Nancy’s Story

A testimony written on 3/14/20:

While I know Jesus came into my heart when I was 4 or 5, when led by a parent at bedtime I asked Him to, in college I “wandered away” and was into some kind of pantheism. All that changed in the space of a few weeks in which God pursued me very explicitly and directly through the Holy Spirit as well as through several people. Seventh Day Adventist young adults opened a cool Christian coffee house and discussed Jesus authentically and personally with me. My sister Barb came back from L’Abri and said she was now praying all the time, “even for you, Nancy, yes today.” Granny Lane saw me thumbing through her copy of a Living Bible pamphlet of Ecclesiastes and said, “Read it aloud to me.”  It seemed to be the story of my life…trying everything but unsatisfied. But the two most pointed experiences were sitting on a Greyhound bus suddenly I seemed to be conversing with God Himself; we were “talking about” my ambivalent life and it seemed He said,  “Nancy, choose. Either come My way or go completely the world’s way…you’d have a lot more fun if you just went for it.” But there was really no contest…Jesus just was too attractive in the deepest way. I think I sort of said in my heart, “Okay. You.” The other very powerful experience was when I was alone in my dorm room and suddenly really saw the selfishness of my heart (I’ll leave out the details but they were specific.) In the moment of that conviction I knew I had a Savior whose blood alone could cover/wash away all that was bad in me. The next morning and for some time to come “something lived in every hue Christless eyes have never seen.” I had tremendous assurance and “life” and all I wanted to talk about was Jesus.

The above happened during the summer before and the fall of my senior year in college. Throughout college I had off and on “gone with” Kit Robbins. He graduated a year ahead of me. One day he was passing through Santa Barbara when David Jauchen, who also had gone to our college (Wheaton) called out to him and took him home to a “brothers’ apartment.” Kit became quite involved in the church in Isla Vista. One phone call with me back in Illinois, he described a meeting. “No one was left standing except the Lord Jesus Christ.” I think it was that moment I knew I would go to IV. I had winter quarter off school, so in January 1971 Barb and I went to IV (and yes, partly for the beach.) Then I returned to Wheaton and had about five different ideas on what to do after graduation. But after a phone call with my sister Barb who had remained in IV, again, in a moment, I knew I’d return to IV upon graduation. As I had genuine and good fellowship with other believers at Wheaton that last quarter I noticed that they seemed to be reading the Bible as a guide for what should happen, while it seemed to me the Bible was describing the newfound experience I was having.

I never really thought about leaving the church in IV. It was so satisfying to sing so wholeheartedly together, to hear several times a week about Who God is and what He was up to, with us together, not just individually. In those days we loved each other so openly (friends from outside came and teased each other, though it was good-natured, and I was appalled. We just accepted each other so completely…we wouldn’t even think of  putting each other down.

The fact that the meetings were leaderless is something I had never experienced before or since, and I loved the way the Holy Spirit moved in every way, and each person participated at will and was so accepted. It was suggested that we could just affirm everyone and everything said and whatever was not of the Lord would simple fall to the ground and be forgotten. The focus was on the Lord, not on who was right… The theology was pure and focused on Jesus as Lord and Savior. Scripture was such a part of our praying together in pairs before sunrise.  When we got home from work in the late afternoons, we circled round and sang and prayed together, praising God, proclaiming the reality of Who He is. Some things I heard in IV that I never heard anywhere else…e.g., the building of God. And it was fun living in big houses together.

I remember a time Gene said to us as a group, “If you can leave, leave.” I took that to heart and was walking down Trigo alone, and the words of “The New Jerusalem”– was that the song?—came to mind with the line, “And once again I looked therein, a throne there I did see, and on the throne a wounded Lamb Whose side was pierced for me.” I thought, “I’m not leaving. I’m not going anywhere.  Here in this taste of the New Jerusalem is this Lamb!” 

I was a “single sister” for 8 of the 10 years I was in IV (well, two years away in Thailand but very integrally connected and on church “business/mission.”) First we lived in apartments  with 4-6-8 people in each apartment in a fourplex, say, and were moved to other apartments with different roommates or sometimes the same. Later we lived “in common” and family style: I lived in the green fraternity, State Street, Arrellaga House, Valerio House, San Angelo House, and then two years with Tom and Patty, David J and some Thais in a big house in Bangkok. Soon after my return in 1978 Rob and I married and lived in our own apartments except when we lived at Trigo West and El Greco and Tache House, Quebec City. I loved it all!

Most memorable events to me:

• any given meeting
• airport meetings
• conferences with Stephen Kuang, James Chen, Prem Pradhan
• trip to Halford House with four others and meeting Lance Lambert and Hagar (Hannah Humberd)
• summer of 73 and all our groveling
• simple and spontaneous weddings
• Weltblick

During the time of the church my impressions did not change much, though the “seasons” certainly were diverse!

I don’t remember much reaction to Gene ending the Church in 1981. It seemed to me that in the final days we had had to work very hard at pumping up something that had kind of died. I didn’t think about the future.

What I have taken away from the experience:

a. Our God is a living God. From “eternity past to eternity future” great, but also enlivening us today. He is worth everything. 

b. There is a genuine building together of God’s people when our focus is on Him.

c. The Holy Spirit is quite capable of leading the church through all its members participating…I wish Christendom wasn’t so restricted in “the guy up front,” “the worship team,” etc. I wish Christianity was not so academic (though naturally I would like that stuff, it is so eclipsed by the simplicity and life of Jesus.)

d. Jesus lives in me!  (spirit a locatable place)

e. We don’t have to be “religious”

f.  Worship can be a completely all-in and “corporate” (all of us together) experience

g.  I have learned since that all God’s people are valuable brothers and sisters!

h.  I learned afterwards how much God hates pride, and that was one of our downfalls in our exclusive “we’re it” mentality

I still have a bit of longing for all we had. I’m so grateful to approach more programmed faith experiences with “life.” I think I learned in IV the truth of Lance Lambert’s words that Christ is the center and circumference of everything! I wish my kids could have the experience I had in IV! It was a taste of heaven.