I’ve had a passion for Jeeps since high school, and have recently rebuilt and modified a ’77 CJ-7 Jeep .
CJ-7 Modified
but of course, the modification is still on-going
Don & Randy on an excursion in Colorado
Martha and I were married in Pampa August 22, 1957, so we will soon be celebrating our 50th anniversary. I went into car business with my Dad after graduation, and stayed in car sales until 1974. In 1975 I entered Cabot’s welding school and spent 3 years with Cabot Corp. In 1978, we started our own business (Don Jonas Welding) and continued through 1988. The oil boom was over!!!
Alcohol finally kicked my butt in 1983, after 27 years. I went to a treatment center in Ft. Worth and got in the AA program. November 28, 2007, I will have 24 years sobriety.
I took a calligraphy course in 1984 (a big part of my sobriety). I personally met the Lord on January 15, 1989. In 1991 I was commissioned to do a piece titled “The Roman Road to Salvation” in the Russian language. It was quite a challenge to develop a calligraphy script that would be legible to the average Russian person. Martha & I went to Minsk, Belarus with an inter-denominational group in 1992 for two weeks. While there, the group passed out 100,000 Bibles and 100,000 tracts of the Russian calligraphy piece. Their country was just coming out from under communist rule, some of the people had only a single page of an old Bible that had been handed down to them by parents or grandparents or even great grandparents. They were so hungry for the Word of God. Since then, several million of these Roman Road to Salvation tracts have been distributed in Russia, Ukraine, Romania, and Poland.
After five years of making art shows, 25 to 30 a year, we were encouraged to enter the wholesale markets in 1995. We have had some 600 stores in the U.S. and International markets handling our work. We are presently trying to wind down this operation and retire, with God’s help.
We have been blessed with a son and daughter, Randy born in 1959& Denise in 1963, and five grandsons and one granddaughter. No great grandkids yet. We enjoy vacationing in Colorado as a family.
What a journey God has led us on! ! ! .
