R. W. Schambach

Robert William "R. W." Schambach was an American televangelist, pastor, faith healer and author.

Early life and faith

Robert W. Schambach was born on April 3, 1926, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to Harry Ellsworth and Ann Moyer Schambach. He became a born-again Christian as a youth, in response to the evangelist C. M. Ward.

Ministry

Ordained as a pastor by C. M. Ward, Schambach, who was also a protégé of the evangelist/faith healer T. L. Osborn, received his formal training at Central Bible Institute in Springfield, Missouri, in the mid-1940s, after serving in World War II as a navy boilermaker on a destroyer in the South Pacific and Asia. He then began an apprenticeship with A. A. Allen and worked for five years. Schambach began travelling extensively with Allen on his "Miracle Crusades" during that period along with Don Stewart and Leroy Jenkins.
His television program, Power Today, was seen on the Daystar Christian TV network.

Personal life

Schambach's wife was Mary Winifred Donald. R.W. met Mary while she was a student at the Eastern Bible Institute of the Assemblies of God in Green Lane, Pennsylvania. They married the following year, on September 4, 1948. The couple subsequently had two sons and a daughter: Bobby, Bruce and Donna. Donna Schambach is a pastor and Word of Faith minister in the Tyler area. Schambach had six grandchildren: Rachel, Bobby III, Mark, Amanda and Christi. They had been married for 61 years when Mary died from natural causes in Tyler, Texas on April 20, 2010, at age 83. Less than two years later he died of a heart attack on January 17, 2012, age 85. He was interred next to his wife at the Cathedral in the Pines Cemetery in Tyler, Texas.