended I attend OCS (Officer Candidate School). So I went to Quantico, Virginia, June 12, 1978, for a 10 weeks' screening course. By the grace of God, I was commissioned as 2nd Lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps that August.

From there I went to the basic school also located at Quantico, Virginia, and then on to a Supply School, for a 12-week MOS (Military Occupational Specialty) training course at Camp LeJeune, Jacksonville, North Carolina. It so happened that my first assignment out of Supply School was the Supply Officer for the 3rd Battalion 6th Regiment, 2nd Marine Division. I held down that billet for two years, whereupon I was promoted to Regimental Supply Officer for the entire 6th Marine Regiment. I left the Marine Corps in December 1981, as a 1st Lieutenant.

Upon leaving my tour of duty with the United States Marine Corps in 1981, I changed seminaries from Massachusetts to Texas and enrolled in the Dallas Theological Seminary. During this time frame in Dallas, and while I was attending seminary there in the early 1980s, I worked at the Gaston Avenue Baptist Church in their inner city mission ministry. That included evangelism, Sunday School teaching, home and hospital visitation, school bus driving — all were aspects of that ministry. I assisted the pastor, one of the deacons who mentored me in my seminary internship classes. So the first half of the 1980s, in addition to the ministry mentioned above, I was attending classes part-time at Dallas Theological Seminary, and working 3/4 time, while paying tuition as I went along.

In 1987, I was hired by the Prestonwood Baptist Church in Dallas, to work for one of their adjunct ministries which was called "Discovery Broadcast." We prepared and marketed video tapes for local churches to use for Bible studies, Sunday School programs, Vacation Bible School, and various educational purposes as well as evangelism in the local churches. Their market included all of the Southern Baptist denominations, the American Baptists, Churches of God in Christ, and Assemblies of God. Over the period of two years while I worked for that company, we sent out tapes to literally hundreds and hundreds of churches. During this time, I was also working part-time as a teller at the Swiss Avenue Bank in downtown Dallas.

Ministry and work were progressing steadily when, in 1989, my family was struck with the grim news that my mother had an inoperable breast cancer. They gave her six months to live and yet she survived 19 months before she succumbed. Coincidental with her passing, a friend of mine recommended that I look into relocating in Massachusetts and search out opportunities for doing ministerial work similar to my involvement in Dallas. There, indeed, was great opportunity for that in Boston. Also, beneficially, I could finish my degree at Gordon Conwell. It began to seem that I was a "perpetual student." I had been taking classes all the while in Dallas, but only as many as time permitted by ministry and jobs there.

I pursued my friend's suggestion and resumed my studies at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts in September 1990. I took five classes, one of which was a missions course, which segued into two missionary terms in Zimbabwe. While in that country, I worked for a youth oriented ministry (Scripture Union) geared to teaching, fellowship, evangelism, and summer camping programs. I was able to experience what life was like in Africa. I toured most of the country and learned to speak a few words in their native language, Shona. Most of the students had some degree of fluency in English, so teaching wasn't difficult. I also taught English and Bible courses in the secondary school system for two school teaus while in Zimbabwe.

During the end of the second term in 1992, I made preparations to return to the States and to sponsor a student from there to attend college over here. His name was Paul Shava, one of my Zimbabwean students who showed exceptional promise. I sponsored him from January 1994 to January 1995, in Salem, Massachusetts, where he completed 10 courses toward a degree program. In that same year, 1995, I affiliated with the North Shore Community Baptist Church in Beverly Farms, Massachusetts. My housing at the time was a live-in situation at a Nursing Home in Magnolia, Massachusetts, where I was chaplain.

Later in 1995, I moved in with missionary Elizabeth Elliot.and her husband as their grounds- and house-keeper, also in Magnolia. They were kind to me but a "no nonsense" type of people. I had to keep a strict log of my working hours according to the timetables they set for my duties. Mrs. Elliot authored the well-known books, Shadow of the Almighty, and Through Gates of Splendor. She also had a syndicated radio ministry on 325 stations. So between my living in their home and my ministry with the church, even though I hadn't been officially ordained into the preaching ministry, I always felt the hand of God guiding me.

That brings me to the late summer of 2000. I'd been in my position for 5 1/2 years. The Elliot's grandson was graduating from college and they wanted him to come live with them. There was really nothing for me to do, which necessitated my looking for another job. I soon was hired by Lehman Brothers, Inc., a global banking investment firm located in Boston. I moved to Boston in December 2000, and lived in the Beacon Hill neighborhood for four years. That property sold and I moved to nearby Jamaica Plain. In the meantime, I affiliated with the Trinity Episcopal Church located near Copley Square.

At the tail-end of four years on Beacon Hill, I began to notice an increasing inability to write with my right hand. My words were strung out and labored. I also lost my sense of smell and was having trouble recalling common words. I thought perhaps I'd had a small stroke. I went to my primary care physician who recommended I see a neurologist. After a short interview, he told me to write something. I wrote a sentence, he took one look and said, "I believe you have Parkinsons disease." A salient characteristic of that disease is being unable to write legibly or with facility. It also affects short term or rapid memory, as well as speech. Parkinsons basically accelerates the aging process of the mind and body in terms of brain neuro-chemistry and body motor functions.

It came as quite a shock, but I was quickly reminded that God is merciful. He has helped me see the light at the end of the tunnel. The evidence that God is seeing me through the ordeal is the slow rate of my disease progression. Studies are ongoing and new medications are constantly being developed, with the promise of a new one to be introduced this coming year, which is now upon us. I will not make radical changes. Lehman Brothers offers excellent benefits. I am employed in their Operations Section so my motor skills are not called upon as much as in some other positions with the firm. I'll continue working as long as I can, and I look forward to seeing what God has in store for me in terms of ministry, caring for others, service, and evangelism. I don't limit the love of God.

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