Sunday, June 29, 2008

Explo '72

I was a freshman at Anderson College and got involved in Campus Crusade for Christ. It was a good organization that believed in converting as many people as possible to Christianity. I went to a few meetings at other schools, primarily Clemson. They had a national convention in Dallas in June of 1972, and I went to that along with a few others from my school. We went by bus from Greenville. There were students from Furman, Clemson and Anderson on the bus, which went all night before arriving in Dallas. We stayed at a motel in Arlington TX, which is where our meetings were. There were people from all over the world there. We had meetings in the mornings; usually our afternoons were free; and we had a general meeting/worship at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas every night. We saw Andrae Crouch, Danny Lee, Tim Hardin, Barry McGuire, Billy Graham, Bill Bright, and many more. One afternoon, we all got together (100,000 of us) and blanketed the Dallas metropolitan area witnessing to others. The idea was that if we all witnessed to 8 people, we could bring Dallas to God. It was a nice idea, but it didn't quite work. I went with a girl to houses in the area. We only found one woman home, but we prayed with her, and she seemed receptive. The students from Anderson were all staying at a three-bedroom suite at a motel. One night, we got back from the Cotton Bowl, and I opened the door and found some young kids sleeping in the front bedroom. I didn't think much of it, and went on back to my bedroom and found a man and woman sleeping in my bed. None of them woke up. I went outside and told another guy that there were people in our room. He thought I was kidding, and he went in to find the same thing. We went to the motel office, and the clerk said that they had moved us out of our room and into a smaller room, because a larger party needed a place to stay. The weird part was that they took polaroids of where our stuff was in our bedrooms and bathrooms, and placed them in the new room in the exact same place. Talk about deja vu. We could have killed all of the other family in the old room, as none of them woke up, when we were in there. At he end of the conference, they had a music festival in downtown Dallas. Johnny Cash and Billy Graham were there. I talked to one of the girls from our group. She was majoring in music, but after talking to her, she decided to major in psychology to help people like me. I have that affect on women. We got on the bus and headed back to SC. It was my birthday (June 17th). We stopped in Atlanta at the bus station, and by now it was the 18th. On the news was a story about a break-in at the Watergate Hotel and offices of the Democratic Party. I remember thinking how stupid that was. Little did I know what was to happen over the next two years, and how it would affect American politics. Explo '72 was a life changing event on several levels. I'm glad I went. It was a combination of "Jesus People" and hippies. One Way.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes,
I went too. It was for real and the impact it had on my life was like a movie. I could go into great detail if anyone is out there to see this.

Feel free to contact me @ this email address:

qwiqcylverqunsoulteen@yahoo.com

Suffice it to say, I was too intimidated to witness during the time I was in Dallas. Besides, I was "twitter-pated" and more interested in other things than sharing my faith of a little over one year (gained when Campus Crusade came to Boulder CO where I had just flunked out of the first coed dorm on the campus in the spring of '71). In other words, as a new Christian of nascent experience and dubious testimony, I didn't need to even say a word, or so I thought...

I was forced to say something,

"Hey, have you guys ever heard of Jesus Christ?"

or some such similar depth of "opening-line-isms" while sitting in the back of a Cadillac, surrounded by (what seemed @ the time) the local, black, highschool members of the Grand Saline Texas football team.

yeah, the same time and place where the town not only boasted about supplying all of Morton's Salt but even more interestingly "boasted" (read: threatened) in crudely written words on signs on both ends of the town the following:

"Nigger, if you're still in town when the sun goes down..."
AND
"Nigger, don't be found in town when the sun goes down!"

It was about 10:30 am in the morning of the day after the "Billy Graham Extravaganza" took place, so when these black fellows took me into their car (I was hitchhiking back to Colorado via going east from Dallas first, then, later I would start heading back west), they had nothing to fear from the local contingent of the KKK stringing them up from the highest tree in town since there was plenty of daylight left before the pointed white hats could come out.

I was, as they admitted to me later, "pay-backs". They would take me out into the nearest cornfield, and as I heard one of them whisper to another rider in the car,

"They won't find him 'til next fall when they mow the field down in the fall."

Hence my "inquiry to the guys" about Jesus and as a result (and believe me, I was praying like a lunatic about to leave this life but hoping that the God I had here to for denied with my lack of witnessing in Dallas, would, "hear too" for I was now in a 9linebind), because God was gracious and had mercy on me and I simply re-iterated one of those many "how to start witnessing" slogans as we had been taught, and which were running through my head as I fervently prayed...

Well, to make a long story short, those guys (who were all leaving the next day for Viet Nam) got saved when they prayed with me.

I have since become a,

"bornagain, spirit-filled, Evangelical, HYPOcharisMANIAC judeochristianzionist Jesusfreak" (mahhn!)

and have served as a missionary in Israel (where my son was born in Jerusalem 30 years ago).

That dates me too. I'm 57, was 20 in 1972, and as a result of finally "finding my voice", pretty much witness to everything that moves.

So, yeah, this was a seminal event in my life too.

"God made Him who knew no sin, to be sin on our behalf, that we MIGHT become the righteousness of God (when we confess our sins and ask Him to forgive us and come into our life and make us like Him--to be made part of his eternal family or,) in Him"

You must decide. You make that MIGHT reality in your life by getting RIGHT with God.

Or, let me finally close by admonishing you with the following picture:

"When we stand before the Throne, around the glassy sea (re:Revelation 4&5)you be there, OK? I promise I'll be looking for you and those guys who left me off before going on to Viet Nam and eternity...(:~))

Anonymous said...

Attended, also. Turned me into a witnessing fool--"One way, Jesus!" "Turn or burn!" I had to work my way past the fool part. I could bring a fencepost under conviction in 5 minutes (4 spiritual laws).

Wisdom was a lacking component early on. Went to seminary. Spent a decade overseas as a missionary and am now a professor. Still tying to keep it real. Explo '72 was amazing. Wish it would happen again...