Our Journey & The Lessons We've Learned

By Dr. Reginald A. Stone

This is the true-life story of a country boy, Reginald Stone, who started his life in a small town in Virginia. After moving to Washington, D.C. with his family, he attended a Billy Graham Crusade with a neighbor where he accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior. Reginald has always said, “he was never the same again.”

After attending Bible College, Reginald pastored a small church for little pay. It was during this time that God led him to meet his wife, Rose, at a nearby camp meeting. In the beginning of their marriage, he worked both educational and ministerial jobs. It was at his first full-time pastoral position that God began to call both Reginal and Rose to Latin America. When they left the church and headed to Mexico to attend a Spanish school to learn the Spanish language, neither of them realized all that God had in store for them. Just learning the Spanish language took faith for Reginald. The adventures had only begun in Mexico. Uruguay and Peru had so much more in store for them with building new churches, many miracles of God, and even being hunted by terrorists. Every day required trusting God.

After leaving South America, the ministry of this couple was not over. God had more churches to be pastored, organizations to be led, and ministry schools to be created and taught at. The Hispanics of United States of America was their new mission field.

This book concludes with eleven lessons that Reginald learned while on the mission field. These lessons teach ministers and missionaries valuable lessons to know before entering the mission field which are both practical and thought-provoking.

Laugh and shed tears as you walk through the life of Reginald and Rose as they follow God's plan for their lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Feb 20, 2024
• ISBN: 9798385017973

Dr. Reginald A. Stone

Dr. Reginald A. Stone currently lives in North Carolina. He has two adult children; four grandchildren; and one great-grandchild. While drafting this book, he lost the love of his life, his precious wife, Rose Stone. She was his greatest support At the time of her passing, they had been married for over 65 years. Education has always been especially important to Dr. Stone. He has a Doctorate in Ministry, Master’s in Counseling, Bachelor of Arts, and Diploma of Biblical Studies. He has used his education to teach in Biblical and public schools. As a central part of who Dr. Stone is, he teaches every time he finds an opportunity. The Stone Family travelled all over South America, Mexico, and the United States spreading the Gospel to many people Dr. Stone’s focus was to reach and teach the Latino population. Although Dr. Stone was presented with many awards and accolades for his work, he primarily found that God was always there to provide and protect him and his family. Reginald and Rose both lived by the Scripture verse found in I John 2:17 (King James Version), “He that doeth the will of God abideth forever.”

Book preview

SECTION 1

OUR JOURNEY

CHAPTER 1

It all began in the silk mill in Covington, Virginia. Mom was 22 years old, a country girl from a Virginia mountain village near White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. Mom had worked there for some three years which was enough time to purchase and pay for a new model A Ford Roadster costing around $700.00. Dad, now an employee at the silk mill too, began his courtship with Mom in 1931. On January 27, 1932, they were married.

On August 16, 1934, I made my entrance into the Stone family in Covington, Virginia. Ten months later, I almost left this world due to a case of pneumonia. During my illness, my great uncle, Charlie Smith, a highly respected elder in the village of Mom’s birthplace, visited our home. He assured my Mom that I would recover and added a prophetic word, He’s going to grow up to be a preacher.

Uncle Charlie’s words have always been special to me because three of his four sons became preachers. The youngest of the three, Joseph, served as a missionary in the Philippines and was imprisoned by the Japanese during World War II.

Twenty-three months after my birth, my sister, Anna Mae, was born. Then followed by my youngest sister, Janet was born thirteen months after Anna Mae.

Due to the Great Depression of the 1930’s, we felt the pains of poverty. I remember my teacher in that small two-room schoolhouse collecting my nickel every Monday for the ice cream bar that we would have on Friday. All week, I would think about that ice cream bar and when I had that ice cream in my hands, I would slowly scrap it on my lower front teeth so it would last longer. However, I must say, while I came from a family considered to be poor (in the 1930’s everybody for the most part was poor), I, at the same time, came from a rich spiritual heritage. This heritage can be traced back to my grandparents and my Great Uncle Charlie and my Great Aunt Belle Smith. My Granddaddy, Hezekiah Fridley, was Aunt Belle’s brother, and my Grandma Ellen was Uncle Charlie’s sister. This made all the children of Granddaddy and Grandma double first cousins of the children of Uncle Charlie and Aunt Belle. More important, they were all committed Christians.

Soon after, both families, Uncle Charlie’s and Granddaddy Hezekiah’s families, moved to the community of Big Ridge located on a mountain above Alleghany, Virginia. Both families recognized the need for a church in the community. Because Granddaddy Hezekiah owned property in the center of the community, he offered to donate part of his property for the building of a church in 1908. The community agreed and soon a church was built and named Antioch Church which was affiliated with the Disciples of Christ denomination. Within a relatively short time, a school was added on a nearby property which offered grades one to six. Consequently, the church and school became the heart of the community.

Within a generation, three of Uncle Charlie and Aunt Belle’s sons answered the call to become ministers, Hayford, Carl, and Joseph. Joseph became the pastor of the Christian Church located in Covington, Virginia. Soon thereafter, he with his family departed for the Philippines where they were missionaries. Within a short time, Japan occupied the Philippines and Joseph’s family were interned by the Japanese until the end of World War II. As a child, the internment of Joseph’s family had a significant impact on me.

Following Joseph’s pastorship of First Christian Church, his brother, Carl, became the pastor. During World Wars I and II, my father was sent overseas to serve as a soldier and my dear Mother held the family together and faithfully took us to church. There were times Momma and us three children would walk 10 miles to church because of gas rationing and lack of money; but she made sure we were always there. During the summer months, I spent a lot of time living with Granddaddy Hezekiah along with Uncle Charlie’s family in Big Ridge. I have many vivid memories of the Sunday Services that I attended at Antioch Church in Big Ridge. Those times had a deep influence on my decision at age 17 to commit my life to my Savior and Lord, Christ Jesus.

The Antioch Church in Big Ridge still has a great significance for me. In Carl Smith’s long 20-year tenure as the pastor of First Christian Church, he decided that it would be significant to have an annual homecoming each year at Antioch Church which no longer had church services because almost all of the families in Big Ridge had moved or passed away. He set the date for the first Sunday of August 1961. However, Carl never lived to personally initiate the homecoming because in July of 1961, he died of a sudden heart attack.

His funeral was the largest that I had ever been a part of. Because of the deep appreciation for the vision of Carl, it was decided to go forward with the homecoming. From that day, the first Sunday of August 1961, relatives of all the Big Ridge families gathered on the first Sunday of August to keep this homecoming alive. The leadership for the homecoming each year has rotated among all the descendants of the original Big Ridge families. My family of my wife, Rose, and myself, with our children, and our grandchildren have participated several times in the planning and conducting of the church service. It has always been very meaningful for me as I look back on the spiritual roots of my life.

The beginning of World War II sticks in my memory. On Sunday, December 7, 1941, our family travelled to Potts Creek to visit my Granddaddy and Grandma Stone, who had no contact with the outside world. Consequently, on the morning of Monday, December 8, 1941, as Mom and Dad were getting me ready to go to school, we heard over the radio the announcement of the attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor. I will never forget the words of my parents, Well, I guess we’re going to war.

Soon family members and neighbors were drafted into the armed services.

I have deeply engrained memories of my childhood during the early 1940’s. Just before Dad was drafted, I learned by personal experience that surely your sins will find you out. It was a Sunday afternoon and Dad was napping when I decided that this was the perfect time to steal one of his cigarettes. To make sure that no one would ever know of my deep sin, I quietly entered the barn near our home; and, to further conceal my evil deed, I climbed inside an empty feed barrel. As I was enjoying my sinful act, I was unaware that the barrel had a huge hole near the top and that the barrel was stationed across the wall toward our house. Also, there was a half inch crack in the wall and the smoke I exhaled from the cigarette was pouring out of the barrel and through the crack in the barn wall. As I sat in that barrel smoking, my father started looking for me and he quickly found me by following the smoke trail. You can only imagine my surprise when I looked up and there stood Dad looking down at me in the barrel saying Sonny (my nickname), looks like you’re enjoying your first smoke.

Soon after, Dad was drafted into the army, being the only boy at nine years of age, many of the chores around our country home fell on me; preparing the firewood, feeding the hogs and milking Beauty, our milk cow. It happened that one hot July evening before I milked Beauty, I sprayed her with fly spray; but I got sidetracked playing with my pet dog. When I finally began to milk Beauty, the fly spray had lost its effect and Beauty, with her extremely long tail, was fighting the flies. With every whip of her tail against the flies, her long tail would wrap around my neck with a painful lash. I decided I had suffered enough, so I proceeded to tie her tail to the fence some two feet away. Having finished my milking chore, I climbed over the fence carrying the bucket of milk down the path to our house. Suddenly, I heard a loud scratching noise followed by a loud pop. I had forgotten to untie Beauty’s tail from the fence and now, to my horror, I saw two feet of her tail hanging from the fence and poor old Beauty galloping toward the pasture. Because my mother was in the hospital, I ran toward our house crying out to my Aunt Helen, who was caring for us, Aunt Helen, I’ve just pulled the cow’s tail off. That was one of the worst days of my childhood.

Another childhood experience I will always remember was one day when my mother sent me to the hen house to collect eggs. On the way back, I met my very close friend, Barry Jamison. Barry was carrying a bag of marbles. In one of the pockets of my bib-overall pants, I was carrying marbles too. We immediately drew a circle in the path to the hen house and began to play a game of marbles stooping down on our knees. After about ten minutes enjoying this delightful past-time, I heard my mother calling me to bring the eggs. As I stuck my hand in the right pocket of my pants to remove the eggs, I felt a liquid mess in my hand; and then, I began the walk toward our house to face my maternal judge.

During the years of wartime (1942 to 1945), I became very close to my Uncle Roy and Aunt Myrtle Fix. Uncle Roy became like a second father to me. Aunt Myrtle was like a grandmother to the entire family because Grandmother Fridley, her mother, had died in 1938 at a relatively young age.

There is an experience which is riveted in my mind of the two families, my Momma’s family and Aunt Myrtle’s family. We had gone up the mountain to the Big Ridge community to visit our Granddaddy Fridley and Uncle Charles’ family. On the return home, as we began to descend the mountain on the narrow, dirt road, winding around the mountain banks filled with blackberry and rhododendron bushes, the brakes in the 1946 Chevrolet automobile failed. Aunt Salena, who was visiting from Washington, D.C. where she had moved after marrying, was driving the car. For what seemed like an eternity, the car’s speed increased, and we were terrified. Fortunately, when Aunt Selena was being trained to be a streetcar driver in Washington, D.C., she was instructed that in the case of brake failure of the streetcar just put the streetcar in reverse gear. Aunt Selena was quick to remember her training and while steering those winding roads hurling down the mountain, she put the car’s transmission in reverse which immediately brought the car to a stop. Hallelujah, it was a miracle from God. For the next hour, all of us walked the remainder of the way down the mountain until we reached level ground. Looking back on that day, God had a plan for each one of us because many of those who almost lost their lives that day on the side of that mountain have contributed to the building of God’s kingdom.

In May 1945, Germany finally surrendered ending the European war. August 6, 1945, is a day I will never forget. That was the day I heard about an atomic bomb which had been dropped on a city in Japan named Hiroshima with over 40,000 deaths. My 10-year-old mind could not fathom the reality of this event. Then in late September, Momma got word that Dad was being discharged and soon he would be coming home from his Army Base in Texas. As the approximate date of his homecoming came near, I would sit on the bottom step of the front porch stairs looking up the road for him waiting for Dad to come around the curve. Finally, it happened, dressed in his army uniform around the curve he came, and I knew it was Daddy because of the way he walked. I ran with all my might up the road and fell into his arms. Daddy was finally home.

004_a_lbj23.jpg

Soon Mom and Dad began talking about moving to Washington, D.C. From a little kid, Dad had always been tinkering with cars and now under the G.I. Bill, he wanted to get formal training in auto mechanics. On January 1, 1946, we loaded up all our belongings in an ex-military dump truck. Mom and Dad boarded our old 1929 Model A Ford with my two sisters and started the journey to Washington, D.C. Following them was the truck with me sitting beside the driver. It was a Beverly Hillbillies sight. Some six hours later at about