Ray Beckner

If there is anyone in the city of Port Angeles who ought to praise God for what He has done, I am the man. I found myself at the age of twenty-seven a defeated young man. My life was nothing but a disgrace. I was living out on the plains of Montana when I just gave up hope. I said “What is the use of trying to be any better?” God heard my cry and saw to it that I found a better way.

My sister, Edna, became gravely ill while she was living with our parents in Minnesota. The doctor said they would have to send her west to save her. She and her daughter, Fern, came to live with me. We were expecting her to die, but then we received an Apostolic Faith paper from a cousin in Portland, Oregon. He had received it from his mother-in-law, Elsie Dorr, in Port Angeles.

In that paper, I read for the first time that a man could have victory, there was a way out of sin. After reading the paper from one end to the other, I knelt by my bedside and commenced to weep and cry. I said, “God, if You will give me what they are telling about in that paper, I will give You my life.”

A few months later, I borrowed money on my homestead—something the banker said he had never known to be done before, and moved to Port Angeles with my sister and her daughter.

One evening in a little upper room, God met my soul. Oh the peace, joy, and happiness that came down into my heart! It seemed to me as I walked down the road that the very treetops were bowing their heads at what God had done in my life.

That was almost twenty-five years ago. I have had many a chance to prove this wonderful Gospel. I have victory over sin. I don’t have to go out and get drunk anymore. I don’t have to chew the tobacco and tell the filthy stories with the old gang. I thank God I have something real in my heart.