H. Earl Bengs, ’56
H. Earl Bengs, ’56, has learned many important lessons through the years, both as a student at OBU and as a missionary serving around the world.

During the summer of 1953, Earl was part of a Tentmakers team that spent the summer in Fortuna, California. “Our work was to help the new church build a new building as well as do evangelistic work. We worked the second shift in the sawmills to support ourselves,” he says. “I learned that God is faithful to us in our obedience. A faithful witness by word and especially in lifestyle leaves a positive impression in the minds of those among whom we work.”

Earl was part of a youth evangelistic team the following summer. “That summer was spent in different churches. My wife-to-be gave her blessing to twice postponing our wedding in 1954 so I could be with another church. We were finally married in October 1954.

“Through the years, I have learned that God is faithful. When we depend on him and obey him, he allows us to share in what he is doing much beyond our own capabilities, ” Earl says. “I have also learned to wait on the Lord for his choice of a marriage partner. My wife and I will celebrate 50 years of marriage this October.”

Upon graduation from OBU, Earl was called as pastor of Vici Baptist Church in Vici, Oklahoma. He served two years then moved to First Baptist Church, Mooreland, Oklahoma. “In both of these churches, God put us in places that were less than harmonious. We began to consider overseas missions, but we could not sense God’s call. I learned again that God is faithful. He brought the people of the church together in love and forgiveness and blessed them. We look back on the experiences in those first two pastorates and see that all God leads us to do is part of his immediate plan but also part of his preparation for the future.”

Three months after Earl began serving as pastor of First Baptist Church, Cheyenne, which he calls “an opportunity to serve among people whose natural bent and history was to love their pastor and work together alongside him,” the Bengses experienced separate and very distinct calls to the mission field. And even in this call, there were lessons: “God is sovereign. We must work off of his schedule and not our own. God is gracious. He allowed us a very good time of rich fellowship with people whom we still have contact and fellowship today. He also put us among people who not only affirmed us in our call but helped us financially to make our move to seminary to begin the next phase of our preparation for overseas service.”

The Bengses studied at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary from 1963-67, and were appointed as missionaries in August 1967. Their first assignment was in Vietnam, where they worked in the city of Dalat until Vietnam fell to the communists in April 1975. “After our departure from Vietnam, we spent several months in Guam helping in the resettlement process for the Vietnamese who were coming to the United States,” he says.

Upon completion of their responsibilities in Guam, the Bengses began an outreach to the Iban (Sea Dayak) people of Sarawk until the government made a decision in November 1976 that missionaries would no longer be allowed to live and work there. They returned to the U.S. in June of 1977 for a year of furlough “and to seek the next step in God’s plan for our lives.”

That plan came for the Bengses in September 1977 when they journeyed to Singapore as part of a new outreach to high-rise dwellers. Earl served as director of that ministry for two years and then was named coordinator of church planting. He resigned in 1989 to return to the U.S. for a one-year assignment and to prepare for the next phase of ministry. “We learned that our abrupt departure from Vietnam and the sense of loss we felt reinforced our awareness of the faithfulness of God. Learning difficult Asian languages, and working in different cultures have constantly refreshed our memory that the one who called us is the faithful one.”

They returned to Asia in January 1990 and settled in Taiwan for a year and a half for language study. They left for Singapore in June 1991 and have been involved in working among the Hokkien-speaking people. Their work is in evangelism, church planting, and leadership development. “I have also had the opportunity to work with separate churches to help bring healing, health and hope during times of stress between the pastor and the people. It is a great joy to see these churches moving ahead and bearing a faithful witness in Singapore today.

“OBU provided a wonderful, nurturing opportunity for me. Mrs. Opal Cole influenced my life most strongly. She called on me to be myself, develop my gifts and respond to my call in the most positive ways. Whatever strengths I may have today in the area of public speaking and in preaching clearly, I attribute to her influence.”

The next great challenge for the Bengses is to lay the groundwork and do leadership training in North Sumatra, Indonesia. We will have to wait to see what lesson he learns next.

Peggy Donovan, '53, and Bill Donovan, ’55
It was a classic boy-meets-girl story for the Donovans. Texas-born Bill Donovan, ’55, came to OBU from Oklahoma City and met Shawnee native Peggy Galloway, ’53. Their first kiss was on the OBU campus, and Bill proposed to Peggy on the lawn in front of Shawnee Hall.

Peggy completed her freshman year at OBU in 1947, and then moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where she entered nurses training at Baptist Hospital. In 1952, after she passed her state board exams, she came back to OBU as one of the campus nurses. The Donovans married in August 1953. Bill was still a student and also served as pastor of Musson Baptist Church, east of Shawnee.

From Shawnee, they moved to Fort Worth, Texas, where Bill pursued a master of divinity degree, and in between child rearing, Peggy supported the growing family by working as a nurse. The Donovans returned to Oklahoma in 1959, and Bill was pastor of Vamoosa Baptist church near Konawa while Peggy “trained three small children in the ways preachers’ kids should act.”

From Konawa, they moved to Leedey, where Bill was pastor of First Baptist Church, and Peggy was a homemaker and an unofficial rural healthcare provider. He was called as pastor of First Baptist Church, Erick in 1966, and spent one day a week in Oklahoma City assisting the chaplain at the Baptist Medical Center with group counseling. “That was when I became convinced my future was in chaplaincy,” says Bill. Peggy worked at Sayre Hospital part time.

The Donovans then moved from rural Oklahoma to Houston, Texas, where Peggy worked at Baptist Memorial Hospital East and Bill was a chaplain intern at the Institute of Religion, Texas Medical Center, and at the Texas Department of Corrections. “I had no interest in pursuing work as a prison chaplain at the time,” says Bill, “but it became a major element of my career in ministry.”

From 1970-73, the Donovans worked together at Valley Baptist Hospital in Harlingen, Texas, where Bill was chaplain and coordinator of the volunteer staff and Peggy was in-service director. They moved to McAllen, Texas in 1973, when Bill accepted the pastorate at Trinity Baptist Church in McAllen. Peggy began work as a staff nurse at McAllen General Hospital and was soon promoted to in-service director.

Bill went to McAlester, Oklahoma, in 1975, where he assumed the position of senior chaplain at Oklahoma State Penitentiary. Now, Bill and Peggy had three children in college and one in graduate school, and Bill began to pursue a doctorate while Peggy worked as a staff nurse at West Hospital. When a new Regional Hospital was built she was named in-service director.

The Oklahoma Department of Corrections realized a need to set standards for prison religious programming in 1983, and Bill and Peggy moved back to Shawnee. Bill commuted to Oklahoma City in his new position of administrator of religious programs for the Department of Corrections. They left Oklahoma once again in 1986 to move to Atlanta, Georgia, where Bill served as director of institutional and business-industrial chaplaincy for the North American Mission Board. Peggy worked as a staff nurse at DeKalb General Hospital until she “hung up her cap and sensible white shoes and retired” in 1994.

Retirement brought the Donovans home to Shawnee in 1995, where they are active in First Baptist Church. Bill continues to serve as chaplain part time at Angelic Family Hospice and Heartland Hospice in Shawnee. They spend hot Oklahoma summers in South Fork, Colorado, in a home they built themselves.

The Donovans have four children, all of whom attended OBU: Cynthia Donovan-Wallis, ex ’79; Stephen Donovan, ex ’80; Rebecca Donovan-Bushong, ’79; and Lori Donovan, ex ’86.