Hippy Turned Evangelist

Last night I stayed in the home of Tom and Vicki Maheiras. The first time I saw Tom he looked like one of the Three Musketeers--complete with mustache, beard, and in place of a sword--a Gibson guitar. It was the summer of '68, and Tom was high on drugs when my friend Bruce invited him to leave Lake George and come up to Word of Life Island on Schroon Lake. That night, Jack Wyrtzen, my dad, proclaimed the good news about Jesus, and Tom came forward to receive Christ. That was 39 years ago, and last night, instead of being high on LSD, he was high on how the Lord had used him to speak to 50,000 Africans in Uganda, and he was strategizing about how to unite the power of the Gospel with the skill of American entrepreneurship to seek to bring more than just a hand-out in Africa. He has pastored for more than 30 years and now head up CitiVision, an inner city ministry mobilizing the Body of Christ not only in New York City, but in cities around the world, to change the ghetto into a community transformed by Jesus. The Gospel still is the power of God. My friend Tom and his precious wife, Vicki, prove it. I picked up my oldest son and his family at JFK this morning. Now its time to relax with the Wyrtzen tribe for a week at Word of LIfe where new "Toms" could get close to Jesus during another week of ministry. Pray!