About The Author
Frank W. Olive brings the reader along on his search spanning four decades to find God's True Church...
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I was born July 24, 1958, of young and hardworking parents, my paternal grandparents were members of the Sardis Era Church of God. My ancestors had emigrated from Ireland and Germany to the New World, before the United States became a nation. My family name Oliff, became anglicized into Olive long before the family emigrated to the New World. The name Oliff in Ireland is thought to be a result of early Norse settlement in the Isle of Destiny which in itself is an anglicization of Inis Fáil, a poetic nickname for Ireland.
I was born in Portland, Oregon and at the time I was the second largest baby ever born in that hospital, weighing in at 11 pounds, 11 ounces. A few years after my birth my parents relocated to my maternal grandparents farm in the midwest, an area known as "Little Egypt". The earliest memories that I can recall occurred on that farm in Southern Illinois. We lived on a modest 125 acre farm, with seven ponds and a creek that ran along the "bottom" land. I remember scampering through the woods gathering black walnuts and raspberries, watching the cattle and goats graze in the pastures and helping tend our bountiful garden.
My maternal grandparents were not members of a church and there was not a Church of God in the area of our farm but my grandmother saw to it that I attended church most Sundays. My search for the One True Church had it's beginning when I reached the age of eleven, it was that year that I achieved a perfect attendance record for the entire year. The following years I attended various churches, filled with a desire to find something that I could not fully comprehend yet at that early age. Still the desire was earnest and heartfelt.
The five years between the ages of eleven and sixteen greatly shaped my life. During this period I developed ambition and a desire to be successful in what ever endeavor I was currently partaking in. I worked mainly agricultural jobs, what ever work a local farmer would allow a youth of my age to do. I continued visiting various churches and denominations when ever I would receive an invitation to do so, from the hellfire and brimstone sermons in a Southern Baptist congregation to the orderly services of a Jehovah's Witness "Kingdom Hall" and all manner of "mainstream" groups such as the Church of Christ.
By the time of my sixteenth birthday my desire to be successful was firmly entrenched but the stark reality of being a youth of sixteen, living in "farm country" with "real" accomplishment years in the future, started to sink in. I had to come up with a plan, a way to "jumpstart" my road to success and accomplishment. The Vietnam war was still underway, the draft was in full force, recruiting efforts for military service ran high. I visited an Army recruiter and an Air Force recruiter, both turned me away, one stated I was not yet eighteen years of age and the other said I needed a High School diploma.
Promptly I visited the Marine Corps and Navy recruiters and both seemed willing to accept virtually anyone. I worked diligently on persuading my grandparents to allow me to join the service and sign my paperwork and at last they finally agreed.
I joined the United States Navy at the age of sixteen, passed my exams with a GCT/ARI score that qualified me for Officer Candidate School and waited for my seventeenth birthday to arrive, so that I could go on "active" duty. Six days after my seventeenth birthday I left for boot camp. I attended boot camp in Orlando, Florida and immediately following boot camp I was off to two schools, the first in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and the second in San Diego, California.
I had turned down the Navy's offer of Officer Candidate School with it's ten year obligation in lieu of a four year obligation (which I later extended). My first duty assignment was a ship homeported out of Charleston, South Carolina, two more ships, also homeported out of Charleston would follow. During this time I married and started a family and my grandparents moved from "Little Egypt" and purchased a home close to mine.
One Sunday morning I first saw Herbert W. Armstrong on television, his sermon made quite an impression on me. I continued to "tune in" as often as I could to learn more from this man, I was amazed at his understanding and soon came to believe he was truly an apostle (one sent). I sent in for booklets and started the Bible Correspondence Course, soon I came to believe that participating in warfare and being in the military were wrong. By the time my enlistment ended I had visited forty two countries, had made three Caribbean cruises, a Middle East cruise, a Mediterranean cruise, a North Atlantic cruise and a South America cruise.
Before the age of twenty one I was well on my way in a career if I wanted it, and had seen a large part of the world in person. I did not reenlist as a matter of conscience. I visited a few local churches in an attempt to find a "church home", but I could soon see that while they had a little bit of the truth, they also held much error in their teachings. I started my own advertising business when I got out of the military and while I had much success I also had times of famine. After about a year I accepted the position of sales manager with a local company. I remember clearly one day the owner speaking about his "nutty" secretary, who refused to work on Saturday and had all sorts of holidays that were not normal, and above all she did not believe in Christmas or Easter.
I spoke to the secretary and learned that she attended the World Wide Church of God, we discussed the television program and Mr. Armstrong. I was well on my way to having a minister speak with me and being invited to attend services.
It has been a long road since then and that is best left for discussion in the blog. I hope you find it edifying.
Warm regards,
Frank W. Olive