Albums on cassette and CD by Christian musician Dallas Holm hang on the walls at his office in Garden Valley May 18, 2016. (Sarah A. Miller/Tyler Morning Telegraph)

On both sides of Texas Highway 110 north of Interstate 20 sit hundreds of acres that for more than 40 years have served as the headquarters for nationally and internationally known Christian ministries.

When they moved in decades ago near the community of Garden Valley, about 9 miles west of Lindale, they were looking for a quiet place to practice their faith and grow their ministries.

The landscape around them has changed – chain restaurants and retail options now dot the once rural stretch of I-20 and Lindale is on the cusp of explosive growth – but the mission hasn’t, even if new ministries have replaced the old. 

Today, some of them are household names, such as Mercy Ships, Youth With A Mission and Living Alternatives, but decades ago it was David Wilkerson, Keith Green and his Last Days Ministries and Agape Force.

“I think it’s really neat that here in simple laid-back East Texas we’ve really impacted around the world,” said Dallas Holm, a Christian singer and songwriter who ministered with David Wilkerson. “Hundreds of millions of lives have been impacted by these ministries that are all headquartered in East Texas.”

 

ORIGINAL SETTLER

David Wilkerson is best known for his years of ministry to drug addicts and gang members on the streets of New York City.

The story of that ministry was told in the book “The Cross and the Switchblade,” and the 1970 movie by the same name.

It was Wilkerson who first made the move to East Texas and encouraged other ministry-minded individuals to do the same. 

That move, however, came after stints on both coasts – first New York City and then California.

In 1970 Wilkerson and his team moved to California where they would focus more on youth crusades designed to encourage teenagers to live for Christ.

At the time, California was the hub of sorts for the Jesus Movement, which was somewhat like a spiritual revival that began when hippies started converting to Christianity.

Dallas Holm, who lives in Lindale and ministered with Wilkerson, said the Jesus Movement came out of a time when people were really hungering for something more.

The mid-to-late 1960s was a tremendously transitional time in the U.S. culture, he said. The Vietnam War was at its height. The country was shifting from the idea of this “good-old days, perfect America” to an anti-authority, anti-war, anti-everything youth culture. Plus, there was a spiritual hunger, Holm said.

People were doing drugs, experimenting with transcendental meditation, Buddhism and Hinduism. But in all of that, what they were looking for was a spiritual experience, Holm said.

“So there was this quest for something spiritual, something more than business-as-usual American living,” he said.

When people such as Wilkerson came into that environment and presented the Gospel, the story of the life available in Jesus Christ, these people were ready to hear it and respond.

“I’ve done all this, I’m still empty. I’ll try Jesus,” Holm said of the mindset of many who converted to Christianity at that time.

People literally laid down drugs, switchblades and chains on the floor one time when Wilkerson had a crusade, Holm said.

Although Wilkerson preached simple messages, “God really moved to awaken the youth culture to true spiritual encounters,” Holm said.

 

MUSICAL MINISTRY 

During this time, young Keith Green had his own spiritual encounter, coming to faith in Christ in Southern California in the early 1970s.

As a follower of Christ, Green, who was a musical prodigy and had signed a recording contract as a child, used his music as an outlet for his faith.

Through his songs and messages at concerts, Green, who was in his 20s, called Christians to live their faith authentically.

Through Last Days Ministries, he and his wife, Melody, shared their faith with people around the world. They put out magazines and tracts in addition to Green’s albums and concert performances.

In 1980, he decided to give his albums to people for whatever price they could afford and for free if they could not pay.

“Keith’s heart was to make sure those who could not afford to buy his music could get it,” the Last Days Ministries website reads.

He did the same with his concerts, making them free for anyone who wanted to come. He took one offering during the concert to help cover expenses.

His desire was to be a servant, not a superstar, according to his ministry’s website.

 

WEST MOVES EAST

Although Wilkerson, Holm and their families had moved to California to be at the center of the Jesus Movement, they had a lot of relationships in the Dallas area, Holm said. It also was centrally located for travel.

In addition, the cost of living in Texas was much lower than California.

So, after about a year on the West Coast, Wilkerson, Holm and their families moved to Dallas in 1971. Wilkerson wanted to start a Bible training program for people who had come out of drug addiction, prostitution and homelessness.

So, he began looking in the Texas country and found a man who owned thousands of acres in Garden Valley along Texas Highway 110.

Wilkerson purchased about 400 acres and built a Bible training school, which took in its first students in the mid-1970s, Holm said.

After Wilkerson moved to East Texas in 1974, other ministries soon followed.

Agape Force arrived in 1975 and Last Days Ministries, spearheaded by Keith and Melody Green, moved from California to Garden Valley in 1979.

Those were the big three, if you will, in the early years, but they were not alone.

Over the years residents and ministry leaders relocating to the area included: Winkie Pratney, a Bible teacher and New Zealand native; Leonard Ravenhill, an evangelist; Gates of Life, a ministry; Second Chapter of Acts, a band; Dallas Holm and Praise, a musical act; Paul Baloche, a singer-songwriter and worship leader; Teen Mania Ministries and Kelly Willard, a musician.

“To put it in computer language, this is user-friendly territory,” said Leland Paris, YWAM Tyler founder and director.

Although none of the original ministries maintain a large local presence anymore, three primary ministries that followed remain in operation on the original land near Garden Valley. And many individuals connected to these larger ones have started ministries.

 

CURRENT LANDSCAPE

Today, Mercy Ships, Youth With A Mission and Living Alternatives operate on the land occupied by the original ministries in Garden Valley.

Of the three active ministries, only one, Living Alternatives, focuses its work on only local missions.

Mercy Ships, which began as a YWAM ministry, but is now separate, is a nonprofit that uses hospital ships to provide life-saving and life-changing surgeries to people in places where medical care is almost nonexistent.

Although the ministry serves people on the other side of the world, primarily in Africa, much of the behind-the-scenes coordination and preparation happens here in Garden Valley at the ministry’s International Operations Center.

With more than 400 acres, the campus, which once housed the Agape Force ministry, is about half farmland and forest and half office space.

About 160 people work at the headquarters in Garden Valley, overseeing departments such as programs, human resources, marine operations, warehousing and logistics.

It is here every person from around the world who wants to serve on the ship for more than nine months must come to train. They spend several weeks learning about Mercy Ships as an organization, its culture and the country they will be going to work and serve as well as how to live on a ship.

Since its inception in 1978, Mercy Ships has provided more than $1.2 billion worth of medical procedures, medical equipment, hospital and clinic construction, renovations and gift-in-kind donations to more than 2.5 million people.

Down the road from Mercy Ships, people come from all over the world to attend Youth With A Mission Tyler’s Discipleship Training Schools, Schools of Evangelism and other specialized training programs.

The programs are designed to help students learn more about God and how to share his love with people. Many people who complete these programs go on to serve at YWAM ministries around the world or start their own ministry.

Paris, the YWAM Tyler founder/director, said YWAM bought the Twin Oaks Ranch from Wilkerson in 1980 for a price well below its value.

Wilkerson told Paris at the time that God had told him the land was no longer his, but should go to YWAM. Paris prayed about it and agreed to the purchase.

“It’s been such a blessing because we’ve trained thousands of young people through here,” he said, adding that more than 200 ministries worldwide have been started by people trained at YWAM Tyler.

“We’re a discipling center that pioneers, so I think that pioneering all these ministries out from here is a natural for us,” Paris said.

Finally, Living Alternatives, a nonprofit ministry operated by YWAM missionaries, has its Fatherheart maternity home on property that once belonged to Keith and Melody Green’s Last Days Ministries.

Living Alternatives Founder and Executive Director Bev Kline said the nonprofit bought the property from Last Days in 1993 and opened the maternity home in 1994.

The home provides emotional and spiritual support, educational opportunities, medical care and counseling to young mothers. The home is just one part of the multifaceted Living Alternatives ministry.

 

MINISTRY LIVES ON

The current ministries are an extension of the original movement that arrived in East Texas in the 1970s, representative of the spiritual fruit that continues to grow from that time.

Other pieces of the past and the messages those leaders brought to East Texas can be found close to home. Three of the spiritual leaders are buried locally, the words on their tombstones speaking in death the messages of their ministries. 

Wilkerson, who died in a car crash in 2011, is buried at the Lindale City Cemetery. His headstone reads, “A man who simply followed after the Lord’s heart.”

The headstone in Garden Valley Cemetery for Green and two of his children – all of whom died in a plane crash in 1982 – reads “Gone to be with Jesus” and includes the Bible verse John 12:24, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the Earth and dies, it remains by itself alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit.” 

And evangelist Leonard Ravenhill’s headstone, located mere feet from Green’s in the Garden Valley Cemetery, reads, ” Are the things you are living for worth Christ dying for?”

Twitter: @TMTEmily