One of the professors from the Northwestern University was on board. He had been traveling through all the Latin-American countries, gathering information for the new history he was writing. He came to talk with us, saying he was interested in mission work. We gave him all the information we could about the different parts of the country we had visited. He said, “I know you people have something I haven’t. What is it?” He was a member of the Presbyterian church, and had been since he was a very young child. His father was a minister, so he had always been brought up in the church.
As we read the Bible to him and prayed with him, telling him of the great outpouring of the Spirit of God in these last days, and the soon coming of Jesus, he wept like a child, and said he was ready for all God had for him. When he returned to Chicago he would go to a Pentecostal mission, as he knew this was the truth of God. He was a very sweet spirited man, open to the Spirit of the Lord. He took with him many tracts on the Baptism of the Spirit and the Second Coming of Jesus.
A young man, on his way to school in the States, asked for a Bible, saying he had never seen one, but had a great desire to read one. Since hearing us talk so much about it, he thought it must be a wonderful Book. He took a Bible to school with him, also tracts and papers. He was a native of Costa Rica.
As we were leaving the ship at New Orleans people came for more Testaments and tracts to carry away with them. One brother and sister, very wealthy people, traveling for pleasure, took many of the little messengers, the sister saying that when she reached her home in Oklahoma she was going to prepare herself for missionary work. She was tired of the life she had been living, and having seen the awful need of the Central American people, she could never be happy again until she went to help them.
In New Orleans we gave out hundreds of tracts and found many hungry souls. I visited some of the missions there, in search of Pentecostal people, but they told us there were none there. Such a needy city! May the God of Heaven stir our hearts until we are awakened and go forth into every city of the Union with this message of the hour, and the people are reached and the Holy Spirit is poured out upon the earth.
On board the train for St. Louis, we found many hungry hearts ready for the truth, having never heard it before. In the Union Station, St. Louis, we found others who were hungry. They took the tracts and went away pleased to have them. Even in our own city we found people who were eager to hear the Word of God. Many were the precious souls reached by the Bread upon the waters, which we freely cast forth.
We traveled from Granite City, Illinois, to Los Angeles, California, giving out tracts and Testaments. From Los Angeles we sailed to Central America and gave out the Word in every port we came to in Mexico, Central America and Panama. From Panama to New Orleans and Granite City we distributed the Word to thousands. We look back over our journey and see a long white line of Bread that was cast upon the waters, reaching our home in Granite City, where also God is working.
“On the resurrection morning, when we rise to meet our Lord,
When His glory and His victory we shall share,
With un-numbered blood-washed millions we’ll go shouting through the skies,