That Deserve To Be Told

It was 1990, driving back from Modesto to San Diego, California that the idea first started to wiggle around in our brains. We were on our way back from a reunion of a whole bunch of our old Agape Force friends. We hadn’t seen some of these guys in 15 years, but it was as if it had just been yesterday that we were on the streets or on the stage or in prayer meetings together.

We spent the weekend telling stories, laughing and crying together, listening to Christian bands and each other perform. We had a picnic and told stories, watching our kids hang out together and -- did I mention -- we told stories.

On the way home Jim and I, talked about those friends. We have other friends, really great friends -- friends that we’ll hang out with in heaven. But this was different. With this certain bunch, there was a certain something. It was like the bond between guys who had stormed the beach of Normandy together or faced the enemy in the trenches of Vietnam. It was the bond of people who had given themselves, all of themselves, to see revival come to their generation. And some still wore the scars.

The things we heard and shared that weekend; the memories that stirred in us, were worth remembering, we thought. There were stories there that deserved telling.

Skip on down a couple of years. We’re going to a great little Church full of middle aged Jesus people who had lots of kids. Kids everywhere. More kids than adults. We found ourselves working with the teens in that Church. We told them stories about the bizarre things we did when we were young. We just loved them and told them stories about our days in “the ministry” and spent time with them - and did I mention - told them stories. The strange, no weird, thing was that they really loved those stories. They loved the extreme lengths we went to and the radical things we did. They liked it that we had the nerve to step out there and “go for it”.

The things we saw in the lives of those kids, the spark of “fire” and the desire they had to make their own mark on the world moved us deeply. The very possibility that these kids, given the right hope and the right inspiration, could do more than we ever had and accomplish more for God than we ever did, made us think again. “There are stories here that deserve to be told......Gee, I really wish somebody would do that.”

Another year or so goes by. One day I find myself at a Youth With A Mission writer’s conference in Hawaii. How I got there is a story in itself, but I’m there and I’m writing and learning a lot. I’m in the middle of a bunch of missionaries - just like the “old” days. At one point they call some of us up and lay hands on us and “commission” us to write - for the Glory of God and for the sake of his Kingdom. And the presence of God is there in such an awesome and powerful way that I realize - “This is no joke. This is really real.”...But....for me it seemed like such an impossibility. I was a middle aged lady, with kids still to raise, and a full time job and all the realities of “adult” life and other realities that resulted from spending my college years as a missionary. So I said, “Okay God. I’m here and you’re here and I’m yours now just as much as I ever was. I’ll do whatever you give me to do and write whatever you give me to write, but YOU are the one who has to make it happen, ‘cuz I don’t see a time this side of heaven when I’ll be able to do this kind of stuff.”

Fast forward one more time, to the middle of 1996. Winds of revival are starting to blow. It seems like God is on the move again in new and exciting ways and we find ourselves in Lindale, Texas and making the transition back into “ministry” life.

Lindale had been the site of the headquarters for the Agape Force at one time. Now “The Ranch”, as we called it, is the Mercy Ships Training Center. Nearby is another YWAM base and enough Agape Force alumni live in the area to create what seemed to us like a continual reunion.

Jim and I are sitting in a restaurant called “Juanita’s”, discussing the possibility of building a web site (a historical web site) with the then director of Last Days Ministries, Andy Sievright. We're talking about the importance of history - especially history about things God has done. We’re kind of swapping dreams too. Somehow this idea of finding a way to tell these stories “that deserve to be told” comes up in the conversation. We talk about it a little and think what a neat thing it would be to be able to really write a book full of these old “ministry” stories. Then we move on to other topics of interest.

A few days later, Andy calls. He can’t seem to get this idea out of his head and would like to pray about helping us find a way to do it. So, for what it’s worth, that’s how I came to be sitting here at my keyboard typing away and talking on the phone for endless hours to AF friends all over the world; emailing hundreds of emails so I get everything right as I work at what has come to be called “Tales of Agape.” It might not be quite as exciting as the stories you’ll read in the pages that follow, but it’s still been very definitely a “GOD” thing.

There are more “Tales of Agape” out there than I could ever fit in a book. There are more than I could collect in a thousand interviews. Why? Because I’m finding that the scope of what God did in and through us during those years reaches farther and deeper than I have time or energy to pursue. There are people winning souls now, who were won by people, won by people in the Agape Force. There are whole ministries going on, founded by those who served then. There are children being raised for God, who would not even exist, had this group of kids not said “yes” to God’s call.

And so, I pray for you. That whatever God says to do, you will do. Wherever He calls you to go, you will go. I pray that He will give you the heart and the courage to give yourself willingly and freely, so that not only your own life is blessed, but that the world and the Kingdom of God is altered and that God Himself is blessed because you did.

Agape! Dee Patton