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April 21, 2001
HOLLYWOOD ACTOR'S BORN-AGAIN MARRIAGE INSPIRES STRUGGLING COUPLES
By Mark Ellis
Senior Correspondent
ASSIST News Service
MISSION VIEJO, CA (ANS) -- Hollywood actor Bob Turnbull played everything from gun smugglers to Coast Guard captains on television and films like "Hawaii 5-0," "Cagney and Lacey," and "Tora Tora Tora." But there was one part he couldn't seem to get right - his marriage.
"We were miserable," Bob's wife, Yvonne says. In the 1980s, Yvonne was
the on-air nutritionist for "The 700 Club" TV show on CBN.
"We didn't know how to put a marriage together," she says.
"We didn't apply what the Word of God says."Clashing repeatedly, the couple had reached their lowest point when God gave each of them a message of hope. "God gave us the same scripture-Romans 15:13," Bob says. The 'Revised Turnbull Version' of Romans 15:13 says: "May the God of hope for your marriage fill you will all joy and peace in your marriage as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope for your marriage by the power of the Holy Spirit."
Bob received the verse while driving, and rushed home to share it with his wife. He discovered she received the same verse when she opened her Bible earlier in the day. "We both got goose-bumps-chicken skin." Bob says. "It was hardly a coincidence."
"God said things could be different if we trusted in him," Yvonne says. "We said, 'God-you're in charge.'" From this beginning, the husband and wife team have gone on to author nine books and travel thousands of miles bringing a message of hope to couples looking for practical ways to build lasting relationships.
Looking back, it was in Bob's Hollywood days that he first discovered the transforming power of Jesus Christ. Bob attended high school in San Diego with Dennis Hopper, the co-star of the 1960s classic "Easy Rider." "Dennis called up and said, 'Do you want to get into show business?' "I said, 'Yes.'"
"Then quit messing around in San Diego," Hopper said. "Come
up here and stay with me a month, I'll introduce you to my agent, and then
you're on your own." (Bob, shown right, with Jack Lord in Hawaii 5-0) "It was the propulsion I needed to go up there, but it shocked my mother," Bob says. His first picture, "Dragstrip Riot," he describes as a "beastly thing." Indeed, it was recently voted one of the worst movies of all time by the American Film Institute.
"At that time, Jesus Christ was just a swear word in my mouth, along with all the other swear words," Bob says. Neither Bob nor Yvonne had any church background whatsoever. But a funny thing happened while he was making a film on location in Malibu. He began to notice actress Yvonne Line (no relation to his wife), who just finished making "I Was A Teenage Werewolf" with Michael Landon.
"I thought I was going to make my moves-I was Mr. Lover boy," Bob says. "I was sitting next to her at lunch and I thought she was sick," he says. "She was leaning over her plate and I didn't know she was praying. It didn't make any sense to me because I'd never seen anybody pray."
"I grabbed her and said, 'Are you all right?'
"She said, 'Yes, I was praying.'" Bob laughed at her because he had never seen anybody praying. For three days he stayed away from her because he thought she was a "nut."
"When we did get together she invited me to go to a church camp called Forest Home, which sounded to me like a prison in the mountains," Bob says. He rode up to the camp with Henrietta Mears and another elderly woman. Mears was the legendary ministry leader at Hollywood Presbyterian Church.
"As we were driving up I thought, 'I can't believe these two old bags are dragging me up to this church camp." When he arrived, the people he saw at the camp surprised Bob.
"The whole thing was so powerful as I looked at the lives of these people," he says. "If this is true, it's incredible." He decided it was either true, or it was a joke. He decided to make a deal with God.
"I said, 'God, I'll give you one year to prove yourself,' and I accepted Jesus into my heart." It was only a matter of days before he was convinced. "Suddenly I had eyes to see and ears to hear, and I said, 'This is for real.'"
As Bob's relationship with Jesus Christ grew, his interest in the entertainment profession waned, until he decided to go into full-time Christian service. After becoming a college-career pastor at a Lutheran church in North Hollywood, he got an unusual opportunity.
In 1968 he became the college-career pastor of the Penthouse Church of Hawaii, which occupied the top floor of a high-rise overlooking Waikiki Beach. One day he was speaking to a group and looked down at the tourist throng on the beach. He decided, 'That's where all the people are-they need to be reached for Christ."
Bob made a vow to himself to start a beach service within one year, but soon discovered mountainous obstacles. "I found out a beach service was against state law, city law, the Dept. of Harbors, the Police Dept., and the Hotel Association," he says.
Most would have been discouraged, but one by one Bob started meeting with the governor, the mayor, and the police chief, miraculously receiving approval from each one to waive existing statutes. Finally he found himself in the office of the manager of the Hilton Hawaiian Village, the perfect beachfront location for the service envisioned by Bob. "One by one I told him all these existing laws had been waived or overruled," Bob says.
"He looked at me and said, 'Oh-so it's just you and me, huh?'
"All of a sudden he swung his chair around and looked out over the Pacific Ocean. He put his back to me and didn't say a word for about two minutes. Finally he swung around and I could see he had tears in his eyes." He pointed to the North Shore of Oahu.
"In a shaky voice he said, 'Bob, up there is my drug-crazed 18-year old son in a cave with his hippie friends. If you and your friends can reach kids like these with your Jesus, you have my permission.'"
After Bob spread the word through the rock stations in town, 400 showed up for the first Sunday service. Today, the beach service still goes on-31 years later. Governor John Burns gave Turnbull the honorary title of 'The Chaplain of Waikiki Beach.'
Bob met and married his wife, Yvonne, as a result of the beach service. She graduated from Washington State University, and decided to go to Hawaii for a few weeks on vacation.
"I was a new Christian," she says. "I liked Hawaii and decided to stay a little longer, but I had to find work." She heard about the beach service, and, being completely unchurched, decided, "Hey, this fits my lifestyle."
She attended once, and later was surprised when Bob walked into her office. Coincidentally, his office was right next-door. "He walked in one day when everyone was at lunch. Then I realized this good-looking guy was the one who preaches on the beach. I thought, 'I'll go!'
I started attending the service, and Bob and I began dating. He put me into a lot of classes for new believers." Three years later, they were married. Despite their strong faith, they soon discovered they were woefully unprepared for marriage.
"We played the game," Yvonne says. "We put on the mask and let everyone believe we were OK," she says. "Then we'd come home and put the boxing gloves on.
"Our personalities are strong, and there was always a power struggle. We were too prideful to ask for help. We were Christians in ministry. How could we tell anyone out lives were falling apart?" Yvonne asks.
But God met them at their lowest point, giving them a reason for hope contained in his Word--Romans 15:13. Things didn't change overnight for the couple, but it gave them a message things could be different if they trusted in God.
"We said let's start looking at scripture and applying it," Yvonne says. "We're very strong in our teaching about using the Word of God, but we're also very practical people, and always want to know how to apply it," she says. "We could give them tons of techniques apart from the Word of God, but it would have no power in it for real change."
"That's how we lived before," she says, referring to the fact that they knew the Word, but failed to apply it under the power of the Holy Spirit. "As God spoke to us he molded us together, taking two head-strong people, and turning us into a team. It took us submitting our wills to him on an on-going basis."
Bob and Yvonne find no greater joy than hopping on an airplane to travel throughout the country leading seminars for those with difficult marriages. "Our heart is for struggling couples, particularly younger couples," she says. "We want to ground them in the Word of God."
Both Bob and Yvonne now recognize the destructive power of the tongue. "I realize his holy presence is in her," Bob says. "That makes a difference in how we speak to each other," he says. "Before speaking I use Martin Luther's test: 'Is this kind, is this necessary, and is this true?"
A few years ago, Bob decided he would make an acting comeback, appearing in shows such as "L.A. Law," "Family Ties," and "Highway to Heaven." One morning, he left his house in Mission Viejo "before the chickens," deciding he would beat the traffic up to West Los Angeles, where they were filming a "Highway to Heaven" episode.
He pulled into the lot at the break of dawn, even before the production trucks arrived, and noticed one other car pull in at the same time. Presuming it was another actor, Bob went over to introduce himself. "As I put my hand out and said, 'Hello, I'm Bob Turnbull,' the man staggered back, sat down on a fire hydrant, and started sobbing."
"Is there something I can do for you?" Bob asked.
"The man said, 'This is incredible. Two days ago my wife told me she's filing for divorce. Yesterday my father and I decided our family company would have to file for bankruptcy. I asked, 'God-is there anybody you can send to help me?' " 'Now I look at you, and you led me to Christ 19 years ago at a youth rally in Portland, Oregon.'"
"That was an ordained hour," Bob says. "We had all day during breaks to talk and pray and cry and read the Bible," he says.
Bob believes in being alert to God-given opportunities. "Seize the moment," he says. "We need to go through those openings with full passion until God calls us home."
"I'm so thankful for where God has taken us," Yvonne says. "He worked on the inside of us. Now we really enjoy each other -- only God could do that."
For more information on the ministry of the Turnbull's go to their website at http://www.turnbullministries.org/.
____________________________________________________________________
Mark Ellis is a Senior Correspondent for ASSIST News Service. He is also the Assistant Pastor at Calvary Evangelical Free Church of Laguna Beach, CA. He grew up in Southern California and worked for 18 years in the commercial real estate industry before entering Christian ministry.
Note: JPEG pictures to illustrate this story are available on request from Dan Wooding at assistcomm@cs.com
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