There well may be no aspect of life where a person’s memory is as selective and subjective, as in their early years. We probably all know of times when in adulthood a sibling has spoken of a childhood event, only to hear something quite different from our own recollection of it. Moreover, we have scant understanding of what has been happening in the mind and heart of anyone else, even though we may clearly recall our own fears, phobias, frustrations, hurts, desires, aspirations and struggles. I shall try to share only what I believe has bearing on this attempt to focus on the grace of God in my life.

My shyness as a youngster did not come from the fact that we were very poor. That applied to many others. Only later on did I recognise how much shame and fear had affected me. Without wanting to dwell on it at all, I must mention that I was very afraid of my dad and his erratic and sometimes violent behaviour. I was deeply ashamed of the kind of man he was. I will only mention that a family member who knew the truth from personal sad experience, made this statement to me in later years: “If those things happened today he would be given a hefty prison sentence.”

For the record, I was born in Tauranga, New Zealand, on the thirteenth of December 1932, the third of five children.

My mother’s sensitive reliance on her Lord, and her kindness and love, were a place of refuge and a repeated source of encouragement to us all. She once told me of an occasion when I was a baby. She was wheeling me in a pram along a dusty country road, making her way, I think, to get a few things from a little general store. Along the road came some cattle.

Mother was terrified of them even though she lived in a country area. She simply could not help it, she just had to rush to the roadside fence, climb through it and leave me there! Apparently a bull came up to the pram, showed interest in it, putting his head right inside the hood. However, after a short while the cattle moved on, mother climbed back through the fence, and I was none the worse for wear!

In a General Store you could buy just about anything, as the name implies. Everything was so different then. Here are a few examples: Flour and sugar came in quite large bags which purchasers later washed and used for making everything from aprons to floor mats. Biscuits and other products were bought by the pound and placed in paper bags that came in various sizes. A pound of broken biscuits was a good cheap buy from a child’s pocket money - if he got any! There was no such thing as a plastic bag. Plastic hadn’t yet been invented! Candles and kerosene were often on shopping lists.

Quick frozen foods did not exist. If you wanted bacon the grocer sliced it with a gadget that held the bacon piece and sliced it with a rotating blade. Cheese was cut to order with a thin wire attached to a cheese board. Parcels were wrapped in brown paper that was drawn from a roll at the end of the counter. The parcel was tied with string, the storekeeper usually breaking it by twisting it around a finger and tugging. Sellotape didn’t exist.

I began school at the Mangatapu Native School. That is what was printed in large lettering at the front of the school, although such a thing would be unacceptable today. Almost all the children were Maori. The three mile walk to school along country roads seemed an enormous distance.

I hadn’t been at school long when we moved to Mount Maunganui to live, and so we went to the primary school there. When high school days began we had to take a half-hour ferry ride across to Tauranga and then travel by bus to the school.

When I left school at fifteen years of age I worked in several offices, including working at a bank for several years. During that time my parents’ marriage came apart completely. My mother moved to Christchurch with Ivy and Bruce, her youngest children. After some time I followed them, little realising the significance of the move.

As a child I had opened up my heart to the Saviour, been involved in Sunday School and church life, and attended Bible Class activities. I had childhood fantasies of myself as a missionary living in a cave in some exotic foreign land. In fact, though nobody knew of it, there were times when I walked across the paddocks to school I would pause, if nobody was in sight, and proclaim the gospel to open space.

In Christchurch I became deeply involved with the Youth for Christ movement whose director was the much-loved Malcolm Miles. While I was still in Tauranga I stepped into an older brother’s shoes when he had been asked to testify at YFC there. Trouble was, my shyness took over and I cried right there on the platform. That seems shameful to a teenager.

Youth for Christ

Those Youth for Christ days were great times for many of us, who still thank God for His grace in our own lives then as well as for the wonders He accomplished among us. I loved the youth rallies, beach gatherings, open-air meetings, prayer sessions, youth camps and so on. To be with other young people whose hearts’ desires were akin to mine was very precious. We were probably at the cutting edge of what God was doing in our city at that time.

Billy Graham came into prominence in those days. He was the Vice President of Youth For Christ International, whose motto was “Geared to the times, anchored to the Rock.” At least in Christchurch, YFC was very different then from what it is now. We were more a general evangelistic agency, but still focused on youth. One month of the year we had an early prayer meeting each morning before anyone went to work. Not only were there times of prayer prior to rallies, but often right through them. From time to time there was a day of prayer, and for quite some time we had a night of prayer once a month.
For two years Jim Shortcliffe and I travelled around the South Island conducting children’s missions. In the realm of walking with Christ, involvement in this work became a steep learning curve for me. During that time I feasted on the writings of Commissioner Brengle, Ruth Paxon and the like. I also read all the sermons preached years before in Nelson by the inimitable Irish preacher, Billy Nicholson. The Nelson newspaper had printed them in full.

I began to see Zechariah 4:6 as the theme for my life: “Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit says the Lord of Hosts.” Later in paraphrase form it became for me “Not by human strength or ability, nor by the supportive power of an army of men, but by my Spirit says the Lord of heaven’s armies.”

There was a time, while Jim and I were travelling, that I became very burdened about inconsistencies in my life. I could tell young people that when we yielded our lives to Christ we become a whole new creation in Him, but I knew that at times I had inner attitudes that were not right. Because there is level ground at the Cross I could not hide behind an inferiority complex.

For some days I spent hours and hours crying out to God for help. I read and re-read the Acts of the Apostles. I knew that early Christians must have found a solution to my kind of problem. At last this promise dawned on me: “I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh.” I saw that ‘all’ must be able to include even a ‘nobody’ like me, and somehow I appropriated its reality that day. What Ruth Paxon described as, “Life on a higher plane” now made sense, and I believe came to be more real in me.

After those two years, while living in Christchurch again, I would frequently go to the YFC office in Colombo Street. Signs had been put up stating, ‘Africa, 75 millions untold’ ‘South America, 70 millions untold’ and so on. There was a map of the world and flags had been placed across it indicating places where missionaries who had spoken at the rally were working.

Again and again I prayed earnestly, with those statistics and the world map in front of me. At this time I was deeply touched by Amy Carmichael’s vision which will be printed at the end of what I write about India. Before too long these things combined to give me a deep burden for India. YFC arranged for me to go there for two years. At twenty-two years of age I was young and inexperienced, but I had a burning heart of love for my Lord and for the lost of earth.

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