Elisha saw this and cried out, "My father! My
father! The chariots and horsemen of Israel!" And Elisha saw him no more. Then he
took hold of his own clothes and tore them apart. He picked up the cloak that had fallen
from Elijah and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan. Then he took the cloak that
had fallen from him and struck the water with it. "Where now is the LORD, the God of
Elijah?" he asked. When he struck the water, it divided to the right and to the left,
and he crossed over.
~ II Kings 2:12-14
Englewood Christian Church is tucked away in the kudzu laced hills of
Tennessee and they are kicking off their revival services with a speaker they booked a
year in advance. His name is proudly displayed on the doors of the church: Evangelist
David Mullins.
I file in with the rest of the congregation to hear Dave preach. There is no doubt he is
Rich’s brother; same crooked grin, same boyish charm, same gestures and the same
endearing unpretentious manner. It is a comparison he has endured for as long as he can
remember and one he doesn’t mind.
Like any good revival service, it is followed by lots and lots of food.
While we line up and fill our plates, Dave is approached by a lady.
“I just want you to know that I’m a product of your brother’s ministry,”
she says and a gracious Dave nods and smiles.
“That’s great!” he exclaims as if he’d not heard this story a hundred
times before. I remind him later he will hear those words for the rest of his life.
He calls it a “tough blessing” but a blessing none the less.
I sit with Dave and his bride, Robin (who did the better part of her growing up in
Englewood) and their two adorable children.
Jonathan, 7, wants to know if he can go outside and play, and Kacie, 3, is asking mommy
for yet another piece of chocolate cake.
In between their sweet, irresistible pleas we chat about Rich, the Dove, fraudulent
Internet nieces and favorite mother-in- laws. Afterwards we head toward the home of Dave’s
hosts, where he’ll be staying in Tennessee for this week of revival. The beyond
perfect weather beckons us outside and we search out the most shaded spot on the deck to
talk about life without Rich and the call to carry on....
R.M. “Tell me about the foundation you’re starting in Rich’s name.”
D.M. “A lot of different people in different places wanted to do something like this.
It was really a kind of neat thing. The family had been thinking about it but we didn’t
know how to go about it. Word got out to the others who had been thinking about it and it
just came together nicely. What we hope to do, there’s a guy who has 10 camps down in
the South West on the reservations and our primary focus to start with will be working
with those camps and doing programming. Ideas that Rich had included bringing in Christian
artists from Nashville to teach the kids music and some other arts and then tie in with
that the love of Christ and the Gospel.”
R.M. “So you are moving to Wichita and setting up the headquarters there?”
D.M. “Right.”
R.M. “What’s the official name again?”
D.M. “The Legacy of Kid Brothers Of St. Frank”
R.M. “What’s wrong with kid sisters?”
D.M. (Laughter) “Uh...well....”
R.M “Nevermind....So, what’s your role going to be exactly?”
D.M. “You know, it’s an odd thing trying to define my role. I don’t know.
Right now its me and another lady who are going to be working at it and since there’s
nothing set up and running and we’re doing it all from scratch. I think we’re
just going to be feeling our way and figuring out what our strengths and weaknesses are
and how to go about accomplishing the goal. I’m not big on titles. I’m not
worried about it. If we can work together and get done what needs to be done, that’s
what’s important.”
R.M. “So, you’re leaving your church in West Virginia. You’ve been there
how long?”
D.M. “Nine years. It’s odd because when we first started talking about the whole
foundation idea I had no interest in it. I wanted to be on the Board of Directors to make
sure we stayed as close to things that Rich would’ve done and then we started talking
about it fairly soon after the accident.
About the first part of December one morning I woke up and it was like, ‘Man, I’m
suppose to do more than that.’ And so I knew Robin would hate it because she’s
lived in West Virginia longer than anywhere and that’s home to her. So, I prayed
about it and thought about it and finally talked to her about it and said ‘I don’t
know why but I feel like this is suppose to happen and I know you are going to hate this
and if you say no we’ll drop it right here but I think we need to check into it. If
we knock on this door and God opens it then I think we have to go.’ She said you’re
right, I hate the idea but I agree we need to check into it.
So, I made a list to God of all the reasons [leaving West Virginia] was an idiotic idea
and all the reasons it won’t work and told Him if You want it to work this is what
has to happen. And amazingly he turned a lot of those road blocks into people and things
that encouraged me to go on with it. I thought my mom would really hate the idea. She
doesn’t want me in his shadow and she doesn’t want people to use me to feel like
they are still in touch with him. But I talked to her and she was 100% for it. She was
totally behind it and I think even relieved by the thought.
R.M. “So you’re on your way to Kansas and you leave...?”
D.M. “ We leave West Virginia on the 19th (June 98) and we’ll get out to Wichita
on the 25th.”
R.M. “How did the fact that Rich was so much in the public eye affect your grieving?
Did it make it easier, harder...?”
D.M. “I would say in some ways it made it harder simply because in a lot of ways it
has continued much longer. Like when my dad died, we were able to go through that process
and see all those people at once and everyone had the chance to say what they had to say
and with this it’s just a continuing thing. It kind of holds you at the death instead
of being able to celebrate his life. And you know all the memorials and tributes have all
been wonderful and our family really appreciates all of it but it just kind of holds his
death in front of us. In some ways it has been better because the support has been
unbelievable. Robin’s mom got off the Internet a lot of the letters that people wrote
after Rich died and it’s just been incredible. I’ve got 2 box’s full of
them. It’s been overwhelming so in that respect it’s been easier and it’s
been a good thing to have that many people praying for us and in some ways it’s been
a little harder because you can’t get past it.”
R.M. “What about the things Rich wrote before he died, like his book of prose? Will
they ever be published?”
D.M. “I don’t know. There have been a lot of different ideas and it seems most
people have an idea about what should be done with those things and I think as far as I’m
concerned the best way to deal with those things is to let some time pass and see what’s
really important and then go from there. Once we’ve been separated from his death
then you can start focusing on his life again and you can say Yeah this is really good
apart from his death.
I don’t want things to happen because he’s dead. I think the things he had to
say are profound and life changing because they come from Christ and not because he’s
dead. Anything he said when he was alive is just important now. For me, I’d like to
just wait on making any decisions on a lot of those things. I want to be sure we do the
right thing instead of jumping in there because the iron is hot and sell whatever we can
sell. There is something that just feels really distasteful about that and on the other
hand there’s the side that goes ‘yeah but there are people who are interested
in that and is it right not to let that out?’ But, I think the people that are
really interested now will be five years from now and it will be every bit as good then.”
R.M. “Was your brother about to convert to Catholicism?”
D.M. “That’s a topic of great many differing opinions. I can’t say for
sure. I don’t think so. I know that he was very interested in the Catholic church,he
was very interested in things that they could say about God that his upbringing and
religious background had but he was that way with every group and so I think that he was
very interested and he felt they had a better handle on some things than others but I don’t
see it happening. I know there’s a Father in Wichita who said he was coming there and
he was taking his vows and definitely doing it and I heard from others who talked to him
the day before he died and he said No, I’m not going to do it. There are things
I can’t go along with. And from what I know of my brother even if he would’ve
done it he wouldn’t have lasted there. Sometimes the organization of the church gets
put ahead of the faith of the Church and he really struggled with that.
R.M. “I know you sing and play the dulcimer too so...when is your album coming out?”
D.M. “Uh...I don’t think there will be. (Laughter) I don’t sing that well
and I don’t play the dulcimer that well. What I do is just for the fun of it, just to
humor myself. In fact, me and couple of guys sang at a coffee house the other night and
the absolute worst song we did was Awesome God and I missed the key completely. It was
really bad and my wife is sitting there dying laughing.”
R.M. “What happens 10 years from now when your 7 year old son (who also plays
dulcimer) comes up to you and says he wants to be in Christian music?”
D.M. “I’d probably tell him he’s crazy. (Laughter....thinking) I guess I
would support him in it. Yeah, I would. My whole insight on the Christian music business
comes from Rich. I think he was able to touch and change people’s lives in a way that
I never could because of what he did. I think if Jonathan were to come to me and say he
wanted to do that then I would certainly support it.
The thing that scares me about the Christian music industry is the idea that if you can
sing then you can make money and that just kind of bothers me. Not because I don’t
think you should be able to make money or because if you’re rich or wealthy you haven’t
been faithful to God. But for me that would be a difficult thing to keep weighed
correctly. It would be easy to let the benefits override the reason. If Jonathan were
willing to starve to do it then I would be all for him trying which is what Rich did for
years he practically starved in Cincinnati and he lived in slums that mom and dad wouldn’t
even go in. He even died while he was living in a hogan that didn’t even have a solid
floor and he slept on a futon. I would be alright with Jonathan doing that but I’d
also be ready to jerk a knot in his tail if he didn’t keep it right."
R.M. “What’s your greatest fear?”
D.M. “Probably success.”
R.M. “In what way?”
D.M. “I’ve always kind of been that way. It’s really a fear of failure but
it’s a fear of success because I kind of go Wow, if you ever really succeed at
anything and you do a really good job then people expect you to do that all the time. So
my fear has always been doing too good a job that I can’t live up to it. I don’t
want to over do because I don’t want to let people down.”
R.M. “What do you think was the biggest misconception about Rich?”
D.M. “I think he was pretty straight forward. If you knew him, we were kind of raised
like—you’re
just who you are and everyone has warts. Covering up and hiding them doesn’t mean
they’re not there. I think now there is probably a tendency by some to make him more
than he was. Which is typical anytime someone dies. The real fans knew him. Anybody who
would get on stage and say what he said. There was no difference in him off stage and on.
There was no great deal of difference in him from the time he was starving in Cincinnati
to the time he made it big, or whatever as some people would say, in Nashville.“
R.M. “What’s the most important thing he ever taught you?”
D.M. “He showed me a great deal about faith and just trusting in God and not being so
concerned with me being in control. I like being sure I have my ducks in a row and I
watched him and he never knew where he was going to be tomorrow. Somebody probably did but
he had no clue what hotel he was going to be in or he never knew what money he made. He
just didn’t get real concerned with the things of this earth. I think he taught me a
great deal about not judging people because he is absolutely everything by appearance that
I would think you stay away from. If he were hitchhiking down the road I wouldn’t
pick him up. He had the long hair, a scruffy beard, always wore those worn out jeans. He’s
everything your mom tells you to stay away from and then you meet him and you go “wow.”
All of his friends fall into the same category pretty much. Their appearance is not what
you would call a Christian appearance but they are every bit as much Christian as those of
us who wear suits and ties.
R.M. “Where do you think you will be in 5 years?”
D.M. “I anticipate still being in Wichita, but I anticipated retiring in West
Virginia too. In my mind it will take a couple of years to get the foundation figured out
and pulled together. So I kinda figure I’ll still be in Wichita but I can see the
possibility of being somewhere completely different. I’m not really too concerned
either. I’ve been thinking a lot about Abraham. I don’t think God is leading me
out in the wilderness to die. I think He has a plan whether the plan is what I understand
it to be at this point or not. He has a plan and if I’ll just be faithful He’ll
see that it comes together.
R.M. “How can people pray for you specifically?”
D.M. “I think wisdom and I think they can pray for me that....well...wisdom mainly
because a lot of what we’re doing I don’t know a lot about so I’m going to
need a lot of God’s wisdom and insight as to how you do what we’re trying to do
and stay true to God. I think there’s a balancing act of meeting people where they
are at and yet meeting them there with God.
R.M. [I turned my recorder off here. Jonathan bounded onto the deck and we discussed Star
Wars and his 'girlfriend'. A dog named Maggie made herself at home under Dave's
affectionate hand and somewhere in the midst of it all I turned my recorder back on...I
don't remember the question...but here's the answer.]
D.M. “Rich had so many ideas for Kid Brother’s and he always had a real clear
vision of where he was going and what he wanted to try to accomplish in that and his
friend, Gary was telling me he was at his house and they were talking about Kid Brother’s
and where he saw it going and Gary said Rich had a real clear vision up until September of
last year and after that Rich had no idea. Gary said that’s the only time he saw Rich
like that. He had no idea, it was like there was a wall and he couldn’t see.
There were so many strengths he had that I don’t have, as far as the vision and
creativity. He also is someone that couldn’t work inside an organization. He could
set it up but once it was set up he had to leave and run in his own show in the outskirts.
In my mind, I wonder if God didn’t create us with some of the same strengths and some
of the same similarities that people notice automatically. I wonder if God created us so
much alike and yet different in some ways so Rich could start this and I could work with
it. It’s not unlike God to start a ministry with one man and finish it with another.
Look at Moses and Joshua, Elijah and Elisha. You see God starting a work under one man and
finishing it under someone else. So when it all kind of hit me that God wanted me to do
this I thought of all those things. Who knows but what you come into the world for such a
time as this? There are so many things you could throw off as coincidence but I look at it
and think there’s a line as a Christian you have to say it’s not coincidence,
God is moving. He is working in some really amazing ways."
For more information on Kid Brothers of St. Frank or to make a
contribution please write to:
Kid Brothers of St. Frank
PO Box 11526
Wichita, KS 67202