Born at Keesler Airforce Base, (Biloxi, Mississippi) to Robert and June Martin on December 31, 1958, Mike was diagnosed legally blind before his first birthday. As an Air Force brat Mike lived in several places until junior high school when his parents bought their first home in Redlands California. Mike attended several schools including the school for the deaf and blind in Spartanburg South Carolina. Finally tired of going to schools which were out of the school district where Mike’s parents lived, He attended Redlands High School where he graduated in 1979. Because of inadequate educational opportunities for the blind, Mike was held back two years in elementary school.
Mike remembers learning about God through vacation Bible school in San Antonio, Texas and through nightly devotions held by Mike’s house mother, Ms. Dial, at Cedar Springs Academy (the South Carolina School for the Deaf and Blind). While attending Arrow Head Junior High School in San Bernardino, California, the Braille Transcriber Elsie Hodge helped Mike get his Braille Bible from the American Bible Society. Also during that time, Mike’s family started attending the Redlands Church of Christ. The minister T. J. Walling conducted weekly Bible studies with Mike’s mother, brother, and two sisters. In a few months, Mike made his profession of faith and was baptized on February 16, 1974 at the Church of Christ on 1000 Roosevelt Road. It was there when Mike was first called into ministry, but Mike’s dad was not willing to support his Bible school education.
Mike attended California State University Northridge in the San Fernando Valley in Southern California for a year and a half. Then transferred to San Diego State University where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration, with a major in Information Systems in 1985. Sadly Mike found himself almost completely without peers as most of the college-age church members moved away from the church he was attending in the San Diego area, and Mike stopped attending church until a significant event happened to him in 2001.
Mike really found his secular calling as a computer programmer. In November 1985, Mike was hired by the Department of the Navy to work as a computer programmer trainee for the then Supervisor of Shipbuilding Conversion and Repair in San Diego. It was there that he met his first wife Anita L. Martin. They were married on Mike’s 30th birthday at his parents’ home in Redlands, California. Mike and Anita were married by Milton Beauchamp a Church of Christ minister Mike first met when they served as Joy Bus Activity Leaders together at the Redlands Church of Christ.
While Mike and Anita were married they attended church irregularly. Anita was raised in the Presbyterian denomination and Mike still held to his Church of Christ roots. They could not agree on a church to which they could both belong. Anita was born with medical problems which contributed to her early death in March of 2001. Additionally, Mike’s grandmother and father also died that same year. Mike soon began looking for a church home, at the urging of his younger brother Glenn, and the Lord led him to Bethel Southern Baptist Church in Escondido where he joined in August of 2001. Mike’s father reminded him that his grandmother Allice Dooms Old was also Southern Baptist.
While attending a back yard Bible study that same August Mike met the woman who was to be Mike’s second wife, Andrea. Mike and Andrea got to know each other while serving on one of Bethel’s Faith Evangelism through the Sunday school (Faith) teams. In August of 205 they were married by then senior pastor Erick Hann. Mike joked that he had to find a second wife who would have the same monogram as his first wife Anita L. Martin So it had to be Andrea l. Martin-no the middle initials are not the same middle name.
In 2008, the Lord was moving fast in Mike’s life he was promoted to a position as Supervisory Information Technology Specialist for the Naval Facilities Engineering Command, South West, and also called to serve in Bethel’s deacon body. Mike soon became Chairman of Deacons. While attending a Peacemaker’s summer conference Mike sensed the call to become a biblical counselor, and began to attend various Peacemaker Ministries training classes, and also studied the Institute for Biblical Counselling and Discipleship training materials.
In 2011 Mike’s command needed to downsize, which gave him the opportunity to retire early and pursue the Lord’s call for him to enter His service. On several occasions when Mike and Anita visited various churches the particular church would have a mission’s emphasis, and Mike thought that the Lord was calling him to some type of mission.
In the Fall of 2012 Mike began attending Southern California Seminary where he planned on earning a Master of Arts in Biblical Studies, but due to some unexpected household repairs, (the great flood of 2014, etc.,) Mike had to suspend his studies and graduate with a Master of Arts in Christian Ministry, which he earned in 2015.
Mike began assisting Grant with technical issues Grant experienced while making Bible study materials available on the Bartimaeus.us web site. As Grant began nearing his eighth decade, he asked Mike to pray about considering wither to manage the operation of the website, and in January of 2016, Mike agreed with Grant and the Lord to continue to support this wonderful mission. Grant graduated from high school the same year Mike was born, and now God through His wonderful providence as provided a second generation to keep this wonderful ministry going. One of Mike’s life verses is James 3:1 which teaches “Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment” (NASB). This scripture does not teach that false teachers will loose their salvation, but that they will loose their reward if they teach false doctrine. For this and other reasons Mike completed his seminary education so that he can defend evangelical Christian doctrine while making disciples for our Lord Jesus Christ.
Mike was ordained into the Gospel ministry by his home church, Bethel Baptist Church on March 6th, 2016.