Ginger – From 1984 to 1991

When Ginger ar­rived at the Headquarters she had many hurts and heartaches from pre­vi­ous years. After lis­ten­ing to them, I sug­gest­ed: “Ginger, you have a lot of chal­lenges to over­come. However, in sev­en years every cell in your body will be re­placed. You will be a new per­son. What if you would ded­i­cate the next sev­en years to the Lord for sin­gle ser­vice so that you would al­so be a new per­son on the in­side?”

During those years, Ginger be­came a very Godly young la­dy. When she prayed, it seemed like Jesus was right there lis­ten­ing to her. After sev­en years her par­ents asked her to take care of an aged grand­par­ent. She did not want to leave but she knew it was right to obey her par­ents even at the age of 32. While tak­ing care of her grand­par­ent, she met a god­ly hand­some sin­gle chap­lain who had just re­turned from over­seas du­ty. They got mar­ried and God has giv­en them sev­en chil­dren — one for each year that she served the Lord.

To Whom it May Concern,

My name is Ginger, and I had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to serve as Correspondence Secretary to Mr. Bill Gothard from 1984 to 1991. I then left to care for a grand­par­ent. At that time I met and mar­ried Mark, a Navy chap­lain just re­turned from wartime ser­vice.

During my sev­en years as Mr. Gothard’s sec­re­tary, I ex­pe­ri­enced him as a wise su­per­vi­sor who ex­pect­ed and taught me to give my pro­fes­sion­al best. He al­ways treat­ed me with re­spect and cared for my wel­fare. His per­son­al be­hav­ior was im­pec­ca­ble. Not ever once did I ex­pe­ri­ence any pri­vate at­ti­tude or ac­tion that was con­trary to what he pub­licly taught.

During my time as Mr. Gothard’s sec­re­tary, I of­ten took his dic­ta­tion at his Oak Brook of­fice, in a bus, and in oth­er lo­ca­tions.

There was nev­er a time when Mr. Gothard al­lowed us to be alone. He al­ways en­sured at least one oth­er per­son be present. Because Mr. Gothard treat­ed me with ut­most re­spect and pro­fes­sion­al­ism, I al­ways felt safe and free to en­joy my work and life. I was there to do a job — to an­swer as many let­ters as pos­si­ble, giv­ing the sender a heart­felt re­sponse to the needs that were pre­sent­ed.

Mr. Gothard felt that every let­ter was im­por­tant and de­served the best an­swer pos­si­ble.

I was al­so a House Leader to many ap­pren­tice­ship, college-​age stu­dents dur­ing my time at Headquarters. I am, by na­ture (and spiritual-​giftedness), a sen­si­tive, mer­ci­ful and com­pas­sion­ate per­son. I am cer­tain that if Mr. Gothard had mis­treat­ed any of “my” girls while I was at Headquarters, I would have soon been aware of the prob­lem. I would not have hes­i­tat­ed to bring it to the at­ten­tion of the prop­er au­thor­i­ties, in­clud­ing the par­ents. I would have left im­me­di­ate­ly!

My sev­en years at IBLP Headquarters, work­ing close­ly with Mr. Gothard and with so many young ladies and young men, were such a joy! I ar­rived as a youth­ful 24-​year-​old need­ing life train­ing as well as work, and left at age 32 for mar­riage, fam­i­ly with sev­en chil­dren, and a de­mand­ing mil­i­tary life, well equipped for it all by the time­less, life-​changing prin­ci­ples of God’s Word that Mr. Gothard taught so well.

As I look back now on my full life — pray­ing for ever more fruit­ful­ness and ful­fill­ment to come! — I feel that so much of my ful­fill­ment is due to my time with Mr. Gothard. Hardly a day goes by when I don’t think back on my days at Headquarters, thank­ing God for each one.

Actually, I don’t think I would even be alive to­day if my mother’s hair dress­er had not sent me to my first Basic Seminar in Tampa, Florida.

Most sin­cere­ly,

Ginger

Footnote:

Ginger’s hus­band is now a pro­fes­sor at a promi­nent Seminary, and Ginger is hav­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty of coun­sel­ing both younger and old­er women with what she learned dur­ing her sin­gle years.

Her hus­band writes:

Ginger and I re­main deeply grate­ful for our per­son­al re­la­tion­ship with you. You have been a great bless­ing in our lives. We found each oth­er and bond­ed in life­time love, much through your ten­der care.

Our own sev­en chil­dren, and at least thir­ty oth­ers whose par­ents we in­flu­enced, have been brought to God’s way of life through your teach­ings. What an amaz­ing, awe­some thing!