Gene Glaze grew up following the crops with his family. It was not an easy life and as a teenager he joined the Navy where he met and became friends with DeVere Crawford. This began a friendship that would last a lifetime.
Crawford didn't have an easy life either. He joined the Navy out of desperation following the death of both of his parents. He was a Seventh-day Adventist and followed a vegetarian lifestyle which was difficult to practice in the military.
Glaze made poor choices over the years. Some of those choices sent him to prison.
Glaze was released from prison 20 years ago. Soon after his release, he gave his heart to the Lord. He began worshipping with a Pentecostal congregation. Then about five years later, while working garbage company, he found a large family Bible in the trash and took it home. On another day he found a devotional book that was in pretty bad shape, the cover barely recognizable. It was a book written by Morris Venden and was called Faith That Works. He took it home and has continued to read it over the years.
Several years ago while visiting the Crawford and his wife Cynthia, Glaze brought a book he had found at Goodwill. It was The Desire of Ages and he highly recommended it. They told him it was a book they loved too.
Time passed and the Crawfords attended a seminar at their home church, Hood View Adventist Church. The weather had been wintery and prevented the timely arrival of brochure mailings to the community. Consequently only a few people attended.
Hoping to build a lasting memory of the seminar’s Bible texts, Cynthia Crawford began creating a simple fill-in-the blank worksheet listing each of the evening Bible verses. Jonny Moor, associate pastor at the time, helped with corrections and formatting. She attached these worksheets to the handouts given at each meeting.
When the seminar was finished, she gathered 30 lessons into separate packets, attached personal notes to each for friends and family and then DeVere mailed them. One of those lesson packets went to Glaze.
Two months later DeVere got a call. Glaze told him that he had completed the lessons and that it was the best gift anyone had ever given him with the exception of his Bible.
Glaze says that about a month afterward, he got a card notifying him that he had been signed up for Voice of Prophecy lessons. He thought the Crawfords had signed him up. They had not nor does Glaze know to this day who did.
When Glaze had two lessons of the series left to complete, the woman who corrected each lesson wrote him a note at the bottom of the page inviting him to the local Seventh-day Adventist Church. He began attending and continued studying, completing a Daniel and Revelation set of lessons.
Gene Glaze was baptized into California’s Woodland Seventh-day Adventist Church on May 20, 2015. A few months later, he joined his friends at Gladstone Camp Meeting for his very first camp meeting as a new Seventh-day Adventist. Lee Venden, the son of the late Morris Venden, was the evening speaker.
Several years later at the 2021 Idaho Conference Camp Meeting, Glaze was able to present Lee Venden with his personal and very unique copy of Faith That Works, the devotional book that changed his life.
From the beginning of Glaze and DeVere’s friendship, God was working. During Glaze’s many years in prison, God was working. When Glaze discovered a life changing book and rescued it from the garbage, God was working.
These moments are evidence of God working in the lives of those struggling and failing, while they cling with their whole heart to a friendship with Jesus Christ. God uses many ways to draw His children to Him.
Lee Venden reacts as Gene Glaze tells his story.
Lee Venden and Gene Glaze continue talking about Gene's story.
A picture of Morris Venden's book, Faith That Works, which helped lead Gene Glaze to Jesus.
