David:         60 years. That’s a long time Karen.

Karen:         Sure, is a long time.

David:         I know. We have done a lot of work in those 60 years. Have we kept the romance alive? Or did we just become Kingdom workhorses?

Karen:         Well, there was some danger of becoming Kingdom workhorses but we’ve had the right people in the right place at the right time to keep it up from happening. That’s what we’re going to talk about today.

David:         Okay.

Intro:           Welcome to the Before We Go Podcast featuring Dr. David Mains and his wife noted author Karen Mains. Here’s David and Karen Mains.

David:         60 years of marriage gives you enough time to reflect on lessons learned. Where do we heed this Karen?

Karen:         Well, we’ve been using our wedding anniversary which is tomorrow. So, we’re recording on the 23rd and our anniversary is on the 24th. But we’re using this as an excuse to really look back on 60 years of marriage and ministry and to say what are the lessons we’ve learned? What would we have done differently? What do we wish we had done and what are we rejoicing and what are we happy about as far as the things that we have been able to do through God’s help?

David:         I have a friend, Karen, who was incredibly successful, money-wise, a good person. I would call him a close friend. And he said, “I made my money and then I sold the business.  And I thought I’ll just do it over again. That second time it didn’t work.”

Karen:         Didn’t work. Yeah.

David:         Nope. And he came to the place where he said, “There’s a lot to be in the right person at the right time at the right place” and so on. There’s a lot of God’s providence in terms of what is happening in one’s life as well and certainly we have found that to be true.

Karen:         So, we look back in preparation for this podcast and said, “When has that happened in our 60 years of marriage?” And it was an interesting exercise, very revealing. We laughed, we were grateful for those people who had been in our life, and we’d like to share some of that conversation with our audience today.

David:         I would say that even the two of us coming together as a couple were quite different and yet it’s an amazing team on behalf of the Lord and His kingdom.

Karen:         How did that happen?

David:         I look back, I think I wasn’t the smartest guy in the whole world. I was away at seminary, and I thought that I needed to move along here. My brother’s married now, my older brother, my younger sister is married.

Karen:         I need to find me a wife.

David:         I had what I thought was a romance going with a gal back at the college, at Wheaton, where I graduated from, and somehow in retrospect that all fell apart. And I had almost nothing whatsoever to do with it. It just crumbled.

Karen:         It collapsed. She’d had some emotional problems or something like that. The parents stepped in and…

David:         I didn’t know what to talk about. They wouldn’t even let me talk to her. So that was a very difficult time. I thought, “What in the world are you doing, Lord?” And in the process of all of that, guess who came along in my life?

Karen:         Well, what happened was you were hired on the national staff.

David:         There were many, many students coming to Wheaton College who had a Youth for Christ background. And then, they kind of dropped out of Youth for Christ because there was no program that said, how do we incorporate them now as leaders? And that was my responsibility.

Karen:         And make them permanent staff after their college years in the Youth for Christ organization because they’ve learned so much about clubs and you had all kinds of kids. You stepped into that role to develop those student leaders into leaders who would work in Youth for Christ professionally.

David:         I think all of those people have made significant kingdom contributions. But also, in all of that, I found that there was someone in high school that didn’t graduate from high school yet who was incredibly attractive to me.

Karen:         So, you were our rally director, Youth for Christ rally director for Fox Valley with this task of training up young leaders. But you did work then with all the clubs. So, may I share my side of the story?

So, I’m a high school senior, but I’m only 16 years old. I was advanced in grade school somewhere. And so, I’m 16 years old going on 17 in January. But in the fall of the year, we start up our clubs. And I have very efficiently lined up some Wheaton College football players of my club, speaking schedule as I thought they would kind of attraction, and draw more people to the club meetings, which were once a week early in the morning, seven o’clock before school. We had our YFC club meetings.

David:         And you had a lot of people.

Karen:         I had a lot of people.

David:         You had 40, 50 people probably.

Karen:         Yeah, 40, 50 kids. And so, I had this college, Wheaton College football player lined up to speak, which takes some hotspot to call people cold. But I had developed that kind of confidence, at least at that time. And I guess call from the Youth for Christ headquarters saying we had just hired David Mains to build up teams that will stay in Youth for Christ and be part of the ministry. And he’s assigned to come and speak in your club this week. No consultation, whether it was all right with me. I mean, it was just a high school kid, but it wasn’t all right with me, by the way.

So, the first thing I know of you, apart from that phone call, is I get a phone call from you very nicely and very gently, not apologizing, but asking for information and coming to speak. And I don’t think I was very warm or friendly over the phone, but you did such a great job.

David:         Well, I’ve never been called bozo before.

Karen:         Did not, but you did such a great job that morning. You were such an excellent communicator, even as a young man, that I felt totally differently about you. After you left, but anyway, that was our first meeting.

So, when you look back, there were some elements there. This podcast is called The Right People in the Right Place with the right task at the right time. And that’s what we looked back, getting ready for the podcast. Who are those people in our lives? One of them was the National Club Director.

David:         The National Director, yeah.

Karen:         His name was Jack Hamilton.

David:         All those people we name, and we’re still alive and…

Karen:         They’ve gone on. …

David:         …people have gone on to the reward.

Karen:          Fabulous club director, National Club Director. Great with young people and a wonderful presence in my life. I mean, he was very encouraging to me as a high schooler. But I think he had some words of wisdom to share with you. So, this would be one of those right people.

David:         Yeah, well, you would sometimes stop at the Youth of Christ headquarters office on the way home from school.

Karen:         Because my mother worked there, yeah.

David:         And I got a chance to talk to you and kind of look forward to when you were coming by.

Karen:         When’s Karen coming in?

David:         I didn’t know that anyone was watching because my office was on a different floor than all the bigger-name guys.

Karen:         Yeah.

David:         And he said, “You know, some people say that you should just wait until Karen gets into college before you think about dating.” But I think maybe that’s not a good idea. So, I thought to myself, “What is he saying to me?”

Karen:         Because there was a rule at the time that…

David:         Oh, I haven’t… Not a rule. It was the law of the Mains.

Karen:         That if you were, you know, a leader, a staff person, you didn’t date any of the high school kids. But somehow you kept showing up, Mains. And we started dating secretly when I was in the last half of my high school year. But he was the person at the right time in the right place who understood that there was something that needed to go on between us that wasn’t just an informal relationship. Isn’t that interesting, David?

David:         Yeah, fascinating.

Karen:         How does that happen?

David:         Yeah. And that he had the courage to confidentially say that to me.

Karen:         Yeah.

David:         Was an interesting thing.

Karen:         Step in, step in now before she’s attached to someone else.

David:         There are so many other ways, as we look back on our lives, where God in a special manner kind of prepared things. And sometimes there was pain involved. Yeah, you have any thoughts about it yourself?

Karen:         Well, one is the Intervarsity Board, but did you have something that you wanted to…

David:         That’s fine, go on. That’s a… We’re not going to cover everything…

Karen:         Ok.

David:         …that’s visit because there’s too many illustrations.

Karen:         Because this was later in life. I was preparing myself to just concentrate on my writing. And we had a friend from New York. We were in the pastored at the time, you and I, and a church that was highly creative. And we had established it ourselves and designed it.

David:         The Heart of Chicago.

Karen:         Heart of Chicago. And so, this friend was from New York City and got weaned in the church and visited the church. Probably one of the more creative men we’ve ever met.

David:         He was a vice president at what was Sachi and Sachi, the second largest, if my memory’s correct, advertising agency in the country.

Karen:         In the country.

David:         Yeah. And he would kind of hang around at the end. He was… how many years older? Probably…

Karen:         Oh, 15, 20 years older than us. Yeah.

David:         And he’s a typical advertising executive.

Karen:         We started the meathead. He’d call someone a meathead. New Yorker, Dave. I think that’s more classic.

David:         Yeah. He said to me, “You know, if my staff were as creative as you, that would be really… So, I’d hire you on an instant, you know.” But then it was not just talk, He invited us to his home.

Karen:         Yeah.

David:         And Sharlene, his wonderful wife, you know, and his kids babysat for our kids, took us into the city. You know, he had all these free passes to the theater. We saw the biggest name theater productions you can imagine because of Tom. It was amazing.

Karen:         And… I recognized that we hadn’t really been tutored in art or had been exposed to it much a little bit here, but not a lot. So, it was the Metropolitan Museum. It was wonderful dinners out in these fabulous, local, well-known restaurants in New York City. They had a place on Oak Island. And so, we were invited to go and spend the summer there. And like you said, their teenage children jumped in and took care of our little kids so we could enjoy these experiences.

David:         Tom was on the board of Intervarsity Christian Fellowship.

Karen:         Right.

David:         And they needed…

Karen:         … women on their board. Yeah.

David:         How many women?

Karen:         One who didn’t talk at the table. And at that time, it was very common for women to be pulled into a group of very powerful, verbal men and not know that they could feel comfortable speaking at the table, which has never been a problem if anyone knows me. It was my qualifying gift.

David:         He thought you would be a benefit.

Karen:         He thought it would benefit me.

David:         And it would work in both ways.

Karen:         It would work in both ways. So, I kind of reluctantly, “Okay, Tom, if you think I should do this.” Went on the board of Intervarsity, which was one of the highlights of my personal, professional and spiritual life. I mean, I couldn’t have anticipated.

David:         It was totally outside of your realm of thinking.

Karen:         I had no idea. I hadn’t really done much local board work, but not on a big national board like that. And they took their role seriously. And there was board training, governance training almost every single meeting I came home, and I said to you, I feel like I’ve had a master’s degree in governance. But they also then wanted me to serve as the first woman chair of the board. Whoa. And I protested like crazy.

And then another right person stepped into my life who was Stephen Heiner. And he was the CEO of Intervarsity. He had just been brought up. He had degrees at Stanford and doctorates from Edinburgh University. This was a man of enormous intellect, but his major emphasis was relational. And he said, “We can’t do the work of the kingdom unless we have relationships with one another.” And I was his gal because I felt that way as well.

David:         It’s actually amazing that you were made chairperson.

Karen:         Yeah.

David:         But Karen, you were the right person at the right time because you from our city experience, you brown that board.

Karen:         We had a background in racial dialogue and reconciliation and working together with people over the races intentionally. And they needed that because that that time in the board, that board needed to do that. You’re a campus organization working with students. It was projected by the year 2020 there will be no white majority on campus, which is exactly what’s happening now.

So, I was pulled on it for a variety of reasons to function as chair protesting, kicking and screaming in my heart.

David:         Well, it’s probably terrified in some ways.

Karen:         Well, I just wanted to do other things. And it felt like my ministry of writing kept being interfered with by bigger other ventures. However, let me emphasize again for the listener, because this is work with that, we want them to do when we’re done with this podcast. Those were the right people at the right time in the right place with the right task for my life and also for them. It was an extraordinary journey.

David:         I think we could talk about this in so many different ways than we have privately. We’re aware of God’s hand in a wonderful manner on our lives.

Karen:         Can you give an example out of your life?

David:         Well, I was going to go to the scripture.

Karen:         Okay.

David:         This is a wonderful verse. It almost brings me to tears when I read it. This is way back in the book of Genesis and the story of Joseph. You know, Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers. Regularly in Genesis, it has this phrase, “The Lord was with Joseph, and he has prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master.” So, he’s a slave, …but the Lord was with Joseph. He does very well and then he’s put in prison because somebody lies about him.

But here’s this same phrase again, “But while Joseph was there in the prison, the Lord was with him. The Lord showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden…”

The Lord was with him. And all of this, you know, and I’m sure that he was a human being and he probably felt this is a real struggle. But in reality, God was unfolding his life in a marvelous way.  

Karen:         And brought the right people at the right place at the right time, even when it was imprisonment. It’s extraordinary, isn’t it? I did a David Mains here. Okay. I put this into a key biblical true sentence.

David:         We should have a trumpet fanfare here because in all the times we’ve dialogue together, I think always I have been the one who’s written the key sentence.

Karen:         The key sentence is this and there’s a response in it too, just so you know, David, I get it right.

David:         That’s because you knew I would ask what’s the response you’re calling for.

Karen:         Christians need to learn to respond joyfully when God provides the right people for the right task at the right time and the right place. David:         Okay. How do people respond joyfully?

Karen:         Well, I think that we have a tendency to say, “Well, isn’t that interesting? Who would have thought?” But what we need to do is determine that we’re going to see God’s hand behind us the way Joseph did when he was in prison. Exactly that way. Knew that God had done this, had designed this. And then to be joyful about it, not just sort of say, “Well, that’s interesting.” To intentionally say, “God, you extraordinary, oh my Lord, look what you have done. You have coordinated all of these elements so that I will be at the right place at the right time with the right task and the right people. I praise you and I thank you.”

David:         It’s so easy to overlook the divine action that moves in our lives at so many times in so many ways. So, we have taken these 60 years kind of to use it as a time of reflection. We’re remembering all the occasions when God pulled off the right people, the right time, the right task, the right place, miracles to help us do his work in the world. And that’s what we want people to do as well.

Karen:         Now, I want to say to our listeners who are listening to this very podcast, you and I did this exercise this morning to get ready for this podcasting.

David:         And we have probably three or four illustrations we could give, but I don’t think it’s necessary.

Karen:         But it was a wonderful exercise for it. It evoked the past. We sat in awe in the remembrance of what God had done and we’re wanting our listeners to do this same exercise in their lives. We promise it will be fruitful. It will bring you joy, feel that joy, rest in it a little bit and then left your heart in gratitude to the Father, who has orchestrated this in your life.

Outro:         You’ve been listening to the Before We Go podcast. And if you would like to write to us, please send us an email at the following address, hosts@beforewego.show. That’s all-lower-case letters, hosts@beforewego.show.

If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please remember to rate, review, and share on whatever platform you listen. This podcast is copyright 2021 by Mainstay Ministries, Post Office Box 30, Wheaton, Illinois 60187.