Verlis was born in Marion, Indiana on February 8, 1936, and his wife Margret was born in Fairmount, Indiana on December 10, 1939.  They were married July 15, 1956.  They have five children and thirteen grandchildren.  Their children are all married and the two oldest are missionaries.  Jeff and Robbin Demarest are missionaries in Kampala, Uganda, Africa and Jerry and Marty Collins are missionaries in Guerrero, Chihuahua, Mexico.  Seven of their grandchildren were raised on the mission field. 

Verlis was saved May 13,1964.  Dr. Carlos Demarest preached at Union Chapel Baptist Church on Thursday night December 15, 1973.  When Bro. Demarest closed the service he prayed, "Lord, touch somebody tonight and guide him into full time ministry in "…bearing precious seed."  God spoke to Verlis with the words "…bearing precious seed." and that night he surrendered to God's call upon his life to Bearing Precious Seed. 

On August 25, 1974 at Union Chapel Baptist Church hands were laid on Verlis and the church sent him into the BPS Ministry.

Bro. Collins moved his family to Fort Worth, Texas to serve in the Bearing Precious Seed ministry with Dr. Don Fraser and to attend North Texas Baptist College.  Bro. Collins preached and raised money for BPS while he went to college. He graduated from North Texas Baptist College in 1976 with the first major in Scriptures and Publishing.  Bro. Collins completed his Post Graduate studies on May 3, 1991 with an earned Doctorate Degree from Baptist Christian University, Shreveport, LA.

After graduating from college in 1976 Dr. Keen invited Dr. Collins to move his family to Milford, Ohio and joined the FBC and the BPS missionary team.

Dr. Collins founded the School of The Scriptures Bible College in the fall of 1976. The SOS was established to train men and women not only the Bible content but also the biblical principles of the Church printing and distributing the Scriptures.  His favorite Scripture verse is Romans 16:26, "But is now made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith."  Bro. Collins has given his life to fulfill this verse and teach missionaries and pastors that it is our responsibility to give the Word of God and to preach the Word of God to people all over world that they might be saved.

Dr. Collins leads in taking one-week missionary trips with church groups into Old Mexico distributing the Scriptures through evangelism with his son Jerry in Western Mexico. The trips are two-fold, Mexicans need to be saved and churches established. Also, the people in the USA must go and see the need, "mine eye effect mine heart."  They have had more than 40,000 Mexicans trust Jesus Christ as Savior and churches have been planted from the Mexico trips and many missionaries are on the field because God spoke to their heart on a Mexico trip.  Dr. and Mrs. Collins spend their summers on Mexico trips and the remainder of the year presenting the BPS ministry among the churches in the United States.