I was in my 5th year at Ozark Bible College and in Woodrow Phillip’s World Missions class. I wanted to reach the Navajo Reservation and on to the south: Navajo land to Mexico, Central America and across Panama to to the very southern tip of South America. It was a God-sized dream and I wrote in my notes that it would take 200 years to reach the New Iberian Empire for King Jesus. I turned my thesis, project and time table plans in at the deadline. I got an “A” grade, and even the mission visionary Phillips thought my plan was somewhat of “my imagination gone wild”, then a note, “hang on to Ephesians 3:20,21.”
I upset the Christian Church “peckin” order upon graduation from Ozark. I had graduated Salutatorian in 1962. I was to be the first choice of one of the larger supporting churches of the college that was hiring, but I turned them all down. I was going to be a “tent maker” in New Mexico. There was a group of Christians working in the oil patch and building Navajo Dam on the San Juan, and they wanted a preacher that could pay his own way; ”Herb, tag, you’re it”.
I arrived ready to teach History in a Junior High but they decided to give me Physical Ed and asked me to be the football coach. In my twelve years of high school and college, I had seen 1 football game. I helped until they could get a coach, then went to selling cars at Ziems Ford Corners and forming my plan to break the barrier of the Navajo Tribal Council. They had said that there would be no churches, no alcohol, no casino gambling. I sure agreed about the alcohol and gambling, but not the churches.
In my travels I met Theodosia Smith, a BIA teacher at Tohatchi, 120 miles southwest of Aztec. After a failed attempt, Theodosia, and 23 students started The Aztec Youth Group. Lori tagged along. They began Sunday afternoon Bible School and church at the Bureau of Indian Affairs School at the nearby reservation. Our agenda and plan was to meet for youth group at 6:30 AM on Sunday, bring a sack lunch, and right after church load into my station wagon and travel the 120 miles to Tohatchi, and then hold services, and hurrying it home to hold evening church at Aztec. During that year David Scates, Vernon Hollett and Dalton Carr joined our task force and soon we were active on the homestead land of Northern New Mexico and the wall was cracked into the formal reservation; like the camel that got it’s nose into the tent, our team pushed until the church was on the reservation. This was the first “Aha, HA Moment”; this was God doing what everyone said couldn’t be done.
Melba and I moved with the family to Vidor, Texas. After a time, we got in touch with with leaders, students from Mexico, Central America and South America as we worked with Colegio Biblico. Eventually, Lori became a teacher there and got engaged and married to Queno Nij from Guatemala. Linda got engaged and married to Edgar Clavijo from Bogota, Colombia, in South America. We were working with churches in Mexico in filling in the path south as I had envisioned so long ago. Vidor became the meeting place and home church for stray minister boys that were walk-ons at Colegio with no home church. We ordained several of them, as well as our own family. Queno and Edgar graduated and Edgar and Linda headed to Colombia and Lori and Queno loaded everything in Lori’s Volvo station wagon and headed south across the Rio Bravo on their way to San Raymundo.
When they arrived Queno became the minister of his home church, Iglesia de Cristo in San Raymundo, Guatemala. Guatemala was still under a military dictatorship and we had some interesting experiences over the Volvo station wagon and the church. We learned of a house in the Llano de la Virgin that had some land with it and could be bought for around $6K; one of my men in First Christian at Vidor and I decided to buy it. That was our beginning on the Llano. Soon we were building a hospital and an orphanage on the property. The orphanage was not right for the culture in Guatemala and it soon was a unaccredited pre-school. Then disaster hit. After civil unrest following the war, Queno was caught in a political trap and was arrested, sent to prison for murder one, with no trial. I got sick and was hospitalized on the medically dead list. Lori was torn between daddy dying in the states and husband in prison for murder one, and her children were traumatized. During this time Queno lead 260 prisoners to Christ in Federal Prison, and was exonerated. After this time, the hospital in San Raymundo was finished I regained my health, and the NIMA trustees put Lori in charge of the pre-school and Morning Glory began to grow and blossom. We renovated the one existing classroom across the drive from the house and the house was turned into classrooms. We had students leaning out the windows and Lori was calling for help. 
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Queno had planned a two story classroom school that would house Morning Glory. I had a lot of Trustee work to do in Guatemala, and Tabi was graduating from teacher’s college. So I made a trip to settle legal concerns, see Tabi graduate, and take pictures of the two-story building under construction; the largest project for NIMA to take on to date.
I remember walking around the building, stepping over construction material, and stopping to pray and to take pictures. I realized how much construction was left to do and the amount of material needed to complete the project. I visually viewed in my mind the NIMA bank balance, and I prayed again. For a few minutes I was mentally staggering with the enormity of the job at hand, and the cost. Then I remembered my instructions to go to Ephesians 3:20,21 and pray: “Now to Him who is able to do immeasurable more than all I ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever! Amen.” Wow, I thought, the problem is not the size of the project; it is the lack of imagination, prayer on my part and my not trusting the project to God.
I sat down on some cement blocks, took out my notebook, and began to make myself notes on what needed to be done in New Mexico. We began a much more inclusive Monthly Update when I returned home, letting people know the dream and the vision of Morning Glory. We also began to pray about the need of churches in the area. Our supporters were not convinced that the school and hospital were sufficient ministries. I realized I had not sold the overall dream of Morning Glory and NIMA; we were a ministry to the whole family, for today, tomorrow and for eternity.
An ordinary hospital and doctor can at best put a time sensitive band-aid on the “booboos” of life.” “It is appointed once for man to die”. The average school can change the direction of the nation for a century or two. The ideal church prepares the soul to live with Jesus for eternity. These are in total partnership and can be eternally effective. Students with mental, physical, emotional “booboos” often do not do well in class or life and drop out or fall through the cracks; we want as healthy as possible students, staff, faculty and church members. When Christ-centered education comes with the desire to do all things well,(excellence), the poorest student becomes a deal-changer for the culture, area, and nation. The church further prepares the schools students, teachers, staff, and community to live with Jesus forever. We all work together and we sell the program as one vision: a family program to enhance the youngest to the oldest for the present and future Kingdom of God.
Within months after I returned home to New Mexico, the two story building was finished. In one day, around 200+ San Raymundo folks, hand-mixed cement, carried it to the roof, and poured concrete while the women were at the fire, cooking dinner. As the sun went down, everyone took time to worship and praise God. It was evident the next major step had taken place. It wasn’t just a finished building; the school was home grown It belonged to the Morning Glory family that put in the elbow grease and dollars to make the dream come true. It was another “Aha, Moment” and the student population exploded.
Everyone agrees that Lori, Dean and I have a good imagination and we are not bashful about asking. I have no idea how fast and far-reaching the 1961 dream will move toward the Tierra del Fuego at the tip of South America this year. I can tell you now the dream includes this year a sister building next door to the one just finished, a mobile cart for Lori, the additional $25,000 for the next door piece of land that has come available. Then, we want a 1000+ seat auditorium for events, services, and whatever else God sends our way.
Sometimes when I get tired or caught up at the office, I sit back in my chair, close my eyes and just listen for God to come with the last glimmers of twilight, to remind me of the adult trade school, the industrial joint ventures that would put our kids’ parents to work, and eventually, a Christian economy that would provide the “tent makers”, the quetzals, and the prayer power that would push that 1961 classroom dream to completion in New Iberia for King Jesus. Would you join me?
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