ALONE WITH GOD------

H.C. Heffren Story

Taken from…Voices of the Pioneers
Written by his daughter…Gladys Heffren Krueger

In reading the manuscript of VOICES OF THE PIONEERS, I feel that the history of the early days of the Church of God work in Western Canada requires some reference to the contribution of Henry Charles Heffren. While he is still contemporary, his ministry began in the early days of the work. Since I am well acquainted with both the man and his efforts in the church, I have asked permission to add this chapter. It will be a partial biography of my dad and his ministry.

Dad was born in 1905 in Stratton, Ontario. His father was also born in Ontario and his mother was born in London, England. They homesteaded in the dense bush country of the Rainy River District. The family worked hard but did not stay on the homestead. After a series of moves they finally settled in Alberta in 1916 about twenty miles east of Wainwright.

In spite of the many moves, Dad managed to get through Grade Eight at age thirteen. At that time this was considered to be a fairly adequate education and it was nearly the end of the classroom for Dad. However, since it was necessary to go to Chauvin to write the departmental exams, arrangements were made for him to stay with the local doctor who also operated a large farm. A July frost had ruined most of the crops in 1918, so the doctor wondered if Dad might come and do the farm chores in exchange for a chance to attend high school. He accepted the offer and was soon started on two more years of education.

The chores included milking five cows, looking after eleven calves, eight colts, some horses kept for driving, and some thirty-five head of range cattle that had to be fed and watered each day. There were pigs and chickens besides. By working hard after school it was possible to finish by nine o'clock. It didn't leave much time for homework or play and he only received five dollars a month in pay. However, he says the education was worth every bit of what it cost in work.

During his second year in Chauvin another epidemic of Spanish Influenza broke out. One Sunday in February a phone call came telling Dad to return home at once because his mother was very ill with the 'flu. Four days later she went into a coma and died on February 20, 1920. Since all public gatherings were prohibited, her own six sons were the pall- bearers and only two other neighbors were present at the funeral.

Dad always spoke highly of his mother and said she did her best to teach her family of seven children to be honest, honorable and upright, even though they lived too far from a church to attend one regularly. Since home was never the same after his mother was gone, he never did return to it to live. Because there was no more opportunity to return to high school, he went to Edmonton that fall.

His ambition then was to become a station agent; to qualify for the job, he took up shorthand and typing at the McTavish Business College. Four months later he left the college penniless and jobless. He went into every place of business between 101st Street and 98th Street on Jasper Avenue asking for employment. He was, finally hired by the Northern Hardware Company as a sales clerk. The wages were twelve dollars a week; board and room cost seven dollars.

One day while riding in a streetcar he noticed a sign in the front of the car. It read, "Salvation for the Sinner; Sanctification for the Believer; Divine Healing for the Body." A South Edmonton address was given. It was particularly the divine healing that appealed to Dad and he decided to find out who these unusual people were. Although his mother had hoped Dad would some day be a minister, he had never shown any interest in religion up to that time.

The meeting-house turned out to be a large and rather dilapidated room above a meat market on Whyte Avenue. An Assembly was in progress with various speakers taking part. The group was small and everything was very strange. When they sang, one of the leaders struck a tuning fork, after which all joined heartily in the singing although, as Dad recalls, they were not always on the same note. The main speaker was Seward E. McKenny whom he remembers as a man who spoke with fiery enthusiasm and the ability to use many verses of Scripture. His listeners frequently responded with loud "Amens" as he brought the messages.

Next evening, Dad returned taking several friends with him. He cannot recall anything the speaker said, but when the altar call was given he said to the boy beside him, "If you go, I will." Without hesitation, both went down the aisle together and prayed for forgiveness. Dad says that for him the experience was difficult to describe. There was nothing sensational or dramatic in what took place, but there was a deep sense of having become a child of God and feeling clean and light within. However, there was no thought of joining the church or becoming involved in church work then. Later on, a talk with Brother McKenny changed his attitude and Dad decided to definitely affiliate with the Church of God people. Soon after that, he felt a definite call to the ministry.

Not long after Dad's conversion, Brother McKenny left Edmonton and took up a homestead at Rocky Rapids. Those who remained faithful to the church consisted for the most part of the Delbert Combs family and a few friends who usually met in their home or at the Alex Farquharson home. Dad, who was a very new Christian, usually presided over these gatherings. Most of the group joined in the singing, testimonies, and prayers, but often it was Dad who gave a brief talk.

Almost a year was spent in this way before the Millensifers arrived in the fall of 1922 to assume the leadership. Grandpa Millensifer first rented a vacant church building and immediately began making plans to build a new church. When his time was increasingly required to visit congregations and isolated people across the field, he frequently left Dad to take care of the services. It was valuable apprenticeship. As time went by, Dad began to notice Florence Millensifer and a romance developed. He had to wait three years until she was nineteen, but in 1927 they were married. It was a wise choice Dad made, for Mom has been a real helpmeet to him.

Although Dad worked the first years after their marriage (part of that time was spent in the oil fields at Turner Valley) he had dedicated himself to enter the ministry at the first opportunity. His first pastorate began in April 1931 at Wildwood, Alberta and lasted three years. From stories I have heard of these early years, the town was aptly names. But one thing was certain: Sunday-School was a great success and Christmas concerts brought in an audience from the entire area.

In 1934 the congregation at Provost extended a call for the folks to become their pastors. It must have been a wonderful experience, for the personal ties made there have been warm and enduring. During those depression years in Provost it was a difficult time financially for the farming community as many of their fields swirled away in clouds of dust. However, the spiritual life flourished.

A weekly Bible class for youth was organized and held each Wednesday from 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 P.m. There was time to practice singing and most of the students took part in giving brief talks, but the main interest was simply in Bible Study. Many of those students went on for further training and have since given valuable service in the ministry. Members of that class include one who is a missionary, and others who have become school Teachers. Not only were the classes profitable to the students, however, the experience was the seed which eventually grew to bear fruit as Dad's Bible Lovers' Correspondence School.

Due to the seemingly endless drought, there was a mass migration from Provost starting in 1937. The folks had to move too, but had no idea where to go. However, this uncertainty turned out to be a blessing in disguise and resulted in a complete change in Dad's ministry. He decided to advertise for revival meetings in a farm newspaper.

The Western Producer had a wide circulation and rates were moderate. The ad read: "Christian convert! Is your neighbor saved? Why not call an evangelist and hold meetings in your community?" The ad appeared in six consecutive editions at a cost of $3.65. While the cost was nominal, the results were far-reaching.

Replies came from strangers in widely scattered points across the prairies. Dad visited or wrote each of the respondents, and arranged for a meeting to be held in the local schoolhouse at Dafor, Saskatchewan. The Saskatchewan Mission Board loaned him a tent and a local professed atheist loaned him a camp cot. A can opener and one spoon took care of the meals for a week.

There were sixteen people out to one of the first meetings. After proclaiming the gospel story, the question was asked, "Will all who wish to get saved please put up your hands." Fifteen people put up their hands. Thinking they did not understand, Dad went on, "Will all those who do not wish to get saved tonight, please go home." Only one left. An unforgettable prayer meeting followed. According to Dad, if nothing more resulted from the ad than what took place at Dafoe, and later at neighboring Raymore, it more than justified the advertising experiment. Dad and Mom moved to that community and spent the winter months teaching and preaching there. The next fall they accepted a call to pastor the church at Plum Coulee, Manitoba.

While the folks were in Plum Coulee they started a weekly radio broadcast over CKRC Winnipeg. Dad gives most of the credit for this venture to Grandpa Millensifer. Not only did he strongly urge him to try this ministry, however, he provided funds to pay for the first one and one-half months. At the end of three years in Plum Coulee, the folks had their next real test of faith.

Dad says that God's call to Winnipeg was as real as if a person commanded him to go. But it was not without a struggle that he agreed to obey. He relates it this way:

"First I was asked, "Are you preaching for the money?" To this question it was not very difficult to reply, 'No,' although it did require some soul-searching. Next I was asked, 'Are you willing to trust Me?' This was harder to reply to than it appears because in some inward way I cannot explain, I knew it meant the loss of income from the pastorate at Plum Coulee. But after a struggle I replied, 'Yes.' The third question was immediate. 'Will you trust Me and go to Winnipeg?' This was the hardest of all. We had no home there and we were almost without funds. We knew very few people in Winnipeg, and there was absolutely no promise or prospect of support. Nevertheless, there could be no mistaking the clear definite call of God. There could only be one answer, and it was a final 'Yes.' When the last commitment was made, I was filled with a sense of joyous relief and a flood of peace and happiness filled my soul. This all took place as I was walking down a country road one winter day communing with God."

For the next seven years they lived in Winnipeg without ever knowing how their financial needs would be supplied. But they always were. It was a miracle of God meeting all needs.

While in Winnipeg Dad expanded his radio program by taking on additional outlets at Kenora, Ontario, and at various later periods he took time on Yorkton, Regina and Saskatonn, Saskatchewan. Messages were dialogues between Mom and Dad. They were well received and the interest that was shown led to the next step.

Dad wanted to provide some kind of a more permanent contact with listeners who wrote in. While thinking about ways to bridge this gap, he received a letter from Lloyd Kreutzweiser of Saskatoon. It told of a religious broadcast, which claimed to have fifty thousand students taking Correspondence Bible Studies offered to listeners. A short note with the clipping read, "Why can't we do something like this?" Dad responded by writing a series of lessons, which he called THE RADIO BIBLE COURSE. Brother Kreutzweiser volunteered to mimeograph the first edition for which more than four hundred listeners wrote during the first year.

When students finished the first Course they often asked if others were available. Dad later wrote MISSION OF THE MESSIAH, THE SIGN OF HIS COMING, and THINGS WHICH BECOME SOUND DOCTRINE. He also wrote a book of parables. In the intervening years the Courses have been offered on the free will offering basis. Results have been thrilling. There have been students throughout Canada and the United States as well as other countries. Some translations have been made into German, Swedish, Spanish, Malayalam, Arabic and Danish. One man in the United States helped translate them into Swedish and then went to Sweden to distribute them.

Students include housewives, ministers, doctors, penitentiary inmates and foreign government officials. Since the start, more than eighty thousand copies have been printed. Seldom, if ever, was the money on hand to pay for the printing when the orders were given, but it was there when the bills came due. Dad's first experience with a professional publisher will illustrate the miraculous way in which God provided. The bill for printing two thousand copies of RADIO BIBLE COURSE was $154.00. At the same time there was a payment for radio coming due. In addition to these, they still had their personal needs, for the folks had two children at that time, and they had no guaranteed salary. Funds were almost gone and for three weeks the biggest contribution any day in the mail was three dollars. It seemed so hopeless, that Dad decided to call on some friends in the country, in the hope that they would donate assistance. However, God seemed to rebuke him for being so impatient, so he left the bus depot without buying a ticket and went instead to the radio station. Here he found a letter enclosing fifteen dollars.

Next he stopped at the printer who told him the order was ready for delivery. He picked up the bill of $154.00. Still wondering where the money would come from to pay for the books, he told the printer to send the shipment up to the house the next day. Then he continued walking the four and one-half miles home--at this time Dad did not own a car; not even a bicycle. When he reached the house he opened the mail and found a total of one hundred and twenty-two dollars enclosed. The books were paid for on arrival and by the end of the month, all other obligations were met. Accounts of this nature are profoundly thrilling, as they illustrate what God can do through people who obey Him and are willing to trust Him.

It was about this time that Dad, along with others, became greatly concerned over the fact that our church in Western Canada had not sent any missionaries to the foreign field. There was also a corresponding lack of growth on the field where many large cities still had no Church of God congregation. The church was lacking both in missionary candidates and in an organization to send them. Alberta and Saskatchewan had Home Missionary Boards, but these gave only token support to worthy causes within the provincial limits. A Western Canadian Board of church Extension and Home Missions had been organized for several years, but since it had no funds or budget, it was ineffective. At one ministers meeting the chairman of this Mission Board made a motion to dissolve it because it existed in name only. Dad protested so vigorously that the Assembly defeated the motion and elected him as the new chairman. It was a decision, which had a profound effect on Dad's personal life as well as on the church as a whole.

The Saskatchewan and the Alberta Home Mission Boards soon dissolved and turned their funds over to the renovated Canadian Home and Foreign Missionary Board, as it was then called.

In the year 1942, Rev. I. K. Dawson from the board of church Extension at Anderson, Indiana, attended the Camp meeting in Camrose. He suggested that the Board set up a budget, name specific goals, and seek ways to meet them. Every phase of the church's program benefited in some way from the budget. At the top of the list was two thousand dollars for Foreign Missions. When completed the total budget amounted to seven thousand dollars. This seemed a staggering sum for a church that had never previously raised more than seven hundred dollars in one year for its general causes. But by the end of the year the amount actually subscribed was close to ten thousand dollars! From that time forward the Mission Board has been a vital part of the outreach of the church.

With the first budget came the start of our overseas missions. Irene Engst, who came from a farm home near Provost, Alberta, heard the missionary call, while still a girl attending elementary school. It never left her. She graduated from Alberta Bible Institute, but was not accepted by the Missionary Board at Anderson. She persevered and took nurse's training in tropical diseases at a school in Toronto. At this point, Dad wrote to Adam Miller, Executive Secretary of the Missionary Board at Anderson, to ask if Irene could come for an interview. He stated that the Canadian Board agreed to support her for further training, if necessary, and to underwrite her salary on the mission field. Brother Miller's reply was an enthusiastic, "Bring her down." After that, the rest was easy.

Two years later Lydia Hansen was also accepted as a missionary candidate. The entire church has been justly proud of the contribution, which they have made to the missionary cause.

Today a fine group of missionaries serving abroad are from Canada. The Canadian Board of Missions has had an active part in training and supporting them while they extend the wonderful truth of the Gospel to people overseas.

The growth of the Board work brought additional responsibilities to Dad. It became more and more time consuming and its administration demanded increasing travel. In 1948 he received an urgent call to accept the pastorate at Saskatoon, following the death of John Tjart. He accepted this call and for three years he pastored the congregation and continued to give leadership to the Board. During this time, It became his responsibility to edit our field paper, THE GOSPEL CONTACT. At the end of these three years, it became apparent that the Board work was no longer a part time job.

In 1951 Dad resigned his pastorate in Saskatoon, in order to give full time to the Board work. He found the work challenging and he enjoyed the contacts with others concerned about the work of the church. Often he made visits to isolated families. Because he had to travel a great deal during these years, the care of the family was often left to Mom. The extensive absences from home and the family were a high price to pay and only the assurance that it was the will of God, made it endurable. During the last five years on the Board, he averaged some forty thousand miles a year by bus, car or by train.

The Board work was not without frustrations. While it had grown, it still did not have enough money to meet new opportunities for growth. During a visit with Sheldon Millensifer, Dad discussed this problem and wondered what could be done about this constant lack of funds. Sheldon replied that it could be solved if everyone in the church would take out a life insurance policy and make the church the beneficiary. While Dad modified the original idea, this suggestion was the one that started the Memorial Fund.

The purpose of the Memorial Fund is to provide capital for building or buying church property. This is not spent, but rather is loaned at a moderate rate of interest and used over and over. When the original donor dies his contribution becomes his "memorial" and it continues to work for God and the church. The contribution is small enough, that anyone can participate, yet, anyone who wishes to give more, may do so. Twelve dollars a year is the basic donation, and each year it is due on the birth date of the donor.

Dad put in the first twelve dollars as a minister; Gabriel Adam of Regina paid the first twelve dollars as a layman. During the first year more than three hundred persons subscribed. Almost all our churches have at one time or another used the funds and most of the new works, are the result of this plan providing the money to begin their building projects. Today this fund has grown to more than one hundred thousand dollars in capital funds, with an additional fifty thousand dollars loaned to the Board to administer in building projects.

Dad resigned as Executive Chairman of the board in 1963. Rev. A. D. Semrau, who had long associated as a member of the Board and who was pastor at Camrose at the time, succeeded him as Executive Secretary on the Mission Board. At that time, Dad accepted a call to pastor at Medicine Hat. While there, he began publishing Midway Manna, a weekly bulletin with news items and devotional thoughts. After three years there, he still felt the challenge to a mission work and spent the next two years of service in Swan Hills, which he found to be a rewarding experience.

Presently he is 'semi-retired." He is now able to again devote time to his Correspondence School, and to writing. It has been an exciting life of service, and he will always be interested in extending the work of the Kingdom of God. So many of the personal highlights have had to be omitted from this account, but the following excerpt from his writings sums up his life of faith and dedication.

"Who puts the idea into the mind of someone hundreds of miles away to send the exact amount of money needed, on the very day it is required? Accident? Or coincidence? How can you account for being able to live for seven years in a large city like Winnipeg, without a salary or the backing of any congregation or Board and have your needs met as regularly as if you were on a payroll?

When an order was given to print fifteen thousand copies of SIGN OF HIS COMING, the quotation given was Fifteen Hundred Dollars. At the time, only a pittance was in the bank. When the printer gave notice that the shipment was ready, less than half the money was on hand. One week later the shipment arrived, but over Eight Hundred Dollars came in the mail and from personal friends during that particular week. The printer was paid and the funds practically ceased to come forthwith. How do you account for incidents like that year after year?

A gospel worker in British Guiana wrote and told me he believed God would supply him with a much-needed bicycle through me. I felt the request was valid and told him to send me the price and make arrangements to purchase one. He wrote that it would cost Eighty Dollars. A few days later an envelope came enclosing four Twenty Dollar bills wrapped in a double sheet of writing paper on which the words were written, "Let not your right hand know what your left hand doeth." To this day I do not know who the donor was, but I do know God is a wonderful "Bookkeeper and Accountant.," Only the goodness of an all-wise and all-knowing God can adequately explain it, attesting the certainty of Paul's statement, "My God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus." Phil. 4:19.

This miracle of how God can supply one's needs ought to be re-learned and put into greater practice by His children. The idea that we cannot go into a strange new place without backing is absolutely true if we only rely on man's backing. But if God calls anyone to go on His errands, He will provide for his needs. It is not wrong to be businesslike in God's work. There is a place for Boards and Committee and budgets. But these are tools, and as such, they must not limit God to the narrow confines of these channels.

God's work is bigger than budgets or Boards. He may work through such instruments, but He can work beyond them too. Our faith must be greater than our tools, and must rely on God rather than the tools He uses. The pioneers may have made mistakes, but they demonstrated one common quality of trust in God. When we go into more new places, witness more souls being saved, build more new churches in the same length of time, and when we can witness more people definitely and miraculously healed, then and only then, can we say they were wrong or weak. Until then, we are in their debt. Like the Apostle Paul we must confess, "I am debtor."

With all the modern conveniences and good homes, comfortable and powerful cars, ample money and support, we ought to do more than the pioneers. The question that often nags us is, "Are we?" The answer we give to that question will determine the influence and growth of the church tomorrow.