The Village Reporter 2024

Harvey was born in Missouri on October 20, 1916, the 5th child and 2nd son of Joe and Emma Haldiman. He arrived in Montpelier on New Year’s Day of 1940 and was employed at Hause Valve Company until his retirement in 1985. Harvey began as the office manager and served as president/CEO of Hause from 1976 to 1985. In 1933, engineer Ralph Hause (1906-1976) and his partner A.C. Brammer formed Hause Valve Company to manufacture specially designed valves used in underground oil-well equipment.

I am occasionally asked about publishing by someone who would like to publish a manuscript they authored. Since I now have published 60 books, sales totaling 80,000 copies, I have some experience in the process. It is often assumed that authors send manuscripts to potential publishers, then wait for an answer. Few publishers even bother to answer these inquiries. The fact is, less than one percent of all submitted manuscripts are ever published. Publishers today are swamped with submissions, so have become very selective.

I have now published over sixty columns in The Village Reporter. It seems everywhere I travel in town, people mention reading it. As expected, some columns are more popular than others. By far, the most popular column was the one on the Hammond, Indiana, First Baptist Church. The reason why, I was told by several readers, was because we hear so much negative about churches, that something very positive was welcomed.

Our church recently had communion called the Eucharist, Greek for “to give thanks.”  The ritual reminded me of an experience I had in the European Study program that I completed for my history degree. When in Italy, our class visited the site of Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper. Allied leaders had bombed many historic churches containing the works of master artists that either destroyed, or severely damaged, some.

Each year, I and several other popular international writers and speakers fly to Glen Rose, Texas, to give apologetics presentations at the Creation Evidence Museum. The sermons and lectures deal with the evidence for the Bible and other issues related to apologetics. Since to fly us out to Texas entails considerable expense and time, I asked my sponsors if visits to other churches while there would help make the trip more worthwhile.

My library includes a book showing Israel from the air. Much of it looks indistinguishable from the Moon’s surface, causing me to wonder “why would anyone fight over such a worthless piece of land?” Of course, the Israelites have done wonders with the land, converting much of it into a verdant paradise. Israeli land near the water is quite fertile, but much of the rest is not.

‘Gospel’ is an old-English word meaning “good news,” specifically, in the Christian use, the good news about salvation. The Gospel includes two parts: God's revelation revealed in His words, the Bible, and His revelation revealed in His works, His creation (see Revelation 14:6-7). The Bible mentions over 120 species of animals and 206 plants, 95 of which are recognized by all contemporary researchers of the floras mentioned in the Bible.  In seminary, a major part of the curriculum historically used to train ministers was the study of these 326 plants and animals.

I previously wrote a column documenting that, as a result of our technological developments, America has revolutionized the world. American inventions include the record player, telegraph, telephone, electric light bulb, television, tape recorder, motion-picture projector, electrification of the nation (before this time the only source of electricity was by large, inefficient, batteries), mass production assembly line, MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), most vaccines, to list a few of hundreds of examples.

In the past 40 years I have presented over 400 sermons on apologetics. Apologetics is the science of giving reasons for the Christian faith based on history, science, and facts. The study of apologetics is central to building a foundation for the Christian faith. It is a rational response against the objections that people bring up against Christianity. Most philosophy textbooks have a section on why people reject God. One of the main reasons is because so much evil exists in the world. This is a problem that all religious traditions must deal with.

I was recently invited to speak with Creation Expo at the First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana. The church, founded in 1887, is reportedly the largest Christian church in Indiana and the 7th largest in the United States. Megachurches have a reputation of being impersonal, resulting in visitors getting lost in the crowd. One of my main interests is, “why do some churches grow and others die?” One of my goals was to understand why First Baptist thrives.