“You are the salt of the earth,” “ Let your light so shine before men

Photo Courtesy of Jan Spencer
“You are the salt of the
earth,” “ Let your light so
shine before men, that they
may see your good works
and glorify your Father in
heaven.” Matt 5: 13, 16
THE LINE RIDER is published monthly by the
Fellowship of Christian Cowboys, Inc., 3125
Maple Lane, Cañon City, CO 81212.
Subscription: $45.00 suggested donation
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to
THE LINE RIDER, P.O. Box 1210,
Canon City, CO 81215.
All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may
be reproduced except with the written permission
of the Fellowship of Christian Cowboys, Inc.
Editors: Lynne Schricker & Linda Scholtz
Graphic Design: Annie Thomas
CONTENTS
August 2015
FEATURE ARTICLES
3
Brad Eveleth Testimony
As Told to Tammy Hackens &
Lynne Schricker
O-B-E-Y - The Conclusion
“You’re a liar and a thief, a liar and a thief,...
7
In Loving Memory
Marvin “Tige” Reinhold
June 22, 1929 - June 14, 2015
Dad was a gentle giant...
MONTHLY COLUMNS
6
8
12
A Western Woman’s Heart:
By Davalynn Spencer
When You Least Expect It…
Talk about being jerked backed to reality...
Spotlight on Youth
by Elli Ouelette
Daniel Unruh
We are not afraid to risk our safety, our
body, and possibly our life...
Bible Study:
By Mike Shields, Sr.
Get Up and Get Going
The 4-wheeler in the bed of a pickup will
go through the back window if not secured.
13
Down the Road:
14
Steer Ad:
IN THIS ISSUE...
It’s rodeo season and what better time
to hear from our resident PRCA rodeo
judge, John Kissel, who is our Down
The Road columnist and cover picture
for this month. Being imperfect salt
shakers, we depend on the Lord to use
our lives as seasoning for His work.
Taking His Word to the far corners
of our rural world and beyond is His
calling for our lives.
By John Kissell
Peace Through the Round Pen
Like it or not, we are in God’s round pen.
Help the Fellowship of
Christian Cowboys
Brad Eveleth Testimony as told to Tammy Hackens and Lynne Schricker
The Conclusion of the Brad Eveleth Testimony
O-B-E-Y
M
y partners in the
stool business
got tired of
writing those big checks to me
so they decided to quit paying
me. They hired some New
York lawyers which means,
expensive and mean. The
only way they could beat me
was to prove that my patent
wasn’t any good. They looked
through my patent details and
said, “Aha, aha, we’ve got him.”
They sued me for having
an invalid patent and they
wanted all of the money they
had paid me. They sued me in
federal court saying I had been
cheating the FTC. They said
that I had been duping the
public because the patent wasn’t
mine.
They were suing me for big
money and I would come home
and cry in my pillow at night. I
would pray the Psalms and say,
“These bad people are trying to
throw me in the pit.” I had to
drive clear to Denver, Colorado
from here in South Dakota every
week to give my deposition. I
would go to the federal courthouse, go down the long corridor
into a room with the lawyers
and a stenographer. They would
ask me questions and after I
would tell them the truth about
what they asked, they would say,
“You’re a liar and a thief, a liar and
a thief.” It got pretty depressing
after a while. One day my phone
rang here at home and my lawyer
said I had to come back one more
time. They said they were getting
ready to go to trial.
The court requires that you
his arms. It was all of the lawyer’s
briefs from the case. The judge
walked along the table, stopped
and looked around a little bit and
then walked up behind me. He
stepped beside me and “boom”
he slammed that stack of papers
down on the table. Everybody
kind of jumped, and he said,
“Now that I have your attention, I was in my bible study
this morning and I know what
is going on here.” He pointed
at the New York lawyers all the
way around the table and said,
“You’re a liar and a thief, a liar
and a thief, a liar and a thief!” He
said, “You’ll be sorry if you ever
Photo By Roger Givens
come into my court room if you
have a settlement conference; they don’t get this settled today with
this man.” He turned and left the
want to see if you can settle this
room and the New York lawyers
before they spend so much monjumped up and said, “Let’s talk
ey. So I took my attorney from
settlement.” It ended up that I
here in Rapid City with me and
didn’t have to pay anything and
we drove to the conference.
they had to pay me. Ha, ha. This
We went into the conferhad gone on for five years but
ence room that had a long table
God came through. “Thank you
in the middle with all the New
God, You sure showed up!” God
York lawyers sitting around it.
knew what He was going to do all
We all sat there looking at each
along and He did it in a fancy
other. My lawyer said, “We’re
way. On the drive home to Rapid
here to talk settlement.” A New
City my lawyer said, “I’ve never
York lawyer jumped up and said,
seen anything like that!” I thought
“We’re not settling for one dime
to myself, here I’ve been wasting
less than you owe us!” I thought,
all this time worrying, look
well that’s about the end of the
at all those tears I’ve wasted by
settlement talk. We all sat there
not just trusting God.
staring at each other. Then God
One day I went into lay
showed up ! There was a knock at
down on my bed for a bit to make
the door. A lady stuck her head
my plans for the next week or
in and said, “All rise, the Honorable Magistrate, Judge Haggarty is so. I woke up in the middle of
here.” We all stood up. This judge the night with the neighbors sitwalks in wearing a long black robe ting on my bed talking to me. I
wondered what in the world was
with about a ream of papers in
going on? There was this fella
Barbwire Brad at his booth.
there that they said was an EMT with the fire department. Sally had called 911 because I couldn’t talk or
get up. The next thing I know I was on a Life Flight to
Sioux Falls, South Dakota. I woke up the next morning in the hospital room with all these strange people
around me; I had suffered a serious stroke. I felt a lot of
spiritual battles going on so I cried out to God, “God
help me!” The next morning as I woke up, I could
see angels sitting all around the room on the window
ledges. I recognized Michael, the Arch Angel, and I
thought, “Wow, God cares for me, He sent His number
one angel to look after me and my family.” I looked at
him and he winked at me. I knew that he was saying,
“I’ve got your back buddy.” Sally told me I had come
really close to dying and I thought, “God I’d rather be
with you than here. Why didn’t you just take me?” God
said, “I created you for a purpose, Brad, and I’m not
done with you yet. I’m not going to tell you what the
purpose is because you’d start working on it yourself.” I
said, “You know me too good God.” He said, “You’d try
to take credit for it.”
”When I got home I was sitting in my recliner and
I said, “God, do you have anything to say to me, I’m
listening.” He said, “Ok, you remember you said that,
now, remember…. O-B-E-Y.” “I don’t want to hear any
excuses, OBEY right away.” At church we would go up
and sit in the balcony where all the loose end people
sit. I would just start talking and ministering to
them. God would say, “Go talk to them.” And I would
think, “Ohhhh, God, I don’t know them.” Then He
would remind me, OBEY. He said, “Somebody’s got
to pay when you OBEY. Jesus paid when He OBEYed;
and somebody’s got to pay if you don’t OBEY. I
thought, “Wow, that’s a lot of responsibility on me.”
The very next day, He gave me something to do
that I didn’t want to do. I was in physical therapy.
There was a PT nurse in the hospital that I called,
Sarge. She was pretty tough. God told me to tell her
something that I thought was a little personal. I told
God I didn’t want to tell her anything. God reminded
me to O B E Y. I said, “Ok, ok.” I went into the PT
room that I called the “forest of despair” in the workout
room. She was in there and I said, “Sandy, God told me
something to tell you. This is from God, it’s not from
me.” She said, “Ok.” About that time a big strong guy
came walking down through the machines (which I
called the forest) and I said to Sandy, “God said, ‘He’s
not for you.’” She said, “Yeah, I know, He told me too.”
Well, I had to laugh. God hadn’t steered me wrong.
When I first had my stroke, I was in the hospital a
long time. I had business cards made up, and when you
turned them over, it asked if you knew if your name
was in the Lamb’s Book of Life. The hospital chaplain
told me he’d like to see that book to see if his name was
in there. He said, “Where can I find this book?” I said,
“God’s got this book.” He asked me how he could
know if his name was written in there. I told him he
would know. I said you’d know because one day you’d
be walking down the street and God would call your
name, “Hey Bob.” And you’d go, “Who me?” And God
would say, “Yeah, you Bob, come over here. What do
you say about my Son, Jesus? “Yes” or “No.” I told him
you’ll remember that day when God calls your name
and that’s when you just say, “Yes” or, “No.” The day
you say, “Yes.” That’s the day you get your name written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. If you say, “No” you’re
in big trouble, Buddy. I think every cowboy preacher
ought to know to tell cowboys it’s not hard. When God
calls your name, keep it simple; just say, “Yes.” It’s not
hard, just say, “Yes.”
I was always asking people what they wanted in a
prayer request. This one lady said, “Oh, I want peace
for my family.” I told her there was only one way to get
peace and that was by knowing Jesus Christ. I asked
her if she wanted to know Jesus and she said, “Yes she
would.” I led her to Christ right then and there were
several others came to Christ while I was there in
the hospital.
After I got out of the hospital, I went to the “Hills
Alive Gospel Music Concert” in Rapid City, South
Dakota. I’m incapacitated from my stroke
so I was sitting in my wheel chair in
a big tent handing out water. That
was an easy job I could do. I said,
“Ok God, what do you want
me to do.” He said, “Just sit
there and look down this
walkway and I’ll tell you
who to talk to.” I sat there
watching hundreds of
people coming along,
and God said, “That
guy.” He was a big guy
with tattoos down his
neck and a big green
plug in his ear. I
said, “Hey, you want
some water?” He
said, “Yeah.” I gave
him some water and
told him God had
given me something
to tell him. He bent
down a little bit and
I told him, “Your
mother loves you and
she misses you.” He
just turned around
and walked off to join
his crowd of guys. In
about fifteen minutes he
came back.
There were tears running down his cheeks and
he said, “You’ll never know
how much that means to me!”
He was crying like a baby and I
told him it wasn’t from me, it was
from God. I told him he better go call
his mother right away. He said he would.
I’m praying I’ll get to see him in Heaven and
his mother probably will give me a hug in heaven and
she’ll say, “You sent my son back to me.” I’ll tell her, it
wasn’t me, it was God. I was just doing the job He gave
me to do. I was just OBEYing God.
I know now I can do nothing by myself. Before my stroke, I felt like I was standing at the top of
the hill, my life was all a downhill straight run. I had
the world by the tail; I’d get a check in the mail every
month, I had this beautiful home, a beautiful family. I
had the world by the tail. I was a tough cowboy; I
could ride any horse that came along. I told
God I thought I could handle it from
here on. About that time there came
a bump in the road, Oh, there’s a
curve that I didn’t see and boy
did I end up in the ditch.
Here I was after my stroke, I
couldn’t stand by myself, I
couldn’t even scratch my
nose. I was in the hospital a long time. Even
after I got home, I was
really incapacitated.
My left side is pretty
useless, I can’t see out
of my left eye even.
I was just laying
here in my chair
making my plans.
What am I going
to do now, how am
I going to make a
living? God said to
me, “What are you
doing Brad?” I said,
“I’m just making my
plans.” He said, “I
know you are.” So I
just went back to laying there and He said,
“What are you doing
now?” And I said, “I’m
just making my backup
plans.” God said, “Good.
I know you are!” Then God
said, “Brad, I had a plan for
you even before you were born.
It was a very, very good plan.” I
said, “Ok God, I defer to your plan.”
And a peace came over me and I thought,
I don’t have to worry about that anymore and
I gave up on my plans. God said, “You always like to
have a check list. Put this at the top of your check list,
# 1, depend on God.” I gave up making my plans and
now I just depend on God and try to O-B-E-Y.