Bill English
And welcome. I’m Bill English, the publisher here at Bible and Business. Now, normally I’m the guy interviewing the guest in these Profiles and Stewardship episodes, but today we’re going to do something a little bit different and it’s very, very special for me. I want to introduce you to my mother, Mary Jane English, who passed in 2009. And for whatever reason, I had the wherewithal to sit down with her before she passed. And I videotaped her talking about her life in Florida and Indiana and a whole range of topics as well as how she came to know Jesus Christ. So I thought in this Profiles and Stewardship episode, I would feature my mom’s testimony of how she entered into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. So let’s go ahead and get started. This is my mother, one of my best friends in life, Mary Jane English.
Mary Jane English
During this time, dad and I went to the Billy Graham crusade here in Indianapolis in 1958. And so when Billy Graham spoke, I just felt like, hey, I need him. And because mom had taken us to Sunday school as little kids, my knowledge was just one thing, that Jesus loved me and I love Jesus, and that I didn’t link him as being God, but that somehow in my mind all melted together. So what I had learned in semi school was pretty potent stuff because it stuck with me. And I remember for years I carried around a little mirror that had Christ as the Lamb, the shepherd carrying the staff and the Lamb in one arm. And that was my little mirror that I had gotten apparently in a BBS when I was a little kid. I carried it with me all the way through Florida. I mean, I’ve gotten this when I was before I was ten years old. So those seeds that are planted very young are very, very important. So we both went to the Milligram Crusade and we had we were attending a party at Glenn Speckman’s house. So there were a lot of us, dad and I went forward and the spectrum said, well, we’ll go on home and just come to our house when you’re done.
Mary Jane English
None of them went forward. So that’s what we did. And I remember for a party, they.
Bill English
Went to the Billy Graham Crusade.
Mary Jane English
Yeah, they had us all over for dinner, and then the entertainment for the evening was to go to Billy Graham crusade. And Billy Graham always said, come forward, your friends will wait on you. Well, ours didn’t, and that’s okay. That’s just the way we did things. If you want to go do this, you went and did that, and we’ll meet you later at Speckman’s house. So it was fine. Nobody was offended. And I did not understand. I still do not understand. I never opened a Bible. I had no idea what a Bible was about. I figured it had stories in it, but I didn’t know anything about letters and books and things like that. So in a year’s time, we were attending at this point in our lives, we were attending a large Methodist church where the gospel was not preached, and the minister went down to visit Castro and thought he was wonderful. I mean, it was that kind of a wow. Yes, okay, so we weren’t getting anything there. So anyway, in that year’s time between the time that we went forward and when I finally understood what I had done the first time, I went forward again in the little church at Hope Church.
Mary Jane English
And during that year, I did read the Bible, didn’t understand a thing I read, so I didn’t grow I had no idea what this all involved, but we were involved with some people on an organization called Anticommunism Crusade Political, and those people were Christians. And what meetings we did get to because mom could babysit. I was asked a lot of questions at those meetings that had nothing to do with Communism, but everything to do with Christ. And I remember at one house, Ethan Jackson’s house, I remember saying, what is then they must have just, wow, this is great. What an opportunity. So they started teaching me, and every time they saw me, I’d ask more questions. And that’s how I began to find out about Christ.
Bill English
But you guys had moved from the Methodist church to Pope Church up in Carmel.
Mary Jane English
We had left the Methodist church at the same time that Ed’s mom, Ellen, who was this fantastic organist musician, had been released of her job as being the organist and choir director at Broadway. At Broadway. And we knew that we didn’t identify with the pastor anymore, blah, blah, blah. So I said, let’s find a church where our friends go. So Faith Gammon was one of our friends. She’s now Faith Malone. And they were going to Hope Church, which was at 46 in Central. It was a little old church, and they were building the new church at Haverstick and Keystone.
Mary Jane English
Okay.
Mary Jane English
And we moved into that church, but I attended the church there. And Russ Kaufman was the preacher, probably the best preacher I’ve ever heard in my life and knew I wanted to go forward in the church because now I really knew what I was doing and I went forward. And Ruth Burles, who’s now with the Lord, was the one who, when you go forward, somebody comes and is with you. And she was with me. And I had one of these conversions that I really did hear angels singing, and I really did have a light. I mean, it was like a piece of heaven. I was suddenly in that, and all I wanted to do was serve Christ. It was very traumatic for me. And my inclination here I was, married, three kids. Well, you weren’t born yet. You were just about born, but my inclination was just to pull my hair back in a bun, forget the lipstick and the clothing styles and everything and go in the mission field. That’s what I really in my heart wanted to do, but I didn’t. I couldn’t.
Mary Jane English
Well, you couldn’t.
Mary Jane English
But God still gave me my mission field at the Heritage Christian School. So it was one of those things that I was starved for the word of God. And they had wonderful Bible studies alluded to new church. They had home Bible studies, bible studies at church. I was in that church morning, noon, and night on Sunday. Went to Wednesday evening Bible study, went to a Thursday night Bible study at the pastor’s house or whoever was having it, because they rotated houses. I was just like a dry sponge sat in a puddle of water, and I just soaked it up to the point where mom was the babysitter, and she just lived three doors up from us on Emerson, and she was getting a little put out having to babysit so much, so I had to come back on. But that neighborhood, I don’t know if they remember me today or not, but I took my Bible and knocked on everybody’s door, told them all about Christ. Of course, most of them just thought I was a looney tune. And this one neighbor, Olivia White, lived next door to mom, and she was a New York liberal.
Mary Jane English
And she did go to church with me, and she did challenge the pastor. I took her to a Bible study where you could talk, and she did challenge him, but she didn’t believe she needed him more than anybody. So anyway, I tried, but I made a fool of myself, and that’s okay.
Mary Jane English
I want to thank you for joining me today. I’m Bill English, the publisher here at Bible and Business. You’ve been listening to my mom, Mary Janey English, give her testimony of how she entered into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. If you’d like to learn more about how you can have a relationship with Jesus Christ and with God, and know for certain that if you died today, you would spend eternity with God in heaven. Just drop me a line, Bill, at Bible and Business.com, and I’ll be sure to respond to you just as soon as I can. So until we meet each other again through another profiles and stewardship episode, I hope you go out and make it a great day. Take care.