Robert John DeBoer, Jr.

Born: January 1, 1943 Died: August 14, 2000

He went by many names: Bob, Yon, Ian, Morning Dove, Elijah, Auntie Bob Sir, Grandpa, Chubby. He tried to leave a legacy to the world and his children. Part of his legacy is his life story, framed in a long letter he spent years writing. What follows is much of his life in his words:

This letter is being written and sent in order that those who have been confused or hurt by the changes in my life may come to a better understanding of what has transpired and continues to happen on this man's journey through life. I don't write this as an apology for my life or life style but rather an explanation of the spiritual journey and emotional struggle I continue to experience.

The journey begins as far back as I can remember. I was born into a fundamentalist family. My father was a pastor/teacher who was totally devoted to the Lord and to fundamental Christianity. I always loved my father, but was not very close to him. He was married to the church and I remember only a few occasions where he and I did something together as father and son. I think we went deer hunting three times and our yearly vacations where always anticipated, even though these were mostly yearly visits to relatives, former churches, and friends. Occasionally we took family camping vacations, which were shared with Uncle Jake, Aunt Lil, cousins Larry and David (the fog horn.).

My mother was the primary influence in my life. She was the disciplinarian as well as the teacher. I was the daughter she never had. My brother Don did all the butch things with dad, and I did the inside work. I learned how to cook, sew, clean the house, can, make pickles and would be there to clean, set the table, tend the flower beds. I was probably the only kid in high school that had his own flower beds which I dug and tended all summer. The trellis of blue morning glories was always one of my favorite flowers. Even then my color was blue, bachelor buttons, and corn flowers, larkspurs and delphiniums, the blue in asters is still one of my favorites.

I was born in Lockhaven, PA near where my parents lived in a small company town of Monument, PA. I have no early recollection of living there since we moved when I was six months old to the Five Mile in New York state. However, going back to the mountains of Pennsylvania was always a treat. I remember when power came to the houses at the end of the valley, mom talking about washing the chimneys of the kerosene lights at church, making apple butter outside in a large iron pot, and slaughtering pigs and rendering their fat for soap and lard, also going to the outhouse. It seemed to be a hard life, but filled with very content and happy people. Little did I realize then that these images would be renewed later in my life in Kentucky and going back to the farm with no lights or inside toilets. Life sure takes many turn and it is amazing how the circle of life changes, but many times brings up back to our origins.

My first recollections come from a place called Five Mile, New York. We moved there when I was six months old until around three. I remember an old lady crashing her model A into our fence. We lived on a sharp corner and she didn't make it. I remember a spring on the hill, chickens, and a grease fire. More recollections come from Appleton, New York. This was the beginning of my realization, I was different than other boys. I hated to play ball but enjoyed quiet explorations with my brother. There was always great adventure at the train yard, which served the cold storage plant. The engineers would give us rides while switching and let us stoke the fire in the old steam engines. One day my brother and I rode all the way to Barker, a good fifteen to twenty miles away. Dad wasn't too happy having to come and get us when the train wouldn't be coming back until the next day. I have pleasant memories of Appleton. I had a normal, disciplined, secure childhood in Appleton. Besides not liking to play baseball and boy sports, I really enjoyed playing house at the Eaton's who lived beyond the garden in a nice brick house. They had a play room in the basement and dolls. I loved to play dolls and house. I was always upset when I had to play the father, I wanted to wear the dresses, hats and apron and be the mommy. The other boys, Billy Eaton and Mike Trusdale would make fun of me, but that's what I liked to do.

My love for gardening and plants began here also. Dad always had a beautiful garden behind the house, with glorious zinnias and gladiolus. Oh course, the regular crops of lettuce, beans (I hated to pick beans), corn, melons, beets, carrots etc. The day a horse got loose and trampled the water melons was one of the few times I ever saw my dad angry. Our closest friends were the Stricklands who had an orchard and farm near Lake Ontario. It was always a joy to go there, hide in the barn, play in the hay and just roam. I didn't like the cows because they would try to kick me, and was afraid of the horse. The old draft horse, Bessie, (it should have been called Lucifer as far as I was concerned). She had seen her better days and was rarely used. One day someone had the idea it was time for "Chubby", that's what I was called, to go for a ride. With only reins and sash I got aboard. Walking was fine but when Leonard hit the horse's rump and I look off down the lane I was terrified and to this day can do without horses and cows. The cows even though they tried often to kick me, they never got me, ha, ha, ha. To have a garden, trees filled with summer fruit, lots of snow and years that seemed to take so long to go by.

We moved from Appleton, this wonderful place in the country with fruit, plants, and friends to a deteriorating neighborhood in Buffalo, New York. The setting and home were so different. The air was smelly, the snow was grey, there were no flowers or garden, and I only had one friend, Allan Shepherd from across the street. We'd roam the streets, go to the zoo, ride our bikes and make great sport of water ballooning cars on Main Street just block away. There was a plant nursery on the corner and after closing we'd sneak through the fence with our filled water balloons and lob them over the fence and hit the cars. We got chased a few times, but it was great sport. The other thrill besides skidding your bike on wet leaves, was "poogging". It snowed a lot in Buffalo, and before the days of the heavy use of cinders and salt you could grab the back bumper of a car and hold on and go as far as you wanted. The neighbors two doors down had lovely things with thick oriental rugs, and most important, a play house upstairs in their garage where I could once again play house. It was in Buffalo I started dressing up in my mother's clothes. Halloween was my day of freedom, I could play dress up and no one would laugh at me for wanting to be a woman. The rest of the time it was when I was alone. When we moved in, the house had this most wonderful all wood hallway and central stair case with window seats, real wood paneling, french doors and large rooms. The owner, a wealthy church member, Dr. Lyon's widow, decided to make an apartment upstairs and we were restricted to the first floor with smaller rooms, no dining room, and I had to sleep with my brother, Yuck! Buffalo was not a pleasant place to live, with few friends, and city streets. After being in farming and orchard country I really missed the green, the fruit, gardens with flowers, and the lake . I'm sure that if we would have stayed in Buffalo trouble was right around the corner. Don, my brother, and I had started hanging out with this family down the street. They were always getting in trouble and my best friend, Allan, had moved to Ohio.

The last summer in Buffalo Dad rented a cottage from a fellow pastor named Whiteman, on Lake Chataqua. He has been pastoring in a place called Corry, Pennsylvania and while on vacation Dad candidate at the First Baptist Church of Corry. I don't remember if there was any connection or friendship there or how dad happened to candidate there, but we moved to Corry for my sixth grade year. It was still a city, just barely, but it had a small town feel. After Buffalo it was wonderful. I could have a flower garden and help my mother. It was during this period that I was awaking sexually since we lived there from sixth grade to my third year at Bob Jones. It was the longest I had ever lived anywhere. Murray Raymond becomes my second father. Dad was remodeling the church, always busy, and even when he was home would be preoccupied with church problem. He would sit at the table and just talk to himself about the church and its problems, especially the trouble makers who always held the purse strings of the church. Money and power.

Murray was a man. He had a hairy chest and was big and strong. I worked for him doing fencing, and maple sugaring. He'd take me hunting and Don and I spent endless hours out on his farm hunting woodchucks, shooting targets, hiking and just being on the farm. Charlotte, his wife, was this well meaning, but somewhat over bearing super christian. To her everything was spiritual and Jesus this, and Jesus that. Murray had always been rough cut, a farmer and hard working lumber man. He smelled of sweat, wood , chain oil and wood smoke.

It was during these early puberty years I had my first man to man physical contact. In order to protect him from being arrested as a child molester I won't give his name nor all the details of what happened. The relationship began by my being tied up in the church basement. This was my first exposure to bondage which comes back later in my life. He would tie me up in the church basement since he had access to it and worked there as a janitor. I'd go over to see my dad, he certainly wasn't home, and the janitor would be there. It started by my being tied to a post in a back room of the basement. Then he began tying me to a chair, hands and feet, and sometimes right in front of the huge furnace which would rumble, clank and creep as I'd sit blind folded, tied to my chair, and left for hours. Some of what happened I'm not going to share but what started as terrifying became quite pleasurable. After a few years it stopped. I think he was a pedophile and when I got into my teen age years and deeper into puberty I was getting too old for him. I knew him all through my high school years and college, but nothing was every said about what went in the church basement. He was either very clever and cunning, or just plain lucky we didn't get caught. To do this to the preacher's kid, in the church basement, says a great deal about his spirit, closeted desires, and fantasies.

In Corry I had few close friends. Two friendship which were developing were cut short by death. My friend Allan Dimick was killed in a motor cycle accident with his father just before our high school years, and Terry Stroup was killed in a car train accident a few years later. My closest male role model was Murray. To me he was a man I long to be, or longed to be with. I'm sure he never knew of my feeling about him but I loved him as a father. I still have the 32 Winchester Special he gave me in high school. To me he was a man's man. Even though Murray and Charlotte had no children of their own, they parented many of us through some difficult years. Then there was Wally, Bill, Frank, and Richard and few others who explored our sexuality privately and at different times. Bill became my closest friend and first real sexual partner. Having sex with Bill did not make me gay, but I found the intimacy in our physical contact, that's what I was looking for. I had girl friends and even went steady with a girl named Sandi, who I've always had the suspicion was lesbian. I enjoyed Corry, high school was filled with ball games, chorus, dating, learning to drive, hunting and was a very pleasant time for me, except for this one thing, I was different. I blamed a lot of it on being a "preacher's kid" with everyone looking at my conduct, where I went, what I did, couldn't do this, couldn't do that because of how it would look and what would the church people think I would say these years were best described by the name of this book, Purposely Bad, Hopelessly Good. I especially wanted to be Home Coming Queen in that beautiful white gown. I hated gym, except the locker room. I could stay for a long time playing in the shower with a few friends, and loved to watch the football team change and go out for practice. One of the high lights of high school was the day the coach and gym teacher got angry about something and came out of his office and shower, dripping wet and totally naked. I had never seen a mature man naked before and I was awed by his muscles and hairy body. I couldn't take my eyes off him and still carry that image with me. Throughout these years I came to know I'd rather be with men than with girls. Sandi was there and I know she wanted to have sex, get pregnant, force me to marry her, and live happily ever after. Not to be.

I wanted to go to Cedarville College and go into Education. However my brother, Don, who was attending Bob Jones University talked me into attending there. I was still set on Education as my major but when it came time to register he more or less told me I was going to be a "preacher boy". Since I was so accustomed of doing what I was told I followed along. Teaching however was and I my first love of vocation, and being a Pastor/Teacher went along with that. The Bob Jones University you either love it or hate it. The school taught me the importance of high quality work, if it's worth doing, it's worth doing well. I enjoyed my years at Bob Jones and learned a great deal of life, history, the Word, etc. I also met my future mate there, Mary Jane Densmore. It was during our sophomore year and she and I had taken the same evangelistic songleading class. Her major was Practical Christian Training which was a major commonly seen as the Preacher's Wife Major. She was very talented musically, vocally and on the key board. Perfect for a preacher's wife. We dated off and on during our Sophomore year, became more serious during our Junior year and were engaged to be married by our Senior Year. All very normal for this young "preacher boy." We sang together, talked and walked but never really got to know each other. One of the real flaws of Bob Jones University's dating system is that you only see someone at their best and no physical contact is allowed, not even holding hands. You dated either to church, vespers, or the dating parlor, also known as the furniture factory. The environment is so artificial to real life it is unbelievable. It is hard to imagine, but prior to our marriage in 1965 we had only spent two weeks together off campus, one week at my parents home, and one week at hers. Later my children would ask, "You are so different, why did you marry her?" My only answer is, "I didn't really know her." From what I've heard , hearsay only, BJU has the highest divorce rate of all the Christian Schools in the US. I feel the reason for this is that the couples are so stifled in their getting to know each other that many marry without ever really connecting in their total being, body, soul, and spirit.

Now doesn't that sound like a "normal" young preacher boy. You go off to college, meet a girl, date, get married and live happily ever after. Yet there was one thing wrong, I was gay. I knew I was gay but because of the religious teaching and strong condemnation of homosexuality from the pulpit and wherever I turned I suppressed my true feelings and went into a closet of buried desires and guilt. During the summer months at home I was still having occasional flings with Bill, but he moved away to Texas and that was the end of that. My attraction to men was very strong especially in the dorm, and toward several of the male professors at Bob Jones. The internal struggle that went on in my spirit can only be known by those who have gone through this same journey of guilt, shame, self-effacing denial. I thought, "Once I was married, I'd get over being gay. I'd be with a woman, and find fulfillment, have children, pastor churches and live out my life in the Lord's service as a firebrand of fundamentalism."

Even while I was at Bob Jones University, I was sensing a growing disillusionment with fundamentalism. Primarily it was the hypocrisy and "know it all" attitude of those involved. Everything is black or white and no room for interpretation, differences, or diversity in what you thought and how you lived. The experience is stifling to ones own uniqueness to say the least. Another defining attitude which stemmed from this intolerance was an egotistical scorn and hatred of anyone who took a different position than the BJU line. Even Jerry Falwell was considered a liberal, can you believe? One of the defining moments for me came when President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. I was stunned by this, we weren't allowed to watch any of the coverage, and when it was announced to the student body at the evening meal, the students applauded. I didn't care so much as to what a man's politics were, he was our president and deserves the honor afforded the office. They would not even lower the flag to half mast for the thirty day mourning period. This was my first exposure to the intolerance and hatred which was generated by fundamentalist teaching and rhetoric. The inconsistencies between belief and practice were also apparent. Grand Opera and Shakespeare, whose subject matter dealt with murder, adultery and incest were venerated, while a normal, healthy relationship and contact between the sexes were repressed. Mary was a product of that indoctrination for eight years. This inflexibility eventually would lead to our separation and ultimately our divorce.

After Bob Jones I attended and received my Master's of Divinity from Grand Rapids Baptist Seminary. Here I found more intellectual stimulation and deepened my commitment to being a pastor and moving my life forward in that direction. I was an Associate Pastor in Plainwell, Michigan and after I finished Seminary as Pastor of Youth and Music at the University Heights Baptist Church in Indianapolis. Our first son, Douglas was born on my last day of Seminary and life was good. I worked hard, the ministries prospered, the relationship with Mary had stabilized but was never passionate. Her life was wrapped up in her music and children, and mine in pastoring, music, and the many facets of a larger church ministry. We were doing our best, the ministries I was involved with grew and deepened. Yet I feel because of jealousy, no matter what I did, I could not please the senior Pastor Wilson Wahl.

It was very apparent he wanted me to leave. He succeeded in forcing the hand of the board and kept all kinds of notes on every, even little things I did wrong. It was a hard time, and my Dad gave me some good wisdom. Love doesn't keep records of wrongs. When the church family heard of this there was a real uprising and the church voted overwhelmingly for us to stay. As everyone knows, when there is an adversary relationship between senior staff the ministry is affected. So I resigned and was called to a small church in Rowley, Mass. where three more of our children were born, Dirk, Dara, and Donald. I enjoyed Rowley and the teaching aspect of the work, but the problems of church politics were always there. The church had been through more than one split and never over doctrine but personalities and control. To me that's not what the true teaching of Jesus of Nazareth were all about. If we serve one Spirit, one Lord, one Creator; why so much division? My disillusionment with fundamentalism deepens but I never voiced my concerns nor acted on them. The internal jealousy in the GARBC (General Association of Regular Baptist Churches) was very apparent and I wearied of it and didn't want to go into another GARBC Church.

The birth of our three other children was a real joy. One of the high lights was being able to watch Dara, my one daughter, and Donald being born. As a man, I've always felt I missed a lot by not being able to carry a child. To have that miracle of life in your belly must be one of life's incredible experiences. It was an unbelievable household. Four young children from birth to six years old. Two in diapers most of the time. I was really enjoying being a father, pastor, a husband.

However, it was in Rowley that I first thought of leaving Mary. Our relationship never developed the intimacy physically and spiritually that I really longed for in a mate. She was like a closed book, stubborn to a fault, yet totally devoted to the children and the church. I wasn't happy in the relationship. There was something missing, I wasn't complete as a person, and this gay thing kept coming up in my thoughts. I was going through all the motions of the faithful, loving, father, husband, and pastor but deep dissatisfaction with my closeted life was always near the surface. After five years I felt it was time to move on, Rowley seems stuck in old issues and no willingness to forgive. By the time we moved from Rowley I was even more deeply intrenched in my lie and had a growing frustration with my marriage and fundamentalism. Lies, lies, lies about who I was and am, yet I knew the cost of changing that would be great and even devastating to my wife, children, parents and churches. Some days I wanted to just to walk away, leave, abandon my world, disappear and never return, but with four small children I could not do that. I was trapped in my closet of denial and emptiness, and the lack of fulfillment pervaded my inner being. I was nothing but a shell, a liar, a phony going through the motions of pastor, husband, father. Would I ever be who I was inside? I was starved for intimacy, and intellectual stimulation. Mary's world brought none of those to me.

Rowley was another story in itself. The mistakes of a young preacher who didn't know anything of the pain of death and how to really nurture people in my care. I taught and preached, was ordained, and was caught up with gardening, children, church activities and planning. No place, no time for me and was constantly giving without ever knowing how to replenish the spiritual energy being depleted. We worked so hard, physically, emotionally, spiritually. You gave, gave, and gave some more. All this time I felt a strong sense of self-denial. I was denying my real physical urges. I can't think of a day that it wasn't on my mind. Would I always to have live a lie, or must I continue to suppress, "WHO I AM!"

After five years, I was ready for a change. The old resentments and personality splits still pervaded the spirit of the church. I don't know if they've over come it yet. Some spirits only change when everyone is gone. Through a friend, who was a fellow pastor in Lincoln, Maine my name was submitted to the Emmanuel Baptist Church in Ellsworth, Maine. In 1975 we moved to Ellsworth, Maine. I ministered there for seven years. All I really wanted to do was teach, but it was during this time more disillusionment, confusion, and distress with "church people."

Today's pastor will find it hard to be what they were called to do. Very simply, be a pastor/teacher. Spend your time learning, renewing your spirit, teaching, caring for your flock. Laughing and crying with them. Teaching them to love themselves as they are, just the way the Creator made them, "fearfully and wonderfully made." The big push of that day in fundamentalism was Christian Day schools. A great deal of time, and energy was devoted to seeing that start, there were money problems when the school came along. Mary gave her time and even taught for years, but we still had to pay full tuition for four children. Inflation was double digit, and my pay was way too low, so I started selling my vegetables at the local farmers market. In the summer I actually made more doing that than preaching. I'd take only one afternoon a week. However, the powers to be were offended that their pastor was selling vegetable to have to live.

It seems that just when things are going well, the powers of the flesh come along and upset things. This is what happened in Ellsworth. I was doing all I could, but I wasn't doing enough to save souls and be a fire brand of fundamentalism. The ugly serpent of power, control and money raised its hideous head. One characteristic I continued to notice with all the churches, was money ruled. The spiritual qualifications of the church deacons and officers was not so much based on spiritual qualifications, but bank account and how much they donated to the church.

There are many incredibly sincere servants of God in these churches. Every church I know of is very dependent on the volunteer help of the church family. They give hours and days of their time and energy to the various ministries in any local assembly. My objection to fundamentalism is not based on the faithful followers and givers in any local assembly, but in the underlying power of money, intolerance, and control fostered in these churches. It produces a climate of hatred against anyone who isn't exactly like you. Jesus of Nazareth reserved his greatest indignation against the religious fundamentalists of the day, the scribes and pharisees. The parallels between the fundamentalists of today and the pharisees of the first century are remarkable. I want to devote and entire chapter to this subject of fundamentalism of today in comparison with the first century. I truly believe it will show that the spirit of anti-christ about which we are warned will arise in the last days, is not the spirit of oneness but the spirit of separation fostered among the religious right of many countries. When you analyze the true source of conflict in the world today, it is among religious fundamentalism of various faiths and creeds. This was difficult for me to see through this since I had been so indoctrinated in Biblical fundamentalism from birth, through my college and seminary days and ministry from Plainwell to New Port Richey.

The big push during the mid-seventies was Christian Day Schools to insulate our children from the world and philosophy of the liberal teachers in our public school. Ellsworth Christian School was founded and was a combination of traditional class rooms to ACE (Accelerated Christian Education) where students work in little cubicles and learn through working workbooks on a given subject. However, it brought real division to the church between those that sent, or better yet could afford to send, and those that couldn't. The money for the school and building an addition primarily came from one family. We had a special offering for the founding the school and the building project etc. On that one Sunday over $43,000.00 came in from a church of maybe 100 members. Everyone knew where the money came from, were really emotionally and spiritually indebted to them. Money- control, and spiritual maturity were qualities that rarely came together in the officers of the church.

I loved these men, with each one facing varied and different lives. Eventually these would be the underlying issues which would totally change my life. Two events or series of events were probably illustrative of my years in Ellsworth.

The first was trouble the church, with people leaving and ministries canceled. The finances were facing real problem because the money people had left and there was a very defeated feeling in the church. The Christian School once lauded as the only salvation of America was a constant drain on the finances and ministries of the church. So much going on. Every night, eighteen hour days, trying the best I could to support my family and give them other things than the church. I grew up with that, everything in the parsonage revolved around, "the church". No real communication with what an adolescent gay teenager was feeling. Why am I different? I must be a really bad sinner to want to be with a man, and hate sport, and didn't like girls. I found that I was doing the same thing to my kids. Shutting them out with "the church". All I really wanted to do in life was to teach and draw. The teaching was there, but the quality was lacking with 13 different classes or presentations a week. Sometimes I think it would take forty days to get one message. If that were the case, someone might remember what you had been given by Spirit to say. So many words, so little real depth. Just busy trying to do everything. To be all things to all men. I would think that most pastor's biggest complaint would be having enough time for your own spiritual growth. Whereas, that should be the number one priority.

It seemed I just never could do enough no matter how hard I tried. We locked horns finally when the money people were just doing anything and everything no matter how ridiculous to please a particular young deacon. He had a reputation in town as a money hunger cheat and he wanted to control the church as well. It may be my Dutch blood, but when someone starts pushing, I'm not afraid to push back and try and do what is I feel the Spirit wants us to do and not follow blindly some carnal car-salesman. The result of all this was this young deacon left the church to get involved with a larger, more evangelistic church in Bangor. Before it was over, a score of the people had followed. I was devastated. I'd always thought of myself as peace maker and splits only happened in other churches and you would come and try to put back the pieces.

Money-control, what a price it exacts from the church and one's own spirit. This is one of the real problem with fundamentalism. It's the same old problem a separation and division. I see fundamentalism as that spirit which was so prevalent in the time of Christ. A spirit that eventually lead to the killing of Jesus of Nazareth. This is the same spirit the pharisees and rulers of the Jews had, a love of money, influence, and control. That's the first thing that happened to me in Ellsworth. I was devastated by this spirit of money-control.

The second was of a more personal nature. For two years I had been working with the deacons concerning allowing the pastor to buy his own home. It was strictly a matter of planning for the future. When you retire, if you've lived in a parsonage all your ministry you have no place of go. Impossible to save with four growing children. You even sold your vegetables to make ends meet and give your children some little special things, like a swimming membership at the Holiday Inn or a trip to Disney. Not really necessities but niceties. I had dreams of homesteading this property in Surry. Plans for a solar house, greenhouses, chickens and goats. Even saw a water powered generator in the little water falls near the house site. This was the real longing of my life. Two years I had worked toward this. I had the land promised, the soil tested, the house plans approved, and even had financing the government housing program for low income families. All that needed was to be approved by the church. It came as a recommendation of the Board of Deacons. When the vote came it lost by one vote. Several of the deacons had voted against it along with their families. I would never had pursued it if the deacons weren't behind it. I felt betrayed and deeply hurt.

Two days later I got a telephone call from a church in Warren, Ohio that was looking for a minister. When one door closes, there is usually an open one right in front of it. All you have to do is look in that direction. During that summer on my way to candidate in Ohio, my father died suddenly, liver cancer from and unheeded prostate cancer. I felt all the more alone. Even though we had never been really close, he was very much an anchor for me. He was always the same, strong, stubborn, spiritual. I missed being able to call him and ask advice and receive support and encouragement. I had never been through church troubles myself and it is always difficult when your dreams are unrealized and dashed to pieces. I still wanted to buy the land and had turned to my Dad for a loan of $2,000. He said no. He had the money, a lot of it. I had only borrowed $50.00 once in college so I could take my tests. He even made me pay it back in the summer. Which I did even while saving for the next semester. So why wouldn't he lend me the money just buy the land. One of the lessons of life needs to be to learn to listen to the Spirit. I'm sure it wasn't easy for him to say no. If it had been purchased and made to work, my life would be so much different today. I may well still be in Ellsworth, in or out of the ministry, locked deeply in my closet of denial and unfilled dreams.

Moving to Warren would bring about even greater changes in my life. It was in Warren my feelings about fundamentalism were being confirmed. My marriage to Mary was deteriorating. I was feeling totally unfulfilled. I always said, "If I have my mid-life crisis it would be a lou lou." It was also this time in Warren that the long standing issue of being gay surfaces again, but much stronger. It dealt with a lot of issues. Disillusionment with fundamentalism and church politics, an unfulfilling relationship with Mary with my natural desires not being met, no one to talk to, dad was gone. I couldn't share these things with another pastor. Lord do you hear my heart crying?

As far as my being gay it was constantly being confirmed to me. There was this thirtyish art teacher at the YMCA named Gil. Three mornings a week we'd swim next to each other. We'd swim in tandem looking at each other in the next lane. We'd match stroke for stroke for around thirty minutes. I knew he was gay and I wanted so much to take him in my arms and mouth, to touch his strong body and feel him next to me. We never touched. Even when we were naked in the steam room and my desire to hold him was so strong. My closet was even stronger so I would look but not touch. I found that the "Y" was my escape and I would go there many times just to be in the locker room, sit in the hot tub, or take a steam. More than other times, I was no longer Pastor DeBoer, but Bob, and there were, of course, always naked men who worked out and smelled of sweat. I was in hog heaven.

As I ministered in Warren I became more and more involved with the local ministerial association, the Bethany Fellowship. Before I left I ended up president of pastor's fellowship. There was so much pettiness among the pastors. Some were very nice, but none I could talk to about what was going on in my life. I was still in denial and struggling with my pent up feelings. The pastors were jealous of each others ministries and were hesitant to do much interchurch involvement. Sports and Youth Rallies were about as involved as it ever got. We each had our own work, ministries, problems and even though you needed and wanted a deeper relationship with them as individuals it never really happened. I think I was so fearful of my inner feelings that type of confidentiality was impossible.

The matter of the church selling fell through and I felt like I had been set up by one of the deacons, who become a real problem in the church. Life went on, I had my green house, sold plants, saved money to work on the cottage in Maine which we bought from Mary's dad with money that was my father estate. We'd spend every summer for three weeks working on the place. I put in a kitchen, laundry room, bathroom with a septic tank and pump system. I'd work the whole time and spend all my saved money on this place every summer. I loved it however. Indian Lake is absolutely beautiful in the summer time. The water is cool and clean enough to drink if you choose. I couldn't be quiet or rest and relax when so much needed to be done. After we moved to Florida we'd be snow birds. Winter in Florida, summer in Maine. It was a plan. A good plan. A plan worth working towards. I was very entrenched in my lie and knew that any change in my life as far as my being gay would have far reaching ramifications. Some of you think it was simply a matter of lust and sin. Not so. My coming out was a very conscious thing and not a fit of passion in a weak moment.

My next move into the gay life was on a trip to Dayton to a Pastor's seminar. After I went to work out at the local YMCA if went to my first gay bar. It was amazing I was accepted for who I was. I felt so relaxed and at peace. Several men hit on me, but I wasn't ready for any physical contact even through I enjoyed feeling the young hard body of this guy who had just gotten out of jail. It was during this trip to Dayton that I looked up my old gay buddy from high school. He was surprised to hear from me after all those years, but had already assumed what I wanted to talk about. We visited for several hours, went out to eat and discussed being gay etc. He said he had investigated the gay life style in Columbus but being a rather plain and over weight person wasn't at all accepted. Even gays can be unloving and sometimes downright vicious when it come to accepting other gay men who are not young and beautiful.

The Christian Day school that was connected with the church closed and many of my key people moved on to other schools. The church really suffered as I tried to keep everything going. I even ended up being AWANA Director, Youth Director, and Bus Driver. I was getting more and more discouraged with my life, my lie, my ministry. Somehow I found out about a gay bath house in Cleveland. One Saturday night I had to take Doug to the airport to fly to Maine to work with his cousin Rick. I dropped off Doug early and found the baths. I remember when I walked through the door consciously thinking. "I don't know where this is going to lead, but no matter what the cost I have to be who I am." I went in, joined the club, got a room and went to soak in the hot tub. I met this man, we talked for a while and went back to the room. We basically held each other and talked. It felt so good to be honest and to feel the touch of another man again after all those years of denial. When I got home the lies began. I'd taken a wrong turn and then had a flat tire etc. that was why I was so late. The next day I had to preach. My message was from John 8, and the lesson on judgment of the women taken in adultery. "You who are without fault let him cast the first stone." I preached with real passion since my feelings of the night before were so fresh and the confusion and guilt so strong.

I felt my ministry in Warren was over. I had fewer people to do the work and I just worked hard to make up for it. I was on the verge of burn out. I had contacted a man named Irvin Johnson who had ministered the T.E.L.L (Training Evangelistic Lay Leader) in the Ellsworth and Warren churches. He had offered help in finding another pastorate when I was ready for a move. I contacted him and he was involved with starting a church in New Port Richey, Florida. In June Mary and I went and met with this small group of disgruntled people who were interested in starting a new non-GARBC church in the area. There were already a zillion independent Baptist Churches in the area, but after meeting and preaching for one weekend we accepted their call, started paper work to buy a house in Holiday, Florida and prepared to move.

Periodically I would sneak off to the baths during the afternoon. I was becoming bolder in my physical contact but was always very conscious of being safe. AIDS! It was just become an epidemic. I was fully aware of the dangers and was careful to a fault. Yet somewhere in the back of my mind I knew I would eventually die of AIDS. Some ignorance was involved. You have to remember AIDS in the mid 1980's was a very unknown danger. We knew it was there and tried initially to be safe. After I became more sexually involved with other man, many times strangers, I stopped having physical relations with Mary. The thought of ever infecting her with the AIDS virus was beyond anything I could ever do. The physical aspect of our relationship was never earth shaking, but still present, under the covers and in the dark. After I started getting involved I found the openness, the unashamed nudity, the honest and the freedom to touch was revolutionary to me. The early sexual encounters were nothing compared to the joy and fulfillment I was now feeling. These were not men I knew, or had an emotional relationship. They were just men. I found more intimacy with strangers than Mary and I had for twenty years. I say this not to be vicious, but honest. I was not fulfilled physically in our relationship.

The people in Warren were feeling abandoned when I left. The church was struggling for workers and financially as well. The problems of workers in the church just compounded by our leaving. Mary was always an integral part of my ministries, so the loss to them was two fold. I think my leaving was ultimately a help to them since they could get out of debt and not have to deal with a pastor poised to come out. It would have been quite the scandal. Rather than risk that I moved to Florida realizing it would be easier to leave the ministry in a smaller missionary type of work.

Most don't realize the struggle and things on one's mind. If I came out and left the ministry I would have to find another profession, deal totally with housing, utilities, medical benefits, retirement.

We had a rather eventful move to Florida. On Interstate 80 somewhere in Virginia a shovel fell off the trailer I was pulling behind the moving van. We looked like the Beverly Hillbillies moving to Hollywood. The shovel hit Whitney Houston's limo. After flagging us down and some rather heated discussion, the driver just let is go. Now if she would have wrecked, that would have been another story. However, there was no apparent damage to the limo so we went on our way. I could imagine Whitney suing this poor Baptist minister moving his family to Florida to start a new church. She didn't need that kind of publicity.

In North Carolina the wheel feel off the trailer. I guess it was quite the show, tooling down the interstate with this plume of sparks coming from the trailer. People started flashing lights and Mary pulled into the passing lane, flashing her lights, honking the horn. After I stopped, we had an obvious problem. We were hundreds of miles from anywhere with a broken trailer full of old furniture, four kids, a hysterical wife, a dog and cat. I just cried out "Help!" I took the van and found a U-haul trailer about fifty miles away, found a junk yard and gave the trailer away for the cost of the U-haul rental. We arrived at our house in Holiday late the next day.

We were there. I was reaching a very critical time in my life. It would be easier to come out in a small church than a larger city church. All I could think about was what the scandal and horrendous results it would have if I was found out. "Local Baptist Pastor caught in the burning bushes." My children and Mary were also very heavy on my mind. What would they do? What would she do? How would I make a living?

Remember the pastorate is a very secure working environment. House, salary, medical benefits, investment income, love and respect. Unless you really messed up, a position was available for life. It was not lust that was driving me, but the need for honesty about who I am. The cost would be enormous. I kept going back to my prayer at the bath house, "I don't know where this will all lead, but I have to be who I am." The other thing going through my mind was, here's a chance for a fresh start, new people, new enthusiasm, a good opportunity to have a positive spiritual impact on a new congregation. Irv John was to deal with evangelism, T.E.L.L.. W wonderful and attractive man in the church named Tom Hale, was in charge of the youth and music ministries. Two paths lay before me. One would keep me further entrenched in my closet of denial, or one that lead to freedom however costly. I tried to walk this tight rope for a year. I was working four days a week as a commercial painter. I was rewarming old messages. No time for real study. The work was ok, but trying to work and be a pastor to make ends meet. This was the first time in my recent adult life that I had to pay a mortgage, light bill, water, medical insurance etc. I was beginning to go under.

Sexually, oh yes! Now we get to the juicy stuff, no pun intended. Within two weeks of arriving in Florida I had managed to find the local bath house, Club Tampa. It's just a door in a warehouse, but heaven inside. It had none of the beauty and class of Cleveland. It was dirty, in disrepair, and a smell of its own. I'd say it was a cross between mildew, body odor and fluids. I'd go there on my day off from painting which was Wednesday, prayer meeting night. I'd also go "visiting" the church family on Saturday afternoon to drum up some more people for Sunday.

The pressures were enormous. Money was always a real problem. At first I got a very minimum salary. What started out as a three day a week job went to four and finally a full time job as a painter. Almost from day one Irvin and I locked horns. It was simple. He wanted to run everything. He wasn't looking for a pastor to lead, but follow him and I was the patsy.

During this year I started my own wall papering business. Robert Douglas Decorators. This enabled me to have my own phone line and mailbox. The name was used at the tubs was Robert Douglas, it sounded good, was convenient and a reasonable name to hide behind. My answering machine was locked out of Mary's reach, and my mail box was unknown.

This year becomes a year of lies. We moved to Florida the first part of August, but the end of the year I had begun a very intense relationship with my first lover, Chuck. If fact I had two on going relationships with men, both named Chuck The first was Chuck P. I met him one night that I was "out of town" painting in Ocala. I'll never forget the first time I played with his body. I put my rather large hand up in him. It seemed to me like I was touching his heart and could feel his heart beating stronger and stronger as he got progressively more passionate. I couldn't believe it. It was so far beyond anything I thought possible for men to do to each other.

However, it began my introduction to a part of gay sex which would introduce me to a totally new area of experience, the leather scene. Leather sex is not merely a physical experience but spiritual. I've included here an article written by my present lover, Sloyd. It deals with the spiritual nature of leather sex. I hope it opens your understanding that S and M, is far more than just physical stimulation, but a spiritual journey, a way of life lived by thousands of men and women both gay and straight.

I had left Mary three times after I came out to her. I had been preaching and living a double life for over a year. The baths were a second home and I found out a lot about sex during that year of living a double life. I'd sneak off to the tubs like I was going visiting for the church and spend a few hours at the tubs. It was there I met the other Chuck. Chuck was a large, hairy, strong man who worked as a Carney. His family ran a carnival and he had a couple different businesses with the carnival, a popcorn wagon and cork gallery. I met him at the baths on night and he totally swept me off my feet. He introduced me to physical areas of body I never knew existed. You've heard the expression, "As worthless as tits on a bull." Well the tits on this bull were absolutely incredible. They became a real button of mine, still are. Twist them, hurt them, make me dance with the angels. He also taught me the joys of anal sex. He was not well endowed but he had wonderful hands, probably the best hands in the Tampa Bay area. At first it was one finger, then two and after several months his whole huge hand in me. We also began experimenting with other area of discipline in S. and M.

I remember the first night he tied me up. I had arranged to spend the night with him in his motor home in Tampa. He started by giving me a rope and asking me to wind it around my wrists as tight as I wanted. He was surprised when I when I willingly had him tie me tighter both hands and feet, spread eagle. It really blew him away when I told him of my experience as a kid with the church janitor. After that it became and exciting and much anticipated journey into darkness. I'd be tied up, blind folded, immobilized, tortured, touched, whipped, flogged and taken places in spirit that were very real but in a totally different dimension of existence.

We started dating while I was still with Mary. I would go to be with him, and then three times I left him to go back to Mary. The last time it was for two reasons. One he hit me in anger one night shortly before I left for the last time. Second I didn't leave my wife and kids to live with someone who I felt had stopped loving me. He wouldn't sleep with me and all he would do was watch old videos. I think he was having a hard time adjusting to not working after being on the road for so long. He wanted to work full time with me, but it was just too much time together problem of letting work and life be separate. He was also a hustler and once he had me he stopped trying to make the relationship work. He did the same thing with Scott after me. The hunt was the most important thing but he had a real inability of make a long term relationship work.

I was really devastated by leaving Chuck. I thought he'd be the one I'd spend the rest of my life with. He made me laugh and made my body sing like it never had during all the years of making love to Mary. I was finally realizing my life long desires of being with a man who loved me and made me feel important. He showered me with gifts, some of them very expensive. So when I perceived he had stopped loving me it was very hard to leave. In fact I grieved more for that loss than when my father died. I was a mess. All this time I was pretending to be a fundamental pastor, working forty hours a week painting and wall papering. Dragging old messages out of the file and rewarming them. In spite of all this the church was growing. At times we had over 100 people there. During this year from August to September it was one big lie. When I could no longer lie to myself and others I left the ministry and became more involved with the gay life in Tampa. I had not been totally truthful with Chuck about being a preacher or being married. That was the only time I ever hid from someone my past. When the truth was finally out he still loved me and wanted to spend the rest of his life with me, get a house and live the gay life as and S/M couple. Daddy and boy. I was the Daddy and Chuck the teacher boy. He pierced my left tit a few months before I came out to Mary.

When I came out to Mary we had gone out to eat and then got a motel room so we could be alone. I told her I was gay, which didn't surprise her for she knew something was up and I'd been spending a lot of time with a carny named Chuck. I told her then and I have believed all along that if she could have accepted me for who I was I would never have left. I know couples where the man is gay, but his wife was willing to live with it and they are still together and have been for forty years. That was impossible for her to do however and so after the third time and a real cat fight on the front lawn I left with the vow to never return. Three times and I was out of there for good. I can only imagine how devastating it must have been for her since her whole life was being a preacher's wife and now that was forever gone. It's been hard to see her change over the years.

Mary had made some conscious decision which had really affected me and my desire to leave Mary. This had been a very long standing issue for me. I remember first wanting to leave probably before Dirk was born. We had been married around five years or was it the seven year itch. After the children came I was no longer as important. Many parents do this and make the children number one when the spouse should always be number one. That's why the children become and battle ground all too often.

With Mary it was not only the issue of the children, but her own money. She never shared in the expenses of the house hold except when the children were involved. She'd teach, do her piano lessons and work at keeping house for a family of 6 people.

That was a real turning point for me when I left the ministry and really needed financial help from her, but Doug was at Bob Jones University and Mary lived to see them all attend their which was probably some the happiest years of her life. She didn't have to think for herself and her whole life through high school and college had been regulated by Bob Jones and Christian camps in the summer. Never exposed to the "real" world. She lived in this imaginary world of music and dating and singing in the church choir. From that she was the preacher's wife, until I finally came out to her. I didn't leave right away, but went on a trip with Chuck to the Cayman Islands the December after I left the ministry. I had moved in with Chuck until we returned and lived with him until my birthday. That was the first time I had left her. I came home for a few months and started singing in the choir at the First Baptist Church of New Port Richey. I really needed some financial help then, but she would never give me anything to help with the bills. I even asked her specifically for help but the children were always the most important.

After I left Mary for the last time, I lived with friends for around three weeks. I finally got a room at Sam's where I lived until Howard and I moved in together the first of December of that same year. It was in the spring of 1990 that I left Mary and December of 1990 that Howard and I moved in to an apartment. We had lived together almost a year before I found out I was HIV pos. On the same day I had found out Howard had given me Hepatitis B, I was HIV positive and had AIDS. It was not a great day. By then Howard and I had fallen in love and were planning on making our lives together until death do us part. He hadn't been tested but we knew what the result would be since I was positive and we hadn't had protected sex really since we moved in together. That was almost a year before I knew I was positive. I think I was infected in 1987 when I was visiting the baths quite regularly. Howard and I would head off to Orlando for weekends of sex and shopping. We started in the apartment to collect glassware, pottery and a lot of stuff. It was a good time in my life, I was becoming more and more involved at King of Peace and we were becoming known as a gay couple in our work and social life. To say I was living my dream would be an accurate picture of my feelings about my life and my being.

It was during this time that I got to know Lawrence Conrad an event which would eventually change my life and the direction of my spiritual journey. The first entry in my journal was for May 7, 1991 the day I went to Lawrence's house, we burned a letter from Mary and he laid his hands on me for healing.

(Bob's letter and autobiography ends here. Howard Kirkham died on November 23, 1993. Bob met Sloyd four months later, and they shared life for over six years until Bob's death August 14, 2000. He wrote this for the world to know of his life's journey. All text copywrited.)