John Dumke

I was born April 22, 1940, to a farmer and his wife, Allen and Mae Dumke in Sanborn Minnesota. In 1943 Dad was called by the Spirit of God to leave the farm and to prepare for the Ministry. I was born again at age 6 in Hinton Iowa at my dad’s first church. The next 30 years were spent in leaving home getting married, fathering 5 children, getting divorced, having my oldest son die at age 8, remarrying, adopting Nita’s son and having another son with her, and questioning my earlier concepts and beliefs of God. I read “The Age Of Reason” 1 & 2 by Thomas Paine, also a preachers son, and I had pretty much left the Faith; BUT I just could not walk away, something kept nagging at me. One day a friend of mine, Dick Bushnell, gave me a book by Harold Hill, “How to live like a King’s Kid”. It lay on my bedside table for 3 weeks without being opened. Then one night I started reading and could not put it down. Somewhere around 2 A.M. I closed my eyes and prayed this prayer: “Lord I don’t believe I have to ask you to come into my heart again because I did that as a child, but I see I have never submitted myself to you, I do that now.” I closed my eyes and slept like I hadn’t for weeks then awoke a new man.