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Mrs. Jordan follows
the Lord into adventure

They met at Paramount Studios in Hollywood. A Marine and a young girl who both wanted to collect autographs from the movie stars. Yet Roy and Bettie Jordan's love for adventure and for the Lord carried them far from the world of Hollywood.

The summer she turned 15, Bettie Tubbs met Roy Jordan outside Paramount Studios. Mr. Jordan, 18, had come for the day from Marine boot camp at Camp Pendleton. He and Miss Tubbs started a conversation that lasted the six blocks to her home. As Miss Tubbs walked to her front door she thought, Hmm, Mrs. Bettie Jordan; that's not a bad name.

Mr. Jordan left for Alaska a week later. Miss Tubbs corresponded with Mr. Jordan during the 13 months he was stationed there. They married on on April 23, 1943, two years after Mr. Jordan returned to California. Miss Tubbs was 17 at the time and still in high school.

Mr. Jordan returned from the South Pacific in 1946, where he fought during WWII, and left the Marines. The Jordans moved to Van Nuys, Calif., with their first son, Roy D. Mr. Jordan took his family to First Baptist Church of Van Nuys. He gradually stopped attending church, however, and Mrs. Jordan returned to the Christian Science Church in which she had been raised.

Mr. Jordan's desire to play softball led them back to First Baptist. Ten years after the Jordans' initial visits, they received a call from First Baptist's visitation pastor, Royal Blue. He invited Mr. Jordan to play on the softball team. Their friendship grew, and Mr. Jordan returned to church.

On her third Sunday back at First Baptist, Mrs. Jordan sat in the pew, shaking with fury as she listened to the pastor speak against Christian Science. Her husband suggested they visit the adult Sunday school class. Here Mrs. Jordan found teaching combined with love. At the end of the year, she went forward and committed her life to Christ. Mrs. Jordan resigned from the Christian Science Church. She was later baptized.

While helping with Vacation Bible School, Mrs. Jordan heard a missionary couple speak about Italy. "I felt the Lord speaking to me, saying that we were going to be missionaries," Mrs. Jordan said. She wondered how this could be possible. Her husband had not received a similar call, and they had three children in school. However, she remembered this event and waited.

"When God is at work, He moves fast, and you just have to run to keep up with Him," Mrs. Jordan said. She and her husband did just that. In 1962 the Jordan's close friend, Pastor Blue, agreed to pastor a church in Redding, Calif. Mr. Jordan wanted to follow Pastor Blue and help establish the church. "How would you like to do it?" Mr. Jordan asked his wife.

"How soon?" she replied. In only a month, Mr. and Mrs. Jordan quit their jobs and sold their home.

The couple who purchased the Jordans' house showed up a day early. Thom Jordan, the Jordans' third child, remembered that this didn't bother his parents. "Extraordinary things happened, and Mom seemed pretty unflappable," he said.

This ability to remain calm in unusual situations would serve Mrs. Jordan well. Once in Redding, she and her husband agreed to run a campground in nearby Whiskey Town Lake on property donated to the church. Their house did not have electricity. Whenever Mr. Jordan traveled, sometimes for a week at a time, Mrs. Jordan held her family and the camp together on her own. On Sunday afternoons, Mr. Jordan liked to invite a few people over for dinner. Sometimes more than 50 people crowded into the Jordans' home.

Mrs. Jordan's daughter, Bettie Richards, remembered the day her mother found a snake coiled behind some jars in the pantry. A friend, trying to find out if the snake was poisonous, asked whether its eyes were pointed. Mrs. Jordan opened the pantry door, took one look and quickly closed it again. "Yes," she replied.

The Jordans also maintained a steady involvement in Pastor Blue's church. After moving to Redding, the Jordans had helped build the actual church building. Mrs. Jordan taught Sunday school and volunteered as church clerk. Mr. Jordan lay-preached at small mountain communities around Redding.

The Jordans maintained full-time jobs. Mrs. Jordan worked as a secretary for the U.S. National Forest Service. Mr. Jordan worked first for a Christian radio station and then for the local television station.

As a result of his lay-preaching experiences, Mr. Jordan felt the Lord leading him into full-time ministry. On Pastor Blue's recommendation, Mr. Jordan applied to Multnomah Bible College in Portland, Ore.

The day they moved out of their house in Redding, Mr. Jordan received his acceptance letter from Multnomah.

In 1969, nearly seven years after following Pastor Blue to Redding, the Jordans moved to Portland, Ore., and started a new adventure.

"Starting over on everything never bothered her," Thom Jordan said of his mother. "She was always ready to move on."

In Portland, Mrs. Jordan helped support the family. She transferred to the U.S. National Forest Service's local office. She typed a professor's dissertation during the evenings and took night classes at Multnomah.

While at Multnomah, the Jordans developed a friendship with Dick Patty, who worked with Overseas Christian Servicemen's Centers, now Cadence International. After Mr. Jordan graduated in 1972, Mrs. Jordan suggested they apply to this mission. She remembered the Lord's prompting in Van Nuys. "I wanted to go overseas so badly I could taste it," Mrs. Jordan said.

The Jordans received their acceptance from OCSC that same year. They left for the Philippines nine months later.

My mother "gave up everything she had to do things for the Lord," the Jordans' daughter, Mrs. Richards, said.

"From the moment I walked down the aisle of the church to make a public confession of my faith, God has just taken me on a fabulous adventure," Mrs. Jordan said. Her adventure started in Hollywood and has carried her around the world.

Mr. and Mrs. Jordan served with OCSC in the Philippines, Thailand, Okinawa, England and Germany. After Mr. Jordan died of a heart attack in 1986, Mrs. Jordan returned to Portland, Ore. where she now works at MBC in the campus bookstore.

Mrs. Jordan works at the campus bookstore.-Carolyn Stent, photo