BECOMING A CHRISTIAN
Quite "out of the blue" this Sunday afternoon (May 24th, 2009) I felt an urge to go back to tell that part of my life that changed my life so completely, it was as if I had become a new person. (Of course my wife could tell you that I am still far from perfect!)
During my years in high school, and in my first two years of college (I’ll fill in the gaps later) I was like a lot of young people--enthusiastic about the "fun" times in church and young peoples’ groups, but scarcely having a ‘deep’ thought about what it meant to be a Christian. We believed about Jesus and church and so on, but it was not a significant part of our lives. In 1938, unable to find work, I signed up for the Civilian Conservation Corps for about 14 months. Though I treasure my memories of that time spent in Glacier National Park (again, a separate story to come later) I had virtually no contact with anything of a religious nature.
By saving my money carefully, by the summer of 1939 I was ready to leave the CCC's and go back to school. I applied to Willamette University, a Methodist school in Salem, Oregon,, for help, or at least the promise of a job. But they refused to offer any help at all. I had about given up hope of getting back to school that year when out of the clear blue sky I received a letter from Linfield College, in McMinnville, Oregon, offering me a full scholarship and a job! That was due to the work of my friend from Havre, Al Mundhenk! He had gone there the year before, so was now a year ahead of me. He had told the school about me (and my grades at Havre had been right up at the top) and urged them to help me come there to school. I had never even heard of the school until that letter came, but it surely didn't take me long to accept their offer!
So I was back in contact with good Christian people again! We had mandatory chapel services in the morning two or three times a week, and I loved it. I went a few times to the Baptist Church in McMinnville, where Al went, but somehow decided not to attend there. I drifted back to the Methodist Church, began going with a girl who lived in the pastor's home, and again became active there, singing in the choir, and often eating Sunday dinner with the pastor's family and my new girl friend. On Wednesday evenings, my friend, Al, and a young woman from Billings, Mary Louise Tannehill, and I planned and conducted special chapel services, in the college auditorium. These were very sparsely attended, but I thought I was doing something great, I guess. I thought I was a Christian, but I wasn't!
Well, that school year went by all too quickly, and I was dead broke again--too broke to even get back to Montana and home. I found a job in an insurance office in Portland, and lived for a time in a boarding house. There were several young fellows boarding and living in the basement, and with one of them, Bob Brower, I began going to different churches around town. We visited many, but didn't settle on any. Bob, though he never talked to me much about his faith, I believe was a Christian. We visited his church one Sunday, a United Brethren church, and I sort of laughed to myself at all the women wearing those little white lace skull caps. I never went back there with him. Later he and I rented an apartment together, to get out of the boarding house where we had been living, and from there we sometimes visited downtown churches not too far from our apartment.
Then the war came! The day after Pearl Harbor I went down to enlist in the Air Force (I had been trying for over a year to get into the cadet flying program, but couldn't pass the physical), and went into the service in early January, 1942. During basic training I couldn't go to church anywhere, but when assigned to the Air Force clerical school at Fort Logan, Colorado, I used to go in to Denver to church with a young fellow from Tennessee-- Bill Adkisson. We had a great time, attending a small Methodist Church in Denver for several weeks. In those days men in uniform were very popular, and we seldom failed to have an invitation to dinner after the service. But no one talked to us about the Lord, and maybe it wouldn't have done any good if they had. I thought then that I knew just about everything! I've often wondered what happened to Bill, as we didn't keep in touch after we left the training school at Fort Logan. He had a beautiful voice, and probably the thickest southern accent I have ever heard. When we would be riding down to Denver on the street car, and talking back and forth, people would gather around and ask him to say something, anything, so they could hear his accent. He was a great pal.
After finishing clerical school, I was sent to Mobile, Alabama, ready to go overseas. While there in the early summer of 1942, I went down town in Mobile a few times to a big Baptist church with a fellow soldier. We weren't much interested, and were there only a short time. After that, I was sent to Officer Candidate School in Miami Beach, Florida, and believe me there was no time for church in that school! We were on the dead run nearly all the time, and could think of little else than survival!
So the years went by. Assigned in Wichita, Kansas, throughout most of the war, I went for a year or two to a small Presbyterian Church which met in a school. I became involved in their scouting program, and was assistant Scout master for a year or so. Also, I sang in the choir there. In June of 1945 Jane and I were married by a Methodist minister she knew (she went to the Methodist church quite faithfully), in a Presbyterian church chapel! Soon after we married I was sent to Dayton, Ohio, for a month or so, and then to Chicago. There we visited churches, a big Methodist Church in a tall building right in the heart of the Loop in downtown Chicago, and even went once to Moody Church. There surely we must have heard the Gospel preached, but didn't recognize it.
While we lived in Glasgow and Fort Peck in the early months of 1946, after I was released from the Air Force, we went some to the Methodist Church in Glasgow, where my parents attended. We had our son, David, baptized there, because it was the thing to do. Later that year I went back to school, at the University of Montana in Missoula, and while there I had nothing to do with any church. Jane went part of the time to the Methodist Church, but I didn't go.
At the end of 1948, after working for a time with the Bureau of Reclamation in Billings, Montana, I was tranferred (and promoted) to a job with the Bureau in western Nebraska, at a little town called Indianola. There we became very much interested in church again, helping at the Methodist Church. I directed the choir, taught the adult Sunday School class (not Bible teaching, just stuff from Methodist headquarters), and we both helped with others to completely clean up and redecorate the church, etc. I remember a guest speaker there one Sunday saying that what he liked about the Methodist Church was that one could believe anything he liked, and be a good Methodist! Something about that didn't sound right to me, but I didn't really question it.
Now I didn't know it, but God was using all this experience to bring me around to really knowing Him! In the spring of 1951 we moved back to Billings, again with a nice promotion, still with the Bureau of Reclamation. This time we started attending the big Methodist Church right away, and again I became involved, singing in the choir, and teaching a large adult Sunday School class, even teaching some from the Bible! I didn't know how blind I was!
About that time, my older sister, Jean, began writing long, long letters to us, telling us of the wonder of really trusting in Jesus, and that just going to church wasn't what we needed, and so on. She leaned so heavily on us in her letters I got to the point where I would ask Jane to read the letters, and only tell me the news of Jean's family; I didn't want to wade through all that stuff about Jesus. I was terribly arrogant at this point; I thought I knew the scientific answers to the Bible's miracles, and all that.
That was in 1951. At Christmas we went up to visit Jean and her husband, Wayne. While there, I came down really sick with stomach flu! While I was lying in bed, feeling miserable, Jean and Wayne sat on either side of the bed one afternoon and really got after me about knowing Jesus. I didn't really listen, I know, but I did respect their earnestness. Maybe I was beginning to be a little more open to the Gospel.
Back in Billings, soon after that one of my high school classmates, Marjorie Vogel Peterson, and her husband, Dave, came to Billings and joined the Methodist Church. At first I completely detested Dave Peterson--he was an insurance agent, and really acted the part (as I thought of insurance agents!), glad-handing everyone, bragging about breaking the fishing laws, and so on. Not long after that, Dave and Marge began attending a weekly home Bible study, in the spring of 1952, and began inviting us to go, too. I absolutely refused, and used as my excuse the idea that I would stay home and take care of the children; Jane could go, if she wished. And she did! The study was in the home of one Harold Tannehill--an older brother of the girl I had known at Linfield College years before! Jane evidently liked it--she often didn't get home until midnight or later. I couldn't imagine what would make Bible study so interesting!
Then she began working on me (she had become a real Christian sometime that summer of 1952) to go with her. The Bible study was held every Friday night. Finally--it was Labor Day week of 1952--I agreed early in the week that I would go just once. What I didn't know was that Jane right away called her friends from the Bible study, they called others, and all that week people all over town were praying for me, that I would come to know Jesus Christ! Friday came, we took the kids with us, and I went to the meeting.
And it was fun! We sang some old songs that I had known from my boyhood--those songs Mom taught us! We read something from the Bible that I remembered, too. Then they all got down on their knees to pray, and I did, too, though I don't think I had ever done that before in my whole life.
I listened to those prayers--everyone around the circle was praying--and I wanted to pray, but didn't know what to say. Then Harold Tannehill prayed something like this: "Lord, if there is anyone here tonight who has never really asked you to come into his life (he meant me, of course) let him pray and ask you in right now." I heard that, and thought I had never asked Jesus to do that. So I prayed silently and asked Jesus to come into my life; I knew I needed Him, or something.
When I stood up at the close of the prayer time, I was literally a new person! The next day the sky was bluer--it was as if everything was new! I can never thank the Lord enough for Harold, and for Jane and Marge and Dave, and all those who were so concerned for me. Now all those foundational teachings fell into place, like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle! Mom's careful training had finally paid off! I thank God for her, too, and for all those faithful people in that little Sunday School, for the American Sunday School Union missionaries, the vacation Bible school teachers--all of them who had a part in helping me come to know Jesus as my Lord and Savior. I know that's a long story, but I wanted to tell it, and hope that you will read it with understanding. If you are a follower of Jesus, I am sure you will understand. If you are not--why don't you stop right here and simply ask Jesus to come into your life? If you will ask, he will come in! And if you do this, and thus discover what it means to be born again, please let me know. OK?