On a recent overnight stay
with Dale and Cheryl Stultz in Anderson, IN, I browsed Dale’s book shelves and two self-published biographies jumped out at me. They were about
people with whom I had some personal experiences. I Will NEVER Say NO is a 178 page autobiography telling of the
ministry of Lavern and Aleta Beach, following his conversion as a Christian shortly
after they married.
Their ministry journey
began during the cold winter of January 1939 when Lavern was unemployed and
sitting in a movie house in Coldwater, MI. He was enjoying a brief respite from
the turmoil of his struggles to succeed as a responsible bread winner for his
family. He had worked at his temporary job long enough to draw a pay check and
send money home to his family, who were
sustained by the washings and ironings his wife took in.
While the movie proved
interesting, he could not escape the conviction that God was calling him to
invest his life in God’s service. Thus begins a life story summarized by the
commitment he made to God when he became a Christian. His conversion to Christ
led to a lifetime in Christian ministry under the auspices of the Church of God
(Anderson Convention), in which he was eventually ordained.
L.D.’s lifetime commitment
to God confirmed what became a fact of life for him, as well as the title of a
self-published autobiography” I will
NEVER Say NO. I first met the Beach’s in 1974 in North Platte, NE as part
of an entourage of youth and youth leaders from Battle Creek. We were en route
to the 1974 Denver International Youth Convention. I had arranged for our group
to overnight in North Platte and sleep in the sanctuary of their attractive
A-frame type structure.
They hosted us in a most
gracious manner. As an extra benefit, I enjoyed a tour of the huge Union
Pacific Bailey Rail Yard complex. Wikipedia describes it as halfway
between Denver and Omaha. It
covers 2,850 acres and is over 8 miles in length and 2 miles wide. It has 200
separate tracks totaling 315 miles of track
with 985 switches, 766 turnouts, and
17 receiving and 16 departure tracks. Union
Pacific employs more than 2,600 people in North Platte, who are responsible for the day-to-day
operations.
An average of 139 trains and over 14,000 railroad cars pass through Bailey Yard daily. They sort some 3,000 cars
daily using the yard’s two humps.
The eastbound hump is a 34 feet tall mound and the westbound hump is 20 feet
high. These are used to sort four cars a minute into one of the 114
"bowl" tracks, 49 tracks for the westbound trains and 65 for
eastbound. The bowl tracks form trains headed across North America, East, West
and to the Gulf-coast of the United States, as well as the borders of Canada
and Mexico.
Also included are 3 locomotive and servicing centers
called eastbound run thru, westbound run thru, and the service track that
handles more than 8,500 locomotives per month, a locomotive repair shop that
can repair 750 locomotives monthly, and
a car repair facility that handles nearly 50 cars daily. The car repair shop
replaces 10,000 pairs of wheels each year. The yard features an in-motion wheel
defect detector developed by Union Pacific that uses ultrasound to inspect each wheel. It
is the only such detector in the world. UP
has also developed a method for changing wheels in the field on empty westbound
coal trains, which enables three workers to use a hydraulic jack under the couplers
between two cars and exchange the trucks. This
has reduced the time needed to replace trucks from up to 12 days to 8–12
minutes.
Locomotives can be serviced in a NASCAR like pit stop
facility called a Run-Thru staffed by four different crafts—an electrician,
machinist, fireman oiler, and a car man. Locomotives
are serviced in 45 minutes without detaching them from their trains. The cars
go through the car department to get fixed and the locomotives go to the diesel
shop.
Because of the enormous amount of products that pass
through Bailey Yard, Union Pacific describes the yard as an “economic barometer of America.”
While there I learned of an upcoming Mission’s work camp
the Beach’s planned for building a parsonage at Cotton Tree Bay Church on
Cayman Brac about 90 miles south of Jamaica. Working with the Beach’s was
Pastor Robert Hazen and an experienced and skilled group from Lansing Pennway.
I was interested! I could easily
rendezvous with them at I94 and I69 so I signed up.
I
Will NEVER say NO describes L. D. Beach’s search for God as a young married man in his hometown of
Coldwater, MI, doing his best to keep his little family afloat in Marion, IN.
Their journey took them from Marion to Wabash, IN in 1943. They launched their
ministry ship by working with that small struggling congregation at Wabash, a
state project.
Mankato, MN; Port Huron, and Mt Pleasant, MI; Sioux Falls,
SD; Fairfield, IL followed, each bringing their achievements, disappointments,
and all the extraordinary personal and family experiences that go with spending
life in the bubble of a church parsonage. Coldwater and Sanford, MI followed. Finally, there came
that hiatus at Sanford that allowed them to invest a year of volunteer service at
Cayman Brac, BWI.
They returned stateside to serve at North Platte, NE where
I became personally acquainted with them, after knowing of them for many years.
Chapter eighteen outlines the story that crowned their career, in which they
took great pride: “To build a Parsonage”. It outlines the story of Faith Villa, the attractive cement block
(with stone surface) home that I helped build on the beaches of Cotton Tree Bay
Church of God, Cayman Brac.
For me, that was a priceless experience. I would never
forget Oley Brown and others whose names escape me momentarily--some of the
greatest of God’s humble servants. Project Coordinator, L. D. Beach concludes
with this simple statement: “The work campers arrived
on the scheduled date and the parsonage was completed on schedule. This was a
great accomplishment for this congre-gation. Upon the completion of the
parsonage, ‘Faith Villa’, for the Cotton Bay tree Church of God, we returned to
North Platte, Nebraska and continued our pastoral duties.”
The Beach’s retired and the kids published dad’s book,
complete with a cd in the jacket at the end of the book. Meanwhile, Lavern and
Aleta graduated their course with honors and went to be with the Lord, having fulfilled
their commitments.
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