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James Schoenrock and His Amazing Memory

James Schoenrock’s life story is full of names, dates, places, and events that he has no trouble recalling at the age of 85. His memory is remarkable. In the mid-70s, he and his family began attending my church, Antioch in Conway, Arkansas, but I had no idea he was director of Missions (now BMA Global) during that time but likely wouldn’t have understood what that meant anyway. I just knew he was gone a lot. Decades later I would understand why.  

The following article was published in 2021 by  Baptist Progress, and I’m grateful for this comprehensive profile of a man I now consider a friend.

Few preachers have been more miles and served in wider scopes in 75 years of ministry in God’s kingdom than James Schoenrock. In addition to his eleven pastorates spanning over sixty years, Schoenrock was the first full time ABS (Association of Baptist Students) director at Southern Arkansas University in Magnolia, Arkansas, taught extension courses for BMA seminary, and served as Missions (now BMA Global) director for nine years. 

James Vestal Schoenrock was born in Whitharral, Texas, in 1937 where both his parents were raised. The Baptists and Methodists there alternated Sundays in a church building: James’s father was Methodist, his mother Baptist. Helmer Alec Schoenrock was a sharecropper, and by the time their four children (James, Joyce, Helen, and John) came along, they were attending Fifth Street in Levelland, Texas. 

Helmer Schoenrock surrendered to ministry in 1945 and moved his family to Jacksonville, Texas, where he enrolled at Jacksonville College then accepted a pastorate in Mabank, Texas, where James was saved and baptized. In the years to come, the elder Schoenrock pastored churches in Odessa, Seminole, Winters and Grand Saline. 

In 1949, at the age of twelve, James surrendered to preach while his father was pastoring First in Grand Saline, Texas. Brother Charlie Hall was preaching a revival when Schoenrock preached his first message: “The Broad Way and the Narrow Way.” 

Schoenrock  graduated from Odessa High School in 1956, attended Odessa Junior College, and transferred to Jacksonville College where he met Wilma Seago. They were married in 1958, then he was was ordained by First at Jacksonville, Texas, the same church that had ordained his father a few years earlier. His first pastorate was at Opelika, followed by Macedonia at Etoile. 

One of the highlights of pastoring at Etoile, he says, came during a revival  Harold (Smiley) Burns was preaching and Jerry Burnaman came forward on profession of faith. Schoenrock baptized him that week and not long  after, Jerry Burnaman (former BMA missions director) surrendered his life to ministry. 

He graduated from Stephen F. Austin in 1960 then was called to pastor at Bethel in Clayton. During that time, he and John W. Duggar carpooled to BMA Seminary on Tuesdays and Thursdays while Schoenrock worked at JCPenney in Nacogdoches and Duggar at Safeway Foods in Jacksonville. A three-time graduate of BMA Seminary, he earned a master’s degree and two bachelor of divinity degrees.  Schoenrock taught on campus at BMA Seminary, an extension course at New Hope in Mineola, and at Columbia Bible College in Arkansas, where he also served as Columbia’s president after the death of E.B Jones.

Clearly, he places a high value on Christian education.

Before he became the BMA’s assistant missions director for Bro. Craig Branham, he pastored College View in Magnolia, Arkansas, First at Red Oak, and Central at Lubbock. After Branham’s resignation two years later, Schoenrock became executive director in 1979. 

One of his first assignments was to fly around the world visiting mission fields. Branham told him he had to get acquainted with our missions at home and abroad, so he took a one-month trip around the globe—three weeks with Burnaham, then two weeks on his own. 

Schoenrock remembers details of his mission field experiences like a trip to Australia with Lynn Stevens when he was stranded in Hong Kong for five days after the Taiwan flight was canceled and with no way to contact anyone about his location. He also remembers traveling the hills of Mexico with Buddy Johnson and crossing streams in the Philippines and tries to stay in touch with retired missionaries and their widows. 

Two years after he began serving at the missions office, the BMA elected him as director. His associates were Don Collins (interstate missions director) and Jerry Kidd (foreign missions director). After nine years of serving as BMA missions director, he stepped down to pastor Wakefield Baptist Church in Little Rock. Later he pastored at First in Springhill, Louisiana, then Calvary at Mesquite, and now Sheppards Drive in Euless, where he has served twenty years. 

In addition to his time on the mission field, teaching students, and pastoring, Schoenrock has held many leadership positions in the BMA work including serving as BMA America and BMA Texas moderator and parliamentarian of both Texas and national BMA associations. He also served on the BMA Global (formerly BMA Missions) advisory board for two decades. In 2021, Schoenrock was presented the Jacksonville College Distinguished Alumni Award.

James Schoenrock loves people, remembers their names, and shows genuine interest in their stories. His numerous relationships and knowledge of people keep him busy preaching the funerals of his friends, co-ministry workers, and church members like John and Harriet Elliot, M.S. Arrington, Craig Branham, and Jerry Burnaman. 

Shoenrock’s profile would not be complete without mentioning his family. 

The Lord blessed him and Wilma with three children: David, Tammie (Davis), and Randy, whom the Lord called home on January 14, 2021.

When I began serving at the BMA Global Missions Center ten years ago, he called me by name at a conference and told me he had been reading my articles. I hadn’t seen him in years, but he remembered my maiden name and other details. Our conversations always conclude with a hug. His interest in me and his encouragement are a blessing.

James Schoenrock says, “People want you to know about them, and the more you know about them, the better equipped you are to minister to them.” His life reflects his own advice. 

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A Short Term Mission Trip Changes Two Lives Forever

Miriam had already been accepted to Toronto Film School in Canada when God gave her a clear calling to serve in the Himalayas . . . all because of a short-term mission trip she took a month before classes began. 

Raised in a Christian home and saved at a young age, her parents provided a strong foundation of faith. Before school film school began her parents encouraged her to go on a short term mission trip while she was still able to. A family in her church was serving in the Himalayas, so she visited the country, and it changed the course of her life.

She says, “We went into the villages sharing the gospel with those who had never heard it before and praying and encouraging the believers that had.” Miriam had just come out of a small, dark room where several local villagers and foreigners were praying together, each in their own language. When her eyes adjusted to the light outside the dark clay hut,  she looked out into the mountains and asked herself a question that had popped into her mind: “Miriam, will you come back? Her immediate thought was, “Yes!” Although she had been accepted to film school, she canceled the plans she had desperately wanted to do and followed God to serve him overseas.

She always had a heart for the marginalized, but it was a love for the lost and a burden to share the gospel that called her back to the country long term. And at the same time, Jacob, a  seminary student from Texas, had decided to answer the call to missions that he had felt since a short-term mission trip at the age of fourteen. 

Jacob’s first mission trip had confirmed the same calling: Being part of missions was God’s desire as well as his own. Now in his mid-twenties and unsure what God was shaping him for, he says, “During that first trip to the Himalayas and seeing the needs and opportunities, I knew it was what God wanted of me. So I moved home immediately, got rid of all my stuff, and prepared for a long term stay.” 

Their separate journeys had brought them together in the Himalayan mountains.

After meeting and serving together, they began a two-year friendship, realizing that they had the same beliefs and ministry vision. Their friendship continued and grew even more as they  grieved together following the tragic loss of two close friends. She began to realize they had different perspectives on their friendship, and three months after their returns to Canada and the U.S, Miriam told Jacob her feelings had changed: She was interested in more than just friendship.  

Her admission was followed by a flurry of activity that included prayer, plane tickets, and meeting parents. In January of 2020, they were engaged, then wedding plans were complicated by visa issues, cancellations, and a failed border crossing due to Covid restrictions. Finally, in May of 2020 they were married.

Their purpose – serving the lost – had not changed, but one thing would be different. They had shared the gospel for two years and loved it but realized the sharing and seeing new conversions is not where the work should end. New believers needed discipleship to help  grow and mature into faithful followers of Christ that would produce healthy fruit. Some appeared to be “converts” but never truly followed Christ or found a church. Demon possessed leaders were working in God’s name and training pastors and leaders to do the same. They wanted to go back, this time as a couple, to help with the problem. 

In July of 2022 their son was born while they were still in the country. They are currently back in the States speaking at churches and raising support. 

In a way that only God could have orchestrated, their burden for the people in this creative access country unites them, making their love story all the more beautiful. 

Go to https://app.securegive.com/BMAMissions/main/donate/category if you are interested in supporting this family.

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2023 Legacy Missionaries: On the Cutting Room Floor #3-Ruth Bowman

While in the process of opening a hospital in Honduras, pregnant women often asked Bobby Bowman to deliver their babies there even before it was ready. Compared to the conditions under which most women had to give birth, it was at least clean and sterile, so medical staff agreed to do so.

One of those mothers arrived at the hospital one day with labor pains and said to Bowman, “I have a story to tell you, doctor. The baby I had before this one died because I wasn’t able to take care of him and give him enough nutrition. I can’t provide for this baby either, so can you take it and raise it?”

Obviously a shocking question for him since Bobby was 48, and Ruth was 50, he told her he would have to consult with his wife. The girl’s pains had stopped, so  she left to stay with a friend nearby until labor began again.  

Four days later she returned, this time in active labor, and Bobby delivered the baby, a boy, on June 1, 1984. It was a date Ruth and Bobby would never forget. 

“It was love at first sight,” Ruth said. “Bobby knew my answer without having to ask. Tommy was a wonderful child to us, obedient and good.” Today Tommy Bowman owns a catering business in Arkansas. He and his wife and children live not far from Ruth and Bobby. 

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2023 Legacy Missionaries: On the Cutting Room Floor #3: Ruth Bowman

Missionary Ruth Bowman went to the mission field in 1976 after two of her children were grown and gone and her youngest, Lisa, had two more years of high school. Ruth’s husband Bobby had retired from Naval service as a corpsman, where his assignments were all over the world, so his family could not accompany him. Their children had attended ten different schools during that time, so after his retirement she was grateful for the stability of being in one place.

But that only lasted seven years.  

Bobby Bowman had been pastoring churches and working in ministry after his retirement when he felt God calling him to Central America where he could use his medical skills and plant churches. But Ruth did not feel  the same. She says, “I did not want to go to Honduras, and I cried all the way down there. But when I had to leave it years later, I cried all the way back.” 

After their arrival, the Bowmans realized the medical needs in Honduras were many, and plans had begun for an orphanage that would eventually be turned into a hospital to better serve Hondurans. When another building was purchased to convert into a hospital, an orphanage was built, and Ruth worked with the children there. The Bowmans’ apartment was attached to the orphanage, so they came to Ruth for help. 

The orphanage became her passion and God burdened her heart for the abandoned children who lived there. Some of them had handicaps, so she helped them learn to walk. Some needed help with their schooling. Others just needed love.

Ruth said, “When I worked with the children in the orphanage, I began loving our work in Honduras and the children who needed me. I was their mama, and to this day, they still call and send cards and ask me how I’m doing.” God changed her heart so she could be the hands and feet of Jesus.

Bobby and Ruth left Honduras in 1995, where they had planted nine churches, built a medical clinic, and started a Bible institute. Later, he established BMMI, Baptist Medical Missions International, that hosts medical clinics around the world. In April of 2023, Bobby and Ruth Bowman will be honored for their missionary legacy.

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