Trinidad Triumph

 ON THE sixth of September, 1966, I landed on the beautiful island of Trinidad at the city of Port of Spain, little knowing the blessings that awaited me there. It is a modern city with all the physical conven­iences of big-city life ap­parent in other devel­oped areas of the world, and its peoples are a literate people with four colleges in the immediate vicinity. It is a progressive little island country with paved roads, adequate lighting, and an economy so sound that it permits the aver­age laborer to own some type of automobile. I remarked to one of my associates upon arriving there that if Trinidad and Tobago is a "developing country," my tent should be surrounded with bicycles instead of automobiles. And yet, on any given evening, to get to the meeting you would have to thread your way between a veritable sea of cars.

Religious Liberty

The government of Trinidad and Tobago has a religious liberty clause in its con­stitution, and the distinguished prime min­ister of this country, Dr. Eric Williams, takes this clause seriously, hence, religion is treated in this country on an equal basis, with no group receiving preferential privi­leges. Port of Spain is largely Catholic, and the Anglican religion is second in influence.

The city of Port of Spain holds no more than 180,000 people altogether, and the pop­ulation is largely heterogeneous in nature.

812 in 11 Weeks

Public evangelism has not been notably successful in this large area, which was one of the reasons that the division brethren had for scheduling this large field school here. Furthermore, the campaign was run during the height of the rainy season. These facts only served to demonstrate the magnitude of the Lord's power, for in a city where it was not likely to happen, 812 souls were baptized within an eleven-week period, and on the last night of the campaign an addi­tional 327 indicated their desire to become Seventh-day Adventists. The figures listed above refer only to those souls whose names were not on Seventh-day Adventist Church rolls. There were scores of others immersed who were moved by the Spirit's power to re­new their vows by baptism.

"One Accord" Spirit

Forty-six ministers from all over the Caribbean area were brought in for the field school aspects of the campaign. These faithful men committed themselves totally to the success of the campaign. This ac­counts in part for the divine favor conferred upon us. These men were housed together for a period of eleven weeks. Although dif­fering in background and culture the unanimity exhibited by the disciples prior to Pentecost was certainly evident among my fellow ministers. They met daily, Monday through Friday, for classwork from 9:00 to 11:00 A.m. Our workers' meeting ran from eleven until twelve or twelve-thirty. We then went to the tent to straighten it up for the night service. Dinner followed, after which the workers were sent out two by two to do personal work. After an afternoon of intensive visitation these men returned for supper and then made their way to the tent. For the next two hours they were on duty there.

On the last Sabbath of the campaign an enterprising young city laborer arrived on the tent grounds with a large bull­dozer, intent on mov­ing some earth during the time that we were to hold our Sabbath services. Now the mo­tor of the bulldozer could be heard at least two blocks away. He began his labor at seven o'clock. Sab­bath school was to begin promptly at nine-fifteen. He drove the bulldozer on one trip, removing some earth, and then turned to make another pass when suddenly there was an explosion in his engine like the sound of a rocket blasting off. This was a signal to the worker himself to blast off: We next saw him about five hours later furtively peering under the hood to see just what the trouble was with the engine. He reported to us that aside from a bearing being ruined there was no other general damage. It seemed to us that God must have taken a direct hand in this affair, altering the machinery that the gos­pel might be preached unhindered.

But the most remarkable victories were those that occurred within human hearts and lives. There were eleven marriages performed during a seven-week portion of the campaign. One or both of the contracting parties were getting ready for baptism into the Seventh-day Adventist Church. This is surely evidence of the deep movings of the Spirit. I think of the dear woman who came to me during one of my counseling periods and sat patiently while others moved in and out of the counseling room, and when it was her turn, this was her testimony: "I have been out of the Seventh-day Adventist Church for 38 years, and I was a very bitter apostate. I was baptized in the same bap­tism and by the same minister as Pastor Weithers who is now in the Caribbean Union. It was during your meetings that I became convinced again of the love of God and of the necessity of my renewing my cove­nant with Christ. You baptized me in your first baptismal service and I came today to thank you for showing me the way back home."

Bishop's Stewardess Baptized

Baptized also was the chief stewardess in the home of the Roman Catholic bishop of Trinidad. This woman provided all of his meals and supervised his household. She made her decision the night before the first baptism but was in deep perplexity as to how to break the news to him. We coun­seled her to be prepared for the second bap­tism a week hence. This would give her time not only to inform the bishop of her deci­sion but to make other plans with reference to her job. She worked the next Sabbath morning but rushed to the tent in the after­noon, testifying that it was the most miser­able day that she had spent in her life. The following Sunday morning she informed the bishop of her decision. His kindly words were, "Be sure and order enough food for the rest of the week, and may God bless you." We baptized this woman on the Sab­bath of the second baptism, and she is hap­pily rejoicing in the Lord. She was standing in front of the tent the night after her bap­tism, having no job, naturally wondering what the future held, when a large automo­bile rolled up in front of the tent and a European woman called her and asked her if she knew of anybody in that large audi­ence who would like to take a job in her home. Our sister immediately accepted the job herself and is now happily working for her new employer, with Sabbath privileges.

Baptized was the sister of the permanent secretary to the prime minister, and also a close friend of hers. These people come from the very highest strata of Trinidadian society, living in lovely homes, one of them with a three-car garage and three cars in the garage. I found the story of her friend very interesting.

Thirty Years of Dormancy

Thirty years ago she and a friend of hers took a vacation on one of the tiny islands in the Caribbean. An Adventist local elder happened to be running a laymen's cam­paign in the area, and out of curiosity these two women went down to hear him preach. They were fascinated by the Bible truths unfolded by this layman and after five weeks of attending were convinced that Sev­enth-day Adventists do indeed proclaim the truth of God. But environmental factors prevented their full acceptance of the mes­sage then, and for thirty years the seed of truth lay apparently dormant in their hearts, only to spring to life during our Port of Spain campaign. It was my privilege to baptize one of these women in the meeting there.

Demon Possession

A mother came to me in obvious distress one day. She was not and is not a member of our church, but I am confident that some­day she will join us. Her problem was that she had a son about 22 years old who was obviously demon possessed. He would sleep by day and pace the floor by night, threat­ening to kill everybody in the house and raising general havoc. This had gone on for years. She had had him examined by a psy­chiatrist, and it was determined that the boy was sane, the only other answer being that Lucifer would give his soul no rest. The young man had not been able to go to school or to hold a job. As a matter of fact, he told me in a later conversation that he had walked up to a store to go in and was sud­denly whirled around by a force stronger than himself and aimed away from the store. He, too, desired to be free from this evil power. We brought this young man to our class session one Monday morning, and the 46 ministers knelt around him in prayer. There were no visible manifestations of change in the room, no screaming devils emerged shrieking their defiance, nor was there any wild scene that normally accom­panies the expulsion of a demon, but there was evidence that on that morning Christ literally removed this evil power from that man's life as He did 1,900 years ago in ex­pelling demons from those so afflicted. The young man sleeps at night now, has taken a job, and at my last hearing was successfully holding it and doing well.

Spirit Manifestations

Another young man about 27 years old came to me one day in obvious distress. He had for one year been in conversation with a spirit power who communicated with him through his wife while she was asleep. It was a different voice from hers, he said, and it would awaken him at different hours of the night, ask him questions about himself, and give him counsel. In earlier years he had been quite a rowdy young man, but this power had spoken to him and told him that he should stop living that type of life, that he should be a kind husband to his wife and a good father to his children. It was this voice that had sobered him up, and now he was a self-respecting young man, holding down a job and doing well. But he heard my sermon on spiritualism and became disturbed as to the true identity of the voice that was talking to him. This is what occasioned his visit. I questioned him closely, first of all with reference to the na­ture of the counsel that this voice gave him, and at our first meeting everything that he quoted the voice as saying was above criti­cism. After all, it had corrected his life, it had given him guidance with reference to the kind treatment of his family, et cetera. However, I recognized that while the coun­sel given was Biblically sound, the method was obviously satanic, but the problem was how to pin it down and convince this young man with whom he was dealing. So I made another appointment with him. The second appointment was no more successful than the first, for as we probed deeper and deeper into the revelations being made to this young man, the counsel was above reproach. So I made yet a third appointment with him and this was indeed fortunate. He brought a typewritten sheet of a conversa­tion held with this power just the night before. In it he asked this power (1) "Is there a God in heaven?" The answer came, "Yes, there is." (2) "Are there three up there, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost?" The answer: "Yes, there are." (3) "What is the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost?" No answer. (4) "Is there a heaven and is there a hell?" Answer: "There is a heaven and a hell." (5) "When do the righteous go to heaven and the wicked to hell?" Answer: "At death the wicked go to hell immediately, but the righteous go to a place of purging and from there they will enter heaven." This was my first clue to the identity of this power, for now he was re­peating the same lie that he told in the beginning, which began the great rebellion of man against God. I gave my brother another study on the spirits of spiritualism, had prayer with him, and dismissed him. Apparently the requirements were too stiff for him to meet, and like the rich young ruler, he went away sorrowful. But the seed has been sown.

Larger Attendance After Sabbath Presentation

I have read in the biography of Dr. Wil­bur Chapman that he often preached with a prayer group stationed in a little room directly under the pulpit who prayed for him during the entire course of his sermon. In Port of Spain, Trinidad, we had the deaconesses and deacons from the various churches alternating in prayer in a certain section of the tent each night during the sermon itself. I literally experienced in my heart the renewing influence of the Holy Spirit on a night-to-night basis in the preaching of the Word, and at no time dur­ing the eleven-week program was there under 2,200 people in attendance. The at­tendance reached its peak on the concluding night with seven thousand present. We ex­perienced our largest attendence after the Sabbath was presented.

In Excess of $9,000

Prior to the meetings, during the make-up of the budget, it was anticipated that the offering income would be in the vicinity of $2,000. At the conclusion of the campaign the offerings were in excess of $9,000. This is indicative not only of the blessing of God on our campaign but of the financially affluent society in which our campaign was being operated. At this point I think it bears repeating that Port of Spain has no mission-type atmosphere but is a modern city with all the built-in inhibitions of the large cities of the most progressive nations of the earth. Therefore, the power of Christ and the gospel in attaining this victory can­not be minimized by any of the traditional reservations. My own conclusion is that given the right circumstances and the total cooperation that we found in Trinidad, this type of thing can probably happen in any of the large cities of the earth.

Thousands of Spectators

There were 199 Roman Catholics bap­tized in this campaign. Of the people bap­tized, 320 were over 30 years of age. One hundred and twenty-nine of them were be­tween the ages of 21 and 30. Two hundred and fifty-five of them were between the ages of 13 and 20, and 108 were between the ages of 10 and 12. The first baptism of itself was a thing of beauty. It took eleven buses to transport the baptismal candidates to the waterside. The baptism was held at a large beach front with adequate facilities for dressing, et cetera. The government officials were most solicitous in providing these facil­ities for our use. After the eleven o'clock service we had a review of the candidates just prior to entering the buses, and then this giant procession made its way through the city out to the lovely beach front where there must have been eight or nine thou­sand spectators. Brethren White and Thompson organized and supervised the baptismal service. Forty ministers entered the water, and forty candidates were taken into the water and out to the ministers who baptized the candidates for the next hour and a half, completing the baptism of 480 candidates in well under two hours.

The Cathedral Quartet of North America was with us for those baptismal services. Pastors Scales, Edgecombe, Shepperd, and Reeves, who worked with me for a period of five years across North America, were a real spiritual lift to us during this crucial period.

Trinidadians will never forget the serv­ices of C. L. Brooks, educational secretary of the Allegheny Conference, who spent two weeks in the early stages of our cam­paign and completely captured the hearts of our listeners. Long after these brethren had departed the campaign, we played the tapes of their music to the obvious delight of our audience, and on the last evening, adding a touch of nostalgia to the closing, as I stood signing autographs for an hour and a half after the benediction, the music of the quartet and of Pastor Brooks rang out over the neighborhood in a fitting bene­diction and testimonial to the glory and power of God and the strength of the gos­pel in the twilight hours of the history of man.