glenperish

1) Mark Mengering a Lutheran preacher's Testimomy

His father, a Lutheran Minister in Virginia, as a boy always wanted to do good, and later chose to follow his father and became a minister. After qualifying, he was a parish in Montana, a town called Harding. He had a good congregation. a good living, married with two children.. He wasn't satisfied. He visited the Hospital, a Rest Home, where Wilma, one of the friends was a patient; she had surgery and was permanently invalided..

Following many visits to this Rest Home where he was drawn to enquire more diligently what source of power and life Wilma possessed. Wilma, asked two young Sister Workers to visit Mark and his wife. A young couple (professing) had recently moved to Harding. Mrs Mengering had heard of this couple and made contact, which lead to her going along to their home for a Bible study, and seemed drawn to that couple.

The sisters workers visited the Mengerings and invited them to some Gospel Meetings. They came and weren't greatly impressed with the preaching. Shortly after the Sisters left for preparations and left Wilma to carry on the mission, her tongue Would fall out and put back again, had to be tied into the chair for fear of falling out.

After Conventions were over, Mary Kitto and Bonnie Sikes returned, and took up the threads, and continued Wilma's mission. One day the Sisters came to Town to collect their mail and visit the Mengerings when they met in the Street. Mark asked them to come and visit them. He said they would after collecting their mails, asked if they could come right now, which they did. That visit he told the Sisters and his wife what had taken place in his heart; had decided to quit the Lutheran Ministry and had written this to his father, a surprise to his wife, she went into the bedroom and wept and wept. When she came out and told the Sisters, "I know if Mark has made up his mind he won't back out."

While in conversation, the phone rang, and his Father's voice, calling from the Eastern State Virginia, he moved to the Chapel phone where they conversed for an hour, his wife lifted the receiver to find the conversation still proceeding. Later, she went to the Chapel to find her husband kneeling by the Pulpit. She closed the door and left. He came bark to the room where his wife and the Sisters were waiting, told of the conversation he had with his Father, who tried to persuade him not to give up the Ministry, take a spell and come Home, or see a psychiatrist etc.

The Sisters stayed a week; it was like a death in the Home. The Sisters took over cooking, cleaning, attended to the children etc. Mark told the Sisters, "I am going to tell my Congregation on Sunday I am quitting," and he did, his wife told the Sisters later.

The first time I have ever got anything out of Mark's preaching for my soul, the Lord was with him that day. He followed on for three more Sundays, after morning church service they attended the sister's Gospel meetings. Later, Some friends offered Mark work, carpentering in another town, but Mark wasn't cut out for this occupation, later tried work with an Undertaker, and this wasn't in line with his way of earning a living either.

Now got a position at a boy's correction School in a town called Buffalow, Wyoming. This took place back in the early 70s. Wilma died last March 82 ...People in town who owned a large Restaurant invited the Menjering's over for a talk, which resulted in them, attending Gospel meetings and got saved.

~~~~ I (Nathan) had the privilege meeting Mark, his wife and two daughters when I was attending Wy, special meetings in 1990 and it was a very special treat to meet his family. One of Mark's daughter was in the work for a few years in Wy, USA.

#2) Glen Perish a Baptist preacher's Testimony:

September 29, 1987

As I think about how God began to work this miracle in our lives, I see that for us it will not be completed in the blink of an eye ... and I am willing for that. I was raised in the Baptist church from the days of my infancy, as was my wife, Shirley. My mother and father were both very religious people and so I usually attended church meetings three or four times every week. My wife and her sister were raised in a family where only the mother was religious.

Their father saw through organized religion and chose to his dying day not to be a part of it. As a child and youth I had many "religious experiences," and I sincerely believed I was doing God's will. My wife, on the other hand, in her growing up experience, never really put her trust in organized religion. Rather, she sought out the heart of God through reading His Word and on her knees alone, crying and begging for Him to show her the Way; and, of course, He did. We met during our college days in 1953 and our hearts and lives were knit together for nearly a year and a half before we were united in marriage.

We soon found that we had a common hunger and thirst that had not been satisfied in our experiences in the Baptist Church. We mistakenly assumed that the problem must surely be wholly within us. We began to

think and eventually to express to each other, "Surely there is more to being a Christian than we now know."

We sought for help and counsel among the friends and other preachers we knew, but always came away without the answers. Each time this occurred our frustration rose to a new level. As time passed, we found ourselves involved in increasingly more responsible positions with larger congregations. All this added to our frustration because we knew that we should have the answers for others and their heart hunger, which we did not have for ourselves. What should we do?

My wife sought to disengage herself as much as possible from the machinery of the Baptist organization. This placed me in an awkward position.

I could see that she was probably right, so I did not seek to force her involvement. On the other hand, for myself, I plunged myself headlong into activities, organizations, programs, and whatever else you might name, thinking that if there was a way to get these people and this organization set straight, I was going to find it, or die trying (which I nearly did).

In 1966 we moved from California to Idaho, a distance of nearly 1,000 miles. There we lived in a town whose whole population was less than half that of the membership of the Baptist church we had served last in California. This was, for us, a big adjustment. We had made this move because, by this time my level of frustration with myself, with other preachers, and the question of "where was the true church?" was nearly pushing me over the edge into oblivion. I believe I can see now that it was the adversary's plan to move me headlong into destruction, but our Father was heading us to the most critical crossroad of our entire human existence the day when, three years later, we would meet two of God's servants, who would show us the way and present us with a choice to make.

Since the first days of our marriage, Shirley and I had lived so close to God's saints and servants that we now know there were times when they were as close as just next door, but we knew it not. On a nearly yearly basis Shirley was having an experience that lasted for a period of about a week, when she would be so overcome with her despair for hope and help,

knowing she did not have God's salvation, crying and praying and asking me to help her ... and I couldn't.

Being in a helpless condition, I moved from a feeling of compassion to pity, then amazement and finally anger because she could not accept what I considered to be the answers. It was beyond me! How to help such a person? Now of course I know the anger that I felt was not for her blindness, but for my own. She had no hardness or bitterness -- and I did. These matters drove me so hard that I was on the verge of suicide, believing that there was no answer. I am so grateful that the Lord kept me from that irreversible step. My family has known the depths of dark despair that engulfs those left behind when someone takes that step.

This was the condition of our two hearts when God's servants came to our town. The town of Arco, Idaho has about 1,000 population and lies across the desert a distance of 60 miles from the closest town. It sits at an elevation of 7,000 feet and is the first town in the world to have had its electrical power supplied by an atomic generator. We are told that on the day this occurred, so much electrical power was being generated that the switch had to be turned off for fear of burning up the wires. The supply of electricity was far greater than the need.

The help that came to us through God's servants was so great, so inexhaustible and so powerful that the little town of Arco was turned upside down! Harry Brownlee and Ron Johnson arrived in Arco looking for a family who had shown some interest in God's Way. After they had found a small apartment for a batch, they discovered that the family they were seeking no longer lived there. They wondered what to do. Should they move on or continue? Since there had been Gospel missions in this town in years past with no response whatsoever, they considered moving on to other towns nearby who had never heard the Gospel preached. But, the Lord laid it on their hearts to remain. This occurred in October of 1969. Harry and Ron began to pass out invitations to the homes of this little town.

The very first home they visited was directly across the street from their batch. In this home lived a little widow whose alcoholic husband had died the previous year. She was approximately 60 years of age, had been born and raised in Arco by a Mormon family, but had never embraced Mormonism.

Prior to the time that God's two servants came to Arco, I had visited with this lady, inviting her to become a Christian and be baptized in the Baptist church, but she declined by saying that she did want to become a Christian, but did not want to become a Baptist. That she did want to be baptized, but not in the Baptist church. Her quiet, honest sincerity unraveled my religious intentions and made it impossible for me to give a public invitation in the Baptist church from that time forward. This got me in trouble with the deacons of the church, but I simply could not do otherwise.

On the day before the first Gospel meeting, a Saturday, I had been "working up a sermon" and had been reading from Hebrews 13. At noon I went home to eat and Shirley asked me, had I seen the ad in the newspaper telling of some Gospel meetings in the American Legion Hall, beginning the next day (Sunday)?

I said that I had not and went and read what the newspaper said, and tried to do what many often do -- figure out what group they were with. Now, Arco being the small town that it was, I was the only resident preacher, other than the Catholic priest. At least 90% of the population of the town and the surrounding area were faithful Mormons; the other 10% were divided among Catholic, Lutheran, Church of Christ and the Community Baptist Church. So, as you can see, the source of income for the little Baptist church was a pretty meager slice of the money pie. The last thing we needed in Arco was another group to cut the pie thinner. Then I remembered what I had read that morning in Hebrews 13 about entertaining strangers and that they might be, after all, angels.

At this point in time, Shirley's and my marriage of 15 years was suffering from a large dose of no communication. In our culture this experience usually leads a husband and wife into the disaster of divorce. We could both see that we were moving rapidly in that direction. It was becoming more and more impossible for Shirley to listen to her preacher/husband tell how to "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" on Sunday and then live a life all week long that only pleased himself. Shirley's simple honesty to find and do God's will, to carry out the simple responsibility of a mother to train up a child in the way he should go, angered me as I saw her doing what I could not do, knowing full well I should be the spiritual leader of the family. And, of course, our six healthy children, from age four years to thirteen years, were being caught in the middle of their parents' struggles.

On that day, when I had read the newspaper article about the Gospel meetings after I had eaten my lunch, I told my wife I was going to the post office to get the mail. With our youngest son on his tricycle, I walked the three blocks to town. Then I went to find a woman who I knew would know where to find the preachers mentioned in the newspaper article. She always seemed to know everything of consequence going on in the town.

Sure enough, when I spoke to her, she told me that the two ministers were living in a room in the motel operated by her husband and herself. So she proceeded to take me to their room and, upon arriving there, knocked loudly on the door and announced in a loud voice. "The Baptist preacher is here to see you!" We were told after we professed that the announcement that day brought a startled question to their minds. "Has he come to tell us to leave town?" The welcome of God's two servants into that little room that day was so warm and genuinely sincere that my heart was soon melted and any hostile thoughts I may have had flew away. Within an hour's time we were talking about things that really mattered, and on that day it was my heart's deep need.

I remember telling that I considered myself not to be an honest person with God, other men, or myself. Also, that I was not a disciplined person. I said I considered these two things to be serious flaws in my life for a man in my profession and that I needed help. Little did I know that I stood on the threshold of the only help provided by our Father. Little did I know, until many months later, how close we all had come to, not have heard the Gospel.

When I left their batch that first day I felt my heart strangely drawn to these two men and wondered why I had said all those things that were so deep in my heart. The next day, Sunday, Harry and Ron attended the Baptist church and I announced their meetings, as I had promised. I had thought to go to that first meeting, but old friends arrived unexpectedly and we asked them to our home for dinner after the church meeting. Because of their presence, it seemed best to me not to go to the Gospel meeting.

Then the phone rang and the lady who played the piano for the Baptist church told me she had promised to attend the Gospel meeting and play the piano. She said she had a bad headache and would be unable to keep her promise, asking if I would be able to go in her place and play; I said I would. I was rather unimpressed with the Gospel meeting. It seemed, to my ears, the music was dull, the preaching was terribly simple, AND, could you believe ... they forgot to take the offering! This amazed me to no end.

I am ashamed to admit that I looked down my nose at all I saw and heard that day. I did not deserve the mercy and long suffering that I was receiving. I did not attend another Gospel meeting until some time later. However, Shirley began to attend the meetings regularly, seeing and hearing much to encourage and restore her hope. All the while, I was visiting the batch two and three times a week, sharing my thoughts, seeking answers to questions, receiving much help.

In December we were told by Harry and Ron that they would be leaving... no more Gospel meetings. I mistakenly thought, "That's the end of them," because I had no understanding by what they meant by "special meetings." To my surprise, they returned shortly after January 1, 1970. They found me sick in bed. While I had the symptoms of a serious illness, the doctor's careful diagnosis revealed no good reason for my symptoms other than a high level of anxiety. Can you guess its source? Because of the condition I was in, I was unable to preach, so I asked Harry Brownlee to preach for me. Without hesitation he accepted my request, but added that he would only preach and could not conduct the entire church service. I said I would have someone present to conduct all other matters.

That turned out to be a young man who was a senior in high school. On Sunday morning Harry arrived in plenty of time before the church meeting began and waited for the young man to appear. About one minute before the meeting should begin this young man walked in and breathlessly announced that he was sorry to be late, but had been out to a school dance the night before, had stayed up late and therefore had overslept. He said he was so tired that he hoped he would not fall asleep during the sermon. This young man's name was Max Bowman, who now labors as one of God's servants in Ecuador, South America. In spite of the situation that day, Harry tells how his heart was strongly drawn to this young man. A matter of only a few years revealed that once again a Paul had found a Timothy.

After the service was over, Harry was handed a check for $25. Today he laughingly says, "That surely must have been the best sermon I had ever preached since it's the only one I've ever been paid for." Rather than handing the check back to the one who gave it to him, he kept it to use in bringing to my attention the matter of how God's servants are to be cared for. Between the time Harry preached in my absence and when he brought the check to my attention, other events in my relationship to the Baptist church had occurred which continued to alert me to the fact that something was very wrong within the denominational organization.

On a Wednesday night, Harry and Ron attended the prayer meeting at the Baptist church. There were only five of us that night: Two Baptists, Harry and Ron, and myself. After our prayer meeting was over, Harry and Ron waited for the two Baptists to leave. Then they turned and said to me that they must return the check given to Harry for preaching. Harry explained very kindly from the scripture how that God's servants are to freely preach the Gospel, using that verse of Jesus' words, "Freely have you received, freely give." -- a verse that I had often taken out of context and used (as I had heard it used) at the time the collection would be taken from the congregation. I was soon to see that this was only one of the many scriptures taken from its context and twisted to mean something never intended.

As Harry spoke to me of this matter of his taking money, my vision began to clear. I responded by asking both of them to come across the street to the parsonage where Shirley was waiting, for I had something to say that needed to be said in Shirley's presence. When we walked in the door, Shirley met us and greeted us and without further introduction, I began to speak my heart's most urgent thoughts. I confessed my inability to fully understand all that I had seen and heard from the lips and lives of two of God's servants, but there was one thing that was brilliantly clear at that moment -- if the ministry of Harry Brownlee and Ron Johnson was the true ministry, then whatever, before God, was mine?? I could only conclude that it was false and must be gotten rid of with all haste. But there was more to the matter. I had a responsibility as a husband and father to provide for those entrusted to my care.

And so I told Harry and Ron that I wanted what they had with all my heart and believed I was willing at any cost to take it up. I had no inkling where to begin; simply an awareness that I was a man without a job. So I said that I would begin looking for a job the next day, and in fact did so. And for three weeks sought to find some kind of employment whereby I could support my family. Harry sought to introduce me to some who could possibly direct me toward employment and I made many trips across the desert to other nearby towns hoping to find work.

I was willing and able to do anything, except the only thing I was equipped to do -- try and act like a preacher. After three weeks all my efforts were still to no avail. I can remember the urgency I sensed in Harry, for he thought that perhaps I would give up and return to former ways. I had no such intention. I should also say here that beginning the very night after the Wednesday night when I said that I would begin to look for a job, and as soon as I found one, leave the Baptist church. I did begin to attend the Gospel meetings -- and there, of course, my deep hunger and insatiable thirst, God began to satisfy. Some of the Baptist people were curious and concerned by my actions. One man questioned me rather pointedly about why I was spending so much time driving out of town. Not being ready to give a complete answer, I simply said I had personal business to attend to.

On Sunday, February 15, 1970, Shirley and I and all the children attended the Sunday afternoon Gospel meeting. I found my place on the front row with the children, who were enjoying answering Ron's Bible questions. Shirley had been detained that day, and when she arrived the hall was nearly full. So she found a seat beside the little widow lady mentioned earlier. The widow lady had attended nearly every Gospel meeting. It seemed her heart could hardly get enough of what was given week by week.

Harry stood to begin the meeting and announced the first hymn, "Saviour I Will Gladly Follow." Before we sang, he said, "Folk, we are going to sing this hymn two times today. We will sing it as our first hymn and for our last hymn, and after we have sung it the second time at the end of the meeting, opportunity will be given for any who would choose to walk with Jesus in His Way, to stand and say that this is their choice." I was a little surprised, but not frightened, for this was the first time the meeting had been tested, and I had no idea how it would be done, or that it would be done.

Shirley and I had not discussed what we might do if such an event occurred. We had not yet left off our old ways of not talking to each other about things that mattered. But we had been talking secretly with our Father about the matter. Since therefore our hearts were becoming more and more in line with God's will for our lives, we were, to our surprise, drawing more and more in harmony with each other. The thought of Shirley's heart was, "Oh, how badly I want and need this for myself, but I will not do anything that could eembarrass my husband." All this while I was thinking, "I must have more of what I see and hear for myself and for my family. If this is the way one begins, I'm ready to start."

And so it was that at the close of the meeting when the last hymn had been sung, with Harry standing quietly before us, I rose to my feet and quietly declared to walk with Jesus in this way. Then to my great surprise and joy, I saw standing in the back of the room my beloved wife, and beside her, our dear friend, the little widow, Gladys Berry.

Among those who filled the hall that day, there were probably fifteen people who were from the Baptist church. One of these was a lady about 60 years of age who, with her husband, had heard the Gospel some 25 years prior to this time in the state of Nebraska. This lady knew the meaning of what had occurred before her eyes. Her heart was unwilling to do the same thing herself. She was upset because she understood that we believed, for the first time in our lives, we were claiming salvation promised to all who would truly believe. This offended her deeply and she went to great lengths to try to persuade me otherwise, when she should have been rejoicing for the work begun by God in the heart of one desperate sinner, she was angry. At home that afternoon she began making telephone calls to all the people from the Baptist church who were in the meeting that day. None would believe her, for she was considered to be a tale bearer- but this time she was right. She said I was leaving the Baptist church and the ministry.

The next day I found a job. And when I returned home that Monday afternoon to give the good news to my wife and family, and to Harry and Ron. I was able to say that I would resign from the Baptist church the very next Sunday. I asked for the deacons and their wives to meet in our home on Saturday evening that I might announce to them my intention and hopefully explain my actions and answer questions. I found to my amazement they had neither the capacity to understand my offered reasons, or the ability to ask questions.

On Sunday, February 22, I walked across the street to the church building and was met at the front door by the head deacon who suggested that I do several things at the beginning of the service, including taking the offering. I told him that I would be unable to fulfill his request. I walked in and, after a brief prayer, asked the people to sing an old hymn, "The Church's One Foundation is Jesus Christ Her Lord." I then read a passage of scripture, and then a brief statement announcing my resignation. And then I tried to quietly and briefly express from my heart some of the things that had brought me to this point in my life.

I tried to assure these people that none of them had done anything to offend me, that it was not because they had not paid me enough money, that it was not because they had not provided a nice enough place for my family and I to live -- that it was only because I must be honest before God to live according to the things that He had revealed to me in recent days. On the front row sat my wife with tears streaming down her face and joy filling her heart. Beside her sat our six children, ages five to fourteen, aware that a great moment was occurring, but not fully aware of all that was coming into our lives.

After my statements I left the platform to walk, for the last time, down the center aisle, with my wife at my side and our children behind us, past a sea of somber faces -- except for three: Harry Brownlee and two friends whose radiant smiles and sparkling eyes revealed the joy in their hearts. What a contrast exists between the few and the many!

And so we began to live, for the first time in our lives, outside organized religion. The next Sunday was our first experience in a little Sunday morning meeting. This meeting was placed in the home of the little widow lady. Her house once had been a Mormon meeting house and now it was to be the place of meeting for God's family. Our elder drove 80 miles one way to bring his wife and family to our meeting. I tried to have a little part that day, but I think my wife had the best of all to share, after the meeting was over. She said, "For the first time in my life, I have seen the true church." Harry had a few words to say about the order of the meeting and very carefully and lovingly he pointed out that we should arrive at least fifteen minutes before the meeting was to begin that we might find some quietness together.

And, since we had arrived two or three minutes past the appointed time, he turned to Shirley and said he realized that the responsibility in getting six children ready to come took time and preparation and that he was sure that it would not be too hard to plan ahead so that this could be accomplished. When he had finished speaking on the matter, my heart was smitten, for I was the culprit .... not she. And since it was I who had said the first time I had met the servants of the Lord that I was in need of being honest, I knew I had to begin that very moment to be honest -- before our Father, before all those gathered and to myself. So, I simply said, "It was I who made the family late. It will not happen again. And thank you for speaking so kindly to us about the matter."

A few weeks later I received a telephone call from the deacons asking my presence at a meeting. When I had resigned I had made three requests: 1) That I would be relieved of my duties the day of my resignation, 2) That I be permitted to live with my family in the church parsonage until the school term was finished in exchange for which I would continue to teach the release-time Bible study class for high school students. and 3) That no farewell party be given for myself and the family. The church was willing to grant all three requests, and so on this day the deacons announced that I was to be relieved of my responsibility of teaching the release-time class because it was their opinion that I was seeking to proselyte from among the students.

In spite of my efforts to assure them that this was not so, they insisted that it was so and that I was released from my obligation to teach the class. The following Sunday I received another call to meet the deacons. This time I was told, "You must be out of the church parsonage in one week." I was surprised by this sudden move on their part and asked what the reason would be. They said that I had agreed to teach the class in exchange for living in the parsonage, but that I was no longer teaching the class. I pointed out the fact, however, that it was their idea and not mine that I should no longer teach. Their next argument was that a new preacher was coming soon and they would need the house. It turned out that this was a lie. But no matter -- we sought to comply with their demand and after a great deal of searching, found a houseboat ... a rickety old two-story Victorian house in a bad state of disrepair. But, we lovingly called it "Buckingham Palace."

It wasn't until much later that it dawned on us what had occurred to make the Baptists pressure us to move so quickly. That was the day Max Bowman made his choice. Max was a senior in high school, student body president and graduated valedictorian.

So, these were the beginning of days for us and now, seventeen years have gone by. We can surely see, looking back, how God led us out of Egypt, across the Red Sea on dry ground, and into a good land as promised. Harry Brownlee told us before we went to our first Convention, "I'm going to tell you that this Way will become better and better as days go by. You will need to accept this on faith and the passing of time will reveal to you that this is so."

And now we know he only told us the half! (The writer's name is Glen Parish - He now has two sons and one daughter in the work.)