A Letter From Don Peters 2/06
Here's an excerpt from an email from Don Peters. Remember Don & Faith? We've got a photo of their band in the photograph section.
-df
"...We bought us a little house in Mountain View, Arkansas. They claim to be the Folk Music Capital of the World. Big claim for a 3,000 and under town, but there is pickin' on the square there constantly if it's warm enough. Our kind of place. I can't retire yet, but I can get ready, can't I? Going up this weekend for a Bluegrass Festival. Tell your bro and our other friends that we said hi."
-Don
Doug Moore's Story
Hi David, Here are a few memories of Christian Brothers ministry influence on my life and other insights:
Christian Brothers ministry came into my life at that formative, crossroads time when teenagers go away to college work or paid work and they are deciding what they believe and if what their parents taught and modelled were right. Unfortunately, I had made a decision to run hard in the wrong direction. I wanted to go in to secular music full time and had been living a very secular lifestyle for years. A lyric I wrote says it all, "I used to think that all roads lead to You, But I found that they were all dead ends, In You I've found a God and Friend who never lies." I remember walking in to Don Rakestraw's store one day after I moved to the U.S. (I lived in Asia and Europe for the first 18 years of my life) and he said, "Come listen to something." He put on some Christian contemporary tunes. I had never heard that there was such a thing as contemporary Christian music: that show you what kind of secular society I had lived in! It made me start thinking. Later on Campus at Gadsden Sate I heard some guitar music floating down the hall ways that sounded great: it was David Finlayson playing one of his songs for a student he was giving some music lessons to -- or at least playing the song for a few students. Anyway, all these Christians helped draw me back to a place I hadn't been since I was younger (I gave my heart to the Lord when I was a boy in Scotland in Olden St. Andrews -- Church of Scotland but had drifted a LONG ways away) -- the MUSIC AND THE MADNESS of Christian Brothers really did reach me -- I say madness because you may remember the time David Finlayson tackled a very shy, first time attendee to Christian Brothers music night just to help her "break the ice". That shock therapy seemed to do the trick for the girl as I remember! Good job Dave. Any way, my life had been too serious with a few too many bad decisions so David's humor was always a big healing tonic for me ("A joyful heart is good medicine, But a broken spirit dries up the bones" Proverbs 17:22). I can't mention all the "madnesses" here but the joy and fun that went along with C Bros showed me a side of Christianity I hadn't seen and it caught my attention.
Another Christian Brothers event proved pivotal in my life: I had volunteered to help at a Christian Bros. outdoor concert a Nocallula (sp?) Falls with Don Francisco (just bought his CD anthology). My knowledge of Christianity in America and really of American culture was so slim that everyday was a learning experience for me for the first year or so -- I remember asking for tea at Pizza Hut expecting hot tea -- they brought iced and looked at me strange when I asked where the hot tea was. Anyway, at the organizational meeting Don Rakestraw was running the Spirit actually must have prompted me to ask: "Don, is there such a thing as a Christian college?". He just turned to me and said simply, "Go to Asbury!" He began raving about all the plusses of Asbury -- I went to Asbury sight unseen. Just drove up there in the Fall and signed up. It was the best thing I could have done. I needed intense discipling and needed to get away from all the stuff that tempted me too often and to which I was too often drawn due to my fleshly weakness. Asbury is very missions minded and God wanted to get me there to send me out after healing me of my past and building me up -- I've served on missions teams to Costa Rica, China, Vienna, Hungary, Taiwan and got back last year from close to 2 years of missions to the Philippines.
For those of you who have a prayer ministry, please pray for me as I involve myself in a tent-making ministry to raise funds to go back overseas: I have always been fairly good at economics and am doing retirement planning, life and health insurance and annuity investments with a couple of firms -- pray that I serve the Lord with honesty and integrity and God will lead me to the right clients. The work will allow me eventually to take off 3-4 months a year to work overseas. We (my wife Christine and 5 children Rachel 11, Sarah 8, Andrew 6, Rebekah 3 and Ruthie 8 weeks) are praying for where to go next May or June -- whether to go back to the Philippines -- we had a few brushes with Communist Rebels and 10 days before we flew out last year Muslims tried to blow up the International Airport in Manilla and killed a movie theatre full of people so we have to know God is in it -- you have to be ready for martyrdom, especially where children are involved).
Doug Moore
Email: dcmoore10@juno.com
