“Cowboy Missionaries On The Go!” - - - - - - Re: 'Cowboy Crane Operators'

I have a need to explain a little more about this term “Cowboy”! Back in the late fifties and early sixties I was working on Missile Silos at Vandenberg AFB, and these Silos are around 200 feet deep. After we dug them and ‘slip formed’ the poured in place concrete, Structural Iron Workers erected the Crib Iron in the Silo. Most Iron Workers are Cowboys themselves, ‘Daring’ just a part of their characters.
The crane operator was extremely good and would bring these men out of the hole in a ‘Man Cage’ and they would be egging him on, yelling and jumping, bouncing the cage. He got so that as soon as the cage cleared the hole, he would swing the boom quickly to half way between the hole & where the cage was supposed to be set down. As the cage was swinging really fast, he would agilely swing the boom over to where he would at the last minute gently placed the cage on the X that marked the landing spot. This operator was GOOD! And so, the Iron Workers called him a ‘Cowboy Operator’. Not to take anything away from “The Cowboy Ministries” that minister to Cowboys today. I thought this would be a good place to give some meaning to my use of the term. By The Way, The safety program at that time (OSHA?) eventually stopped the Cowboy Antics, as it was extremely dangerous.

Back to my story and our friends who were Cowboys!
They sold and gave away everything, which was not much, & off they went with Family & Friends wondering if they had lost their mind. You might say they did lose their mind, … after they found their heart!

Our friends and their four kids took off for Moldova via Moscow in 1994 with only what they had with them, about $1,500.00 in cash, in the middle of winter. On their way, on the plane was a Mission Group from a Korean Church here in So. Cal. On their way to St. Petersburg to minister for a week, the Plane change destinations in mid flight, which caused our friends to miss their connections in Moscow.

Another friend of ours, went with them, to help them get established and he returned to US two weeks later. He was sitting next to one of these people in the other group and was telling the woman who was sitting between him and her husband, about this family that heard the voice of GOD and sold (and gave away) everything, but the clothes on their back and was heading for Moldova, which is below the Ukraine. This woman started to weep and our friend asked her husband if he offended her and the Husband with a smile on his face, said no … that his wife had a dream that GOD told her that she was to give a family on this trip, $2,000.00 who were on their way to the Mission Field.

Needless to say, that everything was on schedule, regardless of what the circumstances were saying. To make a long story shorter, When in Moscow, they told a person that they were on their way to Moldova and the response was, “It is a long train ride to Moldova!”

I may eventually write more about their adventures and God meeting their needs, as I put this book together, yet I am in the process of contacting them, to see where they stand on this.

Next Week: More on Cowboy Missionaries! ©2007