Monday Musings #51, June 14, 2024
Since today is almost Father’s Day, I decided to share some of my father’s story with you. Much of what I have accomplished in ministry goes back to his teaching and example in my early years.
Dad’s father, James Evert Wells, died in 1900 when Dad was six years old. The family was traveling in Northern Arkansas, in two covered wagons. They had been to “the bottoms” (Oil Trough Bottom) to harvest crops and were on their way back to their home in Stone County, south of Mountain View, Arkansas. They camped at night in areas provided for travelers by small towns along that route. Apparently, they drank water from a contaminated well, and the whole family became ill with typhoid fever except Fred. Mr. Wells died and local people buried him. Mrs. Wells could only remember being raised up to see him in the casket before he was buried.
Local people took care of the family, providing meals and water, until they were able to continue traveling home. Because of her illness and the strain of caring for the sick children, Mrs. Wells suffered an emotional breakdown that lasted most of the winter. Fred (about 12 years old) prepared food for the sick ones and kept the fires going until Lizzie and Herb got well enough to help. The family had a very hard time that winter. In later years, my dad, Fred, and Howard went back along the route the wagons had traveled and tried to find their father’s grave, but it was never located.
My dad’s life changed in 1912 when he was 17 years old. An evangelist came into Northern Arkansas in the spring and brought the news that God was pouring out His Spirit with signs and wonders. The family had been part of the Methodist church, but at the revival my dad, his widowed mother, and some of his brothers and sisters accepted the message of Pentecost. They saw the sick healed and miracles take place in the changed lives of men who had been involved in gambling or making and selling illegal whiskey. My dad talked about this revival as long as he lived.
The revival lasted three years. Dad said he could go outside anytime in the night and hear people praying across the hills and hollows. He was filled with the Holy Spirit and called to preach. His first sermons were preached as he plowed corn. People heard about his preaching, and some came to hide in bushes at the edge of the field to listen.
He also traveled to other communities in Northern Arkansas to assist in revivals with a well-known evangelist, Rev. A .E. Humbard (father of Rex Humbard who pioneered a TV ministry years later.) Early in 1914, Dad spent six weeks in a short-term Bible school in Malvern, Arkansas, under the leadership of E. N. Bell, one of the men who helped form the Assemblies of God. Both of these men gave him excellent Bible teaching. He missed being able to attend the meeting in Hot Springs, Arkansas, in 1914 where the Assemblies of God was formed. He was needed at home to help with the farm.
He and my mother married in 1915. Dad was partly responsible for caring for his widowed mother, and he felt he had to farm to feed his family, so he resisted full-time ministry until 1935. However, in the years between 1920 and 1935, he preached revivals in the summer, led home prayer meetings in the winter, and studied his Bible early in the mornings. His formal education was limited because he had dropped out of school at about the fifth grade to help his brothers grow food for the family. But he continued to read and study all his life.
In the late l930s I remember his getting up about 4 a.m., building a fire, and reading his Bible until time to cook breakfast. I was eight years old and in the second grade when Dad began studying to be ordained. He and I would sit at the dining table, read the prescribed textbooks, and fill out the answers to the study questions. I would look up the Bible references, read them aloud, and we would discuss the meaning. He mailed the completed work to Assemblies of God Headquarters in Springfield, MO. It was a great day when we got a test back with a high grade on it!
Dad became the pastor of a group of Pentecostal believers in the little village of Nuyaka, OK. From that time on, ministry was first; to help support us, he often took a few days’ work, but always with the understanding that his church came first. My dad was one of the “little” preachers in the early-day Assembles of God. He pastored country or small-town churches. In most places he built a church or a parsonage, Sunday school rooms, or other needed facilities. I was often his working partner, holding boards while he sawed, (no power equipment) and helping get the measurements right.
Here are some of the things he taught me for which I am forever grateful: 1. Any Bible doctrine must be supported by two or three Scriptures, taken in context. You cannot take one verse or part of a verse and build a doctrine on it. In early Pentecost, we had preachers who preached more from their personal convictions than Scripture. My dad trained me to tell the difference. If God convicts you of something, you should live by that conviction, but not impose it on others. Listen to what preachers and Bible teachers say, but search the Scriptures and listen to the Holy Spirit before following any new “revelation.” This liberated me from feeling in bondage to every wind of doctrine that came out.
2. My dad was a man of his word and he expected me to be. I learned early that if I promised to do something, I had better do it or go to him and explain why I hadn’t. Excuses such as “I forgot” or “I didn’t have time” were not acceptable. If you said you would do it, then you did it, or you better have a good reason why you hadn’t.
3. He didn’t tolerate lying. He expected me to tell the truth. If I had done something wrong or that would be a problem with the church people, my best defense was to get to my dad and tell him the truth. Then he stood between me and my accusers. If what I had done was actually wrong, he dealt with me about it, but before others, he was my advocate.
4. Dad enjoyed a good laugh. He laughed for years about a lady minister who requested prayer for one of her parishioners. The man was injured while milking his cow. The lady intended to say that the cow hit the man’s eye with its tail and knocked his eye out. But she misspoke and said his eye was knocked out when the cow hit him in the tail! My dad, laughing hard, would slap his knee and say, “My, what a lick!” During the late 1930s we had a radio and sometimes in bad weather, Dad would tune in to stations in Del Rio, Texas, or Chicago, Illinois. Across the Oklahoma plains, they came in loud and clear. We laughed with Lum and Abner and their Jot ‘Em Down Store; Baby Snooks; and a comedian called Kingfisher.
In memory of Dad, think on these things: (1) Know the Scriptures and apply them correctly to your life. (2) Keep your promises unless you have made a promise you shouldn’t have. If so, go to the person and explain why you aren’t doing what you said you would. (3) In tough situations, tell the truth. If you can’t tell the truth, don’t say anything. (4) Find the humor in life and hold on to what makes you laugh.
I’m still proud to be his daughter!
Out of Church Tales 