Jack Schisler Memorial, 12/27/14

Honor To A Truly Great Man of God, A True Apostle, 'Papa' Jack Schisler

My Spiritual father and first great mentor in the Lord was an Apostle of nearly biblical proportion named Jack Schisler. Ralph Mahoney, founder of World Missionary Assistance Project called Jack the greatest missionary in the world in his time, I agree. Jack led, especially in prayer foundation, in some of the greatest revivals in the world in the 20th century, especially Indonesia and Argentina. He was friends with true Kingdom greats like T.L. Osborn and Edward Miller in the work in Argentina. Until it is fully revealed, God's Kingdom is a kingdom hidden to the eyes of the world and so the greatest are often not 'well-known' and the ones everyone thinks are so great are not as great as is thought. Jack was one of the truly great hidden ones. Jack went to be with his friend, Jesus the King, in January 2014 at the ripe old age of 97 surrounded by his family and the presence of God. Jack's life is recorded in the book, Man After God's Own Heart, The Jack Schisler Story written by his daughter Connie Schisler Vellekoop.

I have no words to express my love and gratitude to this amazing man for his contribution to my life and I so regret allowing my relationship with him to fade in the last few years of his life. He was good to me beyond description and I am forever in his debt. I lived and worked with Jack on the mission field in Goiania, in the heart of Brazil in the summer of 1986 as a young man of 18. Before going to Goiania I stayed in Asuncion, Paraguay for awhile with Jack's youngest son Cliff and his wife Margaret. I rode the buses out to the country almost every day to work with his middle son Carl and his daughter-in-law Adriana as we dug and poured the homemade, hand-stirred concrete for the foundation on a new building at the bible school there. Then I traveled across Brazil on the bus to Goiania. Almost every day that I was staying with Jack and Ann(black and white photo) I would walk through streets of Goiania and take the bus to the bible school there and help dig the cistern for the facility. These and other experiences of the Lord's work with Jack were rich with the presence of God that pervaded Jack's home, family and ministry. He blessed me beyond description to invite me into that life with them and I was forever changed very much for the better by it.

The example of his true apostleship was so compelling and so much more mature than the life of many today who claim to be apostles that it it boggles the mind. He took me into his home and mentored me closely that summer. He told the most awesome stories every night at dinner while his lovely (second) wife Ann, my second mother, continually tried to get him to let her record him as he told them.

He was a robust, masculine man with absolutely no fear of anything in any realm. He raised his family with his first wife Marian, who passed decades ago, mostly in Borneo and Argentina. On the mission field in Borneo he once tried to wrestle a 27 foot python so he could sell the skin to feed his family. Jack slept with his .22 rifle by his side in the jungles of Borneo so that he could shoot the giant glowing blue-eyed spiders that came into the room at night. The stories go on and on, amazing stuff. And oh the glory of God! He would talk about the glory of God and how you could see it on this face, he was so full of Jesus. The miracle signs and wonders in his ministry were amazing:

2 Corinthians 12:12

Truly the signs of an apostle were accomplished among you with all perseverance, in signs and wonders and mighty deeds.

He was so humble in talking about how God moved in his meetings that it took me decades to understand that the glory stories of miracles, signs, and wonders he was telling me were about his own ministry and not someone else's. In don't know exactly how many people came into the Kingdom as a result of Jack's ministry but I believe it to be at least in the hundreds of thousands and maybe millions. He was the apostolic head to a network of vibrant, praying churches that stretched across South America. He is the spiritual father of Ed Silvoso and other present day leaders of tremendous spiritual authority.

And his life exemplified true apostleship in the ways that the lives of these pretenders today do not:

1 Corinthians 4:9-13 New King James Version (NKJV)

9 For I think that God has displayed us, the apostles, last, as men condemned to death; for we have been made a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to men. 10 We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are distinguished, but we are dishonored! 11 To the present hour we both hunger and thirst, and we are poorly clothed, and beaten, and homeless. 12 And we labor, working with our own hands. Being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we endure; 13 being defamed, we entreat. We have been made as the filth of the world, the offscouring of all things until now.

Jack loved the Lord so much and wanted so badly to see him receive the great harvest of the last days that he refused to let God take him to glory for at least a year after God called him home. One of the last times I talked to him on the phone in he told the Lord had said to him, "Are you coming?" He was so service-minded and so on fire with a vision for the harvest that he took that word from God as a challenge to move deeper into God in his work here on earth. So he fought and contended for his health to carry on the work God have given him. With the heart of true Joshua he wanted to remain here until Jesus returned. But finally he relented and understood that in saying, "Are you coming?," the Lord was asking him if he was willing to come home yet because God wanted his friend with him in glory. So beautiful. Lord, make me such a man.

The worship in Jack's network of churches that he planted across South America was incredible. I have never seen anything like it anywhere before or ever since. I live in Northern California, USA, in a city that is home to a world-famous church that I have attended many times. There are many good things there but this church is in love with itself, it has pretty good worship compared to most American churches but I can tell you it absolutely pales next to what I saw Brazil in Jack's churches, not even close. And his churches pray, unlike the vast majority of American churches. Jack was/is a man of prayer who would rend his heart before the the throne of God crying out for Kingdom purposes in the earth, weeping between the porches and the altar. I see all kinds of men calling themselves apostles who never exemplify this kind of humility to the people and don't do a thing to move those gathering in their church services or other meetings in the incredibly powerful practice of Corporate Prayer. The Cry For America that is in my heart today is very much a result of what Jack taught me and exemplified for me as the man of prayer he is in my experience of him.

Today I watch men who call themselves apostles enjoy rock-star-like status in a church environment that is immature enough that most do not know what true maturity even looks like but Jack could walk through any mall or grocery store and no one would know who he was. It was a sign of his greatness and approval in the eyes of God. I praise God for this man who gave so much to so many, I hope and pray my life will look like his in the end. I am so honored and blessed to be one he called "son." I love him and miss him terribly and so long to see him again and tell him so. Next to our King himself I credit Jack above all others for the anointing on my life that has resulted in souls saved, bodies healed, demons cast out and the creation of beautiful spiritual poetry, on this website, the Godpoems, which are the prime source of funding for your children's ministry, Lion of Judah Homes for Children.

Thank you, Papa Jack, we love you and are so glad you are with the One you love but we very much miss you. I look forward to seeing you again my friend and father in the faith. Please forgive me for not being a better son to you at the end. I am so grateful for your love and your stellar example to me and for your many prayers for me. I pray that my life will adequately reflect the investment you made in me. Au revoir, sir, I will see you in a few years when you come with our King to take back the earth and set up his throne in Jerusalem forever. I will be standing with the overcomers as we welcome him and all of you holy ones with him as we present this earth to him for him to rule over forever, Hallelujah!!

Your son in Him,

-Stephen Pursell, 12/27/14