Who Made Me Like This?

By Godfrey Bethea

Who Made Me Like This? sits the reader next to Godfrey Huk Bethea as he tells the story of his life, beginning with his childhood spent on the streets of Brooklyn, New York, where he found himself exposed to the full gamut of urban life. Then, in a change that permanently altered his lifes trajectory, his parents decided to move the whole familyincluding Huk and his eight siblingsfrom the urban and culturally varied borough of Brooklyn to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, known both for its location in rich farming country and as a hub of Pennsylvania German life.

The imprint of Brooklyn life left its mark on Huk, who sought an opening to escape from his Lancaster exile. Immersed in the messages of the Bible, Huk found himself tugged into ministry as a pastor. He served as an assistant pastor in Philadelphia and then as the pastor of a church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the states capital. Then, ultimately and perhaps a bit ironically, he returned to Lancaster to serve for two decades as the pastor of Kings Temple.

If you find yourself asking a questionWho made me like this?the account that Godfrey Huk Bethea shares in Who Made Me Like This? may help you, by hearing his answer to the question, to come to some answers for yourself. This inspirational memoir is for everyone who desires to know how God works in our so human lives to guide and direct us to the ends He desires for us.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Mar 6, 2009
• ISBN: 9781440125485

Godfrey Bethea

Godfrey “Huk” Bethea, a native of Brooklyn, New York, traveled the streets in his childhood years before moving to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. As a pastor, he lived in Philadelphia and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania’s capital, and then returned to Lancaster, where he has served as the pastor of King’s Temple for two decades.

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Who Made Me Like This?

Copyright © 2009 by Godfrey Huk Bethea

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible, Copyright © 1983 by The Zondervan Corporation.

ISBN: 978-1-4401-2547-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4401-2548-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2009923834

iUniverse rev. date: 07/27/2015

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: New York, the Winos and the Junkies

Chapter 2: The First of Three Turning Points

Chapter 3: School is All That

Chapter 4: The Memory Encounter

Chapter 5: Memory: the Piano, Travel and Marriage

Chapter 6: Jack of All Trades and Master of None

Chapter 6a: Music

Chapter 6b: Drawing

Chapter 6c: Barbering Clips

Chapter 6d: Wood working

Chapter 7: The Second Turning Point

Chapter 8: Overwhelming and Unconditional Love

Chapter 9: True Love and its Action

Chapter 10: What Really Kept Me on Track

INTRODUCTION

T here are so many phenomena of events, at different points of our lives that are unexplainable. We have many uncontrollable problems, at certain intervals in our experiences that seem to be unsolvable. We also encounter many awkward situations and confront them face to face on a daily basis, keeping us wondering why. And in spite of all the complexities of life, in spite of all the shadows in our travels, somehow all of those things tend to chisel, mold, and shape out our nature, our unique character, and our specific lifestyles. Through all of my lifetime of experiences, through the bumps, bruises, banging, hard knocks, ups and downs, highs and lows, I have encountered various precious obstacles, which I will expound upon later, that have kept my life on track and has given definition to who I have become. Even though, traveling a long way, and experiencing many things during this journey, I know I haven’t arrived yet. But although there is an awareness of multiple imperfections in me, there is also a solid assurance of perfection and maturity I have in my faith and in Christ. Determination, direction and focus have kept me on the right path through all of the obstacles and roadblocks thrown in my path.

NEW YORK, THE WINOS AND THE JUNKIES

L et me start out with a question. Have you ever stopped long enough to look at yourself, your life and your situation and asked yourself, Who made me like this? Or How did I get this way? Well! Let me take you on a side journey in order to give you some insight, or a picture, of where we are going with all this.

I remember those days as if they were just yesterday when a few of my brothers, a couple of guys from our block and I took off on our daily mission. Every morning we venture down those mean streets with the off color and multiple shades of gray concrete sidewalks, which were broken up so much that you couldn’t for any length of time; take your eye off the steps you were taking for fear of tripping. These sidewalks were so worn, broken up, and staggered at different levels that it was almost like walking up and down steps. There was always a chance of stumping your toes, and tripping over broken edges of busted concrete, or as we called it on the streets, squaring up; that is when you almost fall but you play it off like it really didn’t happen. The streets were also so filthy that we had to tread around and through trash, debris, dog mess and winos’ vomit.

It was a daily trauma for me walking through the streets, not really minding the broken sidewalks too much, but the winos vomit and the winos themselves positioning themselves in the streets and along the curbs. The winos kept us walking a constant obstacle course throughout our neighborhoods. I remember saying in my head, No matter what happens to me or what path my life takes, I would never allow myself to get that far gone. Never would I allow myself to end up like those winos and the people I saw lying on the streets, crawling in the alleys, and sleeping in the subways. Even at the age of seven and eight growing up in the heart of the ghettos in Brooklyn, New York, there was a knowing in me even then, that there was something wrong with that picture. These things were not right for any person’s life. How could anyone drink wine and alcohol, and use drugs day in and day out? How could they wallow in the garbage, trash and filth on the streets, regurgitating all over themselves and in the streets? How could they be like this, while never knowing where they were most of the time, or how to get to their homes; if by chance they even had homes to go to, and still live or want to live? If I would venture to guess at that time, maybe they didn’t want to live. I would see some of the same alcoholics and street people day after day doing the same things, living and wallowing in their own mess. That really bothered me and confounded me all at the same time. I knew deep down inside of me, that this was not the life destined for me.

I didn’t know then, but I understand just a little more now, that some of these individuals didn’t ask to be in these situations. Many of them fell on hard times, not being able to find a way out. There are others who had no avenue of escape or support systems, such as family members and relatives that could aid them in some way. There are even others, being under the pressures of life or financial difficulties, plus facing the situation of not being able to obtain employment of any kind, who ended up in those kinds of situations. These things coupled, linked, and associated with drugs and alcohol kept many of them in the streets. Nonetheless, I knew that some decisions had to be instigated on my part to avoid falling into the same traps that ensnared many of these people.

I believe that good choices, hard work, and being around some positive people can make a big difference in charting our destiny. We cannot allow situations that come our way, problems that attack us, and obstacles that are placed in our path to make the determination or choices for us. We have heard it said by many people that if life deals you a lemon, make lemonade. If stumbling blocks are ahead of us, we must use them as stepping stones and step up on as many as possible. If problems seem to be all around us, we should use them as opportunities to succeed, and not let the problems bring us down.

Problems are not an end result, but I believe with all of my heart that every problem is an instrument or a method that brings out our creativities, and activates our untapped God given abilities to solve the problems that confront us. Every obstacle seems to make us push into unknown and unseen territories that otherwise would have swallowed us up, rendering us helpless and leaving us in some God forsaken hole to shrivel up and decay. Therefore, we tackle every problem with an excitement that this is an opportunity for us to learn, develop, and grow into something brand new and exciting. This is my way of taking every new challenge, tapping into the spirit that is in me, and rising to the top of another obstacle.

THE FIRST OF THREE TURNING POINTS

N ow, my life took on some real drastic turns on at least three separate occasions. The first dramatic and drastic turning point in my life came on those days we talked about earlier when I walked the streets of Brooklyn, New York, back in the fifties. I witnessed the streets at its worst as an impressionable youth. Hundreds of gangs running the streets, many alcoholics and dope addicts, junkies, prostitutes and even hustlers and pushers plagued the streets and controlled the ghettos as well as many of the other neighborhoods. The role models of our day, in my eyes, were either the police, who appeared to us kids on the streets as huge, strong, protectors; or the dope dealers, who dressed real sharp, possessing all of the money in the neighborhood, driving in the biggest, the shiniest and the best looking cars. Those were the only leaders we had to look up to.

We were in church all of our lives and every preacher we knew at the time, was broke down, penniless, and begged for money all the time. They had holes in their shoes, and wore these worn out suits that were always shining in the knees probably from talking to God, and in their seat areas from sitting. Therefore, looking up to, or emulating the preacher just didn‘t have any appeal to us at all. One thing we didn’t want to be was a preacher. Things have changed considerably for the ministry field, but it wasn’t that way in the fifties and even throughout the sixties. The preacher may have been last on our list of role models, but they were highly respected and greatly revered by the community.

There was a promise I made to myself way back then, that I would never drink, do drugs, live on the streets, and be a part of what the streets would bring. At that time, there didn’t seem to be any clear way of making that a reality. But, inside me, I knew with a certainty and without any doubt that my destiny was being carved in me. It was indelibly etched in my mind and I wasn’t going to let anything change what was in my heart.

I didn’t let you in on what we were doing on the streets back in those days and where my brothers, some of the neighborhood kids and I were going, but I can give you that information now. We were on our way to our job, shining shoes at the subway station on Van Sicklen Avenue. That’s where we spent most of our days during the long hot summer months. While individuals were waiting for the subway trains to come in, or as men would get off the trains, they wanted their shoes shined before they went to work, office or wherever their day was taking them. We were there to supply that service.

A shoe shine back then, was fifteen cents and we had to shine a lot of shoes to make any money. Some people had a way of trying to get out of paying us for the shine, so we took on a motto. Our motto went like this: We shine shoes for fifteen cents, not more than fifteen cents and no less than fifteen cents; but we want our fifteen cents. Even though the streets were tough, everyone paid up and some still gave us a little more for that extra glow we would smack on the toes of their shoes at the end of a shine. Therefore, in the summer months, a group of us, mostly family members, would make our way to our place of business, the subways.

My father was really skilled working with wood, and he could build just about anything with it. In his spare time, he took some of the left over wood and put together shoeshine boxes for my brothers and me with the left over wood. The tops of each shoeshine box opened to give us a place to keep our shoeshine supplies. We all had three or four different colors of polish, two brushes to brush the polish off the shoes, one cloth to swank the shoes once the polish was brushed off, and then a soft buffing cloth to bring out the shine for the finish of the shoe shine. We took our job seriously; maybe just a little too seriously; but nevertheless, this was our job and we took pride in our work.

For a number of years, living in Brooklyn, New York, I saw so many highly intoxicated individuals, also drug and dope addicts. The winos, we called them, spent most of their time drinking, living and wallowing in the streets, alleys, project hallways, or any place else they could stumble into, while sleeping in their own vomit and human waste. The sight of it all, the stench of all of those rotten smells, and the conditions of the people we witnessed in these places kept me true to my promise from that time until now.

Throughout my formative years in Jr. High, High School and in College, I stayed away from drinking with the guys or at parties because