Walking in the Footsteps of David Wilkerson

by Charles Simpson

  “What? Wait a minute,” Eddie said, shaking his head as if needing to awaken from a nightmare. “How do you know this about me?” he demanded.

  Mike took a step closer and said, “When I opened the door, I saw inside of you the broken heart of a six-year-old boy. I saw you standing near a casket as someone told you, ‘God took him.’ It wasn’t God. It was alcohol, cirrhosis of the liver. It was the devil who took him, the same stinking devil who’s been lying to you your whole life.”

  Eddie stepped a few feet back, his eyes filled with shock and tears. He slowly pulled out his loaded gun and lowered it as he also lowered his eyes and head. “I’m a good-for-nothin’ hitman. I came to blow your brains out tonight for a measly five hundred bucks. If God really showed you this, does this mean that He cares…about me? I mean…could He forgive me?” Mike led him in the sinner’s prayer that evening and soon made him a part of his ministry. They ministered together in various churches and street outreaches throughout the metropolitan area. As the ministry grew, many of the gang members who got saved didn’t have homes to go back to. Mike decided to follow the examples of two of his heroes, David Wilkerson and Keith Green. Both had residential programs for young believers with life-controlling problems. Teen Challenge and Last Days Ministries became role models for Reality of Life Ministries.

  Mike’s testimony was broadcast throughout the world on the radio drama UNSHACKLED! from Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago. Enough funds came in to purchase a farm near Cleveland, Tennessee. In the summer, he would still evangelize on the streets of the Big Apple. For those who got saved and had nowhere to go, he’d bring them home with him to Tennessee. Throughout the winter months, these new believers received constant discipleship and nurturing twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Mike, his sweet wife Naomi, and their two little boys were happy to share their home and hearts with these young men. One of those converts was none other than Charles Thompson, the man who led me to Christ.

  Charles and I were driving down the highway, heading toward the farmhouse. “I know you’ve met some of the guys in church already. It’s a good time for you to come and meet the rest of us. Mike travels a lot, but he’s in town this weekend. We’re going to watch a movie this afternoon called The Cross and the Switchblade. David Wilkerson is one of our heroes, and Mike wants everyone to be familiar with his ministry and Nicky Cruz’s testimony.” As I walked into a huge living room, I realized why Charles waited until I accepted Christ before bringing me there. The room was filled with ex-heroin addicts, ex-gang members, ex-speed freaks, and ex-criminals. They were loud, boisterous, obnoxious, and totally New Yorkish. Besides Charles Thompson and Kenny, I was the only other white guy in the group. That didn’t bother them or me because these guys were now my brothers.

  “Hey brothers! Here’s my friend, Charles Simpson! He accepted the Lord this past week. Isn’t that great?” They all bombarded me with high fives and bear hugs. As we sat down, munched on fresh popcorn, and watched the movie, at least five times one of the guys spilled his popcorn, jumping up in excitement over familiar movie scenes portrayed on the television screen. The Cross and the Switchblade tells the amazing story of a young pastor of a small-town American church who embarked on a mission to help the members of troubled street gangs in New York City. In the late 1950s, a gang of teenagers viciously killed a polio-stricken, fifteen-year-old boy named Michael Farmer. Through prayer and reading about that incident in LIFE Magazine, David Wilkerson felt that God’s will for him was to travel from rural Pennsylvania to the rough streets of New York City. One of the highlights of the movie was when a notorious gang leader seriously threatened him. A strange and heavy silence fell on all of us as we watched Nicky Cruz threaten the skinny country preacher.

  “You come near me, and I’ll kill you!”

  David Wilkerson replied, “Yeah, you could do that. You could cut me up into a thousand pieces and lay them in the street, and every piece will still love you.”

  Tears welled up in my eyes as I saw the love of Christ displayed on the screen in front of me—the same unselfish love I saw in Charles Thompson. “Every piece will still love you.” Wow! Maybe one day, with God’s help, I’ll be able to love like that. Maybe, just maybe, if God could so use a young preacher from Pennsylvania, He could also use my life to bring others into His Kingdom. After the movie, I stayed glued to the couch as everyone else went off to various appointments or work assignments. Eventually, I slid off the couch and onto my knees and began to cry as an overwhelming feeling came over me. The Lord was speaking to my trembling heart: “If you let Me fill you with the same type of love you saw in David Wilkerson, I will also send you to the broken and the hurting.”

  I quickly became friends with all those precious guys and hung out with them every Sunday afternoon and evening. They soon invited me to travel with them on Wednesday evenings. They visited various churches in the region to give their testimonies. Often they would show a slide presentation of the needs of New York City: a picture of a homeless man slouched over in a subway car, a dear lady sleeping on the streets in a measly cardboard box, a girl with scary dark rings under her eyes showing the photographer the many needle marks on her skeletal arms. Each time I saw those pictures, a burden deep in my heart got a little stronger. I knew God was using those images to strengthen a call to the broken and hurting, to the mission field of lost souls, to the asphalt jungles of New York City.

  By the time I graduated high school, I totally agreed with Keith Green, the director of Last Days Ministries, who wrote: “I don’t believe that God wants every Christian to go to college just because, ‘Well, everyone goes to college now, unless they’re too dumb!’ You shouldn’t go to college unless God has definitely called you to go. Just like everything else in our Christian lives, He’s the Master, we’re the servants. He’s the General, we’re the soldiers. If you’re really a Christian, you’re at the beck and command of the King. If you’re not at His command, then you’re really not a Christian.”3

  Boy, was my unsaved family upset! I made As in high school and could have gone to any college I wanted. Telling them it wasn’t up to me but up to Jesus to decide what my next steps would be sounded ludicrous to them. Even more ridiculous was accepting a full-time, live-in position at the ministry farmhouse as a counselor/intern for the salary of just room and board! I would have paid to have the privilege of being part of a ministry that daily saw lives transformed right before our very eyes.

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  “Because they were sold out to God, they were given supernatural courage!”

  AS SPRINGTIME APPROACHED, STAFF MEMBERS WERE HOPING AND expecting Mike to choose them as his traveling and preaching companion for his upcoming evangelistic outreaches in New York City. Mike’s father, Miguel, who lived in the South Bronx, came for visits to the farmhouse because Mike didn’t always bring his wife and kids with him on his journeys to the Big Apple. Miguel was a frail but very friendly man. I liked him immediately, and we hit it off right away. But I couldn’t understand how Miguel could witness a transformation in his son and not also enthusiastically follow the Lord. He would joke, “I know Jesus could deliver me from this,” as he’d hold up a whiskey bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag. “But I don’t want to be delivered!” No wonder Mike wasn’t overjoyed when his father came to stay.

  One morning during Miguel’s visit, I woke up to a quiet, empty house. It seemed that everyone had places to go and things to do that day. On the large dining room table, propped up by the centerpiece so I wouldn’t miss it, was a yellow writing tablet with this note, written with a black magic marker:

  Charles, after you feed the animals, could you please change the starter in the Pinto? The new one is on the freezer, along with the tools you’ll need. Thanks, and we’ll all be back this evening. Mike.

  I guessed Miguel wanted to go sightseeing. “Man,” I thought to myself, “I don’t know how to change a starter!” I looked out the window and noticed that someone had placed a mechanic’s
blanket on the concrete driveway under the Pinto for me. It couldn’t be too hard. I decided to attempt the repairs before feeding myself or any of the farm animals. If I couldn’t do it, I’d have the rest of the day to find someone who could. I found the new starter and the tools, crawled under the car, and got to work. The screws on the old starter were very hard to loosen. For a while, I wasn’t sure if I could even get them all off. I was relieved when the last one finally loosened. As I began unscrewing it, it didn’t dawn on me that gravity was about to kick in. Down it suddenly fell, right onto the concrete, smashing one of my fingers in the process. “Well, praise the Lord anyway,” I said out loud as I immediately began examining the cut. “Thank You, Jesus, that it’s not too deep.” I grabbed a nearby rag, ripped off a few inches, tied it around my throbbing, bloody finger and completed the job. (It would only leave a small scar on my finger.)

  As I walked into the house to wash up, I was startled to see Miguel pouring himself a cup of coffee. I said to him, “I thought you went out with Mike today.”

  “I was going to,” Miguel said as he sipped his coffee and stared at me from behind his cup as though he’d never seen a white boy from Tennessee before. “At the last minute I decided to stay here.” When Miguel said goodbye to me a few days later, I never imagined I’d see him again soon.

  About a month later, my roommate Pete and I were in our room in the farmhouse, enjoying our day off together. Pete was listening to a cassette tape of a man preaching about Aaron and the golden calf he made for Israel to worship. Suddenly, the preacher compared the episode of Moses coming off the mountain and angrily throwing down the Ten Commandment tablets to the anger God feels over His lukewarm church in America. As the sermon continued, the preacher’s voice got stronger and louder until he was yelling. But it was inspired yelling, like how a father would yell to his toddler who’s about to run out into heavy traffic. The preacher said, “Within that entire multitude of people who came out of Egypt with Moses, only two men followed the Lord with all their hearts—Joshua and Caleb. Because they were sold out to God, they were given supernatural courage!”

  “That guy’s anointed!” I exclaimed. “Who is that, Pete?”

  “You don’t know? That’s David Wilkerson.”

  “David Wilkerson! The same guy in the movie?”

  “Nooo. The guy in the movie was Pat Boone. He’s a Christian actor who played David Wilkerson. This is the real David Wilkerson!”

  Angel then yelled up the staircase from the first floor. “Mike’s calling a ministry meeting in the living room right now.”

  “Oh boy,” Pete exclaimed as we began to walk down the steps together. “He’s gonna announce who’s going with him to New York this summer. It has to be my turn this year! Charles Thompson went last year, and Angel the year before. It’s my time, man!”

  Mike had a weird look on his face. Then what came out of his mouth was even weirder. “Umm…I gotta leave for New York earlier than usual this year. Papi’s really sick in the hospital. I got this letter from him today. Gotta go tomorrow. Don’t know when I’ll return. Let’s pray.”

  “Wait,” Angel interrupted. “Who’s going with you?”

  “Charles Simpson.” Startled grunts and groans filled the room.

  “WHAT!” Pete loudly protested, expressing what everyone else was thinking. “Mike, are you crazy? He’s just an intern! Besides, it’s my turn to go. Why in the world would you pick him over me?” Pete looked over at me, and if looks could kill, I would have dropped dead right then and there. I was glad he didn’t carry weapons anymore!

  “Pedro, ¡cállate!” Mike said in an authoritative tone that I think meant “shut up and listen!” “I didn’t pick him over you. Papi did. Listen to this letter.” He unfolded it and read it aloud: “Dear son, I hate this hospital and I hate this food. Doctors aren’t giving me long to live. If you wanna see me again, come now. And bring Charles Simpson with you. There’s something inside that young man I’ve never seen before. He actually didn’t curse when the starter fell on his finger. He even thanked God that it didn’t cut him too badly. Please bring him with you. Love, Papi.”

  I looked down at the tiny scar on my finger, as everyone stared at me in shock. I added the details of what happened that morning, noting that I didn’t even know Miguel was around. How ironic that the little bit of self-control I exhibited that day revealed Christ to someone who had already seen so many lives transformed. I might not run across hardened gang members like Nicky Cruz in New York City, but maybe, just maybe, if I went with Mike, I’d be able to lead dear Miguel to the Lord before he entered eternity.

  For the first time in my life, I flew on an airplane—from Chattanooga to New York City. My mission was to reach Miguel before he passed away and to assist Mike with his evangelistic campaigns. I was nineteen years old, and it was a very cold March in 1980. I had been a Christian for only two years, and I was as nervous as I was excited about visiting New York City for a few months, or maybe longer. When we arrived at LaGuardia Airport, the place was packed. “I’ve never seen so many people in one place before,” I kept mumbling to Mike as I hustled to keep up with him.

  He turned back toward me and said impatiently, “You haven’t seen anything yet. And close that gaping mouth of yours. You look like a gullible tourist.” I felt more like a tourist than an assistant to a world-famous evangelist. Well, maybe not world famous yet. Mike looked worried, and I knew he was already having second thoughts about bringing me with him. We went straight from the airport to St. Barnabas Hospital. Mike and I both fervently prayed for his dad. He was too sedated to talk (or at least he pretended to be), so we made our way over to Miguel’s apartment in the South Bronx via a wild taxi ride. The taxi cabs were like a bunch of yellow demons, disregarding every traffic law. Amazing! By the time we arrived, the sun had gone down. At the end of a dingy hallway, we found Miguel’s apartment door. It had four locks on it. Four! One of them was called a police lock. It consisted of a steel pole attached to the floor and the inside of the door. “Wow!” I thought to myself. “We never lock any of our doors in Tennessee.” (If I had kept expressing out loud how weird this place was to me, Mike would surely have sent me home on the first flight out the next day.)

  Mike settled into bed in Miguel’s room, and I got into a sleeping bag on the living room floor. The sofa was nothing more than a small loveseat; it was much too small for me. As I was about to doze off, I heard a rattling noise by my feet. “Oh no,” I said to myself. “Sounds like a rattlesnake! Does Miguel have a pet snake? Do people in this city actually keep them as pets? There it goes again. It’s definitely coming from behind that chair.” But as quickly as it started, it suddenly stopped. I finally was about to escape into dreamland when the snake started up again. This time it was louder and longer. About fifteen terrifying minutes later, it stopped. I realized the whole apartment was quite warm. “Aha! That’s not a snake.” I walked over to the lamp beside the chair and bravely turned on the light. I saw what the head of my snake really was—an old, rusty cap to a radiator connected to a steam boiler in the basement. I had come so close to running into Mike’s room, hysterically screaming, “There’s a rattlesnake in here!” He would have sent me back to Tennessee for sure.

  As morning came, I awoke to a new world. People have often asked me what it was like going from a small town in Tennessee to the South Bronx. Was it like traveling to China? No, more like traveling to a new planet. I laid in my sleeping bag for a few minutes, realizing that everything was…different. It was the smallest apartment I’d ever been in. The “rattlesnake” heating system was definitely new to me. The smell of Bustelo coffee filled the air as Mike sang in a foreign language. We soon made our way out to the Hub, a busy section of the South Bronx. Three major streets intersected there. I realized that everything was foreign to me: the way people dressed, what they ate, and how they talked and even walked! Also, their pace of life, the smells, the sights, the sounds; the list went on and on.

&nb
sp; The next day, Mike needed to go to Grand Central Station to get a train to Connecticut to visit a sponsor. He decided to take me with him to the Metro North train, and then I’d return to Miguel’s apartment on my own. I would just have to retrace my steps. As we arrived at Grand Central Station, my jaw opened really wide once again. Underneath the ground there were various types of small grocery stores, retail stores, restaurants, and all kinds of places. There was a bank and a shoe store, and even a barbershop! It dawned on me: we were actually in an underground city!

  I grabbed Mike’s arm, and he stopped walking for a moment. I quickly whispered into his ear, “Mike, is this where the Mafia is located?”

  “What do you mean? The Mafia’s all over this city.”

  “No, Mike. I mean, is this their headquarters?”

  “What?” He looked at me quizzically and resumed his brisk walk through the maze of Grand Central Station.

  “Isn’t this the underground world? I mean, isn’t the Mafia in the underground?”

  Mike gazed at me with a puzzled look and then cracked a smile and said, “That’s a good joke, Charles. The underground world! You are joking, right? Please tell me you’re joking.” I wasn’t joking, but I guess I should have been. My naiveté was just beginning to show itself.

  A few days later, I met some tenants in the building: a cool guy named Bobby and his girlfriend, Madelyn Cohen. One of the screws holding my glasses together fell off as Mike and I were walking somewhere in Manhattan. He said, “There’s an eyeglass store on this block. Let’s stop and get that fixed right away.”

  When I noticed the name on the door, I got really excited. Cohen’s Fashion Optical. As the clerk began working on my glasses, I asked if Mr. Cohen was around. The clerk looked up at me as if I had escaped from a mental hospital.

  “What?” he rudely asked.