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Sally DamronIwant to thank the Lord for His goodness andmercy to my soul. It seems as if the Lord hasbeen especially good to me. Many blessings haveaccrued in my life since infancy.Some people testify that they came toPortland, Oregon to investigate the Gospel. Myparents had never heard of the Apostolic Faith.They knew nothing about a church such as this,but they pulled up stakes in Kansas and cameWest in search of reality.My father walked the streets of Portland,investigating the churches in the city. He heardabout a little church and said, “I want to see whatit is all about.” When he and my mother went,though, he didn’t like it. When the congregationgot down to pray he asked my uncle, “How longdoes this last?” My uncle answered, “It dependson the kind of start they get.” My father said,“I’m going to leave, and I’m not coming backhere.” But my parents did come back. I am thankful that the Lord knew how to deal with them.It was a rugged road they traveled, and theyhad to feel their way along as they searched for the Lord. But they had some faithful neighbors whohelped my mother pray through to salvation. My father held back and did not surrender to the Lordfor a while. Then, one night, he was under such conviction that the bed shook. He got out of bed, andon his knees, he prayed through to salvation. Until his dying day, the Apostolic Faith was his church.I am thankful for the Gospel of Jesus and that I can say I know that Jesus saves. In the days ofmy childhood, my mother told me the story of Jesus. On Saturday nights she would bring out a picturescroll and show us children pictures of Jesus. One was Christ’s Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem. Shealso showed us the picture of Jesus on the Cross and told us that this took place just a few days later.How my heart was broken to think that they would do that to Jesus. We then saw the picture of theempty tomb. I am so very thankful that the Lord arose, and that He became a reality in my heart.I thank God for His Word that touched my heart and helped me to see my need of a Savior. I wasjust a stubborn teenager when He came into my life and saved me—what a change! It was true that Ihadn’t gone very deep in sin, but there was a change in my life. Best of all it has lasted. As I have keptmy hand in His, He has been by my side. I thank God for the Gospel and for what it means. Later,He sanctified me and baptized me at the altar in the Portland tabernacle. I can still point to the placewhere I knelt and surrendered my life to Jesus.Since I gave my life to the Lord, blessings have been numberless. I cannot forget the miracle ofhealing the Lord performed for me when he healed me of a large tumor on my body.Also, there was the time in Grants Pass when my husband was so terribly sick. He was lying onthe floor, writhing in agony. At first it seemed that my prayer did not go through. I told the Lord thatnight, “If I can’t get this prayer through, how can I ever expect to get another answer to prayer?” Youknow, that prayer went through and the Lord undertook in just a moment of time. I could tell of many,many miracles that the Lord has wrought in our lives. The very fact that I am here is a miracle.11

About eight years ago, when it seemed the sun was setting in my life, God commanded the sun tostand still that I might live a little longer to fight the “fight of faith.”It is five years since the Lord extended my husband’s life by healing him when he was so veryill with malaria and complications in Africa. The precious saints in Africa and all over the world werepraying for his healing. The Lord saw fit to raise him up, and add to our lives these five glorious yearstogether, telling the Story of Jesus.The Lord has given my husband and me many privileges in the Gospel, but it seems that we havedone so little for Him and He has done so much for us. I have purposed in my heart to spend moretime on my knees, and do what my hands find to do.When I read of the devasting earthquake in Guatemala, I was so glad the Lord had permitted usto go there and distribute literature. There are two fine brothers there who are doing what they can tospread the Gospel. Both lost their homes, but their lives were spared.I can say that it is grand to be a Christian. I love God with all of my heart. I appreciate the Wordof God that is going forth in this place. It searches my heart. I want to be an example and let my lightshine, as others have been good examples for me.12

Eleanor WilcoxIt is good to be a Christian. I thank God forthis wonderful way of salvation. I knew aboutthe Gospel from the time I was just a girl, andI believed that the Bible was the Holy Word ofGod. As a child, my mother read the Bible storiesto me and my siblings as she gathered us aroundher, some of us only reaching to her knees.For thirty years I turned the Gospel asidefor the things of the world and went my ownstubborn way. For many years, I was out in sin,condemned every day for my life because I knewthe right way to go.I had to suffer before I had any thought ofturning to God. I had to lose my little girl whowas only eight years old. Tragedy came when shewas taken to the hospital with a ruptured appendix; in three days she was gone.While my little girl was dying, I wantedto pray, but I didn’t know how. I had forgottenthe God that my mother had worshiped, and I didn’t know what to do. When my baby passed away,I wanted to go too. It was the end of everything to me. I didn’t want to live any longer. For days afterthe funeral, I wept and mourned as I sat alone making plans to take my own life. I wanted to get out ofthis world that had brought me so much grief.Then God’s still small Voice spoke so gently to me out of Heaven saying, “Mother would lookin the Bible.” It came again, “Mother would look in the Bible.” I thought perhaps I had better do thatbefore I did the “other.” My oldest brother had given me a Bible. I had never read it, but had kept ittucked away in a cabinet, hidden between a lot of other books.I got the Bible out and let it fall open in my lap. When I looked down, I saw childish scrawlsaround one of the verses. I could almost see my daughter sitting on the floor marking in my Biblea few weeks before she was taken ill. I had completely forgotten all about it. She had been outsidelaughing and playing with her friends in our back yard while I was working in the kitchen when Iheard our patio door open and close very softly. After several minutes, she hadn’t said anything orasked for anything and she was so quiet that I wondered what she was doing while the children werestill laughing and playing outside. I walked into the room and saw her sitting on the floor with my Bible in front of her and a pencil in her hand. She was marking on the pages. I wondered how and whyshe happened to pick out this particular book because it had no pictures in it. She didn’t care for bookswithout pictures. She was a poor reader and was being held back in school because she struggled withwords. Also, she hadn’t known anything about that Bible. She had never seen me read the Bible or putany markings in it. I had such an odd feeling as if someone were watching me. When her pencil torethe fine paper, I said, “Don’t tear Mama’s Bible.” However, as I went back into the kitchen, I thought,“I never read it anyway, so what does it matter?” When I returned to the room to see if she was stillthere, I saw that just as quietly as she had come in, she had put the pencil and the Bible away andgone outside again.Looking at the circled verse, I read, “In Ramah was there a voice heard, lamentation and weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and would not be comforted, because theyare not” (Matthew 2:18). Oh, my little girl had to die to make me look in the Bible! Like thunder out13

of Heaven I knew it was God talking to me. My sinful life suddenly rose before me; all those wastedyears and my neglect to teach my little girl about Jesus and God’s Word. I knew what I must do.I wanted to find a church where they had a mourners’ bench like they had in the little missionhall where my mother and brother had attended. I felt I needed more than just a handshake at thedoor; I wanted my sins forgiven. I forgot about the plans I had been making for my destruction; I onlywanted to get right with God.I couldn’t think of a church nearby where a sinner could pray at an altar of prayer, so I traveled400 miles to San Francisco, California, where I knew my brother attended a branch of the ApostolicFaith.At that altar, I knelt and prayed. When I stood up, I felt that I had been forgiven, but I was distressed because I didn’t have that joyous feeling. I went back home and thought, “I don’t have to haveall those experiences that they talk about. I can be just as good a Christian without them.”I had that wonderful light and I turned against it. I joined a modern church. For five years Iworked hard in that church. I taught Sunday school and I tried in my own strength to be a goodChristian, but something seemed to be lacking. God was so faithful to me, though. Every time I kneltand prayed by my bedside, that still, small Voice would speak to me again, saying, “Go to Portland.”Night after night it came. I thought, “I can’t even pray. All I can do is think about Portland.” Finally Isaid, “If this is You talking to me, Lord, I will go to Portland if You will open the way.” I did not tellanyone about this, not even my brother.I came home from work one evening in 1947 and my daughter-in-law said, “Your brother calledtoday. He is going to Portland in July for camp meeting and will have room for you if you want togo.” A current went through me from my head to the floor as if I had connected with a live wire. Thiswas my answer and I knew it!That first week at camp meeting, I battled. I thought I could go my own way. I was going toleave, but was told that a music program was coming up. I stayed, waiting to hear the music and Godspoke to me. He said, “This is the way. Walk ye in it.” I went to the altar. I went there fast. I prayedand wept my way through to an experience of salvation, to a calmness in my soul that I can’t explainwith words.I was so afraid I was going to have to leave without all my experiences. I wanted the wholearmor. At ten the next morning

groups, preaching God's Word, living his testimony at work, and as a prayer warrior. In 1954, he felt called to move to Roseburg, Oregon, where he again gave his all in church work. Sheet metal work was scarce at that time in Roseburg, so Dan moved his family back to Port-land in the summer of 1956.