David's Personal Information

Birthday: June 7, 1958  Date saved: July 1974. Anniversary: October 1994

I was born in Charleston, South Carolina on June 7, 1958 to Ramona and Russell Cox (both of Andrews South Carolina).

My Mom and Dad 

Both of my parents are now deceased. They are both with the Lord. They were members in good standing at my home church, Ferndale Baptist Church, N. Charleston, South Carolina. My father worked at the Charleston Naval Shipyard as a Planner and Estimater until he retired. My father had a Sunday School class for adult men in Ferndale for many years. He also helped in pulpit supply for small country churches. My mom was a housewife for many years, and finally got involved in painting, then later started working for a studio putting color on a black and white photos. She was an artist. After that she entered the Charleston Naval Shipyard also until she retired. She had cancer in 1990, and died in 1992.

My brother and sisters

I have one brother, Merrill Cox (Goose Creek SC) who is a lawyer, and two sisters, Susan Bard (Chicago IL) who is a homemaker and nurse, and Cindy Lynch (Goose Creek SC) who is a Christian school teacher. Merrill is married to DeeDee with three kids, Susan is married to Norval Bard with two kids, and Cindy is married to Richard Lynch with two kids. All four of us went through Bob Jones University.

My home church and Salvation

I grew up in a Christian home and in a Baptist church. We originally attended a Southern Baptist Church in Charleston, but somewhere are 1964 we moved our membership to Ferndale Baptist Church, which was also a Southern Baptist Church at that time, but pulled out of the Southern Baptist Convention by the 1970's. We were briefly under a Pastor Moore (which I remember little of him because of my age), and last Dr. Bob Besancon came to Ferndale as pastor. He just recently retired in 2003. The new pastor is Dr. Tommy Wheeler.

When we changed churches, our family went forward for membership. I did not understand much then (being about 5-6 years old), but when they asked if I was saved, I answered yes without much understanding. They baptized thereafter. In our family, my dad insisted on us attending church faithfully. We attended the youth activities also. In this time God worked in my heart to bring me to salvation. God used my Sunday School teachers and classes as well as the sermons to give me a good foundation in Bible.

I attended the Wilds Christian Camp in the summers of 1973-75. During this time in my life God moved my heart to concern me about my salvation. Although I knew how to be saved (in fact we were taught how to lead a person to Christ in both Ferndale and the Wilds, and I even went out witnessing with both), I never really had accepted the Lord after understanding how to be saved. During that first summer camp in 1973, God put me under great conviction, although I did not do anything about it. The next summer I went forward to talk to a counselor, and I made my decision to accept Christ as my Savior. 

The next summer I returned to the Wilds. During my three summers at the Wilds I attended George Jensen's missionary presentations. Brother Jensen was a missionary in Uruguay and he came each summer to show slides of Uruguay and the churches, school, and camp ministry there. I was greatly interested in the stories and the slides of people of another country. In High School I took Spanish, and while one year the teacher was knew Spanish well, the next year the teacher did not. This teacher made us write papers on Spanish speaking countries, and I chose Mexico. All of this the Lord used to guide me and call me into missions. During that last summer at the Wilds, God gave me a definite burden and call for Mexico.

Education 

I attended public schools until college. At this time in Charleston there were not Christian schools that my parents knew of. Because of the tensions in the public school system in our area (integration and busing caused a lot of conflict), I decided to skip my last year of high school. Actually I took elective courses from my first year in high school, and our public school system ended elementary school at 7th grade, and put 8th graders into the high school. I took Art class, and 9th grade English in the 8th grade, and each year I elected to not have a "study hall" and take a class instead. This allowed me to graduate a year early from high school.

Bob Jones University

In 1975 I entered Bob Jones University. I graduated in 1979 with a BA in Christian Missions with a Greek minor. Mom and dad told me that I could continue studying if I so desired so I stayed on and worked on a Masters in Bible (1981), and a Masters in Educational Administration and Supervision (1982). I was going to go for a doctorate. I ended up with about 96 hours of graduate work in Bible and Education (a doctorate is about 90). I decided in 1982 to finish my studies and leave Bob Jones.

During most of my years at Bob Jones I was a "preacher boy" (their term for somebody in preparation for the ministry), so I weekly participated in Christian service activities. I worked in everything from a local church to nursing homes to Christian servicemen's center to door to door evangelism to bus and children's ministries to summer mission teams. In the summer of 1976 I went to Mexico for 2 months with a group of Bob Jones students to help missionary Milton Martin in Puebla Mexico. We traveled all the way down to the border of Mexico with Guatemala, and around the center of the country doing evangelism, showing Christian films, and helping in churches, a print ministry, and a correspondence ministry.

Internship at Harvest Baptist Church

When I graduated from Bob Jones I returned home to live with my parents for a while. During this time (June 1982 - May 1983) I worked construction and got involved in a local church in the area (Harvest Baptist Church). My idea was that they had opportunities for me to preach and teach (they had positions which they didn't have people to fill) which were not available at Ferndale. During this short period of time, I went on church staff at Harvest, became church secretary for a few months, and then became assistant pastor. My duties were all the children's and bus ministries, starting an AWANA program for them, starting and running a Church bookstore, organizing a Bible Institute, and being in charge of various other ministries (head of College and Career Sunday School class of 70, head of counting committee, head of missions committee, liaison between Pastor and the missionaries, just about anything else anybody wanted done, etc).

I made another 4 week trip to Mexico in February of 1983, and after that (April) I resigned my position at Harvest and started deputation to go to Mexico as I had agreed with the Pastor that I would do shortly when I went on church staff there.

David's Ministry (formative, early years)

Updated on 02/02/08
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