COLUMBIA BIBLE COLLEGE / COLUMBIA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY

Main campus during my college days

I am so thankful that I eventually went to Columbia Bible College and followed Elmer Thompson's advice.  I had three wonderful years there.  The spiritual emphasis and the vision of the school was very similar to that taught at Prairie Bible Institute.  The school was founded in 1923, one year following PBI, with Robert McQuilkin  the founding president.  He served as president until his death in 1952.  In my days there, the student body was around 400. Today it is over 1,100.

The professors were tops.  I particularly enjoyed Frank Sells, who taught a Bible survey course of the Old and New Testament.  I took the New Testament survey, even though I had had the same at PBI and given credit for it at CBC.  I wished that I had also taken his Old Testament survey.  I regret that I was never ever able to fit his elective course on prayer into my schedule.  I talked with students that took that course.  One thing that I gleaned from them, which I have done at times, was that certain happenings would prompt him to pray.  For example he said that every time he walked by a tavern or pub and got a whiff of the odor coming from the same, he would pray for persons in there and for the families, many who were probably suffering because father or mother was wasting their money on drink.  Another prompting was when he heard a siren. Be it an ambulance or fire truck or police, he knew that someone was in need and he would pray for such persons.

James "Buck" Hatch was another great teacher.  His General Psychology course, though using the same textbook that the university used, was probably the best teaching that I ever heard on the abundant life.  We used the textbook, but basically he used the Bible as our main textbook.

At CBC each student had a Christian service assignment.  We were assigned a different one each year, some of them changing with the semester.  I remember three of the ones that I had.  One was being involved in a Saturday night chapel service at a TB Sanatorium.  There were only a dozen patients, give or take, that came to the chapel.  The vast majority of patients were confined to their rooms.  However, the service was heard in every room.  So our audience was much bigger than those that we saw.  It was more like doing a radio broadcast.

Another ministry was taking turns speaking at a black chain gang.  Black people know how to sing, and to hear these imprisoned men sing was something else.  It would seem that they all had some church background.  We never led them in singing.  One of the prisoners served as their song leader. We would just ask for another hymn and he would start the men singing an old hymn. 

The third Christian service assignment that I remember was teaching Bible in a black elementary school.  There were about five of us fellows that would go to a nearby town once a week and teach the Word of God.  We had a free hand and could teach whatever we chose.

There were other ministries that I was involved in.  Some of them for a one time meeting, others more than once.  I took part in a few services at the South Carolina State Penitentiary.  One Sunday night I was emcee for a Servicemen For Christ service held in the school chapel.  Outside of Columbia was Fort Jackson, a large US Army base.  Hundreds of soldiers would wander the streets of the city in their free time.  Some of our students were on the streets inviting the men to the meeting.  There was a meeting every Sunday evening for them.  The night that I emceed the service, Barry Moore, also a student, was the speaker.  I had known Barry back in the Chatham Youth For Christ days.  Barry was YFC director in London and spoke a couple of times at our Chatham YFC rally.  It was an honor to be able to introduce him that Sunday night at CBC. I am so thankful for these Christian service opportunities.  They were all used of God to prepare me in part for pastoral ministry in the years to come.

My first year, I was also a member of the Ambassador Choir, led by Bill Supplee.  A couple of Sunday nights each month we would sing in churches within an hour or two driving distance from the school.  In the spring of 1955 we went on tour upstate.  However, I was not well, and while in New York City caught a bus and went home to Chatham for a week or so.  Since it was spring break, I did not miss too many classes.

Bill Supplee leading Ambassador reunion choir 2002

Unlike Prairie Bible Institute, at CBC we were encouraged to date.  Wow!  This was different.  Up to then, I had never ever had a date.  In my high school years, the teens did things together and there were few of us that dated.  So, my first year at CBC, how was I to go about it?  I decided to ask a couple of  talkie girls.  I thought that way we would not lack for conversation.  So early in the school year, I asked a Texan girl for a Friday night date.  Before I had that one, I asked another girl from Michigan for the Sunday (a church date) night.  There were others and I finally settled on a girl from Illinois and dated her most of that first year.  My second year, I ended up with another steady.  My final year, I thought, I would forget about the going steady thing and dated several girls.  The Lord only knew that somewhere in  Alberta was the girl He had chosen for me.  I'm so thankful that I waited for Leona.

Attending Homecoming & 45th class reunion - 2002



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