"Go Tell It On The Mountain"
'Revolutionaries for Jesus' Holding Services in their Church at 2570 Menor Stravenue.
Dave Green—Citizen Staff Writer, The Tucson Daily Citizen
April 15, 1969, North America
Scores of hippies are flocking to Tucson, and with them has come a small band for reformed hippies carrying Bibles, whose mission, they say, is the conversion of their bearded brothers to that “old-time religion.”
Most of the new arrivals are here to escaper the “great earthquake,” which they contend will cause most or all of California to slide into the ocean by the middle of April. Dozen are here now and they say that as many as 500 are expected here within two months.
Not so, however, with the eager little group who call themselves “the Revolutionaries for Jesus.” They have discarded their love beads and taken to Bibles. They have given up their pads and gone to church.
Befriended by an artist-missionary on Tueson’s South Side, the small, but energetic little band began collecting its flock of would-be converts just last week. Invited to Tucson from Phoenix by the Rev. Edward “Ted” Ware pastor of the “Fellowship Church” at 2570 Menore Strav., the six-member team moved into the pretty little white church – and things haven’t been quite the same there since.
First, they removed the pews. Then they removed all images, except the wooden cross at the front of the church. In came the pillows – they prefer sitting on the floor – and the bongo drums and guitar. They were ready for services.
The band’s trek began in Huntington Beach, California last year. A missionary, David Berg, a longtime friend of the Rev. Mr. Ware, took his family and organized a small singing group, “Teens for Christ.”
A teenager suggested that it was too bad the hippies were channeling all of their energies to the devil instead of God.
The Rev. Mr. Berg had founded, nearly two years ago, an organization called the Lighthouse, in Huntington Beach. Here in the hop heads could get religion and get off the drugs. He decided to search out the hippies.
He and his teenage followers contacted businessmen in the community who financed a dinner at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Buses were chartered for hippies, about 150 of who came to the feed-in. From it stemmed the first conversion.
Danny Anderson, 23, a Vietnam veteran, was a user of drugs at this time last year. He spent 18 months in Vietnam as a Helicopter machine-gunner. There I got hooked on drugs,” he says.
After his discharge in October 1967, Danny went back to California, longer hair and more trips on “everything from Marijuana to LSD. It got so bad that I finally knew I had to get help from somewhere.” He went to the Light House.
“Hippies are right when they say that they get a glimpse of the spiritual world on those drug trips,” he says. “But it is the world of the devil, not God. I got so bad that I was seeing demons.”
Eleven months ago Danny took his last trip on drugs. He believes that the search for God and the failure of man to accept the Bible are what really lie at the root of the hippie problem.
“We are really not hippies any more,” a member explains. But we have been and we know what the other kids are searching for. We have kept our clothes and long hair. You can’t get to these people (other hippies) by going down there on 6th Street in a business suit. They wouldn’t even talk with you.”
Soon some members of the small congregation of the Rev Mr. Ware were raising eyebrows and few felt the need to look for a church where hippies are not allowed. His Rev. Mr. Ware, a glove-hopping missionary with an abundance of faith, shrugged his shoulders, called it the will of God, and prepared to aid his new flock of former drug users.
Hippie Minister
Ex-Bible Smuggler Leads Tucson Flock
The Rev. Edward “Ted” Ware may be what you would expect of a minister with a church full of hippies—a smuggler. He’s never been a runner of guns or gold bars. His “racket” was smuggling Bibles.
Pastor of a Tucson church, Ware is a missionary whose globetrotting began in the early 1950s. When he married a London nurse in 1944, he was a member of the British Royal Air Force who yearned to move to “the new world, where a man could build his own house.” Then the RAF transferred him to Canada and he left the service in 1945.
“We actually built that house,” he said. “Then God began to come into our lives. With all we had we were not satisfied. We discovered that there was more to life than just building a house.” The feeling was so strong he joined the Salvation Army.
“By this time, however, we had seven children and the Salvation Army had no facilities for married couples with a family. So we were fortunate to meet Paul Fleming, the founder of the New Tribes Mission. Fleming told them that “God had everything He needed for missionary work but the people to do it.”
Ware and his wife helped establish missions in Canada. They sold their home and by the mid-1950s were doing mission work in the U.S. Then they went to Cuba.
“We were in Cuba at God’s hour,” he says. “It was wide open for the Gospel at that time”. There were fabulous results, with churches springing up overnight.” The revolution had begun, however, and Fidel Castro’s guerrillas and Juan Batista’s soldiers were in the field.” Both sides left us alone, Ware says. He helped establish several churches in the back country.
On Nov. 14, 1958, he and another missionary and their families were riding at night in a Land Rover when they came upon one of Castro’s bands. The revolutionaries were burning a bridge and “apparently thought the army had surprised them,” Ware said. Shots rained on the missionary vehicle, and four bullets struck Ware in the head. The other missionary’s daughter was wounded.
Later the apologetic soldiers freed them. It was 30 miles to help, but the vehicle’s bullet-shattered radiator “did not conk out until we reached the village.” Ware lost his right eye, which is covered by a patch. Three slugs were removed from his face and another remains lodged in his jaw.
Ware made five more trips to Cuba and was detained for a short time the last trip. Then he did mission work in Mexico, Latin America and Spain. In Spain he turned smuggler because distribution of religious literature is forbidden there. The intrepid missionary hid Bibles under a truck seat. With a pretty daughter sitting atop them, he drove through checkpoints, smiling.
The affable missionary said he settled at the Fellowship Church in Pueblo Gardens here at God’s direction. “We were on our way to Florida but stopped here and visited friends. One told me of this vacant church.”
Ware told his wife, “Well, that’s it. The Lord wants us here.” He and his family bought the building, converted its nursery into a small but comfortable living space and waited for “God to act.”
There are no collection plates, and all Ware will say about finances is that things “are a bit tight” and “The Lord will provide.”
As a metalworker and painter, he turns out “works of art,” but he doesn’t believe in advertising and his finely cut, delicate roses, charcoal sketches, paintings and other works go unsold. Neighbors and parishioners bring odds and ends and often food. “Things are going according to God’s plan,” he says.
“The only thing that hurts,” Ware reflects, is “seeing some of our church members leave because we let a few persons with beards or different dress into the Lord’s house.”—DAVE GREEN
Directions to Lighthouse: Alvernon to 36th St. exit Turn left, go 1 mile to Pueblo Park, turn right to Lighthouse behind park. Happenings nightly after 8:00. PHONE 624-5639.