Audrey Wallace

I want to thank God for this wonderful salvation. The first time I ever heard this Gospel was not in a beautiful place or on the street, but I was in a dance hall where I had reveled many a night in sin.

These people had come 180 miles into our community down in southern Oregon just to hold meetings. They secured this hall, cleaned it up, and began to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was good news to that community. They put benches in there and they had a meeting. I attended that meeting with my folks and they enjoyed it and they accepted it, but I went the other way.

After my folks came into the Gospel, they moved a distance of 180 miles where they could be with this people. We boys told the folks to go ahead, but we would never move. God has ways that we cannot see. I’ll never cease to thank God that He does answer prayer.

My folks prayed for me and they told me what sin would do for me. I used to shake my head;  I thought the world owed me a good time and I thought I would find it.  I was a wayward young man in my younger days. I used to work around construction and in the sawmills and followed that life, far before I was of age. We would go into town and get drunk and do sinful things. My heart demanded reality and I thought sin was the only place to find it. I tell you in that life of sin I suffered, and many nights lying on those old bunks out in the camps I would say, “Surely the Lord has come and I am left to go through the tribulation.”

I wasn’t brought up that way. I had a godly mother that used to stand at the door when I had started out into a night of sin, and she would plead with me. But I would say, “Mother, the Gospel is all right for you and Dad, but not for me. I will have to seek my pleasures and happiness in the things of the world.”

My brother and I came out of the woods to visit the folks after they had moved to Medford. One night we were sitting in the car below the church waiting for my folks to come down and then we would go home. It seemed God let the things of the world fade from me that night and I stood, as it were, right in the presence of God. I said, “God, why can’t I have what they have been telling me about?” You know, God spoke to me seemingly in an audible voice; it couldn’t be more definite if it had been, and He said, “It all depends on you.” Me. I was the one that would have to give in. I had rebelled and gone a long way. A few nights later my brother and I walked up those stairs and sat in that meeting. We were about to go back to the woods, but there we were sitting with our togs – our pants chopped off halfway to our knees and our boots on – we were ready to go. God began to deal with me as I sat in that meeting. I sat way in the back, and I talked to God, and I said to myself and to God, “God, I am going to make the start tonight.” I was willing to do anything that night if only He would make Himself real to me.  I had a lot hanging over my head, but I wanted God’s salvation more than anything in all the world. As I sat there the testimonies went forth and the minister preached, and all the time I told God, “I am going to make the start tonight.”

I was willing to do anything that night if only He would make Himself real to me.

My brother was sitting by my side, and when they asked for hands for prayer, like they did in those days if you wanted to be prayed for, my hand went up. I wanted prayer, and just the moment I started to raise my hand up, you know that hand felt like it weighed a ton, but I got it up, but my brother went down the steps and out into the night. I said to God, “God, he can’t answer for me.  I am going to have to answer for myself.” When they started the altar call song, I stepped out in the aisle and started for the altar of prayer, and that old song broke loose down in my heart, “Lord, I am coming home. I am coming home.” As I prayed at that altar of prayer I told God I would give Him my life if He would just save me and give me the victory. The tobacco habit that I couldn’t master – and the drink – both left and I have never had a desire for them from that day to this.

That’s been a long time ago, about 54 years, but it is just as real tonight as it was that night I prayed and told God I would give Him my life if He would come and set me free. I can say I have the old-time religion. I had to go back over a lot of things and straighten them up. I had to leave that area over there one time for some stunt I had pulled, but you know I went back and I straightened it up. When God deals with you and you begin to make restitution, oh how good it feels, way down deep!

I haven’t had to go on a spree or to a dance hall or a card game from that day to this. I thank God I have been able to stand up and tell the world that Jesus saves. He didn’t make a fanatic or a sissy out of me. I used to think: How could I face the young folks I caroused with and tell them that God had saved me? But when God saved me that was the first thing I wanted to do. I have had the privilege of going back into that community where I was brought up, right into the schoolhouse where I received most of my education. There I could tell the boys whom I went to school with, and the older folks, what God had done for me. I thank God for such a mighty Gospel!”

Leroy Audrey Wallace was born in Moscow, Idaho, on April 15, 1907. The Wallace family later bought land near Lakeview, Oregon, where Audrey attended school until he left home to go to work. He was saved at the Apostolic Faith Church in Medford, Oregon, on January 17, 1929, and received his deeper spiritual experiences that same year. Early in his Christian walk, he felt a call to the ministry, and three years after being saved he preached his first sermon. He was ordained at the 1937 camp meeting. In 1941, he married Lena Ediger and they moved to Portland, Oregon where Audrey went to work full time for the church. Through the years, his responsibilities in the work of the Lord were many and varied. He was in charge of maintenance of the campground, led the first Young People’s meetings in Portland, was Sunday school superintendent for sixteen years, and also had charge of all jail, street, and home meetings. In 1965 he went to pastor the church in San Francisco. In later years he also pastored in Los Angeles, Port Angeles, and Honolulu, moving back to Portland in 1982. From 1948 until 1989, he served as a member of the Board of Trustees. He finished his earthly journey at 4:00 p.m. on June 8, 1989.