Lord, Give Us This Mountain
Companion Book · Family Stories and Friends
From Lancaster County PA to Malvar Street Baguio City Philippines
Engle · Robson · Leonard · Haines
Ken and Mary Lou Engle · An Engle Family History
Family Stories and Friends
Friends of the work · family stories · family reference
- Friends of the Work3
- Five Men on Palm Beach4
- After Palm Beach5
- Ed McCully6
- A Letter from Ed McCully7
- Uncle Husiyah10
- Literature Crusades11
- The Man This Family Called12
- Jesus Calms the Storm13
- Family Stories14
- Heavenly Sunshine15
- Six Hours16
- Two Representatives17
- Family Reference18
- Kin and Connections19
- The Six20
- Timeline21
- Companion Books22
Friends of the Work
Ed McCully · Uncle Kevin Dyer
Ecuador, 1956
Five Men on Palm Beach
On Sunday, 8 January 1956, five young missionaries were killed on a sandbar in the Curaray River, in the rain forest of eastern Ecuador. They had named it Palm Beach. They had gone there to make peaceful contact with the Waorani, a people outsiders called “Aucas,” whom no one had ever reached with the gospel.
The five were Jim Elliot of Portland, Pete Fleming of Seattle, Ed McCully of Milwaukee, Roger Youderian of Montana, and their pilot, Nate Saint of Missionary Aviation Fellowship.
All that fall, Nate flew over Waorani homes and dropped gifts from his plane. On Friday, 6 January, a young man and two women walked out of the forest and spent several friendly hours on the beach. The missionaries called the young man “George.”
On Sunday Nate radioed that he expected visitors around 2:30 and would call again at 4:35. That call never came. His wristwatch, found later, had stopped at 3:12. A search party found four of the men in the river and buried them together at Palm Beach. Ed McCully's body was carried away by the river and never recovered.
From John Bjorlie, “Five Missionary Martyrs” (Uplook, on plymouthbrethren.org), and Wikipedia.
Ecuador, 1956
After Palm Beach
On 13 January an Air Force plane flew the widows over the grave on the beach.
Life magazine carried the story around the world. Some church leaders called the deaths a waste, but mission boards were flooded with young people offering to take the men's places. Eternity magazine later counted six hundred missionaries who said Palm Beach had sent them overseas.
Dayuma, a Waorani woman who had left her people and was working on their language with Nate's sister Rachel, came to faith in Christ. When she went home, she told them the missionaries had come in peace:
Just as you killed the foreigners on the beach, Jesus was killed for you.
Dayuma
In the fall of 1958, Jim's widow Elisabeth, their little daughter Valerie, and Rachel Saint went to live among the Waorani. They came to know the men who had killed their husband and brother, and some of those men came to faith in Christ. Years later the Gospel of Mark was dedicated in the Waorani language, and Kimo, one of the men from the beach, prayed at the dedication.
He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.
Jim Elliot
Ecuador, 1956
Ed McCully
Theophilus Edward McCully Jr. was born on 1 June 1927 and grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His family belonged to a Brethren assembly in Wauwatosa, then called Good News Chapel, where his father was an elder. Ed trusted Christ at the age of seven.
At Wheaton College, where Jim Elliot was his friend, Ed was president of the senior class, and in 1949 he won the National Hearst Oratorical Contest. He went on to law school at Marquette. In September 1950, while reading the book of Nehemiah, he gave his life to missionary service and left law school.
He married Marilou Hobolth in June 1951 and took the missionary medical course in Los Angeles that he writes about in his letter. On 10 December 1952, Ed, Marilou and their baby son Steve sailed for Ecuador with Christian Missions in Many Lands, the Brethren mission Karen serves with today. After language study in Quito, they worked among the Quichua at Shandia and then at Arajuno, close to Waorani country.
When Ed died, Marilou was eight months pregnant. Their third son, Matt, was born after his father's death. Marilou later went back to Ecuador and ran a home for missionaries' children in Quito.
Ed and Ken Engle met in the 1940s at a meeting in Wauwatosa. Ed had invited Ken to preach there, and while Ken preached, Ed played his trumpet. He sent Ken fifty dollars in 1951, and the next year he wrote him the letter on the following pages.
A letter to Ken
A Letter from Ed McCully
A letter to Ken
The letter, typed out
Ed McCully
Wauwatosa, Wisconsin
Aug. 27, 1952
Dear Ken,
We seem to keep so busy that when it is possible to take time to write letters, the time is usually close to midnight. But I want to get a short note off to you at last; I've been planning to do it for a long time. We're glad to hear of your work through your letter — and we have you down on our prayer list — to remember regularly. Congratulations on your expected marriage. Trust you'll be able to use this little fellowship at this time; it's some of the Lord's money.
You may remember my wife, Ken; she graduated from Moody in December '49 — Marilou Hobolth. We were married June of '51; the Lord has blessed us with a son — Stephen Edward — who is now almost 4 mos. old. We spent the last year in Los Angeles where I took the missionary medical course at Biola. It was an intensive thing — but well worth the time. I'm glad for it and feel it will come in handy in our work. We're planning on leaving in December of this year for Ecuador, South America — to work with the Quichua Indians. We feel God is leading us there — and so we continue to trust Him from day to day as the way is opened up.
Just wanted to get this off to you with this short note. I trust God will continue to encourage you in the work — as you fellowship with Him.
Prayerfully,
Our uncle from Australia
Uncle Husiyah
When little Kevin Engle was learning to talk, he could not quite say “Australia.” It came out “Husiyah,” and the uncle from Australia became Uncle Husiyah.
Kevin Dyer was born in Tasmania on 3 February 1936 and grew up in Australia. He came to America to study at Emmaus Bible School, and as a student he preached at the little Knox Meeting House in Knox, Indiana. It had about thirty-five people, babies included. A year later there were more than 135. At Emmaus he met Ken's sister Eloise, and they were married on 31 August 1957, the first wedding ever held in Grace and Truth Chapel. That same month in Manila, Ken and Mary Lou named their new son Kevin, after him.
In June and July 1959 he and Aunt Eloise spent a month with the family in Manila. He spoke on DZAS radio and at FEBIAS chapel, and he and Ken wrote the Teach Others Program together.
Our uncle from Australia
Literature Crusades
In 1960 Uncle Kevin founded Literature Crusades. Its first team of young people from the United States and Canada went to Calcutta, India, and the Dyers lived there in the early 1960s. Literature Crusades became International Teams, based in Prospect Heights, Illinois, and he went on to build Bright Hope as well.
“We took a team of about two hundred people to New Orleans,” he remembered, “and we literally visited 75,000 homes.” There were 70,000 more in Salt Lake City, congresses at Wheaton College for 1,500 young people, and supplies carried to persecuted believers behind the Iron Curtain. One man told him, “Why don't you settle down and stick with one thing? I can't keep up with you.”
In his fifties and sixties he handed the work to younger leaders. In his late seventies and eighties he cared for Eloise through her Alzheimer's. At eighty-eight he was still working six hours a day and talking with at least three people every week about the Lord.
So, eighty-eight – I'm ready – bring it on!Kevin Dyer, February 2024
Our uncle from Australia
The Man This Family Called
He taught young Kevin his first memory verse when he was about five: “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).
When this family buried its own, Uncle Kevin was there. He spoke at Grandma Mabel Engle's funeral in 1983 and preached at Grandpa Grant's in 1992. He prayed at Mary Lou's graveside in 2003, and he gave the graveside message for Ken in 2009.
He and Eloise had sixty-four years together before she went home to heaven in September 2021. The work went on in their children. In 1985 their son Mark and his wife Sue led International Teams in the Philippines, the same summer Karen went out as the family's “own representative.”
From Ken's 1959 diary and Gordon's “Teach Others Also” (2 Oct 2026); Kevin Dyer's letter of 6 February 2024; International Teams; and the family records.
Our uncle from Australia
Jesus Calms the Storm
“I was profoundly impacted by the deaths of these men and by the dedication of these women. I have never forgotten their stories, but out of enormous sadness and excruciating pain, God has triumphed.”
Kevin G. Dyer, Master, the Tempest Is Raging (2023)
“And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.”
Mark 4:39
Family Stories
Heavenly Sunshine · Six Hours
Heavenly Sunshine
On 8 June 1953 Keith and Cleo Engle sat at the kitchen table in Kansas and wrote to Ken and Mary Lou in the Philippines. There was plenty to report: a new baby due any day, the hay coming down, X-rays to sit for on Monday morning. In the middle of it Cleo stopped to tell them about their little girl, Lynette, not yet three:
She stands by the radio every Sun. and sings ‘Heavenly Sunshine’ with the Fullers, but when they are finished she still has a phrase to go! Ha!
Cleo Engle to Ken and Mary Lou, 8 June 1953
Lynette had claimed the little book of daily verses for her own, too:
Sunday Lynette had to take it to church for her Bible.
the same letter
The new baby came two days later. The hay came in. The little girl grew up, married and raised a family of her own. Keith and Cleo have gone on ahead, and the old gospel hour signed off long ago. But the girl who always had one more phrase to sing is still carrying the song, and now she has her mother’s own words for how it started.
Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands. Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing.
Psalm 100:1–2. Ken memorized it and read it in family worship for years.
From Cleo Engle’s letter of 8 June 1953 and Gordon’s story “Heavenly Sunshine” (27 Sep 2026), written for Lynette.
Six Hours
On Saturday 5 September 2026, Mark and Sue Dyer and their son John Mark spent six hours at Gordon’s kitchen table in Charlotte. There was sushi, and Tigger bit at least one of them.
Mark told a story his father, Uncle Kevin Dyer, has known all his married life. Eloise grew up in the Abilene assembly, where personal salvation was not much preached; you were simply born into it. Ken came home from Moody, where it was preached, sat his little sister down, and asked whether she had ever actually trusted Christ. She was twelve. One conversation in Kansas, about 1947, and Gordon wrote that “it is still running — through you, through Mark, through a boy born in Manila.”
Ten years off the field, Ken wrote to Woodside on 11 July 1985 about Karen, who had gone out to the Philippines that summer on a team:
We keep in touch by letter with these folks but now our own representative from the family will be there.
Ken to Woodside, 11 July 1985
In the next breath he named who was running the work she had flown into: Mark and Sue. Nine months later John Mark was born in Manila. Karen is going back, forty-one years after Ken called her that. “He was right the first time,” Gordon wrote.
Before they left, the Dyers prayed over the house.
From Gordon’s letter “Six Hours” (5 Sep 2026) and Ken’s letter to Woodside of 11 July 1985.
Addendum · 2026
Two Representatives
In 1985 Ken called Karen the family’s “own representative.” Forty-one years later, she has company.
Kevin had been there prior to 1985. He joined the Navy in 1975 and was in the Philippines with the Navy in 1976 and 1977, and he went back again in 1993. Each time he looked up people Dad had worked with.
Karen is going back to the Philippines, and she expects to be there about half of every year, carrying on the work she and Patrick began together on Romblon.
Now, in 2026, Kevin has fully retired, and he is going back too, for the work of keepm.org: the 24-hour gospel radio station that plays Ken’s messages, solar audio Bibles, and Bible courses for the islands. Kevin plans to make one or two trips a year.
So Ken and Mary Lou’s family has two representatives in the Philippines now, serving in different ways: Karen for months at a time, living among the people, and Kevin coming and going. Both are working in separate spheres, with the same objectives as their parents.
Learn more, or give: keepm.org
Added by Kevin Engle, October 2026.
Family Reference
Kin and connections · the six · timeline · where we were when
Kin and Connections
Is anyone famous in the family? Here is what the records support.
Family
- Jacob "Yokeli" Engel, a founding leader of the River Brethren (the Brethren in Christ), of our Lancaster County Engel family. Kevin counts eight generations from him.
- Col. Paul E. Leonard, our uncle. He studied under F. F. Bruce, served on the NIV translation committee, and trained counselors for Billy Graham.
- Carl Armerding, our uncle by marriage. He taught at Regent College and was a translator of Judges for the New Living Translation.
- Alvin Koons, Ken's first cousin, a Navy chaplain. His and Bobbie's papers, including a book on the Swatow Chinese language, are at the American Baptist Historical Society.
- Virginia Leonard Moldenhauer, our aunt, a missionary nurse in the Belgian Congo.
- Kevin and Eloise Dyer, with Bright Hope, and three generations of Dyers in missions, including Mark and Sue Dyer, who led International Teams in the Philippines.
Crossed paths
- H. A. Ironside preached at Grace and Truth Chapel. Great-grandfather Robson was likely saved under him.
- Ed McCully, later martyred in Ecuador, sent Ken an early gift in 1951.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower's family came to Abilene in the same River Brethren migration. There is no known kinship.
- Carlos P. Romulo spoke at Brent's 1975 graduation. President Marcos received Scriptures from Ken in 1968.
- And, as Ken liked to say, no relation to Marx and Engels.
The Six
Becky. Violinist. She married Dave Jenkinson.
Karen. Flutist. She was the family's "own representative" on a Philippines team in 1985, and married Patrick in a garden in 1999. She served as a missionary in the Philippines from 1990 to 1995, and on Romblon from 2012 to the present, with Patrick until his death in 2026.
Kevin. Jud Fry and Navy man, and a psychology graduate on Armed Forces Day. He married Cheryl in 1986; Cheryl went home to the Lord in January 2026. Kevin built PlymouthBrethren.org in 2004 and now leads KEE Philippine Missions, carrying Dad's work forward with audio Bibles for the Philippines. Kevin served as Executive Director of Stewards Foundation for 16 years.
Stan. Ten pounds at birth. Builder of model dams and a musician. He married Fiona Harvey in England in 1987.
Gordon. Born on furlough. He played King Cole in his third-grade play and built a telegraph at ten. Today he is the family archivist and storyteller. He loves to play the piano and guitar and to watch and listen to Alistair Begg.
Doug. He knew his verses from A to Q and was baptized in Ontario in 1987. A graduate of Emmaus, he preaches, transcribes the old diaries, and writes Brethren history.
Timeline
- 1743 Ulrich Engel born, Switzerland
- 1789 Engle Grove deed, Donegal Township
- 1879–80 Engles move to Dickinson County, Kansas
- 1922 Grant Engle marries Mabel Robson
- 1924 Ken born, near Abilene
- 1930 Mary Lou born, Canonsburg
- 1943–45 Ken in the Army Air Forces; B-24 tail gunner
- 1951 Ken to the Philippines; proposal by letter
- 1953 Wedding in Manila, 26 April
- 1954–59 Becky, Karen, Kevin, Stan born
- 1959 Dyers visit; Teach Others Program
- 1964 Gordon born; John Leonard dies
- 1966 Binangonan baptisms; Karen's flute
- 1967 Move to 55 Malvar, Baguio
- 1970–73 Abilene
- 1975 Oklahoma!; Kevin to the Navy; leaving the field
- 1976 Doug born
- 1987 Doug baptized; Stan marries Fiona
- 1988 Kevin graduates, UT Dallas
- 1990–95 Karen, missionary in the Manila area
- 2000 Doug graduates, Emmaus
- 2003 Mary Lou goes home
- 2009 Ken goes home
- 2012– Karen and Patrick on Romblon
Companion Books
Eight companion books stand beside the five volumes of the story.
- In His Joy: The Life and Ministry of Ken EngleDad's own letters · 1951–1987 · his life and ministry
- Herald of Christ: The Story of Rudy Ponce de LeonSan Juan, Rizal · 1951–1996
- Grace Triumphantthe autobiography of Cyril H. Brooks · © 1985 Walterick Publishers
- "Mary Lou, Mary Lou": The Story of Evelyn and Fred BalanagBaguio City · 1968–2010
- CherylCheryl Lyn Engle · her life, her music, her own words
- Karen, Patrick, and Romblon: “Carrying the Vision”keepm.org · the Emmaus app · Moments to Remember · Karen and Patrick
- Kevin's RecollectionsKevin Engle · in his own words · Stewards Foundation · In Dad’s Own Words
Faithful Men: A Library of Christian Classics, from PlymouthBrethren.org: Brethren writers and missionary lives, searchable by author, Scripture and topic. Open the library ↗
What Comes Next
This is one of eight companion books to Lord, Give Us This Mountain. The Table of Contents lists every book in the series.
Keep them for Jesus for eternity.
the prayer behind KEE Philippine Missions