Andy's Story

Andy being buried with Christ by Bro Walter.

Andy is the long haired blonde to my left.

For us Andy's story began in 1976 in League city, Texas. I had left the GTE employment and was serving as Business Administrator of League City First Baptist Church. At that time the church was located at 700 2nd in downtown League City.

As I was in my office, I recieved a phone call from a young man who asked if he could have a package delivered to our chuch. Being suspisicous I advised him to use general delivery at the local post office. He said OK and hung up.

The very next day I recieved a letter from Alabama addressed to whom it may concern. the letter was from a father in Hunstville. He advised that his son had left home and joined a carnival that was stopping in League city. He pleaded with me to see if I could help his son in some way. Needless to say this got my attention as I knew the call was from his son.

I got in my car and went to the location of the carnival. To my amazement they were were packing up to move on out of town. After locating the person in charge, he told me that the Mayor Johnnie Arolfo was making them leave town because one of their workers had broken windows in the store front of a business. I asked him where I could find Andy and he said in the city JAIL!!

I promptly went to the jail and sure nuff there was a youg man of about 19 sitting in a cell, As I talked with the chief of police he said that Andy had caused quite a bit of damage and was charged with disorderly conduct. His fine was LARGE. then I went to see the pastor and asked him if the church could pay his bail and fine. My thought was to have him work for the church until he paid us back. (you see I believe there is no free lunch.) The pastor agreed and then that brought up another problem, where would he live? I then went home to get Carolyn's OK for him to stay with our family since we had a 4bedroom house. this meant that he would have to share a room with either Todd or Terry. Everything was set so back to the jail to present this plan to Andy. Needless to say, Andy thought this was a great plan!!!!!

So Andy began his almost year long stay in Todd's room. He also began his work at the church as Bill Bacherts assistant custodian. It was also a requirement that he attend church with us, so he heard a lot of gospel preaching from Bro Walter.

It was'nt long until Andy realized his need for the Savior and prayed to recieve Jesus! this led to the next decision, baptism. He agreed he should but asked me where and I told him we baptised in the baptistry in the church. His response was "did'nt Jesus get baptised by John in the river"? I agreed. The church had aquired 50 acres of land west of town for our new location and this property happened to border Clear Creek. Sooo, to the creek one Sunday for Andy's baptism as you can see in the picture on this blog.

After awhile andy felt the need to return to his father in Alabama. (sounds like the prodigal son story in theBible). so one day I took him to the freeway and let him out. He caught a ride within a few minutes. Our whole family was sad to see him go. His mother and father were so happy and praising God to see him. My thought on this is that God engineered these events to bring Andy into His forever family.

The last we heard was that he had located to Hawaii and was a land owner'/farmer.