My name
is Eva Marco; I am married to Evangelist, Dr. Douglas Marco. I would like to encourage you on behalf of
the children in your area, if you don’t have a bus ministry, please start
one. If your not working on one, please
start. If you do have a bus ministry do
not take any child for granted. You
never know what they can do for God in the future.
As I have
traveled across the country, I have been in many churches. I have heard hundreds of testimonies of
people that were saved out of a life of drugs, alcohol and such. You have heard testimonies like those. My husband has a great testimony of what God
did in his life. For a long time I
wished I could say how much my life changed and how different I am from what I
used to be. Then one day it dawned on my
peanut brain. What are you
thinking? No! God did not save me out of
a life of sin. He did something even
greater. God saved me from a life of sin
thanks to the bus ministry.
In 1973,
an old country preacher heard about another preacher in a little town called
Hammond, Indiana who ran buses to bring children to church. The old country preacher went back to his
little town of Salem, Michigan. He did
not have a bus however; he did have a young couple with a van. They were willing to let God use them and
their van to bring dirty, snotty nose, uncouth children to church.
January
1974 my two brothers, my sister and myself were invited ride the van to
church. Excited about getting to go
somewhere, we said YES! You see we lived
way out in the country and the only place we ever went to was to school. That was no fun. When Sunday morning came we were up
early. Dressed in our best waiting to be
picked up. WOW! Sunday school was
totally different from Monday – Friday school. This was fun. The teacher was
excited we were there. The van driver
was excited to be picking us up. As a
twelve-year-old girl it was easy to see that these people really cared about
us. I remember like it was yesterday,
after Sunday school the teacher asked me to stay. After everyone had left she asked me if I
knew if I would go to heaven one day. I
told her no, I don’t think I do. She sat
down across from me and told me what Jesus did for me and why he did it. Well she did not have to ask me twice. Yes I wanted to go to heaven. I know a good deal when I hear one. I gladly asked Jesus to save me.
My mother
started coming to church with us. She
accepted Christ as her savior and heaven as her home, where she went to live
two years ago. The summer of 1975 the
preacher talked to my dad. Yep, you
guessed it, my dad accepted Christ as his Savior. Two week later my dad was killed. I don’t know how I would have made it through
that time if it were not for my Preacher, Sunday school teacher and bus
workers.
October
15, 1977 my sister had a friend who was a standup comedian with Hollywood
contracts to come and put on a clown show for my brother’s twelfth
birthday. Well, once he took off that
clown makeup he was kind of handsome. We
invited him to church. He was a Catholic. He figured he had already sunk so low into
sin, going to a Baptist church couldn’t be much worse. After coming to church For a couple of weeks
my rough, tough, four foot eleven inch tall mother asked him if he wanted her
to go with him to the alter. That Sunday
night my future husband was saved.
Two
months later God called him to be a preacher. He gave up his life of drugs, alcohol and sin. He even gave up his Hollywood contracts to go
and serve the Lord wherever God would send him. September 1, 1979 I became his wife, to stand by his side and help him
serve the Lord. We have had forty-four
adventurous years. The Lord gave us four
wonderful children that love God and were saved at an early age. When our children were very small we started
praying for my husband’s Catholic family to be saved. Eleven years later my husband was asked to
handle his grandmother’s funeral. His
family didn’t know what she was, but they knew she was not Catholic. Shortly before she died my husband was
talking to her about heaven. She told
him that at the age of seventeen she was saved in a Billy Sunday revival. She had never told anyone till that day. At the funeral my husband told the story of
her salvation and how she wanted to see them again someday. Not only did his mother and father get saved
but twenty-three other relatives also accepted Christ as savior. Since that time we have seen all but one of
his six siblings saved as well as most of his neices and nephews.
We taught
all our children to be a soul winner by the age of six. They have been soul winners ever since. Our family was soul winning in West Memphis,
Arkansas during a revival meeting my husband was preaching, when one of my
daughters stopped a young boy on a bike. She led this boy to Christ. One
week later we received a phone call from the pastor. He told us that the young boy was riding his
bike home from school when a satanic cult grabbed him and brutally murdered
him. The pastor went to the boy’s
parents and told them that their son was in heaven. The pastor was able to lead the parents to
the Lord.
My
husband has always taught soul winners to talk to people out on the
street. We will pass up ten people to
knock on one door where no one is home. One winter day a man from our church was out soul winning with my
husband, when they came across an elderly man shoveling his driveway. The soul winner took his truck and plowed the
man's driveway. Then he led the elderly
man to Christ. Before the night was over
the elderly man died of a heart attack. My husband has been an Evangelist for ten years or so, most of those
years the whole family traveled with him. During those years our family was privileged to go soul winning with
many churches and to see thousands of people come to know Christ as Savior.
There are many soul winning stories I could share with you. The Lord has allowed my family to see and do
many wonderful things for him.
So I
guess my plea to you is on behalf of children everywhere. Don’t look at them as problem in your church,
and not worth your time. Think what they
could do if you love them, teach them and pray for them. You may be the only one that will. I truly believe that if it were not for Dr.
Jack Hyles, the bus ministry, an old country preacher and a couple willing to
let God use them to bring children to church, my life would no be the
same. I would not be saved, my parents
and mother and father in-law would be in hell today. I would not be married to the man I am
married to, nor would I have the children that God has blessed me with. The people we have led to the Lord would not
be saved. The people saved by those we
have influenced to become a soul winner would not be saved. All those people were saved not because of
me, but because of the bus ministry, because someone cared about the children.
Thank you
Dr. Hyles for loving the children. Thank
you to the old country preacher and to the couple willing to give of themselves
to care for me, a dirty little bus kid.
Most of
all thank you to Jesus for making salvation so simple that even a little child
could understand, and thank you for saving me from a life of sin.
Don't have a Bus Ministry, Please Start One
