Bringing back the memories of revival

[rockytopva]

I am a child of the Methodist like revivals and received it Pentecostal Holiness like the Methodist before me. I plan on sharing this story with many this year, calling into remembrance the revivals of yore, and seeking to revive the spirit of the previous age. The Story of George Clark Rankin…. Here is a story about a man who never sensed the presence of Christ. When he came to faith in the old Methodist way (and the resulting revivals) it made a huge difference. At first, though, he was introduced to a denomination…

"Grandfather was kind to me and considerate of me, yet he was strict with me. I worked along with him in the field when the weather was agreeable and when it was inclement I helped him in his hatter's shop, for the Civil War was in progress and he had returned at odd times to hatmaking. It was my business in the shop to stretch foxskins and coonskins across a wood-horse and with a knife, made for that purpose, pluck the hair from the fur. I despise the odor of foxskins and coonskins to this good day. He had me to walk two miles every Sunday to Dandridge to Church service and Sunday-school, rain or shine, wet or dry, cold or hot; yet he had fat horses standing in his stable. But he was such a blue-stocking Presbyterian that he never allowed a bridle to go on a horse's head on Sunday. The beasts had to have a day of rest. Old Doctor Minnis was the pastor, and he was the dryest and most interminable preacher I ever heard in my life. He would stand motionless and read his sermons from manuscript for one hour and a half at a time and sometimes longer. Grandfather would sit and never take his eyes off of him, except to glance at me to keep me quiet. It was torture to me." - George Clark Rankin (The Story of My Life – A Free EBook)

George Clark Rankin then moved to kind hearted kinsmen where religion came to life in the old Methodist way… In the course of an hour I was at my uncle's. He was surprised to see me, but gave me a cordial welcome. The first thing he did was to disarm me, and that ended my pistol-toting. I have never had one about my person or home to this good day. A good dinner refreshed me and I soon unfolded my plans and they were satisfactory to my kind-hearted kinsman. He was in the midst of cotton-picking and that afternoon I went to the field and, with a long sack about my waist, had my first experience in the cottonfield. We then would get ready for the revival occurring that night…

After the team had been fed and we had been to supper we put the mules to the wagon, filled it with chairs and we were off to the meeting. When we reached the locality it was about dark and the people were assembling. Their horses and wagons filled up the cleared spaces and the singing was already in progress. My uncle and his family went well up toward the front, but I dropped into a seat well to the rear. It was an old-fashioned Church, ancient in appearance, oblong in shape and unpretentious. It was situated in a grove about one hundred yards from the road. It was lighted with old tallow-dip candles furnished by the neighbors. It was not a prepossessing-looking place, but it was soon crowded and evidently there was a great deal of interest. A cadaverous-looking man stood up in front with a tuning fork and raised and led the songs. There were a few prayers and the minister came in with his saddlebags and entered the pulpit. He was the Rev. W. H. Heath, the circuit rider. His prayer impressed me with his earnestness and there were many amens to it in the audience. I do not remember his text, but it was a typical revival sermon, full of unction and power.

At its close he invited penitents to the altar and a great many young people flocked to it. Many of them became very much affected and they cried out distressingly for mercy. It had a strange effect on me. It made me nervous and I wanted to retire. Directly my uncle came back to me, put his arm around my shoulder and asked me if I did not want to be religious. I told him that I had always had that desire, that mother had brought me up that way, and really I did not know anything else. Then he wanted to know if I had ever professed religion. I hardly understood what he meant and did not answer him. He changed his question and asked me if I had ever been to the altar for prayer, and I answered him in the negative. Then he earnestly besought me to let him take me up to the altar and join the others in being prayed for. It really embarrassed me and I hardly knew what to say to him. He spoke to me of my mother and said that when she was a little girl she went to the altar and that Christ accepted her and she had been a good Christian all these years. That touched me in a tender spot, for mother always did do what was right; and then I was far away from her and wanted to see her. Oh, if she were there to tell me what to do!

By and by I yielded to his entreaty and he led forward to the altar. The minister took me by the hand and spoke tenderly to me as I knelt at the altar. I had gone more out of sympathy than conviction, and I did not know what to do after I bowed there. The others were praying aloud and now and then one would rise shoutingly happy and make the old building ring with his glad praise. It was a novel experience to me. I did not know what to pray for, neither did I know what to expect if I did pray. I spent the most of the hour wondering why I was there and what it all meant. No one explained anything to me. Once in awhile some good old brother or sister would pass my way, strike me on the back and tell me to look up and believe and the blessing would come. But that was not encouraging to me. In fact, it sounded like nonsense and the noise was distracting me. Even in my crude way of thinking I had an idea that religion was a sensible thing and that people ought to become religious intelligently and without all that hurrah. I presume that my ideas were the result of the Presbyterian training given to me by grandfather. By and by my knees grew tired and the skin was nearly rubbed off my elbows. I thought the service never would close, and when it did conclude with the benediction I heaved a sigh of relief. That was my first experience at the mourner's bench.

 

[rockytopva]

As we drove home I did not have much to say, but I listened attentively to the conversation between my uncle and his wife. They were greatly impressed with the meeting, and they spoke first of this one and that one who had "come through" and what a change it would make in the community, as many of them were bad boys. As we were putting up the team my uncle spoke very encouragingly to me; he was delighted with the step I had taken and he pleaded with me not to turn back, but to press on until I found the pearl of great price. He knew my mother would be very happy over the start I had made. Before going to sleep I fell into a train of thought, though I was tired and exhausted. I wondered why I had gone to that altar and what I had gained by it. I felt no special conviction and had received no special impression, but then if my mother had started that way there must be something in it, for she always did what was right. I silently lifted my heart to God in prayer for conviction and guidance. I knew how to pray, for I had come up through prayer, but not the mourner's bench sort. So I determined to continue to attend the meeting and keep on going to the altar until I got religion.

Early the next morning I was up and in a serious frame of mind. I went with the other hands to the cottonfield and at noon I slipped off in the barn and prayed. But the more I thought of the way those young people were moved in the meeting and with what glad hearts they had shouted their praises to God the more it puzzled and confused me. I could not feel the conviction that they had and my heart did not feel melted and tender. I was callous and unmoved in feeling and my distress on account of sin was nothing like theirs. I did not understand my own state of mind and heart. It troubled me, for by this time I really wanted to have an experience like theirs.

When evening came I was ready for Church service and was glad to go. It required no urging. Another large crowd was present and the preacher was as earnest as ever. I did not give much heed to the sermon. In fact, I do not recall a word of it. I was anxious for him to conclude and give me a chance to go to the altar. I had gotten it into my head that there was some real virtue in the mourner's bench; and when the time came I was one of the first to prostrate myself before the altar in prayer. Many others did likewise. Two or three good people at intervals knelt by me and spoke encouragingly to me, but they did not help me. Their talks were mere exhortations to earnestness and faith, but there was no explanation of faith, neither was there any light thrown upon my mind and heart. I wrought myself up into tears and cries for help, but the whole situation was dark and I hardly knew why I cried, or what was the trouble with me. Now and then others would arise from the altar in an ecstasy of joy, but there was no joy for me. When the service closed I was discouraged and felt that maybe I was too hardhearted and the good Spirit could do nothing for me.

After we went home I tossed on the bed before going to sleep and wondered why God did not do for me what he had done for mother and what he was doing in that meeting for those young people at the altar. I could not understand it. But I resolved to keep on trying, and so dropped off to sleep. The next day I had about the same experience and at night saw no change in my condition. And so for several nights I repeated the same distressing experience. The meeting took on such interest that a day service was adopted along with the night exercises, and we attended that also. And one morning while I bowed at the altar in a very disturbed state of mind Brother Tyson, a good local preacher and the father of Rev. J. F. Tyson, now of the Central Conference, sat down by me and, putting his hand on my shoulder, said to me: "Now I want you to sit up awhile and let's talk this matter over quietly. I am sure that you are in earnest, for you have been coming to this altar night after night for several days. I want to ask you a few simple questions." And the following questions were asked and answered:



"My son, do you not love God?"

"I cannot remember when I did not love him."

"Do you believe on his Son, Jesus Christ?"

"I have always believed on Christ. My mother taught me that from my earliest recollection."

"Do you accept him as your Savior?"

"I certainly do, and have always done so."

"Can you think of any sin that is between you and the Savior?"

"No, sir; for I have never committed any bad sins."

"Do you love everybody?"

"Well, I love nearly everybody, but I have no ill-will toward any one. An old man did me a wrong not long ago and I acted ugly toward him, but I do not care to injure him."

"Can you forgive him?"

"Yes, if he wanted me to."

"But, down in your heart, can you wish him well?"

"Yes, sir; I can do that."

"Well, now let me say to you that if you love God, if you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior from sin and if you love your fellowmen and intend by God's help to lead a religious life, that's all there is to religion. In fact, that is all I know about it."

Then he repeated several passages of Scriptures... I thought a moment and said to him: "But I do not feel like these young people who have been getting religion night after night. I cannot get happy like them. I do not feel like shouting."

The good man looked at me and said: "Ah, that's your trouble. You have been trying to feel like them. Now you are not them; you are yourself. You have your own quiet disposition and you are not turned like them. They are excitable and blustery like they are. They give way to their feelings. That's all right, but feeling is not religion. Religion is faith and life. If you have violent feeling with it, all good and well, but if you have faith and not much feeling, why the feeling will take care of itself. To love God and accept Jesus Christ as your Savior, turning away from all sin, and living a godly life, is the substance of true religion."

That was new to me, yet it had been my state of mind from childhood. For I remembered that away back in my early life, when the old preacher held services in my grandmother's house one day and opened the door of the Church, I went forward and gave him my hand. He was to receive me into full membership at the end of six months' probation, but he let it pass out of his mind and failed to attend to it.

As I sat there that morning listening to the earnest exhortation of the good man my tears ceased, my distress left me, light broke in upon my mind, my heart grew joyous, and before I knew just what I was doing I was going all around shaking hands with everybody, and my confusion and darkness disappeared and a great burden rolled off my spirit. I felt exactly like I did when I was a little boy around my mother's knee when she told of Jesus and God and Heaven. It made my heart thrill then, and the same old experience returned to me in that old country Church that beautiful September morning down in old North Georgia.

I at once gave my name to the preacher for membership in the Church, and the following Sunday morning, along with many others, he received me into full membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. It was one of the most delightful days in my recollection. It was the third Sunday in September, 1866, and those Church vows became a living principle in my heart and life. During these forty-five long years, with their alternations of sunshine and shadow, daylight and darkness, success and failure, rejoicing and weeping, fears within and fightings without, I have never ceased to thank God for that autumnal day in the long ago when my name was registered in the Lamb's Book of Life.

 

[rockytopva]

Camp Meeting in Virginia! I passed my examinations and that year I was sent to the Wytheville Station and Circuit. That was adjoining my former charge. We reached the old parsonage on the pike just out of Wytheville as Rev. B. W. S. Bishop moved out. Charley Bishop was then a little tow-headed boy. He is now the learned Regent of Southwestern University. The parsonage was an old two-and-a-half-story structure with nine rooms and it looked a little like Hawthorne's house with the seven gables.

Think of taking a young bride to that sort of a mansion! But she was brave and showed no sign of disappointment. That first night we felt like two whortleberries in a Virginia tobacco wagonbed. But in a week or so we were invited out to spend the day with a good family, and when we went back and entered the bedroom was elegantly furnished with everything modern and the parlor was in fine shape. The ladies had been there and done the work. How much does the preacher owe to the good women of the Church! The circuit was a large one, comprising seventeen appointments. They were practically scattered all over the county. I preached every other day, and never less than twice and generally three times on Sunday.

The famous Cripple Creek Campground was on that work. They have kept up campmeetings there for more than a hundred years. It is still the great rallying point for the Methodists of all that section. I have never heard such singing and preaching and shouting anywhere else in my life. I met the Rev. John Boring there and heard him preach. He was a well-known preacher in the conference; original, peculiar, strikingly odd, but a great revival preacher.

One morning in the beginning of the service he was to preach and he called the people to prayer. He prayed loud and long and told the Lord just what sort of a meeting we were expecting and really exhorted the people as to their conduct on the grounds. Among other things, he said we wanted no horse- trading and then related that just before kneeling he had seen a man just outside the encampment looking into the mouth of a horse and he made such a peculiar sound as he described the incident that I lifted up my head to look at him, and he was holding his mouth open with his hands just as the man had done in looking into the horse's mouth! But he was a man of power and wrought well for the Church and for humanity.

The rarest character I ever met in my life I met at that campmeeting in the person of Rev. Robert Sheffy, known as "Bob" Sheffy. He was recognized all over Southwest Virginia as the most eccentric preacher of that country. He was a local preacher; crude, illiterate, queer and the oddest specimen known among preachers. But he was saintly in his life, devout in his experience and a man of unbounded faith. He wandered hither and thither over that section attending meetings, holding revivals and living among the people. He was great in prayer, and Cripple Creek campground was not complete without "Bob" Sheffy. They wanted him there to pray and work in the altar.

He was wonderful with penitents. And he was great in following up the sermon with his exhortations and appeals. He would sometimes spend nearly the whole night in the straw with mourners; and now and then if the meeting lagged he would go out on the mountain and spend the entire night in prayer, and the next morning he would come rushing into the service with his face all aglow shouting at the top of his voice. And then the meeting always broke loose with a floodtide.

He could say the oddest things, hold the most unique interviews with God, break forth in the most unexpected spasms of praise, use the homeliest illustrations, do the funniest things and go through with the most grotesque performances of any man born of woman.

It was just "Bob" Sheffy, and nobody thought anything of what he did and said, except to let him have his own way and do exactly as he pleased. In anybody else it would not have been tolerated for a moment. In fact, he acted more like a crazy man than otherwise, but he was wonderful in a meeting. He would stir the people, crowd the mourner's bench with crying penitents and have genuine conversions by the score. I doubt if any man in all that conference has as many souls to his credit in the Lamb's Book of Life as old "Bob" Sheffy.

At the close of that year in casting up my accounts I found that I had received three hundred and ninety dollars for my year's work, and the most of this had been contributed in everything except money. Well, we kept open house and had a royal time, even if we did not get much ready cash. We lived and had money enough to get a good suit of clothes and to pay our way to conference. What more does a young Methodist preacher need or want? We were satisfied and happy, and these experiences are not to be counted as unimportant assets in the life and work of a Methodist circuit rider. I have tried to capture these experiences for another generation at this web site – youtube.com/rockytopva. Thanks, and God’s blessings! -rockytopva

 

[rockytopva]

Camp Meeting in Virginia! I passed my examinations and that year I was sent to the Wytheville Station and Circuit. That was adjoining my former charge. We reached the old parsonage on the pike just out of Wytheville as Rev. B. W. S. Bishop moved out. Charley Bishop was then a little tow-headed boy. He is now the learned Regent of Southwestern University. The parsonage was an old two-and-a-half-story structure with nine rooms and it looked a little like Hawthorne's house with the seven gables.

Think of taking a young bride to that sort of a mansion! But she was brave and showed no sign of disappointment. That first night we felt like two whortleberries in a Virginia tobacco wagonbed. But in a week or so we were invited out to spend the day with a good family, and when we went back and entered the bedroom was elegantly furnished with everything modern and the parlor was in fine shape. The ladies had been there and done the work. How much does the preacher owe to the good women of the Church! The circuit was a large one, comprising seventeen appointments. They were practically scattered all over the county. I preached every other day, and never less than twice and generally three times on Sunday.

The famous Cripple Creek Campground was on that work. They have kept up campmeetings there for more than a hundred years. It is still the great rallying point for the Methodists of all that section. I have never heard such singing and preaching and shouting anywhere else in my life. I met the Rev. John Boring there and heard him preach. He was a well-known preacher in the conference; original, peculiar, strikingly odd, but a great revival preacher.

One morning in the beginning of the service he was to preach and he called the people to prayer. He prayed loud and long and told the Lord just what sort of a meeting we were expecting and really exhorted the people as to their conduct on the grounds. Among other things, he said we wanted no horse- trading and then related that just before kneeling he had seen a man just outside the encampment looking into the mouth of a horse and he made such a peculiar sound as he described the incident that I lifted up my head to look at him, and he was holding his mouth open with his hands just as the man had done in looking into the horse's mouth! But he was a man of power and wrought well for the Church and for humanity.

The rarest character I ever met in my life I met at that campmeeting in the person of Rev. Robert Sheffy, known as "Bob" Sheffy. He was recognized all over Southwest Virginia as the most eccentric preacher of that country. He was a local preacher; crude, illiterate, queer and the oddest specimen known among preachers. But he was saintly in his life, devout in his experience and a man of unbounded faith. He wandered hither and thither over that section attending meetings, holding revivals and living among the people. He was great in prayer, and Cripple Creek campground was not complete without "Bob" Sheffy. They wanted him there to pray and work in the altar.

He was wonderful with penitents. And he was great in following up the sermon with his exhortations and appeals. He would sometimes spend nearly the whole night in the straw with mourners; and now and then if the meeting lagged he would go out on the mountain and spend the entire night in prayer, and the next morning he would come rushing into the service with his face all aglow shouting at the top of his voice. And then the meeting always broke loose with a floodtide.

He could say the oddest things, hold the most unique interviews with God, break forth in the most unexpected spasms of praise, use the homeliest illustrations, do the funniest things and go through with the most grotesque performances of any man born of woman.

It was just "Bob" Sheffy, and nobody thought anything of what he did and said, except to let him have his own way and do exactly as he pleased. In anybody else it would not have been tolerated for a moment. In fact, he acted more like a crazy man than otherwise, but he was wonderful in a meeting. He would stir the people, crowd the mourner's bench with crying penitents and have genuine conversions by the score. I doubt if any man in all that conference has as many souls to his credit in the Lamb's Book of Life as old "Bob" Sheffy.

At the close of that year in casting up my accounts I found that I had received three hundred and ninety dollars for my year's work, and the most of this had been contributed in everything except money. Well, we kept open house and had a royal time, even if we did not get much ready cash. We lived and had money enough to get a good suit of clothes and to pay our way to conference. What more does a young Methodist preacher need or want? We were satisfied and happy, and these experiences are not to be counted as unimportant assets in the life and work of a Methodist circuit rider. I have tried to capture these experiences for another generation at this web site – youtube.com/rockytopva. Thanks, and God’s blessings! -rockytopva

The last words of Robert Sayers Sheffey... 1902... Who departed this world in great sorrow. The Methodist were abandoning the camp meetings and revivals meetings of the 1800's and Robert fought the apathy of the times until they burnt his beloved Wabash Camp grounds to the ground and never rebuild it. The Cripple Creek camp grounds also disappeared at this time. A melancholy so deep as to silence his voice descended upon him. The thought that the camp grounds would never be rebuilt caused him indescribable despair. “Eliza, I have failed,” he would whimper without control at the most unexpected times to his beloved wife. “I have failed to live up to the great commission to the best of my ability. God has been so good to me and there is so much more that I should have done,”

And Robert Sheffey's last words...

“How long will the night be, Aurelius?”

“It isn’t night. Brother Sheffey – it is morning again.”

“Do my friends bear with me?”

“The same ones are here.”

Aurelius had said it was morning, but no sunbeams fell across his bed … Aurelius was surely wrong … it must be night, and it was getting chill. Both his feet were growing numb, and his eyelids could only be opened with his fingers.

“Dear Aurelius … I have not done all … I should have done for the . . . sweet L-Lord.”

“If you haven’t, Brother Sheffey, no man ever has,” Aurelius whispered.

“You all must promise me . . . all of you . . . that you will continue . . . continue the work. Somebody… somebody must carry the . . . load. Make the people like . .. crawling babes that know not a stranger . . . and, grab hold of each other … tell all who love me to .. to do that. . .”

“We will all do it,” Aurelius said.

“Do you … Answer me, Aurelius .. I can’t hear .. you … well ..."

 

[amadeus]

...And Robert Sheffey's last words...

“How long will the night be, Aurelius?”

“It isn’t night. Brother Sheffey – it is morning again.”

“Do my friends bear with me?”...

“You all must promise me . . . all of you . . . that you will continue . . . continue the work. Somebody… somebody must carry the . . . load. . .”

“We will all do it,” Aurelius said...
"

"I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.
As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world." John 9:4-5

"And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world..." John 17:11

"Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid." Matt 5:14

 

[rockytopva]

I have designed this devotional to be four pdf pages. I may print off up to 100 pages and share with others.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_y3gJiBcaHUtdtZJ_L8xCtDacJ7slnOm/view?usp=sharing

Feedback is appreciated as I can still edit this document.

 

[amadeus]

I have designed this devotional to be four pdf pages. I may print off up to 100 pages and share with others.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_y3gJiBcaHUtdtZJ_L8xCtDacJ7slnOm/view?usp=sharing

Feedback is appreciated as I can still edit this document.

The example of Robert Sheffey was not a new one and it seems to be a continuing one... the lack of really selfless rather than selfish workers.

He gave himself to the work and yet when he was running out of his own time, much still remained to do. Try, if you @rockytopva will, tying it into what is happening today in our own society and our own churches...

"Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest." Luke 10:2

The attitude very often seen on the part of those who sometimes have great scriptural knowledge is not the attitude of the publican here, but rather of the other guy... the Pharisee:

"Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican.
The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.
I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.
And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.
I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted." Luke 18:10-14

 

[soul man]

"I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.
As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world." John 9:4-5

My Grandfather used to quote that scripture. He traveled hopping trains and what not to preach and get to camp meeting in the day. Many miracles and just good honest people. I have to think in our day that 'grace will abound.'

 

[amadeus]

My Grandfather used to quote that scripture. He traveled hopping trains and what not to preach and get to camp meeting in the day. Many miracles and just good honest people. I have to think in our day that 'grace will abound.'

Amen...

And then I have to insert here the story of my maternal grandfather who a hobo who hopped trains for transportation, but he was never a preacher.

He traveled all over the country by hopping freight trains. His nickname was "Blackie" apparently derived either from his very dark skin [lots of native American blood on that side of family] or because he was the black sheep in the family having spent a few years in the penitentiary for some crime unknown to me. I always loved the man as he was always very good to me. He was good to me but I saw him seldom. He was always moving about... by unpaid train rides.

We had heard that he died and then one Christmas with the whole family gathered in the kitchen talking I was in the living room alone when someone knocked on the front door of our home.

I opened the door and there was my grandfather very much was alive with that big smiling face of his. After he hugged me to him I ran into the kitchen to tell Mama and all the others that he was here. Like with Rhoda [in Acts 12] no one would believe me until they came out to see him with their own eyes. It was him.

Somewhat later he actually did die, as he had lived. He was killed on a freight train he was riding, hobo style, in central California in 1956. He had hopped his last freight train. A black sheep perhaps, but everyone loved him.

 

[soul man]

Amen...

And then I have to insert here the story of my maternal grandfather who a hobo who hopped trains for transportation, but he was never a preacher.

He traveled all over the country by hopping freight trains. His nickname was "Blackie" apparently derived either from his very dark skin [lots of native American blood on that side of family] or because he was the black sheep in the family having spent a few years in the penitentiary for some crime unknown to me. I always loved the man as he was always very good to me. He was good to me but I saw him seldom. He was always moving about... by unpaid train rides.

We had heard that he died and then one Christmas with the whole family gathered in the kitchen talking I was in the living room alone when someone knocked on the front door of our home.

I opened the door and there was my grandfather very much was alive with that big smiling face of his. After he hugged me to him I ran into the kitchen to tell Mama and all the others that he was here. Like with Rhoda [in Acts 12] no one would believe me until they came out to see him with their own eyes. It was him.

Somewhat later he actually did die, as he had lived. He was killed on a freight train he was riding, hobo style, in central California in 1956. He had hopped his last freight train. A black sheep perhaps, but everyone loved him.

What a great story. Hopping trains was the thing to do back in the day. It was free travel when not many people had money. I have a book my grandpa wrote about his life and riding trains even before he was saved was the way to go all over the country. The were really quite adventurous to say the least. He grew up in Ada and my Grandma was from Tipton if you're familiar. I was born 58' we moved to California in 64' went most of school years there but I was here every summer with my dad's family. So I did some traveling as a kid but most buses or some family member going back and forth. There was 3 cars loads 13 of us when we moved to California. It was a good move back then 'the grapes of wrath but nothing like good old Oklahoma haha.

 

[amadeus]

What a great story. Hopping trains was the thing to do back in the day. It was free travel when not many people had money. I have a book my grandpa wrote about his life and riding trains even before he was saved was the way to go all over the country. The were really quite adventurous to say the least. He grew up in Ada and my Grandma was from Tipton if you're familiar. I was born 58' we moved to California in 64' went most of school years there but I was here every summer with my dad's family. So I did some traveling as a kid but most buses or some family member going back and forth. There was 3 cars loads 13 of us when we moved to California. It was a good move back then 'the grapes of wrath but nothing like good old Oklahoma haha.

I was a traveler as a kid too with my mother in California and my father in Oklahoma. I had some good times. People speak of old Route 66. For us very often it was the main highway. No completed Interstate 40 at that time...

I have other stories as well but won't clutter and derail this thread further. I am gradually getting them all into one continuous narrative on the computer. Most of the notes are on there, but my time and patience at times wear thin. If I cannot finish hopefully one of my grandchildren will take it up. The problem with that is some details are not in the notes. No one but me would be able to fill them in... If God allows me enough time...His territory that....

 

[rockytopva]

I have used the material from this devotional to put together a video entitled, "Saved, sanctified, and filled the Holy Ghost."

 

[soul man]

I have used the material from this devotional to put together a video entitled, "Saved, sanctified, and filled the Holy Ghost."

Awe brother Shambach great preacher with alot of good stories. A protege of AA Allen and the Miracle revival days. I knew a few - i met Gene 'cant remember his last name that lead Allen song service. I was in a meeting with him one time. I heard they had 5 semi trucks just for the 20,000 seat tent folding chairs for Allen miracle tent meetings. I don't know if anyone remembers Paul Cunningham he worked with Allen, I traveled with him for awhile. Most of them were way older than me - they were young when they were with Allen. I watched Gene on YouTube the other day just to watch him dance. He wore a choir robe and all you can see is his feet moving in and out from under the robe haha he could move.

 

[soul man]

Video is great, I could only listen to first couple of minutes ill listen more later. To emotional haha for me taking me back to my roots you never want to forget where you come from - it gets you where you are.

 

[soul man]

I had to look it up - Dr Gene Martin