A Life Wasted

CBN Telethon

The next day everyone teased me about the big date, enough to embarrass me. It wasn't bad teasing, as a matter of fact most of it came from CBN's single women. I didn't think much of it until I saw Mary and she asked how my date went. I told her the truth, that it wasn't a big deal and that I would have much rather been out with her. To my surprise Mary seemed to accept my declaration. In fact, this seemed to be a turning point with her. I don't mean that she agreed to go out with me because she didn't. I continued to try and she continued to turn me down. But she did seem to warm up a little.

After "The Big Date" Mary and I would spend more time together at CBN, more time talking. With the telethon about to start I was super busy, but every moment I could spare I either spent with Mary or trying to find her. In addition to our meetings during the day there was the evening when I delivered the format to Pat Robertson's home. I usually found Mary and her parents at Ken's house those nights so I always stopped by to play with my mutt where Mary would always join me. Using the mutt and the horses as props we would talk late into the night. I have no idea what we talked about.

The telethon was amazing. This was my second CBN telethon as a CBN staffer. For the one in 1976 I was the on air switcher, with little to do during the telethon so I usually helped by shuttling guest to and from the airport, as a volunteer on the phone bank for those calling in to donate or in the counseling center for those needing prayer and counseling. So for my first CBN telethon I did mostly volunteer work. It was still an amazing experience, but nothing like my second CBN telethon. The telethon in 1977 was expected to be the one that launched CBN onto the national stage and it did just that. Significant for the 1977 telethon is that it was the first ever Religious programming to be broadcast live over satellite.

During this telethon I worked non-stop. For most of my driving I switched to the van and had to resort to having one or more guest wait with me for the next flight. We had so many people coming and going that there was no choice. As exciting as this week was, I remember very few of the guest that came through. During the week I saw Mary some, but spent little time with her. Plus she was working as a volunteer on the phones so she was busy too, so we pretty much just saw each other in passing.

The most significant thing I recall about the 1977 Telethon was it's last hours. Everyone present that night will remember it for the rest of their life. Before I explain what happened I have to give a little background. Pat Robertson is an ordained Baptist preacher, but he was full gospel in practice. I'm not going to get into the weeds with the religious stuff, but that basically means Pat believes in the gift's of the Spirit. Pentecostal, if that helps. Pat and the CBN staff believe God still works miracles. Coming from a Lutheran background, I'd never heard of this sort of thing, so when I started working at CBN I was ignorant to the "Gifts". I could write for hours of the things I saw and experienced at CBN before the 1977 Telethon, but I'll settle with the event that made me a believer.

Early in my time at CBN, while I was still an on air switcher, I had been asked to drive one of the guest to the airport after the show. So with the CBN car that would later become my own, waiting out front, I waited in Studio B for the guest to come out of the Green Room. Both guests, Pat Robertson and Ben Kinchlow were back there with the door closed so I had no choice but to wait. The lights in Studio B were all down and everyone else was gone except for an old man and his wife. They were ancient. In there eighties. The woman was in a wheel chair and curled up like it hurt her to sit. She looked like she would be in pain no matter what her position. Her husband was only slightly better. He used her wheel chair like a walker and it was difficult for him to push it forward. I had already spoke to him, so I knew they were waiting on Pat. I confirmed that Pat was still in the back and would have to walk by her on his way out. He wanted Pat to pray for his wife so he stood waiting. I offered to get him a chair but he declined. He said that if he sat down he wouldn't be able to get up till next week.

When Pat and company finally left the Green Room they were in a hurry. They rushed past the old man and he'd missed his chance. I had never met nor spoke to Pat Robertson at that point and was more than a little intimidated by the man. But my empathy for the old couple won out so I called Pat by name. Pat stopped, looked back, seemed to noticed the old couple and I for the first time, then went to them. I explained to Pat that the man wanted him to pray for his wife. Pat had already focused on the couple and now they received his full attention. Something I later observed from Pat many times. When someone is in need they received his full attention. This is what happened now. Pat knelt in front of the old woman and spoke to her gently while Ben and the two guests crowded around him. I stood back a little, curious, but not wanting to get involved. Pat got to his feet then bent at the waist and helped the old woman stand. It was more like he pulled her out of the wheel chair and forced her bent body to its feet. She couldn't stand on her own and she couldn't reach anything resembling straight, but she was upright and moaning in pain. Had it not been Pat Robertson and Ben Kinchlow doing this I would have stepped in and used force to make them leave the poor old woman alone. But I was so intimated by the great men that I just watched.

Pat placed his hand on her forehead and said, "Heal." He said this softly, but he said it with the authority of one who knew his command would be obeyed. At first I thought Pat pushed the woman backward because she went back as if she'd been pushed hard. Ben must have known this would happen because he was behind the woman and caught her as she fell. Ben gently laid the woman down, looked up at me and smiled, then turned and walked away. Pat and the guest had already walked away, so now it was just the old couple and I in the studio. The problem was that the old woman was flailing as if in an epileptic fit. Her husband couldn't bend down so I knelt and held her head. I'd had advanced first aid training in the Coast Guard so I held her head to the side and made sure she didn't bite her tongue. I remember looking up at the route Pat, Ben and the guest had taken to leave. I couldn't believe they had just left her like this. I was thinking they were the coldest hearted people I'd ever met when a female staffer walked by, looked down at the old woman shaking on the floor, smiled and kept going. In disbelief I watched her leave. This was crazy. The meanest convicts would have stopped to help an old woman in trouble.

At that point my plan was to get an ambulance for the woman, then to get as far as I could from these heartless, crazy Christians. I was trying to figure out how to let her go so I could get to a phone, when one of the guest walked back into the studio. He asked if I was the guy that was suppose to take him to the airport. I pulled the car keys from my pocket and tossed them to him and said something nasty while telling him I quit so he'd have to drive himself. He took a look at me and the situation, then asked if I was a new Christian. Again, I snapped at him saying something I'll not repeat. I'm not sure, but I think the guy's name was Alan Small. I do remember he was Canadian and the host of a popular Wild Life show on secular TV that I had watched before. The guy sat beside me and told me that the woman was fine, that God was healing her. Of course I didn't believe a word of this but his confidence relaxed me a bit. Together we sat on the floor until the woman regained consciousness.

She looked up at me and smiled. She turned her head to her husband and told him she was healed. Alan and I helped her up. She stood straight and tall and she stood on her own. She walked over and hugged her husband and kept saying, "I'm healed". Skeptic that I am, I looked around the studio for a camera. There were three floor camera's in the studio, as there always is, but they were all limp, pointed at the ground and away from us. No one was there to witness what had happened and it hadn't been taped. In a few minutes the couple left the studio with the husband using the empty wheel chair as a walker, with his wife walking beside him. I had no doubt that she had been healed. It was the most amazing thing I had seen to that point in my life. I would see many more miracles. Miracles the public would never know about. I was with Pat on numerous occasions when he would use the power of God to heal and not once did they make a big deal of it. But none of what I had witnessed and experienced before would prepare me for what happened during the 1977 telethon.