Chapter 4

Going Home

    Linda actually left for the United States about three months before I did. She needed to find us an apartment and get herself a job before I got out of the service in December of 1972.  We decided that after I got out I would go back to Cypress College but instead of Aeronautics, I would pursue a Business degree. Things were not very pleasant in Southern California for us. We were under a lot of pressure from both of our parents. They lived only about 15 minutes apart and the attitude was usually, "Well, you spent last weekend with them, so you need to spend this weekend with us!" Unfortunately,  it didn’t leave a whole lot of time for Linda and I. We were still relative newly weds and did not have the experience, or maturity, to handle these types of problems. And there were other things going on.

Other Voices - Linda Low     

    Upon John's discharge from the Army we returned to California to civilian life. John went back to college and I went to work for two doctors to support us.  It was a difficult, growing time.  We were separated for hours each day leaving John with time on his hands.  the Lord had begun a slow, quite campaign in my heart which found me spending many hours absorbed in the Spoken Word books.  My spiritual walk was rapidly growing, though I wasn't aware of any drastic changes.  Meanwhile, Satan had his own campaign going in John's life.   Since John had chose to set the Word aside in his life, Satan introduced the young, very available young women on campus into John's life.  I was unaware of all this, thank the Lord, or it probably would have halted my spiritual growth and my marriage.

   This is going to be a difficult thing to write about, and I am putting this in so that,  hopefully, one of you won’t fall into the same traps that I did. Satan has studied mankind for thousands of years and he knows everyone’s weakness. He certainly knew mine.

    While I was going to college, some of the classes I had were in the evening. That meant that I had some free time during the day, but I also wasn’t always home during the evening. Linda was working full time during the day so we didn’t see much of each other. Most of the students at the college were just out of high school and here I was four or five years older. There were lots of girls at the college and they tended to gravitate to the older guys. Well, one thing led to another and I started messing around with other girls. Usually it was just being around them and being the center of attention that was important, but on a couple of occasions it progressed to sexual intimacy. Satan knew my feelings of insecurity, he gave me the opportunities,  and I took advantage of them. Sure, I knew that it was wrong, but I did it anyway. I enjoyed the intimacy and I didn’t stop to think of what I was jeopardizing. And then God stepped in.

    The evenings I was away at school were pretty boring for Linda. At that time she didn’t have a whole lot of reading material so she picked up a booklet that contained one of William Branham’s sermons in it. The more she read the more interested she became. As the weeks and months rolled on she started reading more and more of these sermons and asking me questions - some I could answer and others I couldn’t. It was ironic -  I had stopped practicing what I believed to help hold my marriage together and now my wife was seeking answers while I’m messing around. God knows just how to work around a problem.

    About a year later, around Christmastime, we were under a lot of pressure from our families. We had some misconceptions about celebrating Christmas and it really put a strain on our relationship with our families. Then, out of the clear blue sky, came a letter from Ken & Connie Scheibe (the couple who had introduced us to William Branham's message in Germany).  They were now living in Idaho and they invited us up to visit them over the Christmas / New Years holiday’s. Of course we answered, "Yes" (we were looking for any excuse to get out of town) and off we went to Idaho.

    It was a wonderful trip up, even though it snowed, and it was so good to see Ken & Connie again. We visited with them long into the evenings, played lots of Ping-Pong in their living room and just enjoyed renewing our acquaintance. They invited us to their church and we went. What a shock! This preaching was like nothing we had ever heard before, yet curiously we didn’t question what was being said because something inside knew it was right!  Well, we didn’t pay much attention to the service after about the first half hour.  We started whispering back and forth trying to determine how we were going to move to Idaho.

     I’m not kidding, it happened just that fast!  Ken & Connie were surprised, happily so, and they offered to let us stay with them until we could get settled into an apartment. Now you’ve got to understand that what had taken place was totally against our natures. Neither of us makes these kinds of snap decisions, but we both felt compelled to move to Idaho, specifically, to attend this church. We spent another week seeing the area and making plans. I felt strongly led to confess my sexual indiscretions to Linda and happily, she forgave me. Now my conscience was clear and then we tried to figure out how we were going to tell our parents.  We thought we had everything figured out, and that's when the trouble started.

    Linda’s parents were church-going people, but mine were not, so we thought that her parents would be overjoyed by our commitment to serve the Lord. We fully expected my parents to hit the roof, especially my mother, but that’s not the way it happened. Linda’s parents thought this was the stupidest thing they had ever heard of. You move someplace for a job, or because you like the area, but you don’t move anywhere just to go to church. Her dad got so upset he wouldn’t even speak to us. On the contrary, my parents thought it was a good idea. My dad, ever insightful, knew the pressure we were under from both of the parents and had come to the conclusion (before we told him) that it would be best for us to move away. We were dismayed by her parent’s reaction because they had always been so good to us, but we knew we had to go. Two weeks later, after three round trips, we were living in Idaho with Ken & Connie,  and our lives were changed.