room and board in his home. He and his wife had just moved into a brand new large house in the town and, as they didn’t have any children, thought it would be great to have a young man reside in their home. Once again—as so often in my life—my mom’s favourite Bible verse came to mind: “God will provide” (Genesis 22:8, NKJV). And He did! The lovely couple (Alf and Ruth) indeed did treat me like a son; in fact they spoiled me with great meals and lots of TLC (tender loving care).
During the time I worked in Newmarket I travelled by bus to Toronto each weekend to spend time with Marion and my family, and we both continued as Sunday school teachers.
PURCHASING OR PREACHING?
As I was coming to the end of the summer, I had to keep wrestling with the fact that in my heart I knew that God was calling me to full-time Christian service, to be a preacher and pastor. I had to make a decision: Would it be purchasing or preaching? The question had to be settled, and soon! My mom of course had never stopped praying that I would become a preacher. I must confess that the temptation to remain in my present situation was very tempting. I would be able to dress like the purchasing agent (I have always loved nice clothes!), drive a car like he did (I have always loved nice cars!), and live in a nice new house like he did (I had only lived in old rented houses). What to do? I had been taught in my youth that if you have a major decision to make in life, you should spend time in the Word of God and prayer. I dedicated a whole night to doing just that, wrestling with God, and by morning my decision had been made. God and my mom had won out! I would make an appointment with the Toronto Bible College registrar and apply to become a student at the college.
The day after making my decision I made an appointment to meet with the general manager of the company to inform him of my decision to resign from the job and go to Bible college. His response was “Barber college? Why would you leave a position like you have with all its potential to become a barber?” I then said the word “Bible” more clearly and that I was going to train to become a minister. His retort was “That sounds more like something you would go into.”
On my last day with the company the staff held a going-away party for me and presented me with a lovely leather briefcase, engraved with my name, which I would use daily at college.
TRAINING FOR FULL-TIME CHRISTIAN SERVICE
I travelled to Toronto one day to meet with the registrar of the college and apply as a student. In a few days I received a response from him that I had been accepted. Wow! Now I was on my way to becoming what God had been calling me to, a preacher of the Word of God and a pastor to all who would become my parishioners.
Toronto Bible College had been established for the sole purpose of training young men and women for full-time Christian ministry, to serve either as missionaries in a foreign land or in pastoral ministry. I spent wonderful and spiritually enriching years getting deep into the study of God’s Word and taking many other related subjects that would prepare me well for my chosen vocation. The curriculum included intense studies of the Bible verse by verse, systematic theology, pastoral psychology, homiletics (art of preparing a sermon), public speaking, Church history, pastoral counselling, psychology, logic (learning about syllogisms), apologetics and more.
During that time, Marion continued in her secretarial job and took evening courses at the same college. We also both continued to teach a Sunday school class in our own churches.
PAYING MY WAY THROUGH COLLEGE
As my parents were not able to provide any financial support, it was necessary for me to work evenings and summers at part-time jobs, even though I had saved up considerable funds from my job in Newmarket. I also wanted to put away funds for when Marion and I would get married following my graduation.
Having to carry a full student workload and also work part-time didn’t leave me much time to date Marion, but as the saying goes, “Love finds a way”—and it did! I felt a little envious of the students whose parents could afford to pay their way, and they could just lounge around in the men’s lounge and socialize after school hours. Due to my heavy school load and part-time work load, it became necessary for me to resign from the student council as chair of evangelism. This was a very deep disappointment for me, but as the saying goes, “That’s how life goes!”
To save money, I rode my brother’s new bike to school every day when the weather was good, even though the streetcar fare was just 25 cents for four tickets. Every so often my dear dad and sister Marjorie would give me money so that I could take the streetcar.
Two part-time evening jobs I had were packing margarine at a factory and assisting the maintenance manager of the college in cleaning the many areas of the college. I packed margarine into cartons as they sped along the conveyor belts. It now reminds me of the scene where Lucy and Ethel on the I Love Lucy show were packing chocolates in the chocolate factory, and after their mouths couldn’t hold any more, they stuffed them wherever their imaginations led them to. If you remember that one, you will still be able to laugh heartily.
When we were packing the margarine, we had to include one of the colouring packets that were used to change the margarine from white to look more like butter. Farmers insisted that the margarine could not resemble butter. It was such silliness, which of course changed through the years. I worked Monday to Friday evenings from five to nine and made very good money, as it was piecework and I worked very quickly.
During the last two years of my studies, I assisted the maintenance manager in cleaning many areas of the college each day after classes. It was very convenient to have this part-time job without having to travel anywhere. It was a job I enjoyed very much, and it paid quite well. The manager often told me that the school had never looked so clean. I had learned to do housekeeping properly when I was a boy, and it was good training for when I would have to do it so often during my married life. All of my older sisters went out to work in their mid-teens, so we younger ones were assigned many household duties. We washed and dried the dishes and put them in their proper place in the cupboard, mopped or swept the linoleum kitchen floor after every meal, cleaned the toilet (yes, one toilet for 12 people!) and dusted around the house. We seldom ever complained, as we knew it had to be done, my mom was too busy with all her responsibilities, and my older sisters were out to work.
SUMMER JOBS
In order to earn enough money for the forthcoming school year, I needed to work summer jobs, as well as the after-class jobs I worked at during the school year. I will share two of the most interesting ones.
SUMMER IN QUEBEC and SEPARATION FROM MARION
As I approached the end of my first year at Bible college I prayed that God would lead me as to what I should work at for the summer. Then I had a phone call from the superintendent of home missions for our denomination—Dr. John F. Halliday—to ask if I would be interested in serving the Lord for the summer in Quebec at a Christian children’s camp. I told him I would pray about it. My first thought naturally was How will Marion and I deal with being separated for four months and not being able to enjoy activities together? We prayed about it, and we realized that as soldiers of the Cross it was a small price to pay, particularly when compared to the cost soldiers pay when they go off to war for Canada. Many of them never return to their loves, while others return physically or psychologically wounded for life. My second thought was more practical—This job will be good training for my vocation. Some days later I phoned Dr. Halliday back to tell him that I would accept his proposal, and we set up a meeting to discuss details.
Two weeks later I was on my way by train to Montreal. Marion and I had said our sad farewells for the summer, finding it of course very difficult to think of four months of being separated. I also of course said my goodbyes to my family. Mom was in tears, but she assured me she would be praying for me every day.
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