We drove a small house trailer to Parker, Arizona, which is just across the Colorado River in the Mohave Desert. You couldn't exactly call Parker the Garden of Eden. It was a hundred-and twenty degrees in the shade, had terrible dry electrical storms, and was overrun with scorpions and rattle snakes. Nevertheless, we rented a one room cabin with water and electricity and made ourselves at home.
On the trip to Arizona, Herman fell ill with the flu, so when we arrived, we bedded him down in the cabin and tried to keep him cool.
Naturally, with neither of us working, we soon ran out of money. The only thing I knew to do was to preach on the street, so I went into town and perched on a corner between two saloons and a pool hall. I opened my Bible, put it on the curb and began to sing, "There's Power In The Blood."
Immediately, some men came out of the saloon to see what was going on. After, listening for a while, one of the men took out his billfold and placed a dollar bill on my Bible. Some of the others follow suit throwing down coins. I was so blessed that I hurried home to tell Herman.
When I got there I had another surprise! The Methodist minister and her friends had dropped by to visit and had brought a load of food. The refrigerator was packed with goodies like fried chicken and custart pie! The Father really was looking after us and how we rejoiced!
THE WORK BEGINS
Since Herman was still sick the following week, I went to town once again. After I had finished ministering was just about to leave, a lady came from around the corner crying, "I need help! Please pray for me!"
I just threw my arms around her and held her tight and asked her to get in the car.
She said, "My husband left me and my four children, and I need help. I want to be saved!" When we arrived at her home we just dropped to our knees and she was gloriously saved!
Her name was Grace and her husband was a member of a well-known criminal gang. They had moved to the Colorado Indian Reservation to hide away from the law.
Grace and her children came to Sunday School the next week, and she looked like a whole new person. That day she told us that she needed an operation for an abdominal tumor the size of a grapefruit. The doctor said it would be a very dangerous surgery.
But I said, "God will heal you, Grace." So, we all started to pray.
Then Grace fell out in the Spirit, and we all saw the lump just disappear before our eyes. She and her daughter both lay on the floor speaking in tongues, and Herman was up shouting for joy.
When Grace's husband came home, he saw such a remarkable change in her and the children and the house that he knew something tremendous had taken place while he had been away. Quite a while later, as he lay in bed one night, he said, "If what Herman and Dora are saying is real, that Jesus died for all men, even a murderer like me, let me know it right now!' At that very instant, the power of God hit him, and he found himself on the floor crying out to God and speaking in tongues. He rushed over to tell us late that night. He was a changed man!
THE WORK AMONG THE INDIANS
In the beginning, we attended a conference at a Nazarene Church where we had our first contact with the Indian people. There were about three hundred in attendance from different tribes. Each tribe would present a song and announce who they were. One said, "We are Wallapai", another said they were Supai, still anothe said, "We are Yavapai."
Out of courtesy, the minister asked Herman to say a few words. So Herman got up with his fair skin and Dutch features and said, "I am APPLE-PIE."
I was horrified! I thought, "Oh no, he shouldn't be making fun of their tribal names!"
But the Indians just roared with laughter, they even rolled on the floor. It was the beginning of an endearing relationship!
The first baptism we held, the men took off their shoes and socks and rolled up their pant legs to wade in the water. When the Indians saw Herman's white legs, one of them said, "Look at Brother Van! He's not a Pale-Face, he's a Pale-Legs." The Indians then nicknamed Herman, "Apple-Pie-Pale-Legs."
In Parker, God supplied all of our need and enabled us to establish a work among the Chemehuaivi Indians there. God moved in a mighty way among the Indians, and eventually even their medicine man accepted Jesus when he was a hundred and seventeen years old. Jesus appeared to him when he was in the hospital during the time we were praying for him. Jesus came right down the aisle and laid His hands on him and he got up and went home.
We had been in Parker for nine years when God directed us to move to Yucca, Arizona. So we left the Harvest Time Mission and parsonage to the Chemehuaivi Indians, packed our things, and followed the Spirit to the Navajo people.
THE YEARS ON YUCCA
Yucca was a small mining town with two gas stations, a cafe, two motels, a Post Office, a small school, and a large section with little houses for the Navajos. The government had made a deal with the Southern Pacific Railroad to hire young Navajo Indians who had served in the army during World War Two.
Herman and I sused to travel by pick-up truck and sleep in the back when we went among the towns to visit the Navajo settlements along the railroad line. We became known as the 'Railroad Preachers'!
Eventually, we established a mission in Yucca in an old saloon building and invited the Indians to come for weekend services. Herman put a cast iron wood stove in the desert under some Palaverde trees, where the Indians would cook coffee and tortillas and beans after we preached. Then they would roll up in their Navajo blankets and sleep. Because of the impact of these meetings, two Navajo men went back to their reservations near Gallop, New Mexico to begin a work of their own.
During the time we were with the Indians there was a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit that the Pentecostals called the Latter Rain Outpouring, which began around 1948. It fell among us in Parker, Arizona in 1952 and swept through the Indian Reservation from Parker to Seligman, up to Flagstaff, and all through the Navajo Reservation to Albuquerque, New Mexico and even as far as the Crow Indians in Montana. Thousands accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior and were filled with the Holy Ghost. Herman and I were so blessed to be part of this mighty move of God.
THE CALL HOME
On August 16, 1961, my beloved Herman went home to be with the Lord. God had added twenty years to his life, and all those years were spent walking with God every step of the way.
Because of the love and respect the Navajo people had for Herman, they closed the town and all the mines when they learned of his death.
Three men offered to dig his grave. This was very difficult work, because they had to go through the hardpan with a pick and shovel and it was unbearably hot. I overheard one of the men say, "I didn't believe what he said, but I sure respect him for his life. I'm glad to dig his grave for him!"
Reverend Lillie Taylor, one of our dearest friends, ministered his funeral service. She spoke of how Herman was like a male Dorcas, always helping widows and orphans. Lillie, herself, was a widow and many times Herman would go over to her parsonage and fix things. Dorcas was the only apostle who was raised from the dead, because she was missed so deeply by the poor.
We buried Herman in an old cemetery near Yucca, and my son Floyd planted desert plants in a square over the grave. Since then, the desert has reclaimed the forsaken cemetery, all except Herman's grave where the plants still bloom in that small square.
Only the body that he lived in is laid there. His spirit is free to roam the universe, still being used of God in even greater degree.
My sisters and brothers all came for the funeral. Knowing that I didn't even have a bank account, they decided to help me with the funeral expenses. We had to wait nine days for Floyd to come from Tripoli where he was stationed at an air base. During that time I received many cards and letters containing money. When my sister counted it, there was over a thousand dollars! God had truly provided for His servant!
CHAPTER 10 - I BEGIN A NEW LIFE
THE VISITATION
After Herman died, the Lord called me to minister at the Ebenezer Church in Mantee, Mississippi. This was the beginning of a whole new experience for me.
These dear saints had added two rooms on to the church, making a little three room apartment for me. One day, I was sitting, lonely and heartsick, in my apartment nestled among the pine trees, with my head on the kitchen table crying and saying, "Lord, you're going to have to do something for me. I can't go on alone like this any longer. I've heard other ladies tell me that You become their husband, their right arm, their strength and their companion. You'll just have to take all this grief and heaviness from me."
And, with that, I felt the presence of the Lord. I had felt His presence before, when I had been fasting and praying. At that time, as I walked into the church, I felt Him behind me, and when I turned, I could see His hand with the sleeve of His garment. Well, this same kind of feeling of His presence came over me now, and I got very quiet, and gradually, fearfully, I lifted up my eyes to see.
I really expected to see Jesus, but it was Herman! He looked just like he did when he was thirty-two years old when we got married. As he aged, he lost a lot of his hair, but now he had his hair, and it was a little curly, and it fell over his forehead. His face looked so wholesome, but I could only see him to about his waist, one shoulder, one hand, and his face. He was looking very sternly at me, right at my chest. So, I looked down to see what was wrong, and when I looked up again, he moved his hand, and something came all over me. By the time I realized what had happened, I was lying on the floor, and I was laughing and crying at the same time, and something was jumping inside of me.
When I was able to get back up on my chair, I said, "Lord, I expected to see You."
And He said, "Deep within you, you did see Me."
I answered, "Oh, but I saw Herman."
Then He said, "I can appear in any form I desire."
Then I remembered that when Jesus walked with the two on the road to Emmaus, He appeared in another form. And I realized I had seen the Christ; I had seen Him manifested through my husband. Then, I heard myself say, "Oh, Daddy, you didn't fall behind in anything; you are coming forth in manifestation in that great day of resurrection. Praise God!"
That experience so cheered me and excited me that I immediately began testifying about what had taken place. All my lonliness and heartache had been taken away, because I knew that the very same Christ I saw as Herman was living as me. I had an experience of Christ in you, the hope of glory. After that, I began to minister that He's never far from us; He never leaves us or forsakes us, and He is not only with us, but He is actually in us. Praise the Lord!!
I was in Mississippi a little over a year. Then I was invited to come help Lura Frances Duprav in Los Angeles. She needed help with her radio ministry and Bible class. So I was with her from 1962-1964.
THE CALL TO MISSIONARY EVANGELISM
During my time in Los Angeles, God told me that I was to be a traveling missionary evangelist. I distinctly remember my first call was to go to Albuquerque, new Mexico. This was a nine-hundred mile trip, and I began to ask different widow ladies if they would like to come and travel with me because in the Salvation Army we were taught to go two-by-two just as Jesus sent His disciples. However, it didn't seem as though anyone wanted to go with me, so finally, in fear and trembling, I packed my things in my little Volkswagon and made the trip to Albuquerque alone.
On the way, as I was driving, I was praying about having to travel by myself, thinking that perhaps I wasn't in proper order. I was shy and alone; I felt I had no talents; I couldn't play an instrument, I could hardly even carry a tune, yet, I was goinig to be ministering in this place. But on the way, the Lord gave me a little chorus that I'll never forget:
I've got a new vision
I've got a new light.
A new revelation
Of endless life.
The old is passing
Away from me.
I've got a new vision
That sets me free.
And I did have a new vision. I entered into a totally new life.
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