“An eloquent man and mighty in the scriptures… fervent in spirit… they took him aside and explained the way of God more accurately.” Acts 18:24-26
GOD AT WORK! A New Opportunity The interest among young men we knew from various places began to grow, and those who could take time off from work and schooling, came for the summer to help in new work. They would help in visitation, children’s work, transportation and all other areas of work that are part of outreach evangelism. Mr. Walter Kember began supplying us with thousands of “Kember texts” which over the years were distributed all over the province. Having a group of young men working together, seemed to be a help to them in their Christian life as well as to us in reaching out to new places. Perhaps a vision for the world as a harvest field ripe and ready to bring in the harvest, caught hold of some, because there are a number of those brothers who are preaching the Gospel in North America and other parts of the world in many countries.
Because the “Northern Light” had been put up on dry dock at Lewisport, it was able to be kept on the drydock all summer in 1971. There was a very united effort in Corner Brook and that also gave us a new outlook on the value of larger team efforts.
There were series of Gospel meetings in several places throughout the province during the winter of 1971 and early 1972 by the brethren. I worked on the house to get some more rooms finished to live in. We began to work the ground behind the house to grow our vegetables in. Our home was a real place of comfort and our family was a real joy. Lael went to school at St. Mary’s on Waterford Bridge Rd. Alison waited until I got home from having meetings away, to walk. After that she never stopped. Brother Stan
Simms came to St. John’s to have meetings. He stayed with us and we preached in the hall for several weeks.
Mr. and Mrs. Simms had lived in Carbonear quite a few years before when the work there was new. He was a kind and gentle man who had a soft-heart toward sinners and especially Christians’ children. He had been brought up listening to the Gospel and yet not able to grasp the simplicity of salvation. Like so many, he thought “There has to be something more.” He had his own barbershop in Ontario, and even though he was on his own, he still attended Gospel meetings. His father came into the shop one day and as they were talking, happened to mention a verse of a hymn. The chorus of the Gospel hymn says, “Believe, and you’ll be saved. The promise takes you in. The Savior see, He died for thee. The promise takes you in.” Through the words of that hymn his spiritual eyesight was opened and he was saved by taking in that promise. It was a privilege to have that older preacher staying with us in St. John’s during those meetings. His granddaughter, Sheila, is married to Stephen Joyce and they are in the Corner Brook assembly.
After our workers talk in the spring, it was decided to take the “Northern Light” along with us to Wareham for some of the crew to stay in that summer. We had a trailer and camper but had more helpers than places to put them. Bert Joyce, John Joyce, Gordon Hunt, Clarence Perry and Jim Jarvis stayed on the boat tied up at the wharf in Wareham; and Scott Goff, Kevin Perry, Peter Kember, Glen Moore and Gaius Goff stayed in the trailer and camper by the tent in Centreville. We had three vans we used to carry people from Indian Bay, Trinity and Wareham to the tent. We filled the tent nightly as well as in the morning. Mark and Mae Button, Mrs. Waterman and a number of others professed to be saved. We continued there the whole summer. The tent was put up in late June and taken down around Labor Day. The portable hall was moved up from Templeman to Wareham and Carl Payne and others had meetings there. The Templeman assembly bought a schoolhouse in Wesleyville and renovated it for an assembly hall.
In the late summer of 1972, George Campbell and Bryan Funston had some meetings in Main Point, Gander Bay in the Ford’s home. The Ford’s had lived in Fogo and had come to live at Gander Bay for some time. Mrs. Ford’s parents and other relatives lived in that area. Alma Ford was saved a couple of years earlier at meetings in Fogo. In 1973, a number of us who work in the Gospel, met in Corner Brook to discuss the work and the upcoming summer. Two of the sisters in the assembly at Charlottetown, Labrador and one in the assembly at Parsons Pond had a sister living in Gander Bay. Some of the believers on Fogo Island had relatives living in the Gander Bay area as well. Algernon Trimm and Francis Barney from assemblies in Labrador had worked with Alvin Blake in construction in Labrador. Alvin was from Gander Bay and had shown interest in the Gospel when the two Labrador men talked with him from time to time. After prayer and conversation together, some of us decided to go to Gander Bay, while others went north.
Mrs. Ivy Blake from George’s Point, Gander Bay had gone to visit one of her daughters who lived at Stoneville and while there heard a minister in the United Church preach the Gospel and was saved a year or so earlier. We didn’t know at the time Mrs. Ivy Blake had been praying that the Gospel would be preached in her community for the sake of her family. Even though there were churches in the area, there wasn’t Gospel being preached there. Some young men who had been with us the year before, Jim Jarvis and Glen Moore and others we knew from various places were able to come to help. Carl Payne was along to help. Jim Klein came from Arlington, Washington, John Gamble came from Scotland, Bryan Funston and his youngest brother, Craig Funston from Vancouver were here; Joe Hancock and Melvin Flynn from Labrador were here for some of the time; and Marvin Derksen and Bob Dyck came. Marvin built his first building in Newfoundland that summer – an outhouse!
The roads around were gravel at the time and were pretty rough on our vehicles. We had a Dodge bus, a couple of Chevy vans and a Ford van to carry people. There were always repairs to be made. Jim Klein was the designated mechanic but because vehicles were a priority, he could always call on others to help. Bryan Funston headed up the youth work. George Campbell and I preached the Gospel at night. Everybody took part in the open-air work. We had a small trailer and a couple of campers to stay in. Every few days, a walk had to be made up George’s Brook to the swimming hole to get cleaned up. In the morning the bus and vans picked up young people for the youth meeting. In the evening the same routes down as far as Victoria Cove on one side of the bay and Davidsville on the other side, were taken to pick up folks that would come to the Gospel meetings. Some-times, double trips were made.
That summer the CN ferry crossing the Gulf went on strike and we couldn’t get potatoes or bread in the stores around. There was a shortage of a lot of things in outport shops. A lady across the causeway made bread for us when we could get flour. They still had 100- pound bags then, and I had to go to some little communities to find the flour. I was the cook so I decided rice would be a good substitute for potatoes. We didn’t have a table big enough to seat everybody together at first so the crew would pick up their food and go eat wherever they could. One evening George Campbell said for me to follow him as he had something to show me. Behind some power poles that were lying there was a pile of rice where the boys took their rice and dumped it. George said, “I don’t think the rice is going over very big.”
He went to someone around the bay and arranged to buy potatoes until the strike was over. Before starting in Gander Bay, Carl Payne and I made up the first open-air trailer we used. I had an old U-Haul trailer and we made sides that would fold around to make a closed in trailer. When the roof was lifted up in front and the sides opened out, we had a 24-foot text and a roof over the pulpit lit with 12 volt lights off the van battery. When we came to George’s Point and put up the tent at the causeway corner, we used that trailer inside the tent for a platform. The seating was wooden seats on metal frames we had made up. They worked well for a number of years. There were times when the tent was filled to capacity and some outside the tent.
It was a beautiful summer that year so there was no problem to visit all the homes with the Kember texts and have open air preaching as well as getting over the roads easily. The roads were really dusty but it didn’t seem to hinder people coming to the tent meetings night after night. The Lord was pleased to save people during those meetings on the causeway corner, both in the tent and in the portable hall that was donated from brethren in Ontario. Jim Jarvis’ father and Paul Kember pulled a portable hall to Gander Bay from Ontario, which was used for a year and a half before it was mysteriously burned near Fredricton between 1 and 6 in the morning.
A small Gospel Hall was built in Wareham and the portable hall that was used there, was put in Davidsville and was there until the late summer of 1974 when a portable was built here in Main Point where the sawmill was. The one in Davidsville was moved to Hopeall, Trinity Bay to follow up that new work. In 1974 there were a couple of baptisms and a nice number of believers obeyed the Lord in this way. Then the saints began to break bread that fall in the portable hall in front of the sawmill. In meetings held at that time, the Lord saved some more precious souls. One Lord’s day morning after having watched the breaking of bread and hearing 15 men take part in thanksgiving during that meeting, Hubert Squires was saved by God’s grace. He had a strong testimony of grace until he died somewhat over a year later. A permanent Gospel Hall was built in the summer and fall of 1975. Mr. Payne, Ronald Biggins and others sawed the logs the Gander Bay brothers cut and, although we didn’t have much money, the hall was built free and clear. Before it was finished; Mr. Wallace Blake’s (husband of Ivy Blake) funeral was held in the new hall.
The size of the hall made it possible to have the conference more convenient, as well as being a good meeting hall. The first conference here was in the lodge for the meetings and in the portable for meals. It snowed that year on the 24th of May weekend. Mr. Payne spent a lot of time in Gander Bay in the late 70’s and early 80’s. Besides meetings, he sawed lumber for other halls and other work with Ronald Biggin from Daniel’s Harbour, Roy Freake, who now lives at Charlottetown, LB, and other helpers. The Gander Bay brethren did a lot for the Lord’s work over the years in cutting logs and sawing lumber. When Mr. Campbell was slowly dying in Vancouver; we spent days and nights together going over the Lord’s work. We would pray a lot about Gander Bay and in other parts of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Our prayers were that God would give His people vision for the things that are eternal; vision for the value of men and women; vision for reaching out in the Gospel to other parts. That’s what the book, “Take the Challenge” was written for. If we lose the vision; if we lose the spiritual vitality; if we lose the willingness to venture beyond our comfort zone; not only will sinners perish, but we will die as assemblies of God’s people. We must take a chance on making a mistake from time to time. We must take a chance on being misunderstood. We must take a chance of failing. Actually, there is no chance to it because in the Bible it is called “walking by faith, not by sight.”
Early in the year of 1974, I went back to Stout, IA to have another Gospel series with Albert Hull. The Stout Gospel Hall was full each night and after a number of weeks, LaVerne Weber was the first one to profess to be saved. Then it seemed that each night, one or two more were saved. By the end of nine weeks of Gospel meetings, over 40 had professed to be saved. It encouraged the work in that area. Scott and Elizabeth moved from Oregon to St. John’s during the early spring I think. He began to build houses with Mr. Barbour. I was given a Buick station wagon by my oldest brother Dick and his wife Louise and had it filled with equipment when I went back. A welder was in there; tools; and all sorts of other things. I was glad to get home to see my family. Shortly after getting home I went to Gander Bay for meetings with George Campbell in the portable. Herbert Harris and his wife plus some others were reached then. Carl Payne had been helping a lot in the Gander Bay work, driving down from his home in Templeman and had a real interest in that area. In the summer, he and Mr. Joyce, Bryan Funston, Marvin Derksen, Phil Atkinson, John Joyce and a few others has tent meetings in Fredrickton. George Campbell and I had bought another tent during the winter. It was larger, 30x75 and opened up further possibilities to expand the work with two tent crews and equipment. I had bought another couple of school buses to go along with the vans that were wearing out badly.