​Meet the Team​

UPCI Sages is the front page of UPCI Sages.

I am 6th generation Apostolic. My great great grandmother and her mother received the Holy Ghost at a Brush Arbor meeting in AR. The Baptist church where they had been members disfellowshipped them because they spoke in tongues! I am so thankful they hung on to this truth.

My fondest memory of my grandmother (the granddaughter/great granddaughter of the aforementioned ladies) was spending the night at her house and hearing her pray. Her prayer time was the wee hours of the morning. They lived in a house with wood floors, and when she prayed she walked the floors, stomped the floors, had herself a shout down. You couldn’t sleep when Grandma prayed, she prayed loud enough for everyone to hear! My cousins and I would get up and join her.Later, with her pastor’s blessing, she started a cottage prayer meeting in her home. It started with a few ladies. Then the young people asked if they could attend.

My wife’s grandmother, Sister Helen White, lived in St Louis but had never gone up to the top of the arch.
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We took her up there one day, and exiting the ‘elevator thing’ she got height dizzy and couldn’t walk up the curved floor
~but being the stubborn lady she was • she had decided to the top she would go.
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So in her mid 80’s she got down on her knees and crawled to the top.
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It was that type of determination that made her successful

3 things stand out to me about my Grandpa Elliott. His hand shake, him sitting at his kitchen table with his Bible and cup of coffee and him drinking from the saucer when his cup overflowed. He LOVED reading God's word. Another great memory is of him collecting trays and working in the kitchen at Illinois youth camp.

My Grandma Flora Weddle was a wonderful example of a true oneness Pentecostal. I adored her. She was a Pioneer in the Pentecostal movement in the 1800 & early 1900! She wrote letters about brush harbor meetings with straw floors & tomatoes being thrown at her. She’s the reason I’m a strong believer today. When Latter rain took over the Columbus church in the late 40’s, My Grandma & my Dad and Mom left Daddy’s 4 brothers, wives & children behind & stayed with the Truth. She taught my Dad well & I’m so glad. Thank God for the truth! We now have 6 generations of Apostolics!

My maternal grandmother was born in 1904. She and her mother were Methodist and came into the Pentecostal faith in the early 1940s at a brush arbor meeting in their area. She was widowed when I was eight years old. My sisters and I would go spend a week or two with her every summer. I remember her baking pies, taking us to the watermelon patch her brother had across the road from her house and allowing us to choose a watermelon, we picked figs and pears from her trees and wild blackberries. I remember her walking through her house praying aloud. I think about her when I find myself doing the same thing now. She never learned to drive, so a sweet lady from her church would drive us to church. She always encouraged us to sing at church and would take us to the platform to sing with the congregation as they gathered there for song service. Because I have so many fond memories of her, I’m doing my best to create them with my grandbabies now.