ON STICKATUATIVITY...

There is just something special about tent meetings. As a child I always looked forward to going to tent meetings when Freddy Clark would be in our area. I remember his big white nylon tent when he had it set up in Caribou, Maine. I’m not sure how many center poles it had but it was huge! Very impressive! I remember when he set up a tent in Blaine, not far from what used to be Smitty’s Truck Stop. One of my uncles gave his heart to the Lord in those meetings!

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We have erected a tent here at Victory Bible Camp every summer since 2001. It’s a four pole Pikes Tent 35’ X 70’.  We only set up 2/3 of the tents capacity with just two poles rather than four. Today I received 100 chairs from my brother Jason from his church in Brockville.  What a tremendous blessing to get these chairs!

As I was setting up the chairs yesterday, I recalled a story that I just had to share today.

When Esther and I were first married, we lived in Bathurst, New Brunswick for just a few months.  At the time my dad was building the mobile chapel and I was able to give him a hand on the project.

Dad began having Home Bibles with a couple from a small town just north of Bathurst called Petit Rocher (Little Rock). It was during that time that Dad felt on his heart to have a series of tent meetings. News quickly spread that the Pentecostals were coming to town.  We figured people would be excited about a big tent coming to their village! Dad was able to secure a field right on the main road into Petit Rocher. We printed up some announcements and planned to have Bro. Lloyd Williams as the main speaker. It was quite exciting!

I remember bringing everything to the site on the trailer. We had the tent, poles, chairs, ropes, steel stakes, lights, sound system and anything else that was required. Dad and I built a platform. Together we began raising the tent. It was a lot of work!  We worked all one day setting up the tent and placing the chairs. We set up the sound system, hung the lights and got the platform in place. 

That afternoon someone stopped by and gave us a subtle warning that we should keep an eye on things, especially during the night. He said he had heard some rumors going around town that some people were planning to do something. Dad took the warning serious and went home to bring over his travel trailer.  He and I decided we better spend the night in the trailer just to make sure there would be no trouble. Dad said I was the official Security Guard! We went to bed at around 11:00pm and sure enough at 1:30am there was this truck that came barrelling into the field. We were both startled out of our sleep and jumped up to see what was going on. As we looked out through the windows of the trailer we heard a loud “War Whoop!”  And then we watched as the entire tent came floating down to the ground! We stayed inside the trailer until there was no more commotion. Then we both went out to survey the damage. The tent was completely flat! All the ropes had been cut! I remember how sad my dad felt. We had both worked so hard. Dad said “We’ll, worry about it tomorrow.” We went back into the trailer and went back to sleep.

When we awoke in the morning, for a split second I thought it was just a dream that I had had. But as we got up and made some coffee we looked at all the mess. It was like a tornado had ripped through in the night. Now I don’t know if you can picture it, but it wasn’t just that the tent was down but everything that we had put inside was now buried underneath. It was a bit embarrassing because people would drive by and stop and look at the mess. Some would circle back to take a second look. Funny...no one offered to help!  But my Dad wasn’t a quitter! He said, Son, we better get this tent back up because our first service starts tonight.” I said, “Really?” He said, “Why of course! We’re not going to let this discourage us! Let’s get busy! This isn’t the end of the world!”

First, we had to remove everything from underneath. Not a pleasant job! Once everything was out, we began standing the outer perimeter poles and then we stood the center poles just like we had done the day before. People continued to drive by and stare at us. I’m sure they thought we were nuts!

Just as we got the tent up for the second time, a man stopped in and began to talk to Dad. I kept hearing Dad say, “I understand...Yes, I understand. No problem.” The man was an important man in the community and he told Dad that there were a lot of people in the town that were not very happy with what we were doing and he asked Dad to take the tent down. He said if we didn’t take the tent down, he knew it would be even worse that night!

Well, it was disappointing for both of us. Bro. Lloyd Williams arrived that afternoon as we were taking the tent down. Dad felt so bad to tell Brother Williams that there would be no tent meetings.

But guess what?  Dad baptised his first convert in the Bathurst church and she was from Petit Rocher! Her name was Viola Haché.  She became a wonderful blessing to the church and still is! God works in mysterious ways His wonders to perform! It was as though God was saying, “Don’t fret...at least we got ONE!”

I learned a lot from that incident! I learned things like, Never quit! Never give up! And never give in! God always has a way of bringing the good out of the bad.

Today the church in Bathurst is still going strong. I will always admire the “stickatuativity” of my Dad! I too want to be determined to push through, even when things look difficult.

C’mon, say it with me STICK-A-TU-A-TIV-ITY. I WILL NEVER QUIT!