In spite of the fact that Dad didn’t pay me for my summer’s work, I went up to New Brunswick Bible Institute (NBBI). (They accepted me even though I only had an eighth grade education.) When I got to the border, Canadian Customs asked if I had any firearms, etc.

“There’s a couple of .45 colt automatics in the glove compartment,” I told him.

I thought he was going to jump out of his skin. I had to leave the guns with him in order to get into Canada. Ever since I was a kid, we carried guns wherever we went. I had never even considered that the Canadian government would take a dim view of that.

They had a strict dress code at New Brunswick Bible Institute. The boys had to wear dress shirts and ties every day to class and to all the chapel services.  It was tough for me. I didn’t have much in the way of dress clothes. I came to school with one suitcase, but before I left Bible school I was well supplied. I guess people felt sorry for me. I had something like thirty-four shirts by the time I graduated and more pairs of trousers than anyone could expect to wear.  During my first year of Bible school I would sometimes wake up at night. I would think my Dad was in there with a knife. I would lie there in the dark in a sweat. I had a lot of fear to overcome but with God’s help He saw me through.

NBBI became my second home. The staff were not only great teachers, but became great friends. I loved them all but Robins, Bredins and Duffs were special. They knew from where I had come and somehow showed more grace.

I had failed some of my first year subjects and found it tough to settle down to study. To stay in bed until 6:00 a.m. was torture. They finally gave me a gratis job on the boiler crew. The school was heated by steam. Then I could get up at a reasonable hour like three-thirty or four o’clock. This gave me more time to study and practice preaching in the boiler house.

The others on the boiler crew seemed glad for me to take their shift.

Ron Knightly was in my class and was from Maine, too. We became friends and would box and wrestle.  We both liked exercise. Larry Linton was another kindred spirit. One spring we went swimming in the St. John River, diving off the floating ice. We were always doing some foolish thing. I guess we became legends while we were at NBBI. Maybe that’s why I got to know the teachers so well.

By my third year, I caught up on all my subjects and was able to graduate with my class. God taught me a lot in spending time with Him. I also learned a lot through doing camp work with Canadian Sunday School Mission (CSSM) in the summers, preaching and doing personal evangelism. Later it was a great joy to share in speaking engagements and conferences with Mr. Robins, Mr. Bredin and Mr. Duff.  These and others were a real example to me.  I had been in Bible school a year when Cathy came. I wasn’t looking for a wife and Cathy wasn’t looking for a husband when she enrolled. But God knew we needed each other if we were to be successful in the work He was calling us to do.  I’m going to let her tell about her early life and how we got together.

CATHY.

I’ m sure a lot of people who knew me never thought I would be a missionary when I grew up.  Least of all, me. As a child I was too busy getting into trouble to consider anything like that.  I’ll never forget our house. It was built on ‘ a small farm in the early 1900’s by my grandfather who died when Mom was sixteen years old. It had an even dozen rooms and, when it was first built, it was considered the most beautiful home in the community.  I didn’t appreciate it when I was a girl. To me it was old fashioned with its antique furniture and its lack of modern conveniences.

We didn’t have electricity until I was twelve. Our studying was done by lamp light. My folks didn’t have a phone or an indoor toilet until after I was in Bible school. When we got up on those cold New Brunswick mornings, water was frozen in the pails. I can still remember how I hated to step out on that cold vinyl floor in my bare feet. I used to get out of bed and race down stairs and stand by the kitchen stove to get warm.

I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but after Carroll and I were married I was thankful I had been introduced to that sort of living when I was young.  Since we’ve been with NCEM I’ve seen how difficult it is for some of the young women to make the adjustment to the ‘modern inconveniences’ of the mission field.

I was the middle child in a family of three boys and four girls. I use that as an excuse for getting into so much trouble when I was growing up. One sister and two brothers were several years older and could do so many things I couldn’t and I was envious of them.  My brother, Bob, who is two years younger, and I became inseparable. We didn’t have anyone else at home to play with. But I liked to visit the Stewards, our only neighbours. They were considerably older than my parents, but I loved to go over to their home.  And I resented the fact that Mom refused to allow me to go over there alone. After all, the bigger kids got to go places without Mom and Dad along. I didn’t see why I had to stay home.

I was five when I decided that I was going to visit the Stewards whether I had permission or not. I was able to sneak away without being seen but I was afraid my folks would miss my pet lamb that had a habit of following me wherever I went. I was a real life ‘Mary had a little lamb. . . .’ I did everything I could to get that pesky animal to go back where he belonged but he was as stubborn as I was.

Finally I picked him up and threw him against the rail fence. He scrambled to his feet and scurried back to me. That happened again and again until finally I carried him back to his pen. The next morning Dad found the lamb dead. I had one of my first lessons on the result of disobedience. I lost a pet I loved dearly because I was determined to have my own way.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t ready to apply that lesson to my life.

When I was six or seven, I was sick with whooping cough and passionately hated being confined to the house. I was beginning to feel a little better and couldn’t see the sense of staying indoors. Despite firm orders from Mom, I was determined to go out and play.

I got my coat and headed for the door, only to be stopped by one of my brothers. In the kitchen of the old house the front and back doors were directly across from each other. When I was blocked from the front door I whirled and dashed for the back with my brother close behind.

I ran back and forth half a dozen times, screaming like a seagull fighting his brother for a fish. By that time Mom got into the act, but I still wasn’t ready to accept her edict. Someone had to guard that door all day. I’m sure she gave me credit for most of her gray hair, particularly on that occasion.

When I was young I could never understand why we had to wait if there was something that should be done. I remember the time Bob and I fixed up a section of the woodshed loft to play house. There was only one problem with our hideaway. There was no window.

Lights came through the cracks between the boards but that wasn’t enough to suit us. I begged Dad to put in a window for us, but it wasn’t very high on his list of priorities. After waiting far longer than I thought was necessary I sneaked two butcher knives from the kitchen and Bob and I set to work.  We were just getting the hole to a nice size when Dad saw what we were doing and put a stop to it.  Another time I decided that the barn needed to be cleaned out. Bob was a willing accomplice so we set to work. I hadn’t realized that fresh manure was so heavy and so slippery. I was struggling to push a load on my shovel when I slipped and fell. My right leg and my dress took on a smelly brown hue.  I knew if I went to the house I’d be in trouble again so I went to the well to clean up. We had a large tub at the foot of the hill where spring water flowed in to furnish us with drinking water. I stepped into the tub and sat down, clothes and all, to give myself a bath. I can’t remember whether we drank any of that water before the tub was flushed out.

That same summer we had an old milk separator that reminded me of the tub in Rub A Dub Dub. I plugged the hole with an old cloth and Bob and I carried it to the pond. We were sure we had a boat that we could sail as long as we wanted to. We put it in the water and we both squeezed into it. It sank immediately. The water wasn’t deep but we had to play a safe distance from the house until our clothes dried.

One day I was blamed for something Bob did. I couldn’t let that indignity go by without getting even so I took a cup out of the pantry and broke it against the siding on the kitchen.

I was seven when Dad bought his first car. Bob and I stood in the back for our first ride, laughing our heads off. Dad couldn’t have been driving faster than forty miles an hour but to us, we were flying.  That ride was more enjoyable than the one we had in a friend’s car. He drove his Model T Ford into the yard and went off to work with Dad in the hayfield. As soon as we got the chance, Bob and I crawled into the fascinating vehicle to look things over.  It was parked in our farm yard and I began pulling and testing all the buttons on the dash. It started to move; chug, chug and in a frantic effort we tried to stop it but to no avail. Bob quickly got behind the wheel while I was trying desperately to crawl out the rear window. I don’t know what my motive was unless it was to abandon Bob in a desperate attempt to look out for myself.

“Help!” I hollered. “HELP!”

Nothing happened until we ran into a fence and stopped, at which time my Dad noticed what was happening and came running to our rescue. He was horrified that we would touch someone else’s car. I got a good reminder not to do that again.  Christmas was always a joyous occasion at our house. My Mom worked hard getting ready and putting out every effort she could to see we all had nice gifts.

I always loved dolls and still do. Every Christmas I got a new doll, a coloring book and crayons and something to wear. Back then the dolls had ceramic heads and limbs that would shrivel up if they were left out in the rain. Quite often that happened to my dolls and once I left my sister, Nan’s, doll outside and the rain ruined it. It took awhile for her to treat me as a sister again.

Trimming the Christmas tree was a family project.  We always went out in the woods, cut a tree and set it up in the living room. And, as usual, I had to be in the center of the action, causing my share of trouble. On one occasion the tree was nearly decorated when I fell head first into it.

The prickles from the fir branches felt soft compared to the shouting and hollering from my sisters and brothers.

We always spent Christmas afternoon at Grammie MacTavish’s place. We would rush with the dishes at noon and’, before we had a car, we would pile into the sleigh for the ride through the snow. Heated blocks of wood helped keep our feet warm and coats made of raccoon skins were thrown around us. This was one of the highlights of the Christmas season. The sounds of the sleigh bells and the clomping of the horses’ feet all added to the excitement and made the four mile trip seem short.

One Christmas I got a toy stove. I was playing with it on the sun porch later when I decided that a stove wasn’t much good unless it could be used. So I stuffed paper and the batting from an old chair into the firebox and lit it. Those horrible fumes drifted through the house and it wasn’t long until I had the attention of the whole family.

It’s no wonder my meek and gentle mother would shake her head and say, “I don’t know what’s ever going to become of you.’

When I was six or seven, my cousin told me there was a good man up in the sky who had lots of toys for us if we were good.

I guess she told me He was God, but I don’t remember that for sure. She presented a warped image of God and who He was but I began searching to find out more about Him. And nothing I heard added up to her appraisal.

I was in Sunday school every Sunday but I had a habit of daydreaming when the lesson was read.  Thus I took very little in during those early years.  When I was seven or eight there was a revival in my home church that affected every home in the community. As far as I can remember, almost every home in the area had at least one member who made a decision for Christ.

Shantyman Joe Strachen came to our church for a week of meetings. The Lord moved in such a wonderful way that he stayed an extra week. It reached the place where people couldn’t even walk past the church without turning in to get to their knees and get their lives straightened out. People who hadn’t spoken to each other for years got together as brothers and sisters making things right between them. Overdue bills were paid.

Evangelists came to our church regularly. I remember when Paul Curry came and as a young child I was very impressed with seeing people going forward in services to accept Christ.  One day I asked a neighbor girl about the Daily Vacation Bible School she attended and what she learned. She told me about getting saved. “And if you want to get saved, you should go there, too.” Right then I decided that there was going to be at least one more girl in Daily Vacation Bible School the next year. I went, but I didn’t know whether I could stand all those rules Mrs. Sampson, the director, laid down.

She was on the stage with her pointer setting down the law in unmistakable terms. I always seemed to rebel against rules and regulations, but I was determined to become a Christian at the first altar call.  That happened near the end of the DVBS. I went forward and gave my heart to the Lord in that little Presbyterian Church in Sunny Corner, New Brunswick.

One of the things I remember most about it was going home so happy, and telling Bob what had happened to me. “The only sad thing about it,” I said, “was that you weren’t there so you could be saved, too.”

It made a big change in my life, but I was still determined and strong-willed. I’ve had to struggle with that through the years.

My sister, Nan, and I didn’t get along very well during our teens. She was a worker and I was the shirker. We used to get into some awful fights at the dishpan because I was so slow at drying. I was swatted over the face more than once with that wet dishcloth.

We never fought again after she was married.  My two younger sisters, Irma and Carolyn, remember some bizarre stories I told them when they were just little girls and I was in my teens. They believed everything I said. I can’t remember the stories myself but they claim to remember all of them.  I even convinced Carolyn that she was adopted.  But there is one thing all three of us remember. I led both of them to the Lord. It took place in the outdoor toilet at home.

My brother, Hollis, was always special to me as he lived at home most of those years. He had a hearty laugh and seemed to get a kick out of me and my shenanigans. He used to pay me to scratch his back.  Don, the quiet one, was easy to get along with. He teased me a lot but wouldn’t put up with a lot of foolishness. He was the second in the family to be married. He and June lived with the family for a period of time, then he got a job with NB Tel, and is now retired.

My younger brother, Bob and I were good friends except for the occasional fight. In our teens we often walked to youth group together (about a three mile walk).

I wasn’t a mature Christian in my teens. In spite of that I loved church, especially evangelistic meetings, and I was concerned about the future destiny of my friends. I witnessed to other kids my age and went forward with some at altar calls.

Though I didn’t always live up to my Christian values, I had strict rules regarding morals. They helped keep me from impurity and gross sins which I would have regretted for the rest of my life.  I could never see much sense to school and disliked all of it until I started taking a secretarial course. That drew my interest and for the first time I was concerned enough to do my homework. Only the courses that fit that category were worked on at night.  As I drove out of the school yard for the last time I remember saying, “Goodbye, books. That’s the last time I’ll ever be in school.”

I got a job working as a stenographer at Eatons in Moncton, New Brunswick, and enjoyed it more than anything I had ever done up to that time. I had no intention of giving it up, especially to go to Bible school. But the Lord started dealing with me about getting Bible training.

Friends and people in the church started asking me if I was going to Bible school. I had a stock answer for them. “Oh yes, I will some day.” But I really didn’t mean it. I only said what I did to get them off my back. I worked hard at putting that out of my mind, as though doing so would make the conviction go away.

By that time I knew a lot about my imperfect nature.  I didn’t see any reason for going to Bible school unless I was going into full time Christian service and I couldn’t see God using anyone like me.  Besides, I didn’t want to be like some of the missionaries I’d seen come home from their fields.  They looked worn out and in need of a break. It frightened me to think that the same thing could happen to me. I missed quite a few nights of sleep battling with that.

At the same time I became very frustrated with my boss at work. He seemed to make a habit of picking on one or two girls at a time to growl about their work.  He would direct his ill temper toward them for a time and move on to someone else. I was also one of his victims.

I thought I could do an acceptable job of writing shorthand. But when he was in one of those moods he would call me into his office and dictate his letters so fast I could hardly keep up with him. I was so afraid of him I didn’t have the courage to ask him to slow down.

At the end of his letter he would say, “Did you get all of it? “

I had a stock answer for him. “I think so.” I worked as fast as I could to get his letters transcribed.

I’d come home on the weekend and tell my Dad I was going to look for another job. He had a stock answer for me. “Don’t be a quitter. Stick with that job for now, anyway” So I would go back and tough it out.  He used to warn me about other things. “Don’t take your breaks any longer than they ought to be,” he said. “And another thing, I don’t want any of my kids to get in trouble because of dishonesty. if you lose your job because you aren’t honest, don’t come back here looking for a place to stay.” At the same time God was dealing with me about going to Bible school. I finally told the Lord that I would go to Bible school. But, characteristically, I wasn’t ready to accept God’s timetable. I set the date a year down the road on the excuse that it would give me time to save what I needed to go to school. But that wasn’t what He wanted. He wanted me there that fall.

I still didn’t see how I could make it. I was only earning $38 a week and could save very little . Finally, however, I yielded to the Lord and applied to New Brunswick Bible Institute. I handed in my resignation even before I heard back from the school so I could go in September.

I didn’t have the money to go, but when I finished working there was a bonus for me. That gave me enough money to pay for my first year and part of the second. It was amazing how He looked after all my expenses.

That was a turning point in my life. I have always felt that if God was that concerned about me going to Bible school that He would give me no peace or rest until I agreed, He must have something special in store for me. From the time I gave in to the Lord’s will, I looked forward to going to Bible school. And, all of those old fears and doubts were gone.  Still, Bible school was a big adjustment for me. I had to get used to living in a noisy dorm, putting up with all kinds of personalities and fitting into a rigorous schedule. More than once I wondered if I would ever survive the year. But, as time went on, I began to feel at home, and everyone was like family.  “You only want to go to Bible school to find a man,” Dad told me when I explained what God was calling me to do.

“That is not the reason!” I exploded. “I’m not interested in men!”

Mom was solidly behind me and Dad was, too. I think he wanted to test me to be sure I was not making a mistake.

As it turned out I was only in school two weeks when Carroll came on the scene. My roommate, Rolla Taylor, had him picked out for me.  “He’s the one for you, Cathy,” she said. “I know it!”

“Him?” I snorted indignantly. “He’s the most foolish

boy in school. I don’t see why you think he would be

the one for

me.’ 9

“Just wait!”

At the time I just knew him by sight but at the annual get-acquainted party, a few days later we were playing musical chairs and he ended up landing on a chair next to me. He came at it so hard he went right over backwards.

On the way home that night I was still upset at Rolla. “That guy must be straight out of the backwoods.”

My first impression of Carroll wasn’t that great. I always said I would never marry a lumberjack, a preacher or a farmer and he was all three. When we were playing volleyball a couple of weeks after we met he kept getting next to me and asked all sorts of questions. I found out later that he had already checked me out with somebody else. He just wanted to strike up a conversation with me.  It wasn’t long until I started getting interested in him and by Christmas we were going steady.  Bible schools in those days had a lot of rules and NBBI was no exception. I had never been one to like a lot of rules and had broken my share when I was a kid, but I was also conscientious enough to know that rules at the school were made to be kept.  Carroll respected rules as well. But for some reason he had a harder time keeping them than I did.  We weren’t supposed to talk to each other very often so we had to be very careful of how we saw each other. We couldn’t walk to classes unless it just happened. Carroll had a way of making it happen every day.

He would watch out the window of the boy’s dorm, waiting for me to come out of my dorm on my way to class. He would pop out of the door as soon as I did and it ‘just happened’ that we were together.  The staff soon got on to that and we were called in the office for it. I think the dean of women was charged with keeping an eye on us. She called me into her office on one occasion.

“You and Carroll are so open about everything.” “That’s just it,” I told her. “We don’t believe in doing things behind your back. What Carroll and I do, you see.”

We had been going together about six months and realized that we were meant for each other right from the start and that the Lord was leading us in that way.  But there was a period when the Lord put me to the test to see if I was willing to give up Carroll for Him.  I remember one long sleepless night and finally I said, “Lord, if that’s what You want, I’m willing.” Then, I knew it would hurt Carroll terribly, too, and I didn’t want to do that. I asked God if it was necessary to ask me to do it. The Lord worked it all out so I knew He was just checking me out to see if I was willing.  The next summer I tried to get a job and everywhere I went they wanted me permanently. I was trained as a stenographer and didn’t try to get anything but secretarial work.

Toward the end of August I started getting job offers. There was a particularly attractive job at a school but I turned it down.

I might say that was tempting, but I had determined in my heart that I would finish Bible school. As it turned out, the Lord provided for all my schooling that year. The third year Carroll, who had graduated by then, was working and paid my way.

CARROLL:

Like Cathy said, it didn’t take us long after we got acquainted to start going steady.

I hadn’t even heard of the Northern Canada Evangelical Mission (NCEM) until Marshall Calverley came to our school and challenged us to consider the North as our field of service. Marshall had a real way of touching hearts. There were six of our class who eventually joined NCEM.

He was soliciting missionaries for the entire field, but they needed help particularly for the boat they were putting on James Bay the next summer. Ron Knightly volunteered to help there. Ron and I had been friends since 1957. We used to wrestle and box at Bible school and when he came back from James Bay, Cathy and I decided that’s where we wanted to serve.

Actually, we planned to go to language school and go to Eastmain, Quebec, but for some reason God led us in a different direction. When we saw the needs around Meadow Lake and went up to Sandy Lake with John Unger, we came to realize that it wasn’t where we served that mattered so much. There were tremendous needs wherever we looked. We didn’t actually see Eastmain, Quebec until years later when I was the Eastern Field Director.

Cathy said she hadn’t come to Bible school to find a husband and I hadn’t come to Bible school to find a wife, but God brought us together. I graduated in 1960 and worked for the Star Beef Company in Bangor, Maine, and spent some time in the sawmill and logging while she was taking her last year in Bible school. I also worked in the woods with Cathy’s Dad and her older brother, Hollis, and I became good friends with both of them. Cathy and I were married June 3, 1961 and set off for Saskatchewan where God had called us to serve Him.

The Bangor Daily News carried an account of our wedding. It said that Carroll Hill from East Corinth, Maine, married Cathy MacTavish from Red Bank, New Brunswick and they had gone to Saskatchewan for a honeymoon. It’s been quite a long honeymoonthirty-some years.

Looking back over our ministry with NCEM, I can see why God put Cathy and me together. I had to have a helpmate with fire in her heart to stand beside me. We helped each other go through what God allowed us to experience in preparing us for the position we now have with the Northern Canada Evangelical Mission.

Young Man

Young boy is oh, so proud
Of new jeans his mother bought,
Until he gets them dirty
Or on a nail he gets them caught.
Surprising how soon the glitter goes
From shining things and new,
New things get old so quickly,
One wonders what to do.
But all things being equal,
The boy becomes a man,
And if he has a little boy,
He understands the plan.

Memories

Walking through the fields
As the warm fall breezes blow,
Bring back precious memories
Of a long, long time ago.

Often strolling by the river,
Or through the woodland fair,
Doing little things together,
Like messing up each other’s hair.

The days slipped by so quickly
Since in Bible school we met,
The precious times we spent together,
We never, never will forget.

In front of the old homestead with my sister, Patty

Five of us boys riding the old horse.	Packing pulp.

Some pulp we cut at South Twin, Maine.