Tag Archives: Arkansas

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A Date with “Fate” at Eight

Rural ChurchA Date with “Fate” at Eight

James R. Aist

“I was found by those who did not seek me;
    I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me.” (Romans 10:20)

Introduction

I love to hear people tell the story of how God saved them. These stories all have some common ground, of course, but they are all different too, sometimes in interesting and amazing ways. Consider the range of salvation accounts recorded in the New Testament: an Ethiopian eunuch was saved through the one-on-one teaching of Philip (Acts 8:26-35); Simon the Sorcerer was saved through the public preaching of Philip (Acts 8:12); and Saul (later re-named Paul) was saved through the experience of a blinding light and piercing, convicting words from Jesus Himself while on the road to Damascus to persecute the Christians there (Acts 22:6-15). The details of the salvation experience in this day and age can also be far-ranging and fascinating. I know some who came to a gradual realization of the truth of the Gospel, which lead, ultimately, to an awareness that they believed in Jesus Christ, and others who had a sudden, miraculous experience that resulted in the immediate gift of saving faith. Now, regardless of how God brings you to the point of saving faith, you are just as saved as anyone else who gets to that point in life. My personal experience happens to be of the sudden, miraculous nature, and, if you will allow me to do so, I would like to share it with you now.

A Little Brown Church in the Vale…Well, Sort of

My family was Methodist, having moved from Maryland to Arkansas by way of Indiana. We lived on a working dairy farm in central Arkansas, and our house was located on a little dirt road off another dirt road, way “out in the sticks”. This very rural community was called “Cypress Valley”, because Cypress Creek ran through it. The houses were, generally speaking, at least a quarter-mile apart. Well, there was a little, wood-frame Methodist church located only about 75 yards from our front door, so that’s where we attended church, faithfully, every Sunday. Actually, the building itself was not really brown; it was more of a dull, gray color where the white paint was peeling off. Nor was it in a “wildwood”. But it was in a “vale” (which means “valley”). Well, that’s the venue, so on with the story!

An Old-timey Revival Is Coming to “Town”!

In the Summer of ‘53, the powers that be in the Cypress Valley Methodist Church decided it would be a good idea to invite an evangelist to come and preach a revival. Now, I was only eight years old at the time and had never heard of a “revival.” But I soon learned it meant that, during revival week, we would all be going to church not only on Sunday, but on the next three nights as well. That sounded to me like it would be the most excitement that we had seen in Cypress Valley since the dog came home from the creek bottom with swollen jowls from a snake bite! So, although I didn’t know what a “revival” was, I was looking forward to it, nonetheless.

A Date with “Fate”

Revival week came, and off to church we went. We would sing some hymns, have some prayer, listen to the evangelist preach, and then have an “altar call” for those who wanted to get saved. Up to that point, I knew nothing about being “saved” or that I even needed to be saved. Oh, I was aware that I had done some bad things – like lying and cussing and smarting off to my parents – but I was unaware that God would hold me responsible for my wrong doings, after my parents were done with me. I breezed through the first night of the revival, just taking it all in without thinking much about what was really going on. The second night, however, was different for some reason. When the evangelist began to preach, I found myself listening intently to what he was saying; it was as if he was talking to me, personally. He didn’t deliver a “hell fire and brimstone” message at all that night. Instead, he focused on how God loves me so much that he sent His only Son, Jesus, to sacrifice his life for my sins by dying on the cross for me. As he was explaining just how amazing such a love is, I had a “vision.” I first saw something like a dense fog or cloud that parted in the middle, then a soft and diffuse light appeared, and then I heard a voice speak into my mind and say something like, “What he is saying is true. You can depend on it. Believe it and do not depart from it, no matter what.” Then the vision went away, and I was so excited that I could hardly wait for the invitation to come forward and confirm what had just happened: God had saved me through a glorious vision and a message from heaven that validated to me – beyond any doubt — the evangelist’s message of God’s love that night! So, when the time came for the altar call, I was quick to go forward and let everyone there know that I had just believed in Jesus. We all rejoiced at the good news and went home. But I didn’t tell them the part about the vision and the voice; I was only eight years old, and I didn’t know what to make of it at the time.

But, now I realize just how perfectly my conversion experience exemplifies what the Bible says about salvation. “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” (Romans 10:17). “There are three that testify on earth: the Spirit, the water, and the blood…” (1 John 5:8); I heard the Spirit testify that night. And, I praise God that the word He sent out to me that night did not return to Him void, but accomplished His purpose (Isaiah 55:11).

(For more articles on BIBLICAL TEACHINGS, click HERE)

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Plumpin’ the Puppies

Beagle de 60 dias

Plumpin’ the Puppies

James R. Aist

[DISCLAIMER: I meant no harm, no one really got hurt bad, I am opposed to cruelty to animals and I provide the answer to the big “research” question at the end (so that you will have no excuse for trying this at home; shame on you, in advance, for even thinking of it!)]

When I was growing up in central Arkansas, we had Beagle dogs for rabbit hunting and, of course, for instant affection and validation anytime, whether we wanted it or not. When I was 10 years old, my family re-located from our dairy farm in Cypress Valley to an equally rural area in the vicinity of Naylor, where we moved into a parsonage, located at the end of a dirt road off a dirt road; Daddy had received his very first assignment as a newly ordained Methodist minister. During our first Spring there, one of our Beagles gave birth to a litter of puppies, and we kept two of them for ourselves. I luuuuuv Beagle puppies! They are so soft, so cute and so affectionate; and, so much fun to play with.

Every school-day afternoon while the puppies were still quite small, I could hardly wait for the school bus to get to the end of our dirt road. I would spring off of the school bus and run all the way to our house so that I could spend the next half hour or so just playing with “my” precious little puppies. Of course, these little darlings seemed to always be hungry when I got home, and I liked nothing more than to bring out a small pitcher of milk and a couple of cereal bowls and settle down with the puppies in a patch of fresh green lawn beside the house. They would eagerly lap up all the milk in the bowl, and I would just as eagerly give them “seconds” just to watch them do it all over again. What fun!

Well, one day I got an idea for what would turn out to be the very first of many biological experiments I would conduct over a long and successful career in biological research. I was pondering the gusto with which these innocent little biological units would scarf down all the milk in their bowls, including the “seconds”, and it occurred to me that it would be interesting to find out just how much milk they would drink if I provided an unending supply of it. Would they drink only until they were full, or would they just keep on drinking until they just couldn’t keep any more milk down? With an innocent curiosity and no malicious intent whatsoever (keep in mind that I was just an 11 year old boy and I really loved those little puppies), I resolved to find the answer to this monumental question.

So, the next day I filled up the milk bowls once and then twice, and then I went where no boy had gone before (at least not to my knowledge); I filled the bowls yet a third time! To my surprise, these valiant troopers just kept on lapping up the milk and wagging their tails for more. After the third round of refills, I began to get a little worried, because now, the puppies were visibly swollen in the middle. Yet, they weren’t whining or whimpering yet, so I filled their bowls for a fourth time, determined to get the final answer to my seemingly innocent research question, but without inflicting any harm on the little guys. This time, I noticed that they were slowing down but still lapping and swallowing eagerly, and so I decided to take some additional, preliminary data on the progress of the experiment. With no little trepidation, I reached down and very gently squeezed their swollen bellies between my thumb and index finger to assess the degree of danger I might just possibly be exposing the thoroughly plumped puppies to. Their bellies were now tight as a drum, and this put a serious scare into me. Had I gone too far, already? Will they bust open right before my eyes? If they do bust open, how can I explain it to my parents so as to escape the punishment I so richly deserve for heartlessly murdering these tiny little helpless bundles of life just to conduct a silly scientific experiment? So, like a flash, I jerked away the milk bowls to minimize any further potential damage, and I was not prepared at all for what happened next.

I observed that these two little puppies turned, in unison, to walk away, still lapping and swallowing as fast as they could, but now just to try and keep down the last of the milk that was dribbling out of their mouths. I observed also that they were breathing heavily and with great difficulty, because there was no room left in their little bodies for a lungful of air, thanks to their excessive intake of cow’s milk. And finally, I observed that their now-bloated bellies were actually dragging along the ground as they waddled slowly away. In some sort of sick way I suppose, this scene was to me both humorous to watch and scary to contemplate, at one and the same time. But, as I continued to keep my eye on them, it became apparent that they were, indeed, way too full, but not to the point of bodily harm. This realization enabled me to take a deep sigh of relief and get an, albeit somewhat sinister, little chuckle out of the entire affair, especially the ending.

So, what is the answer to the big question: how much milk will Beagle puppies drink if they are given an unending supply? The answer is… just as much as they can possibly keep down with constant lapping and swallowing, once it starts to come back out as fast as it goes back in! Oh, and by the way, my parents never found out about this experiment. Hey, what they don’t know won’t hurt me, right?

(For more articles on TRUE TALES, click HERE)

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And the Winner Is…

Raffle ticketsAnd the Winner Is…

by James R. Aist

“The Lord works in mysterious ways!”

When I was ten years old, my family was living on a dairy farm in rural, central Arkansas. Daddy had been studying to become a Methodist minister for some time, and he finally was ordained, making him eligible to become a Pastor. So, for the next eight years of my life, my family moved from little town to little town in Arkansas, staying in one place for only 2-3 years (that was the custom in the Methodist church back then). The second move was to a very small little village in North Central Arkansas called Evening Shade, population exactly 315. Now in Evening Shade, everyone knew almost everyone else, and everyone for sure knew the Preacher’s family. Becoming a Preacher’s kid had made me even more self-conscience than I was before, because it seemed that everyone now expected me to be a perfect specimen of holy living, especially since I had just reached the age of accountability. So I made doubly sure that my public behavior was stellar. Didn’t want to embarrass the family, you know.

As you might well imagine, small churches in rural Arkansas back then could not afford to pay their preachers very well, so we were, in effect, a financially challenged family, to put it in contemporary, politically correct lingo. Now, to help the local, financially challenged families keep food on the table, the village grocer, Mr. Shaver, would extend credit to them as needed. To reward and encourage their efforts to reduce their tabs, the grocer would award one raffle ticket for every dollar owed and would hold a drawing each month to determine who would walk away with a free bag of groceries that month. Well, the time had come for the month’s drawing, and we happened to have paid off our entire debt that month and had a very large number of tickets. So, Mama sent me down to the store with tickets in hand to represent our family and witness the drawing, thinking that we had a pretty good chance of winning the prize this time, and I would be there to carry it home to her. I was already beginning to feel some apprehension about this developing scenario, but I didn’t yet know why.

A large (for Evening Shade, that is) crowd had already gathered in the store by the time I got there, so I weaved my way through to the front of the store and put our family tickets into the bucket with all the other tickets. It looked to me like we must have had about 25% of the tickets, and suddenly I, too, became excited about our chances of winning; that would really be something! Mr. Shaver stirred the tickets and announced that the drawing was about to begin. A hush came over the eager onlookers. And that’s when things began to go south for me.

To my shock and chagrin, Mr. Shaver picked me to select the winning ticket out of the bucket! Already I was beginning to feel a major public embarrassment coming on. Why did he choose me, of all people, to pick the winner? Didn’t he know that we had a huge number of tickets and, therefore, a good chance of winning? Wouldn’t it at least look better if someone else drew my winning ticket? Nonetheless, the die was cast, and I approached the bucket with great trepidation, saying to myself, “I know we could use the free groceries, but please, Lord, let me draw someone else’s ticket!” I thrust my sweaty, trembling hand into the mass of tickets, all the way down to the bottom of the bucket, somehow hoping that this strategy would spare me, the Preacher’s kid, the embarrassment of drawing my own winning ticket.

Well, I don’t know if it was because I had unwittingly committed some unpardonable sin, or God just didn’t like me for some reason, but, alas, the winning ticket belonged to the Aist family, sure enough! It was one of those moments where you dream — nay, you hope desperately — that you are in some sort of nightmare, from which you will awaken shortly to realize that none of it is real. But alack, no dream; it was really real, and I felt humiliated in front of “the whole town.” In a flash, a series of thoughts raced through my mind: “Now everyone will think that the whole thing was rigged. They’ll think this Preacher’s kid must have been in on it! How can I ever live this down?” Of course everyone cheered when the winner was announced, pretending to be happy for us because they knew we could surely use the free food, but I knew what they were really thinking: “Well, isn’t that just peachy; and he’s the Preacher’s kid!”

As humiliated as I was, I was still eager to get home with a bag of free food to show Mama. My older sister spent most of the afternoon trying to convince me to not be embarrassed, but I was only 12.

(For more articles on TRUE TALES, click HERE)

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The Corn Flake Camouflage Caper

English: Oatmeal and cornflakes Christmas cook...The Corn Flake Camouflage Caper

James R. Aist

When I was growing up in rural Arkansas, there were five or six of us kids in the household at any one time, and two parents. We were relatively poor, but never destitute. Poor meant that where food was concerned, nothing was wasted, not even stale, soggy corn flakes. Now, corn flakes was just about the cheapest dry cereal available at the time, so Mama would buy several of the over-sized boxes of them at a time, especially if they were on sale. This was a successful strategy to stretch our precious few dollars, but it contained the seeds of its own destruction. The breaking point came after we had been offered nothing but corn flakes for breakfast for about three or four weeks running, and it was made clear that it was going to be only corn flakes until our stock of the golden morsels was depleted. Mama was trying to use up her stockpile of corn flakes before they got too stale and soggy. We kids were sympathetic to her cause, but the thought of corn flakes again was more than we could stomach…literally. And it was already too late; the corn flakes were now officially stale and soggy. It was time to take a stand.

So, we kids talked it over and, with great trepidation, we “announced” to Mama at the next breakfast that we were not going to eat any more corn flakes for the foreseeable future, and especially not stale and soggy ones. I think that Mama was a bit amused that we would conspire to rebel over such a seemingly trivial issue, and so she purposed in her heart to feign compliance while all the time plotting to turn the tables on our little rebellion. The challenge had been issued and Mama was more than happy to take us on. This trivial dispute was to become a friendly competition thoroughly enjoyed by both sides as the drama unfolded over the ensuing weeks.

Suddenly we were enjoying other choices for breakfast and were becoming convinced that our solidarity against the powers that be had been wonderfully rewarded. Then we began to notice something a little strange about some of the side dishes at our family meals. Could it be that there were now corn flakes, of all things, in the meatloaf? We compared notes with each other, and sure enough…corn flakes in the meatloaf! We laughed out loud. That really was clever of her, albeit thoroughly sneaky. Now we were engaged in a game of subterfuge and camouflage with Mama, and it was delightful. So, in a spirit of levity, we declared “OK, we’re on to you; there’s corn flakes in the meatloaf, and we’re not eating any more cornflakes!” With a sly, coy smile, Mama replied, “We’ll see about that.”

And that seemed to be the end of it. That is, until the cornbread looked a little funny one day…but what is that? What are those strange, yellowish, orange things in the cornbread? Aha! Corn flakes in the cornbread; don’t anybody eat the cornbread! And on and on it went: first, corn flakes in the meatloaf; then, corn flakes in the cornbread; then, corn flakes in the oatmeal; then, corn flakes in the cookies; and so on. It was a fight to the finish. Mama was determined to make us eat the stale, soggy cornflakes, one way or another, until they were all gone, and we were equally determined to sniff them out and refuse to be outsmarted, until dear old Mama ran out of clever and creative ideas to disguise them. Finally, Mama called for a truce, and we all shared a hearty laugh or two over the corn flake camouflage caper. Truth be told, I kind of hated to see it come to an end; it was fun while it lasted.

(For more articles on TRUE TALES, click HERE)