“Always in every prayer of mine for you all making request with joy, for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now; being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.” Philippians1:3-5 GOD AT WORK! A new vision
Over the years past, Mr. Herb Harris had many Gospel series in Vancouver, British Columbia, and many souls had been saved through his dynamic preaching. Quite a number of those saved in earlier years before the WW2, had become elders and leaders in some of the assemblies in that city. Generally, he would take a yearly journey in winter when he felt the cold draining his health. He would go to visit his sisters in Ontario and California and then go to the Northwest in early spring to visit those places where he had preached when souls were saved in past meetings he had held there.
He would go to other parts of Canada and the USA for a few months, and while he was away, he would have Gospel series in Gospel Halls. In 1951 he and Mr. A.W. Joyce had another Gospel series together in the South Main Gospel Hall in Vancouver. Those meetings had a “jump start” at the Thanksgiving conference when Andrew Bergsma got up after the Gospel meeting and loudly said, “I need to be saved, and I want to be saved right now.”
The Bergsma family were from a strong Calvinist denomination who believed that it was the elect who would be saved and that “whosoever” was only for the “elect.” It wasn’t for everyone. The teaching he had heard was that some were elected to be saved and some to be lost. The “limited atonement” doctrine he was taught in early years was a burden to him. When he and the large number of brothers and sisters in his family, got into reading the Bible with an open mind and heart, he was seriously convicted that he would be lost without a Savior. When the simplicity of the Gospel came clear to him, was when the wise preacher had him read for himself John 3:36. “He that believeth on the Son, hath everlasting life,” not he that is the elect has everlasting life.
The Lord saved him that October night, and he became an earnest and effective soul winner. He spent over a year in Newfoundland and Labrador in 1959, before he was called by the Lord to go to the Netherlands to preach the Gospel. His older brother John was saved before him, and as a blessing from that conversion and that of other members of his family, a large door was opened to the work of the Gospel in 1951. Mr. Harris and Mr. Joyce started the meetings in the South Main Gospel Hall, and the hall was packed every night. God had worked in the hearts of the Lord’s people, and that was felt in the meetings, and by those who were not saved who attended. Those meetings went on for over two months right through the Christmas and New Year holiday season. Some who were saved were men who had been in the military during WW2. They had seen a lot during those years and were open to listen to God because their consciences were awakened. One of those men was a nephew of Mr. George Campbell.
George Campbell Sr. was one of the elders of the South Main assembly. He had been saved twenty years before when Herb Harris was preaching in Vancouver. He was a soul winner himself with a caring and wise heart for souls. When it was plain that the Lord was working in Vancouver in the fall of 1951, he wanted to get Mr. Harris there for the Gospel meetings. His parents had moved from the Isle of Lewis in Scotland early in the twentieth century. He and his brothers grew up knowing the Gospel, but one of his brothers, Norman, wanted to get away from the Gospel so moved to San Francisco, California when he married Greta. She came from New Brunswick and had never heard the Gospel preached clearly, so between them, they decided to start living life their own way, and took their two boys away from “religious restrictions.” Their two sons, George and Lawrence, never saw a Bible and only attended a Sunday School in a church six or seven times. That was all of their exposure to the Gospel except an occasional visit from their grandparents and relatives. Their parents had no interest in the Gospel although his father had been raised in a Christian home.
Lawrence was the oldest and was in the US Army during the WW2. He drove an army truck over the Himalayan Mountains on the Burma Road, and had a lot of harrowing experiences on that dangerous road. When he turned seventeen, George enlisted in the Marine Corps and was trained as a machine-gunner. The tide of war in the South Pacific had turned when he got to the theater of the conflict. Often when the officers wanted a certain number of men to go into action, they would start at the beginning of the alphabet and call out names of the men who were to go on a patrol.
One time the officer in charge started at Z and worked backwards. He had enough men for what the intended action was to be, before he came to those whose name began with C. Most of those men never came back. When the war ended, he was stationed in Japan, guarding prisoners who were guilty of war crimes and condemned to die, before he was able to be discharged when his enlistment time ran out. When he got off the boat he got dressed up in his best uniform and got to his home as quickly as possible. Neither Lawrence or George was seriously wounded during the war. Much of his story is best read about in his book, “Take the Challenge.”
The younger George, was totally unfamiliar with the Gospel, but knew something was missing in his life. After a brief time working with his father in his grocery store, George decided he wanted to see other places and do other things. He got jobs working in resorts in California and other places. He served as a bartender in fancy clubs where movie stars came to drink and party, and he noticed they didn’t seem to be happy people. They were loud and noisy when they were together but when they became intoxicated and pensive, they ended up sad and angry. He worked as a breakfast cook in various places and after going from place to place, ended up getting work in Florida. There he got a job working on a sailing vessel, and one starry night while lying on the deck looking at the sky, he became convinced that “somebody made all of this.” He returned to the west coast of the USA and got a job on an ocean-going vessel carrying wheat to India. The boat was loaded with wheat in Portland, Oregon, but he needed some paper-work that he didn’t have. The ship left without him and he went to Vancouver, BC instead.
He hardly knew what he was looking for in life, but it seemed just beyond his ability to get. In that vain search, he found himself staying with his uncle, George Campbell Sr., in the same house as Herb Harris and Albert Joyce. They were just starting Gospel meetings at South Main Gospel Hall in November 1951. George was not familiar with the Bible at all nor had he been to church, let alone ever heard the Gospel. So, this was all new to him, but by the fourth night of listening to the messages preached, he realized that life is only short, but an unending eternity in heaven or hell and the lake of fire were just a step after death. The decision was up to him which way he would take. He didn’t know any verses from the Bible, but on the fourth night after the meeting, he considered the message he had just listened to. “Jesus of Nazareth passeth by.” There by the bed in his uncle’s home, he prayed, “Jesus of Nazareth, don’t pass me by. I trust you as my Savior.”
He said as he often spoke of that moment; the burden on his soul was lifted without a lot of emotion. It was a simple assurance that when he called on the name of the Lord, the Lord saved him. Again, he spoke to God, “Lord, I confess You as my Savior.” He remained in Vancouver for a while and got a job. While there he learned a lot about his new-found faith, and it was obvious to those who knew him that the Lord had saved him. For another six weeks the Gospel was preached and he was there each night. It was there he saw the need of precious souls to be saved, and learned he could get involved in that himself.
Later in 1952, he went back to California for a year or more and had the privilege of seeing his mother and father both come to Christ for salvation. His mother was the first one he saw saved and she simply saw herself as an unbeliever who would be lost in hell if she didn’t put her trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, which she did in the kitchen of her own home. William MacDonald was a big help to George in that year, and he became very interested in reading the scriptures and getting Gospel messages to preach in the open-air meetings in San Francisco.
In the spring of 1953, Mr. Harris contacted George Campbell and asked him to come to Newfoundland and help him in the work of the Gospel. He went in June of that year and was for a short time in Bishop’s Cove before going to Corner Brook. He helped in the work in Corner Brook for two years before going west to see his parents. It was on that trip that I met him first. After he went back to Newfoundland, he was in Corner Brook when Mr. Harris took the coastal boat on the two-week trip from Corner Brook to St. John’s. By the time he got to St. John’s Herb Harris was convinced a boat was needed for Gospel work, suitable for a few men to live in and small enough to get into small harbours. A boat of that size would also provide a place from which to preach the Gospel. Most of the out-ports of Newfoundland and Labrador at the that time, could only be reached by boat.
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Mr. Herb Harris was at the Vancouver, BC Easter conference in 1956, and while there, was asked to give a report on the work of the Lord in Newfoundland. In the course of his report, he mentioned his exercise for a boat to use in the work there. I remember being at that conference, and when Mr. Theodore Williams of Chicago got up to speak right after Mr. Harris, we younger people were all glad because he was a dynamic speaker. His subject was the desire of Caleb when he asked Joshua for a particular mountain. “Give me this mountain,” was his request, and Mr. Williams said, “Brothers and sisters, what is a little old boat compared to a great big mountain? Give the man his boat!” Before that conference was over there was enough money to buy a boat in Scotland, and have it delivered on the deck of a big ship to St. John’s.
The “M.G.M.” was the official name of the boat, but it became known as the “Missionary Gospel Messenger.” It wasn’t a large vessel, only 38 feet long and 8 feet wide at the widest point. It had been used as an admiral’s barge that was hung on the side of a battleship, only to be used when the admiral was making an official visit to another ship or in the port of another country. It only drew three feet of water so rolled quite a bit in rough seas although it had a “stabilizer” on each side of the keel which was supposed to help a bit to keep it from rolling around.
There were two Perkins diesel engines and two propellers, so the boat had a lot of power but not a lot of speed. The planking of the boat was Cyprus-wood, kind of like teak, and it was double planked on the bias with one end of each plank at the keel and the other at the deck. Where the outer planks crossed the inner planks, they were fastened with brass rivets. It was built in 1928 so was thirty years old when it came to Newfoundland. It was used each summer for several months, from 1956 until 1968, when the planks became too loose to keep tight and we couldn’t keep it from leaking so much that it was no longer sea-worthy.
Donald Moffatt and his family were living in St. John’s at that time, and he had contacts through which the boat was found and bought from a Christian shipbuilder in Buckie, Scotland. He arranged for the transport of the “M.G.M.” on a Furness-Withy boat and it was ready for use by the summer. It remained registered in Scotland so flew the Union Jack on the flagpole at the stern, and the Canadian ensign on the foremast. Alex Morrison’s fine tenor voice Mr. Moffatt used on his radio broadcast, identified the “M.G.M.” with that well-accepted radio broadcast whenever the boat entered a harbour playing “Throw out the Life-line” over the loudspeaker system. The year of 1956 opened a whole new era to the Gospel work in Newfoundland and Labrador.
In Gospel work, the message never changes. God’s truth stands and any who attempt to ignore, or eliminate from the pages of holy scripture, the truths that have been inspired by the Holy Spirit; the terrible things that are written about the future of unbelievers, will be inescapable. The methods used to further the work of the Lord may change as long as they are not inconsistent with the written word of God or compromise that which has been successful in God’s work.
Modes of transportation have been varied since the beginning of this age. Travel from place to place that would have taken months in the past, now can be done in a few hours. The written word of God has been translated into hundreds of languages that would seem strange to those who wrote them first in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. However, the truth of the words has not changed.
To travel by boat or airplane in places where ground transportation is not possible, is a most reasonable and sensible way to connect with isolated communities. Travel by boat around the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador was not a sightseeing cruise, but a means of reaching out with the Gospel to “regions beyond.”
Changing times and changing demographics of society and countries have an effect on the outreach of the Gospel. Even though we often wish for “the old days,” they are past, and we live in a new day in which technology and transportation have changed so much, that people who have no interest in the Gospel, have a “So what, what’s the big deal?” attitude. We can’t stop what is happening around us as “evil men and seducers wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived,” but we do have a message that is up to date and yet never changes.
Sometimes we have to change how we speak and the words we use, but the message never changes. When a Spirit-filled man speaks the truth of God from his heart, his attitude, his demeanor, his tone of voice and body language are all read by those who listen, and give power to his message. A radio broadcast, a boat, an airplane, a portable hall, a bus to carry people and even virtual messaging are all only tools we can use. It is the person who delivers the message, who is the tool the Spirit of God has used all down through the generations of humanity to represent Him.
It is certainly incumbent upon us to seek ways to deliver the message in the best possible way, and that takes, thought and discussion among those who are committed to carrying out the divine commission. What a blessing it was to the work of the Lord when Bibles were able to be printed. Gospel tracts and booklets as well as books have been effectively used for many generations. But the final analysis is that God intends those who have been saved by God’s grace and love the Lord and people, to be the means to deliver the message and guide people to the Savior.
The men who preached the Gospel from the deck of the “M.G.M.” were all earnest men who wanted other people to come to Christ by faith and be saved for eternity. The radio broadcasts in Newfoundland beginning with the “Newfoundland Gospel Hour,” then “The Family Bible Hour,” then “Listening” and now “Anchor Point” are important ways of getting God’s truth to as many people as possible. Ultimately though, the consistent godly lives of Bible-believing Christians, are the most powerful influence on people who hear the words they say. People sometimes say, “I remember my grandmother reading the Bible when I was a child, and she would say the same things that I hear being preached here in this hall, or that you are saying.”