Gene Glaze grew up following the crops with his family. It was not an easy life and as a teenager he joined the Navy where early on he met and became friends with DeVere Crawford. This began a friendship that would last a lifetime.
DeVere had not had an easy life either and had joined the Navy out of desperation following the death of both of his parents. He was a Seventh-day Adventist (plus vegetarian), a lifestyle difficult to practice in the military.
Gene made poor choices over the years, ones that sent him to prison for a total of 18 years. He was cocky, arrogant and a very angry man. He married several times and had several children.
He was released from prison some 20 years ago. Soon after his release he gave his heart to the Lord. He began worshipping with a Pentecostal congregation. Then about five years later while working for the local waste management company, he found a large family Bible and took it home. Another day he found a devotional book that was in pretty bad shape, the cover barely recognizable. It was called “Faith that Works” by Morris Venden. He took it home too and has read it again and again over the years.
On one of Gene’s visits to the Crawford’s he brought a book he had found at Goodwill called “The Desire of Ages”. He highly recommended it and they told him it was a book they loved too.
In 2013 the Crawford’s attended a seminar at their local Adventist church. The weather had been wintry, and the postal service was not able to send the brochures to the community, consequently only a few people attended. Cynthia began to create a simple fill-in-the blank worksheet listing the Bible verses given each evening to help remember them. These worksheets she attached to the handouts given daily. Jonny Moor, associate pastor for Hood View Church worked with her, correcting them, helping her format and organize them. Upon completion of the seminar, she put these lessons into packets, attached personal notes to them and DeVere mailed them to 30 of their friends and family. A lesson packet went to Gene.
Two months later DeVere got a call. Gene told him that was the best gift anyone had ever given him next to his Bible and that he had completed the lessons.
Gene tells that about a month later he got a card notifying him that he had been signed up for Voice of Prophecy lessons. He thought the Crawford’s had signed him up. They had not nor does Gene know to this day who did. When he had two lessons left to complete, the lady who corrected them wrote him a note at the bottom of his lesson inviting him to the local Seventh-day Adventist church. He began attending and continued studying, completing a Daniel and Revelation set of lessons. He was baptized into the Woodland, California Seventh-day Adventist church, May 20, 2015.
In 2015 he joined his friends at Gladstone Camp Meeting for his very first camp meeting as a new Seventh-day Adventist where Lee Venden, the son of Morris Venden, was the evening speaker.
At the 2021 Idaho Conference Camp Meeting, Gene was able to present Lee Venden with his father’s devotional book. Cynthia, DeVere and Gene had made a special trip to Idaho Conference Camp Meeting to present the book to Venden.
A Navy friendship, many years in prison, a book on the life of Jesus found at Goodwill, another book that Gene calls an old friend, found at the garbage dump, to sitting as a new Seventh-day Adventist listening to the author of that very book’s son, is evidence of God working in the life of one, struggling and failing, but with a heart to have a friendship with Jesus Christ.
God uses many ways to draw his children to Him if they are willing.
