The Delta House

August 30, 1998 - A Reason to Believe

My wife and I were living in Independence, MO, birthplace of Harry S. Truman. I had relocated there in May to run a fiber optic splicing project for Jones Intercable, and my wife joined me there in July.

Independence was a typical Midwest town; quiet, warm and full of good, church-going people. We met Mike and his family when my wife was on a job interview, and he invited her to his church. That Sunday, we attended services at Faith and Joy Family Church, a non-denominational Christian church that was not exactly like the Roman Catholic Church I attended as a child. There was tons of music and passionate preaching, and absolutely no kneeling. The service seemed to last forever, and there was no "script" that I could follow to get a clue as to when the service would end. These people actually read from the Bible, not a missal. And everyone was so incredibly nice that this Jersey boy almost couldn't stand it.

I was shocked.

But I was also amazed and delighted. I was at a point in my life where so much was going on. I had been married less than a year and was trying to figure that whole thing out. My job had me traveling constantly to places like Ft Worth and Kansas City, and I had no real "home". My parents, seemingly the perfect couple, were ending their 33 year marriage, and in short, I was questioning everything.

I needed some foundation in my life, some kind of guidance. And God and His Word were the answer. I became a Christian that July, but I didn't know just how real God was until that night in August.

Mike and his family had invited us to a Sunday evening service at a neighboring church to see a faith healer named Dave Duell. Ok, I know what you are thinking. Time to stop reading, right? Well, read on anyway.

I was and am skeptical of so-called "faith healers". Most just want to get your money like Steve Martin in Leap of Faith, but I believe that God can do anything and can use anyone to accomplish His will. This was such a case.

We listened to him preach with great authority and were impressed by his message and conviction. Then he started calling people up that wanted to be healed for specific ailments. He said things like "The Lord wants to heal somebody here with a ruptured disc in their lower back," and then someone would walk up there. Rather than putting his hand on their foreheads and pushing them backwards as is typical of faith healers, he either "chopped" at or blew air onto the person in front of him, then they went down.

I watched this for about 15 minutes and thought the same thing that you are probably thinking now, what a crock! Then he said "The Lord wants to heal someone with a job problem."

I had a job problem. I hated my boss with a passion, and he was coming to town the next day to meet with me. I had moved from my Jersey home to Texas under the guise of eventually owning part of his start-up telecom company. He told me I was to be paid a certain way with a salary, per diem, and housing allowance, as well as a trip to Jersey every two months. Then a few months after I arrived, he changed everything. I did the math on it, and figured that I was receiving about $48k worth of benefit working for him, but he wanted to pay me a straight salary of only $26k. And every time I asked him about the ownership, he came up with some BS and completely changed the subject. I was going to discuss all of this with him on Monday morning.

Now Mike, his wife and my wife were encouraging me to go up and be "healed". Eventually, I gave in. I walked up front and he asked me, "Do you have a jaw problem son?"

"What?"

"A jaw problem. The Lord told me that someone here tonight has a jaw problem that He wanted to heal."

"Oh. I'm sorry, I thought that you said a job problem," and I turned to walk back to my seat. He grabbed me by the arm, and turned me back around, laughing the whole time.

"Well, you don't have a job problem anymore," he said as he chopped his hand at my head.

The next thing I knew, I was lying on the floor with someone telling me not to move, and that it was alright. Well, I couldn't move. I felt like I had been struck by lightning. Eventually, I got up and went back to my seat.

When I got there, my wife was balling her eyes out. She asked me what it felt like, but I really couldn't even speak. She and Mike and his wife confirmed that they heard him say job problem, not jaw problem, as apparently everyone else in the building had heard.

On the way home, she reminded me that I had to meet with my boss the next day, and she asked me what I was going to say. I told her "Nothing, because I don't think that I am going to be working for him much longer."

He never made it to town that day as he was called away on other business. That Friday, I received a call about a résumé that I had submitted several weeks earlier. I was offered a job in the Los Angeles area making three times what I was currently earning. My job would be to inspect the work being performed by someone else and make sure that it is being done in accordance with the specs. So not only was I earning way more money, I was getting paid to watch someone do the same job that I used to do!

And yes, every bit of this story is true. That night changed my life because I saw and felt the power of God first-hand. This relationship has guided every part of my life since then.