Recounts Lester Wilson's journey to ministry, emphasizing God's persistent guidance through various obstacles. Initially hesitant to share his calling, Wilson describes how divine intervention, including a specific prayer and the sale of his car, compelled him to reveal his desire to preach. The narrative highlights key encounters, such as meeting H.B. Barker and receiving advice from Fred Nugent, which shaped his path. Despite facing bureaucratic hurdles in obtaining a visa to the United States, Wilson ultimately persevered, illustrating that God removes obstacles for those who trust His leading. The message concludes by underscoring that God's plan unfolds through trials and the removal of hindrances, strengthening faith as one looks back on His faithfulness.
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And so he said after it was all over, I being in the way which the Lord led me. I think this is our third message on my life story, how the Lord has led in my life. And I think possibly we will have about three more chapters or messages. I being in the way the Lord led me. Now, last week or two weeks ago tonight, because we had the pitcher last for Wednesday night, I was pointing out how the Lord tried his best to get me to tell the elders of the church my exercise. God had been burdening my heart to come down south, and I just refused to tell anyone. Even when I asked the Lord to cause someone to get up in the prayer meeting and pray about the southern state, and I have never heard anyone in that church pray about the southern state.
And the young man who got up and prayed about it, I'd never heard him prayable. And he got up, as soon as I had sat down and someone had given out a hymn, and I had prayed before going to the prayer meeting that night, Lord, if you want me to tell the elders that you want me to go out preaching, let someone get up and pray about this other state. And after the opening hymn was given out, the first man on his feet was Johnny Meeks, a young fellow who had a heart condition, had been sick for years, but this is his first prayer meeting. And he got on his feet and he says, Lord, exercise some young men to go down to southern states to preach the gospel. Well, I'm glad he had the heart trouble and not me, because mine just about stopped.
And then how I refused to tell the brethren that night. I left that meeting and didn't tell. The next week, Tuesday night, and I was telling you how I was working nights, and I had a car, I had been trying to sell it, and trying to give it away, and I couldn't. But I said, Lord, if you want me to tell the elders the morning night that you're wanting me to grow up, preaching, go down south, sell my car by the morning night. And it was sold the next day at noon. A man phoned in, twelve miles away, wanted to know if I wanted to sell that car, and I got my truck. And then I refused to tell the brethren. I went to the meeting the next night.
If I promised the Lord to tell my car by prayer meeting, I'd tell them, and I didn't. I went out. Well, it was just a case that the Lord was going to get it out of me somehow, and this is how he did. Now, Mr. H.B. Barker, I don't think he's alive now. He's one of the great teachers of the past, Mr. H.B. Barker. He came to Brantford about forty-five miles from my home in Stratford. I'd often heard Mr. Taylor, who's a wonderful teacher in our church, and he kind of took me under this ring after I was saved. And I'd heard Mr. Taylor talk about Mr. H.B. Barker. Some of his books are in circulation now if you ever get your hands on one of these. Well, he came to Brantford, and he got up on the Sunday night, and he said, now I'm getting kind of old.
He said, I would like to have a young man travel with me. I'd like him to preach the gospel for about twenty minutes at the beginning of the service, after opening it with prayer and singing, and then I'll take the remainder of it, and I'd like a young man to travel with me, and he gave the description of the young man he'd like to have. After the meeting, an old brother named Mr. Lundley went up to him. He said, Mr. Barker, the young man you want is over in Stratford. He's been over here two or three weekends reaching, and he's the young man that you described tonight. Well, Mr. Barker said, how can I get in touch with him? Well, he has a friend here, and I think they'll phone over.
Well, after I got home from the meeting Sunday night in Stratford, and after this part of it got home from the church in Brantford, forty-five miles away, they phoned, and I just got in from church, and the phone rang, and I received this long-distance phone call. And it was the effect that Mr. H.B. Barker wanted to see me in Grantham. Well, I've heard of Mr. Barker. I thought, what did he want with me? So I said, all right, I'll be there. And the meeting place was Dr. Beer's home. Dr. Beer has a son now on the mission piece. Mr. Beer is dead. Senior. So I immediately pwned up Mr. Taylor after I got his pwned off in Granth.
But I said, Mr. Taylor... Have you written Mr. H.B. Barker at any time about me? He says, no, why? I said, I just got a phone call from Brantford. He's over there having meetings, but I just got a phone call to the effect. He wants me to go over and see him on Saturday at Dr. Deere's home. Well, he says, by all means, go. So I did. I went over to Brantford, and I met H.B. Barker, and he said, I've been exercising since I've come to Canada on this trip about having a young man to go back with me when I returned to the island down in South America. And he said, I gave the description of the young man last Sunday, a week ago, and your name was given to me after the meeting, the young man that was the description that I gave.
He said, I'm very glad to hear about you. Well, I said, Mr. Barker, I'll tell you what my exercises are. The Lord's been leading me to go down to the southern states, especially to North Carolina. He says, that's right. Now he said, I'm not ready to return to the island for about four months. And he said, I believe that's just the way the Lord's leading. He says, you go on down south and get about four months' experience. And then we'll correspond and we'll leap toward the fall and we'll go down to the island. I'm very happy to see the way the Lord's leading. So I left Mr.
Barker, went back to Stratford. Well, naturally, on Monday morning, Mr. Taylor was a foreman in the railroad shops where I worked, and he wanted to know why Mr. Barker wanted me. He said, what did Mr. Barker want you for, Lester? I said he wanted me to go preaching with He said, I don't know a man in the world. How soon are you going? He said it would be a wonderful privilege to be with Mr. Barker. He's one of the giants in the world. What did you tell him? Well, he hadn't. Because now if I were to tell him what I told Mr.
Barker, the whole thing would be out. And the Lord had been putting the pressure onto me for about a month to tell the elders of the church of Stratford the way the Lord had been leading me down south. So he says, what did you tell Mr. Barker? Well, if I told him what I told Mr. Barker, it's all out. So he saw me hesitating. He said, what did you tell him, second? I said, I won't tell you. Well, he said, Lester, you know I've been interested in you ever since you've been saved. He said, I would like to know what you told me. I said, I'll come up to your house tomorrow night and tell you. Tuesday night. He said, all right, I'll be waiting.
Tuesday night I went up and I unburdened my heart. I told Mr. Taylor the way the Lord had been deaf in the meeting. He said, Lester, this assembly is prepared to put his hands on you and commend you for the Lord's work. We're very happy to do that. Now I said, Mr. Taylor, won't you tell anybody what I've told you tonight? You're the only one. in this church that knows a thing about it. Now, don't tell anyone. All right. Well, I wondered about it, and I thought, well, I wonder if I did the right thing. And, of course, the devil really got out to me. I'll tell you that. He was telling me I was making a big mistake, that I was missing the mind of the Lord.
It was all my imagination. Well, I thought to myself, I'm going to tell Mr. Taylor. not to tell anybody that I'm not going down south. I heard about the work up in Manitoulin Islands up in Ontario, and I thought, I'm going up to Manitoulin Islands because you won't have to bother about crossing the border and getting a visa and all the border difficulties. I'm going up into Manitoulin Islands. I'm not going down south at all. If I can get up to Mr. Taylor, I'm going to tell him so. Well, that morning I saw Mr. Taylor up in the balcony of the machine shop where he was forming, and I was down the water department, and I tried my best to get up there to tell him, to forget everything I told him at his home on Tuesday night, that I wasn't going down south.
But I couldn't get up. I was kept so busy, and that was an unusual thing. I used to have a little time to get up to see Mr. Taylor once in a while, but that day I was kept busy all day, and I couldn't get up. Well, as a rule, we met... at the big gates each evening, and we'd walk along home together for several blocks before he went his way and I was mine. I thought I'm going to tell him tonight. And as a rule, I was always the first one to speak, because Mr. Taylor was a very godly man, a man slow of speech. And I was always the first one to start talking when we met at the gate. But you know, this night I got with intense freedom ahead of him, and he beat me to it.
Well, Brother Lee says, I went around to the brethren today and told them, all your exercise. Well, I thought for a minute, what did they say? They're all intelligent. Well, he broke his cross. But nevertheless, it was all out. I thought, well, the Lord may be warning of that. Anyway, the next weekend I went down to St. Catharines, a place not far from Niagara Falls, and I was still turning over my mind the four months that Mr. Barker had mentioned. Mr.
Barker said four months. Well, that's fine. I've got four months. Maybe something will happen. I won't have to go after all. If I was backing up, trying to get out of it, maybe something will happen and I won't go down after all. So they asked me to preach in St. Catharines that night. And I did. After the meeting, there were a lot of folks standing out in front of the little chapel in St. Catharines. And among them was a lady, the mother of Clarence Low. I don't know whether any of you have met Clarence Low. He's one of our young preachers in North Carolina. He graduated from Mayas. And I think you've likely met him at Bristol. Some of you have been there and at Blue Ridge.
She married the registrar at Blue Ridge a number of years ago. Well, it was his mother. She walked over to me. After meeting that night, she said, Mr. Wilson, I enjoyed your message tonight. You're exercised about going out preaching, are you, giving all your time to the Lord's work? I said yes. I asked. She said, say not four months and then come at harvest. Lift up your eyes and look on the tea, who they are quite already harvest. And she walked away. Here I was. kind of comforting myself, I had four months. And she quoted that scripture, say not four months, then come at heart.
Lift up your eyes. Look on the field there, quite already the heart. Well, I went back to Stratford. I think it was Sunday night after the meeting I drove back, and of course I was still working in the railroad shop. A remarkable thing happened. As yet, my parents didn't know about it, the oversight that the brethren knew about it, but my father wasn't on the oversight, so he hadn't been told. So as yet, my mother and father did not know about my exercise, and I hadn't said a thing to them. So this is what happened the next week. I was to preach in my home church that Sunday night.
And as I got up to open the meeting, I looked at the back and I saw Mr. Fred Nugent. Now, some of you remember I had to go from here to Canada about four years ago to take his funeral. Mr. Fred Nugent was one of the most godly men I ever met in my life. And here's that Mr. Nugent back in the audience. I thought, well, the last I heard of him, he was away down in Asheville because he had been preaching in Asheville, North Carolina, for two years. His wife, Gladys Marsh, came from a little village called Embrow, about twenty-some miles from my home. After I was saved, she or four of the young fellows and myself, used to go out and preach in the schoolhouse in Embrow on Sunday nights and pack that little schoolhouse out with farmers, and we preached the gospel to her.
Well, Gladys was there, and then she married Mr. Newton and went down to North Carolina. So this is how the Lord worked. They had gone down to Florida for a couple of weeks, and while they were down there, they were starting back to Asheville, North Carolina, with their intention to go back to Asheville after the two weeks in Florida. And they came to the crossroads where number one highway goes straight on up to Niagara Falls, or in that direction toward Niagara Falls, up through New York and Philadelphia, where they were going to cross over to Canada there. Just before they got to the forks in the road, the one road, twenty-seven, bringing them over this way, going up to Asheville, the number one, going straight on up, they made up their mind hurriedly to go to Canning.
Gladys says, you know, Fred, my father's not well. They'll both get up in years. My parents, I'd like to see them. Let's go north. He said, all right. And here they came north at the last minute. And Fred comes into the meeting that night. Well, if any man knew about North Carolina, Fred Nugent did. Little did I know that he had been praying for me for two years to come to North Carolina. So when I saw him at the back, I went back, I said, Mr. Nugent, would you like to preach tonight? I'll be glad for you to take my place. He said, all right, and he went ahead and preached. And a voice said to me after the meeting, I'll invite Fred home.
and have a talk with him. He'll give you some information about how to get across the state to get your visa and so on, and he'll tell you about the south and where to go possibly. Once again, I said, no, not going to ask for help. And I went out. And I went home. Well, I was home about five minutes, and I was in the kitchen. I went back to the front door to go up to my room, and I looked out the front door, and who should be walking in the front walk of Treadnought? My sister May had invited him because May knew his wife Gladys Marsh very well. So my sister had invited Fred and his wife over to the house.
So I was quite surprised she would walk in, and there we all met in the front room, and Fred looked at me, and I looked at him. He said, Brother Wilson, I understand your exercise about going down south to preach the gospel. that's when my parents looked for the first time right at me I said yes but I turned it off I said how do you get across the border how do you get into the state what procedures you have to take so he began telling me some of the ways to take and how he got his visa two years before when he went down to Asheville North Carolina anyway he went home that night and That was the information I got.
Well, another thing happened, too, right after that. I think it was the next Sunday night. The brethren had asked me to go over to a place about forty-five miles from my home where Mr. Andrew Miller was holding meetings. And the brethren said, we'd like you to take some fellowship. They gave you some money to take over to Mr. Miller, who was holding these meetings. in this school, I was about forty-five miles from Stratford. Well, I've sold my car, so I asked the young fellow, Pete Barkley, who had been quite a boxer, and the Lord had saved him, and he was in the blue chapel of Stratford. I said, Pete, will you take me over this place?
I forget the name now. Do I can take this money to Mr. Miller? He said, yes, I'll be around. So before we went, Before he arrived at the door, I get on my knees. I said, Lord, if I am to go down south, who am I to go with? And where am I to go? And just as I was praying that prayer, the horn sounded, and I got off my knees, and I got in with each car, and away we went. When I got over there, Mr. Miller said, Brother Lester, we'd like you to give your testimony tonight. Will you take the first part of the meeting? I said, well, I didn't come prepared for it, Mr. Miller. I came to hear you. Well, he said, I'll give out a couple of hints, and you kind of collect your thoughts and give your testimony.
So while I was collecting my thoughts, my thoughts became distracted. Because I heard someone singing back in the audience. Now, you ought to try and get a bunch of farmers to sing. It was a difficult job. And if anyone did sing, why, there was someone who was really accustomed to going to church. And there was someone singing back there, and he had a beautiful voice. I thought, who did that be? That's a voice I knew the most. And when I got up, it was Fred Luzon. Now, he had gone all the way to Chicago, to the Chicago Conference, and he hurried back. He had driven over four hundred and fifty miles that Monday.
And he went to Embro and he told his wife, he says, I'm going to go over and hear David Miller. And he drove over quite a few more miles to Embro to this little schoolhouse where Mr. Miller was having these meetings. And that's why he was sitting in the audience. So he waited until after the meeting and he walked up and he said, well, the Wilson, where are you going down south and who are you going with? I said, Mr. Nugent, I asked the Lord those two questions before I came out here tonight. Well, he said, the reason I'm asking you and the reason he said, I came over here, I don't know, I seem led to come over here.
I didn't know that you were going to be over here. He said, I found led to come. He said, I was talking to Willie Foster in Chicago at the conference, and he and I had agreed to start a campaign down in Asheville, North Carolina. In fact, that was one of the reasons I was going back to North Carolina when we decided to come up here for a few days left, so that I just could see your parents. As I was talking to Willie at the conference, and I told him I didn't think I'd go back down for about three more weeks. I felt the need of more of that, and I just wanted to be with our people. And I didn't want to commit to you. I didn't know what your plans were, but he said that he'd have to get another laborer. If I were not going to go down, now he said, would you like to go with Mr.
Foster down in Ashford? He wants to put up his tent and start a campaign. Well, I said, Mr. Nugent, if that's all right with me, I'll have to use you to go ahead and make the arrangements. He said, I will. So, Wednesday night I received a phone call from his wife, from Embrow, and she said, Blessed are you? She had known me ever since I was quite a young fellow. She said, Are you prepared to leave for Asheville Friday? I said, yes. She said, all right, Fred is wiring down to Willie Foster to meet her. So Mr. Crocker, a man, preacher, who lived at Galt, and he went out to the West Coast after and passed on with the view of the Lord.
He was having a week's meetings in the little church at Stratford, and so the word got around that I was going to leave and Thursday night was set as the night for farewell. They said, now whenever you're going, let us know we want to give you a farewell party. So it was arranged for Thursday night. There was quite a crowd, and I was sitting up near the front, and Alan Morrison, the one I mentioned in last week or two weeks ago's message about the car, Alan came up and he sat right down beside me and walking down the island of him just behind him with Mr. Nugent, and he sat right across. Well, Alan leaned over, said Lester, when are you leaving? I said, I'm leaving tomorrow morning, Alan.
Well, I saw Fred Lusian kind of pull up his shoulders and bite his lips. I didn't know. But after the meeting, he slipped before the odds, and he said, Lester, he said, there's been a hitch. He said, I got a telegram back from Mr. Foster that Tim Smith is going to join him in meetings down there, and the way is not open for you to come. Well, if the devil didn't go to work on me, right there. And I had to tell the folks that there had been a delay, and I wasn't going, but nevertheless, they gave me the farewell anyway. So, anyway, when I got home that night, I didn't know what to do. A little while the phone rang, and Mr.
Nugent had gone back to Ember over this time, and he phoned over. He said, Leslie, would you go out, I'd like to go up to the Stainer Bible Conference about a hundred and some miles? I said, anything to get out of chapter thread. I said, everybody I meet, they say, when are you going? When are you going? I've been trying to tell them so many times, anywhere to get out of sight. I'll go. Well, he said, let's go. More often than I said, fine, that suits me. Well, the way I had planned to come down south was to come down on what they called a tourist permit. depended on the mood of the consul, whether you've got three months or whether you've got six months. If you've got a six-month permit to come into the state, you had to go back, have it renewed, and come down for six more months, or if it were three months, go back every three months, you get it renewed.
So on the way up to the conference, I said, Fred, how did you get your visa? We spoke a little about it one night before, but you didn't go into detail. Well, he went into detail. Well, I said, why can't I get one like that? Well, he said, I don't know. He said, let's go to London on the way back. I said, that's what I want to do. Well, the council was in London, Ontario, about thirty-eight miles from my home. On the way back, we both went to London straight over from the conference before you went to our home. And Fred said, Lester, would you like to go down with me in about three weeks' time? He said, the way opens up. I said, yes, I'd be glad to go with you, Fred. Well, we went to the council and went in and said, is there any possibility of getting a visa into the States?
What for? Well, I said, as a minister. He said, who's sponsoring it? Who do you represent? Well, I said, I live by faith, the Lord's sending. I look to the Lord. He said, what? I said, I'm just trusting the Lord. I don't have anybody sponsoring me on earth, just the Lord. How are we going to come on him if you become a public charge in the United States? No, he said. There's no possibility. He said, we've given up the quota.
We don't have any quota now because he said there are millions of people in the States. And this was in nineteen thirty-one. He said there are millions of people in the States unemployed. on relief. And he said, we've canceled all quotas from all foreign countries. He said, there's no possibility of getting in. Well, what would we have to do? Suppose you would even consider it. What would be the steps taken? Well, he said, I never heard of this thing before, what you've been talking about. Most ministers are sponsored. They have a big organization behind them. He said, all I could say is if you had a group of men or churches that would give us some letters to the effect that if you ever became a public charge down there, we could come on them.
If ever you became a public charge. Well, as we get those letters, will you consider the case? Well, I'll consider. So we went back and Fred Nugent sat down and he wrote off several men and My home church, none of them would guarantee us a penny. They were demanding me by faith. Look to the Lord. God's called you to preach. He'll take care of you. And I got several of these letters from a home assembly, another assembly, and several individuals. He said also we want the bank account or the bank report of every man who gives you a letter. In other words, he's got to have some money in the bank. He's got to have a letter to that effect.
So we got these letters together and we hurried over to London. This is our second trip over. We didn't see the council and he said, will you get all your letters? Well, we've got all but one. We were waiting for one, Mr. Warner, from down in Miami, Florida, that Mr. Newton knew very well, early intervention, man of contact. No, we've got all but one. Well, I don't want to see any unless you've got them all. Just as blunt as that. So we went home Monday morning, the letter came. Well, here we go again. He was back over to London, and we went in and put everything on the table. He went through them one by one. Not worth a thing. He said, all these letters are from Canadians.
Now, how in the world could we come on Canadians if you became a public charge? If you get something like this from the States, he said, we might consider. You talk about the Lord trying things. So we went home, prayed about it again, and yet all the time I had peace in my heart that God was working this thing out. Fred sat down and he worked at his typewriter and he acquired, pardon me, he hadn't received any from the state. This Mr. Warner that I referred to was a later letter. It goes up to this time all the letters we had were from Kenneth. But anyway, Fred sat down, he wrote these various ones and Mr.
Warner was one that he wrote. And these letters came back from the state. There were three or four men in Detroit. Dr. Cameron was one, I can remember. Mr. Gillow was another, and Mr. Warner was another, and Mr. J.C. Chapel of Gawney, the some of you know, was another, and Mr. Allen, Mr. Allen, who loaned us twelve thousand five hundred dollars on this chapel industry a few years ago, was another. Well, these letters came back, and then it was that we went over, and Mr. Warner's letter was missing. We wanted it. And that's when the consul again turned us down until we had all the letters that we had written. Finally, Mr. Warner's letter came and we went over.
Well, by this time, we were just getting about exasperated, as they say, and yet somehow the Lord was giving us peace. And this was the fifth trip to the consul in London. We went in, we said to the secretary, can we see the consul? She said, he's just gone away on a month's visit. month vacation. He won't be back to the months. For can we see the vice-consul? Yes, the vice-consul. Could we see him? He went into his office and evidently they had talked it over. Because the vice-consul knew all about the case. And he said that you got that other letter?
Yes. So he looked at it He called in his secretary. He says, give this man his passport. And I got my visa. Now, you see how the Lord worked that thing out. If I had to come down three weeks before, when Mr. Newton had wired Mr. Foster, I'd have come down on a three-month or a six-month basis, whichever the consul was in a move to get. But through that three weeks delay, I came down with a visa so I could stay the rest of my life in the United States. And it was a very difficult time to get a visa then because of the depression and so many out of work.
You could hardly buy one. There was just a miracle that I got. But I was also told when they gave me my visa that it wasn't all over yet. He said, now this has got to be okayed at the port where you're going through Detroit. That man can cancel it. Well, that was means for more prayer. Well, I believe the Lord expected us to use our common sense. So I went to Detroit on the Pullman. I thought I'm going to travel first class. Because I found out that the consuls didn't take up as much time with those traveling in Pullman first class we did with the others.
So I didn't need a Pullman, but I got it anyway. Well, there weren't too many of us in the Pullman when we reached Windsor to go cross on the ferry to deploy it. The consul came along and he sat down beside me. I didn't know at the time, but he was a Catholic. So he looked at the papers. He said, where are you going? I sat down close, North Carolina. He said, what have you been doing? Canada. Well, I said I was working in the railroad shop, but I said I'm going into the ministry.
I said, you know, I used to play ice hockey for the Stratford Indians. Well, you get this right away. Well, it's hard to turn out to be a minister. Well, it takes about a half an hour for that ferry to get across to the Detroit River, possibly a little longer than the time they hook up so the train can pull off. So I start telling him my conversion, how God has saved me. and how instead of playing hockey as a career now, I was going out to preach the gospel. And you know, by this time, most of the time was taken up. And he looked out, and we were getting near Detroit. And he was still taken up with what I was telling him about my conversion. And he said, where's it going?
I said, down the corner. He said, Lord knows they need something down there. And he signed the Jesus, and he handed it. And there I was, I had my beast, and I stepped on American soil, and I'm still here. So there are some of the ways in which the Lord led in my coming steps. So you see there's a lot to it. How the Lord put the pressure on me to get it out of me, what my exercises were, and then the obstacles that appeared, and yet every one of them were removed. I being in the ways the Lord led me. The Lord tests you, but he removes these obstacles. No one else could do.
And as you look back upon these things and see the way the Lord led, it only strengthens your faith. Now I've given you three messages on my experience in Canada until I reach the border. Next Wednesday night, Lord willing to stock in North Carolina.