complicated by war materials pri orities. But God had a way. On the teeming streets of that crowd ed city, Glenn ran into a naval officer with whom he had played tennis in the states. His name was Arthur Ashe, and his father had been Glenn’s pastor in Washing ton, 111. Now he was the attaché to Admiral Cook, commander of the 7th fleet, whose flagship was anchored there in the harbor. Through Officer Ashe, Glenn was introduced to the Admiral who invited him to dine with him that evening on the flagship. During the course o f the din ner, Glenn relates, “ The admiral asked if there was anything he could do for us. Immediately I thought o f those two Pocket Tes tament League Red Cross vans sitting on the Patung side. We did not know how many days or months it might be before we could get them across for their use in our campaigns. So I said, ‘Well, Admiral, we’ve got these two sound trucks and it’s hard to get any deliveries these days. In fact, we have Scriptures tied up a month already on this side of the Whangpoo River. Would it be possible for you to help us get these trucks and Scriptures to the main docks of Shanghai?’ He an swered, ‘I’ll do it!’ Within a few days, three LCM’s, each run by three navy men, were sent out— two to pick up the two trucks, and one to pick up the Scriptures. In no time at all we had the facili ties to carry on the ministry of the Pocket Testament League. This was the same Admiral Cook now serving in the Vietnam War.” All o f this, and much more flooded through Wagner’s mind, as he stood twenty-two years lat er on the dock in Saigon to meet the latest sound truck from the States. Those two trucks brought to China on the President Pierce had been the first such trucks ever used in a mass evangelism effort in the Far East. The new venture had proved highly effective and successful. When the PTL Teams had left China, the trucks were 17
COINCIDENCE or PROVIDENCE by *1. Edward Smith
Pocket Testament League Foreign Secretary, Glenn Wagner, on dock at Saigon Harbor, watching two ships that span 22 years of service in the PTL ministry of Scripture distribution and mass evangelization.
dence o f God, the Pocket Testa ment League was sent to pass the Word — the word of redemption and release. In May, 1946, the U.S.S. Presi dent Pierce steamed out of New York bound for Shanghai. On board were two Pocket Testament League sound trucks, large Red Cross vans purchased as war sur plus and converted for both sound-amplifying purposes and to serve as living quarters. They ar rived in June, 1946 and were un loaded, but on the wrong side of the Whangpoo River to be any use in Gospel work. Glenn Wagner, pioneering PTL work in the Far East, was there to receive the trucks, but was stymied on how to get them tran shipped across the river at a time when the normal confusion o f this great seaport was impossibly
What9s so unusual about two ships meeting nose-to- nose in their berths in a war-clogged harbor? Noth ing at all, unless one knows the storg sgmbolized in that encounter! I T’s A story spanning twenty- two years of crisis — years of great violence, much blood shed, and unbelievable change in the Far East. Yet they were years of unparalleled accomplishments and triumphs in Gospel distribu tion and evangelistic harvest. The settings for this story are two great cities of the Orient *— Shanghai and Saigon. Each in its time was a major war center for a life and death struggle; they were cities beleaguered and fights ing for their lives. Into each in its time o f crisis, and in the provi- JULY/AUGUST, 1969
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