By Stanley O. Williford
Director of Publications
Most men will proclaim each his own goodness, but who can find a faithful man (or woman)?
Proverbs 20:6
How many people do you know who drive 72 miles one way church every Sunday and, of course, 72 miles back home?
Wydell and Loretta Madison do, and they arrive at about 7:20 each Sunday morning before most congregants have risen from bed.
How many couples do you know have never missed a Sunday service unless they are on vacation or otherwise traveling out of the state or the country?
Wydell and Loretta have been attending Crenshaw for 36 years. Few can match their faithfulness and consistency in attendance over that stretch of time.
“We love the ministry and we’ve been faithful,” Wydell said. “It has changed our lives. We’ve never missed a Sunday unless we’re out of town. In thirty-five years we‘ve never said we’re not going to church today. Rain or shine, we still go.”
Wydell is a former CCC board member, having served on the board for six years. He has been in the Personal Ministries auxiliary as a counselor for 35 years. Loretta has served the ministry for 30 years, first in the Nursery and now in Hospitality, which is under the Hostess portion of the Reception Committee. She can be found at the horseshoe in the main foyer on Sundays, answering phone calls.
The Danville, Virginia, natives have been married 46 years and have three adult children and nine grandchildren.
They were influenced to come to Crenshaw after watching Apostle Price on the Ever Increasing Faith broadcast for about a year. After a broadcast in 1982, Loretta suggested that they needed to attend the church’s Easter service at the Long Beach Convention Center that year.
“We drove down to the convention center and stood in line to get in,” Loretta said. “We responded to the invitation, got saved and received the Holy Spirit. We got saved the right way. We thought we had gotten saved in Virginia, but this was the right way.”
Years before their coming to the ministry, Wydell had been stationed at the former Naval Air Station at Point Mugu near Oxnard, Calif. A third-class petty officer, or tradevman, he had helped in the training of pilots by assisting them on flight simulators. Webster’s dictionary defines tradevman as a Navy petty officer who “installs, operates, maintains, and repairs training devices used especially in gunnery, aviation, and electronics instruction.”
After service, they returned to Virginia where Wydell attended engineering school for three years. Soon they decided to return to Oxnard to settle down.
The couple have owned Madison A Heating and & Air conditioning for 34 years. Although the business is based in Oxnard, he has repaired systems in businesses and large homes in Malibu, Santa Barbara, Ojai and Ventura, as well as other communities.
If there is anything besides their faith, their family, friends and travel that the Madisons are passionate about, it is health. Wydell is quick to report that they never get sick. They are non-meat-eaters who put their reliance on the Word of God and health supplements.
On Sundays they can be found in their regular seats, six rows from the front in the section where Apostle Price and Dr. Betty are seated.
A virtuous woman . . . and a faithful man.
