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Stan Hatkoff

As children, our new father took us to the Synagogue on Sabbath, and to the Temple on Sunday. In the Synagogue we worshipped, and the Temple was like a Bible-history school of Jewish history where we studied customs and the Hebrew language.

My brother Paul was a good student and actually learned to speak and write some Hebrew. I was more interested in sports and did enjoy the historical parts of our instruction. We followed this routine weekly for several years. Interestingly, our parents never attended with us. Our mother was actually agnostic, as well as a gentile, which caused our father to be ex-communicated from his Jewish Orthodox family in New York.

Just before it was my turn to participate in the Bar Mitzvah ceremony of manhood, my brother and I agreed that we would rather be out playing football on Saturday and Sunday than attending Synagogue or Temple. So, we stopped attending and never returned from that point on, except when we visited on special occasions. 

At 15, I met a Christian girl who introduced me to the Baptist Protestant religion. It was strange to hear them talking about Jesus as the Savior when I thought of him as just a very good man and a prophet of God. I never made much of a connection with the Protestant church, because my friend attended only once in awhile, and I attended less often than she.

At the end of my junior year in high school, I quit school and married this same girl. She was pregnant and the only way I could see how I could support a wife and new baby was to join the military. Being under 18, my mother still had to give permission for me to join.

I served at Oxnard Air Force Base in California for about 18 months. In 1962 I received orders to move to Lakenheath, England at the Royal Air Base. There I was assigned as a medic to the 48th Tactical Hospital. My stay was mostly uneventful. I played a lot of sports, watched movies, and worked. At times, I would go with the guys to the local pubs and drink cokes while they got wasted on beer. As time went by, I became involved with the some of the English girls who were attracted to the American airmen. All of this came to a head in August of 1963. Even with a basic faith in the Jewish God of Jehovah and still loving my wife, I went off the deep end during that month and started doing things I had never done before. I became very sick of myself and the way my life had suddenly changed.

Then the Lord intervened and sent Captain David Kimble (and his wife Beverly) into my life to save me. Of course, I did not know this when I first met David at the hospital mess hall for breakfast one work-day morning. He was in line behind me and we just casually struck up a conversation. He invited me to sit with him at his table which was highly unusual. In the military, enlisted men did not usually sit with officers. 

At breakfast, that fateful morning, the conversation turned to God and religion, and he asked me if I was a Christian and if I was “born again.” I said yes to both, not even knowing what being “born again” meant. I think he knew I wasn't telling the truth. He invited me to come to his home on Sunday afternoon after church, which meant I would be going to church with him and his family at the base interdenominational chapel, and then going to their home off the base in the English countryside. That sounded really good to me. 

It was nice being at church, even though I did not fully understand what was going on. I was looking forward to Sunday dinner at their house and brought my appetite. They had three children, between the ages of three and seven. I enjoyed them very much. After dinner we went to the living room and began to talk. David asked me again about my religious experience, and it was then that I confessed that I had been raised Jewish (telling them the whole story), and that I did not know anything about Jesus as a Savior. Thus began several months of Bible study in their home on Sunday afternoons.

Heart Transformation

The change in my life was not dramatic or swift. I still had pin ups on the walls in my room. I still occasionally went out with the guys to places I shouldn't have. But, the change in my inward spirit was taking shape and I began to feel very different.

Then on the evening of December 23, 1963, (it was a Saturday night), I went to my knees and gave my heart, soul and mind to the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. I was so thrilled, the next morning, Sunday, I ran to the chapel very early and found the four chaplains together and told them what had happened! I asked if I could help teach the children in the primary class with Beverly Kimble, my mentor. So, my spiritual journey began.

When I went to the classroom and told Beverly what had happened, she was so very happy and welled up with tears. David stopped by and after hearing the news gave me a big hug. That morning I realized the children in Beverly's class knew a lot more about the New Testament than I did. I decided to start learning.

That evening I went back to my barracks and wrote my brother a letter. Paul, had joined the Army, and was now serving in Okinawa. I wrote him a long letter telling him about all that had happened to me and my conversion to Christ. I mailed it Monday. On Wednesday I got a letter from my brother. Okinawa was half way around the world from England, and mail did not travel fast in those days.

In reading my brothers' letter, he told of a similar story of how a family had “adopted” him in Okinawa and that he also had been converted and accepted Christ as his Savior. The family who "adopted" Paul was a military family, the man was an officer just like David Kimble. My brother had been taken in by them and taught in a similar way that I had. The main difference for him was that he ended up marrying the daughter of that family. Both he and I viewed this as a miracle of God…that we would be converted to and accept Christ almost simultaneously when we were thousands of miles apart and in two foreign countries.

The story however does not end here….

My brother and I were both honorably discharged from our respective services in 1964. He had a three year tour and I had a four year tour. We both returned to West Los Angeles and began living in our old neighborhood. We both enrolled at Santa Monica City College. We both graduated at the same time, in front of our very proud mother. Behind the scenes we began talking to our sisters, mom and dad about Jesus and what he meant to us without apparent success.

My brother went on to graduate from UCLA and took a job at Ling Electronics in Dallas, Texas. I attended Loma Linda University, not knowing when I applied that it was a Seventh-day Adventist University, or anything at all about Seventh-day Adventists. I initially studied physical therapy, but then switched to psychology and graduated from California State University in San Bernardino. 

It was at LLU that one my classmates taught me about the Adventist Christian faith, and my wife (Carol) and I took Bible studies and were baptized at the Campus Hill Church in 1968. My wife initially showed the interest and then got me interested in the Bible studies. The more I studied and watched, the more I realized how close to Judaism Adventists really were, especially with regard to the Sabbath, which of course, was easy for me to accept.

In March of 1970, I accepted a commission in the US Army Medical Service Corp as a 2nd Lt., and was sent to Ft. Sam Houston, TX., for officer basic training. My brother was living in Dallas, so we stopped and visited on the way.

My reason for returning to active duty as an officer was to accomplish for other young men what David Kimble accomplished for me…to bring them to Christ. My first year and a half at Ft. Sam Houston was fairly uneventful. 

In the meantime, my brother was unhappy at Ling Electronics in Dallas and wondered if he too could get a commission in the US Army Medical Service Corp. I checked with my source at the Pentagon who had helped me with my commission and Paul was accepted and assigned to Ft. Sam Houston with me. After basic training, he was assigned as a company commander for a student training company C at Ft. Sam Houston. Shortly, after that, I was reassigned as a company commander of student training company B.

Thus, started a new adventure for us (Carol, my brother and I). At first I fought against the idea of being a company commander, but the Lord was not swayed. After three months into the assignment another miracle happened. I started a Bible study on the 2nd floor of an empty barracks in my command. At first only 6 men out of 300 showed up. Half of the men in my company were special forces medics, the other half were x-ray technicians…each in training. As word spread, the attendance grew to 12..15..then 20. Some of the men from my brothers company joined us and it grew even more. Then came the miracle….actually several.*

The men in the Bible study wanted to do two things…turn the upstairs meeting room into an upper room chapel. I agreed and the men from both companies, mine and my brothers, began planning and doing the painting and décor. My brother and his men were active participants. At that time, and probably even today, this was unheard of, however, we were never challenged. 

The second thing the men wanted to do was to visit other servicemen who lived off post and witness to them. So we did! The end result was, I had a core group of 12 men, and in the end these twelve, and twelve more, gave their lives to Christ. This was the work that the Lord had wanted and set-out for me to do. Truly, I was following in the footsteps of my friend officer Kimble who had discipled me in England.