Starting at a small Bible school in Florida

The day when the news of Billy Graham's passing was texted to me by my sister Kathy, I was at my desk taking attendance as a school teacher at a small Christian school. A flood of emotions hit me immediately, I had to ask another teacher, Mr. U to watch my class as I regained my composure in the hallway. I immediately felt the presence of this man’s testimony in my life personally. I am not unique in this, millions of people felt it too. In 1998, my father told me how he had knelt down in front of the television in our farmhouse in Weedsport New York while watching the London crusade in 1966. That one act, my father kneeling to receive Christ after watching Billy Graham preach the gospel, completely changed all our lives. In 2017, I played a portion of that crusade on video at my own father’s celebration of life service. I stated at dad's service, there were two hero’s in our house, my dad and Billy Graham. It wasn’t just a few years after receiving Christ in 1966 that my father was at another crusade in upstate New York, at that crusade he walked forward to speak with another evangelist, David Wilkerson, author of “the Cross and the Switchblade.” Dad went to work for Pastor Wilkerson as his bookkeeper at the original center of Teen Challenge working side by side with David Wilkerson, his brother Don, Nicky Cruz, even driving Mrs. Wilkerson to a coffee shop she ran called, “the Lost Coin Café” where students of Teen Challenge witnessed to drug addicts and hippies, bringing them into the program. I named this blog lostcoincafe.com, where I too, am trying to bring people into the program, God’s program of redemption, the Gospel.

When the President of the United States eulogized Graham in the Capitol building, he began with, “Starting at a small Bible School in Florida…” there it was, as an alumnus of Trinity College of Florida, my heart literally felt that moment, for after I came to Christ on September 11, 1994, I sought out this school because of Graham’s impact on my family. Just like the president testified about him and his father attending a Graham crusade when he was a child, I too remember my dad taking me to see Graham in Tampa. Johnny and June Carter Cash was there that day, my dad and I sat on the west side of the stadium up high. June even mentioned fishing at Green Key with the Graham’s at a stilt house telling the story between her and Johnny singing songs. I have spent many hours out there fishing with my dad, my greatest memories are out there sailing, fishing, and camping on the tiny island off Green Key.

When Billy passed, I was in a storm in my life, I was grieving many recent losses, my dad, my brother, even a close friend and pastor who counseled me to return to Trinity to finish what I had started a decade before. There was a cloud over me at that point, I was cycling between grief loss, physical pain, and recently having changed careers from self-employment to working for a small private school struggling to adjust as a single parent with so many new responsibilities. During this period, my love bank was empty, it was not my finest hour.  However, the reason I felt the loss of Billy goes back to another day, September 7, 2001, the day we found out our unborn child had spina bifida. My wife was five months pregnant, we were considering naming him James, we wanted to have all J letter names for our kids, I liked the name James, it was a good Bible name, yet the real reason for me was James Koutsos, a true friend and mentor. That terrible Friday, my wife weeping bitterly, terrified of what to do because that day the geneticist from USF told us to end the pregnancy, our unborn was to be born severely disabled. Friends and family all chimed in, some asked, "is it right to bring a handicapped child into the world?" The other side was, "abortion is murder..." We both were and are pro-life, but the questions came at us anyways, it was agony. That night I went out to the mailbox, it was dusk, there in the mailbox was a Decision magazine. The transcendent part of this, it was addressed to my late mother, she had passed August 5, 1999. I had never received a Decision magazine before that, or after that either. At that moment, on the cover of that magazine was a picture of a storm on the ocean with the caption, “Peace in the storms of life… by Billy Graham.” It was based on Joshua 1. I walked in and showed it to my wife, she immediately agreed, his name would be Joshua. My other son Johnny, he would carry that verse in Joshua 1 on his dog tags when he was deployed to Afghanistan in 2010. I found out years after his deployment he had a portion of his pay while he was deployed go to the Spina Bifida Association. "Have I not commanded you? be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go" Joshua 1:9.

“At a small Bible school in Florida” is where Billy Graham received his call to bring the message of hope not just for the whole world, but my little place in the world too. It is still a small Bible school in Florida. Everyone who comes on campus passes a large granite stone from the Gospel Tabernacle where it all began in 1925, assuredly, Graham passed that stone, thankfully, someone had the sense to bring it to Trinity. Inscribed on the stone, almost a hundred years ago, “Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. Eph. 2:20.” The names have changed, there are more programs now, but the hope Billy preached, that is still the cornerstone of this small Bible school in Florida.