"RICK & BEBE "

TRAVELING AND MINISTERING FULL TIME IN THE UNITED STATES, CANADA, AND COLOMBIA, SOUTH AMERICA!

"Rick & Bebe” have been serving Jesus in full time traveling ministry since they were saved in a Lowell Lundstrom crusade in 1982!

Previous to that they were full-time entertainers in the secular country music industry, working the Nashville and Las Vegas circuits. Since 1983 they have ministered from Mexico to Alaska and points between, and produced over 25 Gospel music cassette tapes, cds and videos.

On the personal side, both were born in Minnesota. Bebe was raised in the small northern town of Moose Lake, and Rick grew up between Minneapolis, Clarion, IA, and also spent much time with his grandmother in North Dakota. They have three sons (Albert, Gerald, --wife Nancy-- and Thomas) plus two grandsons (Walter and Grant).

Not only is it unusual for country/bluegrass style musicians to come from Minnesota, Rick & Bebe carried it even further! Bebe and her sister Betty had the first bluegrass band in the Midwest in the late 1950's (the banjo player played Scruggs-style with a flat pick, having never seen, but only heard, bluegrass banjo!)

They performed with many of the Grand Ole Opry stars in the Midwest, under the name of “Kentucky Travelers”.

Later the two sisters (along with a musician from Indiana named Russell Griffin) worked for a number of years in the Flame Café, Minneapolis, MN as a featured act.

When Bebe married Rick, one of their friends taught him to play acoustic upright bass, and Rick's advertising background paid off when he promptly secured the first live weekly bluegrass radio show on WMIN (St. Paul) called “Bluegrass County”.

When the bluegrass-folk-hootenany craze began to fade, Rick and Bebe went into the full time nightclub circuit work, adding other band members, and playing a wide and varied mix of country music for dancing and show.

During their first 20 years of marriage, they did many numerous things in the music business….such as working in Nashville as writers with Opry Star Charlie Louvin, recording and writing with Fred Carter, Jr., performing in the nation's country nightclub circuit from coast to coast, and finally returning to the Northland, where they had a 4 year highly successful Opry style regional talent show called “North Country Shindig.” This spawned weekly television in prime time in Duluth, MN on both KDAL and WDIO.

When Jesus entered their life in the summer of 1982 at that fairground, however, all the background and experience in the music business became unimportant. Within a few short months, Rick and Bebe left the full time secular country music business, and went to work for Jesus!

Amazing, the Lord does not waste anything…all the years spent in learning a trade and gaining experience have been turned to use for Jesus!

Since their conversion, Rick and Bebe have recorded over 20 cd, cassette, and video projects. They travel full time throughout all of Canada, the majority of the USA, and up into Fairbanks and Fort Yukon, Alaska.

MISSION FIELD IN SOUTH AMERICA!

AND!... Starting in January of 2004, they have made three special mission trips to Bogota, Colombia, and plan to return in fall of 2007.

There they assist the Colombia para Cristo Ministries in their digital recording studio and radio stations.

Two CDs have come from this effort, in a “fusion of North American and Colombian folk & country Gospel music”. They are offered for sale at ministry stops by Rick & Bebe, but are primarily used on the 5 Colombian Christian radio stations that reach out to the military, para-miltary, and the guerrillas in the 40 year Civil War that is still going on in Colombia!

As Bebe said, “Wow! Who ever thought we would be doing this!!”

Rick and Bebe's home office is Cloquet, MN, and when they are at home they reside outside Carlton, MN at a acreage in the country where the old farmhouse is over 75 years old!!