In His Joy

For thirty-six years Ken Engle wrote home to the people who prayed for him. He typed on whatever machine he had, kept a carbon, and nearly every time he ended the same way: In HIS joy. About twenty years ago Kevin and Gordon had the carbons scanned. There are 509 pages, from the 1940s to 1987, most of them addressed to the elders and the "Dear Ones at Woodside," Woodside Bible Chapel in Maywood, Illinois, the assembly that stood behind him all his life.

This book tells Dad's story from those letters, in his own order, year by year. Where the story goes beyond the letters, it comes from Kevin Engle's own memories and recollections of his father. The other volumes of this series tell the war years, the courtship, the house on Malvar Street, Evelyn and Rudy. This one tells the work: what he did, where, with whom, and what verse he was leaning on when he did it.

Almost every letter opens with a verse. Those verses are kept here with their references, the way he wrote them.

Wherever Dad's letters mention Kevin or Karen, the page says so. Both of them are serving in the Philippines today, and these letters show where that began.

We proclaim Christ! We warn everyone we meet, and we teach everyone we can, all that we know about Him, so that, if possible, we may bring every man up to his full maturity in Christ Jesus.

Colossians 1:28 (Phillips), at the head of Ken's letter of 10 October 1969

That verse hung on the wall of every office he ever had. "It is a joy to be in the same type of work as he was doing in the first century," he wrote under it, "…proclaiming, teaching, training."

From Ken's letter to Woodside, 10 October 1969, and Kevin's memories.

Thirty-Six Years Ago Today

On 17 March 1987, a retired missionary in Kansas sat down to write the folks at Woodside and started with a date.

It was 36 years ago today that I began my missionary work in the Philippines. It was a Saturday and St. Patrick's Day. A launch brought me in from the freighter which was anchored in Manila Bay. I had boarded the freighter on February 17th in San Francisco at Pier 45. You could say I was very glad to set foot on Philippine soil.

Ken to Woodside, 17 March 1987

He kept that day all his life. In July 1976 he was reading in the Tagalog Bible the San Juan believers had given him at his welcome, on Mrs. Dayton's lawn. He copied the inscription into a letter: "…sa pagkakataon ng kanyang pagdating sa San Juan, Marzo 17, 1951" (on the occasion of his arrival in San Juan, March 17, 1951). "Yes, 25 years ago," he added. "I treasure this volume and thank the Lord for these 25 years."

That first year he also spoke at the first servicemen's Bible conference in Manila. "We had less than a dozen men at that conference," he remembered in 1968. Seventeen years later he would stand before 160.

From Ken's letters of 17 March 1987, 22 July 1976 and 30 July 1968.

The Bible School of the Air

Dad came out to work with Cyril and Anna Brooks, and the Brookses had a radio Bible school. In 1959 Ken wrote its history for Emmaus Bible School, whose courses it used.

Mr. & Mrs. Cyril H. Brooks were used of the Lord to begin the work in 1950. … It began as a "sideline" but has become a very important part of the Philippine work.

Ken to John Smart, Emmaus, 27 May 1959

The first office was one small room under the Brooks house with two desks. By 1959 it had seven desks, 27 courses, What the Bible Teaches in seven languages, and 328,799 students enrolled. Filipino staff did most of the grading, on purpose: "It is our desire that the nationals be prepared to carry on the work fully should we be forced to leave the field."

Not every family welcomed the lessons. In 1954 Ken wrote that some students' lessons had to go "in a special envelope with no indication that it is from the Bible School of the Air," because relatives destroyed them. "Prayer is our best weapon."

In May 1967 the school marked its seventeenth anniversary and its millionth student, at the Medical Science Hall in Manila. No one could say which student was the millionth, so Dad Brooks gave Bibles to four new ones. Ken gave the history.

From Ken's letters of 1954, 27 May 1959 and 15 May 1967.

Where No Evangelist Had Gone

In October 1964, while the Engles were in Illinois, a Filipino co-worker wrote Ken from San Juan about a trip he had just made to Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac.

He had found about thirty believers there, led by a man named Salvador Marcellano. Marcellano had picked up a gospel tract half buried in the mud, then enrolled with his neighbor in the Bible School of the Air courses. The group had grown out of the courses and the radio programs. No missionary had ever visited.

The Lord can accomplish His work even without any direct or immediate human instrumentality. Here is a place where no evangelist, no pastor or worker has set foot in, and yet the Lord has enabled these people to come to know Him.

letter to Ken from San Juan, 19 October 1964

They sang the songs they had learned over the radio.

Twenty-one years later, in Dallas, it happened again, to Ken's own son. See "Our Missionary in the Pacific."

There are no comments. But you know the promises that His word will not return unto Him void!

Ken, of his Bible-reading broadcasts, 2 September 1983 (Isaiah 55:11)

From a letter to Ken from San Juan Gospel Chapel, 19 October 1964.

The First Afternoon

The Christian Service Brigade is Rudy Ponce de Leon's story, told in its own book. But Ken kept its birthday. In January 1967 he wrote:

We had our first meeting at the San Juan Elementary School on February 2nd, 1952.

Ken to Woodside, 27 January 1967

For the fifteenth anniversary there was a field day for the whole battalion and a broadcast on DZAS. "I will tell the same story on the air that I told that first afternoon fifteen years ago."

The boys' club was only one of the San Juan works. There was a college group, some first met at camp, who called themselves "The Prayer Fellowship." There was "Youthtime," which in its first year saw "around 150 who professed salvation or help in regard to assurance." In 1963 the San Juan young people marked the streets in red on a hand-drawn map and put a tract in every home.

In 1960 an elder named Sofonias Clavecilla wrote from the little chapel in Pasadena, San Juan:

As an elder of the church here in Pasadena, I salute you as the first missionary who planted the Word of God and the first to arrive in our place … The one you planted bore fruits.

Sofonias Clavecilla to Ken, 24 October 1960

The things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.

2 Timothy 2:2

From Ken's letters of 1963 and 27 January 1967, and Bro. Clavecilla's letter of 24 October 1960.

Born in San Juan

The family lived in San Juan from 1951 to 1967, near Camp Crame. "We worked with the youth of the San Juan Gospel Chapel for so many years," Ken wrote in 1983.

From Ken's letters of 16 July 1958, April 1972, 7 December 1979 and 7 December 1983.

Binangonan

From 1957 to 1967 Ken's provincial work centered on Binangonan, a fishing town on Laguna de Bay. "It was a thrill for us to see what the LORD has done there just since 1956 when they began," he wrote in 1968.

The believers built a new chapel in 1960. In the hot season of 1963 there were open-air meetings in a temporary shelter on a vacant lot in the fishing quarter, far from the chapel.

"Then Caleb calmed the people." … It reminds me of what people around Galilee might have been like. … In this area we are seeking to be fishers of men.

Ken to Beachwood Chapel, 2 April 1963 (Numbers 13:30, Berkeley)

That June, Binangonan held the first workers' conference it had ever had: more than fifty Sunday School teachers, elders, Brigade leaders and children's-class teachers. On 28 August 1966 the Binangonan believers opened a new work at Taytay, with Eugenio Tique, the elder and carpenter who built missionary homes and nearly built Faith Academy.

In April 1968 Ken baptized four in the lake while fishermen watched from their boats. One was Narciso Aguinaldo, a bulldozer operator at the cement plant. A shoe repairman gave him a tract, he mailed in the coupon, and a believer came to visit.

From Ken's letters of 1963, 29 August 1966, 20 March 1968 and 19 April 1968.

Eleven in the Lake

The family was going home because Mary Lou was ill. That same week a large gift for the trip came from Woodside, and Ken got the news at his desk at the Bible School of the Air. "Right then I thanked Him."

We have had so much sunshine surely we should not fear the clouds.

the same letter

Ten years later, in September 1973, the family was back at Binangonan for "Family Sunday." Sixteen were baptized.

From Ken's letters of 25 July 1963 and about October 1973.

A Billboard, Large and Clear

And the Lord said to me, "Write my answer on a billboard, large and clear, so that anyone can read it at a glance and rush to tell the others."

Habakkuk 2:2 (Living Prophecies), at the head of Ken's letter of 3 March 1966

Ken had seen the Michigan brethren's gospel signs in 1963 and 1964. Driving west from Illinois in November 1965, he counted only six gospel billboards between Illinois and California. Back in Manila, Christ for Greater Manila put him in charge of its sign work.

A gospel sign in a good location preaches 24 hours a day. … It can speak in any language.

Ken, "A Billboard … Large and Clear," 1966

The first board went up on Rizal Avenue: "I AM THE WAY…" (John 14:6). A John 3:16 board was bulldozed and stolen, and later turned up as part of someone's roof. They got it back, repainted it and put it up again. The first Tagalog signboard went up in January 1967 with Acts 16:31. In July 1967 a double sign at Binangonan "points in two directions. By means of the Tagalog verse, it points people to heaven. Then the arrow directs them to the Chapel."

In December 1967 a sign ten feet by twenty-four went up on the main highway up the mountain to Baguio. Sammy, the Christian artist who painted it, rode beside it all the way. The landowner gave permission from his horse-drawn karitela.

JESUS SAID, "COME UNTO ME…I WILL GIVE YOU REST." "ACQUAINT NOW THYSELF WITH HIM AND BE AT PEACE."

the sign (Matthew 11:28; Job 22:21)

From Ken's letters and his article on gospel signs, 1966–68.

Cloudy Days

The years from 1963 to 1965 were hard ones. Mary Lou was ill, and the doctors sent her home for care. The elders at Woodside wrote, "We are prepared to stand behind you completely in this problem."

So Ken taught. From 9 September 1963 he was on the faculty of Emmaus Bible School in Oak Park, Illinois, in both the freshman and the upper classes. In August 1965 WMBI put him back on the air for four evening messages. "It was a thrill to do a little microphone work again," he wrote to Rudy.

I THE LORD HAVE CALLED THEE IN RIGHTEOUSNESS AND WILL KEEP THEE. I have seen the Lord do this for 15 years.

Ken to Rudy Ponce de Leon, 13 August 1965 (Isaiah 42:6)

In December 1965 the doctor gave his approval, and the whole family flew back to Manila. A year later Ken looked back:

It was just a year ago today that our plane touched down at Manila International Air Port … It has been a good year. However, it has not been a year of all sunshine. There have been cloudy days … it is good to know that "back of the clouds the sun is always shining."

Ken to Woodside, December 1966

In 1966 he began his own program on DZAS, Living Letters: fifteen minutes of the New Testament read aloud with music, starting in First Corinthians.

From the Emmaus Bible School newsletter, autumn 1963, and Ken's letters of 1963–66.

A Whole New Mission Field

Volume Three tells how the family came to 55 Malvar. Three months after the move, Ken wrote to Countryside Bible Chapel near Boston, the people who had sent him a gift for radio:

We have been given a whole new mission field with great new opportunities.

Ken to Countryside Bible Chapel, 7 September 1967

DZAS could not be heard in Baguio; another station blocked it. So Ken started a program of his own. Moments of Melody went on the air on 1 October 1967, at six in the morning, over DZBS, Baguio's commercial station: five minutes of a gospel song, a short thought and a reading from Scripture, "to help you start your day and help you think beyond today." For his Catholic listeners he read from the Knox Bible.

Then the program spread, and he had not asked for any of it.

MOMENTS OF MELODY is heard daily on seven stations throughout the Philippines. Surely this is of the LORD. I did not ask one of these stations to carry the program.

Ken, spring 1968

There were 250 programs on seven stations in April 1968, and 320 on ten by that September. By October 1969 there were 460 programs on seventeen stations, from Baguio to Mindanao, and KSAB on Okinawa. On Holy Thursday 1969 the two Baguio stations played the special crucifixion series every half hour. The chaplain of the USS Tripoli used it at sunrise prayers.

From Ken's letters of 7 September and 9 October 1967, 19 April and 16 September 1968, and 4 April and 10 October 1969.

My Boys Help Me

For it is God who is at work within you, giving you the will and the power to achieve His purpose.

Philippians 2:13, at the head of Ken's letter of 14 July 1981

The children's program came first. On 2 September 1967 Ken was sponsoring the Children's Bible Hour from Grand Rapids on DZBS, with sixty seconds at the end for a Baguio address. The children wrote in by the hundreds.

Mary Lou and Ken sponsored the Children's Bible Hour from 1967 for as long as they lived in the Philippines and long after. Lino Aragon of Binangonan answered the letters. They came from the Philippines, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Malaysia, and from Vietnam and Cambodia "until those countries fell."

From Ken's letters of about 1970, 12 June 1975 and 29 March 1979.

The Four B's

Behold, I will do a new thing … I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.

Isaiah 43:19, the verse the Lord gave Ken in January 1967

In January 1968 Ken summed up the year in one line:

We have often asked prayer for three B's. (Broadcasting, Brigade and Binangonan) Now we add a fourth: Baguio!

Ken, January 1968

Baguio was where the war came on leave. Servicemen on rest and recreation from Viet Nam came up the mountain, and twice a year there was a servicemen's Bible conference. In October 1967 Ken spoke at the thirty-second. In July 1968, at the thirty-fourth, about 160 came, from Viet Nam, Guam, Taiwan, Okinawa, Clark and Cubi Point. Ken taught Philippians every morning at eight. A young Jewish sailor from Guam stood and said he had trusted Jesus "as His Savior and Messiah."

I had the joy of speaking at the first conference in 1951 soon after my arrival in the Philippines. We had less than a dozen men at that conference. This time we had around 160.

Ken to Woodside, 30 July 1968

From Ken's letters of 9 October 1967, January 1968 and 30 July 1968.

Pray That This War Would Be Over

In late 1967 nine men from the cruiser USS Canberra came to Bible studies in the Engle home. One of them wrote later from the Gulf of Tonkin.

From Ken's letter to Woodside of 10 January 1968.

Except the Lord Build the House

Evelyn Balanag's story has its own book. Here is the church that grew out of it, in Ken's letters.

In February 1968, a few doors from the Engles, Evelyn finished the twelve lessons of What the Bible Teaches in two days. That week she came to Christ. "It is one of the most thrilling experiences we have ever had in the service of the Lord," Ken wrote. "The Lord did it all." Her husband Fred followed. Their friends came to the house, and by October there was a Sunday class in the Engle living room.

Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it.

Psalm 127:1, closing Ken's report of the new Sunday School, 1969

They averaged thirty-five, and one Sunday sixty-two came. By 1970 they had outgrown the living room and moved to a quonset hut on Navy Road, which the military men painted themselves.

It is often much easier to look back on the guidance of the Lord than to move forward into it.

Ken to Woodside, 17 October 1968

From Ken's letters of 29 February, 17 October 1968 and June–October 1969.

Bibles for the Cadets

Up the road from Baguio is the Philippine Military Academy, "the West Point of the Philippines." Two of its sergeants, Ruperto Jaleco and Marcos Badilla, were among the first in the little church, and they brought soldiers with them.

The Bibles for the graduating cadets began, as Kevin remembers it, about 1968. The first presentation Ken describes in his letters was in March 1970, when he and officers of the Officers' Christian Union from Clark Field gave American Tract Society Bibles to sixty-five graduating cadets. It became a yearly gift. In January 1974 the graduating class was "the largest class ever."

I was asked to present the Bibles. I spoke for possibly five minutes and then each man came forward to receive his Bible. There were 114 Bibles given to the men. … As we walked among the crowd afterwards a number of Bibles were in evidence. It almost seemed like we were attending a Bible conference to see people carrying the Bibles!

Ken to Woodside, 24 January 1974

When the Engles left, Cyril Brooks carried it on. In 1978 he gave Bibles to 139 graduates.

In 1972 Ken wrote to President Marcos himself, recalling the day in Baguio when he and Fred Balanag gave the President the Living books:

I first saw the Philippines as I served with the Fifth Air Force during Liberation in 1944-45. I returned to the Philippines in 1951 not with a gun but that time with the "sword of the Spirit", the Bible.

Ken to President Ferdinand Marcos, 13 March 1972

From Ken's letters of 25 March 1970, 13 March 1972, 24 January 1974 and 5 April 1978.

Ten Thousand Miles Away

The family went home on furlough on 27 May 1970, planning on a year. It stretched to three, so the children could finish school.

But the radio work did not stop. With a studio recorder the ladies of Workers Together sent him, Ken recorded in the farmhouse and mailed the tapes to Manila.

Though we are 10,000 miles away we speak daily by tape recording over there. We actually have more broadcast hours now than ever before.

Ken, fall 1971

The Living series grew to Living Psalms and Living Proverbs, and a new verse-by-verse series began, Moments of Meditation. When President Marcos declared martial law on 21 September 1972 and closed the stations, "the missionary station, DZAS, was the first non-government station to return to the air," still playing Ken's tapes. A man in India wrote twice about Moments of Melody.

So little is much when God is in it!

Ken to Countryside Bible Chapel, 20 March 1972

He found Kansas just as open. "I had to go overseas to be able to come home and get into some of these places," he wrote. There were the Lions Club and Rotary, and KABI, where Moments of Melody became Abilene's morning program.

God … hath chosen thee, that thou shouldest know his will.

Acts 22:14, Ken's verse for 1972

From Ken's letters of 1971–72.

A Kansas Furlough

I will try to walk a blameless path, but how I need your help, especially in my own home, where I long to act as I should.

Psalm 101:2 (Living Psalms), at the head of Ken's letter of March 1972

From Ken's letters of 10 February, March and 27 June 1972.

Back to the Mountain

The family left Kansas on 23 June 1973. A visa they had kept "in force since 1957" was renewed by a telephone call from Ken Brooks in Manila.

We just look back and marvel at all the LORD has done since we left Kansas June 23rd.

Ken to Woodside, 10 September 1973

The believers were meeting in a home, with the Family Bible Hour in the carport. In January 1974 they moved into the auditorium of St. Theresa's College, a closed Catholic school. One of its buildings had housed General Yamashita during the war. "We are interested in a different kind of treasure," Ken wrote.

If the Spirit of Him who raised Christ Jesus from the dead lives within you He will, by the same Spirit, bring to your whole being new strength and vitality.

Romans 8:11 (Phillips), on the wall of Ken's studio, "a good verse for 1974"

That first November there was a baptism: two Brigade boys, a young couple from the neighborhood, an OMF missionary, and one of Ken's own sons.

From Ken's letters of 2 May, 10 September and 26 November 1973 and 24 January 1974.

Gospel Dimensions

This time the Engles had a recording studio at home, off Ken's office. He made the fifteen-minute programs there, and the five-minute ones, and something new: one-minute spots called Moments to Remember. In October 1973 FEBC in Manila asked for all of them. "We have all agreed that they are very excellent."

I probably sounded casual when you told me that they liked Moment to Remember. Actually I was thrilled.

Ken to Glynn and Lela Dean, FEBC, 26 October 1973

I let so many things crowd in and let that which I really enjoy the most…radio take a "back burner." I feel I have made a mistake in this and plan to do better in 1974.

Ken to Glynn Dean, 18 February 1974

From Ken's letters of 16 and 26 October 1973, 3 December 1973, 18 February and 23 April 1974.

Short-Term Missionaries

That summer the servicemen's conference met at John Hay Air Base, and VBS at the Navy Road chapel drew ninety children.

Pray for us as we seek to reach the "brown gold"…the people of this area with the Gospel. It is work to mine either kind of gold.

Ken to Woodside, September 1974

From Ken's letters of 27 June, 16 and 20 September 1974.

They Could Be on Their Own

The name Baguio means "storm."

Ken, November 1974, after a month of typhoons

The last Baguio winter was full. An Australian team from Gospel Literature Outreach came for four months, and there was a six-day Bible school with eight classes a day. "The two married men that did not miss a session attended 48 classes." A new home Bible class met among the Ibaloy, "the original peoples of Baguio."

In March 1975 Ken wrote something new:

More and more we feel the believers here could be on their own. However, we would so much like to see them in their own building.

Ken to Glynn and Lela Dean, 19 March 1975

On 1 May 1975 he wrote the elders at Woodside that it was time to go home, for Mary Lou's sake. They had prayed five years for land for a chapel.

Interestingly it was 21 days later that the opportunity to get land for the Chapel came to us.

Ken, looking back, 10 June 1977

The land was bought before they left. Building began on 15 September 1975, and on 14 December 1975 the Christian Fellowship Gospel Chapel, on Morning Glory Street, opened. Fred Balanag chaired its elders. "This comes after seven years of the gospel going forth in that area," Ken wrote.

Overall though we believe that our absence has been good for the work. … It is not our work…it is the Lord's work. Just as our children need us at a certain time but then they need to be on their own…so it is with our children in the faith.

Ken to the Woodside elders, 10 June 1977

From Ken's letters of 1974–77.

Our Missionary in the Pacific

From Ken's letters of 1976–77.

Fruit in Dallas

From Ken's letters of April and September 1985 and summer 1986.

Radio from the Wheat Fields

Their voice has gone out into all the earth.

Romans 10:18, at the head of Ken's prayer letter, December 1977

Ken recorded in the basement of Grace and Truth Gospel Chapel, ten miles out of town, because "the nearest house is over a half mile away."

• The Emmaus Bible Hour. Emmaus asked him to turn its correspondence courses into fifteen-minute programs. The first aired on KABI on Sunday, 14 January 1979. By 1981 there was a full year of them, built on What the Bible Teaches, Guide to Christian Growth, Lessons for Christian Living and Summary of the Bible. By 1986 there were two years, heard from Georgia to Nova Scotia. That year he airmailed the scripts to Rudy in Manila, who called them "an answer to prayer."
• The Bible, read aloud. For FEBC he read the whole New Testament, then the Psalms, Proverbs, Isaiah and more, with no comment. It aired Sunday mornings at 10:30 in Manila and in 1986 also from Iba, Zambales. "There are no comments. But you know the promises that His word will not return unto Him void!" (Isaiah 55:11)
• At home. A five-minute sermonette on KABI some 732 times, "Outreach" with Christian businessmen, and Bible lessons on cable Channel 8. In 1980 he chaired Abilene's public-access television.

In 1980 a fire at the Back to the Bible office in Manila destroyed about a hundred master tapes, "tapes that we have used over and over and even made copies and sent to other stations." He kept recording.

Let us never be satisfied to be "receivers" but may we also be "transmitters."

Ken to Woodside, 30 March 1976 (1 Thessalonians 1:8)

From Ken's letters of 1976–86.

Don't Worry If It's Hard to Pronounce

From Kansas Ken kept sending: Sunday School and VBS materials to Binangonan and Baguio, cassette libraries, and books. The Walterick publishers in Kansas City gave books free, and by 1983 about fifty Filipino workers and elders had complete sets of William MacDonald's Old Testament commentary. He helped pay for students at the short-term Bible school north of Manila, where former Brigade boys now taught.

He asked his supporters to pray for the two places by name.

Don't worry if it's hard to pronounce the names of the places. The LORD will know what you are praying about!

Ken to the Lees, Junction City, 25 February 1981

In 1985 he chose the photographs and wrote the captions for Grace Triumphant, the life of Cyril Brooks. Dad and Mom Brooks died in 1986, two months apart. "They took us into their home and coached us in our early days there." That February, during People Power, FEBC stayed on the air around the clock at full power.

We can't help but wonder if some of our programs were not being beamed out when the transmitters were on full power in the crisis??

Ken to Woodside, 13 March 1986

From Ken's letters of 1981–86.

Our Own Representative

From Ken's letters of June, 11 July and 18 September 1985.

Only Eternity Will Show

About 1983 Woodside asked its missionaries a question: what difference did it make? Ken wrote about the boys' club. An older Filipino, not yet a believer, had asked him for one when Ken was still learning the language. The boys came to Christ and were trained, and then they trained others. Rudy, Pete, Reny, Lino and Eliseo became elders, broadcasters, translators and leaders.

We have been involved in other kinds of work such as radio, youth work, Christ For Greater Manila, camp work etc, but this is the work that I have just described that seems to have left the greatest impression. Only eternity will show what really is important but thirty years later, that's the way it looks.

Ken to Woodside, about 1983

He had said it another way in 1965:

As missionaries some of us sowed some of the early seeds. But now is the time for it to have a full Filipino flavor.

Ken to Rudy Ponce de Leon, 13 August 1965

And in 1987, writing about a Philippine ambassador who had been sent off to Washington as "a missionary for Christ disguised as an ambassador":

We all need to be missionaries, I feel is the bottom line.

Ken to Woodside, 17 March 1987

From Ken's letters of 13 August 1965, about 1983 and 17 March 1987.

The Mountain, Again

Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.

Jeremiah 33:3, "a verse that keeps coming to mind in 1987"

Ken went home to the Lord on 5 November 2009. He never saw what came next.

Some of us sowed the early seeds, Dad wrote. The seeds are still coming up, and two of the children who watched him sow them have gone back to the field.

In HIS joy.

From Ken's letter of February 1987 and Kevin's memories (October 2026).

Christian Servicemen’s Centers

Ken Engle first saw the Philippines as a serviceman himself, a B-24 tail gunner in 1945. When he came back as a missionary in March 1951, some of the first people he served were American servicemen a long way from home.

Soon after he landed he met Jesse Miller. Miller had been an Army mechanic at Clark Field when the war began. He survived the Bataan Death March and years as a prisoner of war in Japan, went to Bible school, and came back to the Philippines as a missionary. In 1954 he and his wife Nettie founded the Overseas Christian Servicemen’s Centers (today Cadence International): homes away from home where a soldier or sailor could find a meal, a Bible study and Christian friends.

Ken was there near the beginning. In his testimony, recorded at John Hay in 1973, he said he helped with the GI Gospel Hour, started a Friday-night Bible class for Navy men at Sangley Point, and spoke at the first servicemen’s conference, held in the fall of 1951 with only a handful of men.

I could not help recall the first of these conferences which was held in Manila in 1951 with only a handful of men. I had the privilege of speaking to those fellows.

Ken to Woodside, 9 October 1967

Sangley Point and Cavite

Sangley Point was the U.S. Navy station on the point of Cavite, across Manila Bay. Ken kept going down to the Navy men there for years. On 11 March 1966 his diary records a full day: a Tagalog lesson, a period at the language school, and then, at half past two, he and Marvin Graves drove to the American Embassy, caught a boat down to Sangley Point, and he spoke on the Quiet Time. He got home at a quarter past eleven that night.

Mary Lou and the children went too. In March 1960 the letter from the Woodside elders approving their furlough arrived just as the family was leaving with Ken for Cavite, for a meeting of Navy servicemen and their wives.

I brought it to the car on the run.

Ken to the Christians of Woodside Bible Chapel, 15 March 1960

In July 1962 he spoke at a servicemen’s conference in Baguio. The next spring a serviceman in Japan heard his fifteen-minute radio program and wrote asking for lessons, for himself and for a friend.

Twice a Year in Baguio

When the family moved to Baguio in 1967, the servicemen came to them. Baguio was where men on rest and recreation from Viet Nam came up the mountain, and twice a year the servicemen’s centers held a Bible conference there.

In October 1967 Ken spoke at the thirty-second, with over a hundred men from Okinawa, Viet Nam and the Philippine bases. A month later a group from an aircraft carrier just back from the war zone spent an evening in the Engle home, and a base chaplain telephoned to ask Ken to take charge of a three-day conference on the Air Base. In January 1968 Dad Brooks was a main speaker, and Ken spoke on “Missions in the Philippines.” They set out a display of Emmaus courses and sold more than ninety, to men from Viet Nam, Okinawa, Taiwan, Guam and the Philippines.

In July 1968, at the thirty-fourth, the theme was “A Relevant God for a Restless Age.” About 160 came. Ken taught Philippians every morning at eight, and four men professed faith in Christ. Read more: “The Four B’s” → “Pray That This War Would Be Over” →

Men from the First Conference

The handful of men at that first conference in 1951 did not forget it. By October 1967 Ken could write that at least two of them were now running servicemen’s centers themselves.

In the summer of 1971, home on furlough, Ken and Mary Lou went to a servicemen’s conference in Colorado, with about 160 there, and met men they had known in the Philippines. One of them had been saved at the original Manila conference. He was now directing servicemen’s centers in Panama and in the Philippines.

At the August 1969 conference Ken and Ken Brooks helped with the seminars. Men from all over Southeast Asia, Viet Nam included, bought the What the Bible Teaches charts to lead Bible studies on their own bases. And in February 1970 Mary Lou spoke to about sixty servicemen’s wives on retreat at John Hay Air Base, where she had been organist at the base chapel.

John Hay, 1974

Back in Baguio in 1973, Ken took up the conferences again. In February 1974 about seventy-five came; he helped with a seminar and spoke at the closing breaking of bread. Then he gave about twenty-five servicemen and their wives a tour of Baguio, and Mary Lou served them cupcakes. In March the two of them held a conference for servicemen’s wives.

That July the conference met at John Hay Air Base, with Dr. Gary Collins of Trinity as speaker and the theme “Made Whole in Christ.” Ken led the Bible hour at eight each morning.

The 45th semi-annual Servicemen’s Bible conference has just finished here in Baguio. About 75 men and their wives attended, mostly from Clark Field and Subic Naval Base. The ‘Kitty Hawk’ aircraft carrier was also represented. Pray for these servicemen and their wives, also for those who work at servicemen’s centers seeking to witness for Christ.

Ken, in MISSIONS magazine, May–June 1974

In September more than a hundred came, from Clark, Subic and Navy ships; a chaplain from the carrier Oriskany wrote to thank them. Another conference opened 1975.

A Center at Fort Riley

Even in Kansas, Ken kept looking for servicemen. Fort Riley, the big Army post, is a few miles from Abilene, next to Junction City. On 28 November 1971 Mary Lou wrote in her diary:

Dick Patty called - coming in Wednesday to look over Junction City for Service men’ Center.

Mary Lou, 28 November 1971

Two weeks later Ken asked the Woodside believers to pray about a servicemen’s center at Fort Riley. He was working on it with a Junction City policeman and his wife, and they had surveyed the town with a representative of the Overseas Christian Servicemen’s Centers.

The friendships lasted. In January 1983 two men from the servicemen’s centers, Bob Hingham and Sid Henry, stopped in Abilene for breakfast, and Ken wrote of friends with ties to “Nettie and Jessie Miller.”

The Gospel Hour at Clark Field

Photographs to be added.

From Ken’s 1973 testimony tape; his letters of 1960–1983 and diary of 11 March 1966 (in Gordon’s story “Thrilled”); the MISSIONS magazine prayer pages of 1974; Mary Lou’s 1971 diary. On Jesse Miller, his obituary in the Denver Post, 2001.

Milestones

Milestones, continued

Days Dad Remembered

He kept anniversaries the way other people keep birthdays. A few of them, in his words:

• "It was twenty years ago this summer that I was commended to the work of the Lord." (April 1970)
• "It is sixteen years since I first came to the Philippines." (June 1967)
• "Speaking of history, it was just 14 years ago that we were in Baguio on our honeymoon at this very same time of the year." (May 1967)
• "We celebrated the 17th anniversary of the Bible School of the Air and the enrolling of the millionth student." (May 1967)
• "By the way, we celebrated our tenth year in Brigade work with a special meeting in March." (1962)
• "It was just a year ago today that our plane touched down at Manila International Air Port." (December 1966)
• "We have been engaged in the broadcasting ministry for the past sixteen years over DZAS." (September 1967)
• "Twenty Five years ago I went to the Philippines as a missionary. Thirty one years ago I was there for my country." (1976)
• "I recall your Chapel as being one of my stops just before I went to the Philippines as a missionary for the first time twenty-five years ago." (October 1976)
• "It is now about 32 years since I first said goodbye to you there and set sail for the Philippines." (December 1982)
• "It has been ten years now since we have been in the Philippines." (July 1985)
• "It was 36 years ago today that I began my missionary work in the Philippines." (17 March 1987)

Dad's Verses

His verse for the year

• 1967 Isaiah 43:19, "Behold, I will do a new thing"
• 1970 Nehemiah 2:20, "arise and build"
• 1972 Acts 22:14, "chosen thee, that thou shouldest know his will"
• 1974 Romans 8:11 (Phillips), on his studio wall
• 1979 Deuteronomy 32:3, "I will proclaim the name of the Lord"
• 1980 Psalm 96:3–4, "Tell of His glory among the nations"
• 1984 Psalm 105:1, "Make known His deeds among the peoples"
• 1985 Deuteronomy 33:27, "Underneath are the everlasting arms." ("Come to think of it we need that verse every year.")
• 1987 Jeremiah 33:3, "Call to me and I will answer you"

Verses at the head of his letters

Psalm 84:11 and Ruth 1:16 (the wedding verses, 1953) · Numbers 13:30 (1963) · Isaiah 50:4 (1963) · Isaiah 26:3 (1963) · Proverbs 1:33 (1964) · Isaiah 42:6 (1965) · I Corinthians 15:58 (1965) · Habakkuk 2:2 (1966) · Joshua 14:12 (1967) · Isaiah 66:2 (1967) · Job 34:32 (1967) · Philippians 4:4–7 · Ephesians 5:17 (1968) · II Corinthians 4:7 (1968) · Isaiah 40:29–31 (1969) · Psalm 127:1 (1969) · Colossians 1:28 (1969) · Psalm 32:8 (1970) · Jeremiah 10:23–24 (1970) · John 1:12–13 (1971) · Psalm 9:1 (1971) · Psalm 101:2 (1972) · James 5:16 (1972) · Psalm 139:3 (1972) · I Thessalonians 1:8 (1973, 1976) · Colossians 1:10 · Psalm 67:1–2 (1976) · Romans 10:18 (1977) · Acts 26:17–18 (1978) · Philippians 2:13 (1981)

Answers for Volume Five

Volume Five, on Dad's radio work, ended with open questions. The letters answer some of them.

• When did Moments of Melody begin, and where? On 1 October 1967, at 6 a.m., over DZBS in Baguio. It went on FEBC's DZFE in Manila that November.
• Moments to Remember? One-minute spots, begun in Baguio in late 1973 on a commercial station. In October 1973 FEBC asked for all of them, and in 1974 they also ran on DZBS.
• The FFA award? In 1942. Ken won the regional contest in Chicago on 10 August with a speech called "Food, Our Weapon," and then first place in the national contest at the FFA convention in Kansas City that October.
• The Living series? Living Letters began on DZAS in 1966, starting in First Corinthians. Then came Living Gospels (1968), Living Prophecies (1969–70), Living Psalms and Living Proverbs (1972), fifteen minutes each, most of them on Sunday mornings at 9:15.
• Stations after 1975? KABI Abilene, KSKG-FM Salina and KLJC Kansas City for Moments of Melody. The Emmaus Bible Hour was on KABI and on stations in Georgia, Florida, Wisconsin, Texas, Nova Scotia and elsewhere. DZAS, DZFE-FM, the Iba station and FEBC shortwave carried the Scripture readings.

From Ken's letters of 1967–86 and newspaper clippings of 1942.

Sources

Drawn from: a 509-page scan of Ken's typed letters and papers kept with them, 1942–1987 (file "KEE Letter 52-75"): his prayer letters, his letters to Woodside Bible Chapel and other assemblies, letters to him from Filipino co-workers, the Emmaus Bible School newsletter (autumn 1963), Know Your Missionaries (1977), Christian Missions in Many Lands (1977), the Abilene Reflector-Chronicle and a Kansas City newspaper (1942). Karen's and Kevin's present work from Kevin (October 2026). Dad's letters were scanned about twenty years ago by Kevin and Gordon.