Oklahoma is OK, but I’ll take NEW ENGLAND anyway!

It was a cold November 1965 day when the two-tone Rambler I was driving pulled into Boston for the first time. David Wilkerson, author of: “The Cross and the Switchblade,” whose Brooklyn, NY - based Teen Challenge Center I had worked with since April, had asked me to consider becoming the Boston Center’s “Field Representative.” Boston didn’t seem like a place God would want me, at first glance, but first impressions are not always reliable witnesses. In fact, upon entering the Boston location of Teen Challenge, I knew immediately that this was where God wanted me. For seven and a half months I worked with that center, as I had done in Brooklyn; and during those months, I fell in love with almost everything about those six states!

While Teen Challenge itself was not to be a permanent ministry for me, it was the seedling from which years of concert ministry would spring. Those “cold New Englanders” became some of my warmest friends! I could not have known that frigid November day that God was about to introduce me to some of the kindest, most generous, and compassionate people on earth.

Having driven in excess of 100,000 miles in those six states since 1965, I came to know the nooks and crannies of New England better than I know my native Georgia. Churches responded to my funny southern accent, and they even tried to help me learn to speak “English.”

Two churches stand out greatly: First Congregational in North Brookfield, Massachusetts, where I met the Langille family, and the Community Church in Brownington Center, Vermont, where I was ordained. Pastor and Mrs. Ralph Tobyne of that church had also become my friends earlier, while I was a guest in their home.

It was another win'try day in the early 70’s, that, I announced to my friends one Sunday morning at North Brookfield, that I was leaving that day for Maine. Snow was everywhere and the temperature was 22 BELOW zero! I had to remove the battery from the 1965 Plymouth Valiant I was diving and take it into the house at night so the car would start in the morning.

After the service, a tall stranger introduced himself to me and informed me, “he was going with me to Maine.” He said, “weather conditions being what they are you need someone familiar with this kind of weather, with you. I didn’t argue with him; after all, he stood about 6’2” tall. During lunch in the home of Mel and Gertrude Bitter, Pastor Bitter expressed his joy that Jim Langille was going with me to Maine.

Pastor Bitter’s word was sufficient confirmation for me that Jim was to go. We were soon ‘off to Maine,’ or, so I thought. God had a plan I was totally unaware of. We went to Salem, NH where I sang for the evening service at First Baptist Church. The next morning rather than traveling north on I-95 ‘to Maine,’ Jim suggested we go I-93 and route 3 toward Lancaster, NH. He wanted to meet my evangelist friend Clinton White.

We stopped by Clinton’s office and then Jim suggested, that, since I really had nothing specific in Maine other than to visit friends that we go west to St. Johnsbury, Vermont. Instead of taking route 2 east, to Bangor, Maine, we headed west. Jim and I were having such a great time it didn't take much persuasion.

We arrived at the Bible Institute of New England’s student dorm where we visited with our friends Ralph and Pauline Tobyne. Ralph gave up his job, sold his home, and he and Pauline were students preparing for the ministry.