Charlie Duke - Duke Ministry for Christ (S03E08)

In this episode of Mission Chats, Charlie Duke reflects on a life marked by service, challenge, and unexpected turns. From his amazing career milestones to his transformative encounter with God's word, his story reveals how every mission—whether professional or personal—can lead toward a greater purpose.

 

Find Duke Ministries for Christ online at: https://www.dukeministryforchrist.org/

Reach out by e-mail for speaking requests at: [e-mail] or [e-mail]

 

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Episode Transcript

(00:05):
Mission Chats with Jon Crowe. Well helloeverybody and thank you for tuning back in to
Mission Chats. As always it is very encouragingwhen you do so and I'm excited today to introduce
you to somebody that I'm again just meeting nowthrough my eldest son Zac who kind of helped me
make this connection. And Mission Chats is goingto take on a double meaning here with missions as

(00:29):
you'll find out once we get going. But CharlieDuke, thank you so much for making time to be a part
of this little podcast and I understand you arereaching a milestone in about a month's time as far
as a big birthday coming up. So with 90 years ofstory to tell, I just want to hand it over to you and
yeah I'd love for you just to tell us your story,kind of your career story but then we'll talk to you

(00:53):
of course about your coming to faith and whatthat's opened up for you over the past few years.
Well thank you very much. I'm delighted to be herewith you all today and look forward to the
opportunity to tell my story. And let me start backin, I grew up in Lancaster after World War II when my
folks moved to Lancaster, South Carolina and Idecided I wanted to go to the Naval Academy and but

(01:19):
Lancaster High School wasn't good enough toprepare me for the exam so I went off to prep school
at the Fairview Academy down in St. Petersburg,Florida for two years and graduated down there and
passed the exams to get in the Naval Academy andstarted my midshipman time at the Naval Academy in
the summer of 1953 it was. I graduated in 1957 whileI was there up going lower with airplanes instead

(01:48):
of ship and so I had an opportunity by then there wasno Air Force Academy and so we could go 25% of the
class from West Point and Annapolis each yearcould volunteer for the Air Force. So I will lie
airplanes and so the choice was naval aviation orAir Force of line and when I got my physical last few

(02:13):
months before I graduated they found a stigmatismin my right eye which was disqualified from naval
aviation but the Air Force took me so I went in theAir Force and I got my wings spring of 1959 and was
assigned to a fighter interceptor squadron atRamstein, Germany so I started over and that

(02:36):
spring was the beginning of NASA and 59 first groupof astronauts were selected and while I was at
flight school Sputnik went over just a few daysafter my birthday and so that was sort of the
beginning of the space age and so we got to Germanyand was really a wonderful opportunity for me

(02:58):
flying a jet fighter interceptors we ended upflying the Evo 102 which was a relay and I stood at
interceptor and the spring of 1961 I think theBerlin wall was being built and things were real
tense and Yuri Gagarin flew that spring followedby Alan Shepard and so basically the race was on but

(03:22):
I was you know I never even considered being anastronaut at that point I was just not qualified so
I decided to go back to MIT and Air Force ordered meto get a master's degree and I volunteered for that
and I made a decision in the spring of 1962 to acceptMIT I could have stayed another year in Germany and

(03:48):
extended my tour and then gone to MIT but if I hadmade that decision I'd have never met my wife and
I'd have never been an astronaut all right I made awise decision to go to MIT and not even thinking
about still not thinking about an astronaut orgetting married right but things changed and when
I got to MIT in the summer I was there for two years toget a master's degree and my second year I was

(04:16):
working on MIT had the contract to build theguidance and navigation system for Apollo right
and so I was doing a thesis on that system you reallyoperate a system such as they had with little
toggle switches and guiding X's across and youcould look through a telescope and C stars and

(04:38):
stuff and so we proved that we could do it and while Iwas doing that thesis I met some astronauts and
they'd come up to see how this system was going towork and how they were going to employ it in the
Apollo capsule and I'd never met anybody with soenthusiastic about a job than these guys and so I

(04:59):
said why don't I get that job right they said getyour degree and go to test pilot school you might
have a chance so I followed their advice Ivolunteered for test pilot school during the time
I was doing my studies and when I graduated I wasimmediately was accepted to test pilot school and
so off we drove to California and I spent a year intest pilot school and I graduated from the test

(05:25):
pilot school and went on staff working for ColonelChuck Yeager who was the commandant of test pilot
school very famous test pilot back in those daysand became a good friend of mine over the years and
passed away several years back so I went to work forhim in the summer of 65 and in September NASA

(05:50):
decided they wanted another group of astronautsso please apply so if you were in a list of the
qualifications and hey that's me so I applied andthere were four of us in my test pilot school class
that ended up being selected Stu Russo myself andAl Warden and then Hank Hartsfield got selected

(06:13):
but an air force program called MOL MandelringLaboratory so anyway the three of us went off to
Houston in the spring of 1966 and that was thebeginning of my astronaut career I got a lot of
stuff and ended up working nine missions to themoon we had six landings and I was able to work on

(06:39):
Apollo 10, Apollo 11 and ground support, missioncontrol, CAPCOMs things like that then I was back
up on Apollo 13, flew on Apollo 16 and back up onApollo 17 so that was I worked on more Apollo
flights than anybody right okay one of the mostdemanding times was just back up on 13 when they had

(07:04):
the explosion on the way to the moon and we got alifeboat we still had lunar modules so we could use
that to get us back yeah but it was a vehicle builtfor two guys for three days now we got three guys for
four days right we ended up rationing drinkingwater you can't make water in the lunar module
there's had a big tank filled with water okay and wehad to get the batteries to last 90 hours okay and so

(07:33):
it was a real challenge and so mission control wasreally good about you know turning this on turning
that off turning this on turning that off and so wecycle things up back and forth to maintain battery
power it looked grim at first but we got real smartabout cycling things on and off and so the power

(07:55):
usage leveled off and was going to run out 10 hoursafter we got back okay they don't make a mistake and
we don't make a mistake in mission control we gotenough stuff right so it happened that way and they
re-entered and things were successful I was backup crew for that prior to that I'd been in mission

(08:17):
control with Apollo 10 and Apollo 11 Capcom yeahcan you explain what Capcom is just for uh
listening? It's Capcom is an acronym for CapsuleCommunicator and it's the only you're the only
person in mission control that has authority toactually talk to the crew and so everybody else in

(08:40):
mission control is monitoring and givinginstructions that passes through the Capcom to
the crew right and so it's a very important job yougot to get it right you got to say the things you're
supposed to say and so they can understand it sothat's why I think astronaut being Capcom was very
important because he talked their language and soI did Capcom on Apollo 10 then Neil Armstrong asked

(09:06):
me to do that on Apollo 11 and so I was in missioncontrol during that phase of the mission where we
landed on the moon and it was very challenging so westarted our descent we started having computer
overloads trajectory problems and which led tofuel problems and now we're getting down to the

(09:28):
last 60 seconds of fuel right and we had a rule thatwhen you hit 4% and the decent tanks you were aboard
so we had a level above that that was minimum fueland the first call was 60 seconds they had 60
seconds to land well or we were calling aboard andwe called 30 seconds but they were close and 13

(09:53):
seconds later Buzz Aldrin said contact enginestop and then we made it the seconds to spare if you
will right go to the rules and it was a successfullanding and then I did back up on Apollo 13 and then
flew 16 and back up a little 17 so I had a fivemissions I was associated with with the Apollo 13

(10:18):
problem they delayed the schedule we had to fix theservice module where the oxygen tanks were okay
where the problem occurred that delayed us abouttwo years on Apollo 16 but then we got to launch on in
the spring of 1972 okay and we were the fifthlanding on the moon we landed at a place called

(10:39):
Descartes and it was very challenging they calledit a mountainous moon it was hilly compared to well
near Armstrong landed we were 8,000 feet above himhow he was on the moon so the rocks were totally
different different character and very excitingwe cycled crew with a rover with revolutionized

(11:03):
lunar exploration and John I spent 72 hours on themoon we had three excursions the father's we got
away was probably about four miles on the 30 VA wewent north to a place called Northway crater which
was a big 500 meters in diameter and 100 meters deepand so when we got out there we could see into the

(11:28):
crater but you couldn't see the bottom oh wow okayit was so walls are so steep and neither one of us go
get close enough so we could look in and fall in weweren't going to fall in so it was a successful
flight and then we ended up volunteering for theApollo 17 they needed a backup crew and John Young

(11:50):
was a dead-end job Charlie we don't want to do that Isaid John they break their leg and we get to go again
hey that's not a bad idea so we thought wevolunteered I thought came into it and of course we
didn't get to go so then I went to work on the spaceshuttle after that and it wasn't the same so the 76 I
decided to leave NASA and going to business took inmy eyes off the moon and put them on money okay you

(12:16):
know it was a very challenging transition for theApollo moonwalkers I mean most of us were in our mid
30s okay and we climbed to the top of the ladder ofour career what are you going to do now there's a
real challenge you know you're going to top flightto the moon so anyway I stayed working on the space

(12:37):
shuttle for three years but whether back then itreally wasn't the same there was just meetings and
no hardware they were deciding where to put the howto build it if if you will so I decided to leave and I
went in the Air Force reserve so I could finish mymilitary career and we moved to the San Antonio

(12:59):
area where I opened a Coors beer distributor shipand was gonna make my mediums and it was a very
successful business but it wasn't my business soabout two years later I decided to sell out and my
wife she saw my frustration with the beer businessshe'd become a believer fall of 75 we ran church we

(13:25):
were going to Episcopal church in La Port Texas andthey had what they call the Faith Alive weekend and
about 10 couples come and share their testimoniesand which is rare in Episcopal church you just had
preaching but nobody was really able to that we'dheard much about sharing your faith so these

(13:47):
couples all shared and they were powerful so afterthat weekend was over Dottie went in and gave her
life to Jesus she was on the verge of suicide oh wowher depression was really bad and you know I didn't
have any answer for that right but Jesus did and sowhen she gave her heart to Jesus this peace came

(14:08):
into her life and I didn't change at all but she had afocus now that Jesus was her source of strength and
thoughts of suicide left and she began to love meand as a Christian wife and I didn't change at all
okay and then two years later I was miserable in thebeer business so she asked me to pray about it and I

(14:33):
said well you know I'm gonna Episcopal you know Ican read the prayers out of a prayer book there's
nothing here about jolly duke going into beerbusiness and so she set us up a little prayer for me
and basically the lord if you want jolly into bigbusiness giving peace if you don't want him into
beer business make it so miserable that he sellsout wow very special so short off over the next six

(14:57):
months he got worse and worse but the money gotbetter and better okay so do I chase the money or do I
chase the peace and so I decided to sell out and thatwas in the spring of 78 a couple months later a
friend of ours at possible church said jolly let'sgo to the bible study and I didn't want to go at first

(15:17):
and I said well I don't know I said what's it about Isaid well we walked through the bible let's go all
this okay yeah story of Jesus beginning to end andso okay I'll go first off I didn't say how you gonna
study the bible all weekend it was that kind ofattitude but they drugged me in and body came and so

(15:39):
I started listening and I'd been in Stundee schoolas a little boy in a bad-biss church in south
carolina So we get over to John's Gospels and I amthe way, the truth of the life. No man comes to God
except through me. The thought of hit me. That'seither true or the biggest lie we're perpetrated
on humanity. And we get to decide. And then John 3 16hit me again. And you know, I do, I'd memorize that

(16:09):
as a kid, but, uh, it was here and not in the heart.And so at the end of that weekend, we're sitting in
ready to drive out of the parking lot. And I toldDonnie who had also come to a Bible study. I said,
you know, this is either true or the biggest lie of aperpetrator on humanity. And we get to decide. And

(16:33):
I said, Lord, I believe that you are the son of Godand actually to come into my life. And that parking
lot there, I experienced a peace of God for the veryfirst time. And I knew that I knew that I knew that it
was the right thing that my life would like to getthe same. So I saw my business. I didn't have a job.

(16:55):
So I started reading the Bible. Okay. That was my,but I was insatiable. It was, uh, my routine was,
uh, two Old Testament, two New Testament, onegospel and five Psalms. So I started out today
reading and, uh, didn't understand much, but Godjust speaking to me, keep reading, keep reading.

(17:18):
And I didn't feel like a sinner. You know, I didn'tmurder anybody. Don't let him much, you know,
pencils from the space. I've got mud or somethinglike that. So, uh, Ephesians, I guess it was, uh,
husbands love your wives as Christ love thechurch. God spoke to my heart and said, you don't

(17:39):
love your wife. We'll repent. So I repented andwent to body and we began to build our marriage on
Jesus. And that began a healing in our marriage anda strengthening in our marriage. The list day is
strong. All right. 50 years later and that was a bigsin in my life. The next thing God showed me was in

(18:06):
proverb just says, you have the power of life anddeath in your tongue and you can speak life or you
can speak down. And God, you've cursed your ownchildren and, uh, repent. And I went to the
inventory or it's because I love these boys. Iwould say boys, forgive me. And I began to break the
curses over that I'd spoken on and startedblessing them and they began to blossom like

(18:30):
flowers. A year later, they both came to the Lord.One came to me and the other one went to his mom and we
led him to the Lord. So our family's been walkingwith the Lord ever since that time. And God did deal
with me one other thing in Malachi. I says, you'rerobbing me. How am I robbing you, Lord? Ties and all

(18:55):
things. I went tithing. So God spoke to me and said,it's time. So I said, to body. I said, there's going
to be a big change financially in my life. If I, wedid this. And so I said, God spoke to me about
giving. Now, why don't you go pray and see what hesays? So two weeks later, she came back and said,

(19:16):
God spoke to me. I said, what do you say? Tied. So westarted giving. And I tell you, you can't out give
God the more we gave the more he blessed us with. Andso we still doing that. And we formed right away. We
formed Duke Ministry for Christ to pay ourexpenses as we went to Africa. And we went to Europe

(19:42):
and we went to India, Australia, places like that.So we needed a 5013C. So we, because we didn't want
any money. And we don't have a fee to come speak at achurch or Christian meeting. We just, you just

(20:03):
give whatever God tells you to do. And so all themoney that we do receive goes into Duke Ministry
for Christ. And then we donate into it alsopersonally. So that has led us with helping a mini
ministries around the world. I was involved for alot of time with the full gospel business and

(20:26):
fellowship and we were traveling around theworld. They had, we did mostly South America and
the Caribbean and India several times. And itbecame a blessing to us to go share our faith. We
don't ever ask for any, we don't put out anypamphlets or anything like this. Lord, if you want

(20:46):
us to speak, you send the invitations becausewe're not going to go beating the doors, trying to
do something that we're not supposed to do. Westill get opportunities to do that through
podcasts and stuff like that. And I did aninterview with a group up in Missouri a year or so
ago and they taped it and then they put it out ontothe web. And several weeks later, they call me,

(21:11):
said, Charlie says, that program we did. Theysaid, we've had 400,000 people watch that
program. Wow. All the way to the Middle East and theFar East. And the web is amazing how it opened the
opportunity to share the gospel and peoplelistening that you never would have expected. But

(21:36):
just about every country's got an internet andthey got cell phones or computers or something,
but they're watching. You never know how manypeople can be touched. That's why I do these things
because of the opportunity. So that is 76 today.Right. So Charlie, I'd love to hear one or two gods

(21:56):
or as I call them on my podcast. So times in your lifewhere you've seen, obviously, you're coming to
faith. It's probably the biggest God story andthat's my story too. But maybe in your years of
ministry, have you seen particular things whereGod's really shown up in a big way? And yeah, that
you might be able to share just for theencouragement of listeners. Yeah, there's

(22:17):
several things that happened. I was trying aboutUFOs and I had this distinct impression that UFOs
are demonic. They're real, but they're not on thisworld. And US government just released a report.
The UFOs are real, but we don't know where they'refrom. So I started praying about it. Lord said

(22:42):
there's money, but I always tested the Lord when hetells me things like that. So I said, Lord, if what
you're telling me is true, then tomorrow morningat breakfast have Newman Peyton start talking
about UFOs. Okay. Just old friend I travel all overthe world with. And we had never talked about

(23:03):
things like that. I just needed to, to test God, youknow, have him do it. If this is what I'm saying,
it's right. So the next morning at breakfast, Iwalked down, Newman's sitting there eating his
breakfast and he said, come over, Charlie, I needto talk to you about UFOs. So God confirmed it to me.
And so I test, I asked for confirmation. So a lotwith things like that. And I had another, my mom

(23:29):
told me and something says, pray for your cousin,Betty. She's real sick and she, uh, expecting a
baby and things are going well. So pray for her. SoI'm driving from San Antonio up to Austin and
praying, thinking about Betty. And God spoke to meand says, go pray for Betty. Not just pray for

(23:56):
Betty, but go pray for Betty. And now Betty was 1200miles away in South Carolina. So I said, okay,
Lord, if you want me to do this, have a red truck comeover the hill. Over the hill comes this red truck.
Okay. Okay. So I said, well, I think I was supposedto go Lord, but have another red truck come over.

(24:20):
You don't see bright red drugs very much. Anotherone came over the hill. So I said, okay, Lord, I'll
go. So I got on an airplane and flew to Charleston,South Carolina and went to their home out and my
first cousin, her mom met me at the door. Sean, Isaid, her name was Dutton. I said, Dutton, I'm here

(24:42):
to pray for Betty. So, oh, no, she's very upset. Isaid, I came 1200 miles. I'm going to go pray for the
baby. Right. I told me to pray for play hands onBetty. So I said, went in there and said, Betty, God
sent me to pray for you. She said, I've been prayingfor four days. I didn't think anybody was
listening. Wow. So it strengthened her faith. Sheand I prayed for her, that peace of the Lord. I just

(25:08):
committed she and the baby. She actually lost thebaby, but since then she's had two more. Got
grandkids now. This was long. Anyway, things likethat has happened in our lives. And like Gideon, I
said, God, give me a sign if I'm really supposed todo this. God, I feel it in my spirit, but what's me
and what's bashing and what's God, you know? So Iuse signs like Gideon a lot to get God's direction

(25:36):
on things. And so people just continued. We don'tever ask for any. We don't put out any pamphlets or
anything like this. Lord, if you want us to speak,you send the invitations because we're not going
to go beating the doors, trying to do somethingthat we're not supposed to do. And so I said, if you
want us to continue to speak, you got to send theinvitations and he does. And so we're still at it

(26:02):
now. So I was thinking back to your walking on themoon. My understanding is that you were the
youngest person to walk on the moon. Is thatcorrect? By four months. Okay. That's great. My
birthday's in October. Jack Schmidt'sbirthday's in July. Okay. I'm about 37. So I'd be by

(26:22):
four months. Right. That's great. And then I thinkI saw a story too. You had a little mishap during
your moonwalking. Curious about kind of what wentthrough your mind in that moment. The backflip was
a big problem. And we were going to do the moonOlympics. Okay. So we're on the moon to close out

(26:45):
our three days. Right. John and I, we were going todo the high jump and the forward jump. Well, up on
the moon, back, back, wait as much as I did. So Iweighed 300 pounds down here with all my gear on,
but up there, you know, it was 50 pounds. Yeah. SoI'm springing and the backpack, you have to bend

(27:11):
over to keep your gravity over your feet. So when Ijump, I straightened up and over I went backwards.
The only time in the whole mission where I had amoment of fear. Okay. And if there's not a bad
emotion, if you don't panic. Right. And I had thisidea of roll right and I rolled to the right. And as I

(27:33):
was going down and landed on my right side, bounceon my back and my heart was pounding, but I'm still
alive. And you know, the backpack survived andJohn came and helped me up. And he looked at first
off, he looked up, he's looked down at me. He's veryupset. He said, that wasn't very smart. Charlie,
help me up, please. Yeah. When I was on my back onthe, I'm still alive. You can still pressurized

(28:00):
and everything seemed to be working. And, and soJohn helped me out and I checked it myself out and I
was okay. Back, what damaged it all? And so we gotback inside. That was my last hurrah on the moon.
Was making a memory. Yeah. And right before that,I'd taken a picture of my family, little snapshot.

(28:22):
John, four by six of the family and the four of us.And so I dropped that onto the moon and took a
picture of the pictures. Only a family picturethat was left on the moon. So before it all
shriveled up, the tent's going to surface the moonat this point was about 180 degrees or something.

(28:43):
The higher the sun gets, the hotter the moonsurface gets. So it was getting pretty toasty.
Yeah. So it began to curl up right away. But beforeit did, I took a picture of the picture. Yeah. Now,
obviously as you've shared your story, youweren't a believer at this point in your life, but
I'm curious, was there ever a moment where maybeyou wondered if there was something more being on

(29:06):
the moon, seeing the earth from the moon, thatamazing experience? Did that ever raise
questions for you at all on that stage of life? Ididn't sense God's presence. So I was a church
young. I had been baptized as a young boy in theBaptist church in South Carolina. And I knew God in
my mind and I call myself a Christian, but in myheart, I was far from God. So it was a mental assent

(29:34):
to me that Jesus was the Son of God. A lot of faithstep, if you will, until that moment and long
later. Sure. So if some of my listeners today arepeople who would be interested to have you and
Dottie come and share your story at their church oran organization, their part of or something, is

(29:57):
the best thing for them to reach out through yourwebsite? Yeah, through my website. And there's an
email on there, cmduke16 at gmail.com is a good onefor us. I reached out through that and Dottie was
very prompt to reply. So definitely a good way forpeople to reach out to you. So we pray about every

(30:20):
invitation and some we have to delay because we getreal busy, but we want to do what God wants us to do.
So if he said, go, we go. Well, Charlie, thank you somuch again for your time today. It's been
wonderful. Encouraging for me to hear yourtestimony. I'm sure my listeners as well will be
challenged through your story and often guests onmy podcast are people who were raised Christian

(30:45):
from very early age. So it was really, it was ablessing to hear a story of someone who had a
significant period of life before coming to faithpersonally as you shared. And so I'm sure some of
our listeners can relate to that as well. And maybethere's some listening who aren't walking with
Jesus yet. So I hope that your testimony mightencourage them as well. Let me just finish with

(31:07):
this statement. I walked on the moon, one of the 12guys to walk on the moon. It was three days. A great
adventure, but three days to walk with Jesus iseven more of a blessing. And it lasts forever.
Well, that's a great word. Thank you, Charlie. AndGod bless you. Bless you too. Thank you so much.

(31:28):
Good to be with you. Thank you so much for listeningto this episode of Mission Chats. It would be such a
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