and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.” –Bilbo Baggins, Fellowship of the Rings
Hi! I’m Bob.
My Origins
Born and raised in the southwestern USA, I became all too familiar with horses, cactus and rattlesnakes (that I would catch with my bare hands). I frequently sported my cowboy hat and boots. Although my home was in the city, my grandparents had a cattle ranch where my brothers and I would help out on the ranch and freely ride horses across the countryside. Nature and the great outdoors were pure pleasure.
I also spent many happy times hiking, camping, and exploring the desert with my Boy Scout troupe.
My family would often go on summer holiday to southern California, and I grew to love and appreciate the beautiful ocean. This motivated me to choose a career in oceanography, with the altruistic high ideal of finding additional sources of food in the ocean to help feed the world’s hungry masses. I cared about people.
However, during my university studies in the late 1960s, it was the dawning of the “Age of Aquarius” and the hippie movement was going strong, while America was at war in Vietnam. That was a very turbulent and confusing time of life for so many young people, me included. The predominance of hippy-life ideology and the antiwar movement changed my viewpoints on so many things. This led me to become discouraged with my studies and I wanted a break.
From Military to Missionary
The military draft was in force, and it was only being a student that saved me from getting drafted into the army and being sent off to war. So, as I was leaving my university studies, I also joined the US Navy. The love of the sea was still with me, and I figured it was safer to be on a ship than to be fighting and dying in the rice paddies of Vietnam.
My Navy assignment was an assault cargo vessel that carried hundreds of soldiers and equipment to execute amphibious assaults in Vietnam. The ship would go to just within sight of land and pause there for three days of incessant and thunderous bombing of the shoreline. After the bombardment, there was still cannon fire from the shore with artillery whistling through the air and exploding in the surrounding water, with the warships in our fleet also returning fire. Amidst all that, the frightened young troops would climb down rope ladders into small boats, which carried them to the beach and into the lion’s den of the beast of war, where an uncertain fate awaited them. We never knew if any of them survived. So sadly, about 60,000 young Americans died in that war!
Following the beach assault, the ship would go into port to collect other soldiers who had survived their tours of duty and transport them back to the US. Most of them suffered PTSD and were smoking marijuana to cope with the stress of their war experiences. (The Vietnamese made a point of promoting and selling pre-made marijuana cigarettes to the soldiers to make them less effective in battle.)
After returning to the US from my first tour of duty, I was feeling lost and confused, searching for answers in life. At that point in time, the “Jesus Revolution” was happening in California, where my ship came into port. While on time off from the ship, a friend and I were walking through the San Diego Zoo in Balboa Park. Two hippy-looking young people carrying Bibles approached us and started talking about Jesus. I prayed with them and went to visit their house. They shared some basic Bible classes, and I received the power of the Holy Spirit. I felt as if the light got switched on! My confusion was gone, and all I wanted to do was tell people about Jesus!
This led to me to become an evangelist on my ship. I gradually gathered a small group of believers, and we had daily prayer and Bible study together. All too soon, the ship and crew launched another tour of duty in Vietnam, delivering about five hundred soldiers to an assault on the beach. Those poor young men were terrified of the battle they knew was coming. This time, we witnessed to most of them during the passage overseas, and many received Jesus before going off to war.
After my Navy enlistment ended, I wanted to dedicate my life to helping people rather than fighting them. I felt an overwhelming desire in my heart to follow the great commission, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.”–Mark 16:15
A small group of Christian friends wanted to go to Mexico City to reach young people there caught up in the current drug culture. As I had a foundation in Spanish, I saw this opportunity as my next step in following the great commission. Thus, I stepped out, beginning a lifelong dedication as a missionary and charity worker.
“It’s a dangerous business stepping out your door, you step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”–Bilbo Baggins, Fellowship of the Rings
Stepping out my door led me on quite an adventurous journey that carried me around the world!
It has been my blessing and privilege to have visited or lived in over 40 countries around the globe. More notably, a dozen Latin American countries, Japan and the Philippines in the far east, Britain, Spain, Hungary, Romania and even a year in Russia! Most recently, I have been working to help people in beautiful South Africa.
“Never say no to adventures. Always say yes. Otherwise, you will lead a very dull life.”—Ian Fleming