The Life of a Modern Day Missionary

Copyright © 2014 Richard Sugden.

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Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

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ISBN: 978-1-4908-2083-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-2084-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-2082-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013923148

WestBow Press rev. date: 02/05/2014

Contents

Foreword

Introduction The Early Years

Chapter 1 – Evangelistic Meetings in Ghana, West Africa 1993

Chapter 2 – Evangelistic Meetings in India, 1994

Chapter 3 – Evangelistic Meetings in the Philippines, 1994

Chapter 4 – Evangelistic Meetings in the Return to India, 1996

Chapter 5 – Evangelistic Meetings in Haiti, 1997

Chapter 6 – Evangelistic Meetings in Jamaica, 1998

Chapter 7 – Evangelistic Meetings in Ghana, West Africa, 1998

Chapter 8 – Evangelistic Meetings in Kenya, East Africa, 1999

Chapter 9 – Evangelistic Meetings in the

Third Trip to India, 2000

Chapter 10 – Evangelistic Meetings in Uganda, 2001

Chapter 11 – Evangelistic Meetings in Uganda, 2007

Chapter 12 – Since Then … …

To my wife,

BECKY SUGDEN

My best friend for over thirty-two years.

Foreword

G od tells us that we are all different yet all have the same basic need. If something doesn’t change, everything accomplished in this life was pure vanity. The Scriptures are very clear in this area. Romans 3:23 declares, For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Romans 6:23 states not only man’s standing before a holy God; but that without acceptance of God’s provision for his sin, he will never see God’s eternal abode with Him for all eternity. For it was true that, The wages of sin was death, but the gift of God was eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

When one does become a part of the family of God, it was not the end but rather the beginning of a relationship that will last for all eternity. God has challenged His children to be faithful in being a testimony to the glory of God and share the peace of God with all that will listen. This was what impressed me about Rick Sugden Sr. He was determined to obey God and His Word. If every person who knows the Lord was faithful, obedient, and determined to do what God has asked of us, it would not be long and the world would be reached with the gospel of Christ. Neither you nor I could reach the world with the gospel; but together, this could happen in a very short period of time.

Brother Rick Sugden Sr. shares his story of life and ministry in humility and tenderness in order to challenge the heart of the reader to Follow peace with all men and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord. May each one understand God’s purpose for sharing the gospel in obedience to the Great Commission, Matthew 28:18-20.

Dr. Gary Newhart

Executive Director

International Gospel Missions

INTRODUCTION

The Early Years

T he following may be described as an autobiography of Richard L Sugden Sr., but more importantly, it was a record of the extraordinary adventure that the Lord Jesus allowed me to take as I yielded myself in service to Him. I enjoyed some marvelous and wonderful things in serving my Lord, but this book deals mostly with the exciting adventures that took place after I gave myself to serve Him as a Modern Day Missionary while using my calling as an evangelist. Hence, I called myself a missionary evangelist. Just like any story, please allow me to lay down a little background: I grew up in a non-Christian home. We did not attend any church. Our weekends were spent in Boy Scouts, camping trips, and fishing as much as possible. However, as I was having so much fun growing up, I sensed emptiness in my heart. Although I did not understand that emptiness; somehow, I knew that only God could fill it. Nobody ever stopped by and invited me to church; nobody ever opened a Bible and showed me how I could know for sure that I was going to Heaven; nobody ever told me about the Lord Jesus Christ; nobody ever cared for my soul enough to lead me to salvation.

One day, when I was 15 years of age, my parents told me that they were going to hear an evangelist speak at a citywide meeting in Loveland, CO, and they asked me if I would like to go with them. Still having that emptiness inside of my heart, I said Yes, I would like to go too. We entered into a large theater type building. It was filled with hundreds of people. There was a balcony that went almost all the way around the building. When the evangelist was speaking, he preached a very clear message on salvation, and explained how I could know for sure that I would go to heaven when I died. I knew from that message that this was the answer to the emptiness in my heart. Although I was a very shy person, and the building was packed with people, when the invitation was given, I did not hesitate to rise up from my seat and walk down the aisle. There were so many people responding to the gospel that day that they were putting eight to nine people per counselor. My group was assigned to a lady counselor that directed us to side section of the building. We all sat down there in front of her, and then she asked us this question: Did all of you come to get things right with the Lord? Everyone nodded their head yes, and so I nodded my head yes also. She said, let us pray together, and then she said, Lord, please bless these people in the decisions that they have made, amen. I walked out of that building that night, just as lost and without Christ, as when I entered into it. My heart was heavy, and I went into my bedroom, and got down on my knees, and began to pray. I said, Lord, I heard the way of salvation tonight, and my answer was ‘yes’, but somehow I got missed. I remember what your Word said: ‘for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, shall be saved’. I want to call upon you right now to wash my sins away and for you to become my Saviour. I got up off of my knees a new creature in Christ!

I may have been the same person on the outside, but I was definitely different on the inside. The change on the inside started causing changes to take place on the outside and they were noticeable. As a young Christian, I thought every church was the same, and so I joined a local United Methodist Church. Although I was faithful to the services and Sunday school, the church seemed to be hollow and lacked any teaching from the Word of God. I was learning nothing about the Christian life, or about the Word of God. Consequently, my spiritual growth was stunted. There was enough growth in my life, however, that my dad saw a difference in me. He came to me one day, and made me an offer. He said why not take the day off of school tomorrow? There is a Christian school up in Ft. Collins. If you spend the day there instead and decide that you’d like to attend school there, I will pay your tuition. If you decide you do not like it that is fine with me. You can continue in the public school. I thought it was a good idea. It would be a nice change of pace, and I would get to see what a Christian school was like. I spent the day at Heritage Christian High School in Fort Collins, Colorado. I was thrilled with what I found there. It was not just classrooms filled with Christians, but there was a whole host of other wonderful things such as, Bible class, devotions, chapel services, and individual attention from Christian teachers. It was like having a little bit of heaven in my school. I went home and told my dad that I would like to go to school there. Within a week I was transferred and attending classes there.

My schedule got very busy. I got up early in the morning, and drove to Fort Collins in order to start classes at eight o’clock. After school was football practice. After football practice was work. I worked as a chef at a steak and seafood restaurant in Fort Collins. I got off work between 10 and 11 o’clock each night, and drove back home to Loveland. I usually made it to bed somewhere around midnight, only to get up early in the morning to head back to school. This was my junior year of high school. It was also the year that God called me to preach in a chapel service while Dr. John R. Rice was preaching. At the end of the school year, I received a Christian leadership scholarship to attend Pensacola Christian College in Pensacola, Florida. When I mentioned to my dad the idea of going to college in Florida, he was not pleased. He asked me, Why do you need to go all the way to Florida, when there are Bible colleges in Denver?. I could not give him an answer, except that I felt the Lord was leading me there. As I continued to make plans to attend college in Pensacola, my dad eventually came to me, and said that the Lord had given him peace in his heart about my attending college in Florida.

I did not want to go to college by myself. I tried to convince my friend, to go to college with me. He had a girlfriend in town, and had no desire to go away to college. His parents thought it would be a good idea if he did, and compelled him to go with me. As we made plans to go to college, we decided we would drive down in his car. We packed our things, and loaded the car. We stopped at a campground halfway to Pensacola and used my pup tent to stay the night. As we began to settle into our college rooms, we were given the rulebook to go over. My friend really didn’t want to be there anyway, and the rulebook did not help to keep him there. After two weeks into the semester, he came to me and said he has had enough. He said he is packing his things and going home. He said if I wanted to go with him, that I should be ready because he was leaving the next day. I told him that I really believe that the Lord wanted me to stay. He said, Okay, goodbye. It was so hard for me to stand there and watch my transportation drive off campus. I was left all alone.

Both during the time at my Christian high school, and my time at college, the Word of God seemed to come alive! I began to learn things about the Word of God that I had not learned before. Doctrine began to settle into my mind, and I began to know what I believed and why believed it.

The student ratio at the college was four girls to every one guy, and the school encouraged dating. Even though I was still very shy and backward, I really wanted to get to know girls. I dated many of them. As opportunities for dating arose, I would ask a different girl to go with me. One day when I was wondering who I should ask next, a friend suggested that I should ask Becky for a date. Becky worked at the concession stand in the student center. I decided I would go in and purchase a snack. That gave me the opportunity to speak to her, and at that time I could ask her if she would go with me to the Wednesday evening service at church. She looked up at me with somewhat of a surprise, but then she said, Yes. There was a guest speaker that night. And when the preacher was introduced, he requested that all those that are dating couples would please stand. This was our very first date, and we stood up. The preacher said, I want to see who I will be preaching to this evening, because I will be preaching on dating and marriage. You may be seated.

After dating so many different girls, I knew right away that Becky was different. She had captured my attention, and I looked for every opportunity to be with her. I no longer looked for the next girl to ask for a date. I kept asking Becky for another date. Without her even trying, she had swept me off my feet. During our junior year of college, I asked her to marry me. I was broke, and I didn’t even have a ring, but we had an understanding that we would be married.

At the end of my junior year of college, I had the opportunity to be a summer youth pastor at Chippewa Lake Baptist Church in Medina, Ohio where D. Larry Leonard was pastor. The pastor told me that he did not have a youth program. It was my job to develop a program, promote it, and run it for the summer. After putting together the program and running it, we grew from zero teenagers to about 15. Toward the end of the summer, the pastor arranged to take a group on a mission’s trip to Haiti for 10 days. He told me that this was my final exam. I would be the pastor of the church for the 10 days while he was gone. I told him that I thought that I was ready. I worked hard in preparation for my messages that would be preached the Sunday that he was gone. That Sunday morning, I woke up with a phone call. There was a woman weeping and telling me that her husband had a heart attack and was in the emergency room. I quickly got dressed and drove to the emergency room at the hospital. When I walked in, I found that the man had already died. It was the first time I ever saw a dead man besides in a funeral home with all the makeup on. We walked out of the trauma ward and into the waiting room. I then asked the woman if her husband was a Christian. She said no, he never received Christ. I was shocked. I did not know what to say. I just sat there thinking about what words I should say, in order to comfort her. What words of comfort was there for a woman whose husband just died and went to Hell? They never taught me that in college. I told her that I needed to leave in order to teach Sunday school and preach in the morning service, but that I would be back to check on her later. When the pastor came back from Haiti, I told him what had happened. I asked him what words of comfort do you give someone whose spouse just died and went to Hell? The pastor told me, there are no words of comfort. That was why it was so important that we diligently win the lost to Christ, because after death, it was too late. What I learned in that experience, was something that no book could teach me.

At the end of the summer, the church gave me a generous love offering to help me get back into school. My senior year was busy, and my classes were difficult, especially Greek. Since Greek was my minor, I was stressed, whether my grade was going to be high enough to allow me to graduate. I met with my teacher several times, and he assured me that my grades were okay. However, it seemed to me that it was very close to being good enough. I also had the stress of finances. I worked during the summer time, and I worked at the mall during school, but there never seemed to be enough money. Every time the tuition bill came due, I always came up short. However, each time the bill came, and my money ran short, something happened that made up the difference. I had one more bill left before graduation, and I had exhausted my resources. I still owed $615.25, and I was out of money. As I continued in prayer concerning this, I also looked for ways to get the money. I called my dad, and he said, I’m sorry Rick, but I don’t have any money to send you. I don’t have a single dollar that I can send. I called my pastor, and he said, I’m sorry Rick, but the church is facing hard times right now. There is nothing I can do to help you. I was out of ideas, and it was required to have an exam permit in order to take final exams. You cannot have an exam permit without having your bill paid. My first exam was scheduled to take place immediately after lunch on Thursday. When I went to lunch on Thursday, I had no exam permit, because my bill was not paid. As I walked back from lunch with my fellow students, we parted ways. They went towards the exam, and I went towards the dormitory. They asked me why I was not going with them, and I told them that I did not have an exam permit. I could tell by their reaction that they were feeling very bad, and we said our goodbyes. On my way to my dormitory room, I stopped off at my mailbox. When I opened up the mailbox, I found a receipt for $615.25 as an anonymous gift, and my exam permit! I took off running as fast as I could, and made it in time to take my first exam.

As the semester was coming to a close, Becky and I were seeking the Lord’s will, concerning where we should serve the Lord. There were several opportunities, but none of them really fit right. At the last minute, we were given the opportunity, to return to Chippewa Lake Baptist Church in Medina, Ohio where D. Larry Leonard was the pastor. All the details seemed to fall into place, and giving us a peace about the direction the Lord was leading us in. Three weeks after graduation, we were married.

When we arrived at the church, we moved into the apartment inside the church building, where I stayed as a bachelor the summer before. We took over where I had left off with the youth program and continued to build upon it. The youth program was a popular thing in our church. The younger children were so envious of the youth. They couldn’t wait to become old enough to join the youth group. The children were excited, the teenagers were excited, and the parents were excited about what was going on with their teenagers. It was a lot of work. The hours were long, and there was very little time to take a breath.

Living inside the church was an interesting experience. One Sunday after morning services, a young lady asked me if we really lived inside the church building. I said, Yes, we do. She asked if it was scary in there at night. I said, No, this is the house of the Lord. She said that she would still be very scared at night. I said, I’m going to pray for you, and she said, I’m going to pray for you!

After one year of living in the church building, Becky found work as an RN at Medina Community Hospital, and we had the opportunity to purchase a home in the village of Chippewa Lake on a land contract basis. Winter was coming, and we needed to do all that we could to save energy. I was able to purchase an add-on wood burner. This wood burner blew hot air into the furnace’s plenum. When the plenum got hot enough, the furnace blower kicked on, and blew the hot air throughout the house. There was a man in our church that worked for the county. His job was to clear the ditches along the sides of the roads. He was to cut up all the fallen limbs, throw them into the back of the truck, and then dispose of them. It did not matter what he did with the wood, and so I made arrangements for him to dump them in my driveway. This gave us a free source of firewood! That winter, it got down to -22°F, but the wood burner kept our home at 72° F without the gas ever kicking on for the furnace.

From time to time, I had the opportunity to preach on Sunday nights. When I had those opportunities to preach to the church body, the people would come up to me later and tell me that I sounded like an evangelist. That was a very kind way to pay me a compliment. Little did I know that the Lord was using those comments to prepare me for a future ministry.

We were expecting our first child in October of 1983. As the subject came up concerning the name of the child, Becky said she had already decided that he would be named after his father. I asked, What if it is a girl? She told me that she believed very strongly that the first child should be a boy, and he should be named after his father. I asked her, What if it is a girl? She said, it has to be a boy and he is to be named after his father. When the baby was born, we both rejoiced to see that it was a boy! It was my job to go down to the desk and to have the birth certificate filled out. That should be an easy thing for me to handle since it was clear as to what the child’s name should be. I told the nurse, His name is Richard Lee Sugden Jr.. When Becky asked me what I told the nurse the baby’s name is, I told her that we had already discussed that. She asked me, what exactly did you give for the name? I said, Richard Lee Sugden Jr. She said, I don’t want that to be his name. I was surprised! I said that’s what you told me. She said, I don’t want him to be a junior. People will start calling him Junior. She said, Name him Richard Lee Sugden II. I went back to the nurse, and told her I needed to change his name.

In the summer of 1984, we had a Sunday school picnic. Before everyone gathered there, we began playing a game of touch football. When we made a touchdown, instead of kicking off, we just threw the ball to the other team. When one of the players on the other team returned the ball, he dove into my right knee and snapped the anterior curiae ligament. I had to have surgery to reconstruct the knee, and I was on crutches for the next three months. The year 1984, became more and more difficult financially for the church. We continued to cut back on all expenses, but we consistently came up short by about $200.00 per week. That was exactly the amount of my paycheck. I eventually came to the pastor and told him that I believed that the Lord was leading me away from the church in order to protect the church financially. We left with the pastor’s blessing, and we made a temporary move to live with Becky’s parents. During the time of my recovery, I was sending out resumes to seek for another position in the ministry.

While sending out resumes, I received a phone call, offering a position as director of a Christian camp outside of Youngstown Ohio. The responsibilities would involve more than just directing, but also working as an evangelist. Having people tell me that I sounded like an evangelist when I preached, I saw this as a direction from the Lord. There was a house on the property that we could live in for free. There was a gas well on the property that allowed us to have free heat for the winter. In the spring of 1985, we moved to the campground, and met with the administrator. Most of the churches had already committed themselves to certain weeks of the summer for their camp time. However, there was a lot of work needing to be done to get the grounds ready for the camp season. By this time Becky was expecting our second child. When we met with the administrator, he pushed all the books across the table to me, and said, These are all the records of the camp. Goodbye, I’m moving to Michigan. The entire camping season was up to us to prepare and to run. When I looked at the books, I found the camp was in serious financial trouble. I told Becky, that we needed to run this camp on the $15 registration fee, and the remaining $30 would go towards back debt. We prepared a budget, and did exactly that. We had some guest speakers come to preach, but I did most of the preaching. Most of the volunteers came from a nearby church by the name Bible Baptist Temple of Campbell, Ohio. The ladies told their pastor that he needs to come out and hear this young preacher at the camp. That was when I met Pastor Dick Patrick.

When the camping season was over, although we had free housing and free gas, we still could not live with nothing else. On September 7th, at five o’clock in the morning, Becky woke me up, and said, I think we’re going to have this kid today. I flew out of bed, and started getting ready. We made it to the hospital, and our second son was born. This time, it was my turn to name a child. I chose the name Ryan Leon Sugden. I always liked the name Ryan ever since we drove past a street sign for Ryan Road. I told Becky that I would love to have a son named Ryan.

One day I got a phone call from Pastor Dick Patrick. This was the pastor of the Bible Baptist Temple in Campbell, Ohio, where many of our volunteers came from. He told me