Profile - Bible College I

In September of 1966 I traveled south to enter seminary. It was the seminary that both Walter Veasel and Donald Wilkes had attended. I really had no business heading down there, and I can't believe my parents let me go - but it's likely that they didn't know what to make of my conversion and the fact is that even if I was a bit crazy about Jesus that it sure beat the alternative - for you see in the summer of 1965 I had run away from home.

When I went to register the registrar told me that I couldn't take seminary classes because I hadn't graduated from high school (this was really more like a Bible College, but it called itself a seminary at the time; I think it has since dropped the word seminary and now uses Bible College). I told the registrar that if they'd let me in that I'd have my GED before I graduated from seminary. Guess what? Yep. They let me in.

Life was pretty austere at school but I didn't mind. Most afternoons after class I worked  on a crew that the school contracted out in order to pay my tuition. We did demolition work, and cleared land; those are the two jobs I remember. My hands got so blistered at one point that I couldn't depress the top of my shaving cream dispenser . We worked half-days on Saturdays too, and after our return to campus and lunch I took long naps to recover from the week.

Like I said, I didn't mind. I enjoyed classes, took them seriously, in fact I took the entire experience seriously.

The school was coed but you couldn't talk to members of the opposite sex. I guess since most of the girls were older than me it wasn't an issue.In daily chapel, church on Sundays, and classes the guys sat on one side of the room and the gals sat on the other.

I was reassigned from the work crew to helping an older man do repairs around the campus, including in the girls dormitory. I guess because he was old and I was young they figured we were safe, or maybe just safer.

I had two roommates, one of which left after a few weeks - the environment was a bit much for him, which I can understand. That left brother Joe and me. Our dorm room was adjacent to the restroom. One evening for dinner we had fish, something like salmon cakes as I recall. Late that night I heard terrible noise coming through the partition from the restroom - I mean terrible, moaning and groaning and the like.

"Brother Joe," I said, "do you hear that?" 

"Yes, I do, brother Withers, perhaps we should see what's going on?"

I should mention that the rest room had a line of commodes which were not separated by partitions, much like the military - I mean, why spend money on something like partitions? You just have to clean them and otherwise maintain them; and people are going to do what they have to do partitions or no partitions. So with this salient fact in mind...

Brother Joe and I opened the restroom door to behold a line of young men on the floor, moaning and groaning and holding onto commodes like a good prayer warrior holds onto an altar - except this was no prayer meeting, this was an assembly of those who got sick on fish from dinner. It was not a pretty sight, and yet it was not without its humor. Why some of us got sick and others didn't we'll never know. I can't put it down to righteous living because I know myself too well.

Now I guess brother Joe and I could have found some oil and anointed and prayed for the other brothers, but the thought never occurred to us. I suppose we could have remained with them to console, or even perhaps sing songs of praise; but again our thoughts were not how we might lighten the loads of our dear brethren. No, I have to admit that our thoughts were selfish in the extreme, though not without thanksgiving and resolution - we were thankful we weren't sick and we were resolved to do the best we could to get a good night's sleep in the midst of the moaning and the groaning.