On weekends, David and Jeb returned to their old haunt, a local Dairy Queen, and told anyone who would listen that they had found something better than drugs. They packed Jeb’s car to capacity with teenagers desiring to learn more about Jesus and brought them to church the following Sunday. When David wasn’t sharing his faith in Christ, he worked as an assistant manager for a restaurant and fought for custody of his two children.

Several months after David accepted Christ, a woman approached him with a prophecy she believed was for him. She had felt the unction to speak it during the service, but being a new Christian, she was reluctant to prophesy publicly. She told David, “Thus says the Lord, ‘My son, when I set you free, you are free indeed. I have a work for you that you know nothing of.’”

Shortly after the prophecy, an opportunity for David to become general manager in the restaurant’s chain of stores arose, but David had a dilemma. To become general manager of his own store, he had to reveal that he had a felony conviction. The general manager knew David was on probation, but the owner of the franchise did not. David told his probation officer about his predicament. His probation officer called the franchise owner to express the dramatic and positive changes he had seen in David.

Then David received a letter from the judge complimenting the positive changes in David’s life. The judge terminated his probation and ordered that his judgment be set aside. The judge cleared his record, as though it never happened. Then his former wife, who was still on drugs, decided their boys would be better off with him and gave David custody.

He rented an apartment, picked up his sons on Valentine’s Day, and started his job as a general manager the next day. It was like the hand of God wiped everything clean. Then in the spring of 1972, Jeb told David he was starting a ministry, and wanted David to run it.

Jeb and another man planned to repair a building, and let David run the ministry while they went to Bible college. He was in walking distance from the restaurant he managed. Moving to the ministry meant a twenty-six-mile round trip, but he accepted the position and moved into the building with my sons.

“The manager of the Shakey’s on Veterans resigned.

David was managing the smallest restaurant in the chain and next in line for a bigger store when one of the manager’s resigned. His store was in disrepair, and David like he could grow in his current location. He had already decided to turn down the bigger store when the owner of the chain came to interview him.

The owner said, “A manager has resigned and I want you to take over the west bank store.”

The owner was elderly, and David thought he had a senior moment, so he corrected him. “You mean east bank store.”

“No, the manager of the west bank store has seniority over you. He wants the east bank store.”

The west bank store was the biggest and nicest of all the stores and located minutes away from the ministry house, where David preached for several years before he became a pastor.