My Tribute to Dr. and Mrs. John G. Mitchell

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The following story is just a small sample of the impact Dr. and Mrs. John G. Mitchell had on the lives of so many.

“I’ve eaten lunch in your home!”

We were both flabbergasted. Here we were, complete strangers sitting in a waiting room in a convalescent hospital fourteen hundred miles from my childhood home, and this woman I had never met before announces to me that she had spent an afternoon in that home visiting with my mother and my aunt, Mary Mitchell.

The conversation had started innocently enough. I don’t know why she was sitting there, but I was waiting to visit one of the patients in the hospital. For some reason I struck up a conversation and discovered that she was the administrator of the convalescent center. I asked her how she happened to get into that profession.

“Well, I got interested in working in hospital administration while attending Multnomah in Portland, Oregon.”

“No kidding?” I said. “My uncle founded that school.”

“Uncle John?” She exclaimed. “You know Uncle John and Auntie Mary?” (Everyone who came to know John and Mary Mitchell personally eventually started calling them “Uncle John and Aunie Mary.”)

“Yes I do. I know them very well,” I replied.

“And they’re your real aunt and uncle?” She was getting excited now.

“Yes, they’re my real aunt and uncle,” I said, smiling.

“I spent a summer house sitting for them while they were away on vacation,” she said.

“No kidding!” What a coincidence, I thought.

“Wait a minute,” she paused. “How exactly are you related to them?”

“Dr. Mitchell is married to my mother’s sister,” I stated matter of factly.

“And what is your mother’s name?”

“Marguerite Reese,” I said.

And that is when she realized she had eaten in my home. She had traveled from Portland down to Los Angeles at the same time my Aunt and Uncle were visiting in our home. Auntie Mary heard she was in Los Angeles and invited her to join my mom and her for lunch.

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised at running into a total stranger who knew my aunt and uncle. Dr. Mitchell was a well known pastor in the Pacific Northwest, renowned for his vast knowledge of the Bible, his passionate love for Jesus, and his radiant personality. His enthusiasm for the Lord resulted in thousands of people coming to Christ and hundreds of men and women entering the ministry as pastors and missionaries.

Dr. John G. Mitchell was in the first graduating class of Dallas Theological Seminary. Following seminary, he and Auntie Mary moved to Portland, Oregon, where he founded Central Bible Church, Multnomah School of the Bible – now Multnomah University, Multnomah Publishing – now Waterbrook and Multnomah Publishing, a subsidiary of Random House. He also started a radio Bible teaching ministry that continues to this day as The Unchanging Word and authored several books.

But for me and my cousins, Dr. and Mrs. Mitchell will always be remembered as “Uncle John and Auntie Mary.” Because they had no children of their own, Uncle John and Auntie Mary treated me, my siblings and my cousins like their own sons and daughters. They were the best aunt and uncle anyone could imagine. We lived in awe of them. Uncle John and Auntie Mary always sent me a present on my birthday. Our family spent many memorable Christmases with them in Portland and vacationed with them in the summer on Vancouver Island. Whenever Uncle John spoke at our church – Church of the Open Door in downtown Los Angeles – they would stay in our home. Some of the best memories of my life involve sitting with them around the dinner table, talking about deep spiritual truths and belly laughing at their hilarious stories. They were, at one and the same time, the most godly and the most joyful people I’ve ever known.

One of those funny stories (At least it became a funny story. It wasn’t so funny for Uncle John and Auntie Mary when it happened.) involved my mother’s mother.

“Behind every successful man is a surprised mother-in-law,” as the joke goes. And that was certainly true for Grandma Eby. Truth be told, she adamantly objected to Uncle John dating her daughter. I’m guessing the reasons were because he was ten years older than Auntie Mary and she was only seventeen at the time.

John Mithcell and Mary Eby first met in Radville, Saskatchewan, when he was an itinerant evangelist and Grandpa Eby ran a dry goods store in that small town. Soon they fell in love, but due to the nature of his ministry, Uncle John moved on with promises to write. And that is exactly what he did. But unknown to him and Auntie Mary, Grandma Eby intercepted his letters at their home and never gave them to her.

Thinking Auntie Mary had given up on him, Uncle John stopped writing, and for ten years they never saw each other.

But one day, when he was a student at Dallas Seminary, Uncle John saw Auntie Mary’s picture on another student’s desk. He discovered that she had moved with her family to Los Angeles and attended Biola, where she and this student had met and started dating. Uncle John then contacted Mary…and the rest is history.

“Ten wasted years!” is how Uncle John always finished this story.

One special story that involves me has to do with financing for my seminary education. After graduating from UCLA, I had no money saved up for continuing my education at Dallas Seminary. So I started praying that the Lord would provide the needed funds for my first year.

One morning, my mother hung up the phone.

“That was your Auntie Mary!” she said excitedly. “She said that last night she woke up in the middle of the night and had a deep conviction that they should send you some money. Then she said that in the morning she went to tell your Uncle John about it, but before she could say anything, he said, ‘You know, last night I woke up and couldn’t get the thought that we should send Herb some money out of my mind.'”

And sure enough, a few days later I received a large check in the mail from Uncle John and Auntie Mary that went a long way toward covering the tuition for my first year of seminary.

Well, I could go on about how Uncle John performed the wedding for me and Patti and how he preached in my first church. But I just want to close with this saying from Jesus: “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked” (Luke 12:48). I have received an amazing heritage. And that heritage is one reason why I’m so passionate about ministry. I have been deeply blessed throughout my life and my prayer is that my ministry blesses many in return.

Since 2003 New Commandment Men’s Ministries has helped hundreds of churches throughout North America and around the world recruit teams of men who permanently adopt widows, single moms and fatherless children in their congregations for the purpose of donating two hours of service to them one Saturday morning each month. We accomplish this with a free training site called New Commandment Men’s Ministry Learn how to mobilize your men’s ministry to meet every pressing need in your church at newcommandment.org.

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Learn how to form teams of men for every widow, single mom

and fatherless child in your church at NewCommandment.org.

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