I grew up the son of a naval submariner and later a top gun fighter pilot and a beautiful and intelligent and humorous local girl from Kailua Hawaii and Eureka CA and before that Pierce Colorado.
Before becoming a fighter pilot my father was in the Navy working as a radio operator on submarines spying on Hyphong Harbor while stationed at Pearl Harbor. He met my mom at Fort Derussey Beach. She was ditching Roosevelt High School as a senior with her best friend Michelle when she and my dad met and fell in love hard. Two weeks later they were engaged and nine months later I showed up and thank God abortion on demand was not an option back 1954. My father recently shared with us sibblings that he was kissing my mom and said this was bigger than both of them. My father romantic…wow newsflash.
My father had to divorce my mother to qualify for attending flight school in Georgia.
So they drove down to Mexico along with my dad’s sister and husband to be witnesses. Now my mother and me would be known as dads girlfriend who had a four year old son… until he graduated as a second Lieutenant and they got remarried right after his ceremony. I actually attended my father and mothers’ second wedding. How cool is that?
After being stationed in Greenville Mississippi and then Glendale Arizon, and then Clovis New Mexico. E.T Laudise had been a part of M.A.D. Mutual Assured Destruction Program in the late sixties where he carried a live 1000 pound nuclear bomb on his Super Saber F-100 and his target was Kiev, Ukraine. They practiced for three to four months flying out of Turkey.
Later we were stationed at Lakenheath AFB for 3 1/2 years. My family lived in two little villages and I attended English Public school in short pants and a blazer my first two years in England. Not until year three of his deployment did I attend an Americna school on Lakenheath AFB for the fourth and first part of my fifth grade. We came back to the US so my father could attend the University of Wyoming where we purchased a brand new house in the neighborhood known as “Snob Hill”.
Dad only had a two year college degree and now pilots were required to have an engineering and or math degree. After one year of school my father was itching to fly so he vollunteered to go to Vietnam.
After his first tour he returned and we all moved back to Laramie Wyoming so he could finish his Math degree. Then they stationed him back at Nelis AFB. After one year he was ordered to attend the Armed Forces Staff College so we all said our good-byes and alohas and moved to Norfolk VA for six months. ( Please note: He was chosen to attend the Armed Forces Staff College in Norfolk Virginia because that is where they groom all their best and finest to become the future generals of the Air Force).
After he graduated we were sent to McDill AFB in Tampa Florida where we bought our another brand new house and dad started flying F-4 Phantoms.
After one year He once again volunteered to go to Vietnam for his second tour and we the family of seven minus one under commander Mom Patricia Anne stayed on in Tampa Florida. During the first tour we moved to stay in Santa Rosa where a bunch of my mother’s relatives had migrated to from Hawaii and all over Colorado and California in case my dad was killed… she would have all the support of family we all would need.
After his second tour my dad got orders for Hickam AFB in Hawaii for a three and a half year deployment. Somehow my dad cut the three and half year deployment by volunteering to go to Thailand and fly. His orders changed and he was chosen to be the commander of the newly formed Aggressor Squadron at the Fighter Weapons School at Nelis AFB home of the Thunderbirds. The art of the dogfight had been lost during the Vietnam war and had to be relearned so my dad’s squadron acted like a squadron of Mig Fighters and trained fighter pilots from all over the world…Israel, Germany, Russia, to learn again air to air combat.
Then my father was chosen as the First F-15 Squadron Commander at Luke Air Force Base in Glendale Arizona. My father was on TV delivering the first F-15 to President Gerald Ford. You can google it Air Force Colonel ET Laudise and President Ford and the F-15…
Mua had attended 16 different schools before graduating at Kailua High School in 1972 and becoming a Waterman through SCUBA Diving, Free Diving, One meter board diving, Body surfing, Body boarding and Longboard Surfing, Ocean Canoe Paddling in 6, 4 and one man canoes, and Lifeguarding and training lifeguards as a Water Safety Instructor through the American Red Cross. My family moved back to Nelis and I stayed put in Kailua watching our home at 62 Aikahi Loop until it was sold.
After my stint in the army in 1973-74, I fell head over heals in love with another local girl like my father did and we were married October 7, 1975. After four daughters and nine (and one more in the imu) granddaughters and grandsons later I am still smitten almost 47 years later! Our first year was really tough with me being an entertainer in Waikiki, and Military Clubs all over including Midway so we split up. My wife and me had both been brought up Catholic but had wandered far far and away but thanks to my wife she prayed for our marriage to be be healed and got her prayer answered! We did not show up for our annulment court date and decided to move forward togther but with plenty of family and friends who were serious followers and disciples of Jesus Christ both Protestant and Catholic and Jewish.
1976 after being a professional singer and guitar player since I was 15 I started Music Missions International DBA Stephen Anthony. After landing a teaching job at our church I was invited and encouraged by our Pastor Ray and his wife Arlene Shurance to go back to school before my 12 credits expired. I went back in 1980 and received my Liberal Arts degree in May 1981. Later I attended Wayland Baptist University at the Hawaii Baptist Academy Campus where I received my Bachelors Of Science in Occupational Education Degree in 1983. I continued teaching at the Kailua and Christian School till 1981. After becoming the Chaplain in 1980-81 I left to teach Pre-Algebra and Algebra 1 and Bology with a Lab at the Hawaii Baptist Academy a College Preparatory School pre-kindergarten through 12th Grade 1981-1983. I also coached Soccer and helped be the right hand man for all the Chapels and Camps under the leadership of Reverand Steve Murphy and his wife Pat.
We (Dawn and me) decided to become a missionary family with The Waikiki Beach Chaplaincy. You had to raise all of your own financial support which we miraculously did because of the faith and generosity of so many family members and friends. You had to make one year commitments which we did.
After doing radio and several short term missions to Japan I was invited by the Founder and Senior Pastor Michael Hubbard and his wife Joy to pray about becoming the associate pastor of Aikahi Christian Fellowship overseeing worship and evangelism and my wife to be in charge of the Sunday School. There would be no pay but we would get full medical and dental coverage for our entire family of six. We asked our supporters from the WBC to pray about continuing their support as we became associate pastors.
My wife and I agreed and after one year we were asked to take over the independent church which had changed its name to Crossroads Christian Fellowship and receive an actual salary to boot from the out going Michael Hubbard and his wife Joy.
We agreed but because of the scandalous exposures of Jim and Tammy Baker and then Jim Gordon and then Jimmy Swaggart we only agreed if Crossroads would come under as a fellowshipping church with the Hope Chapels under Ralph Moore. Ralph was a long time pastor with the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel and a up and coming leader in church planting all over the world. Both Michael and myself knew and trusted and had ministered with Ralph in the past. Ralph agreed to support our move towards becoming Hope Chapel Kailua and in September 1989 we had a ceremony where Michael and his wife turned the reigns over to me and my wife and we became the Pioneer and Senior Pastors of Hope Chaplel Kailua from 1989-2016.
After doing misssionary work short term at Lucky Summer in Nairobi Kenya im 2009 I went back to School and received my Masters in Divinity from the Kings University in May 2015.
A month before turning over the church in March 2016 to my associate and co-pastror I underwent a serious abdominal surgery because of my first colonoscopy in February 2016. Dr Panneta found polyps and a tumor the size of a mans fist in my transverse colon. He recommended me to an abdominal surgeon Dr Noguchi.
The surgery was unusually long (5-7 hours instead of two) because of also finding growth in my spleen and a hernia in my pico/belly button where they intended to do the scope surgery.
After the surgery and five weeks of recovery I was unable to fully catch my breath on my right side. After being under the care of my pulmonologist Dr Foti from June to Novenmber '16 it was discovered that my phrenic nerve on my right side was not inflating my diaphragm so as to inflate my lungs fully. It was so bad that I was unable to even take a bath without the feeling of drowning.
…No more surfing, diving, paddling, swimming, bathing, body surfing body boarding…our plan after turning the church over including my paycheck was to do Music Missions International DBA Stephen Anthony and recieve our income form the sales of records, videos, counseling, teaching, consultations all evaporated…I lost all hope as we began to nose dive in our finances getting ready to lose our home because of both of us losing ( for Dawn was an on call Registered Nurse with no more calls coming in) our livelyhoods and trying to survive on our social security and pension….In October ’16 with my wife’s encouragement I applied to become a substitute teacher at Hawaii Baptist Academy. I received my first sub jobs the end of December. Too little too late for sure we would lose our home we had been paying on since we built in May 1999…at least all of our children were grown and making their own families.
It really was the very first time in over 40 years of full time ministry I actually believed God had done what He promised never to do..leave and forsake us…I became very depressed and just sat around and watched every movie ever made or shown on Netflix…slowly but surely gaining pound after pound till I was fifty pounds overweight…becoming suicidal and hopeless…until a car wreck in New Zealand February 2017…my phrenic nerve seemed to be working at least a little bit…enough to encourage me anyway…slowly but surely I began to want to live again…
Fast forward to July 10, 2022….
We sold our home in Kailua October 2019 we had built in 2009… we were renting while looking to build or buy a new place smaller much smaller of course but could find nothing we wanted on O’ahu…finally we managed to look and find land on the Big Island of Hawaii in January 2020. Made an offer and paid cash for it. Got a builder and designer and broke ground in May 2021…Got all the permits on November 2021 and moved in April 28, 2022. It was nothing short of a miracle. With all the supply chains in shambles and Xiden and his new circus and clowns in charge of everything using their power to serve only themselves… God had not only not left nor forsook us but blessed our socks off!!! We have paid for thehouse and land in full and now landscaping our butts off and enjoying the hell out of it!
Well aloha for now…gotta join my wifee and water our stolens and hedge plants
