Dave Mayberry

Hello and thank you for inquiring ‘about me’ … my life is now about HIM!

Growing up and attending high school in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, my main course of study was competitive athletics – mostly football, wrestling, and pole vaulting. I was fortunate to have great coaches; one in particular was my football coach, Bill Bartholomew, Coach Bart! With their help, I was all conference, won various championships, and was a team captain in all three sports.

Coach Bart knew many college coaches, one day a scout came knocking at my door, and I accepted a full scholarship to Iowa State University in Ames. I kept in contact with Coach Bart and he was there for me during my difficult times in college. Coming from a broken home, I had experienced a lot of anger and strife but very little fathering. During my freshman year, I met Stephanie Smith. At 19 years old, we fell in love and got married. This year, we celebrate our 47th anniversary.

When I graduated in 1968, I took a teaching and coaching job back in Milwaukee but by January of '72, things were not going as I had hoped. Coincidentally, that year I was given a book titled, “The Charismatic Movement in the Catholic Church.” Hungry for ‘something’ but not really knowing what, I devoured that book in two days. Soon afterward, I was invited to a prayer meeting in the basement of a convent. I attended alone and that night I found what I was after. I accepted Jesus as my Savior, was baptized in the Holy Ghost, and spoke in tongues. When I returned home, Stephanie didn’t know what to think of me! However, she came with me to the next meeting and the same thing happened to her.

I continued to teach and coach in Milwaukee for the rest of my career, 33 years, helping and encouraging the young men I encountered. During my final year, I was diagnosed with two cancers. The first was prostate cancer and just before the final medical procedure for that cancer, I was also diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s B cell Lymphoma. They found a tumor the size of my fist in the center of my chest that had collapsed my left lung. This same type of cancer had killed both my mother and uncle only a few years earlier! My future looked dim.

Although we prayed, I only saw things from the perspective of the grave. Stephanie, on the other hand, started talking to the Father and one weekend while I was heavily medicated and asleep, Father God woke Stephanie. He called her name, she contact me for the rest of the story