My Early Story (13)

 

George Will – From Bible College To Brooklyn

 

George had a Ford station wagon that we loaded up. We stopped by the home of a married student, who lived off-campus, for dinner and then headed north to Maryland. We may have spent the night at the married student’s home, I can’t remember. (Just image how often I’d use the term, “I can’t remember,” if I waited another ten years to write this!)

 

I’m not certain when we decided to head to New York, but I think it was before we got to my mom’s in Maryland. I had read The Cross and the Switchblade by David Wilkerson the previous year (later made into a movie with Pat Boone) and I thought it would be great to preach the Gospel in NYC. Since George had a friend working at Teen Challenge in Brooklyn, which was Wilkerson’s ministry to gangs and people on drugs, we thought we’d just head on up I-95 to see what God had in store for us.

 

We spent a few days at Mom’s, and I remember George fixing things around the house for her. We also went to visit Pastor Don Wilkes and filled him in on the expulsion. Pastor Don called the school and then told me that they’d take me back but that they wouldn’t take George. He didn’t explain why. Well, the fact that they wouldn’t take George back meant that I really didn’t have anything to think about, I couldn’t even explore the possibility of a return under those conditions. Of course, considering why I was expelled, returning wouldn’t have been workable – the school wasn’t going to change anytime soon and I wasn’t about to change my thinking.

 

After a few days at Mom’s we headed to Brooklyn, NY. Upon our arrival at Teen Challenge we met George’s friend, Liza, and got a tour of the place from Don Wilkerson, David’s brother. However, there was nothing at the ministry for us to do and that night we slept in the car on the streets of Brooklyn. It was January, it was cold, and we had around $80.00 between us.