Larry
“Hell-Bent” Transformed to “Heaven-Sent”
by
Book Details
About the Book
Larry Jewell lost his father at age thirteen, and his world fell apart. He became a wild, unrestrained young man. However, nine days before his twenty-first birthday, he experienced a life-changing moment. God forgave his sinful life and was beginning to transform him. The new young man wanted to tell others that God could change their lives too. Although he had a limited education, he followed a designated course of study. This eventually qualified him to be ordained at the elder level as a pastor in the Free Methodist Church, which he served for twenty-two years. Any truly effective pastor has a dedicated wife supporting him. Mary King’s personal characteristics and her background were different from Larry’s. Their formula to seek God’s guidance for their lives is one we all should follow. His turbulent teenage years gave him an intense desire to help young men. As he showed them how to build and fly model planes, he shared with them Christian principles for building good lives. Pastor Larry and his family experienced a tragic loss a few days before a family wedding. Only God’s grace carried them through his period. In 1944, he moved his family into a remodeled 140-year-old log home. Then he began serving United Methodist churches mainly in that area. His twenty-one years in this ministry were terminated by cancer. On February 14, 1965, Larry died.
About the Author
Cora Jewell, born in Pennsylvania in 1925, became a secretary/artist at the Munn Art Studio in Hillsdale, Michigan after high school graduation. The studio prepared Scene-O-Felt visual aids illustrating Bible stories. She helped start the Spanish American Mission that ministered to the Hispanic migrant workers. When the Spanish-American Free Methodist Church was established in Lansing, she served at various times as the interim pastor. While a student at Spring Arbor Junior College (now University), she wrote the script for a play “Thy Will Be Done,” that was presented by the college. She taught Spanish and English in the Lansing School District. In the 1970’s, when many refugees came to the area, she began writing materials for and teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) at the secondary level. Also, she wrote educational and religious articles for the bilingual newspaper El Renacimento (The Rebirth). Her short story “The Two Carpenters” first appeared in this paper. Cora made two short-term missionary trips to Mexico to assist in the educational program for children of translators in the Summer Institute of Linguistics, a branch of Wycliffe Bible Translators. She also took a trip to Japan and Taiwan under Volunteers in Service Abroad of the Free Methodist Church, to assist missionaries teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL). In 1984, she returned to her home state. At Waynesburg College (now University), she taught ESL and Spanish. In addition, she held services at both maximum and minimum security prisons for Hispanic inmates and assisted in their educational programs with TESL. She completed her doctorate in 1992 with a specialization in TEFL/TESL. In 2002, a retirement community in Ohio became her new home site. Two years later she was recorded as a minister in the Evangelical Friends Church (Quaker). At ninety-one years of age, she published her father’s biography.