Childhood: A child’s illustrated Bible purchased for my siblings became my first Bible. I was deeply fascinated with the creation story, an all-powerful and invisible God who knows us, is with us and might judge us if we were not good children. At 8 years old, I read a King James version of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. At 12 or so, I suggested going to seminary school, my family did not take me seriously. We were still attending the Roman Catholic church in Fabens Texas of my grandparents Federico and Consuelo Castillo. My parents knew I had a passion for music. Therefore, I received a guitar at 13 years old as a gift and a bass guitar for my 18th birthday. I would become obsessed with music theory and taught myself to sight read and had even constructed a music theory modular scales book for bass by the age of 24. From 24 to 27 I performed and worked with many bands, eventually coming to work for Clarence Perry, an R&B bandleader who owned a club in Baytown performing 4 nights a week. I was drawn to Lakewood church with John Osteen, and a friend gave me a King James version of the Bible with my name imprinted on the cover. Every Sunday I would say to myself, this is the day I will be baptized a Baptist Christian, but I never went up. Nonetheless, God was always in my thoughts. I can recall periods in my life when speaking to God were important and constant. In the early 90s, and in the mid-90s when I started to go to John Osteen’s Lakewood and in the late 90s when Melissa moved away with my oldest son.
When I was 31, I met the mother of my children, and we began to write music. We would become romantically involved and our first son, Austin would be born. Experiencing the love of a father for a son was an amazing experience, there isn’t a greater example of how Our Father loves us than the love we have for our children. Her family were devout Southern Baptists, and her parents Robert and Becky Crawford were wonderful in-laws. Becky is alumni of Houston Baptist University, although today my wife Melissa, mother of my children, is deceased, her family continue to be supportive and maintain contact with me.
1998: After leaving the Clarence Perry Band and performing 4 nights a week, I would start my own band performing eventually up to 2000 shows a year from 1997 to 2009. During those years, Melissa and I would grow apart, and we separated, and she took my oldest son with her to California to study anthropology and Native American culture of the Maidu Indians of the Sierra Nevada mountains. She would eventually learn the Maidu language; it is unfortunate she did not publish a book on her research. I stayed in contact with Melissa’s parents, often they were my only contact with Melissa and Austin. This was a difficult time, I worked hard to stay busy and wrote many songs for my wife and son in hopes she would somehow hear them and know how I felt. I released four full length CDs and performed from New Mexico to Florida.
I performed countless benefits for charities and events for children with cancer, injured motorcyclists, and would tour and perform in venues where my main audience were 1% bikers. I did not know it at the time, but this work would qualify me for helping men and women leave the entanglement from joining a motorcycle gang.
I was often asked to join these 1 percenter motorcycle clubs, I always said no. Later I would say “yes” to being baptized by a motorcycle ministry. In 2010, I volunteered to tour and perform for wounded soldiers in warrior transition units from Ft. Polk Louisiana to Ft. Belvoir Virginia, (2010-2011, Warrior Spirit Band.)
Travelling and performing were second nature then and speaking to wounded soldiers about their experiences would lead to a desire for missional work. It did not occur to me that I had already started that work during my touring years as a blues musician.
2013 to present: I was baptized as an adult in 2013. My devotion to the Bible led to a desire to seek a Christian studies degree. Today I am seeking an MDiv. degree with hopes of achieving it by 2027. I know that God has been calling me since I was a child, my hopes are to author books and teach. My goal is to write a devotional this year for men with a “auto mechanics” theme; Soul Calibration: A Daily Devotional for Men.
2013-2015: Heaven’s Saints Vice President; we did ministry events for battered women, troubled teens, prison ministry and ministry to 1% bikers such as Bandidos at rally events and availability to anyone who needed to talk or receive prayer. I prayed for a mission overseas, but instead God found a way to bring my oldest son and his mother to me in Texas, and then I returned to California with them. I was with them 4 months, from late January to early May. In that time, Melissa and I were married, and she became pregnant with my youngest son, Yamani who would be born on December 14, 2015. I prayed every day on my knees while I was with her in the mountains of California for the healing of her mind. She rejected God and would eventually reject me because I was Christian. She had become so immersed in her research that she favored shamanism. I returned to Texas and starting Christian studies with GCU in the fall of 2017.
2016-2017, I started Fueled by Faith Ministry;
at my home on Sundays (after Sagemont service) and spoke anywhere I was invited. I started a Christian blog and was volunteer writer for Sagemont magazine; being published in 2018. Attached is the link to that article:
Winter 2018: I prayed “Father, if I have walked into the Valley of the Shadow of Death in these communities, maybe I should make myself available for missions into Arabia as Paul did when he began to serve the Lord, and I should go into North Africa or Syria to be an aide to rebuilding ancient churches?” I yearned to be a father to my sons, I asked God to make a way to be a father or to send me to faraway lands to do missional work. in November 2018, I received a call from California to come there asap to be there for my youngest son.
2017 to 2019: In the Fall of 2017 I started Christian studies with GCU online, while working as a consultant for H&H Music, helping bilingual and Spanish speaking parents to rent or buy music instruments for their children starting in band programs in south Texas schools. Then Hurricane Harvey flooded the building the weekend I began Christian studies with GCU. Since Harvey had done so much damage to the homes of south Texas, I made myself available to seniors helping them any way I could. I started as a handyman contractor in Pasadena and in Pearland at low cost to seniors. Often, I work for free, and I still call and visit seniors. I would like to build a ministry in El Paso. I offer daily ministry to family via social media. At this time, I work hard in spite of my limited academic and learning disabilities. God has always been with me, God has always made the impossible, possible. here is an example of using social media to reach family and friends using what I have learned at HBU.
Philippians 4:13 Tyndale GNT
πάντα ἰσχύω ἐν τῷ ἐνδυναμοῦντί με
Biblical Greek lesson for my family. An example of how the modern English translations change the translation from the Greek verse Paul, the apostle, actually wrote in the Koine Greek. ἐν τῷ actually translates to "the One" (who strengthens me.) This is the monadic use of the article in that the article is used to the "person" τῷ is referring to is "one of its kind"- Jesus.
"I can do all things in The One who strengthens me."
I will attach a reflection on the Love of God that I wrote when my wife was killed in a hit and run accident in California August 21, 2020.
Reflection: For the Love of God
How long has God been calling me or you? All of our lives. The moment we are given life by God into this world, the moment we are born into a life, into our mother's womb and then into her arms, God rejoices in another one of his children. We belong to our parents, we are given as a gift to them, a gift by God. He is the Creator of all things, life is a gift, and so we are born into this world, bound to a family and a community. Life is a gift. Men and women can fall in love and get married and when they choose to have children, they can. If you want a car, you have to buy it, someone else designed it, organized the factory and the technology, designed it to be beautiful and catch our eye- and therefore we can have the car if we can purchase it at a cost. But it is just a car, it pales in comparison in all its beauty to a child. One might agree that to have a child, it only takes love, of two people to bring a child into this world but one could not do that without God. He is the designer, he manufactured and designed you to be the perfect creation, a human being in design is an astounding work of technology. That he designed all living things to be "fruitful and multiply" are a gift from God and by this we know he is a good God. So, life is free, but know this we always belong to him, everything that is good in God's creation, everything you can know and feel and see and smell that is good is His. At the end of our lives, even if we have not accepted Jesus Christ, even if we have denied God, even if we run from his call, we still belong to him.
I am so grateful that I stopped running from God, that I stopped ignoring his voice, and surrendered my life to him because it has only made my life better. To deny God is to be in the bondage of our will, a slave to our perception and presuppositions and that is misery. It has only given my life more meaning, it has become a life in sync with his purpose for me, and it has made me realize how much he loves us all. I love him too. Every breath is a blessing I thank him for. Every day and every moment in my life today is a blessing, filled with a higher appreciation of the beautiful things, no matter what the temporal things are doing in contrast to the greater goodness of God's creation. It can seem that our lives go on forever, but they do not, it is God's wish for us that we cherish every single day, every single moment with the love that he has for us. The things that hurt us in this life, the things in our bodies that ache, and become susceptible to disease are the temporal things, because if we are focused on the Love of God, another gift from God- then this pain only serves to remind us that our lives were a gift to begin with. When we are in the fullness of our awareness of God's love and gifts, we can truly see a car is not beautiful at all. Men were not born with more than they needed, the things of modern man ultimately have an effect of making us think "we need them," but trust me, we are mobile, we have been designed to perform wonderfully as made evident by the gymnast, the runner, the power lifter and all athletes. God designed the perfect world, he gave us this earth as a gift, but mankind has really put a strain on this perfect earth, God's creation. Listen for God, he is calling you, in love and for love and as your Heavenly Father to his child, for the Love of God.1
-Arnie Kenneth Palyola
Conclusion
Beginning in late 2018, I would spend most of 2019 flying back and forth to California. I sold half my land in Pasadena to cover the costs. My wife had begun to have run ins with the police there and my son was removed from her custody. The family court judge eventually awarded full custody to me of our son. My wife refused counseling and mental health evaluations. In the last year of her life, she did not call to speak to me or our son. In December 2019, I sold my house in Pasadena and moved closer to Houston Baptist University to immerse myself in my studies and raise my son alone. The pandemic that ensued has made it difficult to work in that I have struggled with childcare and the social distancing requirements of 2020 did not help. God has been with me, through him and in my trust of Him, my faith has only grown stronger. I lost both my parents in May of 2021. It has always been my hope that applying myself to university at such a late stage of my life would be an inspiration to my oldest son and my family. I continue to write in my blog, I continue to remain a member of Sagemont Baptist Church, and Pastor John Morgan has been a supportive friend in the pursuit of my degrees. My work at HBU has been an inspiration to me, working with professors Dr. Sorgwe and Dr. Evans in teaching the Intro to The Bible class and working for Dr. Severance in the Bible Museum and, of course, my classes. I don’t take God’s call lightly; He has shown me amazing blessing and reward in spite of the difficulties the world has heaped on me. In the face of tragedy, I persevere, my heart is full, I am grateful and blessed.
Citations
1-Palyola, Arnie K. “Reflection: For the Love of God.” Ken Palyola, 25 Aug. 2020, https://kenpalyola.wixsite.com/palyolaken/post/reflection-for-the-love-of-god.
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