EIF - ENewsletter

CCC’s history on the seas
Interviewer Tamara Taylor

We are here with A. Michael Evans, vice president of marketing, at Crenshaw Christian Center’s outreach aka Ever Increasing Faith Ministries Marketing & Media Division, and executive director of Cruises and Tours.

In 2019 Crenshaw Christian Center complied with the state regulation to modify it’s in-person operation to offer Sunday Service, Bible studies, both morning and evening via online. It was decided that all outreach activities to the members and community would be discontinued until further notice. At that time there was a cruise scheduled for Apostle Frederick K.C. Price with Dr. Betty R. Price, including Pastor Fred and Lady Angel Price, for EIF Ministries for October 2019. Many things have changed over the years, which leads us to October 4, 2022, and the Holy Land Cruise.

Mr. Evans began establishing crusades and cruises for Crenshaw Christian Center more than 40 years ago. The interview is impactful from his perspective moving forward without the chief pastor of Crenshaw Christian Center and Ever-Increasing Faith Ministries:

Question: What was it like cruising without Apostle Price this time around, and what is it like working with Pastor Frederick versus Apostle Price on cruises? How are they different?

AME: Apostle Price was his own man. Pastor Fred is not an exact reproduction of Apostle Price. He sees things in a different way. He is a lot younger. He is riskier in some ways and seems to have more fun. Apostle Price was always dressed to the nines. It didn’t matter where he was. He was always Mr. Clean. Even when he was at the beach, he was Mr. Clean.

Pastor not so much. He has a relaxed approach. He is just a guy out there having fun. He is what – 42-ish? I am almost -- thank God – twice his age. So from my perspective he has a more youthful vibe about him. The way he dresses, the way he talks, the way he acts.

His entire demeanor is different. He reaches out to [his sister} Mrs. Evans for most things before he reaches out to me. It’s easier at times to receive from her.

Statement: With regards to cruises and tours, you have been organizing and directing them since the beginning of EIF travels.

AME: The tours and cruises have been separate. We’ve done dedicated cruises, and on weekends, dedicated tours. But the last couple of events have been a combination of cruises and tours. How that came about is another topic and another subject, and it deserves its own discussion.

Regarding the work and history of the cruises and tours. I have not had any issues with Pastor as far as work ethic is concerned. We get along. He is a fun-loving guy, and he is obviously loaded with the Word of God. Many of us can see that on Sundays and at Bible studies. Quite often I am amazed because I helped raise him. So you think about this guy that I helped raise from a child, from a baby, watching him grow up, my thoughts are: “Wow, where did he learn all that stuff?”

But it’s fascinating to listen to him teach. And no matter where he is now, he started something on the ship. He started a message on the ship. You may be about to ask what the message was. I know it was good, but you will have to get the cruise audio. He taught in the main theater on the ship.

There were two other groups there from Noseworthy Travel that had the opportunity to hear the good Word. Unbeknownst to me, they tracked us every step of the way. We dined together. On our next event we may not gather with other groups. However, when we learned we were all together, we invited the groups to all the sessions pastor was teaching. It was like a church meeting. Everyone was welcome, everyone was invited.

Our guide, Mantu, learned of the other groups, which made us have 15 to 20 more people show up and listen to the message. They were excited by what they heard. They stayed through the whole thing and were looking forward to the second phase of the message, as we all were. That phase never happened, but they were all looking forward to the Word.

Question: Activities on the cruise?

AME: We did not have a greeting that we call a hello as we did all those years before. It was called our “Welcome Aboard” meeting. That usually takes place the day you board the ship. You, then, go to your cabin and get your life jacket and then stand around and wait for the lifeboat drill.

After that, you take your life jacket down to a particular location and they assign you to a lifeboat. And when it’s over, your cruise begins. After you get settled in, your welcome-aboard meeting takes place. During your welcome-aboard meeting your luggage is being delivered. The site if you can see it, has tens of thousands of pieces of luggage all over the place.

So you figure they have 4,000 passengers and a thousand crew members and just do the math on how much luggage they have. Five, six pieces show up in the same way. But, unfortunately, because there was another group there, they lumped three groups into one auditorium for a welcome-aboard meeting, and they restricted us to 30 minutes each, which we never had before.

In the past we were looking at a dedicated room and a dedicated amount of time. This time, they gave us all the same room and we had to listen to speakers from other groups.

This was something I was not comfortable with. Our group was allotted 30 minutes. We introduced ourselves and announced that Pastor was going to be speaking all week. It was a brief welcome meeting for our EIF travelers.

Question: Does Pastor have a different teaching style from Apostle Price? Does he stand at a podium? Is he interactive? Is he in a circle as he is delivering the Word?

AME: Take a look at the photos. I believe I shot a couple of shots of Pastor teaching and some shots of our crew shopping. Here is a new hashtag EIFCruise 2022. (Insert Photos)

Question: From the clips, he was standing on what appears to be a stage, right?

AME: This is where the ship does its theatrical performances. So it’s a high-tech stage environment. He was on the stage. We were seated, as in a theater, as he taught.

Comment/Question: Looking at a few of the clips from Facebook, there was a very good clip of Pastor Price and Lady Angel Price dancing in the restaurant. It looked like great fun! There was another clip where Pastor Fred and Pastor Mike Amey were in a garden doing a step show. It was such fun to watch them relax and enjoy themselves in a way most of us have not seen before.

AME: Yeah, I believe, though I’m not 100 percent certain of the location, I do remember seeing them acting and having a good time, so to speak, in Rome near the Colosseum. So I’m sure they were probably there because there was a lot of levity and play and interactivity.

Comment: That is so nice!

AME: It was the Colosseum, as I remember it. We had about 30-some people plus per bus and we only have one pastor. It would be unfair for a pastor to ride around in the same bus all the time and have the same people get to see him and interact with him. He had to go on a different bus every day. There were people on each bus who took pictures individually. It was exciting for everyone. There were many people posting on various social media platforms.

Comment: I am pretty well persuaded that those who saw clips of Pastor dancing, Lady Angel partying and their friends, the Ameys. enjoying themselves, would say it was great to observe Pastor Fred outside his element.

Comment on social media: So it was a cool video. They put a lot of comments and interactions on it. That was a cool video seeing him dance.

Comment on social media: What was also cool was to see the surprise look on Pastor and Lady Angel’s faces when Pastor Mike Amey and Lady Tanya surprised them. Pastor Fred and Lady Angel did not have a clue. How did that come about?

AME: I thought so, too. Pastor Fred and Lady Angel were stunned when Pastor and Mrs. Amey joined them. He [Pastor Amey . . . well, let me go back to the previous days. We went to a restaurant in Bethlehem. It was a brand-new restaurant, a beautiful restaurant. If was very surprising how nice it was because Bethlehem is almost like a slum. But this restaurant was really nice! Great view of the hills of Judea. Really pretty!

All of our cruise family was there. Everybody showed up. The restaurant asked Pastor and Lady Angel if they would wear Shepherd’s garb and be willing to dance around as they played the music. Pastor Price replied with a happy “sure.”

So they went to the back and changed into the shepherd’s garb, the music was played, and the event was fun for all.

But to get back to how the Amey’s were able to surprise the Prices on the EIF Holy Land Cruise 2022, Mrs. Evans, CCC president, arranged for James and Barbara Byndon, who are Lady Tanya’s parents, to sell books on the trip, as well as be boat captains.

Captains take care of a bus full of people, most of which are elderly females that really need assistance. Somehow, she got the idea to invite the Amey’s from South Africa. So she made it a confidential matter. It was a well-kept secret. It was not until we were already in Rome when the Amey’s showed up, and that was a complete and total surprise to Pastor and Lady Angel. You could see the look on their faces, all four of them.

It was good to watch. We know the history going back where they used to be in videos together with Pastor Fred “walking the earth, as Jesus.” Pastor Mike and Lady Tanya are pastor’s in Namibia. I thought it was a really nice and awesome gesture for them to be able to enjoy the cruise together.

Question: The EIF Holy Land Cruise 2022 appeared to be a nice change since Covid-19 attacked the land. Since Pastor has completed the cruise, how was it that Pastor Fred and Lady Angel were hit by Covid?

AME: I think the thing is a real sensitive subject. If you saw the video that was aired or shared with the church on Sunday, you know it was made to seem as though the cruise was a real downer. If you use the words “cruise from hell” -- and I don’t think she really meant that – I think she was speaking from her emotions and she probably meant for her and maybe even for Pastor. That way it might be considered a cruise from hell.

But it was in no way shape or form the cruise from hell. It was just the opposite. If you ask the majority of people that went, everybody had a great time, including Pastor up until the point where Covid became a factor. After that, it was not fun anymore. But overall a great cruise/tour.

It was a great cruise up until the day we were supposed to go to Ephesus. Apparently, the day or night before, Pastor felt symptoms. He went to the infirmary to get some over-the-counter medication to assist him and they told him no, no, no, no. You aren’t going nowhere. The ship’s crew experienced Ebola last year. So Pastor was not a happy camper.

Anyway, up until that point. It was a great cruise. Pastor got to see three glorious days in Rome, a day at sea, going to Israel. That’s where he had the first meeting. And then he had a day in Galilee. We did a couple of things in Galilee that were not on the brochure. We took a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee, and we had a St. Peter’s fish dinner, neither one of which was mentioned in the brochure. Had we not done it, there would have been no expectation. But we did.

We ended up doing a Sunset boat ride on the Sea of Galilee with Pastor Todd. So all the great footage, the message, everything is, it should be a hashtag of what people shot that day. It was beautiful and a great time. Then the next day we sailed down to Ashdod, which is the area of Tel Aviv, which became our home base for our daily trips into the Jerusalem.

The next day we went to Bethlehem. We had a great time at both locations. We saw him dancing and we talked about him dancing in the Bethlehem. So we had a great time there. It wasn’t until the day after Bethlehem that he contracted the symptoms.

Pastor missed Ephesus. You know he loves to teach about ancient history and Ephesus is full of ancient history. And he really, really was disappointed in missing Ephesus. I think the Greek islands that we went to after Ephesus – Santorini, Crete and the others – were nice, but they were all good. Lots of biblical historical significance, but there really wasn’t a whole lot going on there, just nice during the days on those islands.

Question: Because you have been organizing the crusades, cruises and tours since from the first, how do you feel about making history with Apostle Price and now sharing the new history with his son, Pastor Fred Price?

AME: It makes me feel old. It’s hard to say that people would be so surprised by what I’ve been doing. I went on my first Israel tour with the ministry with the late Dr. Billy Ingram and Dr. Bryant Park, Betty, Angela and Kasey group. Probably about 75 of us in 1978. We went to Israel at that time. That tour was very bare, an economy tour.

They had five or six ministries that chartered a plane and what we had wasn’t a very good plane. We had a stop in Ireland to refuel. Then we continued on to Israel. And once we got to Israel, in some ways it got worse. And then all the ways it got better, from a creative standpoint, it was worse because the hotel was raggedy, the food was whack.

I remember it was my niece, who is now Stephanie Buchanan, but was Stephanie Price then, we had to ride on a little yellow school bus, lol, lol, that is how funny it was. I think Stephanie was 10 years old. We went on a school bus. The really larger groups were going to go in the city bus. It was cheap-o in the beginning.

From the spiritual side, it was significant. I could hardly sleep the night before, when I looked out of my window all I could see was the shotgun houses on the side of the hill.

I thought, my God, those are the hills of Judea. I mean, the hills of Judea. I’m here. I mean, forget all the other problems. They didn’t even matter really.

But Dr. Price he said he didn’t care if he ever again in life got to Israel. The food was bad, the hotel was bad, the buses were bad. He was like, I’m done.

So in the intervening ten years from 1978 to 1988, we did not go to the Holy Land. We started cruising in 1985, but up until that point we didn’t do any more Holy Land stuff.

To be continued in December of 2022. EIF E Newsletter.



*CCC’s history on the seas* Interviewer Tamara Taylor We are here with A. Michael Evans, vice president of marketing, at Crenshaw Christian Center’s outreach aka Ever Increasing Faith Ministries Marketing & Media Division, and executive director of Cruises and Tours. In 2019 Crenshaw Christian Center complied with the state regulation to modify it’s in-person operation to offer Sunday Service, Bible studies, both morning and evening via online. It was decided that all outreach activities to the members and community would be discontinued until further notice. At that time there was a cruise scheduled for Apostle Frederick K.C. Price with Dr. Betty R. Price, including Pastor Fred and Lady Angel Price, for EIF Ministries for October 2019. Many things have changed over the years, which leads us to October 4, 2022, and the Holy Land Cruise. Mr. Evans began establishing crusades and cruises for Crenshaw Christian Center more than 40 years ago. The interview is impactful from his perspective moving forward without the chief pastor of Crenshaw Christian Center and Ever-Increasing Faith Ministries: Question: What was it like cruising without Apostle Price this time around, and what is it like working with Pastor Frederick versus Apostle Price on cruises? How are they different? AME: Apostle Price was his own man. Pastor Fred is not an exact reproduction of Apostle Price. He sees things in a different way. He is a lot younger. He is riskier in some ways and seems to have more fun. Apostle Price was always dressed to the nines. It didn’t matter where he was. He was always Mr. Clean. Even when he was at the beach, he was Mr. Clean. Pastor not so much. He has a relaxed approach. He is just a guy out there having fun. He is what – 42-ish? I am almost -- thank God – twice his age. So from my perspective he has a more youthful vibe about him. The way he dresses, the way he talks, the way he acts. His entire demeanor is different. He reaches out to [his sister} Mrs. Evans for most things before he reaches out to me. It’s easier at times to receive from her. Statement: With regards to cruises and tours, you have been organizing and directing them since the beginning of EIF travels. AME: The tours and cruises have been separate. We’ve done dedicated cruises, and on weekends, dedicated tours. But the last couple of events have been a combination of cruises and tours. How that came about is another topic and another subject, and it deserves its own discussion. Regarding the work and history of the cruises and tours. I have not had any issues with Pastor as far as work ethic is concerned. We get along. He is a fun-loving guy, and he is obviously loaded with the Word of God. Many of us can see that on Sundays and at Bible studies. Quite often I am amazed because I helped raise him. So you think about this guy that I helped raise from a child, from a baby, watching him grow up, my thoughts are: “Wow, where did he learn all that stuff?” But it’s fascinating to listen to him teach. And no matter where he is now, he started something on the ship. He started a message on the ship. You may be about to ask what the message was. I know it was good, but you will have to get the cruise audio. He taught in the main theater on the ship. There were two other groups there from Noseworthy Travel that had the opportunity to hear the good Word. Unbeknownst to me, they tracked us every step of the way. We dined together. On our next event we may not gather with other groups. However, when we learned we were all together, we invited the groups to all the sessions pastor was teaching. It was like a church meeting. Everyone was welcome, everyone was invited. Our guide, Mantu, learned of the other groups, which made us have 15 to 20 more people show up and listen to the message. They were excited by what they heard. They stayed through the whole thing and were looking forward to the second phase of the message, as we all were. That phase never happened, but they were all looking forward to the Word. Question: Activities on the cruise? AME: We did not have a greeting that we call a hello as we did all those years before. It was called our “Welcome Aboard” meeting. That usually takes place the day you board the ship. You, then, go to your cabin and get your life jacket and then stand around and wait for the lifeboat drill. After that, you take your life jacket down to a particular location and they assign you to a lifeboat. And when it’s over, your cruise begins. After you get settled in, your welcome-aboard meeting takes place. During your welcome-aboard meeting your luggage is being delivered. The site if you can see it, has tens of thousands of pieces of luggage all over the place. So you figure they have 4,000 passengers and a thousand crew members and just do the math on how much luggage they have. Five, six pieces show up in the same way. But, unfortunately, because there was another group there, they lumped three groups into one auditorium for a welcome-aboard meeting, and they restricted us to 30 minutes each, which we never had before. In the past we were looking at a dedicated room and a dedicated amount of time. This time, they gave us all the same room and we had to listen to speakers from other groups. This was something I was not comfortable with. Our group was allotted 30 minutes. We introduced ourselves and announced that Pastor was going to be speaking all week. It was a brief welcome meeting for our EIF travelers. Question: Does Pastor have a different teaching style from Apostle Price? Does he stand at a podium? Is he interactive? Is he in a circle as he is delivering the Word? AME: Take a look at the photos. I believe I shot a couple of shots of Pastor teaching and some shots of our crew shopping. Here is a new hashtag EIFCruise 2022. (Insert Photos) Question: From the clips, he was standing on what appears to be a stage, right? AME: This is where the ship does its theatrical performances. So it’s a high-tech stage environment. He was on the stage. We were seated, as in a theater, as he taught. Comment/Question: Looking at a few of the clips from Facebook, there was a very good clip of Pastor Price and Lady Angel Price dancing in the restaurant. It looked like great fun! There was another clip where Pastor Fred and Pastor Mike Amey were in a garden doing a step show. It was such fun to watch them relax and enjoy themselves in a way most of us have not seen before. AME: Yeah, I believe, though I’m not 100 percent certain of the location, I do remember seeing them acting and having a good time, so to speak, in Rome near the Colosseum. So I’m sure they were probably there because there was a lot of levity and play and interactivity. Comment: That is so nice! AME: It was the Colosseum, as I remember it. We had about 30-some people plus per bus and we only have one pastor. It would be unfair for a pastor to ride around in the same bus all the time and have the same people get to see him and interact with him. He had to go on a different bus every day. There were people on each bus who took pictures individually. It was exciting for everyone. There were many people posting on various social media platforms. Comment: I am pretty well persuaded that those who saw clips of Pastor dancing, Lady Angel partying and their friends, the Ameys. enjoying themselves, would say it was great to observe Pastor Fred outside his element. Comment on social media: So it was a cool video. They put a lot of comments and interactions on it. That was a cool video seeing him dance. Comment on social media: What was also cool was to see the surprise look on Pastor and Lady Angel’s faces when Pastor Mike Amey and Lady Tanya surprised them. Pastor Fred and Lady Angel did not have a clue. How did that come about? AME: I thought so, too. Pastor Fred and Lady Angel were stunned when Pastor and Mrs. Amey joined them. He [Pastor Amey . . . well, let me go back to the previous days. We went to a restaurant in Bethlehem. It was a brand-new restaurant, a beautiful restaurant. If was very surprising how nice it was because Bethlehem is almost like a slum. But this restaurant was really nice! Great view of the hills of Judea. Really pretty! All of our cruise family was there. Everybody showed up. The restaurant asked Pastor and Lady Angel if they would wear Shepherd’s garb and be willing to dance around as they played the music. Pastor Price replied with a happy “sure.” So they went to the back and changed into the shepherd’s garb, the music was played, and the event was fun for all. But to get back to how the Amey’s were able to surprise the Prices on the EIF Holy Land Cruise 2022, Mrs. Evans, CCC president, arranged for James and Barbara Byndon, who are Lady Tanya’s parents, to sell books on the trip, as well as be boat captains. Captains take care of a bus full of people, most of which are elderly females that really need assistance. Somehow, she got the idea to invite the Amey’s from South Africa. So she made it a confidential matter. It was a well-kept secret. It was not until we were already in Rome when the Amey’s showed up, and that was a complete and total surprise to Pastor and Lady Angel. You could see the look on their faces, all four of them. It was good to watch. We know the history going back where they used to be in videos together with Pastor Fred “walking the earth, as Jesus.” Pastor Mike and Lady Tanya are pastor’s in Namibia. I thought it was a really nice and awesome gesture for them to be able to enjoy the cruise together. Question: The EIF Holy Land Cruise 2022 appeared to be a nice change since Covid-19 attacked the land. Since Pastor has completed the cruise, how was it that Pastor Fred and Lady Angel were hit by Covid? AME: I think the thing is a real sensitive subject. If you saw the video that was aired or shared with the church on Sunday, you know it was made to seem as though the cruise was a real downer. If you use the words “cruise from hell” -- and I don’t think she really meant that – I think she was speaking from her emotions and she probably meant for her and maybe even for Pastor. That way it might be considered a cruise from hell. But it was in no way shape or form the cruise from hell. It was just the opposite. If you ask the majority of people that went, everybody had a great time, including Pastor up until the point where Covid became a factor. After that, it was not fun anymore. But overall a great cruise/tour. It was a great cruise up until the day we were supposed to go to Ephesus. Apparently, the day or night before, Pastor felt symptoms. He went to the infirmary to get some over-the-counter medication to assist him and they told him no, no, no, no. You aren’t going nowhere. The ship’s crew experienced Ebola last year. So Pastor was not a happy camper. Anyway, up until that point. It was a great cruise. Pastor got to see three glorious days in Rome, a day at sea, going to Israel. That’s where he had the first meeting. And then he had a day in Galilee. We did a couple of things in Galilee that were not on the brochure. We took a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee, and we had a St. Peter’s fish dinner, neither one of which was mentioned in the brochure. Had we not done it, there would have been no expectation. But we did. We ended up doing a Sunset boat ride on the Sea of Galilee with Pastor Todd. So all the great footage, the message, everything is, it should be a hashtag of what people shot that day. It was beautiful and a great time. Then the next day we sailed down to Ashdod, which is the area of Tel Aviv, which became our home base for our daily trips into the Jerusalem. The next day we went to Bethlehem. We had a great time at both locations. We saw him dancing and we talked about him dancing in the Bethlehem. So we had a great time there. It wasn’t until the day after Bethlehem that he contracted the symptoms. Pastor missed Ephesus. You know he loves to teach about ancient history and Ephesus is full of ancient history. And he really, really was disappointed in missing Ephesus. I think the Greek islands that we went to after Ephesus – Santorini, Crete and the others – were nice, but they were all good. Lots of biblical historical significance, but there really wasn’t a whole lot going on there, just nice during the days on those islands. Question: Because you have been organizing the crusades, cruises and tours since from the first, how do you feel about making history with Apostle Price and now sharing the new history with his son, Pastor Fred Price? AME: It makes me feel old. It’s hard to say that people would be so surprised by what I’ve been doing. I went on my first Israel tour with the ministry with the late Dr. Billy Ingram and Dr. Bryant Park, Betty, Angela and Kasey group. Probably about 75 of us in 1978. We went to Israel at that time. That tour was very bare, an economy tour. They had five or six ministries that chartered a plane and what we had wasn’t a very good plane. We had a stop in Ireland to refuel. Then we continued on to Israel. And once we got to Israel, in some ways it got worse. And then all the ways it got better, from a creative standpoint, it was worse because the hotel was raggedy, the food was whack. I remember it was my niece, who is now Stephanie Buchanan, but was Stephanie Price then, we had to ride on a little yellow school bus, lol, lol, that is how funny it was. I think Stephanie was 10 years old. We went on a school bus. The really larger groups were going to go in the city bus. It was cheap-o in the beginning. From the spiritual side, it was significant. I could hardly sleep the night before, when I looked out of my window all I could see was the shotgun houses on the side of the hill. I thought, my God, those are the hills of Judea. I mean, the hills of Judea. I’m here. I mean, forget all the other problems. They didn’t even matter really. But Dr. Price he said he didn’t care if he ever again in life got to Israel. The food was bad, the hotel was bad, the buses were bad. He was like, I’m done. So in the intervening ten years from 1978 to 1988, we did not go to the Holy Land. We started cruising in 1985, but up until that point we didn’t do any more Holy Land stuff. To be continued in December of 2022. EIF E Newsletter.

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