It is an old children’s Sunday School rhyme. It was not written about Dr. Mary Ruth Swope, but it could have been. She wears her love of God and her faith right out in the open and she is not embarrassed about it one bit. She calls each day a “glory to God story. I am not ashamed of being a fanatical Christian. God has never let me down – health-wise, financially, professionally, or personally.” She was raised in a Christian household and was born-again at 16 while a freshman in college. “I felt peace and love simultaneously.” 
Mary Ruth, an AIM Chairman’s Club Director, is one of three memberships to receive more than $5 million in commissions. She didn’t find it at her feet one day, she did it the old-fashioned way … she earned it. Once she learned of the AIM products in the early 1980s, her “vision was to have a wonderful post-retirement life of less daily pressure with more opportunities for travel, study, spiritual development, and gardening – things I was unable to do while working,” adding, “As far 
as I can judge, my record at AIM as an outstanding business-builder is due entirely to one factor – God had a plan for my life and He showed it to me.”
It is 1982. Mary Ruth and her husband are retired from their university posts. They attend a weekend retreat. A woman she doesn’t know tells her of a dream in which she sees Mary Ruth going down an emerald green highway with doors of all sizes and shapes on both 
sides of the road. Mary Ruth would not be able to open any of the doors, but God would for her. She recalls leaving the retreat and laughing about the silly dream. Then two months later it didn’t seem so silly.
David and Cece Brewer, AIM Royal Emerald Directors, showed her a 30-minute video during which Dr. Yoshihide Hagiwara explains the benefits of young green barley plants. Three times they asked to sponsor her; three times she said no. But, she thought, maybe God is trying to tell me something here. She prayed, God told her, “The way is clear. There are no hindrances.” She signed up.
The doctor in Dr. Mary Ruth Swope is no honorary title. She has a bachelor’s degree in home economics from Winthrop College in South Carolina, a master’s degree in foods and nutrition from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, and a doctorate in administration from Columbia University, New York City. At her retirement, she was a university dean and a full professor of foods and nutrition.
With a background grounded in the value of education and God leading her to AIM and its green barley product, Mary Ruth learned all she could about barley and about AIM’s marketing plan. She began to give jars of barley powder to friends and neighbors, asking in return for the free product that they would provide her with detailed testimonies about what it had done for them. “I was told it was helpful for heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, extra energy, skin problems, sunburns, and many other conditions.” Then came speaking opportunities around the country, radio and TV interviews, and phone calls and letters from people who wanted to know about the product. She also wrote a couple of books, Green Leaves of Barley and The Spiritual Roots of Barley, as well as producing a video, “Nutrition Update for the Not Too Late.”
The more she learned about barley, the more everything seemed to fit. There was a trip to Japan to see the barley fields and the processing plant. Her roommate was AIM Chairman’s Club Director Janet Pauly – “I appreciate her so much.” At one point, she heard Dr. Hagiwara speak about his research on barley, how he looked into the nutritional value of more than 400 plants from around the world, concluding with, “Barley leaves are the most prolific source of all the nutrients in a balanced form in a single food on the face of the earth.” Following that speech, “I had a spiritual revelation while 
reading a chapter in Leviticus. God spoke to Moses and told him to use barley leaves as a sin offering for the Israelites. At that time in history, sin offerings were required to be perfect. My mind made the connection – God was insinuating that barley leaves were perfect and Dr. Hagiwara’s research had led to the same conclusion. My own experience convinces me that barley leaves are our number one source of nutrients for good health as well as defense against disease.”
Mary Ruth lives what she believes. “The greatest thing I learned from my parents was to love people – to help anyone in need in any way I could. Then my pastor persuaded me to tithe and that was the second greatest thing I learned in my life. I was 23 and my salary was $113 a month for 10 months. From that day to this, I have never earned a cent or received one as a gift or an earning on which I did not tithe.”
She continues with her mission work, the physical energy to do it, she says, “due to the AIM products, undoubtedly.” She is a daily user of the AIM Garden Trio®, plus uses AIM CellSparc 360®, AIM Bear Paw Garlic®, AIMega™, AIM Proancynol® 2000, and AIM PrepZymes®.
Dennis Itami, a founder and co-owner of AIM, says of Mary Ruth: “No doubt she has reached more people directly, over radio and TV broadcasts, than any other Member. Who knows how many Bibles have been sent to foreign lands, financed from sales of AIM products. Mary Ruth will have a special place in God’s kingdom with her passionate support of the Gospel of Christ.”
Mary Ruth’s husband, Donald (“I could not have had a more wonderful husband”), is g
one but she has two children, Stephen Cornwell and Susan Darbro. She lives in northeast Texas. She has traveled worldwide in her ministries, as an educator, and for her AIM business. “But hear this. The friendships I have made in AIM far exceed most of those I made in my professional career at all levels. My AIM friends are my true brothers and sisters who make me feel wanted, needed, and able. My AIM Chinese friends deserve special mention – they love me with their eyes and their smiles.” She says she can’t count all her AIM friends but will always be thankful to Janet Pauly and Dr. John Shewfelt for sharing themselves and their knowledge with her.
The future? “My plans are in God’s hands.” It has been that way, she says, since she was a young girl learning from her maternal grandmother about prayer, Scripture, and to love Jesus. “My deep conviction is that we are at the end of the church age. Soon, I believe, we will be experiencing end-time events. My prayer is that every AIM Member will be ready to go.”
Then she adds with that ever-present Mary Ruth twinkle: “Bring your own AIM Garden Trio® just in case my Tree of Life is short of fruit!”
A Match made in Heaven
For the past 15 years AIM Members do not often see Dr. Mary Ruth Swope without also seeing her aide and friend, Charlotte Bates. Mary Ruth says they were destined to meet, work together, and become friends.
Mary Ruth retired from academia but felt that God was leading her in a new direction, which became her affiliation with The AIM Companies™. It was not an easy path. She and her husband, Don, 
decided it would work best if they relocated from Florida to Arizona. In moving across country, they stopped at their son-in-law’s home, a physician, and he determined that Don was suffering from colon cancer. Eight months later he was gone. “I was now a widow, 70 years of age, with intense macular degeneration,” recalls Mary Ruth. The challenges continued.
Shortly after his death, Mary Ruth’s trusted secretary decided to leave, but did recommend a replacement. That only lasted a short time, but before she left, the secretary and Mary Ruth attended a conference in Dallas. There she met Charlotte Bates.
Faced with a pouring rainstorm and the meeting hall several blocks away, Mary Ruth flagged down two women in the parking lot and caught a ride to the convention site. One of them was Charlotte Bates. As their acquaintance deepened, Mary Ruth told Charlotte that their meeting could not have been an accident, that she was supposed to become her new secretary and traveling companion. Charlotte declined the job offer at first but the “divine connection,” as she calls it, of putting her and Mary Ruth together, couldn’t be ignored. Finally, with “God changing my mind,” she accepted the offer.
Then living in Houston, Charlotte had been trying to sell her house for a year. Within a week of accepting Mary Ruth’s offer, the house was sold. But the good news was not over for Charlotte. She was employed by a savings and loan in Houston when she decided to leave to join Mary Ruth. Her colleagues were surprised and asked her to stay; her immediate family was all in the Houston area and they didn’t want her to leave; but she stuck with her decision to go with Mary Ruth. The company held a breakfast meeting to honor Charlotte. Two hours later, the company called a facility-wide meeting. It was announced that the company had been sold and only the top two executives were being retained.
Charlotte, whose husband died in 1989, moved from Texas to Arizona to join Mary Ruth. Now they are back living in Texas. They have been to 23 foreign countries and most states in the United States. Charlotte had always wanted to travel and be involved in a ministry. It has been pretty much non-stop in those areas for the last 15 years. “Dr. Swope is a wonderful person. I can tell you that she is genuine, she is giving, and she loves the Lord with all her heart,” says Charlotte. “It has been an honor to serve her all these years and I feel so blessed that God brought us together. What a team!”
The admiration is mutual with Mary Ruth: “Charlotte has worn more hats in my life than I like to admit and her expertise in all of them is excellent. I am deeply and forever grateful to God for orchestrating Charlotte Bates into my life. It was a perfect plan.”