I did not return to India. My life took a different course. Taking high school mathematics by correspondence, I prepared myself to enter nursing. Meanwhile I worked as an aide in the hospital. After the possibilities of achieving the status of a registered nurse faded, due to a health failure, I successfully completed the certified nurses' aide course and began working in this capacity in hospitals. As deep as my desire had been to become a nurse, and as much as I actually enjoyed nursing, there remained an unsatisfied feeling within. I yearned to be involved in the work of the Lord. At the same time I was aware of my inadequacy.Clara and I continued our correspondence throughout the years. Even after MacGowans returned to Canada, following their second five-year term in Africa, Clara's letters held great meaning for me. Many times I felt I could write things to Clara that no one else could understand. One time I received a letter from her, wherein she told how, when in prayer, she could feel so close to those she still so loved and longed for in Africa. This stirred within me a deep longing. Clara had discovered some deep secret I was searching for. Repeating the pattern set in the first year of my life, I arose and lunged forward with an urgent desire to attain that prize. I craved satisfaction in the inner seat of emotions. Clara had discovered the key. I must go to her. In 1967, working at that time in Calgary, I accumulated as many holiday days as possible, and bought a plane ticket for Ottawa. Clara and family met me at the airport. This was our first meeting since 1964, their second term in Africa. During those nineteen days, we spent as much time as possible together. We met in fellowship with a group of people of various denominational backgrounds, all of whose hearts were hungry for reality. The MacGowans, like myself, had discovered on the mission field that the generally accepted missionary methods had not met the needs. At home religious churchianity, fundamental and evangelical as it may be, was not answering the cry of the inner being. When mention was made of an experience called the "Baptism of the Holy Ghost," I remembered the old cautions I had heard issued: "Beware. That is fanaticism. You can get mixed up in wrong doctrine. You may even get a false spirit." However, I had at last come to the place where I knew that if baptism in the Holy Ghost was what would answer my heart's deepest longings, if it would bring me out into a new realm of communion with God, and give power to do the work of God, then that is what I must have. I opened the Scriptures afresh. One day, after spending several hours on my knees with the Bible open, Isaiah chapter fifty-five came alive before me. I felt I was ready at last. That being prayer meeting night, Clara and I ventured forty miles out into the country to attend. I purposed to receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost that very night. The car we drove in was an old one. Clara was a new driver at that time, and I could not drive at all. It was after midnight before we left to go home. Clara had patiently tarried with me until we were able to go home, rejoicing together. God had not disappointed me. He granted me the blessing and the joy of the baptism of the Holy Ghost. We had gone only a few miles when we found ourselves on a very lonely country road on a very dark night. Suddenly, with a great clatter and roar, part of the exhaust system fell off the car. Without tools or flashlight, or any mechanical know-how, we somehow, with the aid of a nail file and a piece of light rope, managed to attach the dangling appendage sufficiently to see us home—undaunted. Had the devil himself stood in the road that night, he could not have squelched that inner joy that was bubbling in my heart. In the week or more that remained before my return to my job in Calgary, those forty miles were traversed several times to fellowship with others who were drawn in like manner to that place. The room seemed to be permeated with an air of expectancy. The hovering presence of the Lord was what drew folks together in those days. Love flowed. One night late, while riding home with the MacGowans, I could not help exclaiming, "How could we be so blind for so long!" I felt that I had indeed found a priceless treasure. It again had been Clara who had made the discovery first. But it was well worth the two plane tickets, and the journey two thirds of the way across Canada, and back, to obtain for myself that pearl of great price. . . . . . . (Then, in 1975 Clara and Stanley, together, were snatched out into eternity.) I can never correspond with Clara again, nor hear her voice again. I keenly miss her. She taught me to walk, to run, to make friends, to think, to study, to sing. It was she who led me towards salvation, towards the mission field, towards a deeper walk with God. We shared joys and sorrows, tests and triumphs; yes, even troubles and failures. We did not always understand, but we always loved and always will, for love does not die. Someday--perhaps not too far away-- we will be together, never to part again. Then our love and our understanding will be perfected. © Evelyn Splane
|