BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

"Would you be willing to sell your house?" he asked Pat. "I don't know. I'll have to pray about it and ask my husband. If we're interested, what could we get for it?" They closed on the sale of their house the following Friday. By Sunday, they had packed and were on their way to Minnesota. When they arrived around 9:30 p.m. on Jan. 4, 1974, the temperature was a freezing 60 degrees below zero. No one had warned Pat about the weather. None of them had hats, gloves or coats. Soon after, Pat saw a notice that someone named Kenneth Copeland was going to speak in Minneapolis. She'd heard the name but knew nothing of the man. He was only scheduled to speak for one night. Pat and David talked it over and decided to go, taking the kids along with them. Although there were fewer than 100 people in attendance, their entire family loved the message, Pat recalled. When Brother Copeland came back to Minneapolis the second time, John and David Jr. ran toward the front to make sure they got good seats for the family. It wasn't long before Pat and David became Partners with KCM. "Being a Partner with KCM, we were notifi ed when they were having their fi rst convention," Pat explains. "It was to be held in Anaheim, Calif., in 1979. We all wanted to go, so David got a motor home and we drove there. "The teaching was so deep we didn't want to miss a moment of it. Yet we heard people say they wouldn't be back because they were going to Disneyland. I couldn't fi gure out why anyone would want to miss any of the convention for that. We didn't want our focus divided. A Path to Victory "One of the things I love most about KCM is that what they preach isn't taught in most churches. Almost every church I've ever attended taught salvation. Praise God for that. But salvation just opens the gate for the journey ahead. "There is a path to all those marvelous promises. The Copelands and all those who preach with them teach us how to access them." One night at the dinner table David said, "I don't care what anybody says. I'm not going to be a preacher." "I don't know who said anything about that," Pat replied with a puzzled look. B V O V : 1 9 Not too long after that he said, "You can't get away from God in this house." A week before the next convention, David told Pat he was going to divorce her, although he would live in the house for a year. "Well, I still want to go to the convention," Pat replied. "We can't a¢ ord it." "Marge wants me to help drive her car. I can stay in her room, but she is going to Colorado after the convention. I'll need a fl ight home." He gave her a ticket home and $7.93 for expenses. "I didn't understand it as well as I do now," Pat says, "but I knew I needed to sow a seed. All I had was $7.93, so I put it in the o¢ ering. During the entire convention I only drank water. It satisfi ed me. I didn't get hungry. I wasn't weak or tired. God just kept me. "I don't know what I would have done without that convention. They taught long and hard about loving, forgiving and the power of our words. I knew I'd need to hear those messages a lot, so I asked God to provide them for me." On the last day of the convention, a woman walked up to Pat and handed her a set of all the messages that had been preached at the convention. "She said God told her to give them to me," Pat recalled. Walking In Love "Back home, sometimes when I felt angry at my husband I would walk into the bathroom, look at myself in the mirror, and say, 'You will walk in love. You will walk in love.' David drained all the money out of our accounts and left home for the last time during Rachel's birthday party. I walked to the bathroom and said, 'You will walk in love.' "From that time on, God has helped me continue getting to the convention every year. The only year I missed was 1982. KCM held their worldwide Communion service that year. I couldn't get to Fort Worth but attended at the convention center in Minneapolis." That same year, Pat met Mary Ellen Anderson, a registered nurse. Mary Ellen and her husband attended the same church where Pat attended. Pat and Mary Ellen became best friends and every year since then for the past 41 years, together the two have driven from Minneapolis to Fort Worth—nearly 1,000 miles one way—to attend SWBC together. B V O V : 1 9 Minneapolis Kansas City Oklahoma City Fort Worth Southwest Believers' Convention For the past 41 years, Pat and Mary Ellen have driven from Minneapolis to Fort Worth— nearly 1,000 miles one way— to attend SWBC together.

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