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Summary
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21.
The price of all farm produce dropped, and in 1932, we shipped eggs to Prince
Rupert for as low as l2 cents a dozen and fat spring chicken for only ten to fifteen cents
a pound. These prices, way below cost, forced us to kill and market all the hens,
as so many other people had done. The great depression that was causing such
great disappointment all over the world was now disappointing and discouraging
all our efforts too.
And now let us go back to April 1929, for in 1929 and especially in 1930,
something real happened in my life and something so important and outstanding
that it far outshines all other experiences. One evening in April 1929, my wife
Louise and I were in Terrace selling the eggs. A couple of men crossed the street
in front of our buggy. They were carrying boards on their backs. I can remember
wanting to shout and ask them if those boards were paid for, but they quickly walked
on and out of sight.
The next day was Sunday and we drove down to the United Church for the
morning service and then home for dinner. The Sunday School was called at 2:30,
and our four children attended. That evening, Elmer, our oldest boy came home
and said he had been at a meeting after Sunday School. It was held in the little
hospital building near the church. The men we had seen the night before had made
seats in the little building, for the people. But most important, Elmer said, was
how those men talked and explained the Bible better than any preacher or teacher
he had ever heard. I was quite surprised at his remarks for only a month earlier
we had received Elmer and taken him in as a Member of our United Church.
At this time, Terrace did not have a population over five hundred, and
there were three churches in town -- the Anglican Church, the Catholic Church,
and our United Church -- so the membership in each church was small at best. My
father had always had a position of trust in the Methodist Church in Ontario, and
my wife and I always did what we could in this new place to help the church and the
Sunday School for the children and young people. A few weeks later, we received
an invitation to a meeting in Mr. Smith's home, as the Smiths had opened their home
for these two travelling Evangelists.
(eds. note: This rest of this page recounts Jim's personal spiritual journey away from the established Protestant Church to an Evangelical sect called the friends ; there is no more family/Canadian historical information on this page.)
We went to that meeting and, to our surprise, found ourselves face to face
with the true Gospel of Jesus. There it was, just as I had always thought it should
be, and this answered the question that had been in my mind since I was ten years
old: "Why don't our preachers preach and teach as Jesus and His
Disciples preached and taught?" The answer had always been that you can't preach
and teach now as they did nearly 2000 years ago. The world has changed since
the days of Jesus and His Disciples. To be a preacher today, a man needs a
thorough education in a high class college, and then he must be ordained and prepared
so that he can command the respect and interest of all the well educated people we
have today.
Look at our great churches, especially in the cities where the cost of a
church building alone may run over $300,000, and the members of that church have
a high education and own and control a great deal of property. A preacher, to take
charge of a church like that, must have something behind him if he is going to get
the interest of all to be able to teach and preach to them of God's salvation.
But, here before our very eyes were these two humble, homeless preachers
preaching and teaching and manifesting Jesus to us. As we listened in those meetings
we soon learned of God's love for us and God's perfect way for His children to
to walk as taught by the Prophets and by Jesus and His Disciples as we learn in all
the New Testament. And especially as we visited with them in the common little
room they had rented, we learned they could give us a convincing answer to any
question we could ask them concerning our life and God's purpose for each life.
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