Of Pastor Wayne Augustine
February 14, 2026
EXPLANATION OF HOW I MET WAYNE AUGUSTINE –
By Paul V Lehmann
When I called Jane and Nathan Wittiker about their son, Greg, speaking for me when I was on vacation about 6 years ago. He wasn’t available, but he told me that Wayne Augustine, who lived a couple of doors down from him, usually was available to speak. I wondered if it was the same person that I knew from Taylor University, and who coached the basketball team at Berkshire Christian College. When I called him and asked him if he was the same Wayne Augustine, he replied: “One and the same.” Not only did he come to speak back then, but shortly after that, he and Mary began attending this church and became members. Mary became our organist/ pianist when Maxine Milliken, who held that position for 29 years. asked if she could be the assistant, and Mary could replace her. This was done, and Wayne and Mary have been active ever since.
I only went to Taylor for one year, and it was there that I felt my call to be a missionary to Africa. I attended Malone College (now Malone University), where I met my wife, Jeannene. After we were married, I transferred to Nyack Missionary College, where I played basketball for 2 and ½ years. It was there that I discovered that Pastor/Coach Augustine coached a team that we played. The first year, we beat them once, and they beat us once. The second year, they beat us both times we played them. Then, in my last year, we beat them both times during the season and then again in the postseason Kings tournament. After I graduated and during graduate work at Jaffray School of Missions on the campus, I was the assistant basketball coach. Nyack played Berkshire in the finals of this postseason tournament. Berkshire won the tournament. The reason I am telling you this is that Coach Wayne had “selective” memory about this. He didn’t think that they were in the tournament in 1965. After I showed him that Berkshire indeed was in the tournament and lost to Nyack. What is remarkable is that he could almost remember, play by play, how they won the tournament against us the next year. That’s why I said he had “selective” memory. Now sometimes we think this is a bad thing. But if we understand that there are some things in our past that we should learn from. Coach Augustine always learned what he needed to win, and then put the past behind him. Then he went on to be victorious. Spiritually, that is a good trait. If there is something to forget about our past, that we need to confess, make right with the Lord, and receive his forgiveness, we should do so, and then forget the past. It is forgiven. Then remember how God graciously makes us victorious in the future. Pastor Wayne remembered so many different times the Lord worked through him; Whether it was on the basketball court as a coach, in the classroom as a high school teacher, or at a youth camp, or during a counseling session. He used everything he knew about a situation, and then allowed the Lord to bring about a solution. Mostly by reciting what the Bible says about it. He had memorized much scripture through the years.
When a family learns of the possibility of a move from one state to another, or even to a different city or town, they become interested in that particular place, which will be their new home. Also, when we travel on vacation, many like me like to see on a map where we are going. Not just follow a GPS. I like to find out all I can about the place we are going to visit if I have never been there before. Since all of us, I’m sure, hope to go to heaven someday, we should be vitally interested in knowing as much about our future home as possible and do everything we must do in order to go there.
A lot of people haven’t taken the time to read what the Bible says about getting to heaven. Or if they attend a church, they haven’t paid very close attention to what the pastor says about how to get there. The truth is, we should be vitally interested in knowing as much about our future home as possible and do everything we must do in order to go there. None of us know when the Lord will call us home, but as we get older, it can be any time.
IF WE HAVE THE STRENGTH, WE CAN MAKE IT TO 80. THE BIBLE SAYS, IT DOESN’T MENTION 90 OR 100. But we do know that Moses was 80 when he led the Israelites out of Egypt. Joshua, when he led the Israelites into the land of Canaan, and in Joshea 14: 10-11; Caleb at 85 years old, declared that he had as much vigor as when he was in his 40s. I’m 85, and I am still praying for that kind of vigor!
Pastor Wayne made it to 86, and after his health problems last year, he began to feel so much better. And then, even when he got to feeling much worse, and his kidneys began to fail, he still was saying, “ I guess the Lord isn’t finished with me yet.”
but he probably will get to do everything he enjoyed doing, in heaven.
The emotions of those already in heaven are expressed to us by David in Psalm 16: 9-11, where he says to God, “… ”My heart is glad and my tongue rejoices, my body also will rest secure, because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, nor will you let your faithful one see decay. In Your presence is fullness of joy
The apostle Paul had a similar vision from God as he tells about a man who died and was taken up to heaven and who heard “inexpressible words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter” in 2 Corinthians 12:4. We aren’t given the specifics of what either man experienced, but one thing is very clear. In the presence of God, both King David and the apostle Paul knew that we would experience pure joy and wonder. Pastor Wayne Augustine, whom we remember today, trusted in Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior and has made the transition from this world to the next, and has exchanged his citizenship from the USA to the K.O.G.—the Kingdom of God! He can now experience what many of us have looked forward to for a long time. Just as it says in the old hymn, “when by His grace, I shall look on His face, that will be glory, be glory for me.”
Thoughts of heaven and an eternity in the service of God are wonderful to think about and talk about. But Wayne has passed from this life, in faith, and is now experiencing with new eyes what his heart had told him was true for many years. God’s Word says that those who make a decision to trust in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior can fully understand those words of Paul to Timothy, “For I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day” (2 Tim. 1:12).
The testimony of senior citizens who have been faithful to the Lord is the greatest prize of Christianity. Satan doesn’t have any happy older men and women. But to those who have trusted in the Lord, things are different. Through the prophet Isaiah, God tells us about the special relationship He has with senior citizens. In Isaiah 46:4, He says, “Even to your old age, I am He, and even to gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you: I will sustain you and I will rescue you, and will deliver you.” The reward we will receive as His obedient servants is to hear Him tell us, “Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your Lord!” (Matt. 25:21). Can we be confident that those who have passed from this life, who have trusted in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, are with Him in heaven right now? Yes, we can! Paul told the church in Thessalonica that Christians don’t have to grieve like the unbelievers, because for the unbelievers, there is no hope.
(Contrast with the pagan neighbors of Mama Umba in Kinshasa)
As Christians, though, we have assurance, because we know the truth in the words of the old hymn by Edward Mote: The Solid Rock —“My hope is built on nothing less, than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.” But, even with this truth, Jesus knew that worry and uncertainty would creep into our lives as a lie. To remind us all, He told His disciples in John 14:1–3, “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.”
Pastor Wayne was our Evangelism, Discipleship and Counseling Pastor. His heart was to see as many as possible come to Christ. He let it be known to everyone he talked to that Jesus was the (only way), the truth and the life, and no one comes to God the Father except through him. (verse 8). He had a “special” ministry to atheists (and others) online. Sometimes they argued with him, except when he quoted scripture.
I know that we will sincerely miss Wayne, but I can promise you that the very worst thing that can happen between two children of God is just temporary separation. One day, all of you who have asked Jesus Christ to save you from your sins, and received Jesus into your heart and life, will see Wayne and also your fellow Christians again. To them, it will seem as if just a little time has passed. If they could speak to you now, they would say, “Please don’t cry for me. Cry or grieve, if you need to, but only because of the temporary separation. We can all be together again.” Whether it happens or not is related to the biggest question of life. Who is Jesus Christ? Who is He to you? Is He a great man, God’s Son, the founder of a great world religion? Or, is He your Savior, your Lord, and your friend? Do you know Him more as a baby in a manger and a man dying on the Cross, or as the one rising from the tomb and living in you as a personally invited guest? Because if you really do know Him, then one day when you stand before Him, He will acknowledge that He knows you, too, and welcome you into eternity, just as He did with Wayne.
As we remember Wayne today, remember that each human soul lives forever. Physical death is merely the point of transition between a few years here on the earth and an eternity with or without God. If you want to see Pastor Wayne again, or your loved ones who knew Christ, be sure that you settle the question —Where will you spend eterni