Melvin Duke - Online Memorial Website

My dear beloved grandma Mary Lou,

 

It has been 16 years since we have known each other. It was a special day in my life that I will always treasure. There are many memories we have and I will remember them all. I am grateful to you and grandpa Mel for all that you did for me. I am especially thankful for your love, care, compassion, support and spiritual lessons that you have taught me. I met you before I became a Christian and you have played a major role in my spiritual formation and growth. Your walk and faith in God has always been a role model to me and today I am able to share the gospel with other orphans because of you. Thank you!

 

It gives me peace that I will get to see grandpa Mel in eternity with our Heavenly Father. He will always be my grandpa because he was the only male on this earth whom I gave a family title.

 

I send much love to my grandma Mary Lou and hope to see her many more times during my visits to CO.

 

Love your Russian grandson, Alex

I am ever thankful to the Lord for the privilege of knowing Mel and Mary Lou Duke through the Navs when we were both at Ft. Hood, TX. What impressed me most about Mel and Mary Lou was the quality of their marriage and parenting. They provided the very best model of the oneness the Lord desires to see in marriages and the loving combination of love and limits that children need from parents.

 

Since my brief personal connection with Mel and Mary Lou, I have continued to be impressed with their commitment in serving the Lord, most recently in St. Petersburg and Estonia. Like Caleb, they never let their age limit their faith in what the Lord could do through them.

 

I'm sure this is a difficult time for Mary Lou. The greater the oneness in a marriage relationship, the greater the loss when that oneness is broken. Mel will be looking on from heaven asking you to hold tightly onto the other strand of that 3-fold cord that cannot be broken, the Son of God who was also intimately intertwined in the marital oneness that was yours. I don't know the way through the grief or the words to make it easier, but He knows the Way, He is the Way. May His Way continue to be your Way . . . until its great culmination when you are all united together with Him.

 

One of many beneficiaries of Mel and Mary Lou's lifelong service to the Lord,

 

Bob Larzelere

We met Mel and Mary Lou while they were living in Estonia - the next country up from us here in Latvia. They had come to develop the Nav ministry there and over the years they spent there we met up from time to time. Mel was great when he came to minister at a youth camp we were leading with the Salvation Army here. He was an encouragement both to the leaders and to the youth and shared some very relevant thoughts.
Mel and Mary Lou also travelled down to see us a few times and we enjoyed spending time relaxing together, talking about our ministries, encouraging one another and praying together. We will remember Mel as a humble man, always ready to share what God was doing in him and ready to help others live closer to God.
We will be thinking and praying for Mary Lou and the family over the coming days.

My name is Jack Jones.  I am a 66-year-old retired secondary school teacher living in Tyler, Texas. Arleen and I have raised 2 sons, one age 36 and the other age 24.  Arleen and I are involved in the  Nav  businessmen’s  ministry of Ken Wheeler.  We also work in evangelizing and discipling Chinese UTTyler Health Center MD-PhD researchers and Chinese UTTyler graduate students.

I had the privilege of living with Mel and Mary Lou immediately following my 2 year tour of duty at Ft. Hood, Texas. I got a job as a Pepsi Cola distributor and was asked to lead the ministry at III Corps Chapel  at Ft Hood. Mel, Mary Lou and the children made me feel  very welcome and a part of the family. Living in their home became foundational for me in learning family living, Christian discipleship and ministry.  I consider my year with them to be the most important and pivotal event in preparing for my adult life and ministry.

I remember Mel  taking me into the barracks at Ft. Hood and showing me how to share my faith with others.  I was told to sit on the floor as we talked to a young man sitting on his bed.

More personally,  I remember my widowed mother coming to visit at the Duke home. She was deeply moved by the Duke family, and she and I prayed together earnestly  as she prepared for her flight out Killeen. This is my only memory of my mother's praying openly with feeling and intensity.

At one of our first Nav conferences (1969, I think) we met Mel & Mary Lou, who were home from overseas work with military men and women. They were experienced overseas workers and we were still wet behind the ears but they took time for us...so friendly and encouraging! We've stayed in touch ever since through newsletters and we occasionally renew the friendship in person.

But in Russia we got to work together. They were in St. Petersburg while we were in Vladivostok...only seven time zones apart! But we visited their home in St. Petersburg and saw them adding valuable maturity to a young team. Such faithful servants, giving themselves to people wherever they were, and usually that was in farflung places!

At an age when most people would be thinking of sitting in rocking chairs and taking it easy in retirement Mel & Mary Lou left Russia to pioneer in still another foreign country, Estonia. We visited them there too and found them still making friends and loving them into the kingdom and lives of discipleship. They took us out in their big American car and to dinner at a favorite restaurant. Sweet fellowship! Mel was a paragon of humility, love and faith, with Mary Lou at his side the whole way. They've been an inspiration to us in faithfulness and sacrificial service to the end.

I'm thankful for meeting Mel and Marylou in Denver back in 1959.  I was serving as director of the Denver Servicemen's Center.  Mel provided leadership as we colabored at the Center.  I thank God for seeing men come to faith like Paul Innes and men like Bob Sander-Cedarloff grow in their faith.  What a joy to have Marylou join the gospel team, visiting churches in the area.  She was also a vital part of the ministry there.

 

I'm grateful for the friendship with Mel from the start.  He was a groomsman at our wedding, July 19, 1961.  And then for the remembrance of the Dukes' investment in lives in the military both in the U.S. and overseas.  We were encouraged with their serving with The Navigators in Russia and Estonia.

 

It was a special joy to spend a few days with them in Tallin, Estonia, visiting with some of their contacts and being in their home.  The last time I saw Mel was when he visited in the area, seeing Piret at Kent State, one of the Dukes' contacts from Estonia.

 

We will miss Mel, but thank God for his faithfulness first to the Lord, to his family and to the ministry.  I thank God for his friendship over 50 years and rejoice at his promotion.  We love you, Marylou.

 

Dave and Lori Johnson

I first got time with Mel and Mary Lou riding through St. Petersburg, Russia in their BIG Blue Suburban with Texas license plates on it around '99 or 2000 on the way to a Russian Staff Conference outside the city.  What a wonderful couple and what examples to all of us of their commitment to the Lord's call and work for life.  Truly a blessing to see these lifetime laborers in action.  A year or so later, Aivis Ilsters in Latvia and Mel & Mary Lou and Jeannette and I put on a conference for about 40 young men and women involved in making disciples in a retreat center in rural Latvia.  Mel and Mary Lou shared some special words related to marriage, and Aivis and Sarah announced their engagement at that conference.  We took folks there by car, bus, and whatever and certainly BIG BLUE was filled over capacity with Mary Lou riding shotgun.  Mel and Mary Lou were amazing together as they ministered to people of another culture around the dinner table and in small groups or just casual conversations using the Word.   

     Mel was used to getting pulled over by the police in many countries and usually not for any violation, they just wanted to see this vehicle first hand!  For a couple years following our time together in Latvia, we would meet them in Annapolis, MD on their annual visits and have lunch and conversations to catch up and hear about the Lord's work in Estonia.  They have been a blessing and a joy to us and love them and will pray for Mary Lou and the family.  We too will miss our brother, and we weep at his passing; however we know that one day we will see him again and we can rejoice in his home-going.

   Love in Him,   Dick & Jeannette Taylor  -  Pennsylvania USA

I'll always remember my surrogate "father" Mel Duke as warm and sensitive. He loved Jesus and saught God's will at all times.  He was a great inspiration and comfort to me while in St. Pete, Russia.  He had a very big heart and freely opened up to people.   I'll never forget a conversation on the airplane back to the States after one year in Russia with him and Lou.  I thought I would probably be getting married.  Since I was estranged with my Dad, I asked him if he would consider "walking me down the aisle".  He said "Yes!" without even a hestitation.  Mel and Lou were such a blessing to so many.  Lou, I will be praying for you and the family. I know there is a big gap in your hearts that only the Lord can fill.   With much love, Leila (Bardill) Gardner

 

 

Mel and Mary Lou moved to our city of Riverside upon their return from Okinawa. We were selling flour mills and bread machines. Mel invited us to share them with them and bought the machines. Soon after they brought their entire Nav staff of S. Ca. to our house for a nutrition seminar. Later, Mel invited me (Sue) to set up a healthy lunch program at Riverside Christian High School the year he was principal. When they moved to San Diego, they invited us to do a whole grain waffle workshop with a roomful of ladies. When they went to Russia, they discovered the nutritional needs of the team there and invited me (Sue) to come in 1994 and teach the teams. I ended up also sharing with some Russian groups and also met Alex Krutove. In 1996, I returned with my husband (Rich). Alex was our gofer for everything. I saw potential in him and a needy young adult orphan. We invited him to our home for six months chef training in healthy eating. He served over 34 families with over 150 recipes. My heart went out to Alex like a mother's. In 1998, in Russia, I adopted Alex as my Russian son. In 2001, Alex came to the states to go to the university. I was left in the care of Liudmila, a young Russian widow. She chalenged me to teach Russian women how to teach others foods and nutrition accompanied with Bible studies in the Gospel of John. I did this and prepared leader's materials and a Russian cookbook. Translated into Russian. In the meantime, Alex founded The Harbor in St. Petersburg for adult orphans with CRM missionary, Melinda Cathey. I was also able to do food workshops for the participants and share the cookbook with them. We have watched The Harbor grow with great success and been greatly blessed in partnering with Alex in it, both as our Russia son and as he is becoming "a father to the fatherless." This is the result of Mel and Mary Lou in our lives. They also counseled us as a married couple when we hit a crisis. They have had significant impact in our lives and through them our lives have been totally transformed in these our later years.

 

Rich & Sue Gregg

Well, it was 1965 and Skip Gray, Paul Drake, and Ron York were on a Navigator recruiting trip in North Carolina.  They came to visit me, because I was one who had sent in my Studies In Christian Living booklet for grading.

Initially, Larry Blake put Percy Crecelius onto me, and then Ron York.

This was in 1965 and I had only been restored to fellowship since April 1964.  But being hungry for Christ and the work of the kingdom, I bombarded Nav Headquarters for material, etc.

But, unknown to me, Skip was out to recruit commissioned Officers to develop a team to advance the Nav's Military work.

Sitting in a car, late at night after enduring my undoubtedly inept leading of a Bible Study, Skip's recruiting message was "laid on me", and the chief illustration was the commitment and willingness of this Air Force Captain in FL, named mel Duke, to lay down his personal career plans for the work of the Kingdom.

From a human perspective, I thought, "...Well, ain't no USAF Capt. going to demonstrate more commitment  to Christ and His kingdom than an Capt. in USMC!..."

At this moment, I am ashamed of such crass motivation: but, in retrospect I recognize God's sovereignty in dealing with us where we are.

I resigned my commission and months later met Mel and Mary Lou face to face.  From that moment on, we had a unique relationship in many respects.

But, for me, in the good providence of God, I look back fondly to His use of Mel and Mary Lou's commitment to "push Jan and me over the edge".

Mel will be missed, by many; but, his legacy will live on, to the glory of Christ and His kingdom.

Behold, how the mighty are fallen!

Bob Lewis