A Tribute to my Father
I wrote this tribute and it was read by my brother Joel at his funeral service in Siloam Springs, AR.
Dr. Roger J. Andrus was born on October 17, 1915 and died on December 13, 2006. He and my mother celebrated their 67th wedding anniversary one week earlier. My dad was over 91 years old, which seems like a miracle since he nearly died of a heart attack thirty-three years ago. He had bypass surgery twice, endured countless seizures over the past ten years, broke his hip last summer, and recently broke several ribs, puncturing a lung and leading to his final hospitalization. We teased him about being the Energizer Bunny. He just kept going and going and going (yes, he had an enlarged prostate, too).
My dad has taught me more than anyone else I know about seeking first God’s kingdom and righteousness. The family I grew up in was very poor financially. I was born in a housing project in Dallas during World War II while my dad was in seminary at Dallas Theological Seminary. The third of five children, I was two years of age when we moved to St. Louis, and for five years we lived in a small flat in the 4000 block of Washington, an area often called the armpit of St. Louis. We lived in rental houses or parsonages throughout all my years at home, and even though we were surprised with a lovely parsonage on a private street in Clayton during my high school years, we were without doubt the poorest people in that upscale neighborhood.
While my folks never had much money, they were a wonderful example of godly contentment. Dad pastored three churches and served on the faculty and administration of Calvary Bible College for 28 years. He and Mom gave much more than a tithe every year, took in missionaries, and generally focused their entire lives on serving God and others. I never heard my folks worry about their savings (it’s hard to worry about something you don’t have) or turn anyone away because they had nothing to give.
When my father finally retired after nearly 50 years of ministry, I believe his net worth was less than $50,000, and that included his sizeable collection of fishing lures. His modest pension ended at age 70. So when my folks finally retired, the children formed a corporation called Andrus, Jones, and Stoy to help buy my parents a little two-bedroom home in a Christian community on Beaver Lake near Eureka Springs, AR. We each paid $75 a month in order to meet the mortgage.
About five years into this arrangement my Dad got word one day that a great aunt of his in Chicago had died. She had no children, and because my mom and dad had been so kind to her, she left them half of her estate. Dad not only repaid all of us kids but was able to pay off the mortgage on their home. For the past 20 years they have lived comfortably, though not luxuriously, on the proceeds of that estate. That, friends, is Matthew 6:33 in action: “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”
Several things stand out to me about my Dad. First, I never once in my 60+ years heard him raise his voice at my mother. If he was ever upset with her, he did not show it in front of us kids. Furthermore, I have never known anyone who followed the Scripture more faithfully in regard to the command, “let your speech be seasoned with salt….” Not once in my life have I heard my father use the Lord’s name in vain or use any kind of a swear word. He wouldn’t even utter Christianized slang like “gosh,” “gee whiz,” “jiminy Christmas,” “heck,” or “darn.” I never heard him tell anyone off. He was a model of godly character and meekness.
My dad had an incredible spirit of forgiveness. I was teaching at Calvary Bible College when the Board of the College released him. He was 59 and recovering from a heart attack and bypass surgery at the time. Calvary had been Dad’s life for nearly three decades, and the loss of that ministry was extremely hard for him, but I never heard him express any bitterness toward anyone. He always followed Jesus’ example in that “he kept entrusting himself to Him who judges rightly.”
After recovering his health Dad worked for two years as a church representative for International Mission, and then returned to the pastorate for eight years at Community Bible Church in Omaha, Nebraska, before retiring to Eureka Springs. He continued to preach regularly for about ten more years at Lone Star Bible Chapel just south of Eureka Springs. He impacted thousands of lives and made lasting friends in all of these ministries.
My Dad had countless friends. Students from the Bible College as far back as the 40’s have regularly kept in touch, telling him how much his classes and friendship meant to them. The hospitality my folks regularly showed to students, missionaries, visiting preachers, and ordinary lay people will never be forgotten.
Dad would undoubtedly point to his family as his greatest legacy. My parents have a personal family of over 50 individuals–five children, 17 grandchildren, and over 25 great-grandchildren. In their extended family there has not been a single divorce (and only a few attempted murders!). God has so blessed Mom and Dad that not one of their descendants preceded them in death. Not one person has experienced cancer or any other debilitating disease. We give God all the praise, but my Dad’s faithfulness was surely evident.
The proof of my Dad’s love for the Lord and for the Lord’s work is seen in the fact that despite our family’s relative poverty, and without any pressure from him, four of his five children entered the ministry, two as pastors, one as a pastor’s wife, and one as a Christian college professor. Without a doubt his greatest joy in recent years came when my sister Mary and her husband Rob came back to Lord after 40 years of wandering at Easter, 2005. Mom and Dad had prayed for them virtually every day during those decades. Dad’s response at the news was to quote the prophet Simeon from Luke 2: “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation.” From that moment on, Dad has been ready, at times even anxious, to leave this earthly existence and enter the joy of His Lord.
I bear the strongest possible witness to the fact that Roger Joel Andrus was a good and godly man, a faithful husband, and a loving father. Enter into the joy of thy Lord!