hobo and flo On the Road with Louis and Florine Coscia By John Arlon Hawke     Find out more about the Free Will Baptist Board of Retirement by visiting www.nafwb.org.

THEY GREW UP ON OPPOSITE ENDS OF TENNESSEE. He’s a city boy from a North Memphis Italian colony with the Mississippi River at his back. She’s a country girl from just across the border on the North Carolina side of the Smoky Mountains. They never should have met. They wouldn’t have if it had not been for a call to missions and the humor in God’s eye that placed two opposites on a collision course.

He worked in Honduras as an overseer for the United Fruit Company before Communists took over in the early 1950s. He returned to Memphis and tapped his horticultural background to start a wildly successful business raising pansies and selling them by the truckload. She worked in the cutting department of an Asheville garment manufacturing firm, on the fast track to becoming a pattern maker.

Both came to Free Will Baptist Bible College with worldwide missions on their minds and later served 28 years (1964-1992) in Brazil. Both enrolled mid-year as second semester students and came that close to missing one another. He enrolled her last semester, the semester she almost didn’t stick around for, because she had enough hours to graduate. Both were older students and serious about their studies. He was born on Christmas Eve, she on New Year’s Day.

Turning Points

Louis and Florine Coscia, so amazingly different from each other, will celebrate 45 years of marriage September 22. He was converted at age 10, she at 23. He grew up in a multi-language community with parents who spoke Italian in the home; she was the oldest of five children in a rural Tar Heel family that moved in with her grandmother after her grandfather died.

The turning point for Louis began in Honduras the day a colleague was run over by a train and cut in pieces, and he could not escape the hard question, “Why didn’t I witness to that man?” The turning point for Florine came in a Free Will Baptist church the day she admired a poster filled with missionary pictures. A deacon stopped beside her and said, “Maybe some day your picture will be on that.”

Photo: Sao Paulo, Brazil

Some people considered Louis Coscia a religious hobo. He had parted company with Charismatics and Calvinists because of doctrinal differences, and dropped out of an evangelical college because it was too liberal. Thanks to the late Norlin Jones, he embraced Free Will Baptist doctrine and joined Randall Memorial FWB Church in Memphis where he taught Sunday School.

Church Planting in Brazil

Asked about his best memory from three decades in Brazil, Louis said, “The word is change. Watching how life changed new converts as they came to Christ and stepped away from Spiritism and Catholicism.” Confrontation with Spiritism was Louis’ greatest challenge, resulting in open conflict and outright persecution.

The Coscias landed in Brazil in 1964 and soon found themselves moving from one mission station to another assisting with church planting. They utilized every innovation at their disposal to reach out with the gospel.

“We conducted numerous surveys,” Louis said. “We tried whatever worked to win people to Jesus. We started a house church, conducted street meetings, anything to get into people’s homes and lives. There were many Italians in the area, so with my Italian background we had an active social outreach with them.”

The Brazilians are very proud of their language, Coscia observed, and foreigners who ignore the Portuguese language or who speak it poorly are avoided. Those who learn the language and speak it well have easier access to the community.

“If I could do it over again,” Louis said, “I’d jump into the language gap and get a better handle on the Portuguese language. I’d find ways to make contact with the Brazilians and visit more in their homes. We still miss the work there.”

Florine’s World

Florine Faulkner put her personal plans on hold for five years after graduating from high school. She stayed in North Carolina to help her mother care for a family with many challenges. But there came a day when she wrote to missions executive Raymond Riggs about her interest in missions. He told her that if she planned to be a missionary, she needed to attend FWBBC.

She worked long hours in the college library and took a heavy academic load in order to graduate sooner and save money. After three and one-half years, she became the first FWBBC student to graduate with a Missions minor.

The first time Florine saw Louis in the college dining hall, she thought he was a new faculty member. He looked the part and was older than some of the teachers. By the time he enrolled at FWBBC in January 1963, Louis had already attended four colleges (University of Tennessee-Martin, Mississippi State University, Wheaton College, and Mid-South Bible College).

“He asked me about the height of nearby mountains,” she said. “I had no idea, so I made up some numbers and told him. The next time I saw him, he informed me that I was way off on the heights. He had been researching my answers to his questions!”

In spite of her creative responses to his questions, Louis and Florine married in September 1963, nine months after they met at FWBBC. A year later, the man from Memphis and the lady from Marshall (NC) were in Brazil serving as international missionaries.

Money in God’s Work

The Coscias signed on with the FWB Retirement Plan in February 1970, and stayed with the program until April 1992 when they both took joint-life annuities after returning from Brazil.

Louis said, “The annuities have been a big help to us in meeting expenses. We would have joined earlier in 1964 if the program had been available. Since it wasn’t, we diversified our investments in other areas until the program started. We consider it part of God’s stewardship for us.”

Louis made four suggestions for young Christian workers: (1) Pray for God’s direction. (2) Get in the FWB Retirement Plan as soon as you can. (3) Put in as much as you can as often as you can. (4) Know where your money is going—keep it in God’s work.

Beyond Brazil

Louis and Florine now live in Asheville, North Carolina. Serious problems with his eyesight prompted their return to the States sooner than they expected.

“We’re not on the shelf!” Louis roars. “We raise plants, vegetables, and fruit on a half-acre plot. Gardening helps with expenses. We are active in witnessing to others and participate in nursing home outreach.”
Florine stays informed on local issues affecting the community and city, and they vote regularly. She even took a quick course in mechanics. “I’m curious about practical things,” she said. “Why pay someone else to fix it when I can do it myself?”

They have been active in local Free Will Baptist churches since 1992, teaching and preaching. Louis has been an ordained minister almost 50 years and still hungers to reach the lost.
Florine reflected, “I don’t know that I’d change a lot even if I could. Everything that happened to us served a purpose.”

Next time you’re on the North Carolina side of the Smoky Mountains and need a tip on how to grow world-class pansies, just call the hobo and his lady.

ABOUT THE WRITER: Former magazine editor John Arlon Hawke enjoys a thriving freelance writing career in his retirement. He lives in Nashville, TN.