A family that works together..................

All of us worked when we were on the field. When we got to a church on a Saturday, everyone had a job to do. Dad set up the outside of the motor home, electric, water, “gray water” etc…. Mom set up the inside of the motor home, beds, pantry, fridge etc.  The kids set up the tape table, I think we had the best job. It was the easiest by far. The pastor would tell us where to set up, sometimes we were in the foyer, sometimes we were in hallways, or the back of the sanctuary or anywhere in between. We would pull out the maroon velvet table cloth with the gold tassel trim that had “Lift Jesus Higher Ministries Evangelist Sam Austin” in gold block letters in an arch on the front. We worked for quite a while to make sure that the letters were centered just right on the 6 foot table provided by the church. We would find the closest plug in and plug up the tape duplicator, which a must have for any traveling evangelist in the 80’s. Ours could duplicate an hour long sermon on 3 tapes front and back in about 60 seconds. It weighed no less than 65 pounds which was about 10 pounds more than our little sister, so picking it up and getting it on the table, was an adventure.  Then we would lay out the books, preaching series and the ever coveted tape “The Austin Girls Sing” featuring songs like “Jesus is alive and well” , “He’s still working on me”, “We’re not home yet children”, “When Jesus returns for His own” and many more!!  I know that there are some of you are thinking, “HEY!!! I want one of those!!!”, well, they were only available for a limited time.   So I am sorry to tell you, that we have sold out and they are no longer in circulation. 

After we had worked our marketing magic on the tape table, placing the books and tapes in just the right places to catch the revival attending, holy spirit seeking, shopper’s eye, Dad would come in and we would “help” set up the sound system. Dad would always bring in his own sound system, he liked to be loud, and if someone else controlled the knobs they turned him down the louder he got.  He would run the mic check. We would run through our song that we were planning on singing for Sunday morning. Then we were all set to begin the week’s services.

Then during the week we had work to do too. One job that was always needed was, cleaning the spit screen of dad’s mic. Dad’s one of those holler and walk the aisle kind of preachers. So every night he would have to have the spit screen cleaned out, because trust me you don’t want to be near a spit screen that has not been cleaned with soap and water after a week of preaching.

Another one of our during the week jobs was cleaning old tapes. Every night dad taped his sermons. Then sometime around the beginning to middle of the altar time, he would stop the recording and give one of mom the tape. It was usually mom’s job to go make 3-6 copies (only because often we forgot to load the Master tape in the top left slot. If you put a blank tape in that spot and the master tape in the top right, the blank records white nothingness over the master and you get a grumpy daddy.) At the end of the week sometimes we had tapes didn’t sell, and we needed to reuse them. So it was our job to clean them. First we ran them through a magnetic eraser. The old “master” tapes were written on with sharpie, so we had this one chemical that we would put on a cotton ball and it would wipe the sharpie off with a few swipes. But the ones with the labels on were harder to get off. So we had to put another other chemical on them. I am not sure how wise it was to allow us to handle these chemicals, I just know we weren’t allowed to smoke around them. I don’t know what chemicals these were, but I am wondering now if they might be what ruined my short term memory. I don’t know what chemicals these were, but I am wondering now if they might be what ruined my short term memory. 

Friday nights, after service, mom would at some point begin to sing “I feel like traveling on” and we would start the tear down process.  Packing everything back in the boxes that we took them out of last Saturday, I will say, that most of the time we would be missing one sister. She was rather famous for figuring out ways to get out of the manual labor type work.  Dad would back the trailer, motor home, truck, van, car, or whatever we were driving at the time up to the doors of the church and we would load it up and drive to the next church and do it all over again.

We loved what we did, didn’t know any different. I swear, I thought everyone went to church 7 times a week, knew how to set up a sound board,  knew how to duplicate tapes and how to pack a trailer with 2 speakers and 13 boxes and old suitcases by the time they were 10!! I laugh now when I am at ladies events and something goes haywire, with the audio or projector stuff and  the first thing they all do is yell “go get a man in here so they can fix this” or “go get someone to push play on this DVD player for us” or “there is no sound coming from this soundboard whatever shall we do” and I feel great sense of accomplishment when I can go over and say “we don’t need a man, I got this” and push play on the dvd, player, set up the surround sound better than George Lucas himself could have done it and all without breaking a nail!! I love the life lessons I learned on the field and wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world!!

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Getting Called Out!!

As you can imagine we spent many many nights at church growing up. As we have stated, mom kept us on the 2nd pew. I remember one night at a revival, in some town, in some state, (who can keep them straight at this point!!) Mom was sick and couldn't come to church. She sent dressed us all in our matching dresses, and we took our seats in the expected 2nd pew. I remember this night very well because as daddy was preaching that night us 3 little girls must have been cutting up pretty good. With mom not there to give us the occasional "shhhh" or pinch when we needed it, or pop on the back of the head (Mom, was famous for this she would reach over and pop each one of us in the back of the head POP- POP- POP as needed. Then just keep on worshiping, never miss a beat.)  things must have gotten out of hand pretty bad. I just remember us writing, laughing, talking and all the sudden #4 was lifted in the air and gone, Dad was moving her to the front row on the opposite side of the sanctuary. I looked up and about that time Dad lifted me up and put me on the front row of the section we were sitting on. #2 stayed on the 2nd row we were originally sitting on. The great part was Dad never stopped preaching, he never broke his train of thought, wasn't distracted, never lost his anointing.  I will say, I don't think I took a deep breath the rest of the service, I didn't know what was going to go down when we got back to the motor home. 

It's always fun when you are the preacher's kid and your sitting in a service not really paying attention till you hear your name and it's followed by "go sit with your mother". The few times that has happened. I knew that I might as well get ready, the storm was coming when we got home!!

I am so glad that when God called mom and dad they didn’t answer with “we have young kids we can’t go on the evangelistic field full time”. They just picked up and went. Dad didn’t cancel a service cause mom was sick and couldn’t take care of us during church, he just preached, and moved us as necessary, cause we were busy being kids. Sometimes people let the littlest things get in the way of doing what God calls them to do. If God asks you to do something, He knows what you have on your plate, and he obviously thinks you could do it or he wouldn’t ask you to do it. So I encourage you to pick up and go like mom and dad did, no matter what obstacles you think might be in your way.

Paper trail

In her comment on my first entry mom tells about letting us have paper in church.  We were not allowed an iPad, PSP or any such invention.  No dolls or etcha sketch nary even a slinky were we permitted. But we had paper,and we knew how to use it.  (This was mainly the three youngest, Tina used her paper in far more mature ways than we.)  

This is how you take three sheets of typing paper and make it last for at least a one hour sermon:  First you tear each sheet in half, instantly doubled the fun.  You do this accurately by letting the oldest (2 of 4) be in chrage.  You line up the edges crease with your fingernail and finally lick it.  By licking it you ensure that the tearing sound of paper dividing does not attract the attention of the Pastors wife sitting in front of you,on the 1st pew.

Next, you chose what games are to be played on what sections of paper.  You have the dot game, tic tac toe, the game that predicts who you will marry, what car you will have and so on.  But the most fun was taking a sheet and tearing it into small shapes, licking them and sticking them to a song book, much like you would a flannel board in Sunday School.  There really are no limits to what you can do with typing paper and very creative sisters!

And if it so happened that dad preached a little longer than usual......there was always looking under the pew and trying to match feet to people, good times.

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Family Prayer Time

One of the things I love about our family time together is when we get to have "church".  Sometimes it is hard for families to pray together. Mainly because our family knows us better than anyone else.  They see when we act crazy and get angry, or maybe say something we shouldn't.  I love that my family sees all of us "warts" and all, but when it comes time to come before God in prayer and worship, we allow each one the grace God gives us to approach the throne of grace. 
The best thing we can do for each other is to give a "clean slate" to each other as often as possible.  God does it for us.  His grace for us is limitless, how can we do anything less for each other?
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Provision from a can of Dr. Pepper

When we were on the field full time (for those not familiar with the lingo, that just means evangelistic filed, where dad was preaching in a different church every week.) Usually our week consisted of revival services Sunday morning and Sunday night then Monday thru Friday nights. Then on Saturdays we would travel to the next location.

This one summer we were traveling in a truck and 5th wheel motor home. From what I remember the truck was brown and old. It seems to me that something on it broke, blew up, spewed out or popped, on every road trip. We planned extra time in our travel days for breakdowns.

Once when traveling to the next revival, dad noticed that smoke was coming from under the hood of truck. He quickly pulled over, a rather burly looking man on a Harley was behind us and passed us as soon as dad got stopped good. Dad popped the hood and there was a fire in the engine. About the time dad started yelling for mom to get all is out of the truck the man on the Harley was back. He was shaking his 20oz Dr. Pepper as he came to a stop. He jumped off his Hogg and popped the top off the Dr. Pepper and let it spew all over the fire. It was just enough to put the fire completely out.

It's those very cool memories of God's timing and provision that reminds me that He will always take care of us . I don't know what we would have done if the Harley man wouldn't have been there. I guess we would have had to watch the truck go up in flames, along with the 5th wheel motorhome. But instead God provided a thirsty burly man to the rescue!!

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Our View From The Second Pew

For as long as I can remember we sat on the second pew.  Mom lined the four of us up most every night, in towns in almost every state where dad was preaching. We have had some amazing experiences, met incredible people and been places other people wish to go. 

For years people have asked us to write a book.  Well, we all live pretty busy lives, so blogging seemed the best way to tell our little stories.  Let me caution you, we are not typical.  We are funny, insightful, colorful and fiercely loyal to one another.  Our tales are true, unless an embellishment would make it better.  Let the games begin.......
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