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Eleanor Land Prince Albert, Saskatchewan Jesus
is the Answer I
was born into a very loving family in the town, Delisle, Saskatchewan. My
parents were farmers, as were my mother’s parents before her. Both my parents
and grandparents lived in the big house on that farm. I am the second oldest of
a family of six children, four girls and then two boys. When I was eight years
old my grandparents retired from the farm and moved into Saskatoon (a city about
thirty-five miles away) and later on my older sister, Lois, and I went to live
with them during the week so we could attend a near by high school.. While
we lived on the farm we seldom missed the opportunity to attend church. We would
travel the thirty-five miles to Saskatoon to attend a very small branch of the
Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
My grandparents had been converts to this faith and when my father
married my mother he also was converted to “the church.” The headquarters
for the RLDS church are in Independence, Missouri and being a VERY small
congregation we did not have a lot of contact with church leadership. We did
have an older gentleman by the name of Will Cornish (known to everyone as
“Uncle Will”) who would travel by train from town to town and then he would
walk around the area contacting the people and sharing his testimony. We would
always look forward to Uncle Will’s visits because he had some neat stories to
tell about his travels. After
my grandparents moved into Saskatoon my parents made sure we attended church
every Sunday that it was possible. I can remember on at least one occasion the
roads were next to impassable and, since we lived two and a half miles from the
main highway, it was dirt road for those two and a half miles, my parents
decided that we would go to church anyway. We had a hired man who worked and
lived on our farm and so Jake drove the tractor and dad drove the car. There
were many times when the tractor was on the road, towing the car, but the back
wheels of the car were in the ditch. We lost several fingernails before we
reached the paved road that took us the rest of the way into Saskatoon. The trip
home that evening was the same—Jake met us at the highway and towed us home.
We always ate dinner at my grandparent’s house, spent the afternoon there and
then went to the “evening preaching” service. This was the “normal”
Sunday for as long as I can remember. As
a child, seeing how important it was for my parents to get us to church made a
very definite impression me. I was never really tempted to do a lot of the
things many of the other kids my age were doing, such as drinking and smoking.
It was also against ALL rules, living in my grandparent’s home, to dance or
play cards. These were “the devil’s tools” and we were to have no part of
them. As a result, Lois and I didn’t have a lot of friends from school
consequently just about our only association with kids our own age was at the
youth meetings (Zion’s League) and youth rallies that were held a couple times
a year and youth camp and “reunion” (family camp) every summer.
I thought that the loneliness and empty feeling that haunted me all the
time was a result of what I considered “isolation as a result of our religious
beliefs.” Those feelings were always there, though, and no matter how many
people I was around or how much fun I was having I always had that devastating
lonely and empty feeling that I couldn’t explain or put into words. After
I finished high school I worked for a year and then decided to go to college.
Graceland College in Lamoni, Iowa is sponsored by the RLDS Church and so being a
“good” RLDS girl that was where I decided to go. I also thought that this
would be a very good place to meet my future husband, since it was considered
being weak in the faith to marry outside “the church”, and maybe if God
would provide a husband for me that would fill my void. So in August 1959 I left
for Graceland. I spent two years there and graduated with an Associates of Arts
degree in secretarial science. I made several good friends there but not the
“one special person in my life” that I was looking for who would make me
“feel whole” and get rid of that lonely and alone feeling that constantly
plagued me. After
graduation I went back to Saskatoon. I dated a few guys but none of them met my
religious and moral expectations. By fall 1963 I decided that I would move. The
only place I could think of to move to was Independence, Missouri (the church
headquarters). There I could be around lots of people who believed like I did
and I would be able to find that “special person” who would be the answer to
all my problems and then I wouldn’t feel so empty. So, I did the necessary
things to obtain my alien registration card so I could move to and work in the
United States and on June 4, 1964 I crossed the border and became a U.S.
resident. I
made several friends in Independence, most of them girls, and I attended all the
youth and church activities that I could—all in hopes of finding “mister
right.” I was continually praying that God would find someone for me in order
to fill that void that I felt in my life. It never occurred to me that the void
that I felt was because I didn’t know Jesus nor had I accepted Him as my
personal Savior. I had been taught that you cannot believe in being saved by
grace alone. If you believe in God,
Jesus and the Holy Ghost (the trinity) and if you work hard enough and live a
good enough life then, and only then, will God decide if you have salvation.
Other religions were wrong when they believed in being saved by grace alone,
even though that is what the Bible says. However, it also says “faith without
works is dead” so I must have to work in order to obtain that promised
salvation. In
October, 1965 I went to a youth meeting and while I was visiting with some of my
girl friends I felt something on my neck. I turned around to see what it was and
I came eye to eye with a young man I had gone to church camp with up in Canada.
Clyde had earlier moved to the United States and joined the U.S. army. He had
come to Independence to visit his mother who spent the winter months there where
she had several relatives. Needless to say I was very shocked to see him there
but learned that he had just returned from Germany and was leaving in a couple
of weeks to be stationed in Virginia. After
the meeting was over I offered to drive Clyde to his mother’s apartment that
was just across town. After arriving there we sat in the car and talked for a
long time. About 1:00 a.m. he became very quiet and so I asked him what he was
thinking and he proposed to me. Now, as I look back, it was God’s plan that I
accept his marriage proposal because after I said I would marry him I thought I
had totally lost my mind. Clyde both drank and smoked and he was not the type of
person I really had in mind for a life’s partner. However, God knew Clyde’s
heart and knew that he could and would change and be the servant that God wanted
him to be. Clyde
and I were married on March 26, 1966 and five months later he left to fight in
the Viet Nam war. During his tour of duty he was injured in a helicopter crash
that left him with fractured vertebrae in his neck and other back problems.
After he returned we were stationed in Georgia for eighteen months and then he
was discharged. While we lived in
Georgia we were faithful to the RLDS religion. There was no RLDS church in the
area but there were two other couples of that faith so we started one. I had
thought that being married to the man I loved would take care of the void in my
life. I continued to search for earthly ways to fill that void but nothing
helped. After
his discharge we moved to Independence, Missouri. Surely being back in the
“center place” would help me find the answers. We lived there until August,
1976 at which time God led us to Arizona, where we once again were faithful in
our service to Him. Many people in Independence thought we were being “weak in
the faith” moving from the “center place.” We were to “gather to Zion”
not move away from it. All this time I never felt fulfilled in my relationship
with God. It was like an old wound that would never heal—it just kept
bothering me. Because the Utah Mormon church was so prominent in Arizona I had
grown to the point that I was ashamed to tell people I was a member of the RLDS
church because I thought they would think I was a “Mormon” and I didn’t
want to be “one of them” because we all knew the Mormon church was a cult
and I knew our church wasn’t because we had been told, through Joseph Smith,
that we were the one and only true church on earth. They even added that all
others were “an abomination in the sight of God.” I sure couldn’t see that
because I couldn’t find anything in the Bible (when I read it, which was rare)
that agreed with that but that was what God had told Joseph Smith so it must be
true because he was God’s prophet in this day and age. Clyde was attending university in Arizona and after he graduated he was unable to find a good job. So we made the decision to move back to Independence if he could find one there. He did find one and in December, 1982 we moved back to the Independence area (back to the center place). We started attending church in Blue Springs, where we lived, but that wasn’t meeting our needs--we were still not being “fed spiritually.” During
this time I had gotten a job with the publishing house for the RLDS church. One
of my duties was to send a “mini bookstore” selection of books, etc. to the
summer camps (reunions) that were held during the summer months in about ninety
different locations in the United States. This meant that I had to read a lot of
the books, lots of them being authored by non-RLDS people. I was being exposed
to views that weren’t necessarily RLDS. I began to crave more and more for
something to fill that void that I still had in my chest. I found that Grace
Livingston Hill had written some novels that were both easy reading and talked a
lot about believing in Jesus as your personal Savior and being saved because He
had died on the cross for “me.” All of a sudden I wanted to hear more and
more about this. We had gotten to the point where we realized that we VERY
SELDOM heard Jesus’ name mentioned at the church where we attended and it
became more and more difficult to make ourselves go to hear “nothing” but a
lot of theological nothing. One day I was sharing with one of the girls I worked
with and she suggested we might be happy attending the Contemporary Christian
branch where she attended. We did and were surprised to learn that here they
talked about Jesus and we sang “praise songs” that spoke about taking Jesus
into your heart and letting him change your life and be your guide. All of a
sudden I couldn’t get enough of this kind of teaching. We
were quite content in the Contemporary Christian branch for several years but
finally we could see that “the church” was leaning more and more toward the
“New Age” beliefs and we didn’t agree with that. Our pastor’s brother
had been a church appointee but had left the church. This
brother had come to know Jesus and was teaching and preaching about Him. Our
pastor invited him to come into our congregation to teach a class on Spiritual
Renewal and we were completely thrilled with what we were hearing. For the first
time I could begin to feel that I could have a personal relationship with God
and Jesus—the kind I had hungered for all these years. I hadn’t realized
that my “void” was because I had never invited Jesus to be a “part of my
life.” He had always been someone I just believed in. Hearing
this good news and seeing the direction “the church” was going made me
receptive to some new ideas that were being brought out about what the RLDS
church (now Community of Christ) was really all about. Some friends of ours
shared with us about a couple of books that did a detailed breakdown of RLDS
beliefs versus what the Bible teaches. For the first time in my life I could see
that we had been mislead all these years. I wanted to be re-baptized because
when I was baptized, at age eight (the age “of accountability”) I was
baptized so I could partake of the communion and not because I had given my life
to Jesus and I was then confirmed a member of the RLDS church. Therefore I
needed baptism. So, on September1, 2001 Clyde, our son, Jared and I, along with
seven others were all baptized “to Jesus.” It was the most wonderful feeling
in the world. It was like someone had taken a huge weight off of my shoulders
and when that happened the void that I had felt for so long was filled.
It
was as a result of this decision that we felt that God was leading us to share
this new found freedom and truth in Canada. We weren’t quite sure how we were
going to do it but we knew this was God’s will for our lives. Most people
don’t move from a warmer climate to a colder one for retirement but this was
what God was asking us to do. Clyde retired from his job on February 1, 2002 but
I continued to work even though my job had become something that I hated. I had
never had a job that I really hated before but because of my moral and religious
beliefs it was becoming almost impossible to continue working for the firm where
I was employed. It was then that I realized that on September 20, 2002 I would
be old enough to take “early retirement” and leave my job. This opened the
doorway for us to be able to move and still have the necessary income to live
without becoming a burden on anyone. So, we started making plans in that
direction. The only thing we knew was that we were supposed to move to
Canada—but WHERE!! All we could
do was pray for direction and trust God to lead us. The
first weekend in September we were making a weekend trip to Branson, Missouri to
have a short vacation before the moving became serious. As we were driving along
I was praying for guidance as to where we should go. We had felt Saskatchewan
was the province, since most of my family lived here, but we didn’t know what
part. As I was praying it was impressed on me “Stop worrying about it—I have
it all taken care of.” My reaction was, “God, is that you telling me
this?” So I stopped praying.
However, typically me, further down the road I started praying again. Again,
“Stop worrying about it, I told you I have it all taken care of.” This time
I didn’t question who it was speaking to me. Three
weeks later, on my birthday, my sister Lois called me. Lois, her husband and
their son live in Paddockwood, Saskatchewan. She had called me to wish me a
happy birthday and while we talked we were discussing the move. She asked me
where we were going to be moving to and I told her I didn’t know but that God
had it all taken care of. I shared with her that we had always wanted to live on
an acreage but it was going to be up to God. I wasn’t sure if it was going to
be near Saskatoon, Prince Albert or even in Saskatchewan. Her comment was,
“I’ll keep my eyes open and see what’s available up in this area.” This
was on Friday evening and on Saturday morning we were going to be going to
Jefferson City to visit our son and daughter-in-law and their family. As we were
driving to Jefferson City Lois called on our cell phone to tell us about a house
for rent. It was on an acreage and it was about fifteen miles west of Prince
Albert. We ended up renting the house and on November 8, 2002 we crossed the
border into Saskatchewan. We have prayed for guidance and God continues to lead us in the direction He wants us to go. He has put people in our pathway who have been a blessing to us as we strive to do His will. He continues to open doors that only He can open and all we have to do is step through. I now have the assurance that He loves me so very much and instead of having that old empty feeling, I now have the knowledge that I am God’s child and He will always walk with me and carry me through those times when I need to be carried You can send Eleanor an email at landhouse@shaw.ca. |