..I met Troy Conner..

If I had not met Troy Conner in Houston in 1939, I would never have preached a sermon anywhere

June 26, 2007 (Tuesday) – I want to tell you how I met Troy Conner, so I’ll begin the story around my eighth birthday. A lot happened in my life before then, and many other things took place during the time I will talk about today, but I can tell you all that at another time. Everything I talk about in this blog today happened in Houston, Texas. Some dates may not be correct.
When I entered the third grade, I was living with my grandparents because my parents had split up. My twin sisters were living with our aunt. We had gone through this several times in our childhood. I attended that school only three weeks, but during that time I met Troy Conner, and we began a friendship that continues to this day. My parents reconciled and I was enrolled in a different school closer to our home. My sisters were still pre-schoolers. By the time I finished fourth grade and my sisters finished the first grade, our parents divorced for the final time.
We moved to our maternal grandparents’ home in the summer of 1941, and went to another school that fall. It was there that I renewed my friendship with Troy, who also attended fifth grade there. From then on, Troy and I were in school together until we completed the ninth grade. My grandparents moved twice during that first year with them, and when summer came, our mother tried to parent my sisters and me. She was a waitress at the time, with long hours and little money, and we lived in two different one room apartments that summer in 1942. My grandparents moved again before school started, and we moved back with them when school got under way. That move placed us one block from the Conner family and my friend, Troy. We were then in the sixth grade. I spent a lot of time in the Conner home, and went to the Liberty Road Baptist Church with them sometimes. During the summer of 1943, I went to a revival there, and accepted Christ as my Savior. I was baptized and became a member of that church, which, coincidentally, was about a block away from the house where I had been born.
When school was out for the summer of 1944, my father remarried and we three children moved to their home. My sisters went to school nearby and I rode the bus back to the same school I had been attending. My stepmother soon became a Christian, and we kids attended the Assembly of God with her.
When I reached the ninth grade, I lived for several months with my paternal grandmother, because my sister had diphtheria and our house was quarrantined. During that time, my mother remarried and I went to live with her and my stepfather. The new address was across town and not in the area served by my school, but I was allowed to finish the school year without transferring to another school. I rode the city bus across town each day. I had to change buses downtown. When I reached the tenth grade, I had to go to a new high school, near my new home, and had to say goodbye to my friends on the other side of town. That included Troy, whom I rarely saw during the next two years. We did get together every once in a while, but not regularly. Our friendship was always alive. I never went to church during this time.
As I was completing my Junior year of high school, in the month of May, I got a phone call from Richard Hunt, the new pastor of the church where Troy and I had been baptized five years before. He invited me back to church, and I told him I would come. Two months later, on the Fourth of July, 1948, in the summer preceding my senior year of high school, I went back to the church where I had been saved. That night I rededicated my life to Christ, and, within two months, preached my first sermon. Troy had much to do with that. More about it tomorrow.