What a day it was for me when Lon Woodrum entered my life. Though he had walked with champions and giants of the "Long Gospel Road", he became one of my dearest friends. We were working a camp meeting, together, in Bedford County, PA. Good Ol' "Bethel Park!" What a debt I owe her!

His sermons were poetic, laced with humor, and resonated with the reasonings of a seasoned "man of God." We did "duets" together, as he called them. He would recite a poem in between the verses of my songs. He always said, "I can't sing; I KNOW I can't. To me, music looks like blackbirds strung up in a barbed wire fence!" But my how he could "read" a poem!

We were seated in a Bedford, PA. restaurant after service one evening, and I said to him, 'Doc, you need to record some of your poems. It would be a shame for you to leave this world, and not have some of your material recorded.' He agreed, and suggested we do an album "together." I was in awe of the idea of recording with one of his stature, but I agreed. That was in the early 70's, when he was a young "72." I was forty years his junior.

The first project was an album, featuring his famous poem, "OLD ZION." It was well received by those who got copies of it; one man going so far as to say, "I wouldn't take a thousand dollars for my copy if I knew I couldn't get another one!"

We continued working together, and even when we were not "together," I used his poems in my concert, and talked about 'my friend.' As the next twenty plus years came and passed, we grew closer, and God allowed me to be with him when he crossed over to be with our Greatest Friend the Lord Jesus.

We spent many happy hours together, laughing, discussing the Bible, world events, and helping bear one another's burdens. We expressed our regrets that our paths had not crossed sooner. He flew to New England once to appear in some of my concerts, and he was loved in that area.

We drove to San Diego together in my van, and he registered fairly high on the old Richter Scale at Skyline Wesleyan Church, where Pastor John Maxwell treated him like an ancient prophet. No one appreciated Lon more, I suspect, than John.

We talked about his funeral, and how he wanted things to be, but in the end it fell to me to do his memorial. The members of Glendale Presbyterian Church were like angels of mercy to Doc in his final years. God surely showed his Love for Lon when he put them in his life.

Lon Woodrum - Man of God

"Early in life I scrapped religion. Unbelief was easy to me in the wake of painful disillusionment. The divorce of my left me in the streets when I was a kid. Life to me appeared as a meaningless jungle, where only the tough survive."

So begins the testimony of a "man of God." Lon Riley Woodrum was born in Illinois, and ended up in the gutter in Missouri. From the moment he stepped into that godless life of crime, no one would have held much hope for him. He drank booze, used dope and served time in jail.

It all might have ended with him making an eternal plunge into perdition, but ... he walked into a tent meeting one day.

The evangelist had the poetic name: Sunshine Carl Walker. It intrigued Lon that such a spectacle could attract the interest of so many people. He attended more out of curiosity than a desire to know Christ. Walker talked about two thieves on crosses, and particularly of a third Man, who was spread-eagled on a cross between them.

One of the thieves turned to the Man on the middle cross, and said, "Lord, remember me when you come into Your kingdom." And the middle Man made him an unbelievable promise:

"This day you will be with Me in paradise!" The thief straightened up on his iron spikes. Suddenly, he was being made new - a hallelujah bursting forth from his soul. Lon questioned in his heart "just what all this stuff meant."

Before he could even begin analyzing his feelings Walked said, "If any one, even the worst of criminals, should turn to this same Jesus right now, he could become a new person; filled with joy unspeakable and full of glory!"