A telephone call came to Sr. Svenson from two ministers at Stavanger
requesting the two American evangelists to come to them. We accepted the
call and Sr. Svenson's daughter and Bro. Fjield went with us. How the
ministers came to locate us at Sr. Svenson's I never knew, as neither of us
had ever been at Stavanger. The names of the two ministers calling us were
Johnson and Jornsen of the Christian church. We called first at Brother
Johnson's where we were warmly welcomed. They told us that they had heard
of us and had been earnestly praying for the Lord to send us to them and
that they were glad we were there: "You are here in answer to prayer," they
said, and then opening a door into another room informed us that there was
our bedroom. They showed the dining room, saying, as they did so, "Anytime
that you are hungry, come here and eat." To all this kind welcoming my
response was, "This really seems to me to be like too much of an open door
in face of the fact that you do not know us nor do we know you, perhaps we
had better go in and have prayer together and some consultation about the
matter. After we had had prayer they related the following:
"We belong to the Christian Church; formerly there were two hundred members
of us or more, but two years ago a 'Tongues speaker,' an ex-Baptist
minister, came to this city and as he seemed to be earnest and sincere we
were sorry he was not getting a single opportunity to speak, so decided to
give him the privilege to speak once in our chapel, and that was once too
often! At the meeting, I [Bro. Johnson] was sitting on the platform with
him, and Brother Jornsen, who weighed two hundred and sixty pounds, was
standing in the aisle holding on to the back of a chair on which a man was
sitting, as the chapel was packed. After the preacher had spoken ten or
fifteen mintues seven women were lying on the floor in a trance.
"We took a stand against the spirit that was working and, talk about power!
The chapel wall on one side cracked (the evidence of which was still to be
seen)." Brother Jornsen said, "I took a stand against it with all my soul
but nevertheless my feet went from under me and I was thrown to the floor
and my jaws were just jabbering." "This continued eight days and nights
until we finally got the victory over it and the preacher took over two
hundred of the congregation with him, leaving us but nine persons, we two
ministers make the total number eleven. And if you go with us to the
service tonight there will be thirteen of us and we will have services,
Sunday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and" they added, "you must preach
only until nine o'clock, the services start at eight fifteen. Don't let any
women testify nor any pentecostals!
"Now," I said, "I will give you our proposition, we will go with you
tonight and tomorrow you can advertize in the two city daily papers that
two American evangelists are here to hold services every night including
Saturday and three services on Sunday, all next week until Friday and then
we will see how things go." "That will not do," they said, "No one will
come out Saturday night nor Monday or Tuesday nights." "Well," I said, "you
can let us have the key and if no one comes Brother Johnson and I can go
inside and have prayer. Upon this condition we can stay, and if not, we
will take our grips and go."
To which they replied, "You can't go, for the Lord has shown us that you
are to hold a meeting for us." The next night there were about two hundred
in the congregation and some ten minutes before nine o'clock eight persons
started to get ready to leave; I was still speaking, so paused and said,
"Just a minute, please: We have just come from Denmark where we preached as
long as the Lord would lead, until nine or ten o'clock. Now if you have to
go home you are welcome to go, but if it's simply your custom to leave a
meeting at a certain time whether or not the service is over, we are going
to pray the Lord to break up such a custom." Six of the persons sat down
again and two left. Saturday night the chapel was full and Sunday night
quite a number were saved. The meeting continued almost four weeks and
souls were getting saved right along.
One day we had a baptizing service between two boat houses in the North sea
and after I had baptized all the candidates, a fisherman, who owned one of
the boat houses, came out and asked me whether I would not baptize him. On
my inquiry as to his being saved, he told me this: "I was saved three years
ago but have never before met folks with whom I believed the Lord was
working, but today as I witnessed this service I was convinced that the
Holy Ghost was with you folks." I baptized him and never saw him again.
After that we were not allowed to baptize from the shore but had to take
the folks out in a boat and baptize them from a rock in the North sea.
Following that incident we were invited to a sea Captain's home, to be
there at 9:30, the next morning. The house was the most finely finished
house I had even been in. When we arrived in the morning we found it was
full of people of the upper class, the men with their silk hats and the
women equally distinctive in their dress. Some of the company were saved
and some fifteen more were saved that morning.
The lady of the house and her six sisters had a brother who was an old sea
captain and was sick. We were told he was an infidel and would have nothing
to do with preachers, that if any happened to come into his house he
ordered them out. His seven sisters were praying earnestly for him and they
felt that we could be a help to him. Their plan was to set a day when they
would all go and visit him and if the weather was fine we were to come by
and they would be on the porch talking to him. We were to pass along on the
other side of the street and when they saw us they were to call "Good
morning" and invite us over and introduce us to their brother, he was not
to know that we were preachers. The plan was successful and after talking
awhile Captain Parsons invited us into the house.
On coming into the room we noticed that the walls were hung with pictures
of ships, thirty-eight steamers. He said he had been seaman on each one of
them and captain on several. So he took us for a trip around the world.
Finally he came to the last one, a very large ship, but it looked, like a
rusty, broken-to-pieces tin can, its masts, smokestacks and bridges had
evidently been blown or swept off. We were awed by the sight and said,
"This looks bad." "Yes," he said, "that was the trying hour of my life, it
was in a typhoon off the coast of Sidney, Australia. This is how it looked
when we were towed in." Then I looked at my watch and found we had been
talking for two hours and feeling that it was time for us to leave I said
to him, "We are two ministers and generally when we make a call, before
leaving we sing, read some Scripture and have prayer. Would you grant us
that privilege here?" He said, "I see no reason why you should not do so."
We, accordingly, sang, read a Scripture lesson and had prayer, after which
we said to our host, "We have certainly had a pleasant visit and enjoyed
the trip around the world with you immensely, and now there is one sailing
trip left for you to take. For all these other trips no doubt you made
suitable preparation. What about this one; are you ready to meet your Maker
in peace?" "No," he said, "The Lord doesn't have such bad men as me." But
we told him that was just the kind He came to save. He said, "Boys, boys,
you don't know what bad men seamen are." We tried to talk to him, but to no
avail. So we thanked him and said Goodbye. As we left he said, "Boys, boys,
come back soon."
The next day we heard that he was poorly and the Board of Health had
ordered that no one shake hands with him as his case was not yet diagnosed.
We continued to visit him, instructing him and praying with him. On one of
these occasions on leaving him we both made a good mistake. We broke down
and wept. Morris speaking to me in English said, "I love this man's soul
like my own father's and wouldn't lay a straw in the way of his getting
saved; I would like to shake his hand, but may not." "As far as I am
concerned," I said, "I wouldn't be afraid to take his hand in both mine,
but for the sake of the public we cannot do it; but he is a man of
understanding, we will go and explain to him and I'm sure it will be all
right." Later, as we were leaving, he said, "Be sure to come back soon."
The next day I was called out to an Island and Brother Morris went over
alone to see him. He was up and apparently pretty well and he said to
Morris, "Young man, you had better speak English. I understand your English
better than I do your Norwegian." Now you can see that the mistake the day
before was a good one. That day he got gloriously saved and the next day he
was up and around happy and praising the Lord, at two o'clock in the
afternoon he lay down to rest and went home to glory. On account of his
salvation we were asked to speak to the students at the mission college.
Here at Stavanger a good congregation was raised up and Brother Mortensen
became pastor, he was a tailor by trade and also was the owner of a fine
clothing store. They got the chapel the revival was held in, in 1911, in
1922. I went through and they expected me to remain for a three weeks
meeting to preach on Church of God doctrine. I was supposed to be there on
Sunday, but did not arrive until Monday. They had advertised for three
services for Sunday, and between fifteen hundred and two thousand were
present for each service. I was unable to remain for the three weeks
meeting as I was traveling through on a special mission for the Missionary
Board and the boat left the next morning. Speaking of the truth, this would
have been the greatest opportunity that Norway will have for years to come
and perhaps ever.
Brother Mortensen said, "O how sad--this all happened because of a crooked
preacher that Brother Susag had to take back to America." Brother Mortensen
raised up a number of congregations on the West coast, and in 1937 the old
chapel at Stavanger was razed and a new and larger chapel was erected in
its place.
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