One day, I received a phone call from a man in Houston. He said his wife had started a business there in American Indian Arts and he wanted to come to Dallas to talk with me about running such a business.
I did everything I could do to keep him from coming to see me.
I don't know anything about business nor about running a business.
But he would not be discouraged and insisted on coming to Dallas to talk with me.
I was horrified!
This man said he was a graduate in business from Harvard Business School.
*****
The man came to my shop shortly after this and said he wanted to know about marketing.
(I know absolutely nothing about marketing.)
I was frantically praying as this man spoke to me. I was asking God to get me out of this.
The man kept insisting that I tell him my marketing plan.
Finally I said to him:
"Well ... I'm a Christian ... so before I go out to the reservation to buy items, I pray, asking God to have the Indians make the pieces of jewelry that I need ...
When I get to the reservation, I pray, asking God to help me to see which items to purchase ...
When I start back to Dallas, I pray, asking God to send the angels out to bring in the customers to buy the items."
There was silence for a moment.
Then he said, "Well ... that's a form of marketing."
He left the shop.
*****
This is how I ran my business and everything I purchased sold and we never had a sale until the week I announced I would be closing the shop to go into the ministry and then I discounted the items by 10% .
The first day of the sale, almost every item sold.
Within 3 days all merchandise was gone.
People even bought the office furniture and a small refrigerator I had in my back room.
That was July 31, 1979.
I closed my business to go into the ministry.
I didn't seek a church to work for. I just went home to my apartment with no future plans. I had no income. I lived off the money I had made from the sale of the merchandise.
During the next 6 months, I stayed home reading Bible.
I didn't try to get a paid job in a church.
There was an opening at a college in Dallas, Christ for the Nations, for dean of women.
I had an earned doctorate in education and might have gotten that job, but I didn't want that job.
I knew my calling of apostle/prophet and that job didn't fit what I believed God had called me to do.
I had no prospects at all during that time and no thought of any form of employment.
5 1/2 months passed.
I just waited.
The night of January 10, 1980, everything changed!
I was asleep in the night.
I was awakened by a very loud trumpet-like voice that blew 3 words into my ear:
"Hartford, Seattle, KWJS".
I jumped out of bed and wrote the letters "KWJS" on a notepad.
I was sure it must be call letters to either radio or television.
I looked it up.
It was a radio station.
I said to God: "Are YOU telling me to go on radio? I wouldn't know how to do that. I'm a writer, not a speaker."
A very gentle thought (the Holy Spirit) came into my mind: "Call the radio station manager."
That morning, as soon as I thought the radio business office would be open, I called and asked to speak to the station manager.
He came on the phone immediately.
I told him I thought God might be showing me to go on radio. I asked, "How would you do that?"
He told me to send him an audition tape 29 1/2 minutes long and if I fit their broadcasting, he would offer me a contract.
I asked him how much it cost.
He said, "800-dollars per month for week-day broadcasts ..."
I recorded an audition tape as soon as I got off the phone. I took it to post office immediately and put it into the mail.
Within 5 days, I was broadcasting daily exhortations for the church on KWJS.
*****
After I mailed the audition tape, I asked God how HE wanted me to pay for the broadcasts.
A very gentle voice of instruction (by Holy Spirit) came into my thoughts: "Send a letter to the people you know and tell them what happened."
(I knew fewer than 50 people at the time.)
I wrote a letter telling exactly what had happened.
I did not ask them for money. I just told them what had happened.
Within 3 days, many had sent money for the broadcasts and I had enough to pay in full for the first month of broadcasts. One man hand carried his offering to my apartment door and handed it to me.
The broadcasts began on KWJS and were instantly successful. The messages concerned following God, hearing from the Spirit of God and taking thoughts captive and faith in God.
A woman named Lilly McBride, who lived in Fort Worth, had been praying asking God to put on radio, in a vacant 1/2 hour, a real faith teacher.
She was listening to the noon-time hour of broadcasts on KWJS as she always did.
When she turned on her radio that day at noon, a woman began to speak.
Lilly shouted: "OH NO! ... not a woman!"
She got up to go to the radio to turn the broadcast off but before she got there she became interested in what I was saying.
She became a "fan" from that moment!
She lived exactly across the street from Vinita Copeland. (Kenneth's mother)
They both became big supporters of me and attended local meetings and had me visit in their homes.
Vinita taught a Bible class in Fort Worth which I recall attending once.
I was very close to Vinita and liked her a lot. (I viewed Vinita as an old time Baptist war horse, who knew how to pray on her knees!)
*****
By the end of 1980, I was on radio from coast to coast ... "Hartford, Seattle, KWJS" ... broadcasting weekdays in NYC (Hartford area), Philadelphia, Washington DC, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Oklahoma City, Dallas, Houston, Denver, Seattle, Eugene Oregon, Bakersfield California, Los Angeles, and Phoenix.
The broadcasts were very popular.
Many things were to change in the days ahead which I didn't expect.
In the middle of 1981, I was having a meeting in Seattle. On the bus, en route to the airport to return to Dallas, I heard the following.
"The foundation is laid now we're really going to move."
I was foolishly, very excited.
My meetings in radio cities were greatly expanding and the number of people into the thousands. I thought the future growth was going to be out of sight!
I failed to take account of the following truth:
Isaiah 55:8-9 (God says:)
For MY thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways MY ways, saith the LORD.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are MY ways higher than your ways, and MY thoughts than your thoughts.
*****
HYMN: HE LEADETH ME
HE leadeth me! O blessed thought,
O words with heav'nly comfort fraught;
Whate'er I do, where'er I be,
Still 'tis Christ's hand that leadeth me.
(Chorus)
HE leadeth me! HE leadeth me!
By HIS own hand HE leadeth me;
HIS faithful follower I would be,
For by HIS hand HE leadeth me.
(To hear this hymn played on piano and to follow along with the words, click on the following link and then when it appears on screen, tap on the play arrow, > )
*****