OUR SUSPICIONS WERE RIGHT

In the spring of 1962 we had our suspicions confirmed.  While away for a few days we met a friend who shared with us that he had heard the reason for which we were rejected two years earlier by the West Indies Mission.  Now that we knew why they had made their decision and knowing that it was a falsehood that had been shared with them, we decided to write the mission to see whether they would reconsider us.  They responded by asking us to go to Pennsylvania and meet with the Board of Directors.  A date was set and we arranged our vacation around the appointed day.

We set off from Lousana in our Volkswagen Beetle, spending a few days with my folks in Chatham and then off to meet with the board in Homer City, PA.  Upon our arrival at the mission, we were met at the door by the General Director's wife, Mrs. Thompson.  "Oh, no!" she exclaimed, or words to that effect, "You've come the wrong week."

Standing in front of our VW Beetle - 1962

We went for our appointment on the date which they had given to us.  However, the date which they gave us was not the time when the board was meeting.  We spent the night there and the next day met with Rev. Thompson, the General Director, and Clarence Reimer, the Home Director.  Heading back to Chatham for a few more days with Mom and Dad, we drove with the feeling that we would once again be considered  as candidates.  In fact the two gentlemen talked with us in terms of our going to Brazil instead of the West Indies.

During our few days with my folks and sharing the good news with some friends, one of our friends, a farmer, immediately said, "We will give you one hundred dollars a month support."  What an encouragement!   We hadn't even started deputation or raising our support.  We were just on our way home.  One hundred dollars towards our support in 1962 was a big chunk.  I was only making about one hundred and fifty a month, plus parsonage and utilities as a pastor.  We were excited and hopefully we would be on the mission field within the next year.

Well, it was July and we were nicely settled back in Lousana when we received a letter from the mission saying that the board requested that we return to the mission headquarters in August for another candidate session.  The first one, four years earlier in 1958, was for six weeks and now they were asking us to go for another session.  We were a little baffled and with our financial position a return trip the next month was impossible.  I know that we could have asked my parents for some financial help and hopefully they would have tried to help us, but we wanted to know for sure that this was the Lord's will.  So rather than ask Mom and Dad for the money, I went to our bank in Delburne and asked if I could get a small loan.  I don't remember what I requested but it was probably two or three hundred dollars.  The bank manager, or whoever I spoke to, said that if I had asked three or four weeks earlier, he could have loaned us the money.  However, at the moment, they were in a tight money period and he could not loan me the needed money.  For one thing we had no collateral except our Volkswagen Beetle and the bank held the loan on that.

So we wrote the mission asking them what the next step was, seeing we could not get the funds to travel another 6,000 mile round trip.  The answer that we received from the mission was that we could begin raising our support, telling people that we were not yet accepted for missionary service and that we still had to go spend another session at the WIM candidate school the following year.  When we shared this with Rev. Henry Werner, the Western Canadian representative for WIM, he said that he had never ever heard of such a request.

After exchanging another letter or two with the mission, we finally came to the conclusion that the door on our pathway to serving as missionaries with WIM was closed.  Neither of us felt the leading of the Lord to another country or with another mission.  The West Indies and the West Indies Mission had been our goal for years.  With every move we had made in those recent months and years being shut in our face, we came to the conclusion that the Lord had other plans for our lives.  We severed our relationship with the mission and continued serving as a pastor.

I want to be quick to add that we dearly love the West Indies Mission, now known as Worldteam.  There was absolutely no bitterness in all that happened, either with the mission, its leaders or with the individual that submitted false information to the mission which was instrumental in our being initially rejected.  God has blessed Worldteam.  We looked on all that happened as God's leading in our lives.  Where we thought we were going was not what God had planned for our lives.  As you read on in future posts, you will see that we were fully satisfied, abundantly blessed, enjoyed our ministry and grateful that God saw fit to use us in some small way to touch the lives of many people.  There has never been a doubt since but that we have been in the center of God's will.  All I can say is that "DISAPPOINTMENT HIS APPOINTMENT."

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