Plane mechanic finds calling at Wayland

Posted: 3/17/06

Plane mechanic finds calling at Wayland

By Jonathan Petty

Wayland Baptist University

SAN ANTONIO—When Bill Lord arrived at Wayland Baptist University’s San Antonio campus, he had no idea what awaited him.

He had spent more than 30 years working as a mechanic on helicopters and airplanes and was in line for a manager’s position with a major company’s maintenance department.

Ironically, Lord’s supervisor encouraged him to return to school and complete his degree to move up the career ladder.

But while studying in Old Testament and New Testament classes, Lord felt something he wasn’t expecting.

“Wayland requires Old and New Testament courses,” Lord said. “I thought I would get them out of the way first. That was probably where I began to recognize that maybe it wasn’t me who decided to go to Wayland, but I was being led to Wayland.”

Lord originally chose Wayland, knowing it was a faith-based institution, to experience something a little different than what he had known in the past.

“My whole life has been airplanes and helicopters,” he said. “That’s all I’ve known since I left home and joined the Marine Corps. They introduced me to helicopters, and from there my career has been nothing but that. I chose Wayland to get away from that a little bit. What’s the point of going to school if not to expand your horizons?”

Although Lord felt a call in his early classes at Wayland, he still wasn’t convinced he was called to ministry. As he continued through his course work, however, the call became more evident.

“It was a calling-out process,” he said. “The Lord separated me from that cultural stream that I was in. He kind of carved me out of that and set me up on the bank. All of a sudden, I was on the outside of the stream looking in.”

That’s when Lord realized God was preparing him for something different.

After graduating earlier this year at age 52 with a bachelor’s degree in occupational education, Lord entered the master of divinity program offered by Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary through its campus at Lord’s church, Park Hills Baptist in San Antonio.

But he knew it would be daunting to juggle a full master’s-level class schedule with a full workload.

“My job at the time was quite demanding,” Lord said. “I didn’t know that I would be able to stand up under the pressure of a full-blown master’s program. The only way I could do it was if my job situation changed.”

With the help and encouragement of his wife, Peggy, Lord wrote a letter to his boss asking to relinquish some of his job duties and to assign him to a specific shift, which would help him decide which school to enroll in based on class schedules and his work schedule.

“Well, my boss didn’t send me to school to be a preacher. He sent me to get an education and move on, so there was some resistance on his behalf,” Lord said.

Lord asked his boss to assign him to a shift. “What he came back with was an evening shift with Sunday and Monday off,” Lord said. “I would be off on Sunday and could go to church, and I would have all day Monday, which is when the seminary meets.”

Lord is taking a full course load, studying as many as 40 hours a week. “Seminary is a whole lot of work,” he said. “I’m a technician by trade, so this is all new to me. The Wayland experience was very new to me, and now the seminary is very new to me.”

Lord has stayed true to his calling throughout his education experience the last few years. However, he’s still not sure where his calling may lead.

“People ask me what it is that I’m going to do,” Lord said. “I tell them that it hasn’t been revealed to me yet. I don’t know how people make those assumptions, since I don’t know how they get called. I just know that right now, the task in front of me is to prepare for something later.”

Lord said the way things have worked out so far has been amazing, and he expects things to fall into place in God’s timing.

“I don’t set the table, I just eat,” he said. “I’ll just settle in and stay here until God moves me. He seems to be adept at making arrangements that I don’t even know about.”

Lord does know, however, that he was glad to finish his degree at Wayland in two years.

“If you had asked me last July if I was going to make the February graduation, I would have probably said I don’t think so,” Lord said. “But it’s like everything else that has happened in the last couple of years. … I don’t seem to have control over it.”