Part 7

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Our first camp meeting was held in a tent a mile and three-quarters from our home. Warning was sent around the neighborhood for the people to lock their chicken coops as the camp meeting was being financed only by two poor men, who were giving free meals to all who came.

We had a wonderful meeting; many souls were saved and sanctified and devils were cast out, some were healed. We had some very straight preaching as we had some very fiery ministers who preached; such as, Brother and Sister C. M. Tubbs and the Brothers Enos and Elihu Key, Brother Thomas Nelson and Brother Tilgut.

The country around was stirred and people tried everything in their power to hinder the meeting. Some business men of our own home town (Paynesville) hired a team and borrowed a three or four-seated platform buggy from the implement Company and placed a small cannon on it, drove to within a few rods of the gospel tent and fired the cannon. The chairman of the town Board came to me and wanted me to have them arrested. But I said, "No, let them go."

The Lord "fined" them for us: As they were shooting off the cannon the horses took fright and ran away into the timber, smashing up the new buggy and tearing the harness to pieces. That saved us the court proceedings.

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The second camp meeting I was in, among the saints, was at Grand Forks, N. Dakota. I was called there especially to preach in the Scandinavian language as well as to help in the English preaching. When the first evening service was over every one who had no place to sleep was to stand outside the tabernacle near the big oak tree. One by one they got their place to sleep. Finally I was left standing all alone in the dark. No one offered me a place so I walked around among the trees. The camp meeting was held in the timber along the banks of the Red River. While I was looking for a place to lie down and rest, a man came running toward me and said, "Don't you have a place to sleep?" I said, "No." He said, "You go to that covered wagon over there and you'll find a place." As I approached the wagon I saw six feet sticking out of the wagon, almost to the knees, so there was no room for me.

I went back to the tent and shoved three or four planks together. These planks had been used for seats. I put my suit case down for a pillow and there I slept that night and during the rest of the meeting. When I would get a little cold in the night I would get up and walk around a bit. A few days later Oluf Erickson from Belgrade, Minnesota, who had gotten saved in one of our meetings at home, asked me where I was sleeping. I said, "I have a good place; another brother and I have a very fine tent with a bed in it." "Oh yes," he said, "I know where you sleep; you sleep in the minister's tent." "Yes," I said, "it's a minister's tent all right." But he didn't give up until he found out the truth. He then said, "My, my, had no one offered you a place to stay, and you are one of the evangelists?" I said, "Yes." Then he said, "Well then, I'll come and sleep with you."

In those days it was: "All for Jesus and souls" and not for personal comfort. We had a wonderful time together in the Lord. We also had a wonderful camp meeting in seeing scores of souls saved and many miracles done by the power of God.

Sister Renbeck, who had been bed fast for a long time, was carried in on a cot and the prayer of faith was offered. Brother E. E. Byrum took her by the hand and commanded her to arise in the name of Jesus. She arose and went running around the tent lifting her hands and praising God. I heard three men talking about it afterwards saying, "I wonder if that is real! She surely looked poorly and puny, but you can't tell." Another man said, "I wish my wife had been here; if it had been her we would have known it was real." (She had been sick for a long while.)

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While my first meeting in Grand Forks was in progress, Brother Renbeck came to me with the request that I would pray over a matter he had on his mind, and that was that after the meeting was over he and I might go together to hold a meeting at Whitten, Minnesota. I promised to pray over the matter and that at the close of the meeting we would talk it over together. And, accordingly, at the end of the meeting I prayed earnestly to get the mind of the Lord as to where He wanted me to go.

When Brother Renbeck asked me what I had gotten from the Lord in regard to the matter I replied by asking whether there were places in North Dakota by names of Kelly, Grafton and St. Thomas, "Yes," he said, "there are; what of it?" I replied that the Lord told me I was going to those places. He told me that just before the meeting here, he had come from those very places and there would be no use in going. I told him I was going to follow the leading of the Lord and go, that he could stay here until I came back when we would go to Whitten. But he declared if I was going he would go, too.

That trip proved to be the beginning of a wonderful work of God. Many people were saved and many healings and miracles were wrought by the Spirit of the Lord. In our visiting, the first house we entered at eleven a.m. an elderly sister, ninety years of age, was sanctified and her husband, ninety-three years old, was saved before twelve o'clock that day. This shows that Brother Renbeck had laid a good foundation in these places, preparing the way for the wonderful evangelistic trips that followed. Neither of us ever went to Whitten.

While at Grafton, N. Dakota, Brother Renbeck and I had the experience of holding a number of meetings in private homes. Interest increased and so did our problems.

One day we wanted to telephone to Brother C. H. Tubbs at Grand Forks. We went to a telephone office and were told that the cost of a message would be twenty-five cents. We counted up our change and between us found that we had only twenty-four cents, and so we had to leave the office disappointed. Out on the side walk we stood facing each other, one of us said, "Wasn't it too bad that we didn't have another penny?" I was standing with my back to the street when I heard the Lord say to me, "Turn around, a penny is lying right behind you." I turned around and there it was. I picked it up and we sent the message, but Brother Tubbs was not at home.

There was an old retired Methodist minister attending our meetings right along, declaring that divine healing died away with the departure of the Apostles. The next Sunday seven women were saved, one of whom was a young lady which had a stiff arm and crooked to such an extent that she could neither dress nor undress herself without assistance. She was prayed for and I asked her if she believed that the Lord would straighten out her arm and she replied, "Yes," but did not move it. I happened to be looking at the old minister and it seemed to be written all over his face: "Just as I expected." At the beginning of the evening service we gave opportunity for testimony and this young lady was all on fire to testify. She said, "I love Jesus and Jesus loves me, and He makes my arm well;" and then she raised her arm and waved it in all directions. The old minister bowed his head to his knees.

The next day we were called to the home of a young lady who was suffering from inflamatory rheumatism. Her entire body was stiff; her legs were crossed below her knees and her arms were crossed over her breast and were immovable, except that she could move her hands slightly and also her head a little. The doctor was coming twice every day to give her a morphine injection to ease the pain or she would make a disturbance by screaming at the top of her voice.

When we first visited her, Brother Renbeck began immediately to talk to her about salvation, for he thought that she must be saved before she could be healed. However, we did not seem able to get any spiritual help to her at all. So the next day before going to see her I asked Brother Renbeck whether people have to be saved before they can be healed. He said that he did not know. I then mentioned the fact of the ten lepers being healed and that only one returned to give glory to God; and, moreover, that I believe if we would pray for her the Lord would heal her and that God would get glory out of it some way. "All right," he said, "you talk to her today."

We went in to her room and I said to her "Martha, do you believe that God will heal you if we pray for you?" "Yes, the Lord healed Miss B. all right." I then said, "Are you willing to throw out all your medicine bottles and never go back to them again, even if the pain should return?" She called her father in and asked him to take the medicine bottles and smash them up. He went out and brought in a bushel basket and gathering them up, took them out and smashed them into pieces. Then we anointed her and prayed and while we were still praying she stretched out her hands and her feet. When we removed our hands she wrapped the sheet around her, jumped out of bed and ran around the house.

About six or eight months later while I was holding a meeting in Grand Forks, one evening a young lady of about nineteen years of age came into the service carrying her younger sister, nine years of age, who could not walk. I went right to them and asked where they were from and why they had come. The young lady told me they were from Grafton. She said, "I have not been well for a year, and about two years ago my sister, with some other children, was playing on the roof of an old shed and she either jumped or fell down, her heel struck a stone and her limb became withered. We have been to many specialists and none of them could help her. We heard that the two healers that healed Martha Gaulbright were here and we have come to be healed." I told her those men were no healers; that it was the Lord who healed Martha. "Well," she said, "the ministers, then." I asked her if Miss Gaulbright was still well? She answered, "She has never been sick since."

I told the young lady that only one of the ministers was here. The next day Brother Emil Krutz came and we prayed for a large number of the sick, (39 in all), however, before we got through praying the two girls were gone. On inquiring whether anyone knew where they had gone, I was told they had either gone to the Hotel or to the Great Northern Railway station. I rushed to the station two blocks away as I was anxious to find out whether they had been healed, but I knew neither their names nor their address. When I got to the station I inquired about the train to Grafton to find the train was just pulling out.

The next summer on coming to the North Dakota State Camp meeting at Grand Forks, I was two days late having come from the South Dakota camp meeting, a little girl came running toward me as I was coming on the grounds, saying, "Praise the Lord, Brother Susag." I said, "Amen, who are you?" She said, "Don't you know me?" I said, "No, I see so many little girls and they all look alike to me." She said, "I'm the little girl who came to Grand Forks last winter and could not walk." I set my grip down and wept for joy, and said, "Please tell me, sister, when you commenced to walk." She replied, "My sister carried me to the train in Grand Forks; when we got to Grafton my short, dried up leg was just as long and as natural as the other one, so I walked home. Now mother is here at the meeting to get saved."

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At one of the camp meetings at St. Paul Park as I was coming back from the baptismal service that we had in the river, I saw a young lady across the street walking with crutches, one limb seemingly, just hanging helpless. I felt sorry for her and went across the street and spoke to her. I asked her if she had been hurt or had had an accident.

She did not answer me at all. I said, "Do not be afraid of me. I am a minister; I am sorry for you and am anxious to know what your trouble is." Then she said, "I have tuberculosis of the leg, there are seven holes in it. I am just out of the Sanitarium at Saint Paul. They tell me that they can do nothing for me." I said, "Too bad, I am sorry for you." Then I asked her if she were a Christian; she broke down and wept. "Indeed, too bad," I said, "A young lady in that condition and yet not a Christian." Then I said, looking toward the camp grounds, "Do you see that tent over there? We are holding services in it and if you will come to the service tonight and get saved, God will heal you." She then left me and I went over to the tent.

She came to the service that night and when the altar call was given she went forward to seek salvation. When the altar service was over she was still there on her knees. Brother C. H. Tubbs had been instructing her and he said to her, "You can go and sit down now." But she pointed at me and said, "That man said that if I got saved that I could get healed too." Brother Tubbs said "alright" and went over to her with his oil vial and let a drop fall on her forehead. She dropped her crutches and ran down the aisles before we could pray, but the strength of her limb did not seem to hold out. So she came back to the altar and prayer was offered, but she was unable to use her limb.

Her mother was there. They lived in St. Paul and as it was some little distance to the station and the time was drawing near for the departure of the train, the mother said to her, "Take your crutches and let us go." But she answered, "Mother, I'll never touch those crutches anymore." "But if you can not walk, what are you going to do?"