BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

Baseball and cars. Life didn’t get much better than that. A few weeks later, Jerry arrived at his grandmother’s house in Oklahoma City for a family reunion. Flipping through the channels on her television, he paused at the sight of a man on the screen. Oral Roberts was preaching a sermon entitled “The Fourth Man.” Like most 12-year-olds, Jerry didn’t spend much time listening to television preachers. He liked sports. But for some reason, what this man was saying interested him. The fourth man described in Brother Roberts’ fiery sermon, Jerry discovered, was Jesus. He’d heard about Jesus all his life in the Baptist church his family attended. But he’d never heard about Jesus like this. Although he couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t believed in Jesus, there’d never been a time when hearing about Him raised the hair on the back of his neck. Somehow the Jesus that this man preached about was…alive. Some of Jerry’s family members didn’t share his interest in the sermon. They said Oral Roberts was a fake, that he paid the people in wheelchairs to act healed. Jerry knew they were wrong. He didn’t know how he knew, he just knew. He never did change the channel. He listened to every word until the program went off the air. Then, sitting there quietly, for the first time in his life, Jerry Savelle heard the voice of God. 'Someday you’ll do that. You’ll preach, and pray for the sick.' He bolted out of that chair, shaken. God wanted him to do something with his life. Something that had nothing to do with baseball or cars. No, I won’t! he vowed. I’m going to play professional baseball! Jerry didn’t tell anyone what he’d heard so clearly that day. The next Sunday, back at his home church in Shreveport, Jerry Savelle walked the aisle and publicly declared Jesus as his Savior. He joined the church and was baptized. Jerry gave his heart to Jesus, but he refused to give Him his life. He would never, ever give Him his life. “That was a very eventful year in my life,” Jerry recalls. “My family moved to Millard Street, to a more country-like atmosphere, where I raised chickens, sold eggs and had a horse.” Carolyn Creech, age 10, also lived on Millard Street. “The first day she saw me ride my bicycle past her house she told her mother, ‘I just saw the boy I am going to marry.’ “I was unaware of Carolyn’s declaration, and we became good friends. By the time we reached high school, I was driving her to class every morning. She sat in the back seat and my girlfriend sat in the front.” Before long, Jerry discovered, it was impossible to serve God and run from His call at the same time. Even in college he was running. He lived in an apartment off campus and got mixed up with a group of young men who majored in cards, gambling and beer. It was the worst of both worlds. Because he had given his heart to the Lord, but refused to acknowledge God’s call on his life, church and any form of spiritual life brought conviction. Jerry couldn’t find any peace. He was no longer the confident young dreamer he’d once been, so he dropped the idea of ever playing baseball. He switched to Plan B. His love of automotive repair became first place in his life. God was still out of the ballgame. “I was a physical education major at Northwestern State College in Natchitoches,” Jerry remembers. “During my second year of college, I came home for the weekend and ran into Carolyn again. This time I took a good, hard look and asked her out. Eight months later we married.” The night before their wedding, Carolyn ripped Jerry’s newfound peace to shreds. “When I was 8 years old,” she told him, “I had a powerful experience with God. I was baptized in the Holy Spirit. I promised Him that the man I married would be born again, filled with the Spirit, preach the gospel and go to Africa.” Jerry hadn’t accepted the call on his life from God. He certainly wasn’t going to accept it from Carolyn. “Then you’re marrying the wrong man. “After the wedding, I went to college at night and worked in a paint and body shop during the day,” Jerry explains. “In 1968, I was called up for active duty in the military. Our daughter Jerriann was born while I was away. “After my active duty, I joined the reserves. Back home, I opened Jerry’s Paint and Body Shop. It was a dream come true. Then, in 1969, our second daughter, Terri, was born.” God Threw a Curve Ball Life doesn’t get much better than this, Jerry would sometimes think as he kissed his family goodbye before leaving for work each morning. That fragile peace might have lasted a while if not for one thing—God threw Jerry Savelle a curve ball. His name was Kenneth Copeland. 14 : BVOV

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