Edna Damron

Over fifty-three years ago in 1910 I came to my first Apostolic Faith camp meeting. I was discouraged at that time. I had been trying to find a people who held high the standard of God’s Word. I had gone to many different churches.

I was reared in an old-fashioned Methodist home where we had family worship before we went to bed at night. I was taught to pray a little, formal prayer. My father was a local preacher in a holiness church. I loved my father and thought he was the greatest man on earth. One Sunday morning, when the pastor was away, my father was in the pulpit. I sat in what they called the Amen Corner, and while he was preaching, I began to pray silently. I was just a young child, but as I lifted my heart toward Heaven, the Lord opened the Heavens and poured a great stream of love through my soul. I buried my head in my hands and sobbed and sobbed; it was so wonderful. But I saw that church drift toward the world, and that wonderful love leaked out of my heart.

I buried my head in my hands and sobbed and sobbed; it was so wonderful.

Later while my husband was pastor of a little church in northern Washington, I began to realize my spiritual condition. I saw that conducting young peoples’ meetings and missionary meetings did not fulfill my obligations to God. I needed reality in my soul. I needed power in my life to work for the Lord. I believe I was just in the same position that hundreds of ministers’ wives are in today: “They have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.”

One day alone in that little Methodist parsonage I opened my Bible and the first words my eyes fell upon were: “The Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple,” (Malachi 3:1).  Just those few words from the Word of God inspired my faith and I took hold of the promises. I cried for mercy. As a sinner, I confessed my sins and gave God my life.

He heard that prayer and rolled the burden from my heart and set me free. I sprang to my feet and said, “Oh, I know my Redeemer lives; I know my name is written down in the Lamb’s Book of Life!”

I confessed my sins and gave God my life.

I heard about sanctification. I knew of it from a doctrinal standpoint, as I had read John Wesley’s teachings on it. I began to seek for that experience. About three weeks later I consecrated my life deeper to God than I had ever done before. I said yes to the whole will of God, and one night in the wee hours of the morning as I was praying and consecrating my life to God, He wonderfully sanctified me. That has been a real landmark in my life. I have never doubted that wonderful experience. It has held me steady when I have met false teachers and false doctrine.

I looked for a people who held a high standard of Christianity, a people who believed and taught the whole Word of God. I searched here and there trying to find a people who lived Christian lives. One night the Lord led my husband and me into an Apostolic Faith tent meeting where Mother Crawford was holding a revival campaign in Vancouver, B.C., Canada. When we walked into the tabernacle my husband knelt at a chair to pray. He began to weep, and he looked up at me and said, “God is in this place.”

I had been disappointed in trying to find the people of God and in my heart I said, I’ll wait and see. I listened to the testimonies; they sounded real. God seemed to whisper in my soul, “You’re home at last.” For over fifty years they have been my people and their God has been my God.

God seemed to whisper in my soul, “You’re home at last.”

As I attended my first Apostolic Faith camp meeting in Portland in 1910, one Sunday morning during the service God rained down His power on the meeting and I found myself with many others on my feet praising God in another language I had never learned. God had poured out upon me the mighty baptism of the Holy Ghost and fire. The Comforter had come into my heart. I recall that when just a little girl, one of the lady workers in our church was very enthusiastic over foreign missionary work. She organized a juvenile missionary society. She would gather us around her and tell us about the heathen children that did not know about Jesus. That planted a desire in my heart to be a foreign missionary. Sometimes she would pray and say, “Lord, raise up someone from this little group to carry the Gospel to the heathen lands.” I used to kick my toe against the floor, and in my heart I would say, “She doesn’t know it, but I am going.” For years I wanted to be a foreign missionary, but the church I was in required a college education in order to be a foreign missionary. Illness in our home did not permit my finishing my education, so I had to give up the plans of going to the foreign fields.

I am grateful to God for a son who carried the glad tidings of salvation to the West Indies. He found many people hungry for the Truth. Something in my heart makes me feel that my son, in some way, is helping to bear the responsibility that I felt as a child to get the Gospel to the foreign fields. I love the missionary work and am thankful the Apostolic Faith church is helping to send the Gospel message to lost souls all over the world. I love telling about the Word and it stirs my soul. There is something in my heart that longs for the whole world to know about Jesus. He has done so much for me. He has been my friend all my life. I love to see the Gospel go out to others.

I still have that longing today. I praise God for the privileges I have had down through the years telling the story of Jesus.

I do thank God for this lighthouse—this place, where the papers are printed and sent all over the world, so those that are hungry for God might know about the Gospel. I thank God for this wonderful Gospel. It is so wonderful to me. I have had many years in this work. My heart just thrills at the Gospel today. I have grown old but the Gospel hasn’t grown old—the old time religion. I thank God it is just as new and just as fresh today. It just thrills my soul as much today as it has in the years gone by. I thank God for the privilege I have had serving Jesus. I love Him today; He is my friend. He sticketh closer than a brother. I have had many chances to prove God in this wonderful Gospel—chances in hard places, to know that there is a God that we serve that cares for us. I thank Him that He ever brought me into this wonderful way. I have never regretted letting my light shine with this people. I love this way. I love the saints. It is my delight.