CHAPTER 6

We finally did it. It was hard to believe we we’re really part of a Christian “fold”, but it was true.  Even though we were excited about Jesus and the new way we’d opened our hearts to him, we still had a lot of reservations about Christianity in general. We’d spent so many years wading through spiritual counterfeits and wandering down the wrong paths that we were a bit wary of swallowing everything we heard. Just because somebody says something is Christian doesn’t mean it really is. We wanted pure, undiluted Christianity—not the “slightly modified” version. For some time, though, it seemed like an unseen hand was at work, bringing the right people into our lives—and keeping the wrong people out.

Keith was painfully cautious about spending time with anyone who might influence him in a wrong way spiritually. In fact on the very day I raised my hand at the Vineyard Fellowship, an old friend of Keith’s had come over to visit us. His name was Doug, and after catching up on old times Keith told him all about what we were going through spiritually and our recent visit to the Vineyard. Doug seemed to lean toward eastern thought forms, but as we talked about Christianity something seemed to click. Doug said, “I know somebody who’s a Christian! He’s really heavy-duty.”

“Really?” said Keith. I was interested, too.

“Yeah! He’s eighty-seven years old, and really wise.”

“Where does he live?” asked Keith.

“He lives right here in Woodland Hills,” Doug answered. Keith and I were still fairly new to this community, and the little house on Dolorosa Street. “I was going to go see him tomorrow. Do you want to meet him? His name’s Richard Gene Lowe. He’s Chinese.”

Keith’s face fell. “Chinese? Forget it!”

“Why?”

“I’m not into eastern religions anymore—all that stuff’s occult. Forget it.”

“But this guy’s a Christian,” Doug insisted.

“He’s probably into some eastern mix of Christianity—with Jesus and Buddha and eastern mysticism all blended together. I don’t want anything to do with that stuff.”

I thought that was the end of the matter. However, the day after I’d given my heart to Jesus, there was a knock at our door. Keith jumped off the couch to answer it, and I was right behind him. There on our front porch was Doug with a sheepish grin on his face. Standing right next to him was a short, silver-haired Chinese man—obviously his friend, Richard Gene Lowe.

It was an awkward moment, but before Keith had a chance to react they both stepped inside. Once inside the door, Richard immediately gave each of us a big hug. Then both of his hands shot up into the air as he said joyfully, “Praise the Lord! Praise God!”

It was an odd thing. But for the first time, those words didn’t sound weird at all. And something about Richard’s face instantly drew me.

Richard Gene Lowe was radiant. His happy grin pushed his round cheeks up toward his eyes, making them all crinkled and laughing around the edges. It was almost as if there was some kind of a holy light streaming from this little man. He had something special. It was the kind of inner joy we wanted. Somehow, I instinctively knew it was for real. Even Keith seemed to relax at once. I was thankful, because it wouldn’t have been beyond Keith to throw them both out.

We were at once captivated by this little man, and we ended up spending the whole day together. Our conversation ranged from music to the deity of Jesus. We also learned from Doug that when he had told Richard about us, Richard insisted on being brought to our house so he could meet us. And now, we were very glad that he had.

Most especially, we were fascinated by the incredible story of Richard’s life. Richard told us he’d become a Christian in China some seventy years before, when he was just fourteen. He almost married once but when he came to America his fiance changed her mind, and he never married. He also told us he never took any medicine. “Except an aspirin once,” he said. “The Lord always heals me.” Then he told us story after story of how he’d been healed.

Once, when he was younger and working with big diesel trucks, he’d jumped up on a running board and slipped. When he grabbed something, his hand wrapped around a hot exhaust pipe. The burn was so bad that his hand was bright red and the skin was peeling off. He prayed and asked God to heal him, and then wrapped it up. “The next day,” he said, “it was totally healed. There was only a slight trace to show that it had ever been burned.”

Richard was full of wonderful stories, and we eagerly listened to one after another-testimonies of his own hearings and the hearings of other Christians that he’d witnessed over the years. It was beyond mystical-it was miraculous! And he didn’t seem to be making these stories up, either.

As he talked Keith kept looking at me with an astonished, “can-you-believe-this?” look on his face. Keith had been wondering if Christians believed in healing. Keith had seen hearings while growing up, and read in his Christian Science studies that the sick are not healed simply by declaring there isn’t any sickness, but by knowing there is none. just a few months earlier Keith wrote in his journal,

I will not take any steps to cut myself off from Christian Science until I feel sure that its benefits of healing the sick are as plenty in a Christian’s life. . . .

It seemed incredible that, immediately after making a commitment to Christ, Keith’s questions about healing were being answered by this unlikely little man-someone who pursued us even when he knew we didn’t want to meet him!

During the course of that first day with Richard, Keith brought up something that was weighing heavily on his heart Todd.

Keith described the meeting we’d been to, where everyone was shouting out scriptures. He also mentioned the name of the group and their leader. “Ever heard of these people?”

Richard’s eyebrows went up slightly and he nodded. “Oh yes, I’ve heard of them.”

“Well what do you know about them?” Keith asked. “My best friend, Todd, is living with them. The last time we talked he told me he smashed and burned his amplifier and even burned the cross that was around his neck because this group is heavy-duty against materialism. What could be wrong with wearing a cross? It sounds weird to me.”

Richard shook his head and said quietly, “It’s not good. They are not true Christians. If he’s your friend we need to pray. We must try to help him.”

That was all Keith needed to hear. He was off the couch in a flash, dialing Todd’s number. As soon as Todd was on the line, Keith made him promise to meet us at Shadow Ranch Park the following afternoon.

The next day Todd did meet us at Shadow Ranch Park and we cut Richard loose on him. We also told Todd all about our experiences with the Vineyard Fellowship and all the neat new people we’d been meeting. This impressed Todd because he’d prayed to receive Jesus too. But this group he was going to had told him they were the only true church. After what seemed like hours of talking and debate Todd saw that, out of his zeal to make a radical commitment, he’d gotten hooked up with the wrong people. Finally, he said, “All this really makes sense. I’m going to leave the group right away.”

Keith was so relieved and I, too, was elated at this turn of events.

It was amazing to me how much satisfaction Keith got out of “rescuing” Todd out of that very dangerous spiritual situation. We now knew that the group was a cult. I might have taken a more passive route, figuring Todd would eventually see for himself that he was in the wrong place. But not Keith. He couldn’t, wouldn’t rest while he knew his friend needed help. That was the way he was. If there was anything he could do or say to help someone he loved, he always went for broke.

Things were really starting to happen fast. We were so grateful for Richard. He became one of our best friends and the three of us, along with Todd, became inseparable for months. We spent hours and days together, running all over town. Richard had never learned how to drive, so we’d pick him up at his little bachelor apartment—which was so stacked with books and newspapers it was beyond clutter. We often went to garage sales, and once, for $5, he bought a suit that I altered to fit him. We also loved to pick up chili dogs at our favorite stand. Richard would laugh as he jumped into “Victor”—joking about how he kept up with us at his age. And the whole time Keith, Todd and I pumped Richard with questions about God and prayer. Richard was especially big on prayer. He loved telling us about the way it changes things.

“Prayer must be a two-way conversation,” he insisted. “You talk, God listens. God talks, you listen.”

“What do you mean God talks? Can you hear him?” Keith asked.

“Some people have heard his voice. I hear him in my heart. He speaks to me in a still small voice.”

I asked, “How do you know it's just not your own thoughts you’re hearing?”

“That’s why you need to get to know God. So you can learn the difference.”

In the midst of all our questions, we found out that Richard believed Jesus was God. Even though Keith and I were still skeptical on that point, it didn’t turn us off to Richard like it might have in the past. In fact, it didn’t change the way we felt about him at all. We loved him and there was no question that he loved us.

Since Keith was never one to keep a good thing to himself, he wanted all of our friends to meet Richard, too. We immediately started inviting people to our house so Richard could talk to them about God. Todd was usually there and so were some friends from The Bla Bla. Debbie Docis had been one of Keith’s “fans”, but she soon gave her heart to the Lord at one of these little studies. Since Richard loved to pray, he began teaching us how to talk to God. We’d all sit in a circle and hold hands. Then Richard would pray as we tentatively followed, offering some of the first prayers we’d ever said out loud. Richard said, “The reason we pray out loud sometimes is so we can all agree with each other’s prayers.”

Richard was always teaching us but he did it in a way that just seemed natural. He never made us feel bad about all the things we didn’t know. Never made us feel like we needed a lot of help. He just quietly and kindly helped us without pushing us further than we were able to go.

Not only was Richard an almost daily influence on us, but as we continued going to the Vineyard, Kenn Guiliksen was beginning to help us sort through our questions. In fact, it was Kenn who finally helped Keith settle the “God question”.

One night after a meeting, Keith and I walked up to him and Keith said, “I know you believe Jesus is God—but what does that make the Father? There’s only one God. Can you help me understand why you believe the way you do?”

Kenn smiled. “Keith, what you’re struggling with is called the Trinity—the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. It really is a mystery. But I think I can shed some light on it for you.”

Kenn picked up his Bible and turned toward the back, running his finger down the page until he found what he was looking for.

“Here, Keith, listen to this,” Kenn said. “This scripture Colossians chapter two, verse nine—is talking about Jesus: ‘For in him all the fulness of deity dwells in bodily form . . .”

Keith looked blank. “I still don’t get it.”

“Well, look at it this way. Just think of water, steam, and ice. They’re all made out of exactly the same substance, but all three are distinctly different. God is a lot like that. But the analogy breaks down. An ice cube can’t be a puddle of water and a puff of steam all at the same time—but God is all three at the same time!”

Nobody had ever said it to us quite so simply. I could tell something was clicking in Keith’s mind as he listened. I wasn’t sure how I felt, but as usual I was taking most of my cues from Keith. And he was keeping his thoughts to himself just now.

A short time later, we were visiting my mom one evening and Keith took a walk by himself after dark. When he came back in he looked very serious.

“I need to talk to you. Alone.”

I was in the middle of trying to talk my mom into giving her heart to Jesus and felt a bit reluctant about just getting up and leaving. “Right now?”

Keith nodded his head. “Let’s take a walk.”

Once we got outside I could see how serious Keith really was. When we got down the steps and out onto the sidewalk he turned to me and simply said, “I bought it.”

“You bought what? What do you mean?”

“I believe Jesus is God. I might not understand it totally right now, but something in my heart tells me it’s true.”

Now I was the one who got serious. I looked up at the moon and wondered what Keith’s decision would mean for me. I found out in two seconds.

“Mel, you need to accept it, too.”

“I want to—if it’s true. But I don’t know if it is.”

“Just do it Mel, just take a leap of faith if you need to. I think it’s the thing that’s been holding us back. I want you to believe with me. I don’t want to leave you behind.”

Kenn’s analogy came back to me—water, steam, ice. It did make sense, in a mysterious sort of way. Since asking Jesus into my heart, it really did seem like I had a lot more faith. Actually I felt a little cornered, but I mustered up all the new-found faith I had at the moment and simply said, “Okay. I’ll do my best to buy it, too.”

We were over the edge. We were not only Christians, we found a group of people to learn about Jesus with, and two men we really trusted to help us along the way—Richard and Kenn.

We launched into Christianity with a bright burst of enthusiasm and optimism. It was like being shot out of a cannon—and we hit the ground running. Now all of a sudden we started noticing Christian symbols everywhere. While driving down the freeway we’d watch for cars with Praise The Lord bumper stickers on them so we could drive by and give them the “one way” sign we’d just learned—pointing our index finger to the sky, signifying there’s only one way to heaven. Then we’d wave at them like they were long-lost relatives. Seeing a Christian bumper sticker meant someone who loved Jesus was driving that car!

We felt like we joined a big club with millions of people already in it, and we were excited about meeting all of them. We also noticed lots of people wearing “fish” and “dove” necklaces, pins, and T-shirts. We learned the “fish” was a secret sign for the early Church during their times of persecution, and the “dove” represented the Holy Spirit. I’d seen these “secret codes” before, but never knew what they meant. Now if we saw someone wearing a fish or a dove we’d walk up and eagerly say, “Hi. You’re a Christian, aren’t you? We are, too!”

So many things in our life started changing so fast that it was a real shock to everyone—including us. For one thing, instead of going to parties all the time, we started going to Bible studies almost every night. Besides the Vineyard, our favorite home study was up in the Hollywood Hills at a tiny, two-story house owned by the Cramers—a couple in show business. They had a goat tied up on their front porch, and in their loft they had a monkey in a large circus cage that chattered through our Bible studies. One “regular” there had starred in a movie with Liza Minnelli, and he was now a Christian recording artist. And Leo, their next door neighbor who had a drinking problem, was there whenever he was “dry.” It was almost a typical Hollywood crowd—only it was different. These were the kinds of people we were used to getting together with, but this time it wasn’t to have a party. It was to learn about following Jesus. And we learned about Jesus everywhere we could.

One night we went to Hillcrest Christian Church in Thousand Oaks with Richard and Todd. We heard a man named Hans Christian talk about the suffering church—that is, Christians who lived in Communist countries, who could not openly worship God. Many of them were murdered or put in hard-labor camps or insane asylums. We were shocked. I felt stirred in my heart, but something far more moving happened to Keith. He wrote:

My heart was speared by the Spirit to compassion. I cried for the suffering church and pledged to help take on some of that burden.

The next night Keith told some friends all about the suffering church to help get the word out and raise prayer support for persecuted believers. Keith also asked Kenn if Hans Christian could speak at the Vineyard. Kenn said yes. Two nights later Hans Christian spoke and Kenn gave everyone an opportunity to give toward this man’s work with the suffering church. Five hundred dollars was collected! Keith was thrilled about playing a part in helping to ease the burden for others who were hurting. He also added the suffering church to his new prayer list.

After hearing about the suffering church we had some questions about why our pastor lived in such a huge house in such a wealthy neighborhood. We were relieved to hear that Kenn and his family were “house-sitting” for a friend. It was a big blessing to them because they barely had any money.

We were also totally gung ho all of a sudden about getting everyone we knew to “accept Jesus”.

At first, though, we had better luck leading strangers to the Lord than we did our friends. Except for our friend Debbie Docis from The Bla Bla—who was so radiantly excited about Jesus we called her a “lightbulb on legs”—few of our friends were interested. One night in June we had a late dinner with some of our new Christian friends, then we all played penny-ante poker for fun. We were on a winning streak and Keith started joking about driving to Las Vegas.

 “Hey, we’re on a roll,” Keith said, with a gleam in his eye. “Let’s go to Vegas!”

One of the guys said, “You’re crazy. It’s already after ten.”

“Come on. It’ll be fun. I can make it there in four hours.”

Keith was starting to sound more serious and I was a little worried because I didn’t know if real gambling was okay now that we were Christians. But I was always up for an adventure.

Keith ended up persuading everyone and even phoned Debbie and talked her into calling in sick the next day so she could go with us. We headed out, and by midnight we hit the desert. We were all praying and singing as we drove. One guy picked up his Bible and it happened to fall open at Isaiah 42, which talks about praising God in the desert. He read it out loud and we really got excited then. Just as he closed his Bible we saw two hitchhikers, barely visible in the dark desert night.

Keith prayed, “Lord, please send someone to pick them up.”

Immediately, he hit the brakes and pulled off to the side, saying, “God just told me the someone was us!”

A young couple climbed into the back of “Victor”. Keith laughed and said, “You just fell into a den of Christians!”

“We don’t mind,” they said as they got comfortable. Their names were Scott and Lori, and as we drove on we learned that they weren’t married but were living together. I also noticed that Lori was holding her head in pain. She told us she had a blood clot on her brain that was too big to remove. The doctors only gave her about six months to live. We all glanced at each other and started praying silently.

After a while Scott said, “Hey, this is kinda strange, but for the last couple of days I’ve had a terrible backache. When we got in, it was killing me. But suddenly—just like that—the pain disappeared.” We told them we’d been praying for Lori and he must have got a healing instead! We talked to them nonstop about God’s love on the whole ride up north.

When we got to Las Vegas, we headed straight for a casino and left them a few dollars richer. Near dawn, we all checked into one room and just lounged around. Scott and Lori were still with us and it was natural to start praying for each other. One guy had a cold and after our prayers he said he felt better. My heart started pounding as I thought about praying for Lori. What if God wanted to heal her blood clot? I finally said, “Lori, do you want us to pray for you?”

“Oh, yes. Please . . .”

We gathered around her and laid our hands on her back and shoulders and prayed for about five minutes. When we stopped, Lori started to cry.

“Why are you crying?” Keith asked.

“It’s gone! The clot is gone! It was really big and I can’t feel it anymore!” she said. Then she began to sob.

All the time she was talking she was hitting the back of her head really hard—on the spot where the blood clot apparently had been. When we realized that God had healed her we all started crying for joy.

Lori got up and took a prescription bottle out of her purse and walked into the bathroom with it. I saw her pour some little pills that thinned her blood into the toilet. “I won’t be needing these anymore,” she announced.

We were all in awe of what had just happened. We’d been talking to them about becoming Christians on the whole drive down. Lori’s dad was a minister. She’d slipped away from God, but now saw that she needed to make a new commitment. Scott wanted to receive the Lord, too. Then Keith tackled another subject.

“You know, it’s wrong for you to be living together without being married. If you really love each other, you need to get married.”

To our surprise, they decided to get married on the spot. Keith opened the phone book and found a preacher who did “house calls” and he came and married them under a palm tree by the pool of the Thunderbird Hotel, where we were staying. What a time! Getting two people saved, healed, and married in less than twenty-four hours! We didn’t see how it could get much better than that!

Later that day, we gave the newlyweds some extra cash, dropped them off at the freeway entrance so they could continue their journey north, and headed back home so we wouldn’t miss our Friday night fellowship at the Vineyard.

Two weeks later, Scott and Lori came to visit us and we took them to the Friday night meeting at the Vineyard. Kenn gave Lori a few minutes to share and she told their incredible story—along with the clincher.

“I went to see my doctor and didn’t tell him about the healing. He took an X-ray as usual and I waited for the results. Then he came in and clipped the film on the light board in front of me.”

“Tell me what you see,” he said.

“Nothing.”

“That’s right, nothing! But these things don't just go away.”

 “I know, but it’s gone!”

The doctor had called in three other experts, and Lori told them all the whole story about how God healed her. “They all walked out shaking their heads,” she reported, smiling.

Then her doctor told her to make another appointment, but when she got into the reception area the nurse gave her another doctor’s number. “The nurse told me my doctor was so upset that he didn’t want to see me anymore! I just give God the glory for my healing. My doctors gave me no hope, but Jesus gave me new life!”

The whole room burst into cheers and applause for the goodness and faithfulness of God. Keith and I were so thrilled to know that the healing had been verified by her doctors. Scott and Lori came to our house after the Vineyard to spend the night. And we began to sense that things weren’t going too well in their relationship. Scott went to bed first and Lori confided to us that Scott did not want to follow Jesus anymore. He was getting drunk and saying he didn’t want anything to do with God. Lori was heartbroken.

We spent quite a bit of time encouraging Lori and praying with her before we went to bed. But once we were alone we tried to make some sense out of the situation.

Keith said it first. “How could this happen? How can Scott turn from God?”

“I don’t know. When he prayed with us in Las Vegas it seemed like he meant it.”

“He saw God heal Lori, too.”

“I can’t figure it out,” I replied.

The next day Keith wrote, “Lori is still on fire, but Scott has fallen away.”

Before they left the next day, Keith talked with Scott, but didn’t feel he got through to him. We told Lori we’d be praying for them and to keep in touch with us. We expected everyone who loved Jesus to be as excited as we were. We never dreamed that there might be some Christians who weren’t really excited about God. Even though we couldn’t figure out what went wrong with Scott, it didn’t stop us from telling others about Jesus.

The next evening, we invited Debbie and her parents over for dinner so they could meet Richard. Another guy we’d already led to the Lord was there, too. He called his mom who lived on the east coast and led her to the Lord over the phone. Later on, Matt and Bonnie, two fans from The Bla Bla, came over. Frank, a Christian we’d picked up hitchhiking who was staying with us, helped us tell them about Jesus. Keith wrote, “Frank got Matt to pray with him and I got Bonnie to pray with me. But something was trying to stop her from saying the name of Jesus. She split after being totally freaked out.” This kind of evening was quickly becoming “typical” at our house.

Soon, we were having all-night prayer meetings in our living room a few nights a week—inviting those who believed and those who didn’t. We also kept several crosses and Bibles on hand to give to those who received the Lord. We never minded it when we had to buy “new supplies” because it meant we’d gained a new brother or sister in the Lord.

Yet Keith and I were aware that, just a few short weeks before, we’d been lost and seeking, too. Keith was so sensitive on this point that he penned this prayer:

July 27, 1975

Not A Fanatic

Please Lord, keep me sensitive to the spiritual needs of those who need your salvation. . . . People can get wary of my company if I go off the deep end and only witness from my “plane” instead of going to where they are and showing them I care for them individually. Lord, change me, get rid of any radical tendencies. Help me control my “overwhelming enthusiasm.” Make me unselfish, unproud, quiet and full of humility and gentleness.

Father I love You. You showed your gift to me—Jesus.

If we ever thought our lives might cool down a bit, we were mistaken. What we were going through was nothing compared to the fire we were headed into.