This is the story of an ordinary man who has inspired countless individuals around the world with his devotion to the Baptist church and his belief in the goodness of people. Robert Garber, once a young hot-rodding farmboy, married his high school sweetheart and started his adulthood as a soft drink salesman before heeding his call from God. He has traveled the world to spread his understanding of God and endured tragedy, loss, and heartache that tested his faith to the limits over his storied lifetime. Pastor Bob has inspired thousands through the numerous churches he has founded and led throughout the Pennsylvania region, and he continues to touch the lives of many near and far.

Tracks: The Call of an Average Man to be More

The Biography of Pastor Robert GarberBy Huy Ngo

Trafford Publishing

Copyright © 2012 Huy Ngo
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4669-3011-7

Contents

Introduction...............................................ixChapter 1. Life on the Farm................................1Chapter 2. Growing Up After Growing Up.....................14Chapter 3. Those First Steps...............................23Chapter 4. The Trail of Churches...........................42Chapter 5. Across the World................................50Chapter 6. A Need, An Opportunity..........................71A Dark Time................................................82Back in Step...............................................95Afterword..................................................105Index......................................................109

Chapter One

Life on the Farm

Robert Garber was born on September 8, 1934, in Ironville, Pennsylvania. His future wife, Ginny, was born on April 6, 1935, in nearby Norwood, Pennsylvania. Both small towns are part of the Columbia area of Pennsylvania's Lancaster County where there is a large community of Pennsylvania Dutch Amish and Mennonites.

Bob's parents, Elmer Herr and Ethel Mae Garber, were both active Christians. Elmer was a member of the local Mennonite Church while Ethel attended the nearby United Brethren Church. The family was always partaking in some church activity, but Bob and his family primarily attended his mother's church because she was more active there than his father was in his. Moreover, the United Brethren Church was only a block away from his school, so Bob could also hang out with his buddies and classmates who also attended United Brethren.

Elmer Garber owned two properties in Ironville, a small twenty-five-acre farm and a larger 117-acre farm. The Garber family initially lived in the smaller plot and grew wheat and tobacco. Tenant farmers worked the larger farm until the Garbers moved onto it when Bob was fifteen years old. Here, the family grew corn and raised dairy cattle. They sold the milk to the nearby Hershey company. In early spring, when the cows would find and eat wild garlic in the meadow, the Hershey company would reject and return the garlic-tainted milk, but Bob and his siblings never minded because the family would churn that milk into ice cream (enough chocolate syrup would mask any tinge of garlic in the frozen treat).

The tobacco grown on the large farm was part of a four-year rotation that saw wheat, then hay, then corn, and finally back to tobacco. Tomatoes were a side crop, which they sold to Heinz and other companies to make ketchup and tomato soup. Later on, the Garbers would raise "broilers," large chickens that were popularly for barbecuing.

Elmer was quite well-known in the area for being one of the first around to buy a farm tractor, a "Farmall A" model built by International. Furthermore, he made rigs to tow plows and harrows behind tractors. Elmer often helped prepare people's gardens during the planting season by tilling them with his farm tractor. This solidified his popularity among the community.

Growing up in rural Pennsylvania, Bob attended a small two-room school where they had four classes in each room. His mother developed one of the first hot-lunch programs for public schools in the area. What a treat it was to get hot soup from the lunch wagon along with a quarter pint of chocolate milk or orange drink. Ethel volunteered to prepare the food while the local municipalities helped with the food costs.

There was always work to do on the farm. Bob helped with the tobacco harvest by dropping the lathe from the back of a tractor. By the time Bob was five, he was running farm equipment. He pulled the hay rake and hauled hay. He drove his dad's Farmall tractor, pulling a harrow and disc to till the fields. As he progressed in age, farm equipment progressed as well. Turning ten, Bob drove the bigger Farmall H tractor, which pulled the new John Deere combine or a New Holland baler. The cattle needed milking, which he did by hand all the way through eighth grade. Then, high school brought the advent of mechanical milking to the Garber farm, which took a load off Bob.

Life wasn't all work though. Chicken egg fights often broke out with his three siblings in the chicken coup. Hunting was part of life and leisure on the farm. Bob employed a single-shot .410 shotgun and help from his dad's pack of well-trained beagles to hunt wild turkey, pheasant, squirrel, and rabbit. Squirrel potpie was normal table fair at the farmhouse, and rabbits shot in the fall helped get the family through the winter. Bob usually shot seventy-five to eighty-five rabbits in a season. That feat was made easier when his father bought him a twenty-gauge double-barrel shotgun.

Besides hunting, the Garber kids played baseball in their fields and basketball with the hoop nailed to the side of the barn. They even broke out the nets and racquets for badminton and mallets for croquet after mowing the lawn.

Entertainment usually came from doing something as opposed to watching something. Bob wasn't against television or anything like that. Television just wasn't invented when he was born. TV entered the scene when Bob entered his teens. He and his uncle Johnny, who lived on the farm with them, hooked up their first set together and patted each other on the back one foggy night when they managed to get a picture from WBAL TV in Baltimore just by adjusting the aerial out on the porch of their farmhouse.

In high school, Bob was a member of the 4-H Club [See Figure 1], an agricultural youth organization similar to the Boy or Girl Scouts. "Four H" stood for "Head, Heart, Health, and Hands." As part of the club, he bought his own Ayrshire cow and learned how to train and prepare his cow for show competitions.

Every fall, the club selected several of its members to form various judging teams. Bob tried for the dairy judging team and was selected. His father didn't think he would make the team because he was the youngest one trying out. Much to his father's chagrin, Bob shipped off to State College with his teammates to compete in the dairy judging competition. The judging team was evaluated on how they assessed and presented the attributes of their cows. He had to learn the judging criteria and lingo, such as "the cow had balance of symmetry," "she had good utters," and "she stood good at the withers." Bob was a quick study, and the terminology flowed from his mouth like a mountain spring.

Bob was determined to win the competition, and his team from Lancaster County beat out fifty-three other county teams that year to take home the championship trophy. On top of the team honor, Bob also won personal honors as a lead judge. The youngest member of the Lancaster County team demonstrated overwhelming self-confidence during his presentation. Bob won despite transposing two of the four cattle; the man judging Bob told him that despite the two mistakes, Bob's presentation was so convincing that he scored him higher anyhow. That award was the first formal recognition of one of Bob's greatest gifts, the gift of gab.

Bob led a productive and sometimes carefree life at the farmhouse, working and playing with two brothers and a sister. By the time he reached his teens, though, the farm was a lonely place. World War 2 had broken out, and his older brothers answered their country's call. His eldest brother, Richard, served in the US Navy PT-boats with John F. Kennedy. After the navy, Richard bought their...