Ida Waggoner

Ida Belle Waggoner grew up in a good home. Her family went to church, but the church they attended did not teach a born-again experience. Nevertheless, in her heart she always wanted to be a real Christian, and God talked to her about holy living. She did not want to do anything that would displease God. In 1919 she met my dad, and he asked her if she wanted to go to church with him. She said, “Oh, yes!”

When she sat in her first Apostolic Faith meeting at Front and Burnside, she felt the Spirit of God. She said this was what she had been looking for all of her life. My mom and dad were married that same year in 1919, and he took her to his parents’ home in Monroe, Washington. My grandparents, Curtis and Anna Waggoner, had received an Apostolic Faith paper in 1914. One Sunday, the Apostolic Faith people from Seattle came out to Monroe to my grandparents’ home and held a cottage meeting, and my dad got wonderfully saved in that meeting. My mom saw such a change in him that she said, “Oh, I want what you have!” He said, “Well, you can have it. All you have to do is ask Jesus into your heart.” She did that, and God wonderfully saved her that Sunday. That was in 1919. She said that was the happiest year of her life. Sadly, my dad then backslid, and we all suffered because of his backsliding. But my mom stayed true to the Lord, and I watched God answer so many of her prayers. She prayed for our shoes, our clothes, our food, and every one of our needs. I was very young when Dad left, and we didn’t have much. Mom just prayed about everything, and the Lord provided all of our needs. Whenever we were really sick she would always call the ministry and have them pray for us, and the Lord always healed us. We never took medicine. She just trusted God for everything. Many, many times, there were very serious situations and then healings in our home.

When I was six years old, my parents gathered our family around and told us that my mom was dying.  She was very, very ill. There was no hope that she would live. My mom prayed that God would let her live long enough to raise her four children. Then the ministers came and prayed for her, and the Lord marvelously healed her.

My mom always quoted Bible Scriptures when we needed them, and when we asked her anything, she would say, “Well, let’s see what the Bible has to say about it.” For forty years my mother could not swallow whole foods; she had to eat pureed food because she had nervous spasms of the esophagus. She would always quote Job 23:10, “But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.” And Job 23:12, “Neither have I gone back from the commandment of his lips; I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.” She held those Scriptures dear, and lived by them for forty years, and she was true to her God until Jesus took her home in 1970.

This testimony was written by Ida Waggoner's daughter, Bonnie Davis.