Testimony Corner: Dean Bruckner, Class of 1981

My year at Word of Life Bible Institute was one of the best three years of my life.

As a 17-year-old believer in Christ, I sensed a calling to the secular world as an engineer, military officer, or both. I asked God for wisdom. Our family friends David and Billy Giles (Class of 1978 and 1979, respectively) strongly recommended my brother Lee and I attend the Bible Institute. So we did, along with their sister, Victoria.

The three of us arrived in mid-September 1980 to picture-perfect chalets, hard benches, and the daily Quiet Time diary — the Word of Life experience. Thirty guys push-starting our 18-wheeler in Canada on Collegians winter tour, a missions conference that a hundred of us missed with the flu in the days before vaccinations, watching Dean of Men Ray Namie doing doughnuts in his van — with his family inside — on the frozen lake, and a two-week trip to Israel, Jordan, and Egypt all are indelibly stamped in my memory. But even more than those memories were the lifelong imprints made by the Word of God on the deepest part of who I am.

Life. The Word. That’s what Word of Life is all about. From where I stand, a more coherent, practical, comprehensive one-year presentation of the Bible, integrated into preparation for life, does not exist. For me, it came at exactly the right time, and it equipped me for all that was to come.

Since then, I’ve sailed the coasts of North America, from Nova Scotia to the Panama Canal, to Alaska’s farthest Aleutian Islands, and to the Arctic Circle. I’ve been to 20 foreign countries and studied five languages. I’ve lived a year abroad, earned a Ph.D in electrical engineering, and became a licensed professional engineer. I was the lead system integrator for flight tests of the GPS and inertial navigation systems of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. I got married and have three school-age children, served in eight churches and military chapels, and now teach industrial and systems engineering at Ohio University.

What does all this amount to? Absolutely nothing, in light of eternity, except what was done for Christ and His kingdom. That is the debt I owe to Word of Life. In that year, my spiritual navigation instruments and library of life charts were fitted for the long haul. If God’s hand has held my life on course during everything that’s followed, if He’s used it to touch others, if He and His Word are better known and loved in my wake, it will be due in great measure to what I received in the spiritual “shipyard” on the shores of Schroon Lake.

What amazes me is that it was such fun, too. It truly was one of the three most joyful years of my life, along with my honeymoon year of marriage and my year as a young commanding officer of the U.S. Coast Guard radio station near Istanbul, Turkey.

The Turks have a saying: “A tree can be shaped when it’s young.” That was Word of Life to me.

Homecoming • Founders Conference • Alumni Reunions • Memorial Day

May 23-26, 2014

We anticipate alumni from all over the country joining us in Schroon Lake for Homecoming this spring during Founders Conference on Memorial Day weekend. Speakers for the conference are Don Lough, Jr., Harry Bollback, and our special guest speaker, Dr. Paul Dixon, chancellor of Cedarville University. The featured speaker at our Memorial Day patriotic rally is Lt. Col. and Texas state Sen. Brian Birdwell. Brian was severely injured on 9/11 at the Pentagon.

Activities for the weekend include a reception Friday night after the opening session, a camp tour, a golf outing (Saturday afternoon), family fun time (Sunday afternoon), and the introduction of the Alumnus of the Year. Accommodations are available at the Word of Life Inn & Family Lodge, and meals are available at the Inn and Bible Institute. We look forward to seeing you there!

Two reunions are in the works, but alumni from all years are welcome:

40th Reunion (Class of 1974)
Hosts: Dave Feltz, Joanne Scurlock Feltz, Elizabeth Bollback Nelson
Honored Guest: Dr. John and Janet Master

35th Reunion (Class of 1979)
Host: Daryl Bollinger

Preliminary Schedule:
Friday (May 23), 7 p.m.: General Session (Dr. Paul Dixon)
Saturday (May 24), 9:45 a.m.: General Session (Dr. Paul Dixon)
Saturday (May 24), 11:15 a.m.: General Session (Dr. Paul Dixon)
Saturday (May 24), 7 p.m.: General Session (Harry Bollback)
Sunday (May 25), 9:45 a.m.: General Session (Dr. Paul Dixon)
Sunday (May 25), 11:15 a.m.: General Session (Don Lough, Jr.)
Monday (May 26), 11 a.m.: Memorial Day Concert and Rally (Lt. Col. Brian Birdwell)

Testimony Corner: Dave Duma, Class of 1979

For many years, I could not stand to be around Christians. I hated to see those smiling faces. I just knew they couldn’t be happy all the time.

My childhood was unhappy. My mom and dad divorced when I was 6 years old. I remember them always fighting, and my mom crying at night after the police escorted my dad out of the house. My mom and we three children were left in a farmhouse with no heat and a bank repossession letter on the door, telling us to move.

The Christians I knew were counterfeit. They smiled but never helped, even after my dad left. Instead, my grandpa and grandma took us in. Mom got a decent job as a secretary in a factory, and my brother and I got jobs as kids to pay our own way. I delivered newspapers. When I was 12, I started washing dishes in a restaurant and cleaned a slaughterhouse.

Getting into the working world introduced me to different people, and I made new friends who were not good for me. The Bible says bad company corrupts good manners, and it’s true. I was a good boy who went bad — and fast. I finally had plenty of money, but that didn’t keep me from being miserable.

Still, I knew some people who didn’t have much materially but always had smiling faces and seemed genuinely happy. They seemed to like me and never judged me, and I was comfortable around them for some reason.

All these people wanted to do was to help me, and I began to think that they ay be right when they told me I just needed Christ. Before, there was no way I thought Jesus could be the answer because everything associated with God and Christianity had been so bad in my life. But these people planted the seed that got me thinking that Christ could be what I needed as my life sank further into the sin issues I was dealing with.

While battling sin and thinking about where my life was headed, one night it all finally came together. I knew I needed to come to Christ.

After a series of events, on June 14, 1977, at 11:30 p.m., I knelt on a sidewalk in Akron, Ohio, and asked Jesus to forgive me and take control of my life. I was 21 years old. On that night, 2 Corinthians 5:17 became real: “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away: Behold, all things are become new.”

Starting that night, God changed all my desires. I became one of those smiling face people.

I loved to go to church, something I never did before. I loved fellowship with believers and studying God’s Word. A year later, my pastor told me about the Word of Life Bible Institute, and I decided I wanted a deeper walk with the Lord. I wanted to get grounded, and God led me to join the Class of 1979.

I never preregistered for the Bible Institute. My pastor told me that if God was leading me, Word of Life wouldn’t send me home. My Bible study small group at home had a going-away party for me and handed me an envelope with enough cash to pay my way. I knew God’s hand was on me.
I drove 533 miles in a junk car with no heat to get to the Bible Institute, and I was so happy. I showed up the day before class — campfire night.

That year, I became grounded in God’s Word, and 34 years later, I still have my verses down. They stay with you, and you’ll always use them.

I met the love of my life when working in the dish pit at the Bible Institute: Beverly Garber, now Beverly Duma. We’ve been married 32 years and have five sons, three daughters, and seven grandchildren. Three of our kids — David, Bryan, and Sarah — are Bible Institute graduates, and two grandsons — Daniel and Michael — are attending right now.

As for Beverly and me, we are stewards of a family business in Ohio. That is our ministry. We are called to support the Lord’s work and meet the needs of our employees. I also serve as a Sunday school teacher and elder at Maranatha Bible Church.

You cannot know the will of God unless you know the Word of God. God’s will is in His Word.

It was God’s Word that has shaped my life to where it is now, and it is God’s Word that can change your life, too.