Randy Odom
Salvation Experience
IMMEASURABLY MORE, IMMEASURABLY MORE
“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen” Ephesians 3:20-21
I was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma on July 27, 1957. I am my parents’ only child. My mom had a daughter that was stillborn 3 years before I was born. Her name was Pamela Jo Odom. My dad, Richard, was a truck driver for the Katy (MK&T) Railroad from the time I was born until his retirement. My mom, Julia (aka Jude), worked part-time as a concession manager at a local drive-in movie theater and as a restaurant manager. Ours was an average working-class life in the 1960’s and 70’s. Neither of my parents were churchgoers. My dad’s parents divorced when he was young (something very unusual in Oklahoma in the 1940’s), and my mom’s father committed suicide when she was just a toddler. Consequently, both of my grandmothers had a difficult time raising their children on their own. Single mothers in those days were not commonplace in mainline society, much less in the church. Neither of my grandmothers felt welcomed or at-home in the church environment. I can say, though, that they raised their children as “cultural Christians,” and I inherited that worldview from both of my parents.
At an early age I understood that there was a God, but beyond the cultural definition of that God, I had no understanding of His nature or of my relationship to Him. I remember sitting with my ear glued to the speaker of my parents’ console stereo as Barbra Streisand sang “The Lord’s Prayer” on a Christmas album. I felt goose bumps up and down my arms as I listened. I wondered who this “Father, which art in heaven” was that she sang so beautifully about.
By nature I am a shy introvert. As a small child, with no brothers or sisters, I depended on neighbor children to be my friends. However, because I was so shy, I was afraid to go knock on their doors and ask them to come out and play with me. Instead, I would go out and sit on the curb by the street in front of my house and hope they would see me out there and come out to play. I was blessed, though, with some wonderful cousins who became like siblings to me. My dad’s younger brother had a son just half-a-year younger than I, and we would often take turns spending the weekends at one another’s homes. Little did I know that this ambiguous God that I believed in was unfolding His plan for me right before my eyes.
At around the age of 12, my uncle Ray became a Christian. The transformation of Christ in his life was truly miraculous. Now, on weekends when I would stay with their family, I would go to church with them. For the first time in my life I began to hear the story of the gospel explained and personalized for me. In 1972, just three months prior to my 15th birthday, I attended a Revival Fires Crusade with my uncle Ray and his family at the Tulsa Assembly Center. I had already been coming under the conviction of the Holy Spirit when attending church with my uncle’s family, so on this April Thursday evening, when the invitation was given at the end of the message, I could no longer resist. I walked forward and gave my life to Jesus that night. Immediately following the crusade meeting a few of us went to a local church not far from my house and I was baptized into Christ. That began a transformation in my life that was astounding to my friends and family, and still astounds me as I look back on it.
I became actively involved in the high school youth group at East Tulsa Christian Church and the youth pastor there, David McClary, became my role model (dare I say idol?!). I did everything I could to be like “Dave” and spent as much time with him as possible. I’m sure I made a pest of myself by hanging out at their house so much of the time after school and on summer days. Dave had graduated from Ozark Christian College in Joplin, Missouri, so very early in my high school years I decided that I wanted to go to Ozark when I graduated. Sure enough, in 1975, after graduating from high school, I enrolled as a freshman at Ozark. I spent 4.5 wonderful years at Ozark, deepening my walk with Jesus and learning the skills of Christian leadership. In those days I had a decent singing voice and joined the concert choir. In my third year of college, this shy Okie boy found the courage to audition for an elite singing group on campus and I actually “made it!” That year, 1977-1978, was another pivotal year in my life. The group, called the Impact Brass and Singers, toured all over the midwestern US during the school year and did an amazing three-month west coast tour during the summer of ’78. I had been to visit relatives in southern California in my early childhood, but during that visit in the summer of ’78, I fell in love with the Golden State. I secretly planted a dream in my heart of one day living here. Once graduating from Bible college I intended to go into local church ministry in some capacity. However, around that same time, my high school and college best friend, Chuck Foreman, decided that he was going to be a missionary. Our home church was an extremely mission-minded church, so I had heard many missionaries share their testimonies during seemingly endless slide presentations at Sunday evening services at church. However, I had absolutely no interest in ever being a missionary myself. I couldn’t imagine myself dressing up in the local garb of the country where I served and boring people to tears with my slide presentations. (Little did I know…!)
Chuck’s decision to be a missionary made a huge impact on me and I started to wonder if perhaps God would call me in the same way. In the early 80’s, just coming into vogue was the notion of using a secular career skill as a means of sharing the gospel in a country that was otherwise closed to traditional missions. And teaching English as a 2nd language was one such career that could open many doors to otherwise “closed countries.” This idea intrigued me very much. Around that same time, a dear woman in my home church, Velva Jo Johnson, gave me a book about a famous 19th century missionary to China, Hudson Taylor. (James Hudson Taylor founded the China Inland Mission in the 19th century. The CIM still exists today and is known as Overseas Missionary Fellowship.) When I read the account of Hudson Taylor’s commitment to the call God had on his life for China, I came away thinking, “I’m not even a Christian, much less a missionary!” With the Holy Spirit’s conviction and the inspiration of Hudson Taylor’s life, I began to think about going to China as an English teacher with the goal of sharing my faith with students and others.
In the summer of 1983 my secret dream of moving to California became a reality when I enrolled as a graduate student in the Department of TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) at Biola University. By that time, my youth pastor in high school had moved to Southern California to pastor a church in Rancho Cucamonga, so I moved in with his family while doing my study at Biola.
Sometime during the spring term of 1984 I found a flyer in my student mailbox from a Christian organization in Alhambra that was recruiting English teachers for Mainland China. Reflecting on my reading of Hudson Taylor’s life, I had to inquire about the opportunity. Long story short, I applied and was accepted for the 1984-1985 academic year. After an eight week summer training program I was assigned to teach with two other guys in the city of Wuhan in central China. Needless to say, I had never even heard of Wuhan! But in August of 1984 my two teammates and I took off to faraway China to teach in the Wuhan Branch of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Another trajectory-setting year was about to commence.
For the first semester in Wuhan I was absolutely miserable. I had never felt so far away from home. In retrospect, I have realized that I was suffering from what I now call “heart lag.” My body was in China, but my heart was still in the USA. However, not long after the start of the 2nd semester I began to make friends with some of my students and with others, so that by the end of that first year I was ready to sign-on long term. I notified my sending organization that I would like to continue serving in China and they agreed that I could stay. What started out as a one year commitment ended up in a six year stay. And those six years were probably the most pivotal years of my life. It was in those years that God grew in me a heart for missions and a commitment to finding my place in His mission plan.
Fast forward now to the spring semester of 1991. I was teaching in Zhongshan University in the southern city of Guangzhou in China. “ZhongDa” is one of the leading universities in south China and I had a wonderful experience that year. However, a botched romantic relationship sent me reeling emotionally and I decided at the end of that year to return to the States for a “break.” The sending organization that I was with at that time had its home office in Berkeley and they asked if I would be willing to come back to the States and serve as Director of Recruitment for them. I agreed because it would “keep my feet in China” while also giving me the chance to take a needed break from serving on the field.
In the summer of 1992 our organization had a summer training in Berkeley for new teachers going to China. I was involved as one of the trainers at that orientation. It was during that summer orientation that our office also welcomed a new clerical volunteer who had been a Taiwanese graduate student here in the States. Her name was Krystal. I remember being “smitten” by Krystal pretty much from day one. Unfortunately, not only was Krystal not smitten by me, she even asked a mutual friend in our office why in the world it was that I would sometimes clip roses from the neighborhood rose bushes and give them to her at the office. I was “crushed but not destroyed” by that comment and redoubled my efforts to show her my interest. Finally the ice began to thaw and Krystal began to see how really irresistible I am!
We courted for three years, and finally, when I was 38 years-old, we got married. By that time I had left the China organization in Berkeley and had begun pastoring the Fruitvale Christian Church in Oakland. Krystal and I were married in that church in September of 1995. During our years at Fruitvale we started what became a very successful English as a Second Language school as an outreach of the church. In its heyday our English school had more students than our church had members. Those were wonderful years; however, the stirring toward missions never left us and actually began to intensify in the early 2000’s. In 2002 we resigned from our ministry with the church in Oakland not knowing where the Lord would send us next nor how He would provide for us.
At that time I was in the job market and had mentioned to a friend who attended Neighborhood Church that I was looking for a job. She told me that she had recently seen an announcement in the church bulletin for a custodial position at the church. I asked for a phone number and decided to inquire. I remember meeting with Greg Patrick, the Facilities Manager at that time. After giving him a brief history of my life he said, “Wow! We’ve never had anyone so overqualified apply for a janitorial position.” He offered me the job at $1 per hour more than the job posting had listed!!That was our first introduction to Neighborhood Church. Shortly after I started working at Neighborhood Krystal and I attended a Sunday service for the first time. “Coincidentally,” our first Sunday was “Missions Sunday.” Our hearts were bursting!! We walked out of the service that day saying, “We’ve found our church!” Again, little did we know…!
I worked as a custodian at Neighborhood for three months and then was hired by another organization sending Christian professionals to China, this one located in Hayward. As Director of Short-Term Programs, I was in charge of recruiting, training and leading short-term mission trips to China. While serving with this organization Krystal and I continued to attend Neighborhood and get more involved. Krystal joined the choir and I had a couple of opportunities to teach an elective class on missions. It was during this time that we got to know the pastoral staff a little more. Around about 2004, when Neighborhood Church did Rick Warren’s “Purpose-Driven Life” study, I began to sense that familiar stirring in my spirit. One day I said to Krystal, “Wouldn’t it be amazing if the Lord opened a door for me to serve at Neighborhood?!” Being the wise woman she is, her response was, “Don’t tell anyone, let’s just pray!” So we began praying that if it was God’s will for us to serve at Neighborhood he would open the door in some way. Then one day I had a fateful lunch with Pastor Mark Teyler. (There’ll be another fateful lunch a little later in my story, so hold on…) Anyways, Mark invited me to go out to lunch with him to discuss another mission class he had invited me to teach. While at lunch Mark asked, “Randy, how long is your commitment with the organization where you’re serving now?” Wow!!! Was that an open-door opportunity, or what? I felt the nudge of God’s Spirit and replied, “Well, it’s funny you should ask….” Then I explained to Mark what Krystal and I had been secretly praying about. After I shared with him, he said, “Randy, I’d love to bring you on staff if you’re interested.” I was like, “Am I interested?!?!!!!”
Well, in the fall of that year – 2004 – I came on staff part-time as Pastor of Outreach, I think it was. I finished out my service with the China organization that year and joined the full-time pastoral staff of Neighborhood Church in 2005. Again, God rocked our world with His goodness and His favor!
One of the things I have not mentioned up to now is the issue of my parents in these years. In the late 90’s and early 2000’s, as we started seeing my parents’ health beginning to become more fragile, we realized that we needed to be more involved in their care. Krystal actually made several extended trips to Oklahoma to help my parents when one or the other of them was hospitalized. We knew that even though they never said anything, they were secretly fearing that we were going to end up moving off to the uttermost parts of the earth at a time when they were most in need of support and assistance. As a result, we came up with a “deal” for them. On a trip back to Oklahoma we told them that we would agree to stay in the US for the rest of their lives, but that we would ask them to move to California rather than having us move to Oklahoma. Amazingly, they agreed. So in the spring of 2003 my parents made the only major move of their lives and came to live in San Leandro. We were able to purchase a small home for them in the same neighborhood where we lived, and they were happy to be close to us. Unfortunately, that joy didn’t last very long.
Exactly four months to the day from when they arrived in California, my dad passed away. He had been in failing health for the previous few months, so the adjustment was difficult for him. Once he was gone, my mom was stuck in a strange place where she had never lived and where she had no friends. After floundering for a good while regarding what was best for her, she ended up moving into Carlton Plaza Assisted Living in San Leandro. She thrived there until she passed in November of 2008. I’m delighted that because my dad was a veteran of the Korean Conflict that we were able to bury both of my parents in the National Cemetery in Santa Nella, California.
After my parents passed away, Krystal and I looked at each other and said, “Well, we’ve fulfilled our commitment to Mom and Dad about staying in this country for the rest of their lives… now what?” By this time my role had changed at Neighborhood to Pastor of Connection and Krystal was thriving in an accounting position at a large non-profit in Oakland. We were both at the top of our game professionally and in every other way. Finally, after praying and thinking and talking a lot, we came to the peace of saying that while we were not actively looking for the “next assignment” in missions, we would keep our hearts open and “go” if we knew the Lord had called us. This became the posture of our hearts as the year 2009 dawned.
Now comes the time of the next fateful lunch…. In January of 2009 I had lunch at Chipotle in Castro Valley with Brian Kalsbeek. We had gotten together just to hang out over lunch. No other agenda (or so we thought). As we talked, Brian began sharing with me about an organization he had gotten involved with in Cambodia. In fact, he was serving as Executive Director of this organization. As I listened, I said, “What are you talking about, Executive Director of a missions organization? You’re a chiropractor, for crying out loud!” He chuckled and continued his story. As he excitedly shared with me the various projects of this organization he began to talk about an orphanage in the rural far north of the country. It was then, as I was taking a bite of my chicken burrito bowl, that God landed the notion of Cambodia on my heart out of the clear blue sky. Whether it was a twinkle in my eye that Brian saw, I do not know, but almost in mid-sentence he stopped and said, “Randy, if you and Krystal would like to get involved with this, it would be awesome.” I literally laughed and replied, “Well, tell me more because I’m intrigued.” At the end of lunch he invited Krystal and me over to his home later that week to hear more stories and to see some photos he had from his recent trip to Cambodia. My world was rocked that day at Chipotle! Since then I have said many times, “Be careful about Chipotle! Your life can change over one burrito bowl!!”
When I got home from work that day I asked Krystal, “So, how’d you like to go and live in Cambodia for the rest of your life?” She had two words for me…. “I’m fine!” Then, of course, she wanted to know what I was talking about. I shared with her about my lunch with Brian and told her that he would show us some photos later that week. After visiting his home and seeing the photos that night, on the way home I asked Krystal, “So, what do you think?” She said, “It’s great, but I don’t feel called to work with children.” I replied, “Well, I don’t either, but I’m not going to say that I can’t be called.” Later on, we found out that Brian would make a trip to Cambodia that summer (2009) and he invited us to go along with him to “scope out the land.” We agreed. So in June in 2009 we made our very first exploratory trip to Cambodia.
We decided that the purpose of that first trip was to discover if there were any “red flags” that indicated we should not go to Cambodia. Both Krystal and I are of the mind that all Christians are called to “go into all the world” with the gospel, so rather than going and looking for a call (the call to go has already been given), we should go trying to discern if there was a call for us “not” to go. We discovered on that trip that it would not be a “walk in the park” for us to go and live in a place where there were only two other westerners and where there was no electricity and the only water was from a well on site, and where we did not know a word of the language, BUT we did not think that any of those things were deal breakers. So we came home praying that God would confirm the call to our hearts once we got back home.
Shortly after returning to Bay Area, I met with Pastor Larry Vold and shared with him what we thought God was stirring in our hearts. Larry’s gracious response was, “Randy, we don’t want you and Krystal to leave, but if this is God’s call on your life, we would never stand in your way.” With that amazing response we felt free to seek God’s will to lead us forward. Finally, in October of 2009 we announced to the church that it was our intention to move to Cambodia in the summer of 2010 and stay for a period of at least two years. For the next 10 months we spent our time “untethering” ourselves from God’s blessings. Then, in August of 2010, we got on a plane with the few worldly belongings we had left, and headed out for Cambodia.
The rest is history, as they say, so I’ll not go into detail in describing the amazing eight years that we lived and served in Cambodia. Suffice it to say, we had no idea God would provide us a lifelong “souvenir” from our years in Cambodia in the form of a little boy whom we named Noel. He came to us completely unexpectedly at the Christmas season of 2011. We named him Noel because the people who dropped him at the orphanage where we worked said they did not know his name. At the time we thought he was God’s Christmas gift to the orphanage, so we gave him the name Noel. Now he is Noel Tum Dara Odom and he is a passport carrying American citizen. The journey toward Noel’s adoption would fill another testimony. I’ll save that for another time.
Apart from the generous and loving support of Neighborhood (3Crosses) Church, we would not have had the wonderful experience in Cambodia that we did. We thank God every day for this church! And we thank Him that the church was willing to open the doors to us again when we returned to the US in the summer of 2018. I have said since then that it was like God said in 2010, “I’m gonna push ‘pause’ on your life here in the States and I want you two to go play and serve me in Cambodia.” Then, eight years later, as we returned to the States, it was as if God pushed “play” again for us. Though much has changed for us since we left the US in 2010, coming back to this wonderful church has made us realize how much has stayed the same. Our God is the same yesterday, today and forever, and His people remain loving, generous and responsive to our presence in community. We could not be more thankful for that.
Key Scripture
In conclusion, I hearken back to the Ephesians 3:20 - “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” Truly, God has done “immeasurably more” than anything I could have ever asked or imagined. I give Him all the glory and I pray that this testimony of His goodness, faithfulness and power will encourage future generations as they consider how God might lead and use them in the service of His kingdom.
If you are a senior and would like to submit your testimony, we invite you to contact us for details on how you can participate. We would love to include your story!
