Twice we planned for her to start nursing, but a health problem suddenly prevented registration the first time. The second time she, at the last minute, decided she must wait till our young children were older.

Pat Serves as a Bush Doctor
But we arrived at Solusi College just as the HA (bush doctor) married a graduating ministerial student and left to become a pastor's wife. Only minutes after Pat began her new job as secretary to the registrar, an African lady came to see the HA. Milton Siepman asked her if she could take the clinic keys and help the lady. She had just returned the keys when another patient came. This time Milton said, “keep the keys.”

In the next few weeks, as she cared for all kinds of injuries and sicknesses and delivered several babies, Pat acquired quite a reputation among the Africans. When the new HA arrived her reputation was such that whenever he had a difficult case he always called on her to help him – often in the middle of the night.

This confirmed our decision that her nurses training would take priority over my plans to secure a doctorate, which was essential, as I intended to be a college teacher the rest of my service. I had made contact with several colleges regarding a religious education degree, which, based on my MA in education, would be much shorter than a theology degree. Though I could be sure of placement at Vanderbilt University, I chose to take my chance at UC Berkeley, which was close to Pacific Union College where my sister, Miriam, taught nursing and arranged for her to take the summer and fall terms by test.

Nurses Training and Doctoral studies
Arriving at Christmas time, 1970, Pat successfully passed the tests in time for winter quarter classes. Not until mid-January would the results of selection of only two from over a hundred applicants be decided. The head professor liked my background and had told me I had a good chance when several spots were available. However, just before we came he informed me that Governor Reagan had severely cut the budget, reducing available openings to only two; yet he assured me I was a likely prospect. I returned late in January, 1971, from an appointment with him, where I was kindly told that my name was the last to be dropped, to find that the president of the Southern New England Conference wanted me to return his call as soon as possible.

The day before I would have turned down Stew Jane’s call to pastor the Brooklawn church in Bridgeport, Connecticut. But I now had to decide on a new course. He answered my first question: there was a nurses training program only a couple miles from the parsonage. Moreover, there were several universities within an hour to choose from for my doctorate.

I thus left immediately for Bridgeport and returned for Pat at the end of her term. Completing her nursing course in 1972, she began nursing and soon settled into an OB specialty.

Three and a Half Year Struggle for Regional Junior Academy
At Bridgeport I found a two teacher school with 20 students, serving the Brooklawn church and the small Danbury church (in my district). I also found that our large sister church at New Haven (& its satellite), 20 miles away, had no church school and that the even larger black churches in Bridgeport and New Haven had none. My first step was to discuss with my church officers the possibility of developing a regional school to serve all these churches. With their nod I discussed this with Ron Flowers, New Haven pastor, serving in his first pastorate.

Ron was very receptive, but uncertain about his church; for there had long been bad blood between his church and Brooklawn. After several meetings in which I provided several schedules showing various estimated operating costs, depending on an unknown enrollment and number of teachers, identifying our share in each, Brooklawn eventually agreed for me to explore with the New Haven church and our conference. This gave impetus to Ron, whose opponents and skeptics had stalled his efforts. Eventually both churches agreed to discussions with the black pastors -- a longer, more difficult challenge. For neither they nor their conference officers, who would not consider becoming involved, trusted us, fearing they would be second class citizens.

But we eventually reached a stage of confidence sufficient to begin working together on a proposed constitution to which we could all agree. We all then took this to our churches, all of whom eventually agreed to try.

At this point the really big challenge began. Elder Jane had been kind and patient as we kept him informed; but we had proceeded without his support. Now he agreed to an appointment, including the treasurer, for discussion of our proposed constitution, at which they courteously and sympathetically insisted it would not work, that the black churches would not uphold their end of the agreement and would leave us holding the bag. For, as a Southern New England project our conference and churches would hold ultimate responsibility.

They did not quite close and lock the door, however, so we continued our discussions with the black pastors and with our men, from time to time. They continued to listen patiently but insisted it would not work. When they finally agreed for us to look for property there was a Catholic school in the right place and at the right price. So we began looking for a staff. Thus, in the fall of 1974, three years and eight months after my arrival at Bridgeport, we replaced our 8 grade, two teacher school by opening the Housatonic Valley Junior Academy with 120 students and five teachers, including a black principal, and serving all churches in the area.

CUC to LaVida: Study Leave Abandoned
Shortly after we had purchased the property and hired our teachers, however, I received a call to teach in the Columbia Union College religion department. Thus I had to leave just about the time our Junior Academy began.

A few months later the CUC board voted me a 14 month leave of absence, beginning the next July, to finish my doctorate, for which I had only two classes and my dissertation to finish. My delight at the prospects of 95% salary and all educational expenses paid gradually faded, however, as we faced intensifying problems with our bright but dyslectic son. David was 14 but in the sixth grade and couldn’t read, while those of his age were Academy freshmen. We did our best to find a technical school for him. But nothing was available for under 16 year olds. Eventually I decided to surrender the education leave and resign, if necessary, and find a job where David could work with me.

About that time the vice chairman of the LaVida Mission board, a boyhood friend of mine, urged me to direct the LaVida Mission, 50 miles south of Farmington, NM. After earnest prayer, I handed in my resignation, effective mid-July, when my summer school assignment ended, just when I was to have started my study leave. In that decision I left my doctoral plans in God’s hands, with little human hope of finishing. For I had limited time to complete and was heading to a heavily indebted, lay sponsored, mission school. But that detour proved providential. For until I accepted the LaVida call, I as yet knew nothing about Desmond Ford.

But right after returning from LaVida, where we had made the decision, Colin Standish, CUC president, asked me if I knew Desmond Ford. I said I remembered his name on articles in the Ministry, but knew nothing about him. To this he replied emphatically: “He is Adventism’s greatest theologian and he’s a heretic”! The large stack of correspondence with and about him got me started in my task of preparing to examine his views in my dissertation. For the next three years I studied these and everything I could get my hands on concerning him and his theology.

Isolated at LaVida while Des rapidly secured the support of Adventist theologians, I became increasingly restive and several times vainly tried to find someone to take my place. But with five acting directors, a deep plunge into debt, and a morale problem that had resulted in the resignation of all but two staff members during or at the close of the year school year prior to my coming, I was determined not to leave until I had a proper replacement.

Theology in Crisis: Ford’s Theology Examined
Meantime, Millie and Richard Westmoreland, and my sister and her husband, who was teaching nursing at Angwin, had become personal friends with Des and his wife. About the first of January, 1978, they called to say they were confused and urged us to come and live in their basement apartment while I wrote my dissertation. Pat was reluctant to live with relatives, so I said nothing more, but privately asked God to show us if that was His will. I had assumed that it was not His will until, three weeks later when we returned from prayer meeting Pat told me she felt we should take them up on their offer. Knowing that by this time I would be very late for the semester and not wanting to lose several months, I called my major professor the next morning to see if I might get in. After discussion with administrators she informed me that it was agreed upon, but that I would have to register by the following Monday morning.

But, this was mid-day on Thursday by this time. And I knew of no one to take my place or even anyone to call. So we asked God, if it was His will, to lead us directly to the right person. Almost immediately I was in touch with the new director, who arrived the very next day – Friday afternoon! Sunday morning I flew to New York and registered Monday morning.

Hearing of Geoffrey Paxton’s planned lectures near the General Conference office, I arranged to be there for all his public meetings and a secret meeting for the party faithful, concerning which a student told Colin. Amazingly, the notes I rapidly took contained virtually all the detail and in a like order as in Des’s October 27, 1979 repudiation of our sanctuary message.

Because of my doctoral examination of Ford’s views (Theology in Crisis) I was asked to participate in the fourth righteousness by faith committee, October 3-4, 1979, three and a half weeks before his repudiation. I was also a participant in the Glacier View examination the next August, 1980, where his denial of our sanctuary message was repudiated.

Coordinator of Native Ministries
Meanwhile, soon after becoming director of LaVida mission in 1975, I found there was no coordination to a scattered Native work. So I contacted Roger Wilcox, director of North American missions, to urge the need of a coordinator. He said they were considering that and would let me know when they were ready to do something about it. But by 1977, when I heard nothing from him, I suggested to my board that we build a fire under the GC by calling the presidents and treasurers of all four conferences that converge on the Navajo reservation to be our guests to discuss our need and to invite Wilcox to chair that meeting.

With Elder Wilcox in the chair and all four presidents and their treasurers present, there was an enthusiastic vote to recommend the appointment of a General Conference coordinator. I was beginning to work on my dissertation the next summer when he called me to attend a division wide meeting (1978) where there was again a unanimous vote to request a coordinator. Neil Wilson, then NAD president, assured us that, despite the fact that the agenda had been closed for some time, he would try to get it on the agenda for that fall. Two months later he was elected General Conference President and presided over the vote to appoint a Native coordinator.

I was not prepared, however, to respond to his call for me to be the coordinator and urged them to look high and low for someone else. But, when Neil called again six months later to tell me the spring counsel had voted to ask me to be the coordinator, despite my eagerness to get back to college teaching I agreed to initiate the process, hoping a permanent coordinator could be found in a couple of years. But, although for the next eight years I personally tried to find a replacement to suggest, that did not happen.

When in 1987 I finally turned in my resignation, I urged that I only be replaced if there were two or three regional coordinators. For one person to coordinate in all 48 states and Alaska as well as the huge country of Canada is far too much and the work done must be superficial. To fly eats up the travel budget very fast and a great deal of driving must still be done, as Native reservations (reserves) are a long way from international airports and you fly right over the people you want to serve. So you must still be conveyed scores or even hundreds of miles, either by expensive car rental or some volunteer driver. Nor can you go from one Native area to the next. Yet to travel effectively by car requires a great deal of time away from home and much time planning a long, detailed itinerary. Short trips might be only two or three weeks long. But most are from one to three months or more. And without any regional coordinators and few pastors who can dedicate a significant time to Native ministry, little can be accomplished.

Only after several vain efforts to get the brethren to enlarge the force and I was away from home eleven months each of the last two years did I resign (but continued to fill key appointments for most of the rest of the year, while serving as pastor in the Kamiah-Grangeville district, where I lived at the time). And then I gave them two geographical maps, one dividing the continent into four sections and the other three, and urged them not to fill my position until coordinators were placed in at least two or three of these regions. It was some time before they placed Monte Church in the north-west, Alaska, and western Canada district. Later, retiring Max Martinez agreed to coordinate the South-West.