Going to College the First Time                                                                         October 29, 2019

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According to some scientists, there may be more than one universe.

 

So I need to begin by saying I was born in this universe at a very early age. That is, early age for me, not the universe. According to my high school science teacher, the universe is 13 billion and 64 years old. (She said it was 13 billion years old and that was 64 years ago.)

 

I know I was born because I have a birth certificate to prove it. Arkansas wanted to make sure everyone was certified at birth. They put ink on my feet and pressed the imprint onto a sheet of paper. I’ve been asked many times to provide my birth certificate but no one has asked me to take off my shoes to prove that it is really me. 

 

My dad was a Baptist pastor and my mother was a school teacher so I could be good and educated. Some may be asking if either took. 

 

Now Arkansas was a good state to be from. It was easy to know it’s position in relation to other states. It was usually at the bottom. Arkansas was the only state that had a bank that didn’t close during the depression. It never got word to close. Arkansas didn’t know a depression hit and doesn’t know it is over.

 

I was born in a white house with a large porch that went across the entire front. The doctors then made house calls and very few people were born in a hospital. 

The house was across the highway from the railroad. I’m sure the noise of a train clickety clacking by added to the sounds of my first cry. 

 

My mother thought the house was marked somehow by the hobos who rode the rails. Our house often had someone at the back door asking for a meal. My mother would never turn the vagabond away hungry. 

 

At four years of age, I had no idea what it meant when Pop said, “We’re going to move.” 

 

Soon were were in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, so my parents could study at Ouachita Baptist College.

 

Later Pop, J. Russell Duffer, would tell me about the night they made that life changing decision.

 

Pop felt God’s call to pastor in his late teen years. Because he had dropped out to support his family, that meant he had to return to high school. He was a little older than most of his classmates but he got the HS diploma. 

 

At that time, many Arkansas churches had only part time pastors. He soon had five quarter-time churches. Quarter-time meant preaching at a church once a month. You do the math to figure out how he could pastor five. 

 

He had married to Rhoda Alice Goings and soon they had their first child.

 

In a few years he became the full-time pastor at Marmaduke Baptist Church. It was a typical small town church with walls painted white and members dressed in their Sunday best. 

 

Their first born only lived 18 months but within the next six years Danny Frank, Jerry Ralph and I were born.

 

One Sunday evening he and Mom were seated next to the black wood stove in the kitchen. Pop was unusually quiet, deep in thought. 

 

Looking at the floor, instead of Mom, he said, “Tonight I preached something I don’t believe.” 

 

“What was that?” she asked shocked.

 

“I preached that God would supply all your needs according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” (Phillippians 4:19)

 

Mom’s eyes got big as she looked at him intensely. “What do you mean?” she questioned.

 

“If I believed that, I’d enroll in college.”

 

Thoughtful discussions followed about finances, future, children, faith, relationships and much more late into the night. The pros and cons were laid out and gone over a second and third time. The decision would have to be a joint decision with both in faithful agreement.

 

In the early morning hours they knelt beside their bed, prayerfully committing themselves to a God led decision, to start college. They would be dependent upon God’s promise. They were leaving a good growing church, moving across Arkansas and settling in an area where they had never lived and had little contacts. They would be moving from both of their families and finding a new home miles away.

 

They contacted Ouachita Baptist College that week and completed the applications, not just for Pop but also for Mom. They were accepted and quickly started planning their move. With the help of the school, they had a place to live close to campus. Dad resigned his church on a Sunday and we left on a Monday. 

 

When we arrived and got unpacked he went to the school office to see if there were any opportunities to preach. The dean in charge of helping students find work suggested he preach at Third Baptist Church of Malvern which was without a pastor. It was arranged and we drove the 30 something miles up there the following Sunday. The church liked what they heard and voted to call him as pastor. So the Lord provided so well, we never missed a weekly paycheck. 

 

I was going to Ouachita Baptist College for the first time.