My pastor, who somehow sensed that my life there was po tential for God, came around one day and said, “ Elmer, would you consider taking one year at the Philadelphia College of the Bi ble?” I thought about it, but I was worried about what my old high school buddies would think if they found out I was studying the Bible. But my pastor didn’t give up. He came back again and said, “ Elmer, if you study the Bible, you don’t have to be a pas tor; you don’t have to be a Bible teacher; you don’t even have to be a missionary. Why don’t you just go to the Bible College and allow the Lord to lead you ?” This made sense, so I enrolled in Bible College. It was in 1947 that I had my first hospital experience. While I was in the hospital my body be came completely paralyzed. I was not able to shave. I was not able to feed myself. But through mir rors, and with the help of nurses and other ward help, I memor ized over 300 verses o f scripture. I saw three men try to commit suicide in the hospital, but the Word o f God sustained me. I was determined to walk again, and this I did with the help of Christ and a fine physician. In 1949, I graduated from the Philadelphia College of the Bible. The night I graduated I had to take eight aspirins to kill the pain so I could walk down the aisle with my class. I entered the hospital the sec ond time. After a number of months, I was released and I en tered the Reform Episcopal Sem inary. Because the pain was so great, I would sit on the steps and go from step to step to get to class. I did this for six weeks, but was forced back to the hospital in 1949 at which time I had to learn to walk again. In 1950 I heard about some special treatment at the Army- Navy General Hospital in Hot Springs, Arkansas. I flew 1300 miles to take these treatments. I was released several months lat-
in 1 i f l
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Mr. happen along with several students share personal testimonies on radio broadcasts.
M e an invalid ? It couldn’t be ! I had lived a happy care free life full of ambition. Then, in the twinkling of an eye, I was plunged into a period of invalid ism with all of its problems and discouragement. But life was not altogether a black tragedy. I had hope. I could endure because of the presence of a very dear Friend of mine, the Lord Jesus Christ. I did not always have this kind of faith, or a personal relation ship with Christ, although I came from a very religious family. My family took me to church from the time I was a baby. In 1934 tragedy struck our home. My fifteen-year-old sister went away to a summer Bible con ference. There she accepted Christ as her Lord and Saviour. One week later she was in her casket. Pneumonia had snuffed out her life without warning. “Absent from the body, present with the Lord.” When I was eighteen, I also accepted Christ personally at the same Bible conference where my
sister was saved. I had gone to church faithfully for years and listened to a godly pastor pro claim the gospel, but it just did not register until I was eighteen. As a friend of mine said, “ I heard it, and heard it, and then one day I heard it.” I graduated from high school during the beginning of World War II. I had not planned to go to college. In fact I had lived for just three things in high school: football, basketball and track. I lettered in all three sports and was privileged to run in the Penn sylvania relays during my high school athletic career. After high school I entered the army. Army life was interesting. I took it in stride. At the age of nineteen, I was a mess sergeant in charge of feeding 600 men. But after my first year in the army, I was injured in training, and in less than six months I was a victim of rheumatoid arthritis. Soon the same body that had run the Penn relays sat in a wheel chair without the use of hands or legs.
JANUARY, 1967
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