Johnny Baker Interview

Johnny Baker Interview

Johnny Baker's life

Travis Amyx and Johnny Baker

05 November 2019

Travis Amyx and Johnny Baker

MP3 and PDF

English

Oral Interview

1947-2019

Travis Amyx

Johnny Baker

His home

TA This Travis Amyx here with … Johnny Baker. um Today we're going to conduct an oral interview for Local History matters, it is a project of part of Clemson’s Libraries Special Collections and Archives. Today is the fifth of November of twenty nineteen and how are you doing today?

JB Good.

TA Awesome. um To start out just tell me a few things about yourself that you would like,
just to start this. Where you're from, where you were born.

JB I was born in December the ninth nineteen forty-seven in Raleigh, North Carolina. I was born to a mother and dad who were probably middle-aged when I came along. I have a sister who's ten years older than myself who is still living. Both my mom and dad are deceased. My mother was a housewife, my dad was a … um production manager and the designer in a cotton mill. He managed production of the cotton as well as did design work on some of the products that they produced. They produced cloth for primarily dresses and women's clothing, and things of that nature. My dad worked in the same plan for forty-four years. I attended schools in Raleigh, North Carolina; elementary, middle, and well elementary, junior high, and high schools. It was called junior high in those days. Then I attended the University of North Carolina State University got a BA in history. Immediately left after graduation and I worked in personnel management for fifteen years with the state of North Carolina. Then in uh … during that time, after college I got married. When I graduated college, I got married in August the twenty-second nineteen seventy married eighteen-year-old young lady. We've been married now almost forty that would be made forty-nine, almost fifty years. Uh… Most of our lives we've been involved in church in a significant way. I became a Christian when I was nineteen. Immediately after getting married I was asked to teach young people in Sunday school and that kind of grew to the point I became more less the youth pastor on a volunteer basis. And we did musicals … sang all across North Carolina and even into Virginia. Traveled a good bit and then in nineteen … let’s see nineteen seventy-eight I felt the lord give me a vision for Christian retreat center, and we set up a nonprofit corporation towards that goal. In the meantime, we started a ministry out of that, it was a Christian coffeehouse outside of Raleigh, North Carolina called God’s Way In. And that ministry ran for seven years and what it basically was was a Christian night club if you would. um we’d sell hotdogs, and pizza and submarine sandwiches, and sodas and desserts, and then every Saturday night we’d have a Christian concert. Where we would bring in some artists that was local, or some artist we had some from all of United States as they were traveling through that would come in and sing. It’s kinda interesting within the coffeehouse ministry, I had a call from a guy from Nashville, who had a young seventeen-year-old girl he said, “I’d like to have her come and sing at your coffee house.” And he ended up telling me how much it was going to cost, three hundred fifty dollars, and I said there's no way. This would have been in the early nineteen eighties. There was no way I could commit to three hundred fifty dollars. And little did I know the young woman that was starting outs name was Amy Grant. I could have got her for three hundred fifty dollars, and we turned her down. The ministry was very successful, on any given Saturday night we’d have anywhere from a hundred fifty to two hundred fifty people, who’d come in and they’d listen to a concert and … just enjoy food and it was a family atmosphere. Um … Really neat. And through that ministry I met a pastor in Greenville, South Carolina, who said he was looking for someone with my background, business background. And at the time I was working in personnel management making probably about thirty-five thousand dollars a year in nineteen eighty-five which was really good money. And I asked this pastor, I said what will, you know, what would my salary be? And he said, “nothing.” He said, “If you come and work with me, you’d have to get another job. Then you’d have to volunteer your time at the church. And I told my wife he was crazy, but after about ten months that's exactly what I did. I quit my job, moved to Greenville, South Carolina on faith. Put about three or four thousand dollars in the bank and told my wife I said once this is gone were moving back to North Carolina. Well that money never went away. We stayed here for four years, my job was to basically first job given to me was to build a multipurpose building for the church. We purchased thirty-seven acres of land and we needed a building. They were meeting in an old uh older church facility that they were um … renting. Or no actually … they had bought it and so it took us about eighteen months to get the building constructed. I spent about fifteen to seventeen hours a day there overseeing the work. And then this … like I said about a part of eighteen months or so to get that done and then I continued working there for another year or so doing youth ministry, doing whatever the senior pastor wanted me to do. And then at the end of four years I decided it was time for me if I was going to be a pastor to go to seminary. So, the bright young age of about thirty-nine, I went back to North Carolina and went to seminary. Which I had already had some seminary course work but uh… I went to seminary, finished in about eighteen months. And pastored a small southern Baptist church in northeastern North Carolina. A little town called Ahoskie, North Carolina in the northeastern part of the state about an hour from the Outer Banks of North Carolina. And the church … was in a very rural community. I tease and I say, “That it’s so far in the woods you’d have to pipe in the sunshine.” But the Lord blessed the ministry, when I went they were probably running about a hundred people when I first got there and when I left eight years later they were running over three hundred. So the church had significant growth during that time. I enjoyed the ministry there, there was sweet people really, really, really rural area, very small town, the town near us at about five thousand people. The county only had like fifteen thousand in the whole county. Um… During that time I’d come back from time to time to Greenville, South Carolina to preach in the church that I had worked at. Had a good relationship with that church and with the founding pastor. After about eight years in North Carolina the senior pastor here, had a um … accident and drowned and the church in South Carolina asked me to come back in to take over the job of senior pastor. I didn't want to come back, I really enjoyed where was but after a lot of prayer and and and so on I felt like this was where the lord called me to come to. And so, I came back to Abundant Life Church and I pastored the church for nineteen years. From January of nineteen ninety-nine through December of two thousand seventeen. During that time, we saw the church … initially grow. But then over time we saw the church um because of some mega churches that were formed in the area, we saw a fair amount of people leaving the church. At one time we were probably running three hundred fifty on Sunday morning and then towards the end of my ministry it was probably down to a hundred seventy-five or two hundred. The ministry I think was a successful ministry. We had a lot of community outreach and things, and really ministered not just to our own church family but we ministered to tried to minister to the whole community through activities. Several times a year drawing people from the community to to be involved and one of the … I think the best things we did was we started a food pantry. Where we would bring people in every week to provide free food and things. … Sometimes we would have even clothing and other things that would be made available to them. We also had street ministry where we would minister to the homeless. um … Trying to take the church out of the four walls of the church, out into the community. I retired in December of two thousand seventeen and since then, I've, even before I was driving a school bus part time. And I continue to, even now I still drive a school bus primarily for insurance. A little bit of extra income to subsidize my pensions and social security. So, kind of in a nut shell that's what my life has been like. Never wanted to be a pastor, never intended on becoming a pastor, that wasn't something I per saw, but obviously that's what was. I believe there's a scripture in the Bible; it is first Corinthians twelve seven and it says, “To each one is given a manifestation of the spirit for the common good,” And I think the thing that I realized is that God had given me a love for people, and that that was my strength was was working with people and encouraging people and strengthening people and helping them realize that each of them had a gift. That it had been placed in them, within them, and that gift was to share with other people. My gift is I truly believe is loving people and caring about people because um … everywhere I would go I had built relationships that remain to this day. Another thing that I've left out is one of the significant ministries that was started through our church was a Hispanic ministry. In the early two thousands a couple came to me and they were Hispanic, and they said they wanted to attend our church. And within a few weeks they asked about starting Sunday school class and I said, “sure.” Well the Sunday school class grew and grew and grew and grew to the point that it just … blossomed into where there was over five hundred Hispanics attending our church on a weekly basis. Unfortunately, that ministry hurt the English population in the fact that some people because of prejudice or for whatever reason started not attending. um … But that was a vital ministry and as a result of seeing it, at least one or two additional churches born out of that ministry. Even today there's a couple of ministries that still exists, that grew out of that Hispanic ministry. There is one other thing I forgot to mention um .. in in somewhere in the late … like say two thousand nine two thousand ten, somewhere in that area, we started an outreach to the community reaching out to an apartment complex that had primarily … black kids for the most part. And so we every Wednesday night and every Sunday morning we would of bus in anywhere from sixty to seventy kids from poverty level homes. And we continued that ministry minister for three or four years, seeing a lot of kids saved, seeing a lot of kids come to know the lord, and this was really a neat ministry. Gradually that ministry kind of faded out, but it was a tremendous salary check in its time into our community. Now that I'm retired I do a little bit of preaching, but for the most part I just drive the school bus, but everywhere I consider where I am as my ministry field. Because even in the school bus office my nickname is Precher. I I didn't ask them to call me Preacher, they just call me Preacher. Whenever anybody, everybody has a problem they come to me. When everybody's got an issue that they need pastoral guidance or counseling they come to me. And it was the same when I had a little part time job at Lowes for about seven months. And the same thing happened there, countless people would come to me when they found out I was a pastor. With questions or prayer requests or whatever. So, I guess my life has been spent just allowing myself to be used to help people at every opportunity as it presented itself. So … so that's kind of a synopsis. Oh and uh and then left out along the way my wife and I could never have kids so we adopted two children. In nineteen … eighty we adopted our first daughter, that was in North Carolina. In nineteen eighty-eight we adopted our second daughter, that was in South Carolina. Currently as a result of those two children I have four grandchildren. I have twenty-year-old granddaughter sixteen-year-old grandson, and then my youngest daughter has two young children have a … four-year-old grandson and a soon to be one-year old grandson. And obviously they are some of the bright spots in my life, the grandkids. So that that kind of, I guess, I’ve gotten almost everything.

TA I was actually, I was, one of my questions was going to talk about the adoption and stuff like that because I had heard that about you. um… What drew you and Mrs. Jan to adopt children?
JB Well my wife almost from the time we got married, within two years of our marriage um she developed multiple sclerosis. Which is a paralyzing disease, that basically attacks the the lining of the nerves. And at one point she couldn’t walk, she couldn’t feed herself, she couldn’t see. She was almost … paralytic, we took over leading universities, like Duke University and I said get a wheelchair she'll never walk again. um But fortunately through prayer and through the Lord she … she's doing extremely well, even now. She’s had a few challenges over the years, but this has done extremely well. But in addition to that, in fact first ten years of our marriage my wife was in the hospital more than she was home. Not only does she have a MS she had female problem … problems with endometriosis. And she just couldn't get pregnant um so that's why we chose adoption. She was about to go crazy, she said, “I just gotta, I gotta adopt kids.” And so that was the pressure, more so her than me. I wanted children, but she just had to have kids. And so we adopted our first child through Children's Home Society of North Carolina. It was in nineteen eighty it took about eighteen months to two years for that to happen. In South Carolina in nineteen eighty-eight we adopted our second door Juliana, but first one’s name is Jane Elizabeth. My second over the Juliana Kate was born in nineteen eighty-eight. Jamie the oldest was six weeks old when we got her. Julianna was six days old when we got her and uh adoption … What I would say to anybody thinking about adoption is they need to understand you can take a child out of the environment the childs in, but the genetics, or something, which you can't do anything with. We’ve had a lot of challenges with our oldest daughter from the time she was a teenager or even til in recent years, she's had addictions, and drug problems, and incarcerations, and lots of challenges. Our youngest daughter has been the complete opposite, you know, just being a very sweet and being a very good girl. So, we hope our oldest is on the right track, and she seems to be, so hopefully that will continue.

TA As far as your grandchildren, you call them your “bright spots” in your life, would you like to talk about them?
JB Yeah Brennan Nicole was born um … lets see if I can remember … nineteen ninety-nine, she's now twenty. She has been a sweet child. I took she and her brother away from their mother, she was four and Andrew was one. Immediately I contacted the fathers and asked if they wanted to take the kids, and like I said they did that have different fathers. And but Brennan has lived with us on off, uh the oldest, Shes lived with us on and off her whole life. She recently had an opportunity to participate in the Voice on television. She has a beautiful voice, she's … not only a beautiful singer, but she's a beautiful person and I think she's got a great future ahead. She's in love now and the probably to be married within the next year or so, I think. Andrew my youngest grandson, he is a bright spot that he is the challenge of my life, he's living with me and he's been kicked out of school and he just doesn't know how to behave. He's a gamer that's all it wants to do, is play plays games. I wish he was interested in school like he is in his games but unfortunately, he has a you know come around in reguards to that. My two youngest Jonathan is four, he’ll be five in February really sweet kid. His younger brother Asher is soon to be one in December. My daughters got some strange ideas about doctors, and immunizations, and neither of children have had any immunizations at all. They're gonna be facing something difficult next year when Johnathon goes to school, but you know we'll see what happens with that. But there also a little bit reluctant to get medical care. Jonathan has got one of his feet that turns in and it's really bothered me. That they haven’t had anything done about that. In fact, of told her I would pay for whatever but sometimes your kids don’t always cooperate with what you want them to do. But I still love my kids even even Andrew being the challenge he is, I love him. I just hope and pray one day he’s gonna get on the right track. The others seem to be doing good for their age and everything considered.
TA That’s great. Is there anything else you'd like to say about your family before I move on?
JB I think that we're close family, we spend a lot of time together, we even do vacations together and and we we always have a lot of fun. The thing that that I enjoy the most about it, is the the fellowship and we, for example, every Sunday I fix lunch for everybody and everybody's here watching football or doing whatever we're doing. Or decorating, or we love to get together and do something at Christmas and decorate our tree and put up our stockings and do all those kinds of things. Just family is a big thing for us, and we just enjoy the time. We get ready to lose one and Brennan getting married but I assume she’ll still be coming back for some of the things that go on around here.
TA I’m sure she will. Um your your ideas of family would you say came from your parents, or grandparents, or was it something that you developed yourself?
JB When I was growing up my my mother's house was always the center of her family. My mother was one of twelve children, back in the … in the day in the early … part of the nineteenth century big families were common. My grandfather and grandmother were very, I won’t say poor, but they didn't have a whole lot of money. My grandfather was a drunk. My grandmother was a good woman, housewife, good Christian lady, that's probably where my Christian morals come from this. My grandmother to my mother to me. My dad was never a believer that I know of, but my mom was very strong, and my grandmother was was very strong as well. Home life at my house was a happy home. My mother was a loving mother, couldn’t have loved me and and done anymore for me. We were we were a lower middle class family, didn’t have a lot of money, but there was a lot of love. Grew up in a small thousand square foot house. Just … every Christmas, every … holiday, whatever even said many times a year her brothers her sisters. There were thirty-one grandchildren that my grandmother and grandfather, down through there eight kids that survived. And they’d all pile into my house Christmas and other times of the year and there would be no room at the table, no room on the floor, everybody. My mother would do most the cooking and some of the others would help. That that always you know bless me and even at Christmas my aunt who lived here in South Carolina, her family would come, and they’d have Santa Claus and everything there with all us kids and it was just that … was what my family was. It was it was tons of people and I guess I've carried on that tradition. My mom was a great cook and I I guess I took after my mom. I learned after two weeks of marriage if I didn’t learn how to cook, I was going to starve. And so, I learned how to cook real quick, and now at Christmas, or Thanksgiving, or whatever my wife does the dishes and I do all the cooking. So, we worked that out over the years. She doesn’t like to cook and and I like to cook, and I cook like my momma and my grandmother cooked. And so yeah family has always been a part even when I was a little boy. Those are things that I love and remember. In fact, on vacation every year when I was a little we, my mother had to living sisters, and at her f… my family and I, and my two aunt’s families, we’d all go to the beach together and rent a huge cottage and we’d stay a week or two every summer. And most of my cousins were younger than me but we grew up together playing at the beach and just having a good time. So yeah familys always been a big part of my life.
TA Growing up, is there any particular things historically or even just in your own personal life that happened or people that you met that impacted you into becoming the person that you are? Like I know you mentioned like Martin Luther King, and movements like that, is there anything specific that you would like to discuss?
JB Yeah it started, I grew up in a very racially prejudiced home. The N. word was common not only in my home, but within my immediate family. Very racially prejudiced. When I was … my first five years of my … four and a half years of my life, we lived in a mill house. My dad worked for textile company and we lived in one of the houses owned by the textile company. And there was a black man, he was an older black man, I'm guessing in his sixties or seventies at the time. His name was T. K. and when I was kindergarten age, or let’s say like three, four, five. T. K. would take care of the houses, and he would come through the the neighborhood because I lived in a mill community, all of the houses were owned by the mill. And he’d come through and and kind of do maintenance on the houses. And I was the only child staying at home, everybody else was in school and I'd be out playing and T.K. would be working on the houses. And I kind of follow him around, and he became my friend. And so one day I asked mother I said, “Mama can T.K. come eat lunch with us?” She said, “Sure.” And so that day when I talked to T.K I said, “T.K. you gonna come eat lunch with us.” He said, “okay if that’s alright with your mom.” So when he came in mother and dad and I sat at the table but T.K. sat at a little table off to the side and was not allowed to sit at the table with us. And so I didn't say anything about it then, but later I asked my mother I said, “mama why couldn’t T.K. sit at the table with us?” and she said, “Well you just don't do that. Blacks and well, she didn’t say black she said “niggers” and and whites don’t mix.” And so I grew up, you know with that kind of background. um… But in high school, in the ninth-grade integration, nineteen sixty, fifty nine, sixty, along in there, integration came to Raleigh, North Carolina. And twenty-six black students came from their high school and integrated our school. There were several hundred probably six to eight hundred students at our high school and twenty-six black students came when I was in the ninth grade. I was playing junior high football in the ninth grade and there were three blacks that came out for football one was named Sam Spencer. And Sam came to practice the first day and no one would allow him to put his locker next to them. And he finally came over to me and said, “Can I put my locker next to you?” and I said, “Sure.” And that began a relationship with Sam. Sam was a great singer and I sang in the glee club and and we became part of an ensemble group, and the friendship from football and the friendship in singing, we became very good friends. Which was very uncommon and in that time. And when we were seniors in nineteen sixty-six, we traveled to Greensboro, North Carolina for a singing festival. … This the music teacher came to me and she said, “Johnny” she said, “We're gonna stay overnight and I need for you to sleep in the room with Sam. I said, “No problem.” So looking back now I know that through T. K., and through Sam, and through some of my experiences it prepared me to have a different point of view because even in my own vocabulary, probably when I was in in my teenage years, the N word would … I would use that. But then long about … will also in… nineteen sixty-six when I enrolled into NC State, I went to work at Belk’s in downtown Raleigh part time to help pay for my college expenses. Fact remind me to tell you something about college before I forget it but anyway. Um … there I met a number of of young black men who had gone to college and we're very well educated and became friends with them. And so over time I found myself, unlike a lot of my friends, developing relationships with people of other color. And so, I think that was all preparation to you know what was in store for me even in personnel management, uh … black people were drawn to me and I was drawn to them. And then that continued even into the ministry. um …but another factor that came along in the early nineteen sixties was the deaths of Robert Kennedy, the deaths of of Martin Luther king, John Kennedy. As a result of the Martin Luther king assassination we had race riots in downtown Raleigh. Businesses were firebombed, riots … just all kinds of of challenges and problems this would have been post sixty-one sixty-two. I saw a lot of things that really just were very disturbing. And again I began to develop thoughts that weren’t necessarily what my family members held. I saw things differently I realized the N word was was not something that I should be using in my vocabulary and and stop using it. To this day I haven't used the N. word in probably forty years or more other than just, you know, something like this. In personnel management I had a responsibility for supervising as many as thirty-five, forty people. A large portion of those people were people of color. Employed and hired a lot of blacks, Asians, Hispanics, … even … Indians just wide variety of people and developed relationships and and just there was a a very broadening experience to say the least for me. And I came to enjoy that, in fact I can remember back when every year on Martin Luther King's birthday there would be meetings held for you know people to go and they would attend a rally where someone would speak or talk about anymore. There would be some sort of program and I always would with the … other the other blacks in office they would say, “Johnny don't you want to go with us?” I’d say, “Sure.” I'd be one of the few white faces in the midst of a lot of blacks. Even in our coffee house ministry … later on … we had blacks come to the coffeehouse, and we'd be invited to black churches to sing and to speak. And um so um I'm very, to this day, very comfortable with people of color and and I was always teased that the lord had given me a special heart for people of all races and colors. And that's that's true even to this day. One of the things I guess the word proud is the right word. Just glad for the opportunities I’ve had to know people of color and to consider many of them close friends and even family. To this day. But what was I needing a reminding?
TA The college, … all you had mentioned was college. To remember college.
JB Well I enrolled in NC State in nineteen sixty-six the tuition was a hundred and seventy-eight dollars a semester and the books were five hundred dollars a semester. I got a college degree for less than two thousand dollars. To show you how of the prices have skyrocketed. Now I did get a scholarship to pay for everything for my senior year but for three years all I paid was about eighteen, nineteen hundred dollars for a college education. Which is phenominal. One semester probably cost more than that.
TA Oh yeah definitely. I think I saw mine was ten thousand. How are you doing? Would you like to take a break?
JB Oh no, I’m fine.
TA Let's go back to the pastor in Greenville. Obviously with our background, I know who you’re speaking about. What what was his name?
JB Do what now?
TA Pastor Brag.
JB Oh yeah. Pastor Johnny Bragg was the founder of Abundant Life Church. He had been in the Church of God of Prophecy for a number of years but it had become disillusioned with the way they assigned pastors, and he and a group of people um … left the Church of God of Prophecy to form … an interdenominational fellowship. Which means anyone from any denomination would be welcome. And they first uh I’m trying to think of the first name it was not Abundant Life Church, it was known as Faith Fellowship first. And then two other churches later on came one of them was called The Rock Church and the other … oh gracious … having to go back now. um evangl… no it’s not evangel. I can't think of the name of the over there, but it was an Assembly of God church. And they all formed, or came together to form, what came to be known Abundant Life Church. Abundant Life Church was founded in nineteen eighty-two. Pastor Bragg was a very … affable person, very likable person. He wasn't a great preacher, he would he would say to me, “Johnny I know I'm not a great preacher, but I know how to work the people.” He was a people person … but wasn't wasn't a strong um … should I say Bible teacher, or he wasn’t extremely evangelistic in his preaching. He was just pretty simple. In fact, he kept all the sermons in his drawer, and I think he had about maybe forty or fifty sermons and in four years’ time I heard all of his sermons at least two or three times. You could spice them up a little differently but and I decided after watching him for four years I decided that every time I preach it was gonna be something brand new. It wasn't going to be rehashing what I did ten years ago. In fact … I don't think I ever preached any sermon more than a couple of times and not at the same place. If I preached something in my church, I might preach it at another church but I never preached that same sermon at my church. And I practiced that for … nineteen years at Abundant Life, and then the eight years at Union Baptist Church. I don’t think I mentioned the name of the church that I pastored in North Carolina it was Union. It was a southern Baptist church, the name of it was Union. Which was named for the community in which it was it was a suburb, if you want to call it a hosky. A little small community of about four, five hundred people. It is interesting that community … Let me mention that a little bit. While I was pastoring at Union Baptist Church there were sixty small churches in a … in a group um … and they asked me when I was there, they asked they asked me to come and preach to their annual meeting. And I was reluctant, but I finally agreed. I was praying about what I should preach on and that community, the county is seventy five percent black, twenty five percent white. Overwhelmingly black, largely because it's a farming community and most of the people there descended from slaves. And so the Sunday that I was going to preach on, I don’t think it was a Sunday, I think it was like a Monday night or Wednesday night or something . They had their association meeting and I was their speaker and what I preached on was the good Samaritan. But the point that I made was the good Samaritan was not liked by anybody. He was looked down on by everybody because of who and what he was, a tax collector. and I likened it to, you know, in our society there are people who are looked down on, who were left out. And then I said basically you know. A matter of fact I said, “You pastors out here in the audience.” there were sixty pastors sitting there. I said, “You live in a community that is largely black but when you go visiting in your community do you go only to the white houses. To to invite people to your church or you do go to the black houses?” And I could see some of the people in the congregation beginning to turn red because I said, “Jesus came and died for all people, of all races.” and I said, “As far as I'm concerned I don't draw any distinction between the people in my community. I'm just as willing to go to a black person’s home and invite them to my church as to a white person’s home to invite them to my church. Needless to say, to say they were not very happy because it was a very racially prejudiced area. And there were a lot of people extremely mad with me, but I did what I felt like I was supposed to. So, I guess everywhere I’ve been I’ve kind of been I’ve stirred the pot a little bit. In the fact that I know even at Abundant Life there were a lot of people that didn't like the Hispanics being there. And uh that's okay. That's what I was supposed to do and that’s what I did.
TA That is true. … You served in the military, correct?
JB I did.
TA Would you want to discuss that for a few minutes?
JB Yea um when I was in college um, I had applied for the Army National Guard because I figured that was something I could I could do. And and SO in after graduating college, I graduated college in May of nineteen seventy. September the fifteenth nineteen seventy I flew out of Raleigh Durham airport to Saint Louis, Missouri and ultimately to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. They called it Fort Lost in the Woods. They also called Little Korea because that part of Missouri is prone to extremes in temperatures, extremes in weather and tornadoes. It was in Tornado Alley. In fact the night we were on the firing range, firing our M16s at night, they pulled us off the range because of tornadoes and bad thunderstorms in the area. A few weeks later, in mid to late October we were out on a three-day march. And I was sleeping in a tent and had to go to the bathroom well I got up to go out of tent, when I stepped outside of stepped in about three inches of snow on the ground. So Fort Lost in the Woods was quite an experience. I finished there in December the fifteenth nineteen seventy and was assigned to Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis, Indiana because my company was a finance unit. We we were the pay masters of our particular division of of whatever you call, I can’t remember what it’s called, you know what I'm talking about. And so that was my job. Well after basic training and I came back, I was trained as a as a person who was, had paid people. And we figured out how much they were to be paid. Well when I got back to the unit, they didn't have a company clerk so the first sergeant said, “Baker you can be the company clerk.” Even though I wasn't trained for it, so for six years I served as the company clerk for the Hundred Seventh Finance Company of the North Carolina National Guard and that's what I spent my time doing. … One interesting experience I'll never forget, a friend and I were asked to be the guards for the money we were paying at summer camp. So we go to Fort Bragg and they take us into the vault and there you cannot believe the money that was in that vault. Well they handed us of foot locker filled with the nine hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars in cash. And they said go out and count it. So the captain, and the first sergeant, and several of the other guys and me counted the money out. And they had given us about twenty-five thousand dollars too much and so we turned it back. And told them they had given us too much money. But I asked the first sergeant later I said, “You reckon they would have figured out where that money was or do you think we could have gotten away with it?” He said, “They would have figured that out for sure.” So, I thought that it was interesting the fact that they had me drive the jeep, to carry the money, and my friend was sitting next to me, and then the captain was in the back with the money it was in a foot locker. And there was a helicopter over us, with machine guns. There was a jeep in front and the back of us with machine guns. They gave me a thirty-eight pistol with no ammo. I think it’s funny they thought I was going to shoot somebody. So yeah that was an interesting experience um … summer camp every year Fort Stewart, Georgia, Fort … Fort Brag, those were the two places that we went, we spent a lot of hot summers in the National Guard. It was a a good experience, I enjoyed it.
TA Sounds like it. Let’s see … Are you doing alright? Do you need to take a break?
JB Whenever you're ready.
TA We’ve been going at it for an hour. If you if you want to take a break and we can come back at it.
JB She was very young, she had just turned eighteen. Our marriage has been a challenge to say the least. The first, as I said earlier, the first ten years of my marriage was in the hospital more than she was home with multiple sclerosis related issues. And then with issues due to endometriosis, which is a disease that attacks the woman's in.. internal particular female organs. The black cysts, chocolate cysts they call them, grow all over. It's related to the menstrual cycle with things that kind of go haywire. And she had ten different female procedures before she ended up having to have hysterectomy. And the reason she had the hysterectomy was they had gone in to … do something, and in the process, she started hemorrhaging. Well I know I know what the story was, here's the story, let me back up. My wife and I, she had all kinds of female problems, but she did get pregnant one time and um … in that pregnancy the baby, the the egg, the fertilized egg fell almost out of the uterus, fell into the cervical area and attached itself in the cervix where it could not grow. And so consequently after about twelve weeks … the growth of the baby began to cause significant pain. And they had to go in and do what they called a DNC. To remove the ovary, the baby, and in the process, she began to they cut a blood vessel or artery or something. She's in the recovery room they think she's getting better and all of a sudden, she started bleeding like a stuck pig. And they had to her back into surgery and they ended up having to do a complete hysterectomy um because of the damage that was done. They told me, in fact the doctor came at first, he said if you know any, these are his very words, “If you know any Indian prayers, you better start praying them.” And I was by myself, there was nobody else there and so obviously I started praying. They told me they said, “When we bring her back to you, you’re not going to recognize her” because they had to replace almost all the blood in her body. And so, I'm thinking yea sure. So, they brought her in, and she was so swollen, face, hands. I’m serious, I could not recogn… I had to look on her armband to make sure it was her. I mean she looked like a blown up, I just can't even imagine how she looked. But um it was it was a real challenge to say the least. And even the first nineteen years of marriage were quite a challenge because I would have tom you know, try to do everything I could to help keep her muscles because muscles atrophy when they're not used. I'd have to help help her walk, I’d have to hold her up and I’d have to feed her, I’d have to help her in the bathroom, I’d have to bathe her. I mean it was it was quite a challenge. She did get better towards the, you know, once we had been married eight or ten ten years but still had challenges and even has challenges today. She has limitations about what she can and cannot do. And I've had to take the role and almost to the lead role in a list because you know, and it’s not been easy after about ten years of marriage I was really disillusioned about about a lot of things. Just had to make a decision you know is this working for me or is or do I need to do something else? Just felt like the Lord said to me I didn’t so much give you to her, I gave her to you. And so that pretty much convinced me that I was in for the long haul. And it hasn't been easy because many of my needs and many of my desires had to be put aside. So that she could be care for. Sam, go with your mama. But you know it's it's it's we made it work. The kids have helped me and and so we we've been able to get through it. She still faces a lot of challenges but again she's getting through them all and being successful. I guess that’s what counts.
TA Yea, definitely. Do you feel that those challenges have … how do you feel they have impacted you as a man, do you feel that that's made you better, more patient, stronger, or you know? How do you feel that being … How do you feel it has impacted you?

JB I think it’s built my faith because I have a lot of personal experiences where I could relate to the fact that faith is not something that you can necessarily see, or you know. You can’t see it you just have to believe that you know. There is a scripture that says, “all things work together for good, those who love other men are called according to his purpose.” And I developed faith and I’ve developed patience. I don't know if I was even when I was younger if I was very patient, but I've had to learn patience. Not just with her, but yeah, I think you learn a lot of patience when you have kids because if you don't be patient with kids you'll strangle them. I would say the combination of raising kids, and to a large degree the kids have all looked to me for almost everything. She has never been a nurturing mom, and she does not have the relationship with kids that I do. They have a much closer relationship to me. Largely due to her physical challenges and and other challenges over the years. First the car accident she had two years ago has really been a challenge for all of us. But she's doing better now and hopefully that will continue. I would say my marriage has been one of perseverance … because I think um and even me, I was tempted after ten years to walk away, but I just felt like this is where I was supposed to be. This is what I was supposed to be doing.
TA The long haul.
JB Yea one of the things I say when I counsel young couples when I’m marrying them, what I say to them is that the wedding vows say for better or for worse. And it always amazes me the young couples will come in for counseling and they would have googoo eyes with each other and then be holding each other’s hands. The whole interview they look at each other like they could eat each other. And I’d there comes … comes a time when you’re gonna wake up and roll over and look at it thing you married and you’re gonna say why on earth did I do this? And I said that just, you gotta realize there’s gonna be some for worse, for better and for worse. there's gonna be some for worse. And I think that's the kind of advice these kids need to hear. It ain’t always going to be a bed of roses. There’s gonna be a lot of junk you’re gonna have to deal with in marriage that you have to make up in your mind, am I gonna stick this out or am I going to hit the road. But I think that's that's helped me to be a better pastor, to be a better counselor to be a better um just a better person. Is in realizing that Hey it's not all about you. And again, I guess one of the things that in my ministry of always been as a servant of and I have a servant’s heart and therefore I guess that’s enabled me and some of that probably has come out of my marriage and being a servant to her. So, and I guess everybody when you get married you have to decide roles and figure roles out. Which may have been daddy mama you know I had to be it all. Sometimes. it's not always easy but you do the best you can with what you got.
TA How do you feel with you having to play both roles do you feel, how do you feel it's impacted your family?
JB Well I could say I think, you know, if you if you ask the kids, they would tell you that I’m the core. In fact I’ve told them, I said, “Ya’ll better hope nothing happens to me because ya’ll gonna be in deep doodoo.” but and uh I have said it jokingly but to to a large extent that's true because even her ... if something happens to me I'm not sure she can can function by herself. She'd have to live with one of the kids or her dad is still living in North Carolina and she could go live with him because she just doesn't have the ability to totally care for herself and and take care of business and you know those kinds of things.
TA It’s definitely challenging. You doing alright? Let’s take it back one last time to discuss um you deciding to become a Christian, finding salvation, pretty much what your beginnings as a Christian.
JB Yeah well I can remember when I was nineteen and it was in October. I had never tasted beer and so I decided one night that I was going to try beer. So I went out to the Cat’s eye Lounge, I remember it well. And I started drinking and never had alcohol before and I drank six beers. And so we say I I got smashed and I can remember um my friends taking me to, right, the plan was I was gonna spend the night with a friend. And I remember fertilizing every plant in every yard throwing up. And then I remember they brought me a dog’s blanket and laid my head out of a sliding glass door so I could throw up outside. I remember praying that night, “Lord if you let me live, I will never do this again.” and I have kept that promise. For over close to sixty years. I remember the next day I was working in a swimming pool as a lifeguard and I had to get on the lifeguard stand in ninety-five-degree heat wrapped in a towel. And people asking me Johnny what's wrong with you and I said, “Well I think I have the flu.” Good thing nobody got in trouble because I don't think I could have pulled them out if I had to. But shortly thereafter, I was not a Christian at the time, shortly thereafter I was in the service and Jan. was in the same service, she was about fourteen at the time and I was nineteen. And I remember the Lord speaking to me and I just like it and I did what I was supposed to do so I went down and invited the Lord into my heart. And that was the beginning because almost immediately I was invited to go on television. I did several television shows with a local pastor having heard about me but somebody did. And he invited me and one of the girls in my church and we did several TV shows appealing to young people and talking about our faith. Almost immediately the had me start working with young boys, twelve year in church and I was there. … In Baptist church it is called Royal Ambassadors and I taught for several years to twelve, thirteen-year-old boys. That was the thing and I never realized I was a teacher but it became very clear to me that I was good at it and never done it before and but I just have a knack for teaching. And so that's what I thought after college I was going to do is teach history and coach baseball because I played baseball in high school and college. And uh but when I graduated from college personnel management came, offer came for more money than teaching school so I did that rather than teach school. I don’t know if I answered whatever question you had asked me.
TA You did I was asking about your decision to give your life to God.
JB And as a result um when we did get married, the church approached me about teaching young people. I taught Sunday school and then became the youth leader. We had youth choir and and I mean dynamic we'd had sixty kids in the youth choir. We traveled all over North Carolina singing and at every place we went a pastor would come up to me and said, “I'm looking for youth pastor, how about it?” And I’d say, “nope.” I had lots of opportunities just never until about … the Lord had spoken of South Carolina but that was about twenty years later.
TA So while you're doing the Royal Ambassador stuff was this the same time as the coffee shop?
JB No, the coffee house came … so that was when I was about twenty. Yeah when I was, reask the question.
TA I was just trying to I'm trying to piece together the time, the coffee house and then the Royal Ambassdors.
JB Okay the Royal Ambassdors was when I was about nineteen or twenty. Then I was involved in my church there, and then two years later get got married. Left that church because a lot of people from the church had moved out in the suburbs, this was a city church and a lot of people from the church and moved out to the suburbs and they started a small church called Green Pines Baptist church. Which was in the Knightdale area. Knightdale was a suburb of Raleigh, as in the eastern part of Raleigh. And so I … Jan's parents had moved and were living in the Knightdale area. Then they started, they were a part of the founding of this church. Jan and I started attending the church, we were dating. And then when we got married, we joined that church, so we were involved in a church from the very beginning and that's when they asked me to be youth leader. That's when I did youth ministry there for about starting that was probably late seventy to about seventy-six. And this when the coffeehouse ministry started in seventy-six, seventy seven and then that was the transition because during the coffeehouse ministry. Another thing I didn't mention is coffee house had a band that traveled all over North, South Carolina, Virginia singing, and I would travel with the band a lot of times. And a lot of times we’d have opportunities there were opportunities would come from someone to speak and I was the one always the one who was chosen to speak in churches. Because I was the director of the ministry and most kids were only five or six years younger than me but still, I was the one in charge and I was the oldest one. So, got saved in in sixty eight, got married in seventy, the coffeehouse ministry started about seventy seven, seventy eight eighty five, eighty four. The coffeehouse ministry that kind of run its course and and we closed it down largely due to we couldn't get could get people coming in to say anymore. And then in eighty-five I came to South Carolina for the first time, stayed here for four years. Went back to North Carolina, seminary from eighty-nine to ninety-one. Ninety-one became the pastor Union Baptist Church then ninety-eight actually January ninety-nine I became the pastor of Abundant Life.
TA Okay. Great because I was obviously scattered in my notes.
JB And I can give you a little resume if that would help you.
TA That would be awesome if you don't mind. I think we should end tonight because it's getting late and then we can continue on another day if you’re fine with that.
JB No problem.

WAV file

66:13.17

This interview covers the personal history of Johnny Baker. It discusses his life from birth to current times. We discuss things that happened throughout his life to prepare him to be the man/leader he was in his church and community.