William Chastain

I thank God for this wonderful Gospel, and for the message that was preached in a little schoolhouse in southern Oregon. I am so glad that some of God’s people came my way, out to a little country place, and told me the marvelous story of Jesus. These people drove over the muddy mountains, stopped at a schoolhouse, and there began to tell of real victory and power—of what God could do in a man’s life. They said if I would pray, God would come into my heart, set me free, and give me real peace.

I was a man who drank and hung around the saloons and worked in the logging woods for years. What I heard that night put hope in my heart. The man who was testifying before me and preaching the Gospel wasn’t a stranger to me; he was one I had known for years. We used to stagger up to the old bar together and drink. This wasn’t the first testimony I had heard him give, either. Eight years earlier, we were working in the logging woods together (he had one contract and I had the other), and he told me that God had saved him and set him free. He didn’t say much about it, but God had put something real in his life. I told him to stay with it, but I thought this new thing would wear off. I thought that in just a few days I would see him go back to a life of sin. We worked through the summer and I never saw him back in the saloons. When the summer was over, he moved to Portland to be among the Apostolic Faith people. I didn’t know anything about them; I didn’t even know there was such people on the face of the earth.

I recalled his testimony many, many times while working out in the woods, and I became tired of that old life of sin. One day I told my wife, “I’ll just quit this job. We are going to live over in the valley and get away from the whole thing.” We moved into the valley, but I couldn’t get away from sin. We began to run dance halls, and started right back in that same old life.

Then this man came back from Portland with the Apostolic Faith workers—came right back into the little home town where we had been raised up boys together—and began to preach the Word. He told of victory, that God had kept him for eight years. And he told me that God could get down into my heart and life, and take out the very desire for sin. As I listened to him, faith dropped into my heart. I realized that I could have what he had if I would just furnish God with an honest heart.

I went home and asked my wife if she would like to have what these people were telling about. She had been raised in a dance hall since she was about nine years old and knew nothing about God, but she said, “I would give anything in the world to be saved.” We dropped on our knees right there in our little ranch house and began to pray. We meant business. We prayed a prayer that reached Heaven, and the power of God came down. He saved our souls and set us free!

I praise God for this wonderful salvation; for the power in the Blood of Jesus Christ that can get down into a man’s heart and change the whole course of his life.  

In 1919, Clarence Frost went to Eagle Point, Oregon, to make arrangements to hold services. A wind and rain storm forced him to move the meetings to a church, and later a schoolhouse, in Selma. This is where the Chastains and about thirty-five others received salvation.