Joe Carroll

28 July 2019

Dear Phyllis,

If I were to pick one man who had the greatest influence on my life, it would have to be Joe Carroll. When I first went to Japan in 1958, it seemed that a great curiosity in me that, sometime before I die, I would like to hear that man.

Joe had first come to Japan in 1954 to be the speaker at the EMAJ conference in Karuizawa. That was possibly the best conference ever held in Karuizawa in post-war Japan. It was so good they asked him to return in 1955 for another one. That is the only time that has ever happened. Then Joe came back in early 1959 to live in Japan with the singular purpose of praying for revival.

I first heard him on Thanksgiving in 1959 when he spoke at Frank Tetroes Baptist Church in Tachikawa. Man howdy, he was as advertised. That was the most powerful message I had ever heard. A year later I had the privilege of attending an OCU (military officers) conference where he was the speaker. I thought that was the privilege of a lifetime to be able to attend a conference and have personal interchange with him. On a whim I went to Karuizawa one day in August, and saw his house sitting by itself on a hill. I wound up driving directly up to it and spent the afternoon with him. In 1961 I was facing release from the Air Force, and was up against it for guidance, whether to remain in Japan or return to the states and go to Bible School. I wrote Joe asking him if there was a place to stay in Karuizawa to fast and pray for a few days. He replied that Mable was in Tokyo and invited me to stay with him. While there, the Lord gave me a very clear green light that it was His will for me to remain in Japan; and I wound up living in Karuizawa, studying the language. While in language school, another brother, Dale Boyles, asked me to be his prayer partner to pray everyday. We invited Joe to join our circle and that began my official tie with him.

That summer I was invited to go to Korea to be the speaker at a Korean pastors conference. Joe was also going to be the speaker at the Taechon Beach Korean missionary conference. Joe had never been in Korea, but I had been there often, and knew the country quite well. I told him, after I finished my conference, I would meet him in Seoul, and we could go together to Teachon Beach. I made arrangements for us to stay at the missionary guest house and planned to meet him at the air port in Kimpo. There was only one reasonable commercial hotel for foreigners in Seoul, and the day he was coming I went to the Grand Hotel to take the hotel van out to the air port to meet him. But I missed the van by five minutes. I asked at the desk if there was any other way to get out to Kimpo. Yes, there was a commercial bus. What a misnomer! It was just like a Philippine jitny – a 20 passenger Jeep. It was like a relic left over from the war that didn't quite make it. That wretched thing shook and rattled all the way out to Kimpo. When I got there, I ran into the terminal and asked if the flight from Tokyo had arrived yet. Yes, it had, and all the passengers had cleared the air port and left for Seoul. KOMATTA (problem, big time)! I couldn't imagine a worse scenario. Here we were in a city of 5,000,000 people; Joe didn't know where to go, and there was no way for me to find him. As I stood there in that empty terminal praying, suddenly I had the strangest witness of the Spirit that I was slam in the middle of the will of God. I walked back to the bus stop and that horrible thing I had ridden out in was going back to town. It was awful! It was steaming hot, loaded with kimchi smelling, sweating, Koreans, dirty children, chickens, and dead fish. The stench was unreal. We went about 5 km and the front end fell off. What a perfect day! I had to get some fresh air and got off to watch them jack up the bus to up put the front end back on. As I stood there watching, suddenly the Holy Spirit spoke to me as clearly as I ever heard His Voice. He said, “Go stand at the rear of this bus.” As I walked to the rear I saw a jeep coming down the road with Joe Carroll sitting in the front seat. They saw me, slammed on the brakes, and I jumped in. That was perhaps the most monumental miracle of my life. The Lord knocked off the front end of that bus to bring us together. That was the Lord's seal that He had directed us to work together. From that time on Joe took me in to be probably the only close disciple he ever had. Our partnership was clearly the will of God. Bringing us together like that on that dusty Korean road was perhaps the most direct act of God I have ever seen.

That fall, in November, Betty Whewell called Joe saying they had a difficult case of demon possession, and could he come down to help. Joe told her that he couldn't, but he would send me. I went down there to spend a few days, but Betty decided the Lord had sent me to stay. Joe and I had nothing going in Karuizawa, he was leaving for the states in a three months, and so I told her I would go back, get my things, and move down there to Yokkaichi. Joe wound up living in the states and never returned to Japan. I stayed with Mino Mission for one year, and then got sick and had to return to the states for a medical furlough. I saw the Carrolls when they were living in Ventner, NJ. They were planning on moving to Ashville, NC, and I helped Joe haul some things down there. While we were in Ashville, Joe had a meeting in Greenville and we went together to Greenville. Little did I know that was to be my future home. From there I went on to California, where I finally got on a plane to return back to Karuizawa for some more language study. A few months later the missionary who was living in the Carroll's house moved out, and, because I was his agent in Japan, of necessity, I had to move in.

Seven years later: I had been the director of the Japanese language school, and had a wife who was going to have a baby in three months. The Lord suddenly, miraculously, opened the door for us to return to the states for a furlough. We were living with my mother in Pa. when Dave was born. Then Rosemary came down with severe anxiety attacks. After a month in the hospital in Syracuse, NY Rosemary got well enough to travel. We stopped in Greenville to see Joe, who was building a Bible school there. What was supposed to be an overnight stay wound up lasting six weeks. We went on south to my spiritual home with the Stadsklevs in Florida, where Rosemary had a horrendous relapse. I was as komatta (desperate) as I had ever been in my life. We had only one option – go back to Greenville. We wound up living with the Carrolls for three months as Mable nursed Rosemary and the girls helped out with Davey. That turned out to be a two year stay and the longest period I had together with Joe. We resumed being prayer partners where we would meet at 6:00 AM for prayer. I was working full time as a carpenter building the Bible School campus and running the wood shop to make the furniture for the school. I would have loved to stay there as a teacher in the Bible School, but the Lord had other plans for me in the Orient.

After returning to the language school in Karuizawa, we put in six more years and then returned to our home church in Greenville. I planned to spend one more year of my life working for Joe as a carpenter, but 1980 was the worse year of my life up to that point. It could not have been worse. Through misunderstanding Joe had turned against me and that year was just a little foretaste of hell. Bitterness filled my heart. For the next 15 years the Institute in Greenville, for me, was the most radio active place on earth. I vowed never to go near it.

Then ten years ago, through Harold Carman, I was forced to spend one night at the Institute. I planned not to see Joe, but he had Alzheimer and was in a deep coma, and I thought “why not?”. I have written to you about that meeting. That was a once-in-a-lifetime miracle. Today Joe is with Jesus, and it won't be long before I can see my dear mentor again and thank him for being the most influential man in my life and showing me much about how to serve Jesus.

Thank You, Lord, for this great privilege, bill