NEW HORIZONS

Cotton picker Dan - South Carolina

From the fall of 1949 to the spring of 1954 my horizons expanded greatly.  Living on the Prairie Bible Institute campus with fellow students from many provinces, states and countries was a new experience, plus the traveling to and from Alberta.  During those years traveling was done one or more times by train, bus or car.  The ride by train my first year was fun.   Traveling from Detroit in the fall of 1950, with three of us crammed into the seat of a Model A Ford coupe was a unique ride. That first night, in Upper Michigan, the driver and owner of the car stretched out on the only seat in the Model A.  My other friend and I slept, though briefly, on a tarp in a ditch by the side of the road.  On that trip on number two highway, Michigan to Montana, not once did we ever exceed the speed limit.  Our top speed was 35 mph and 45 mph when we were going downhill.  Though the countryside and landscape varied, our interaction with people along the way was not much different than back home in Chatham.

However, it was a much different experience as I headed south for the first time in the fall of 1954.  I traveled by Greyhound Bus from Detroit to Columbia, South Carolina.  My first bus stop in the south really shocked me.  I was not prepared for the signage which I saw in that bus station which read, "white drinking fountain, black drinking fountain, white men's restroom, black men's restroom, white women's restroom and black women's restroom."  I was entering a different world.  Thank God this is no longer the case.

Once settled at Columbia Bible College (now Columbia International University) and interacting with the Christian community and churches, I found that there were some differences between the lifestyle and behavior of northern Christians and southern Christians.  I remember one of my first Sundays at the First Baptist (SBC) Church in Columbia, walking out of the building and entering into conversation with some of the local Christian fellows that I had met in the Sunday School class, that some of them immediately lit up a cigarette.  I should add here that students at the Bible College did not smoke nor were they permitted to smoke.

I was in for another surprise when we had a school picnic at the property, which is the school campus today.  When it came time to go swimming, I discovered that the fellows swam in one place and the girls were around the bend and out of sight in another place.  Segregated swimming!  I had never heard of such.  There is one more thing I should mention.  I was in the Ambassador Choir my first year at CBC.  We were on a spring tour, traveling north, and as we were nearing Pennsylvania and New York, the choir director asked the southern girls to refrain from using lipstick and heavy makeup.  He said that the folks in the north would never hear our message in song if the girls had painted faces.  Well, times have changed.

You may be asking what does all this have to do with my spiritual journey.  Here's my answer.  I was beginning to see that there are born again Christians who differ in their lifestyle.  As the years have come and gone I have also learned that there are genuine Christians with some differences in what I would consider minor interpretations of scripture.  For one example, we don't all agree on the interpretation of scripture as it concerns the end times. There are also some wonderful Christians whose taste for music is way beyond my likes and dislikes.

So I say that though there are differences in music, methods and some meanings of scripture, if they agree on the basic fundamental teaching of scripture that the Lord Jesus Christ is God and that only through Him is there forgiveness of sins and eternal life, then they are my brother and sister.  I do not want a few minor differences to divide us when it comes to fellowship.  We belong to the family of God.   Though I still have my preferences and my opinions as to some of these differences, and though I believe what I believe to be the right, differing over some minor matters is not going to separate me from brothers and sisters in the Lord.  I have accepted the truth that we are "all one in Christ Jesus."  Galatians 3:28.

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