Daniel Trzil

Joseph Trzil and his wife, Anna, were Christians who lived in Czechoslovakia. Joseph was a farmer, and as he stood in his field one day, God showed him an image of the hammer and sickle of Communism in the sky. He immediately began preparations to bring his family to America. It was the early 1900’s when the Trzil family came to America and settled in Pennsylvania. The family increased to six children on March 27, 1913 when Dan Trzil and his twin sister, Margaret, were born. One more child would follow within two years bringing the total to seven. The names of the seven children are: Mary Trzil(Scow), Eveleen Trzil, Louise Trzil (Hurita), Joseph Trzil, Daniel Trzil, Margaret Trzil (Schestak), and Lydia Trzil(Baxter).

Several years after the twins were born, the family received an Apostolic Faith paper in the mail. It was printed in the Czech language. What they read in that publication appealed to their hungry hearts. At that time there were three Trzil-related families living in the same area. God laid it on their hearts to sell their farms and move to Portland, Oregon, where the full Gospel was preached. So, in a blizzard in January 1920, the families—twenty one persons in all: six adults and fifteen young children—were taken to the train depot in a sleigh. The journey to Portland was long and arduous. The men in the families began to be discouraged as they traveled through the Rocky Mountains. They were farmers and the rugged mountains did not look like good farmland. The wives, however, convinced their husbands that they were not going to Portland for earthly gain, but rather for spiritual riches.

In Portland, Daniel attended Glenhaven Elementary School through the eighth grade and then attended Benson High School, graduating in 1932. He took a course in sheet metal at Benson, and that became his life work. He tried to enlist in the military but was refused for medical reasons (he had asthma from childhood). He then went to work at Columbia Aircraft Industries.

Dan did not become a Christian for several years though he chose his friends carefully and didn’t smoke cigarettes or drink liquor, because he knew he would have to answer to God for his actions eventually. Finally his parents’ prayers were answered. At the age of twenty-four, in 1937, on a Tuesday evening at 10 o’clock, he “counted the cost.” And as he would say later, “When God saved me, He did a good job!” Dan went on to receive his sanctification and the baptism of the Holy Ghost. His greatest joy after that was to be busy in the Lord’s work.

Dan married Doris Wallace on February 14, 1942 and they served God together for twenty-six years. In 1945 a daughter was born into the family and in 1948 Dan felt called to move his family to Eureka, California. He went to help in the church there in whatever capacity he was needed: Sunday school teacher, canvassing neighborhoods, inviting people to church, singing in various musical groups, preaching God’s Word, manual labor, living his testimony at work, and as a prayer warrior.

In 1954, he felt called to move to Roseburg, Oregon, where he again gave his all in church work. Sheet metal work was scarce at that time in Roseburg, so Dan moved his family back to Portland in the summer of 1956. No matter where Dan was, he lived his life for Christ. At times in sheet metal shops where he worked he would be ridiculed, but when hard times came to those who did the ridiculing, they knew who to ask to pray for them.

Dan suffered many years from severe asthma attacks and many allergies, but you could always find him on his knees interceding for help from God for himself and for others. He believed in the purity of the Gospel—the Bible says what it means and means what it says. He was in church whenever there was a service (come early—leave late!) and also went on Gospel teams to street meetings, jails, prisons, and rest homes. Whenever his health would permit, he would help with any sheet metal projects that needed to be done in Portland or in branch churches.

During the last several years of his life, he suffered from stomach cancer. Those years were not easy, but he always believed that God was able to heal him. He received that healing when, on March 12, 1968, he went to meet the God that he had served so faithfully.

Of the original twenty-one Trzil family members who came to Portland, at least eighteen died in the faith. What a great heritage!