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About myself.
Hello. Welcome to my Website 'Rebuilding the Ancient Foundation'. I'd like to
take this opportunity to introduce myself.
I presently live in Germany with my English wife Lynn and our three
children.
I was born in 1954 at Riverside Airforce Base, southern California as both my
father and mother served in the U.S. Airforce.
Shortly thereafter we moved to northern California, Santa Rosa where I was
raised together with my brother Brad and sister Rebecca. I guess you could say
we were middle-class Americans living a somewhat normal life.
At the age of 17 I graduated from High School and was contemplating going to
College or a University. During this time one of my best friends, Bruce Keeney,
as he was studying at the University of Berkley, became a Christian. It was
somewhat a shock for myself, as I had been a convinced Athiest now for many
years. My father and his father were Athiests, as well as a good percentage of
my friends.
With calmness and certainity he spent hours talking to me about his relationship
with Jesus, the bible, etc., giving me verses that I should memorize. It was all
new to me. Until then I am not sure if I even knew who Paul was, and so I got a
first hand account of what a real Christian is.
We didn't see much of each other since he was living in Berkley. After these
talks with my friend I began reading the bible for myself. At first I was
totally convinced that it was lies and I had made a very strong decision that I
was not going to believe anything which was not true.
Each time I read the bible, since I knew absolutely nothing about it, I would
simply open the book up and start reading at the page it opened to. The very
first time it opened up to where David was annointed King of Israel as a child.
As I continued to read about him not being afraid of Goliath and absolutely
certain that he was able to defeat him, I had an experience where I said to
myself, 'I'm going to read the bible more often.'
A few days later I again opened the bible, my second time. This time it opened
to where Jesus commanded his disciples to go into all the world and preach the
Gospel. Those who would believe them and be baptized would be saved, but the
others damned. And as I read about casting out demons, speaking in new tongues,
drinking poison and not being harmed and laying hands on the sick, that they
might recover, I called again my friend. 'Bruce, were these wonders only for
back then, or do they happen today?' He told me that they happen today.
My idea of Christianity suffered its last blow. Now I knew that if I were to
believe on Jesus, I would be one of those persons. And yet I was still an
Athiest and when I thought of becoming a missionary, it was something with I
could never imagine doing.
Again a few days went by and I was standing under a walnut tree in our back yard
thinking about how the words of Jesus concerning casting all into Hell who do
not believe. Was not this a contradiction, seeing that the Christian say that
God is love? Will everyone be damned who do not become his disciples? And just
as I was thinking about this I heard very clear words in my head, 'Can you
believe?' It was not my own thoughts, but I experienced with these words the
presence of Jesus. I had been a convinced Athiest for a long time. Inwardly I
answered him, 'I do not know if I can believe. But if you are really true, I
want to believe.'
Immediately I knew that Jesus speaks today. He is alive and not some historical
figure. For the next days in everything I did, I was aware that he was with me.
His presence and favor were too good to be true. I kept getting glances of him
and decided that more than anything else in my life I wish to know him.
In these days he made it clear to me that if I want to be his disciple, I need
to do what I would read in the bible. From that day on the fight started. How
can I believe the bible? I was still convinced of my Athiesm. But since he told
me to do what the bible said, I began reading it and attempted with zeal to do
it.
I had just finished High School, so I had a lot of time. All day long I was
seeking to be his disciple, reading and meditating in what the bible said. It
just so happened that the bible opened up to Matthew and I was reading the
teachings of Jesus concerning being his disciple, especially chapters 5 to 8.
Just days later I was in the room of my brother Brad. As I was sitting there a
verse came to me that Bruce told me to memorize. It was 'Behold, I stand at the
door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to
him and sup with him, and he with me.' As I thought of this verse I remembered
what Jesus told me. I should do what the bible says. A bit puzzled I though
about how to open the door. Within five minutes I began experiencing his
presence in a very strong way. I became very excited and filled with his
presence. It was so new to me. Determined that nobody should interrupt what I
was experiencing, I took my sleeping bag and bible and left into the mountains
to fast and spend all the time with Jesus alone. This day in August was my last
day living at my home in Santa Rosa.
After fasting in the mountains on a river for a time I was headed back
hitchhiking to Santa Rosa. My ride took me only as far as Eureka, California.
And shortly I was picked up by some young men with long hair. They told me that
they were on their way to Church and invited me to come with them. That night I
arrived at
Deliverance Temple,
a Church full of young people with long hair.
They told me that there were four Christian
Communes where I could live if I was interested. Different than before, without
words it became clear to me that I would be living a time in the smallest of
these Communes,
Carlotta Mansion.
It was like living in heaven. The Holy Spirit was often so strong amongst us
that it felt like walking throught something that you could cut with a sword. My
experiences with Jesus continued and my love for him began to develop as we
loved one another and zealously gave ourselves to preaching the Gospel and doing
the will of God.
I really was just in the beginning and I hadn't really yet been converted. As
about four hundred young people met together at the largest Christian Commune,
the Lighthouse Rance, a one-time Coast Guard Station where about 130 Christians
lived, someone asked us all if anyone was ready to be baptized. I asked another
friend who had been a Christian for a longer time, if he thought I was ready.
Seriously contemplating, he said, 'Yes'. About thirty of us met together and we
were told about repenting from all sin and giving our lives to Jesus, to be his
disciples. My whole body began shaking. Darcy, another very young woman who was
also wanting to be baptized, asked me if I took drugs. I told her that I had
never taken them. But the shaking continued. It was clear to me that it would
cost me everything. Contemplating the consequences of this is probably what
caused me to shake so much. It was similiar to knowing that I would soon be
dying.
We were all baptized by full immersion in the waves of the Pacific Ocean, in the
name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. As I came out of the water onto
the sand I fell on my knees and prayed that I would not fall away from my
decision.
We were all seated on a large log washed up onto the beach. Everyone was
speaking in these new languages. For me, it was like taking a bath in God's
divine presence. It was my first step and now I had repented from my sin and
made the oath to never go back, but to follow Jesus as my Lord.
It is probably impossible to put on paper what I experienced in the next months.
I had a new identity. I was no longer the Athiest Rodger Dusatko, but born of
the Holy Spirit as a Son of God. Instead of being selfish, I had become a saint.
As I was in the living room of Carlotta Mansion, talking to some others on the
day of my baptism, I confessed, without knowing any of the Scriptures, that I
would never be more righteous than I was that day. Had I not been clothed with
Christ on that warm day, the 2nd of September, 1972?
It wasn't really something special that I became a missionary. Everyone became
missionaries as we sent teams out, first to the major cities in the U.S.A. and
then to other countries. But first I needed to be trained at boot camp!
Every day we were continually involved with doing what the bible taught. We were
thankful for everything. Everyone who smoked quit. There was absolutely no
cursing. When I hit my finger with a hammer or had some painful thing happen to
me, I cried out 'Hallelujah'. We were all doers of the bible, in training to be
sent to the nations.
We started our own companies and worked with all our hearts, doing our very best
as the bible teaches. I was a bit shy when it came to proclaiming the Gospel.
For the first months living in Carlotta we worked in a wood mill making grape
stakes. I prayed continually in our little prayer cabin, but saw myself in the
future preaching to people about following Jesus.
At this time the Elder of the house in Carlotta Mansion, asked
me if I would like to begin preaching the Gospel in Eureka pushing donuts. So I
moved to live in the big commune,
the Lighthouse Ranch.
We had bunk beds, three high. My bed was long enough that I could stretch out,
but somewhat narrow. However I had a very small window looking out to the ocean.
Occasionally I saw whales in the Pacific on the surface of the water.
I was the Arcata Donut man, and had to drive in a car every morning, six days a
week to Arcata. Everything we earned went to supporting the different works, but
I received as pocket money a couple dollars per week. All of us knew that we
weren't here to make money, but to preach the Gospel. In every package of
donuts or bread you could read different scriptures from the bible. We talked to
people, we gave people bibles or parts of the bible, and as we went, we often
sang Psalms. We were in boot camp, preparing to go into all the world to preach
the gospel.
Sometimes as I was on my way to Arcata, which took about an hour, I would be
fighting with fear and simply wanting to die. In just minutes I would begin
preaching the Gospel. Would the people be angry? Would they hear what I had to
say? As soon as we arrived, however, and started preaching the Gospel, our fear
would leave us, regardless of how the people reacted.
At ninteen the time had come for me to be sent out for the sake of the Gospel. I
went on our second team to Los Angeles with about thirty others. We rented three
houses and lived there also communally. Everything we earned went to pay for our
expenses and we received a small allowance. Again we started our own companies
and soon I was leading our small janitorial business.
Thursdays we would all load up into our cars and go to the beaches or other
places in LA to preach the Gospel. People joined us, also becoming disciples and
soon we were about two hundred. Then we bought the
the Perris Ranch,
which became a
small center for disciples. Every Christian should live for the commission Jesus
gave to preach the Gospel in all the world. But when you purposefully go to
another part of the world to preach the Gospel, you automatically are very
single minded and live for the very purpose of seeing people saved and receiving
eternal life through believing the Gospel and being baptized.
During this time I began experiencing my first miracles with immediate healings,
Since Jesus had told me to do what the bible said, I didn't pray for people to
be healed. Instead I would lay my hands on them in the name of Jesus and say
something like 'In the name of Jesus be healed'. A number of times people would look at me, amazed at
what had just happened. One time, as I came home and a
young woman was telling me of the pain she was having in her back, I simply
reached out my hand and laid it on her. She was so excited that on Sunday she
told everyone. It was a bit strange to me. The leader of our Christian House
then asked me to pray for someone else. I did as he asked, but it really isn't
the same.
No miracle.
As I was later in India it again happened. The mother of two Pastors came to me
and asked for me to pray for her to be healed of diabetes. I called her two sons and
poured a lot of oil on her head and then laid hands on her in the name of Jesus.
She was immeditely healed, but then the sons, who were leading the Church, asked
me to pray for someone else. Again, it was not the same. No miracle.
Faith in God's word and acting on it brings healings, not the prayer
itself. It
is often better not to plan it, but to do it as a part of us preaching the
Gospel as an expression of our faith.
After two years I joined a team of seventeen people to go and preach the Gospel
in Germany. To earn our money, we
planted trees
for six months in northern
California and Oregon. We lived in tents in the beautiful mountains, rising up
with the sun and planting as good and fast as we could. Everything we did, we
did to the LORD, to please him, and not for man.
During the first months we were
living in the houses at our commune in
Mendocino,
'the Lord's Land', being
encouraged by
Sabine Ball.
I arrived in Munich, Germany on the 6th of June, 1976. It was a warm summer and
we were almost every day in different places in Munich preaching the Gospel. As
I arrived in Trudering, there were about seventy people living in a large house,
including people sleeping in the basement, in the garage; anywhere where there
was floor space. My first job was making bunk beds. Then I went with John Jordan
to France for a few weeks to build a large stone wall for an orphanage there.
Within no time I was the leader of evangelism, taking with me teams of people to
different places in Munich. By now I had baptized many and was continually
involved with small groups of people who were young disciples. First we had a
Christian commune house in Trudering, then in Swabbing, in Passing and in
the center of the city. We rented halls where we would meet together Friday
nights and Sundays.
In 1981 I worked for a Christian Organisation that
brought bibles into the communist countries. I received news that my mother had
ovaric cancer and according to the doctors had but a few weeks to live. Because
of pains he had been operated on, but the cancer was so widespread that they
simply sewed her back up. I had been writing my mother for years, and every
letter was based upon the salvation message of Jesus. When I was with her she
didn't want to hear, but who could stop me from writing about the promised
eternal life wrought by Jesus as he was crucified and rose from the dead?
As I arrived home she looked already like a skelleton, in her last days of life.
I can so vividly remember the joy as she sincerely repented directly before my
eyes. Even before I arrived, as I prayed I didn't feel she would be dying as the
doctors said.
Her condition changed dramatically. All the cancer didn't leave on that day I
prayed for her, but shortly thereafter I received from my Step-Father the news
that the doctors could find no cancer. For months we read the bible together.
But then, as she was again together with her Unitarian friends she turned again
away from Jesus and I could again no longer talk with her about the faith. I
used this time in the U.S.A. purely for evangelism. Again for six months I was
in Eureka leading house to house evangelism, evangelism in the Universities and
on the streets. In 1982 I was ordained as an evangelist by Jim Durkin and Dick
Benjamin from Abbot Loop, Ancorage. Missionaries from all over the world had
gathered together at the Christian Redwood Camp. During these days I got a call
from Germany, where the brethren there were asking when I would return. It was
also mentioned that Lynn had become a Christian, who later was to become my
wife.
In the next years in Munich I was very involved with preaching the Gospel in the
refugee houses as well as in the parks and streets of Munich. Evenings I was
involved in different bible groups, which often started after baptizing people
who made the decision to follow Jesus. I was also one of the leaders of the
Gospel Outreach church in Munich.
Shortly thereafter, in May, 1983, I began working for DEC (DIGITAL Equipment) in
the Application Development Group as a programmer. I found myself working in a
job where I was gifted as well as interested. And with the same zeal I had to
preach the gospel, I also excelled in my work as I did everything not for man,
but for the Lord. At this time I started my own company in the
Hermann-Ling Strasse. We had three complete stories of a large building and this
became a christian center for the Church we had started in Munich.
Yearly I was involved with
baptizing and meeting together in smaller groups teaching from the bible about
discipleship. Yet more important than anything was my personal relationship to
Jesus and his presence. It was my wish to please him that gave me the strength
and zeal to be one of those disciples who preaches the Gospel unto the ends of
the earth.
In 1979 I met my future wife in a bible study. In 1982 she also became a
disciple and was baptized. Shortly thereafter the Lord spoke to her and gave
another missionary woman a dream that we would one day marry. Little did she
know that it would be almost five years later before it would happen.
As I grew im my faith the desire to please him brought with it holiness and
faithfulness to doing what he would tell me. Over the years the importance of
hearing him and doing what he says replaced my ideas of building churches or
doing any activities.