and household articles are donated for re-sale; proceeds help pay King’s Garden workers. (7) King’s Teens reaches over 2,000 teenagers in week day Bible clubs meeting in homes. The highlight of this work is the annual Valentine Banquet. Last year over 3000 attended, nearly 300 accepted Christ. (8) A Missions Department assists missionaries from many denominations with purchasing equipment, packing, free hospitality, arranging appointments. As Mike Martin considers the transformation of the delapidated and abandoned T.B. Sanitarium to its present operation manned by some 250 Christians dedicated to make their lives count for Christ, what is his reaction? “ It is the Lord’s doing” he says. “ God gets all the glory. I get scared when I think of anyone taking any of the glory. No sir. It all belongs to Him.” Who is this man whose child-like faith has asked so largely at the Lord’s hand and received so much? At the age of 27 he was a baptized church member, paralyzed and at death’s door, unsaved. Lying there, he realized that there was a heaven and a hell and that he was bound for hell. “ Lord, save me,” was his heart’s cry. The Lord replied, “ Alvin ( ‘Mike’ is just a nickname), if I save you, what will you do about it?” “ If you save me, I’ll serve You the rest of my life.” God wonderfully saved him and Mike got up from a sick bed to testify to his wife. Then he jumped into his car and drove to his mother’s to tell her the glad news that Jesus saves. He has been telling everyone the same thing ever since. However, he didn’t get into full-time Christian service at once. He became a successful business man, overseeing 130 stations for the Richfield Oil Com pany; then at the age of 37 he gave it up to attend the Simpson Bible Institute. He was older than the other students and studying came hard. One of the teachers said, “Mike, you’ll never make it. Better give up and quit school now.” Mike stuck it out. Martin, who is 52 and greying, laughs when he quotes Axel Fredeen, vice president of the King’s Incorporated Board. “Mike,” said Fredeen, “ God tells us in First Corinthians that He has chosen the foolish things of the world, the weak, the base, the despised to do His work. You’ve got all the qualifications.” It must be true. Witness another tense scene: Monday April 14, 1958 in the County-City Building in Seattle stood Mike Martin once more. The occasion? It was a sale at public auction of the property formerly known as the old Firlands TB Sanitarium. Weeks of prayer had preceded this moment. Improvements totaling a half a million dollars had made the property attractive to several organizations. Yet Mike and his fellow workers believed that God had given it to the King’s Garden. They prayed that there would be no other bidders. There weren’t! With his finger on the promise in Jeremiah 32:26,27,28a, which he calls the deed to the Garden, Mike responded to the call for bids with $1 above the starting bid of $ 100 , 000 . “ Going once,” said the auctioneer, “Going twice. Does anyone else want to bid? Are you all done? Sold to King’s Garden at $100,001.” A previous commitment of $37,500 to the Anti-Tuberculosis League for their reversionary interest made the total purchase price $137,501. The supporters of King’s Garden stood up and broke into song, “We’ll give all the glory to Jesus,” then “ Praise God from whom all blessings flow.” It was a great victory. Another modem miracle. Pray for the ministries of the King’s Garden. Its budget calls for $1600 a day. Approximately two-thirds of this amount is earned by rest-home, radio contracts, school
tuitions, the King’s Garden store and in many other ways. The rest comes as donations from interested friends. It is interdenominational and fundamental (workers represent some 40 denominations) and its motto is SERVING THE KING OF KINGS. “ I love people,” says Mike. “ I want to help them. Most of all I want to point them to the Saviour.” Mikes does just that. While the Garden workers carry on the activ ities, from sweeping the floors to announcing over the radio, the world beats a path to the door of Mike’s office. Those who have come out of that office with tear-stained faces, perhaps, but a smile on their faces and joy in their hearts in a new-found Saviour include a former radio and TV star (now singing regularly on KGDN) a professional gambler, a county commissioner, and many mixed-up kids from broken homes. Parents of those kids have come, too. Fearless, yet kind, Mike witnesses for his Lord. Around the world he is known as the man who dared to believe God. King’s Garden is proof of that. “ It’s not my doing,” says Mike Martin. “ It’s the Lord’s.” END. 11
AUGUST, 1959
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