Not far from Potosi there is a small town of about 300 people called Mineral Point. A handful of people were attending a tiny, run-down church with no pastor, and they asked me to come minister to them. They told me they didn’t have any money to pay me. I said, “I don’t want your money. I just want to help you.”
The first night I ministered, the people seemed cold and distant. I felt there was a spiritual wall between us. I prayed that night, “Lord, break down that wall. Whatever it takes, Lord, break it down.”
I didn’t know that the Lord was getting ready to do just that.
The next night I went out to my car to go to the meeting. I started the car up and then went back into the house to get my Bible. When I came out, I saw the car rolling down the hill toward a swamp below. Though it was getting dark, I ran stumbling through high weeds and brush, trying to catch up with that car.
I saw it heading for a tree. “Please, Lord, stop it on that tree!” But the car rolled right past the tree. I sure didn’t want it to end up in the swamp—it would be close to impossible to salvage from there. Another tree came in view. I prayed, “Oh, Lord, stop it on that tree,” but the car brushed right past the tree. I was running with all my strength, but I couldn’t get hold of the door. The car plunged into the swamp, and I watched it sink slowly, nose first, until only the back half of the car poked out of the tangle of weeds and mud.
I stood there, out of breath, scratched, my clothes torn, my car gone—and suddenly I began to laugh. A song came to my mind and I began to sing.
I’ll say Amen to Jesus,
Amen all the time,
It’s Amen when in sorrow,
It’s Amen rain or shine. . . .
I stayed by the swamp for about fifteen minutes praising the Lord, laughing, and singing.
An old couple up on a house on the hill saw the whole thing and they saw me laughing and praising the Lord. They were amazed. Word quickly got around that the preacher’s car had gotten wrecked but he was still praising Jesus. That night there were twice as many people in church, and the atmosphere was entirely different. “Brother Sadler’s car is wrecked, and we never saw a happier preacher,” they said. God had broken down the barrier between us and they trusted me.
I stayed there three months holding meetings nearly every night. I worked during the day cleaning up the church building—fixing, building, and painting it—and at night I held meetings. A spirit of trust and genuine caring replaced fear and bitterness. I became pastor of that church and traveled back and forth from Mineral Point to Bucyrus for the next five years.
I was preparing to leave for home after that first long stay in Mineral Point when Jackie called and read a letter that had come for me. It was from a fourteen-year-old girl in Sinking Spring, Pennsylvania.
“Brother Sadler, please come,” it read. “Come here because my father is an alcoholic and he need Jesus bad. Please come and pray for my father.”
The letter touched me, but I didn’t have enough money to get to Pennsylvania. The Lord had been teaching me to trust Him, however, and so I prayed. I felt the Lord’s approval to go to Sinking Spring to see this girl’s father. The insurance company had paid enough money for me to get another car, this time a ’52 Ford, and so I left Mineral Point with no money in my pocket, a tank full of gas, and a thousand miles ahead of me.
I couldn’t take the turnpike without any money because of the tolls, so through the mountains I went. As I drove, suddenly the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said, “Stop here.” I thought I had heard wrong and kept driving. Finally I knew that I had to obey the Holy Spirit. I turned around and went back to the spot He had told me to stop. When I got to the place, He spoke to me again and told me to take out my portable organ and set it up on the side of the road. I shrugged and set it up, even though I wanted to question Him. He spoke again and told me to play. I asked, “What shall I play, Lord?” He told me to play “Softly and Tenderly Jesus Is Calling.”
So there at the side of a mountain, with wilderness all around me, the sun high in the clear blue sky, I began to play. Cars went by, and I saw faces staring at me as though they were seeing things. I must have been a sight playing my pump organ and singing away in the weeds by the woods in the mountains. I didn’t care. I was just lifted up in the Holy Spirit and having a wonderful time. I sang all the verses to “Softly and Tenderly” over and over again. I waited for the Holy Spirit to tell me that was enough, or to sing something else, but I didn’t hear Him, so I kept on playing,
Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling,
Calling for you and for meeee . . .
I could hear the sound of my voice echoing in the mountains. I was sweating in the heat. The sun was high in the sky.
Come home, come home,
Calling O sinner, come hoooome . . .
The heat of the afternoon gave way to a nice breeze, and on I played. The same song, over and over. When evening began to fall, I was starting to get thirsty, but on I played.
Come home, come home,
Ye who are weary, come home;
Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling,
Calling, O sinner, come home!
Hearing something behind me, I thought it was a bear and I played even faster.
Comehome comehome, callingOsinnercomehome!
I turned around and saw a man with a young boy of about nine years. They were staring at me with wonder.
“We came closer so we could hear you,” the man called to me. “We’ve been listening since you started singing.” I hadn’t finished the hymn yet, so I continued singing as the man and boy stood listening.
Come home, come home,
Ye who are weary, come home;
Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling,
Calling, O sinner, come home!
The man’s face was flushed and tears were streaming down his cheeks. Then, through tears, he told me, “I was in the Korean War—overseas. I was in the front lines and I got shot. Bad. They rushed me to the hospital, and then they put me in the death room. I began to pray. I had Christian parents, and I knew they were home praying for me—” His voice broke.
“I made a vow there on my dying bed. ‘Heal me, Lord,’ I prayed. ‘Let me get home to America again, and I promise I’ll change my life and live for you all the days of my life.’” He wiped his face with the back of his hand. “The Lord healed me and brought me home—but I didn’t keep my promise. I’ve been living in these mountains—hiding out—trying to get away from God ever since.
“God sent you here,” he cried. “I can’t stand hearing, ‘Come home, come home, calling, O sinner, come home’ one minute longer!”
I stayed there with the man and his son for several hours. He took me to his cabin, where he fed me pemmican and rice, chokeberries, and hot apple tea. When I left him, he looked like a different man, at peace and restored to God. He told me he felt like he was let out of a cage. He wanted to call his wife and go home.
I got into my car that night praising God. I drove along humming to myself and thanking God for His tender mercies, and after a while I noticed that the fuel gauge was on empty. If the Lord wanted me to get to Pennsylvania, He’d have to take care of that. I was feeling sleepy, so I pulled over to the side of the road and fell asleep.
I woke early in the morning and started out again. The gas gauge still said E for empty. I reached the southern border of Illinois and driving through a small town I noticed a church at the side of the road that looked like a good place to stop for Sunday service. The sight of people streaming into a church was so good that I felt I just had to join them. I pulled over and went inside. The white pastor saw me and came over to give me a nice welcome. Discovering I was a minister, he asked me if I’d like to minister at the evening service. He invited me to Sunday dinner at his house, and what a feast it was. Pork roast, corn on the cob, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans and bacon, lemon-carrot Jell-O salad, icy glasses of milk, and banana cream pie for dessert.
�
�Sunday’s our big meal of the week,” the pastor’s wife explained, passing the biscuits. “It’s always nice to gather at the table and enjoy the Lord’s bounty on His day, isn’t that right, children?”
Three yellow-haired children said uh-huh.
That night I sang and played their piano and we carried on long after the service ordinarily ended. They took up a love offering for me, and I counted over one hundred dollars. I praised the Lord all the way to Sinking Spring, Pennsylvania.
The little girl was shocked to see me.
“But wasn’t it you sent me a letter astin me to come pray for your daddy?”
“Yessir, but I just never dreamed you’d actually show up!”
“Well. Here I be. The Lord sent me.”
She threw her arms around my neck and kissed me. “I was afraid you wouldn’t come, Brother Bob, but here you are!” I spent two days with her father, and he refused to see his need for God in his life. The girl’s mother invited some friends to the house, and we held meetings in their home in the evenings. I played my portable organ and sang. At the meetings four and five people came to the Lord each night. All except the father. He sat slumped half asleep against the wall.
I left Sinking Spring wondering exactly why God sent me there when the man I had gone to see wasn’t helped at all. I stopped the car and settled it with the Lord. I gave the situation completely to Him. “I don’t want Sadler’s way, Lord, I want your way.”
———
In 1955, about the time Dr. King led the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, Jackie got a good job as a housekeeper for a family named Pickings in Bucyrus. Mr. Pickings owned a company that made copper kettles. Shortly after Jackie began working for them, Mr. Pickings asked me to work for him too. We moved into the big house next door to his where his brother Wilfred was living. Our job was to care for both houses, the grounds, and Wilfred.
Wilfred was not right in his mind. He had been an opera singer, and some said he had studied too hard and it hurt his brain. He acted like he was fighting demons.
Mr. Pickings hadn’t been able to keep any help in that house because of Wilfred. He scared everybody away. We were the only ones who lasted. In time, we came to love Wilfred. He was an elderly man, big, tall, and fierce when he was angry.
He didn’t frighten us. He obeyed us as a child would his parents. I could tell him, “Wilfred, eat your carrots!” and he would obediently eat his carrots. When he was making too much noise, I would sternly tell him, “That’s enough of that, Wilfred!” and he would be quiet.
Wilfred obeyed Jackie pretty well, and his mind seemed to improve after we moved into the house so I felt at peace when I had to travel, leaving Jackie in charge. The Lord blessed her with wisdom and strength to take over.
———
In 1956 an incident occurred which was to have a lasting effect on my ministry. Jackie and I went to a meeting in Marion, Ohio, and there was a man from Seattle speaking and ministering the word of the Lord in prophecy. The spirit of discernment was working in him that night in tremendous power. The Lord was so near and sweet. I was sitting at the piano when suddenly the man pointed to me and said, “Come up here, brother. There is something you have need of, and the Lord wants to give it to you tonight.”
Feeling a little weak, I went to the front of the church. “Open your hands,” the man told me. I did as he said. He laid his hands on mine, and suddenly I opened my mouth and began to speak in a new language. It felt wonderful—not that there was any tingle or great surge of power in my vocal cords. I just opened my mouth and spoke in some language I never heard before.
I learned that what I experienced had been promised by Jesus to all believers in Acts chapter 1, where He said, “Wait for the promise of the Father . . . for John baptized with water, but before many days you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” I had read that Scripture many times before, but never really knew what it meant. If the disciples needed this special power, then I surely did.
I began experiencing the other gifts of the Holy Spirit. Discernment, for example. I seemed to know instinctively what a person needed. And the gift of wisdom—supernatural knowing. All feelings of self-doubt and God-doubt were gone from me. The Lord spoke to me in dreams and visions. I was on a new journey with Him.
I longed for Jackie to find this same beautiful closeness with the Lord. It was as though I had gone from the hem of His robe right into His arms.
It was four long years later that Jackie received the baptism in the Holy Spirit, too.
“Oh Robert, why did I wait so long to open my heart to this deeper walk with God?” she lamented. “Why have I always been such a skeptic?”
“Jackie, honey, God loves skeptics.”
36
In the autumn of 1956 the Lord spoke to me in a vision. I had just bought a new portable organ—I hadn’t even taken it out of the box yet. The Lord told me to go to Marion, Ohio. In the vision I saw a beer garden in front of me, and I saw me playing the organ. A white Christian couple we knew named Toni and Mike were with me. After I saw the vision, I immediately went to the telephone and called Mike. “Can you and your wife come with me to Marion now?” They were at our door in less than an hour.
We arrived in Marion, Ohio, and found the beer garden that I had seen in my vision. We parked the car and I took my new organ out of the box and set it up on the sidewalk in front of the beer garden. We began to sing right there, and it wasn’t long before the people began to gather around us.
We were playing, singing, and telling the people about the Lord and His love for them when a young woman burst out of the beer garden and stomped over to where we were. “You’re making a lot of racket!” she shouted at me. “What are you, religious freaks?”
I smiled at her and reached for her hand. Shaking it, I said, “How do you do? I’m Robert and these are my friends Toni and Mike.” She stared at me and said nothing. “Do you have a favorite hymn?” I asked her.
Her face crumpled. “Ohhh . . .”
I began playing “The Old Rugged Cross.”
“How did you know I like that song?”
She gave her heart to Jesus that day on the street in front of a dozen or so of her friends from the beer garden. “I’ve needed God in my life,” she cried. “I tried church and I tried reading the Bible, but I never knew I could get born again with God living inside me. I just didn’t know!”
Others gave their hearts to the Lord that day, too. I preached quiet, simple messages about the love of God. We passed out some literature, and then when it was time to go, everyone had left except the young woman. “I’m an alcoholic,” she confessed. “What shall I do?”
Toni and Mike offered to take her home with them to live. She was stunned and took them up on the offer. She stopped drinking and was delivered from alcoholism and eventually returned to Marion and got a good secretarial job at the Marion Steam Shovel Company. Today she is married, has a family, and teaches Sunday school. Jesus gave her a new life that afternoon in front of the beer garden.
———
People gave us boxes of used clothing and canned food, used toys, shoes, and small household items to take to needy families on my trips.
I packed up the car in November of 1956 with all the boxes that had piled up in our front room, kissed Jackie good-bye, and left for South Carolina.
“Lord,” I prayed, “you show me where you want me to go. You show me.”
I got into Clinton, South Carolina, around suppertime. I stopped at a restaurant and was looking out of the window when I saw a group of workers coming in across the field from picking cotton. My heart raced at the sight of them. It reminded me of my childhood on the Beal Plantation. I put my fork down, wiped off my mouth, and hurried outside to meet them.
The eyes of one of the women met mine, and her face froze. She looked oddly familiar. Suddenly the woman screamed and threw her hands in the air.
“Robert!” she screamed. “Robert Sadler!”
I stare
d at her. Then in a rush I recognized her. “Tennessee!” I hollered, my hands in the air. “Lord A’mighty! Tennessee!”
We threw ourselves into each other’s arms, laughing and crying. O Lord, Lord! “How’d you recognize me, Tennessee?”
“I been astin the Lord what ever happened to that chile in the Big House, that poor lil ole chile called Robert Sadler, and Lord a’mighty, here you be!”
I couldn’t look at her enough, drink in her face. It was Tennessee all right. Older, but still beautiful. We talked and shouted and cried at the same time. I was afraid to ask about John Henry. “John Henry! Is he—?”
“He’s in the store! That’s our restaurant,” she said, wiping her eyes. “We own that little store there.”
“But I was just in there eatin supper!”
“It’s John Henry be doin the cookin!”
I stayed with Tennessee and John Henry for a couple of days and even picked cotton with them. She introduced me to her children. Big strong sons, one light, one dark, both married and with babies of their own.
“Tennessee,” I teased, “you was one mean girl, yessuh, you was a mean one.”
Tennessee laughed. “You callin me mean? What about that Mary Webb? Now she be mean!”
We laughed. “She surely seem like she had no heart nohow.”
“But what about you, Tennessee?” I said, chuckling.
“Wal, I had to be mean, Robert. Them white devils woulda kilt me. But Jesus took the meanness outa me. I don’t hate Sam Beal, I don’t hate any of ’em. I feel sorry for em. I am happy and free in my heart—free and clear, praise God!”
“The way I sees it,” John Henry said over a spicy gumbo soup, “is the Lord have carried us this far, the Lord gonna carry us through to the end.”
They lived in a small wooden house behind the store, which John Henry had built himself. Though grey sprinkled through their hair and some extra weight was on their bodies, they were still filled with fire and drive. They had suffered more than many Negroes, and their love had survived the worst. What thrilled me the most was that they loved Jesus.
The Emancipation of Robert Sadler Page 23
