Within a month of the nighttime ambush and shooting of Ted by Castro’s men in 1958, and at the height of the Cuban revolution, the Ware family left Cuba and settled temporarily in St. Petersburg, Florida. The small house they and their 5 children occupied, was at the D&D Mission Home, made up of a complex of small, older homes all co-located on the same block. These houses had been purchased over time specifically for needy missionaries by Alma Doering, the missionary lady who had inspired Ted and Milly to be missionaries while speaking at a small Baptist church in England some 30 years previously. St. Petersburg was the opposite of the violent war zone they had just left. The D&D homes were located in a very peaceful and quiet neighborhood, with schools and stores nearby and a population made up primarily of retired people from the northern states.
The five Ware children were enrolled in the public school system. Kevin and Clive entered junior high school, after an absence from public school of over 6 years. This was a challenging experience. For example, Kevin was at one point asked to call his mother from the school principal’s office for some needed information. A black, rotary dial phone was pushed across the desk so he could do so. Several awkward minutes passed while he studied the phone dial. At age 15, he had never in his life used a telephone, and didn’t know which way to turn the dial.
Heather, Joy and Paul had never attended public school. They found themselves surrounded by children of their age who spoke, and spelled, American English. The new curriculum was very different from the Canadian correspondence-homeschooling they had experienced in Cuba. The biggest upheaval for Heather, who at this stage thought in Spanish, was processing the activities that she encountered in the Cold War, public school context of Florida, a state so close to Cuba. Often, the class was randomly disrupted by a distinctive, loud siren. The children were instructed to dive under their desk for “safety” in case a bomb should fall.
Milly had many things to concern her for which she trusted God to undertake. Would Ted be able to drive with only one eye? Having never needed to learn to drive, it was decided that under the circumstances, it was important that Milly learn to do so. Using a friend’s vehicle with automatic transmission, and professional instruction also paid for by a friend, she mastered the task after several weeks. As a nurse, she was concerned about the bullets still lodged in Ted’s jaw. Would there be future complications? What did she need to do to help their traumatized children adjust? What would their future hold? At this time, their host Ms. Doering, was in her 90’s and needed hospice care which Milly provided in between cooking, laundry and the other things expected of a homemaker.
Ted had just turned 40. After nearly a decade of active ministry he found that he did not have much to do, other than to recover from what, in most other circumstances, would have been fatal head injuries. As part of the recovery, he was fitted with a glass eye to replace the right eye lost to the bullet wounds. Artistically inclined, he became interested in the process by which it was done and described it in detail to the family. Essentially, a very talented person hand-painted a pupil and iris on a glass prosthesis which matched the unharmed eye. Several “new eyes” were brought home for the family to evaluate. None of them seemed to match perfectly. The prosthesis failed to track in the same fashion as the good eye. This tended to create a cross eyed appearance which Ted found unacceptable. He decided that a black patch was the best and most honest aesthetic solution. Patches cannot be purchased in every dime store, so several evenings were spent making and trying different sizes and shapes. Ultimately, the “correct” one was arrived at. Around this time, the youngest Ware, Paul, owned a well-worn teddy bear that lost one of its button eyes. It also received a custom eye patch. Ted continued to wear a homemade eye patch for the remainder of his life. It became one of his ‘trademarks’.
Six months passed during which public and church excitement over the event passed. Support and interest in their ministry diminished. Well-meaning people tacitly asked, way too prematurely, “Well, what are you going to do now?” and incredibly even, “That would not have happened if you had been in God’s will”. As the 1959 summer school vacation period approached, Ted and Milly decided that they and their children should at least try and return to Cuba. Through a special offering, Philadelphia Church in Seattle provided funds for a new vehicle, to be used in future ministry. This replaced the Land Rover damaged in the accident and left in Cuba. Through a dealer friend Ted bought a new, light blue, International 4WD TravelAll at wholesale cost.
By this time Castro had officially taken over Cuba. It was still possible for British citizens to travel from the US to Cuba via the Key West ferry. In the early summer, the family returned to Cuba in the TravelAll. They found a country quite different than the one they had left less than a year previously. Strict military law was in effect, with a paranoid level of concern about “counter revolutionaries”. A Russian style communistic government, particularly with respect to religious activities, was beginning to become apparent. In spite of the police state atmosphere, the country was less safe for the family than it had been before. A particularly disturbing event occurred one evening, after being in Cuba for a week or so. On a warm evening, they were on the way to visit missionary friends in a nearby town. The road was a typical, narrow, roughly paved, two-lane affair, with high green vegetation on either side. The vehicle‘s head lights did not reach well down the road when lightly loaded. Doing about 45 mph, with the windows open and crickets chirping, the headlights brought abruptly into view, a young revolutionary soldier in camouflage fatigues, with his rifle brought down to bear on the vehicle. Kevin, sitting in the right front seat, says he can still hear the bolt click, as the weapon was cocked while being raised. Ted brought the TravelAll to a tire locking stop and turned the dome light on, just as he had done during the earlier incident. The young militiaman came around to the driver’s window clearly angry and demanded, “Que estas haciendo aqui?” (What are you doing here). He went on to ask why they hadn’t stopped following his hand signal. Shaken, and less than a year out from his injury, Ted told him he could just barely be seen standing in the tall grass, and demanded, what was he up to anyway, pointing his gun in that fashion. The soldier replied that he was “guarding the road”, and pointed 100 yards away to a small cantina which was dimly lit by a kerosene lantern. There a dozen other bearded revolutionary soldiers could be seen with their weapons stacked in a tepee fashion, also “guarding the road”. The soldier said he was about to shoot when the vehicle stopped, and if he had shot, then his comrades would have also opened up with their big pile of guns, “te mataron todos” (and, we would have killed all of you). After further animated discussion in Spanish, he allowed the family to pass. He gave a parting warning about the lack of safety from the “counter revolutionaries” lying in ambush along the road ahead. Within a few weeks Ted and Milly saw their children safely back to St. Petersburg, only slightly late for the forthcoming school year.
Ted, however, felt he should be back in active missionary work. Within a month or so of returning from the nearly fatal TravelAll trip, he again returned to Cuba. This time, after some late night discussions with Milly—clearly overheard by the children in the small D&D house—it was decided to leave Milly and the children in the United States. Once in Cuba, Ted began to evaluate the possibilities of returning with the family as full-time missionaries. He completed his itinerary over several weeks and boarded the airplane in Havana for the return flight. Just before the cabin door was closed, there came down the aisle a group of bearded Castro military policemen, carrying submachine guns, clearly looking for someone. When they reached Ted’s seat, at gun point, they ordered him, and him alone, off the aircraft. From there he was taken to a barracks type of jail for political prisoners and accused of being a U.S. spy. He was now in the custody of the military secret police, and was refused permission to report his location or situation to anyone. Fortunately, several days later an American prisoner in an adjacent cell was released. On that prisoners way out, Ted asked that the British Embassy be notified that a British subject was being held in custody. The man did and within days the Embassy was able to intervene on his behalf. He was released into the custody of the British consul who warned him to leave the country immediately and never return. These events finally convinced the tenacious Ted and Milly that their days of ministry in Cuba were over.
A difficult time of quandary followed. What is one supposed to do, after all, when at the most energetic and productive period of your ministry, doing exactly what you think God had intended for you, doors are firmly and irrevocably closed? Answers from God in these circumstances do not always appear written on the wall.
Upon returning to St. Petersburg, Ted began holding meetings in the South of Florida. It was felt that this location would also make a good “base” for missionaries considering going to Latin America, and for organizing other work. Over a year after the accident, the family moved from St. Petersburg, to Key Largo in pursuit of this new ministry which Ted called the “World Spanish Scripture Crusade”. The idea was that if the political situation was such that missionaries were kept out of a country, then literature, distributed by Christian nationals, could take their place. Several other missionaries, displaced from Cuba joined them. These included Dick and Phoebe Casteel and their children, Kathy Uren, and Marguerite Hearn. While there, Marguerite became engaged to John Casteel and within a short period were married.
During the two years that followed, Ted made several itinerant mission trips to Mexico, and the Caribbean. By late 1962 it was evident that the practical issues of creating a base for missionary activities on the Florida Keys, and getting literature into places where it was not wanted by the government, were problematic. Churches and other supporters did not seem to be enthusiastic about the idea, and Ted and Milly realized that they were really happier doing more ‘hands on’ type of missionary work.
About this time Ted became aware of the need for Christian workers in Catholic Spain. In early 1963 they felt called to that country and began making preparations to go there. A lot of their church support had waned. Their five children, now aged 10 - 17, had become accustomed to the U.S. educational system and the educational opportunities in Spain were unknown. They made a series of trips to churches across the United States. These long road trips were done in the same light blue TravelAll they had all nearly been shot at for the second time two years before in Cuba. There were no funds for restaurant meals or motel stays. Cooking was done out of cans at the side of the road, sleeping was arranged for all seven as practical as possible in the vehicle, and baths were taken when invited to spend the night in the homes of supporters.
After this extensive itinerary, it was felt that Philadelphia Church in the Ballard area of Seattle was really their “home” church, and that the family should depart to Spain from that location. Kevin was sent back to the Keys via Greyhound bus to retrieve what of the family’s possessions remained there. The other children were temporarily enrolled in the Seattle school system, even though the departure date for Spain was just 3 months away. Kevin returned from the Keys 4 weeks later, and enrolled a month late at the local high school. At age 18, and less than 7 months left to graduate, he decided to stay in Seattle. Ted left for Spain to find accomodation and transportation. In December the rest of the family flew to England. They took the Dover ferry across the English Channel and from there drove through France and into Spain. As soon as they got into Spain, they were involved in a car accident, a truck turned into their car without signalling. While no one was injured, this was unsettling.
They settled in Granada, a staunchly Catholic, medium sized city with an interesting Moorish architecture and history, located high in the central plateau. Both the climate and the local reception to the Christian message proved to be very cold. Unlike truly unreached peoples Spanish Catholics were convinced, from their churches teaching, that they needed no further religious belief than what they held already. The political reception to Christian ministry matched that of the Catholic church. Christian evangelizing, in the fashion used successfully in Cuba, with street meetings and the like, was actually against Spanish law. Any witnessing had to be done on a much more discreet basis, and this was a source of frustration to people with the Ware’s dedication and enthusiasm. There were no English speaking schools in the area. Heather and Joy were sent to Emmanuel Grammar School, a boarding school for missionary’s kids in Swansea, Wales. Clive attended American high school at the U.S. Air Force military base located near Madrid, staying with some sympathetic Christian service families. Paul was home schooled in Granada. Milly found it difficult to have 4 of her 5 her children scattered around the world and being cared for by strangers. She began having abdominal problems with Spanish food, which contained a great deal of olive oil. Upon returning to England to have this evaluated, it was discovered that she had gallbladder stones, which were aggravated by oily foods. Successful gallbladder surgery was completed in England, and she then returned to Spain.
By 1967 political unrest in Spain, together with increasing educational difficulties for the children brought a gradual end to their ministry there. Milly returned first with Paul to Seattle, in order to get him enrolled in the U.S. system at the beginning of the school year. She stayed with Kevin, who by now had married and was living with his wife Kari and their toddler son Philip in a small house in the Ballard area of Seattle not far from Philadelphia Church. Ted soon followed, then Joy. Heather finished the school year in order to take her O level exams, then joined them. Clive graduated from high school on the military base in Spain, then enrolled in nursing school in England.
Two countries had now been closed to their ministry, and there was a real sense of confusion about what the Lord would have them do. During the following summer holiday, an extensive itinerary was undertaken across the U.S., with visits made to many old Christian friends and supporters. They made a stop in Tucson, Arizona. The dry heat of the American Southwest was disliked by Ted and Milly who remembered the green and cool English countryside of their homeland. As they visited, a Christian real estate friend enthused about a small picturesque church building, vacated some time previously by a congregation that had merged with a larger one. Surprised at their strongly positive feelings toward the building, and after prayer, they felt led to make an offer for purchase. They used their own very limited resources as a downpayment. Their offer of less than $10,000 was accepted for the entire building, which included living quarters for the pastor. With church building in hand, they only needed a congregation. This, to their satisfaction began to develop immediately. Within a year the church was sufficiently busy to need an associate pastor. John Casteel, who with his wife Marguerite, had moved to Mexico as missionaries after leaving Key Largo wound up moving to Tucson and agreed to fill the position.
As the late 1960’s arrived, the hippie movement began to influence more and more American young people. This movement became prevalent in Tucson. Ted felt that these young people needed the gospel and began to direct the ministry of the church toward them. Initially, there was an astounding period of youth revival, but before long conflict developed within the church. Not everyone wanted hippies mixing with their children. John Casteel felt called to start Grace Chapel. Many people attending Grace Chapel recalled their days under Ted’s ministry with great fondness, and in time this led to Ted assuming one of the pastoral positions there. Grace Chapel grew rapidly and Ted and Milly spent nearly 6 years there. Their ministry involved counseling, and visiting the sick, an activity they felt particularly called to. They made several missionary trips to Canada, Ireland and South Africa. From time to time they took interim pastoral assignments at various churches in the western states where the people benefitted from their mature Christian experience and pastoral care.
In 1980 one of these assignments led them to a house church in Lake Havasu, Arizona. As the ministry developed, Ted and Milly moved there and started Lakeview Community Church in a rented funeral home. Over the next decade, they led the congregation through two building programs and an affiliation with the Fellowship of Christian Assemblies. In their early 70s, they began to feel a desire to return to missionary ministry. Ted had mentored a young man in the church who was then able to assume the role of senior pastor, leaving Ted free to travel as Minister at Large.
Free of full time church ministry, Ted and Milly travelled to many churches within the U.S., Ireland and South Africa seeking their guidance. After several of these lengthy trips over a period of several years, they began to realize that they should slow down. This was not a realization that came easily or willingly to them, but bit by bit as they found that in their mid-70’s they did not tolerate foreign foods, or sudden climate changes as they had in their 30’s. Long distance travel was much more tiring.
Their five children each married Christian partners, and became successful with children of their own. After growing up all over the Western World, the three boys settled in Washington State, north of Seattle. Kevin and his wife Kari had 2 sons and 1 daughter. Kevin practiced as a doctor doing family and emergency medicine. Clive and his wife Beth, had 4 daughters, and owned a local chain of emergency medical care clinics. Heather’s husband Lyle was an electrical engineer where they lived with their 5 sons and 1 daughter. Joy and her husband Dave worked in the expanding technology sector of California raising one son. Paul and his wife Suzanne had 3 boys and did very well in the construction and land development business.
By 1990, with the persistent encouragement of their children, and with frequently expressed reluctance, they finally settled into a home built for them on a retirement property owned by their sons in Washington. Throughout the 1990s, and in spite of declining health, they remained actively involved in local ministry. They held weekly prayer meetings, and speculated with great enthusiasm as to what activity or location God would next lead them to. Ted became increasingly ill with Type II diabetes, an illness that ran in his family and had caused the early death of his mother. He remained at home, with Milly attending to him in a very devoted manner until the very end. In the last few months of his life Ted was able to buy Milly a brand new small, green (Milly’s favorite color), Ford car…something he had never done before, and an act which gave him great delight. One of their favorite activities became just driving out to the local tulip fields, and spending the day there together, walking through the flowers while holding hands. Finally, his illness having slowly progressed, Ted died quietly at home having earlier that evening eaten one of his favorite meals cooked by his beloved wife Milly.
After 54 1/2 years of marriage, Milly missed Ted terribly. But, she was a strong woman and after selling the small retirement home they shared together, moved into an apartment in the basement of Heathers house after Lyle and Heather moved near her brother’s homes in the country just outside of Mount Vernon, Washington. Milly lived there for 7 years. When Heather and her husband sold that house and returned to Tucson, she moved into Creek Side, a nearby independent living facility for retired people arranged for by her sons. She was both loved and famous among the staff and residents for praying for anyone who was ill, or otherwise suffering. Milly continued to drive her “new” green Ford car well into her 90s. On the evening of August 26, 2018, at the age of 99, she died peacefully in her own apartment with most of her family present or having just visited
Joy went on a Carribean cruise in December of 2018 and was talking to a gentleman on deck. In passing she mentioned that her folks had been missionaries in Cuba. He sincerely, and with much heart, said that he wanted to thank all the missionaries who had spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the Carribean Islands in the 1950's and 60's. His parents, and he in turn, had benefitted by knowing Jesus. He is a pastor of a thriving church on one of the islands. Sixty years later, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is being spread on the islands because men and women, like Ted and Milly, heard the call and obeyed.
Throughout their nearly 50 years of continuous Christian service, Ted and Milly were convinced that in spite of what they characterized as occasional setbacks and disappointments, the Lord Himself never even once let them down. Through it all, He had been with them every moment of the entire time. Their dedication to Christian work and in particular their love and devotion to each other, which continued regardless of how difficult the times became, was something their children, and nearly everyone else that knew them, tried to emulate and use as a life model. In Matthew 7:20 (KJV) the Bible says …”by their fruits you shall know them”. In testament to the applicability of that verse to their lives, Ted and Milly left a legacy of 5 Christian children, all in stable and loving long term marriages, plus 17 grandchildren, 55 great grandchildren, and 3 great, great, grandchildren, plus thousands of new Christians in dozens of newly planted churches all over the world.
There can be no greater epitaph than a young couple meeting at age 14 under very modest circumstances in post-Victorian England, living through a World War, getting married and spending their entire lives doing what they felt God wanted them to, regardless of personal injury or life circumstance.