Tracks: the Call of an Average Man to Be More: The Biography of Pastor Robert Garber

By Huy Ngo

This is the story of an ordinary man who has inspired countless individuals around the world with his devotion to the Baptist church and his belief in the goodness of people.

Robert Garber, once a young hot-rodding farmboy, married his high school sweetheart and started his adulthood as a soft drink salesman before heeding his call from God. He has traveled the world to spread his understanding of God and endured tragedy, loss, and heartache that tested his faith to the limits over his storied lifetime. Pastor Bob has inspired thousands through the numerous churches he has founded and led throughout the Pennsylvania region, and he continues to touch the lives of many near and far.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Jun 26, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466930094

Huy Ngo

Huy Ngo is a Vietnamese American author and photographer who came over to the United States as a refugee when he was one year old. He approaches life with an understanding of his roots that make him appreciate the present and strive for a substantive future. After gradually moving across the United States, Huy and his family settled down in the heart of Little Saigon in southern California. The second of five children, Huy grew up like many kids, struggling to find where he fit in with his family, his friends, and life. Going away to college at UC Berkeley gave him perspective on the bigger world beyond his childhood and a greater awareness of his past. Huy’s parents instilled in him a sense of responsibility and duty to his family, in particular, his ancestors and people who sacrificed for him. As a young man of little patience, he didn’t know nor care to know much about his parents’ lives and of those who came before them. But he remembered anecdotes of one Pastor Garber without ever comprehending anything about that man. With time, distance, and maturity, Huy has sought to learn about his past by getting to know the people who were instrumental in laying out the opportunities before him. An artist and academic at heart, Huy hopes to contribute to the body of art and knowledge while being an example for his own family.

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Copyright 2012 Huy Ngo.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

Printed in the United States of America.

isbn: 978-1-4669-3011-7 (sc)

isbn: 978-1-4669-3010-0 (hc)

isbn: 978-1-4669-3009-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012910690

Trafford rev. 06/19/2012

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North America & international

toll-free: 1 888 232 4444 (USA & Canada)

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Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 Life on the Farm

Chapter 2 Growing Up After Growing Up

Chapter 3 Those First Steps

Chapter 4 The Trail of Churches

Chapter 5 Across the World

Chapter 6 A Need, An Opportunity

Chapter 7 A Dark Time

Chapter 8 Back in Step

Afterword

God has been very gracious to Pastor Bob, involving him in many ministries and countless people’s lives. Bob is a modest man of modest means. Through personal triumph and loss, he has charged through life with purpose and wandered without aim, sometimes straying but ultimately heeding His call. If such a man can endure and achieve what he has, anyone can.

This is a challenge to young men and women who are considering entering the ministry. This is to give them an understanding of the true faith that they have. True faith is having the courage of going beyond what they can see with their eyes. They can share in Pastor Bob’s vision of opportunity and commitment that it takes when planting a congregation.

There are many books out there now that are meant to inspire others. Perhaps this can be one of them, but what inspired Pastor Bob to be in the ministry in the first place were the scriptures within the good old Bible. This describes one average man’s journey in becoming still just an average man but having the opportunity to be used by God in a greater way.

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Introduction

It was a long journey from Colorado to Pennsylvania. The Garber family stopped over at a motel in Kansas off Route 30 for the evening. They were moving back home. Bob and Ginny led their two young daughters, Lu-Ann and Robin, to the room. Four-year-old Robin asked her father, Daddy, aren’t you bringing Bobby in? That question has remained with Bob for the rest of his life. They ring in his mind at various times. Robin didn’t understand that they were leaving Bobby in the car. Bobby was the couple’s son who died of measles before he was even one year old.

The family didn’t have much money. A friend had loaned them a station wagon for the trip. They were bringing little Bobby back to Pennsylvania for burial. He lay in the casket placed in the back of the vehicle. Driving back to Pennsylvania, Bob was taking his first steps in answering God’s call.

Chapter 1

Life on the Farm

Robert Garber was born on September 8, 1934, in Ironville, Pennsylvania. His future wife, Ginny, was born on April 6, 1935, in nearby Norwood, Pennsylvania. Both small towns are part of the Columbia area of Pennsylvania’s Lancaster County where there is a large community of Pennsylvania Dutch Amish and Mennonites.

Bob’s parents, Elmer Herr and Ethel Mae Garber, were both active Christians. Elmer was a member of the local Mennonite Church while Ethel attended the nearby United Brethren Church. The family was always partaking in some church activity, but Bob and his family primarily attended his mother’s church because she was more active there than his father was in his. Moreover, the United Brethren Church was only a block away from his school, so Bob could also hang out with his buddies and classmates who also attended United Brethren.

Elmer Garber owned two properties in Ironville, a small twenty-five-acre farm and a larger 117-acre farm. The Garber family initially lived in the smaller plot and grew wheat and tobacco. Tenant farmers worked the larger farm until the Garbers moved onto it when Bob was fifteen years old. Here, the family grew corn and raised dairy cattle. They sold the milk to the nearby Hershey company. In early spring, when the cows would find and eat wild garlic in the meadow, the Hershey company would reject and return the garlic-tainted milk, but Bob and his siblings never minded because the family would churn that milk into ice cream (enough chocolate syrup would mask any tinge of garlic in the frozen treat).

The tobacco grown on the large farm was part of a four-year rotation that saw wheat, then hay, then corn, and finally back to tobacco. Tomatoes were a side crop, which they sold to Heinz and other companies to make ketchup and tomato soup. Later on, the Garbers would raise broilers, large chickens that were popularly for barbecuing.

Elmer was quite well-known in the area for being one of the first around to buy a farm tractor, a Farmall A model built by International. Furthermore, he made rigs to tow plows and harrows behind tractors. Elmer often helped prepare people’s gardens during the planting season by tilling them with his farm tractor. This solidified his popularity among the community.

Growing up in rural Pennsylvania, Bob attended a small two-room school where they had four classes in each room. His mother developed one of the first hot-lunch programs for public schools in the area. What a treat it was to get hot soup from the lunch wagon along with a quarter pint of chocolate milk or orange drink. Ethel volunteered to prepare the food while the local municipalities helped with the food costs.

There was always work to do on the farm. Bob helped with the tobacco harvest by dropping the lathe from the back of