Article: Reflections at Age 90

I have been asked to write reflections as my 90th birthday approaches. Earlier reflections on “God Moments in My Publishing Life” were intended to capture experiences in the publishing world. They did not reflect family background, married life, church life, and community involvements, including a lifelong interest in sports writers’ personality stories.

Through all my life runs a deep awareness of God, his Word, and his movements in my life. It started with my parent’s daily family devotions and prayer, at first in the German language and switching to English when we five children gradually entered public school. After scarlet fever at age five my eyes had crossed and for seven years I was odd-man-out in all sports and social activities. I became a voracious reader of books, both Christian and secular.

At the same time my life preparation continued in the South Abbotsford Mennonite Brethren Church, where at age six I participated in the church’s Christmas event, devoted to public participation by all children. By age 16 I was my Sunday school teacher’s assistant and at 18 a neighbor and I taught a preteen boys class both in church and a mission outreach Sunday afternoon. In my mid-teens my neighborhood friend and I also signed out books for others in the church library, while devouring every missionary biography and apologetic book.

All of these experiences coalesced into who I became as a writer and editor because God had a plan for my life. It surpassed anything anyone in my acquaintance circle could have imagined as they bullied me and made fun of my crossed eyes.

Life-altering God Moments

I was the oldest in a family of five children, three boys and two girls. In my early teens I was Mom’s laundry and garden assistant. After four years in a nearby elementary school I was getting up at 6:00 a.m. to feed and milk cows, then walk half a mile to catch the school bus. After school we helped clear land, plant and hoe silage corn, tend acres of raspberries and strawberries, help mother take care of a large garden and with canning and drying of vegetables and fruit.

Berry picking started in late May, as did potato harvesting. Haying season started in June and included collecting hay from several sources, and loading it into our barn’s hayloft. By age 16 I was 6’3” and 190 pounds, so I was expected to “do a man’s job,” especially since Dad had asthma and was allergic to a lot of what we had to process on the farm.

My parent’s decision to enroll me in the newly organized Mennonite Educational Institute not only gave me an education in English literature, science, agriculture, but it also included a daily immersion in biblical studies and memorization. A year at the University of British Columbia introduced me to the diversity of Christian experience as I participated in Intervarsity studies led by an Anglican priest. A guest speaker introduced me to the power of story as he retold the story of the man born blind in chapter nine of the Book of John. I discovered a new version of apologetics in C.S. Lewis’s writings.

I joined three other young men on an adventurous trip to my uncle and aunt’s mission outreach in northern British Columbia, ostensibly to work at a silver and zinc mine. When I was asked to replace the first aid and warehouse man I moved in with miners who appreciated my care after injury. I had lots of evening free time and I dedicated one week to prayer and Bible study in search of what God might have in mind for me in terms of vocation. God convinced me through prayer and Scripture reading that if I dedicated my future to him on a worldwide basis he would provide the plan.

Several weeks later a mountain climbing accident forced a four-month hospital experience. Paging through a Christian magazine I saw an advertisement shouting “You Can Write.” I realized I could afford the $15 required for a 7-lesson correspondence course, “The Beginning Christian Writer.” I was hooked.

I later spent six months in a B.C. Forest Ranger’s office reporting weather and drawing land maps. But I also read most of C.S. Lewis’ books, books on Christian psychology, and studied the book of Romans. And I increased my speed as a typist—a huge benefit when I became an editor. I visited the services of each local church, stood in for a pastor on vacation, leading services both Sunday morning and First Nation’s amazing evening testimony/sing-alongs.

Career and Marriage Decisions

When I headed for two years at a Bible college that fall I still had no idea what God really had in mind for me, but I became a writer. The college president noticed and made me the college’s PR person. Incredibly, I still had no inkling of God’s future for me until one spring day I was selling college yearbooks when I landed at a German language weekly publisher’s house. Invited onto his porch, he shocked me by saying he was planning to invest in an English equivalent of his German weekly. He asked if I would be willing to be the first editor. Three months later we released the first edition.

I was now 25 and wondering who God would introduce as a life partner. That fall Rita Langemann, who I had heard sing beautifully at a denominational conference, enrolled in Mennonite Brethren Bible College, where I had graduated in spring. My office was a couple of blocks from my alma mater, so I wandered over at lunch for volleyball, Sunday evenings for social hour—and saw Rita in action. A friend from her home community encouraged me to approach her. I took the hint. God put us together in a ministry situation and I liked what I heard from her. We were engaged graduation evening and married early September, 1956.

A year later a daughter, Carol, arrived and our son Gerry was added to our family in 1960. My commitment to God’s purposes took us from Winnipeg, Canada, to British Columbia, then to Chicago and several cities in the U.S. where God was able to use me not only in the publishing world but also in pulpit supply and church leadership positions. My publishing world experiences may be found in “God Moments in My Publishing Life.”

Over 64 years ago I knew God not only had a plan for my life, but also for my musically gifted wife. Determined to fulfill my role as husband, I would initiate contacts she needed until in time she gained the courage to move into opportunities on her own. Her ministry as soprano soloist in “Messiah” performances, in radio drama, as choir leader, music teacher in elementary school, and community opera, always reflected her deep commitment to God’s purposes beyond being a mother and wife.

Today our extended family features a diversity of talents but still an underlying commitment to the Stobbe heritage of Christian service. Gerry’s three daughters reflect that as Bethany, married to a teacher, Bud Vander Kaay, manages digital strategy at Wycliffe Bible Translators; Lillie as nurse married to Dr. Ben Luce; Charlotte in promotion and married to GianCarlo Greco. Carol and Dale O’Neil’s family: son Max, working as asset auditor, at Lockheed Martin, and married to Michele, a post-natal nurse, and daughter Becca, a teacher, engaged to Eric Kronebusch.

2 thoughts on “Article: Reflections at Age 90

  1. Hello Les,

    Fred Crowell here. You published MEET MY HEAD COACH nearly 40 years ago.

    I want to send you a book called Words of Hope. It was published by Advantage/Forbes books this past October.

    Thank you for believing in me all those years ago. If you send me your home address I will mail you my book.

    Fred Crowell
    fred@wordsofhome.com
    509 953-8282

    Delighted in reading your miracle story. Congratulations

    Fred

  2. LOVED the article about your reflections! Now to get this, as well as the rest of your life, in a book before God decides to have you come on HOME! Hi…this is Kathy Pierson. I bug you every year at Cindy Sproles Writers Conference to get your amazing life down on paper! Thanks to quarantine, it looks like you got started with it. ( = The last time I saw you was at Aldi in Hendersonville right after my friend,Sunny Lockwood, took your pix. Remember me now?? I just read the article she wrote about you in Bold Life & she did a great job…although just a snipet of the amazing life you have lived! You are very special to me, Les. I have told you before, & I will tell you again…you are the spiritual daddy I never had. God bless you real big. I hope my mansion in next to yours in Heaven! Hugs, Kathy

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