When my secretary handed me a letter with the bank's return address on it, my heart skipped a beat. Our company had been so strapped for cash we were making interest-only payments on our drilling rigs.
After scanning a couple of opening paragraphs, fear stabbed at my insides.
"Unless you take immediate steps to resolve these problems we will be forced to demand payment on the full balance of your obligations," it said. "This will include the mortgage on your residence."
"Well, Grandpa started this company and now it looks like I'll finish it," I thought as a tear drifted down my cheek.
Where had I gone so wrong?
In 1983 I had moved back to Carmi, the town where I grew up learning about the oil business that kept food on our family's table.
I had been around the world since I turned 18, serving in the military after finishing high school. After my discharge, I worked in several different states.
Coming home hadn't been the dream I envisioned. When I first returned, my marriage went sour and ultimately ended in divorce.
Even when I remarried, things weren't smooth. Our worst problem was a lack of trust. Mix in smoking, drinking and heavy partying and we were sitting ducks for problems.
Things weren't going much better at work. Oil started a downward slide in the 1980's, which meant less work for everyone. Particularly in a region with shallow, modest-producing wells.
To make matters worse, I failed to use sound business practices. Borrowing to heavily, I foolishly put our firm at risk by drilling without secured contracts.
This lack of oversight cost us dearly when a large company took advantage of us because I wasn't paying attention to details. It got so bad that even if I sold all our drilling rigs, it wouldn't cover the debts.
Ironically, as everything was falling apart, I thought I was okay. I reasoned that I worked hard, treated people fairly and had grown up with godly parents. I thought being a good guy would get me into heaven.
Just to make sure, we started going to church. It didn't do much good. We kept an eye on the clock and often cracked open a bottle of booze when we got home.
At one point we even said a prayer promising to follow Jesus as our Lord and Savior. Yet, we made no change in the way we lived.
Fortunately, in 2002 my wife started taking long walks with a friend. One morning when she returned, Stephanie declared, "We're going to watch Joyce Meyer."
I sat and listened. This woman made a lot of sense. When Stephanie said she wanted to attend one of Meyer's conferences in St. Louis, I agreed she could go.
When she returned home, Stephanie said, "I want what those women have." I didn't know what that was, but I soon learned. One day Stephanie prayed, "God, take all these temptations away from me." He did. When I came home, Stephanie was praying in a language I had never heard. She glowed like a light bulb.
A week later the friend my wife had walked with died in a tragic construction accident. So, when Joyce Meyer had another conference in Nashville, Tennessee, my wife asked me to go in her friend's place.
It was December, and I much preferred to hunt quail, but I gave in.
During that conference Joyce Meyer asked if anyone wanted to receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit.
I wasn't sure what that meant, but I had seen what happened to Stephanie. So, for the first time in my life, I stood up at a meeting and raised my hands.
When Joyce Meyer prayed, I felt a glow in my stomach. This bright overwhelming feeling wound up staying there for 12 hours. "This stuff is real," I marveled.
Instantly the desire to smoke, drink, and swear which are so common in the oil business melted away.
Soon after, Stephanie had a vision that we would start going to a new church and our kids would enroll in Christian School. That happened. Still, as things leveled out and the rising price of oil pulled us back from the brink of disaster, I said, "I'm going to use my head. I'm not going to take any kind of risks."
That is, until God showed me I was trusting my own efforts. I finally realized the biggest risk I could take was depending on God completely to guide my business and every step i took in my personal life.
One day as I prayed, He told me, "I'm going to be the fourth leg on your table and balance out your life."
At this time, no banks were willing to loan us money to help us expand. So I hired a headhunter to help us find a bank that would make a loan.
But after I vowed to follow God in everything I did, a year later we had four banks knocking on our door, wanting to do business with us.
I was eager to share my experience with God with others, including my 130 employees and numerous suppliers and contractors we dealt with.
In 2005 a group in Houston sent me a copy of the "Oil Field Christian Fellowship Bible." I've since purchased more than 1,000 copies given them away.
However, one employee refused to take one. When I asked why, he said, "my brother was a pastor and he, his wife, and their two children all died in a car crash." "Why are you worrying about them if they're in heaven? I asked. "The question is where are you going?
Later this man wound up in jail on drug charges. After he returned to work, I invited him to church. When he said he had lost his license and didn't have any way to get there, I offered to pick him up.
The next day he came to work with his hair cut, clean clothes, and a different look on his face.
However, a week later when I asked where he had gone to church the previous day, he said, "Nowhere. I didn't have a ride."
Without thinking about it, I replied, "Well, we'll have church here today."
That was in November of 2006. Ever since, we have been meeting from 12:30 to 1 p.m. Monday through Friday in the "dog house." That's a building where men store tools, change clothes and eat meals.
Occasionally, a pastor stops by to preach, and sometimes I give the message. We also have prayer for people's needs, and businessmen, policemen, and others have come to our services.
In the first couple months, three different people decided to follow Christ, decisions that have affected entire families. I know just how they feel. God took my life, bound for bankruptcy and personal disaster, and blessed me beyond belief.
In The Beginning
I get excited when I think back how far God has brought me since I gave my heart to the Lord August 13th 1995. For the next year or two all I wanted to do was read my bible and pray God use me I want to be your servant. I remember the first tape I picked up on the road it was in Va. at a truck stop. There was a whole big basket full of tapes from Gospel Sunrise Ministry. The sign said free tapes listen carefully and then pass them on. I remember listening to them tapes and just loving them and thinking this is just what I need out here on this Ole Lonesome Road. After that I started searching the truck stops for more of those tapes. I remember well the day that God spoke to me in 1999 and told me to start a tape ministry. It was after I had stopped and picked up a tape in a truck stop in Ga. it said I-20 for Jesus on it. I remember putting that tape in the tape player and this big friendly booming voice come on and started talking to me like he was sitting in the truck with me. I don't remember which tape it was, but I sure remember what God spoke to me through That tape. He told me this is your ministry this is how I'm going to use you. I want you to start a tape ministry! He told me the tapes are to reach the lost and the broken hearted and the tapes are to be free. Well after a year of struggling with this call I surrendered in Oct. of 2000. I remember saying OK God if I can just win one with this tape ministry it will all be worth it. I called the number on the tape and got to talk with Ray Sisk of I-20 for Jesus and we instantly became friends. He became my mentor and helped me tremendously with the call God had laid on my heart. I started a tape ministry in my local church and it went along well for 6 months and then the pastor shut it down in April of 2001. After a couple of months of struggling with this I new I had to do a tape ministry the call on my life would not let me quit. So I called my friend and mentor Ray Sisk and told him what had happen and I said I guess I might as well just quit. He told me I couldn't quit, I had done put my hand to the plow! He then shared a testimony of a time when he too had wanted to quit. But a wise and Godly council had told him to go ahead and quit but first he needed to sit down and write a letter to all of the people who had encouraged him and helped him get his ministry started. And then write a letter to all of those he had been witnessing to in his ministry and then, he could quit. That wise Godly council was Ray’s wife Jean Sisk.So I said ok I guess I'll just start a tape ministy out of my house like your doing Ray.
So I started the Lonesome Road Tape Ministry for Truckers out on the road. I was at the time an over the road trucker so I made tapes on the weekend and took them with me on the road and handed them out to drivers through the week. I continued this for a year and then after changing churches and giving my testimony in June of 2002 and sharing my ministry and my vision with a church called Orchardville Community Church I started a tape ministry at this church. The ministry exploded and I went from 100 tapes a month to 300 a month almost over night. well 5 years later in 2007 our church is doing 6,000 every month and the little country church in the middle of everywhere went from a congregation of 200 to 1000 a week. Oct of 2006 I went to driving a truck for a company called Les Wilson Inc. A local drilling company here in Southern Illinois. The owner Bob Wilson and I shared the same passion for reaching lost souls he had a bible ministry sharing bibles with everyone he could give one to and I was passing out cd's to everyone I could. Then in Jan 2007 God woke me up one night and spoke to me, "Oil Field Chaplain". He told me I was going to be an oilfield chaplain and wanted me to start a cd ministry for oil field workers. I shared this vision with the owner Bob Wilson and he shouted "Let's Do It, Were gonna Do It" so he named me an oil field chaplain and 6 weeks later he took me out of the truck and made me a full time Oil field Chaplain and media director of a brand new cd ministry. We are now reaching out to Oil field workers as well as the truckers all across the country with this bible & cd ministry that we have named Receiving In God Ministries or RIG ministry for short. We have been seeing great results from this ministry and that's not all. We have started a church service or a (Evangelism school That's what my good friend and mentor Ray Sisk calls it) that we call the upper room service that starts at 12:30 pm every day Monday - Friday a lunch hour service where people can come and have a time of prayer, Fellowship, bible study & devotion. We use the daily devotion from Mr Os Hillman of businessmen fellowship USA. We started using this daily devotion after Mr. Bob Wilson traveled to a BMF convention in Fla. After returning from the convention Mr Wilson started receiving the daily devotion and they were so in tune with what was going on in our area and our ministry that We felt lead of the Lord to start using these daily devotion to teach our upper room service. God is leading this ministry through the daily devotions that we receive from Mr. Os Hillman. We are in the process of building a sanctuary and fellowship hall that we are planning lots of testimony services and good times of praise & worship. We plan to try and work together with the local churches trying to make a difference not only in Southern IL but taking the Gospel all over the world. As of this time Receiving In God Ministries has produced over 350,000 cd's and given them away free of charge. We also give bibles away by the hundreds every month. 2009 is going to be an exciting year and we are looking forward to what God is going to do with this ministry!!!!
Jesus is Worth Fightn' For
Bob & Stephanie Wilson With sound tech Aaron Carian
Tony Mac & Gary Rayburn
@ Rig Ministries March 2009
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