Seminary

“Why did you and Dad decide to attend Grace Seminary?” I asked Mother. In her brief and direct manner, she said, “Sam and Lowell [Dad and his closest brother] went to Bryan College together. They had forty dollars between them. After college they wanted to go on to seminary. Their brother Herman was one of the teachers at Grace, so that’s where they went."

 “Why did they want to go on to seminary?” I asked.

 “They wanted to be pastors,” she said, “Is there anything else you want to know?” Mother never was one for phone conversations.

 “What made you decide to be missionaries and why Argentina?” I asked.

 “One day Sam went to Herm’s, he was in his garden planting beans. In the conversation he [Herman] mentioned that the Argentine mission field had so few missionaries and was lacking good leaders. Not long after, we met the Dowdy’s who were on furlough. So, we took a year of Spanish.”

Early memories of our life in Argentina include the Dowdy family with their three rowdy boys. Old photographs and one 8 mm film prove that we played together as children.

          More than sixty years later, Mother and Dad once again lived near the Seminary where they trained for the ministry. I traveled the hour and a half north as often as possible to visit them and learn more about their lives. Daddy passed away in 2013, Mother was still active and alert. I enjoyed spending the night in her cute little apartment, sharing breakfast and devotions together, reading old letters and hearing new stories or insights from their past.

When I rounded the curve on Wooster Road in Winona Lake, I drove past familiar sights: McClain Hall with its white spire piercing the sky; Alpha Residence Hall and Dining Commons, brand new when I moved in, January of 1964; and Morgan Library with memories of when the student body formed a line and passed the library tomes from their old home to the new shelves.

My mind goes back in time before the buildings, before the college, before the seminary and I wonder why the program that began in Akron, Ohio, in 1937, moved two years later to north central Indiana. I know that Uncle Herman was among the decision makers, involved in leadership of the school from its inception. I read that the seminary moved to Winona Lake, Indiana, at the invitation of the Winona Lake Bible Conference, which at the time was known as “The World’s Largest Bible Conference.”

I recognized that Grace Seminary played a huge role in the direction our lives have taken, but I wanted to know more. I kept searching. An article surfaced in a photo album. Mother, who never did like to write, had written a brief version of her life story for the denominational magazine. 

Mother’s Story

Early in life we were taught the importance of missionary work. Many missionaries visited our home. My parents always wanted to go to the mission field. When they were married, they had Christ for Africa engraved inside their wedding rings. After their graduation from Fort Wayne Bible Institute. . . they applied to go to Africa, but for some reason were refused. Although he couldn’t go, my father always prayed that the Lord would give him a missionary family—and four of the six children have been or are still missionaries.

I was later told the reason my grandparents had to give up their dream was that Grandpa could not tolerate quinine, the one known antidote for malaria, so prevalent in Africa.

As I read, I realized that my place in life was determined long before any seminary journey. God answered the prayers of a young man with a heart for missions but whose path had been redirected. His disappointment led to a new divine appointment—a long pastorate in a small-town church with a missionary outreach into several continents, not only Africa.

Mother’s Life Story Continues:

Like few other preachers’ kids, I had the privilege of going through all twelve years of school in the same town. After graduating from high school, I went to Dayton, Tennessee, to attend Bryan University. The Lord again was preparing me for missionary service, as Bryan at the time was a very rustic place ….

During my sophomore year in college, I was placed on a gospel team with two Hoyt boys and Lola Goehring, a girl from my hometown. We got along so well singing together that Lola became Mrs. Lowell Hoyt and I became Mrs. Solon Hoyt. While working [during the summer] at beautiful Greenwood Hills Bible Conference near Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, Solon and I were engaged ….

The summer of their fiftieth wedding anniversary, my parents wanted to revisit Greenwood Hills so I drove them there. We took pictures of all the places dear to them.

“Here’s the Chatter Box [ice cream and snack shop], where he gave me my engagement ring,” said Mother. “This is the bench we sat on, here between the two trees. It was evening, getting dark, we were reading the Bible when we heard something.”

“I thought it was a dog, so I kicked it,” said Dad.

“It was a skunk and it sprayed my white dress,” said Mother. “But I got the stain out.”

 The article goes on:

One year later we were married. We decided to go directly to Grace Seminary and finish the year of college during the summers. This my husband did, but due to economic and family reasons, I had to be content with the three years of college and the two-year Christian Education diploma from Grace Seminary.

During those war years, educational prerequisites were altered for students headed to the ministry. This allowed Dad to complete his college degree while pursuing theological studies.

“Seminary years were very happy, but difficult,” explained Mother.  We were involved in much study, church duties, and extra work to help make ends meet. On top of that, we were trying to make preparations to leave for the mission field. It was during our second year in school that we felt called to Argentina. God used the influence of Rev. Paul Dowdy and my brother-in-law, Dr. Herman Hoyt. We studied Spanish with Mr. Dowdy that year and were approved by the Foreign Missionary Society Board toward the end of the year.

Graduation March 1945

The title of Mother’s article sums it up— “Prepared and Directed.” As I read, my mind’s eye zoomed further and further out, enabling me to see the larger picture and understand that God had His hand on my grandparents, their ancestors, their children, and me long before I was born.

“Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, before you were born, I set you apart.  (Jeremiah 1:5)”