Denton Family Diary: A Missionary Journey

By Sarah Denton Baun

Sarah Ellen Denton Baun (nee Byrd) lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with her husband, Glenn Baun, a retired Nazarene pastor. She has long visualized this project, although she felt somewhat intimidated by the sheer volume. Sarah has enriched these memoirs considerably by drawing from her sharp memory, having a remarkable recollection of events, places and people.
You hold the result in your hands: a tender, touching and true story of one brave family, the Dentons, and their work in various countries bringing the Gospel to people and making their lives better, spanning the mid-forties to 1970. Through trials and tribulations, good times and much joy, the family is still bound together by the indelible imprint of their long-ago and far-away experiences. Ron Denton is sorely missed, but they can each feel his presence still in different ways -sometimes a phrase he used often, a twisting of the mouth when pulling a prank, or the bite of pepper and vinegar which he so loved.
Sarah has traveled a long and diverse path in the course of her life, and is faithful to the Lord and the Church she so loves.
Her children and grandchildren will be forever grateful for this undertaking, a veritable task of love, nearly two years in the making.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Mar 9, 2010
• ISBN: 9781449700416

Sarah Denton Baun

Sarah Ellen Byrd grew up in central Illinois where she attended a one-room school during all eight years. She was the third child in a family of six children. Their daily life included time for fun and games as well as work in the large vegetable garden which sustained the family during the Depression years. She enjoyed studying geography, and especially when the lessons included maps of faraway places, copying them with pencil and paper in minute detail. At that time she never dreamed she would one day actually see the Andes Mountains, learn other languages and cultures, live many years in South America, or later travel to Europe and Australia. She wrote this book while in her 80s and lives in a retirement center in Nashville, Tennessee. Sarah met and married Ron Denton in college. Soon thereafter they traveled to South America as missionaries.

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Copyright © 2010 Sarah Denton Baun.

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ISBN: 978-1-4497-0040-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-0042-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-0041-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2010923127

Printed in the United States of America

WestBow Press rev. date: 2/23/2010

Contents

Acknowledgements

Background

Bolivia, 1947

Argentina, 1947-1948

Uruguay, 1949-1953

Uruguay, 1954-1958

Brazil, 1959-1964

Uruguay, 1965-1970

Conclusion

This book is a tribute to the memory of Ronald Denton who influenced so many people with his unique, inimitable personality. It is, in effect, his life story. He could be called the co-author, thanks to the considerable contribution to the book through his letters to his father, Dearest Dad, giving news of the work and the family, carefully preserved through many decades.

I want to give special recognition to my daughter, Joyce Anne, for her work in compiling and editing, involving many hours of sometimes frustrating work in order to prepare this publication, sacrificing, uncomplaining and patient. She deserves my deepest gratitude. Also, my son, Dan, who used his extraordinary skills in preparing the photos and in readying the manuscript for the final submission, as well as in consultation and decision-making. He deserves my sincere thanks for a job well done.

Acknowledgements

I wish to dedicate this brief record of their young lives to my five children who inspired and encouraged me to complete this book. Looking back, I marvel at the way they faced the many and frequent changes involved in this missionary journey, without bitterness or rebellion, but with a spirit of adventure.

I wish to thank all family members and friends who have been a source of inspiration and help in the preparation of this collection of memories covering a span of almost a quarter of a century in South America and the ensuing years.

Background

William Ronald Denton was born on July 27, 1925 in Akron, Ohio, the third child of Rev. Bill Denton and his wife, Gladys. It was a loving home where the name of Christ was uplifted in daily living.

Ron’s paternal grandparents, Thomas and Catherine, were British citizens. Thomas Denton was born in Oundle, an ancient market town on the River Nene in Northamptonshire, just eighty miles north of London. He served in the British Army in India, where he met Catherine, the daughter of a sergeant major in the Irish Army. Catherine was born in Singapore and was schooled in a convent in India.

After their marriage they moved to Cornwall, England, where he was put in charge of the guards on St. Michael’s Mount. He was the last person to fire the cannons there upon the death of Queen Victoria.

Their son, Bill Denton, immigrated to the United States alone at the age of fifteen. He had $25 in his pocket when he arrived at Ellis Island on May 11, 1911. After a few years he went back to England and fought in World War I where he was wounded twice. One piece of shrapnel lodged in the heart muscle, where it remained embedded the rest of his life. After the war ended he returned to the United States, eventually settling in Akron, Ohio.

Ron’s mother’s name was Gladys Isaac. She was born in Penzance, Cornwall, England, to Daniel Isaac and his wife. Bill met and married Gladys in Penzance in 1917 when he returned to England to serve in the British Army.

So we see that Ron Denton had an interesting ancestry. Many colorful incidents have been chronicled about the Dentons who came before him. But we can’t diverge from our story to recount them here. Doubtless, much of his remarkable bravery in the face of disaster can be attributed to his forebears.

Bill Denton had been converted out of a life of sin. When he found the Lord as his Savior he was liberated from the power of Satan. God had performed a miracle in his life, freeing him from his addiction to alcohol. Now when his drinking buddies came to his home he took them to the basement where they were dismayed to see him break every bottle of liquor. As the pungent liquid flowed down the drain he took them to the kitchen where he proceeded to serve them tea. No more liquor in this house! he declared.

Bill immediately felt led to work among the downtrodden people, giving them hope in Christ. He started the Furnace Street Mission which became a well-known refuge for the needy and homeless. But that wasn’t enough. He wanted to do more for the Lord. He felt the call to minister by radio where he could reach thousands with the gospel. In 1927 he started a daily morning broadcast, now called the Furnace Street Mission Broadcast, which to this day is being broadcast twice a week by his son, the Rev. Bob Denton. Soon thousands of people were daily listeners as they prepared to head out to work. God blessed this ministry and it soon expanded into an avenue of support for world missions, for which he carried a burden. Many people were faithful prayer warriors for the cause of missions through his broadcast.

Then a tremendous change occurred in the home. A dread disease, spinal meningitis, had invaded the little family. Little Ronnie fell ill, as well his mother and sister. While the radio listeners prayed earnestly and faithfully for their healing, the Lord saw fit to heal the children, but the mother did not survive. Ronnie was still a very sick boy but recovered completely. Now the young radio preacher and evangelist was left alone with the care of his four young children, Tom, Violet, Ron and Ken. Only his determination to fulfill the call of God on his life kept him going. The children often accompanied him as he traveled to various churches to hold evangelistic meetings. He did not neglect his responsibility but was careful to see to their spiritual needs as well as physical. At bedtime he regularly knelt or sat at the edge of each bed to pray with his boys and girl.

This was the atmosphere in which Ron learned to serve the Lord. Even at a young age he was often asked to pray or sing on the broadcast. This led to his eventual call to the ministry. When it came time for Ronnie to attend college, his father sent him to Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky. He thoroughly enjoyed the stimulating atmosphere of mingling with fellow students in that great holiness college, attending summer school as well. He often traveled back to Akron on weekends to assist his father in the work.

After many years alone Rev. Bill Denton remarried, to a fine young lady by the name of Phyllis May Hamilton, with whom he had two children, Allen Robert and Donnell. May became an invaluable helpmate to him in his ministry.

At Asbury Ron pastored a small church in Kentucky while in school there, as well as leading the singing for other ministerial students.

Early Letters from Ron, aged 17 and already in college, to his father

August 7, 1942

Dearest Dad,

What a surprise to hear from you! I did not know you were going to New York.

Margaret, the girl who has helped me at my church left for home today. I went to Lexington to see her off. A bunch of soldiers were leaving then. It made me feel rather sad.

Six more days left and I will be homeward bound! I have two more days of classes and two days of exams. Then I leave on Thursday. Time has been going by so fast lately!

I hope you are feeling rested now. Sunday is my last day at the church.

Dad, if you don’t mind I would rather not bring the car back with me for school. It is so much more expensive. Furthermore, I would rather go to different places and preach this fall, instead of staying at one place all the time. I don’t care for that.

It will be so wonderful to be home. I get so happy I could almost shout.

Now I have a lot of studying and reading to do so I shall say goodnight and God bless you, your ever-loving son,

Ron

October 15, 1942

Dear Dad,

I have just finished the hardest exam in Old Testament, and it sure did floor me. Now I am anxious to see what I made.

My roommate told me to tell you hello. He is a swell kid. Last night I scared the daylights out of him. I told him I was susceptible to epileptic fits. Then later on in the evening I pretended like I was having a fit. He went white and yelled for help. He told me afterwards he never was so scared in his whole life. We have been laughing at him ever since.

I am going to take this letter down to the railroad station and see if I can get it off by tonight. Eldon (my roommate) and I were throwing a pillow in our room. It ripped and feathers were all over this room.

Last night there was so much noise here it was awful. Professor Westerfield was really mad. He would be on the fourth floor and the third floor would start a rumpus. I got to bed about one o’clock.

Tomorrow night is the Artist Series and everybody is all excited about it. Frankly I wish it would hurry and get over with. I have a date with a girl I hardly know. I am not too anxious to go with one girl, but I talk to them all. Now Dad, I will take this letter downtown, so I will say Goodbye and God bless you.

Your ever loving son, Ron

Ron and Sarah meet

At the beginning of the fall quarter of 1944 I, Sarah, appeared on campus. I had gone, completely by faith, with money enough for the first quarter, trusting the Lord to guide me step by step. I soon found work in the accounting office for an hour or two a day.

It was during the welcoming party for the new students that Ron pulled his first trick on me. Of course he was not even supposed to be there, being a senior. I am sure he came and stood at the door looking over the newcomers when he spied me and liked what he saw. He somehow found out my name and had an announcement made that Sarah Byrd was wanted on the telephone! When I got to the phone booth there was no call for me, but there stood this skinny young kid who immediately confessed to his trick. He just wanted to meet me! Of course I was intrigued. From that night on he was persistent in seeing me. Mostly we went to the snack shop on the corner.

After a few days he invited me to the missionary prayer meetings. It was, among other things, the influence of these weekly meetings that caused me to think about the possibility of serving as a missionary. Then Ron told me that he felt the same way. We opened our hearts to the call of God to the mission field, wherever He might send us.

We continued to go together frequently and were soon thinking about getting married. He was graduating and would be seeking the Lord’s guidance as to his next step. But I was only a freshman, having been out of school three years before going to Asbury. As time passed we began to think of setting a date for our wedding. He would be graduating and leaving Asbury, possibly to attend the seminary across the way from the campus, or go wherever the Lord led.

Sarah Ellen Byrd had a very different background from Ron’s. I was born in Springfield, Illinois, the third of six children. It was November 30, 1923. My parents both had only eighth grade education, which was not uncommon for their generation. My father’s family had moved from east Tennessee to central Illinois with the hope of better living conditions. My mother grew up in a home with four girls, on a farm. Since there was no boy in the family, she was the one who worked in the fields. Her father had a nice farm but sometimes there was no hired hand to help with the work. My paternal grandfather died in middle age leaving a large family for my grandmother, Sarah, to rear alone.

My father worked hard at various jobs while my mother cared for our growing family. They always had a large vegetable patch, so we ate well. Mom loved flowers and all things pertaining to nature. She planted flower beds wherever we lived, and always had lovely houseplants which she took out in the yard in the summer where they could grow and gain strength for the winters spent in sunny windows.

I was ready to start school when my father bought a small farm located in a valley with a creek along the property line at the side and back. We kids were happy on the hot summer days after long hours of work in the large vegetable gardens when Mom said that we could all go swimming to cool off. We kids were happy there on that little farm for years. We were finally settled in one place.

Dad and Mom planted a very large vegetable garden where we raised produce to take to the city and sell. When he came home he always had a little sack of candy for us kids. Since my sister, Ruth, was the eldest, it was her privilege to count out six equal piles of candy. We always had chickens, pigs, and cows, as well as barnyard cats. All of us children old enough to work helped in planting, tending, and harvesting. My mother cleaned chickens to be peddled along with the vegetables. My brothers did the milking so I never learned to milk a cow! We skimmed cream off the milk and sold it. We butchered hogs every fall, which provided meat for the family and brought in much needed cash by selling meat. My dad also peddled a certain brand of household products house to house for a little extra income.

Times were hard for everyone during the Great Depression but we never went to bed hungry. We attended a one-room, country school nearly two miles away. Of course, we walked. I remember a goat at a neighbor’s that was allowed to run loose and I was terrified of that goat. In the winter we sometimes walked between high banks of snow that the snowplow had left and made caves in the walls of packed snow. In those days we didn’t know that was a dangerous thing to do!

Attending to outdoor chores in the winter was not easy for my folks and Mom especially suffered from the cold. We children built snowmen and snow forts and had snowball fights. In the winter after supper dishes were done we gathered in the living room around the coal-burning heating stove and ate apples brought up from the cellar, and played games such as Carrom, and card games like Old Maid and Anagrams. The lighting was by kerosene lamps since electricity had not arrived yet to our area. We girls had the chore of cleaning the glass chimneys before dark, as well as various other chores, while the boys helped with the outside work. Sometimes we played ping-pong on the kitchen table with hand-carved paddles or sang cowboy songs. In the summer we all worked in the garden, but there often seemed to be enough energy left over to play games in the yard such as Red Rover and hide-and-seek with neighbor kids. I remember ballgames too, played in the barnyard.

I graduated from eighth-grade from that little school. I can remember the Christmas programs where every child had a piece to recite, the Christmas tree we helped the teacher to decorate, Santa Claus, of course, and a small gift for each child. There were other gatherings during the school year such as spelling bees and sports contests.

My memories of the small brick country church near the school are still fresh in my mind. Sometimes we had someone interested in the children’s ministry who would plan activities. It was one of those times that we children were taken to hear a lady evangelist, Uldine Uttley, who was holding revival services for children. God spoke to my heart through her illustrated talk and I, along with the other children, knelt and invited the Lord into my heart. I was eleven years old.

When I was a sophomore in high school we moved to southern Illinois, where there was work to be found. Again, my folks bought a small, dilapidated fifteen-acre farm, with mortgage payments of $15 a month. Dad worked very hard repairing the house, digging a garden, and building a barn. I attended high school in a much larger school and felt really lost until I made a few friends. One of the best things about our move was the Methodist Church where we met and became friends with other young people. The youth group was very active in worship times as well as fun activities such as wiener roasts. A small group of us formed a team that went to other churches to testify and hold services. It was good training for the future.

I graduated from high school and found work in an office. Continuing in the youth group, I began to feel restless and felt that maybe somehow I could go to college and prepare for some kind of Christian ministry. Through prayer and counseling with the pastor and his wife, I made the decision to go to Asbury. I could get a ride with someone I knew who was going. So I did just that. At that time no one in my family had been to college.

We were married during spring break, on March 23, 1945, in the chapel at Asbury. My parents and my older sister, Ruth, came from Centralia, Illinois, and the Denton family from Akron. With a lot of help from Ron’s sister Violet and friends, all the necessary preparations were made. It was a simple wedding. We now had the weekend to get away somewhere. Reservations had been made at an inn in a nearby town. It was a lovely place and the food was wonderful. We took walks in the surrounding countryside, which was very beautiful in the spring in southern Kentucky. Soon it was time to take up residence in an apartment near the campus.

In order to further prepare for the mission field, Ron decided to take some courses at a missionary training school located in Nyack, New York, on the Hudson River. By that time we knew we were to become parents. The baby was due in mid-December. What a surprise! We rented the apartment upstairs in a house near the campus owned by two elderly ladies. We often took walks down the hill to the town, at times running errands for the old ladies. Evenings we sat on the front porch in the porch swing and talked. He told me a lot of interesting, as well as funny, stories from his dad’s ministry. There was a great view of the Hudson River from that hilltop.

Needing to have some income, Ron worked for a short while for a butcher. Then, by the providence of God, the district superintendent of the Church of the Nazarene contacted him, asking if he would be interested in serving as interim pastor. Ron was happy to accept since he yearned to be in active ministry. The church at Beacon welcomed us with open arms. Soon they asked if Ron would take the pastorate there. He gladly accepted. In order to be appointed pastors, it was necessary that we join the Nazarene church, which we were happy to do since we had developed a deep appreciation for the denomination.

It was while pastoring the Beacon church that our first child was born, a dear little boy whom we named William Ronald II. He was the world’s most beautiful child! But we almost lost him when he developed a severe case of pneumonia at three months. The Lord answered the prayers of many dear people and soon he was again the cute little guy demanding attention and admiration wherever we took him.

We applied for appointment to the mission board