Lester Wilson's personal journey of trusting God's guidance into full-time ministry, illustrating how God confirms His will through prayer and scripture. Early in his faith, Wilson experienced God's provision when he gave his last dollar to the offering and received five dollars back, teaching him to trust God in small matters. As he felt called to ministry, God provided clear signs, including a specific magazine article and a prophetic prayer from a young man, confirming the call to the southern United States. Despite his own fears and hesitations, and even attempts to redirect his path, God continued to provide undeniable confirmation, such as a miraculous sale of his car and an encounter with H.B. Barker, who also felt led to partner with him. The overarching message is that God is faithful to direct and provide for those who are willing to follow His leading, even when the steps are difficult and uncertain.
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Isaiah thirty, chapter, I think it's verse twenty-one. Yes. Isaiah thirty and twenty-one. And nine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left. Then there's one in Proverbs chapter three, and verse six. Proverbs three and verse six. In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths.
Very familiar one. In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths. The last one is in first John. We're at the end of your Bible. Our last text. First John chapter five. me that's the wonderful verse of these two most amazing and remarkable in connection with prayer. First John five, fourteen, fifteen, and this is the confidence that we have in him that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. If we ask according to his will or his word, He hears us.
And if we know that He hears us, hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petition that we desired of Him. Wonderful promise. Now, last week we were telling you a little of how the Lord led us out into the ministry from thirty years ago. So we're going to continue on from where we left off. some of the ways in which the Lord answered prayer definitely and we learned from little things right from the beginning how to trust them in minor matters because the time would come when we'd have to trust them in major matters the Lord always begins small and so he did in my case I remember for instance Just about a year or two after I was saved, I used to go out to a little place called St.
Paul's, only six miles from our home. Go out there and preach on Sunday night in a community hall. You see a lot of farmers in and we preach. So one Sunday morning I got up and although I was working in the railroad shop, I wasn't making too much money. I was trying to buy my car, pay for my car. And I put my last dollar in the worship offering that morning when we came together to break bread, the only service where we do take up an offering. So I put my last dollar bill in the offering that morning, knowing that I needed gas in my car to go out that night and preach the gospel.
But I thought, well, I can't hold this dollar back from the Lord. That's all I've got, but I'm going to give it to the worship meeting. After that worship meeting, a lady by the name of Miss Cameron, or Miss Dempsey, rather, Miss Dempsey came over to me and she said, Lester, she said, I'd just like to have a little fellowship with you from the Lord. She said, you just spend it as you see fit or be led of him. She gave me five dollars. So that was my first real experience of the Lord, encouraging me to trust, to put that last dollar bill in there, and only a matter of an hour later, it was handed back in the form of a five-dollar bill.
So I was able to get the night gas and go out and preach that night. Then another remarkable thing happened. One Sunday morning, Mr. Fuller, he was the dean of the Stratford-Chileaks Institute. And he was the superintendent of our Sunday school at the chapel. One Sunday morning, he was opening the Sunday school. He had the habit of asking questions, sometimes relative to geography, sometimes history because of his education. And he would always weave in something spiritual. And I remember one morning he was asking the Sunday school children, the capital of certain states and provinces, the provinces in Canada and the state here in the United States.
And for some reason, he said, who can tell me the capital of North Carolina? And a little girl by the name of Kathleen Burke, she's married now, she hollered right out, she says, go all the way. Well, you know, Rolly never left my ears. It kept ringing all the time. Rolly, I thought, now that's strange. Why does that word keep ringing on my ears? I didn't know a Rolly existed in North Carolina. But I saw later on how that had its place in God's pattern for my life. Then as the time seemingly was drawing near when the Lord wanted me to lead my job and got into full-time ministry.
I began to get very burdened. I remember that year, about January, February. And so one day I was on my knees, it was in March, asking the Lord where He wanted me to go. I knew He wanted me to go out. I just couldn't have any peace without resigning myself that the Lord wanted me to go out preaching. I began fighting it. When I began seeing the way opening up, I was beginning to draw back. But the burden became so great that I just said, well, Lord, where do you want me to go? And it came so clear to me, you'll get your call in the next American pioneer edition.
It was a magazine that was put out by preachers in the United States. It was called the American Pioneer, who came every quarter. And so the April number was due in a couple of days. And I got that magazine, and before I unwrapped it, I knew that I was getting my call from that magazine. And I opened it, and here was a report. the need of young men in the southern United States to reach the gospel. And the report was by Mr. W.G. Smith, the man that I stayed with in Burlington when I grew up there where my room is, and Mr.
Smith at that time was with Mr. Sam McEwen in Florida having meetings, and they came up north, and as they passed through Georgia and South Carolina, they passed through a lot of little towns and villages, and some of them they couldn't even see a church in, and both of them were talking about the great need for a good, clear gospel to be preached in a lot of these little towns and villages down in the south. So when they got home, the man by the name of Mr. Charles Teller, who was editor of this American magazine, American pioneer, and he wrote Mr. Smith asking him if he would give a report of the need as he thought because he was living at that time in West Virginia, hunting West Virginia.
Would he give a report of the need in the southern states for those who would go out trusting the Lord to preach the gospel? So he said, I received the letter. I learned this later. And I didn't pay any attention to it for two years, facts that I almost forgot about. Then one day, that letter from Mr. Keller came back into my mind. I sat down and I wrote this article of our impression as we came up from Florida, Mr. McEwen and myself. And so he said, I sent it to Mr. Keller, and it was that article that appeared in that April edition of the American Pioneer.
Now, if it had been put in two years before or two months before, it wouldn't have had its message for me. So the Lord saw to it that he delayed his writing until the appropriate time, the opportune time. Well, after I read that article, I was just about convinced, and yet there were other voices beginning to be heard. Madam, the name of Tom Wilkie, a preacher up in Ontario, he would come over to Stratford, and urged me to go out preaching with him right in Ontario. He said, you're right here, your parents need you, and I think it'd be nice for you to preach right in Ontario. There's plenty of places we can go and preach the gospel without you going further afield.
I didn't tell him where I was exercised about going. Another man, this Charles Keller, the editor of this magazine, wanted me to go to Pennsylvania and labor with him. Another man, the name of Mr. Willoughby, wanted me to go out Western Canada, way out in the Alberta area, and labor there. But I wasn't happy about those places. All I could think about was the southern states. The strange thing, I went over to Brantford, a city about fifty miles from my home in Stratford, and Dr. Beer, whose son is now on the mission field. Dr. Beer was the main preacher and leading brother in that chapel testimony.
I didn't know Mr. Beer. I'd heard about him, but never had met him before. I sat and heard him preach that night. As I was going out the door, he was shaking hands with the people. I didn't even know he knew me. And he said, I hear your exercise about the Carolinas. I looked at him and I thought, well, how does he know? I haven't even told my mother I was exercised about the Carolinas. So I went on out, but it just showed that every way I turned, the Lord was meeting me. And here was an unusual thing. One night before I went to the prayer meeting, a prayer meeting just like this, I was on my knees.
I said, Lord, if you want me to tell the brethren tonight the oversight about my exercises, I want you to lead someone some brother to get up and pray about the need of the southern states. Now I have never heard the southern states prayed for in any of our prayer meetings up till that time. And another thing I hadn't even heard the young brother who did this. The meeting was open with a hymn just like we opened our meeting tonight. And a young fellow, the name of Johnny Meeks, a little short chap, he's still up there, about four or five years older than myself, he had had a heart condition, rheumatic fever in the heart.
And he'd been laid up for years. Therefore, I'd never heard him pray in the prairie. Evidently, he was improving. So that night, When I went to the prayer meeting, I sat down where I usually used to sit, and I said, Lord, I'm going to repeat my prayer, but I prayed in my room before I left. If you want me to go to the southern states, exercise some brother to get up and pray about it here tonight. I hardly got the prayer off my lips before this little fellow, Johnny Meese, stood up, and he says, Lord, he said, send some young man down to the southern state to preach the gospel.
And he went on urging the Lord to exercise some young man to go down and preach the gospel to the southern state. And his prayer wasn't any longer than a minute. He sat down. He didn't know what was going on inside me. To hear my prayer answered so directly and so quickly. When we had the farewell meeting a couple of months after that, And I got up and I told all the Christians how the Lord had met me. And I told that incident. He came up to me after the meeting and it did him so much good. I think it really cured his heart trouble almost. It made him so happy. But he came up and he said, Brother Lester, he says, you know that night I was sitting there.
And he said, I don't know the first thing I knew I was on my feet. He said, I don't remember getting on my feet. This is the first thing I do. I was on my feet praying. And he said, you remember I cut my prayer short. I said, I do remember that. Well, he said, well, I found I was on my feet praying. He said, I said, amen, sat down. Now, he said, I don't know. I just don't know how I get on my feet. Well, I said, Johnny, let me ask you this. How come you prayed about the southern states? What led you to pray about the southern states like that? I've never heard you pray here before. I've never heard the southern states prayed for the prayer meeting here, the chapter.
He said, I was reading the American Pioneer. He had gotten the same edition of the American Pioneer and read that same article. And it so burdened his heart that he got up and prayed about the need in the southern states and for God to send exercise young men down. So that was an amazing answer to the prayer. You would have thought after that, I would have gone to the brethren and said, now, brethren, I'm exercised about going south. You told me that whenever I was ready, you were ready to send. And the Lord had made it plain where he wanted me to go. But I didn't. I got out of that meeting as quick as I could.
I didn't even go to the brethren. I was fighting. So... It just seemed every way I turned. God was speaking to me. And I remember the next prayer meeting night. The prayer meeting came around. I got on my knees. That scripture came into my mind just as though someone uttered it audibly. Go show these things to James and to the brethren. I've been praying about my pathway and about the things I had been developing the last few weeks. of my exercise for the South. That bird just came right in like someone stood behind me and said, go through these things with James and to the brethren.
Now you find that in the Acts. And strangely it may seem, one of the leading elders in that church, his name is James. James Me. He's the father of the little boy, the young Colorado that prayed. Well, that was another time that I heard God's voice and I didn't. tell the things to the brethren. Again, a couple of days after, I went to my room, as I used to do, choosing times of day. And this verse hit me. Arise and go toward the sun. Now you find that text in Acts chapter eight.
Arise and go toward the sun. Once again, I was exercised before the Lord a few days afterwards. I said, Lord, I hope you'll forgive me, but I'm just afraid I'm going to make a mistake. In other words, I'm timid in a sense, and yet I'm not. I want to know I've got your will. If I know I've got your will, I'm going to do it. Cost what it will. I want to be certain I'm in your will. Once I'm certain of that, I'll go ahead. You know, he gave me another thing. Find this in Ezekiel chapter twenty.
Son of man, set thy face toward the south and prophesy toward the south east. Every way I turned, I was met with scriptures from the word of God. Now I began thinking about my job. I was working in the railway shop. And it was in nineteen thirty-one. It was a depression on. My parents practically needed my help. My sister May was quitting her job the same weekend that I eventually quit mine. She quit to get married and won the rightful home. And I knew when the time came I was going to quit and grow a tree tree.
But my parents were going to need help. My father didn't have a very large income. He had adopted a boy. And I knew that my mother and father just couldn't carry on some set. Well, what about all this? It was a big step for me to take, especially when I paid my parent just twice what the average board was at that time, twenty dollars every two weeks, ten dollars a week, and that was a lot of money back in nineteen thirty-one, equivalent to about thirty dollars today. was upon my mind, how could I leave my parents?
So it was quite a step for me to put in my time and tell the boss I was going to quit. I had nine years seniority in the railroad shop having gone in as a very young fella, as a rivet heater. So I was just sitting this night, or this day rather, inside a boiler, a boiler of a big engine. inside the repair shop, and I was down in the fire box, if you know where that is, the back part of the boiler. And there was another man working away up in the smoke box, and right up the end where the smoke stack is. I suppose this was about sixty feet.
Well, I was working around the mud ring with a riveting hammer, but all I could think about was going down south to reach the gulf. about giving up my job. Well, I put the hammer down and I bowed my head inside the boiler and I said, Lord, if you want me to go and give my time in and tell Mr. Barrett, I'm going to quit. I'm going out to the minister. Let someone come over and speak to me about the southern state. Now, here I was inside a boiler. And a thousand men working in that repair shop, and the noise was so loud, I could show the top of my voice.
You wouldn't hardly hear me fifteen feet away. But I prayed that prayer. And then when I got through praying, I looked up, I looked around and said, who was going to be sent to the Lord? I thought, well, that was a foolish prayer to pray. I turned around, I looked up through the garl of the boiler, and this fellow was getting up off the box where he was sitting. He was using an air hammer tube. He came down through the boiler, and he got down beside me. He said, you should call me George, because my father's name was George. He didn't know my right name, so he said, George. He said, do you know Mrs. Summers? He went to a little Memorial Baptist Church, one end of the town.
He said, do you know Mrs. Summers? I said, yes, her two daughters, Shirley and Sadie, are in fellowship with the chapel. He says, she's out at the, you know, she's out at our church, the memorial. Mr. Summers, I said, yes, I know that. He said, I just wanted to ask you if you knew it was true that she was going down to the southern states of the delegates of Southern Baptist Convention. Imagine, during that, not two minutes after I asked the Lord, He wanted me to quit my job, send one someone to talk to me about the southern sea. Now, that happened just exactly as I told a few years later.
So I got my prayer answered that it was time for me to go to the boss and tell him I was through. But that was a big step, and I didn't do it in a hurry. I'll tell you that. I let a few days go by before I did. Well, the next... The next Tuesday night came around, and by this time I was working night. We had worked two weeks' days and two weeks' nights. And this Tuesday night, the scripture kept coming before me. Meditate upon these things and give thyself only to them. The Lord just didn't let me rest night or day. Give thyself only to them. Well, I said, Lord, if you want me to tell the brethren, I'd already promised them one time I'd tell them if he get someone up on their feet to pray about the southern state and I ducked out of the meeting didn't do it he'd already sent someone over to talk to me about the southern states inside the border and I hadn't long put in my time so here's a second time I'm going to pray about the same thing relative to telling the brethren I said Lord if you want me to go and tell the brethren all my exercise the way you've been leading me You sell my car by
tomorrow night. Now, I had a nineteen fifty-six, nineteen thirty-six, oh, nineteen twenty-six, the ramped pruning cars. I don't know whether you know what pruning cars are like, some of you, but they weren't very comfortable conveyances up in Canada in the wintertime because they had those old side curtains, and you might as well be sitting in a basket even when they were on tights. So I had this practically open-air Durant car. Used to be called the car with the Red Seal Continental Motor. It's supposed to be a very good car. I bought it secondhand. I've been trying to sell it for weeks.
Couldn't get a buyer. No one wanted it. So I prayed that prayer. Tuesday night before I went off to work. If you want me to tell the brethren who more alike, All my exercises sell that car before the mall, and I had no more an idea who would be a customer than you. So I came home the next morning. I used to get off work at seven. I'd like to get into my bed about eight, thirty, something at that time. I'd sleep through to about three o'clock in the afternoon. About twenty after twelve, my sister hadn't left her job yet. She was working. She was a poor lady in a knitting mill there.
Sister May, she came upstairs and she called. She said, Lester, she said, there's a phone call for you. She had to call two or three times. I said, who was? She said, it's Alan Morrison, just phoned over from St. Mary's, saying that the man over there wants to buy your car. And he wants it this afternoon. He wants to take his wife to Toronto. I thought I was in the dream. I said, huh? Say that again. And she went over it again. I thought, well, it's true. I'm not an interview. She said, I wouldn't have called you now. I'd have waited for the night to have told you, but he said he wanted it this afternoon, for he could take his wife to Toronto.
I said, all right. I was wide awake for this night. So I got up and went down, had my dinner, jumped in my car, and went over to St. Mary's. I went over to see Alan. Alan Morris used to come from St. Mary's. like someone coming from Leesburg over here to remember the Lord, fellowship here. The marriage was just about the same difference, distance from the fact that Alan Morris used to come over every Sunday and Wednesday night. So I went over and I said, Alan, is it right that someone wants to buy my car? He said, yes. He said, let's go down. So he went down.
The man said, looked at the car. He said, you know, this is no strange car to me. He said, I've seen this car before. So we took it out for a ride, and he said, how much do you want for it? I gave him my price. He said, all right, I'll take back this off he wrote me up the check now he said we have to get this license transferred and they didn't transfer title into marriage so they had to go over to Stratford to get the title transferred and so he moved me over to Stratford and I was home in Stratford by about four thirty with my car gone and the check in my pocket I went to the meeting that night and I didn't tell the brother Now you say, how did all that happen?
That's a strange thing. How did it happen like that? Well, this is how it happened. When I bought that car, I was over one day at St. Mary's, Mr. Morris and M. Morris said, I've seen that car around this town. He said, you know who owned it for you bought it? I said, no, I don't. I know as if I'm out of town, well, he said, I'm sure I know the man who... owned that car. He said, let's go down in the seat. He got in and we drove downtown and we went to see the van that he had in mind. He came out, he says, yeah, that's my old car. Well, I said, naturally, why did you get rid of it?
He said, well, I'll tell you, he said, my wife has sign of bad. He said, we've had a factory, so we decided we were at by sedan, glass, one of the glass windows. He said, well, tell me one thing, it didn't ride near this good as this car. Sometimes I wish we had it back. So that was the car that he had traded in for his sedan. So now a year or two passed, a couple of years passed. And I said to Alan, one day, I said, Alan, you know, I'd like to sell this car. He said, he would. I said, yeah. That was when I was exercised about coming.
It was no longer available or called. Well, he went back to Max Marries, and he was working one day, and he said, all of a sudden, this young fella come running in the blackness shop, and he said, Mr. Morrison, he said, does that fellow own that garret car come over to see you? He said, yeah. That's over quite often. I go over there. Could you get in touch with him? He said, yes, why? Well, he said, my boss, and this boy happened to be the son of the father who owned that farm. And he worked for an egg man, a man who used to go around the country, picking up eggs from the farmers and bringing them in and creating them and sending them into large cities.
Well, that morning, the owner of this egg business was saying, I wish we had a good car, a big touring car, we'd go around and pick up these eggs. The one we've got is not big enough. Little old four. This boy says, you know, I know the man, I know the friend of the man who had our old car. And I think he wants to sell. And if you get that car, you get this what you want. This man says, well, will you go up to his friend? See if he can go and get in touch with me. So this boy went up to Mr. Morrison at noon hour and asked Mr. Morrison if he would get in touch with me to see if I wanted to sell the car.
That's how the phone call came to you. Do you see how God was working behind the scenes? Another thing, when he bought the car, I said to him, well, I hope I've got here in time for you to take your wife to Toronto. He said, I wasn't wanting to go to Trotter today. Well, I said, that's the old message I got, that if you wanted the car, take your wife's Trotter today. No, he said, I did say that I did want to make a fifth Trotter, but not today. He said, I haven't time to go today. So when I went back home, I told my sister May, I said, May, he didn't want that car.
Take his wife to Trotter today. She said, well, I wish God had heard it that way. I wouldn't have called you. That means this. She'd have come home till about six-fifteen. She'd waited till then to tell me, I wouldn't have had time to got over to St. Mary's and sold the car and got back in time for Germany. In fact, I wouldn't have been able to have found the fellow because, in fact, it would have been pulled down. So you see how the Lord got the phone call mixed up. Therefore, I got over to St. Mary's, sold the car and was back home When I went to the prayer meeting that night, I kept my money shut. So that was the way the Lord was putting the pressure on me to try and get me to tell the brethren my exercise.
But I didn't. I'm not going to tell you anymore because the time's up. I'll tell you next week how the Lord squeezed it out. Exactly, that's what he did. He was putting the pressure on various ways, and I was backing up. I was fighting it. I knew what God had called me for, and yet I was afraid of the step. God met me at every turn. Now I've promised him three times if he did certain things, I would, in two cases, tell the better. The other case, I would tell the boss I was going to quit, and I didn't keep my word either time.
He did exactly what I asked him to do, and I didn't. I've written a job. Lord, I can't look up. I'll finish the next video. So God is a God who hears prayer. He's a God who answers prayer. He was seen today as he was thirty-two years ago. So let us pray for that same God tonight. And he made his camel to kneel down without the city by a well of water at the time of the evening, even the time that women go out to draw water.
And he said, O Lord God of my master Abraham, I pray thee send thee good street this day. and show kindness unto my master Abraham. Behold, I stand here by the well of water, and the daughters of the men of the city, come out to draw water. Let it come to pass that the damsel to whom I shall say, Let down thy pitter, I pray thee, that I may drink. And she shall say, Drink, and I will give thy camel drink also. Let the same be she that thou hast appointed for thy servant Isaac. Thereby shall I know that thou hast showed kindness unto my master. The kings have passed before he had done speaking, and behold, Rebecca came out, who was born to bet you, O Allah, son of Milcha, the wife of Nahor, Abraham's brother, with her picture upon her shoulder.
And the damsel was set aside to look upon a virgin, neither had any man known her. She went down to the well and threw her picture and came up. And the servant ran to meet her and said, Let me, I say, thee drink a little water of thy pitcher. She said, Drink, my Lord, and she hastened and let down her pitcher upon her hand and gave him drink. When she had done giving him drink, she said, I will draw water for thy camels also until they had done drinking. And she hastened and emptied her pitcher into the trough, and ran again unto the well to draw water and drew for all his camels. Verse twenty-seven. That's the verse I want you to know.
And he says, Blessed be the Lord God of my master Abraham, who hath not let destitute my master of his mercy. And it's true. I being in the way the Lord led me. I have those underlined in my Bible. I being in the way the Lord led me to the house of my master's presence. I think we have a very interesting chapter here when it comes to the way the Lord leads. And how the Lord asked the Lord to do. The Lord, he had said unto the Lord, Now I approach this young lady, and I say to her, Give me to drink.
And she said, Drink, and I will fetch water for thy camels also. Let the same be she that thou art appointed for my master's son. And what I say it was that when Rebekah came out and the servant asked her for a drink of water, she said yes, and I will fetch water for thy camels also. She is the very language that this servant that hath asked the Lord to make her use. Could you wish for anything more definite than that? 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'll 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 picture 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 burning my heart to come down south, and I just refused to tell anyone. Even when I asked the Lord to call someone to get up in the prayer meeting and pray about the southern state, and I had 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 craveable. And he got up, as soon as I had sat down and someone had given out of him, 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 in his seat was Johnny Meeks, a young fellow who had a heart condition, had been sick for years, and this is his first ceremony. 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 it. The next week, Tuesday night, I was telling you how I was working night when I had a car. I've 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 more night that you're wanting me to grow up, reaching the down south, sell my car by the more night. and it was sold the next day at noon. A man pulled 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 a prayer meeting, I'd tell them, and I didn't. I went out. Well, it was just a case of the Lord was going to get it out of me somehow, and this is how he did. Well, 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, please. Well, he came to Bramford 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.
Lundry 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 preaching, 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 father got home from the church in Frankfurt, 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 Frankfurt. Well, I've heard of Mr. Barker, and I thought, what, did he want with me? So I said, all right, I'll be there in the meeting place of Dr. Deere's home. Dr. Deere has a son now on the mission team. Mr. Deere is dead. Senior. So I needed to be pwned up, Mr. Taylor, after I got his phone call from Brantford. 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, and I just got a phone call to the effect.
He wants me to go over and see him on Saturday at Dr. Beer'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 South America. And he said, I gave a description of the young man last Sunday, we could go, and your name was given to me after the meeting. That's a young man that was the description that I gave.
He said, I'm very glad to hear about you. When 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 islands 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 you'll correspond and you'll meet forward the fall and go down to the island. He said, 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 shop 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 grow preaching with him. He said, I don't know a man in the world how soon you go. He said it would be a wonderful privilege that he was 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 us, and the Lord had been putting the pressure onto me for about a month to tell the elders of the church in 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 I said. So he saw me hesitating. He said, what did you tell him? Second, I said, I won't tell. 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've told me.
I said, well, I'll come up to your house the more night and have it. Tuesday night. He said, all right, I'll be ready. Tuesday night I went up and I unburdened my heart. I told Mr. Taylor the way the Lord had been deaf in the evening. He said, Lester, this assembly is prepared to put its hands on you and commend you for the Lord's work. We're very happy to do that. Now I said, Mr. Taylor, don'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 of it. tell you that you're telling me I was making a big mistake but I was missing the mind of the Lord it was all my imagination so 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 in the 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's... Morning, I saw Mr. Taylor up in the balcony of the machine shop where he was foreman, and I was down the border 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. But I wasn't going down fast.