It was monsoon season in South Vietnam and we had just had one of our early evening monsoon rains (what my friends from the southern US called “gully washers”) rumble through.
The rain had stopped, evening dark had settled in, and I was standing in the mud just outside our company area, watching the towering storm clouds and flashing lightning move northward away from us. I saw a group of three attack helicopters to the north of my position executing a fire mission on an area of jungle less than a mile away just outside our base camp perimeter. It was loud and colorful as the noise of distant thunder mixed with the sound of the mini-guns on the helicopters, and the lines of red fire from the tracers mixed with the flashes of distant lightning. Then the attack Hueys swung around and made another pass launching rockets into the darkness and the white streaks of the rockets blossomed into red and orange mushrooms as they hit. The assault continued for several minutes until the Hueys had run out of ammunition or completed the fire mission and swung away turning back toward the airfield. It was just like a scene from a war movie, except that it was real war, not a movie!
The scene still comes to my mind vividly fifty-eight years later! The massive monsoon thunderheads rising into the sky, lightning flashing back and forth between the towering clouds, and the streaming gunfire and streaking rockets from the Hueys pounding a suspected VC outpost. For some reason it made me think of the greatness and majesty of God’s power to create and the comparatively puny but deadly power of man to destroy.
In that moment, I found myself saying, “God I believe in you! If you’re real, I pray that you will lead me and guide me and allow me to really know you. I want to serve you. I want to offer my life to live for you and your purpose!” And I knew! In that moment I knew that God was real, that God had heard me, and that when I returned to “The World” at the end of my tour in Vietnam, that somehow I was going to serve God’s purpose. I was twenty-four years old when I experienced this God Encounter.
I did get back to the world and to my wife and daughter, and I did get on with my life. Through Bible studies with friends in our home, through a new awareness of the reality of the Holy Spirit, and through the wonderful opportunity to be involved in the Jesus People Movement, I came to know God more and more. Jean and I found opportunity to serve in practical ways and in spiritual ways we had never imagined.
Since that night 58 years ago, there have been opportunities, challenges, changes, steps of faith, choices large and small, and a lifetime of learning, teaching and walking with God. It’s not a straight line from then to now, but looking back, the path is clear.
In our twenties and early thirties, we moved from owning a business to serving as pastors, assisting outreach churches, then planting a church. In our later thirties and early forties we were serving as missionaries, writing training curricula, and developing Bible Training Centres in Jamaica. Our later forties and early fifties saw us moving from Jamaica to the UK, opening and developing Bible Training Centres in London and other locations, and taking the Training Centres to several countries in Africa. Then in our late fifties and sixties, moving back to the US and serving on the staff of a mega-church in Central Oregon, serving as part of the Superintendent’s team for the Cascade District of the Foursquare denomination, then continuing to mentor younger men and women, and writing. We also continued to make ministry trips to Africa to further develop the Training Centre ministry. In fact, I celebrated my 65th birthday month ministering in South Africa, Botswana, and Malawi! It’s been a great life all the way along, filled with experiences and challenges we never saw coming!
Still, as I think back to that night standing in the mud in Vietnam, I know 24-year-old Jim had an Encounter with God that set my life on a new course. Something happened in me that night, and there’s a direct link from that God Encounter to who Jean and I have become and what we’ve done from that day forward.
Over the next few weeks, I’ll share some stories of encounters and experiences with God. These stories kind of sort themselves into three categories: Experiences with God’s Presence, Experiences with God’s Power, and Experiences with God’s Provision. (Please excuse the alliteration! After fifty-plus years of preaching and teaching, sometimes I just can’t help it!)
Thanks for reading my story! I’d love to hear from you! Grace to you today!
Jim Stephens
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