THE LEFT FOOT

THE LEFT FOOT

I wrote earlier about Mama and Papa receiving the left foot of fellowship from the Northern Baptist Convention in Roswell and the surrounding areas after they had embraced the Pentecostal teaching, and received the Baptism of the Holy Ghost.

Perhaps I didn't do the matter justice, by passing over it as lightly as I did.

After Freada's funeral, I was questioned extensively about the legacy which Papa and Mama had left for the Fretwell family. The Nieces and Nephews wanted to know more about the price my parents had paid for the blessings the family had enjoyed.

I never cease to thank God that my parents had the "guts" to walk on with God in the new light He had shed on their pathway.

Papa told me once of the meeting at Roswell Baptist in which the overseer (J. R. Haslam) who lived in Caldwell came down to "set the Church in order". The Pastor of Caldwell Baptist (Bro. Burchard) was also present, and after Bro. Haslam was finished with his business, called on Burchard to dismiss. Bro. Burchard, in his prayer, asked the Lord to forgive Haslam for what he had done. He had summarily dismissed all who would hold to the Pentecostal teaching and practice. Burchard was dismissed from Caldwell also.

Bro Cox, the Pastor of the Baptist Church, would come frequently and talk to Papa about what he had done. He would advise Papa to "stay with the Church, right or wrong". Papa would reply that his conscience wouldn't allow him to do that. Bro. Cox would warn Papa of the terrible effect it would have on his family-- the children would drift out of fellowship with the Lord, and their lives would be wasted. He would warn Papa that some of his precious daughters, who were "talking in tongues" would land in the insane asylum. He had better "straighten up and fly right" to ward off such an attack on his family.

Papa would thank him for his concern, but would firmly tell him that he could not afford to say "No" to what God had shown him.

It was not really hard for Papa to take such a stand, for he had done it before, more than once. His fear of God superceded any other fear he might have had. Some years prior to this test, a family named Gusman who lived in the Jordan Valley area, had tried to convince him that he should become an Adventist and keep the Sabbath. He told me when I was teenager that he had known that if the Gusmans were right, he would have to embrace the doctrine and practices they were espousing. As his custom was, he resorted to the Bible and prayer for guidance. After long poring over the Word, and prayer for an answer from the Lord, the Truth arose in his heart like the sun coming over the eastern hills of the Boise Valley. (Ee-da-how) God had given him His Judgment in the matter. It was closed. His family would not be Adventist. They would not keep the "Sabbath".

Somewhere along the line, Papa also had a brush with the Catholics, but I never did know what that entailed. It would be interesting to know about it, for that skirmish left him with some VERY strong feelings about the "Petticoat Dads" as he called them.

Papa was a preacher of sorts, and his "congregation" was a captive audience around the table three times a day, or whenever Papa had been thinking about that "Left Foot" episode in 1923 or 24. We didn't always appreciate his "sermons", but we tolerated them because of the "loaves and fishes". Perhaps more of it rubbed off onto us than we realized, for he and Mama raised a bunch of God-fearing kids before they had to "lay down the shovel and hoe", and go to meet their Maker.

The "Left Foot" episode polarized the Christian community of Roswell. Truth ALWAYS divides. TRUTH is extremely arbitrary. Jesus, the ULTIMATE TRUTH, said that He had come on the scene to bring division, rather than peace (lack of turmoil).

The Sparks family, along with the Carlisles, the Tunings, the Adams, the Sayres, and other families I can not recall, could not, or would not respond to the new Light of the Word of God. They stayed with the Church, and felt that the Fretwells, the Sullivans, the McCombers, the Stewarts, the Jenkins, the Kerfoots, the Cornwells, and others I can not recall, were doing wrong to hold on to their new religion, and not stay with the Church, be it right or wrong.

The latter group of people rented a lodge hall and started holding Sunday School. Horace Kerfoot was the Superintendent to start out with, and we had three or four different classes. Papa, as he had been accustomed to, was Bible Teacher. I don't remember who taught the class I was assigned to. It doesn't matter, for not much of it soaked in to my juvenile skull.

At least one family was divided right down the middle. Judd Stewart and his daughter Lucille stayed with the Church, while Mrs. Stewart and their son (I want to call him Raymond) came with the Woodman Hall group.

I don't recall anyone ever relating how the episode affected the Church group, for there was not much communication between the two groups. This was especially true of the older folks who had been forced to make a decision in their own lives at the time.

However, the CHILDREN of those family heads later became like most teens tend to be. They preferred a "pack" to being alone, and Church doctrine and practice was secondary, if not completely irrelevant. The result was that the Youth Group of the Church was later to be made up of teens from both camps, and became quite a large group.

God has no grandchildren. Each individual must establish his or her own relationship to God. This was to come later.

Pastors came and went at the Baptist Church as the years wore on. Most of them learned sooner or later, that it was not wise to mention the "Left Foot" episode, and wiser still to not try to do anything about it. It was history, unless you wanted to make something of it. One German man found out the hard way that it was better to "leave sleeping dogs lie." His tenure was quite short, but I don't know how nor by whom the eject lever was pulled.

After about fifteen years of struggling along with a Sunday School and a part time preacher, the folks were growing weary of making so little progress in the Woodman Hall. Paul and Dorothy Yadon had come to Parma and were trying to get a Pentecostal Church going. They had invited David Casper, who was Pastor of a church in Nampa to come hold a revival for them. During that Revival, the Spirit broke upon the congregation, and things started to happen. Mama and Papa started driving the ten miles each night to attend.

Mama phoned me where I was working for my room and $40.00 per month, to see if I would go with them. Not that night, but the next night. That would have been April 1, 1938. It would become a major turning point in my life.

The Lord put a portion of Himself into my body that night. He touched me with His Spirit, and I would never be the same again.

It was some time before the full extent of the change would make itself manifest in my life, for I had plenty of my own plans for my future life that had to be laid down if I was going to walk this new way. Like Saul of Tarsus on the Damascus road, I knew I had met my Master, and I would be calling him "Lord" from here on out.

The struggles of Mama and Papa to steer us kids into the right pathways had paid off. The whole family now had the Holy Ghost Baptism. The whole family was serving the Lord, and loving every minute of it. Many of the kids were either already in Ministry or were destined to be ministering in some capacity.

And Bro. Cox? He had died in the insane asylum a few years ago