I would like to tell you how God reached into my life and saved my soul. It was the Word of God that finally clinched it for me and made me understand that I was saved for Heaven and that I would never be in Hell.  God said it. I believed it. And that settled it. I am about to tell you how and when, and where God saved me, but the ‘why‘ is still the greatest wonder of my soul.

I was born and raised in Forteau, a little fishing village on the coast of Labrador. It’s where the rocky coast is on display in the summer, and the ice and snow cover everything in the winter.

Family Fishing Business

At the age of nine, I went to work with my Dad in the family fishing business. Times were tough, and my Dad needed help. I was just a young boy, and the family was not in the best of financial circumstances. I worked for several years fishing with my Dad but never really saw any money from it. The Fall would come on when the fishing season was over, and all the catching was done; the fish would be processed and sold, but I never saw any wages. I got three meals a day, a place to sleep, and my clothes washed, but I never saw any money. We were very poor and barely made ends meet. That was my family circumstances and the environment in which I was born and raised.

Teenager Leaves Home

But as a young man of 16 or 17 years of age, I decided to leave home. I would leave Labrador and go off and look for work outside the province. I went to Seven Islands (Sept-Îles), a town in Quebec where a private railroad was being built. It went into the interior of Labrador 360 miles (580kms) to an iron mine. I hired on with QNS&L at a starting wage of 80 cents an hour.

In comparison to my family’s financial circumstances, this was great. It was nice to see money. I thought this was wonderful to have a paycheck coming every two weeks. Initially, I saved my money and even sent some home to my family but then things began to change. The money started to go as fast as I was making it.

Working on the Railroad

As a young man living in the bunkhouse of the construction company, I enjoyed the camaraderie and party times of the construction crew. I saw them often sitting at the gambling table and watched them many times go down the railroad line to the little town of Seven Islands (Sept-Îles) to drink it up. It wasn’t very long before I was doing the same things they were doing.

When I look back to that time as a young man and consider my circumstances, I really was no better off than my father. In fact, I was not as well off as my father. At least, he had his own home and a place to live. If the construction company ever fired me, I would have no place to live. My father had three meals a day on his table, but I never had enough money to buy a meal by the time the weekend was over.

Living the Life

Such was my life as I lived with my construction crew buddies. I had no intentions of ever going back to the little fishing village in Labrador where I was raised. I was a big shot now. I could tip the bottle and drink like the others. I could play at the gambling table just like the other men. I thought I had the best that life could offer.

All the time I was enjoying every pleasure I could find in this life, I was unaware of the spiritual realities in God’s Word. I never knew anything about the Bible. I had never read the Bible in my life before. I never knew there was a Heaven to be enjoyed or a Hell to avoid. I never knew if I died in my sins, I’d be in Hell forever.

I look back at incidences now as a young man living in sin and shudder at how close I came to losing my soul many times and ending up in Hell. But God held back and spared my life so that He might save my soul.

(This video clip from Ohio illustrates the type of equipment used.)

23,000 Volt Wire

On one occasion, I was working with a dragline excavator crane at the railroad construction site.  It was a huge piece of machinery with a 50-foot boom. I had just taken it across the river where it was required on the other side. I followed the procedures for getting all the water out of the machine by greasing its tracks and rollers. No sooner had I finished all that work when my boss told me they required the machine back on the other side of the river again.

I was upset about this waste of time, but I got in the crane and started crossing the river again – back to the other side. Halfway across, I could see my supervisor walking fast towards me and waving his arms at me. I was more upset than ever – in fact, I was fuming as I thought he had changed his mind yet again. Finally, he came, and he stood on the shore, and he put his hand to his heart, and then he pointed up. When he pointed, I looked up as well. I was standing on the crane’s running board up to my knees in water. As I looked up, about three feet from the crane’s 50-foot boom was a 23,000-volt wire!

Just another little roll of the tracks of that huge machine, and I would have been electrocuted. And my soul would have been in Hell forever. As I repositioned that boom and sized up the situation, I  really wasn’t bothered by the close call. But as I lay in bed that night, in the old bunkhouse, I thought: “Wallace, you could have been gone like that – you could have been killed.” I shivered at the thought of death, but I never realized I could have been in Hell. I didn’t have a clue about eternity and what it would mean to perish in my sins. That’s just the way I lived – giving no thought to eternity and the next life.

Tragic Ending to a Big Weekend

One Saturday evening, a buddy of mine, a young man my age, said to me, “Wallace, let’s go to Seven Islands (Sept-Îles) and have a good time. We might be dead tomorrow.” We were twenty-six kilometres from the town. The road only came nineteen kilometres, and we had to walk six kilometres. He said: “Let’s go and have a good time.” So I said, “Yes! Let’s go. The Bible says, Eat, drink and be merry.” That is indeed what the Bible says, but after I was saved, I found out that the very next verse in the Bible says, “Thou Fool!” We were just fools.

We went into the town of Seven Islands (Sept-Îles), and we lived it up again that weekend. That’s the weekend I will never forget. I left our hotel room around midnight. In a fight with my buddy, I said to him: “You can die!” and I left.

I was heading back up the line so I could be at work Monday morning. I got a taxi to drive me to Mile 12. From there, I walked the railroad track six kilometres to Mile 16 in the dark under the influence of alcohol. It was a brutal six-kilometre trek. Walking railroad tracks is difficult enough in the daylight but much more difficult in the dark and under the influence of drink.

A few hours later, I arrived at the construction crew bunkhouse, and I crawled into bed. But it wasn’t long before I had to get up and go to work. As I went into the kitchen, I remember those forty men standing around, and I said, “Boys, what’s wrong with you fellas this morning?” They said to me, “Wallace, haven’t you heard that your buddy was killed just a mile or so down the railroad track?” I couldn’t believe it, especially given my last words to him said in anger.

We walked down the track that morning. The old train, a mile-long with four locomotives and about 130 or 140 iron-ore cars was all tied up there on the railroad track. We walked back four locomotives and fourteen ore cars, all of which had passed over that young man’s body. There, by the side of the tracks, lay his remains. I’ll never forget the sight. He was gone out into eternity.

As I stood there that morning, I, along with all the other men, wept. It was the first time I remember shedding tears in my almost 24 years of life.  We saw the remains of a young man that we had worked with, drank with, gambled with, and now he was lying still in death. And I thought to myself ­— there’s some mother’s son. There’s some father’s son. There’s some sister’s brother, and the news has been received this morning that their loved one was gone. My buddy had been sitting on a case of beer on the railroad track as the train came around the bend and he was ushered into eternity.

A Heavy Heart Thinking About Home

We all walked back and started to work that Monday morning. But for me, it was very difficult. My machine was shovelling away at the landscape, and it began to pile up because the tractor moving it away was parked and idle.  The tractor that always pushed the material away from the shovel had no operator that day. My buddy, its operator, was gone.

I only worked for a couple of hours, but I couldn’t manage any more than that. I went to the superintendent and told him I couldn’t work anymore. I started to think about home. When I left home, I never intended to go back. But then I started to think about my Mom and Dad, and my brothers and sisters. I thought I would like to see them again. I would just like to be able to walk into the house and put my arms around my Mom and Dad again. My superintendent told me that there was no reason why I couldn’t take some time off to go home. I had been working with the company for a couple of years and had never taken time off.

Rubber Cheque

I went back to the bunkhouse to pack. But the reality was I had no money to go home.  A fellow-worker, who had worked the night shift happened to be there. Unlike me, he didn’t regularly spend all his paycheque on the weekends. I asked him if he would be able to cash a cheque if I gave him one. He agreed, but he didn’t know I had written him a ‘rubber’ cheque. I had no money in my bank account to cover it. I left and never intended to reimburse the man for the money and his kindness. Thankfully, after God saved me, I did pay him back. Had I never been saved, he would never have seen the money again. That’s one of the things that God’s salvation does. It gives you the correct perspective on life and values.

Gospel Boat Takes Anchor

When I returned home that Autumn, I learned that a Gospel Boat called the MGM had sailed along the coast of Labrador earlier that summer.  It visited each port with the good news of Jesus Christ. Herb Harris, Bert Joyce and George Campbell, and others organized that gospel outreach to the Labrador coast. As God would have it, by the time I arrived home, George Campbell, one of the preachers, had just returned and was visiting in the community and having Gospel meetings each evening.

Strange Religion

One night, I was with the boys that I  used to get around with before I went away for work. We were sitting around a barrel of homebrew. We were drinking and having a good time, and then they started to talk about the new religion that had recently come to the village. I asked what kind of a religion it was, but their response was only that it was a strange religion. As we got a few drinks down, I started a little argument by saying that it was as good as our religion. We were just drunkards. Their only response was that they didn’t want that new religion around.

I had an invitation to go hear the gospel message. I was dating Olive Belbin, who had recently trusted Christ as a result of this Gospel work. She had been born again. I told my buddies that I was going to go and listen to the message. They were insistent that I shouldn’t go to hear about this new religion, but I continued to argue with them. Finally, I told them they could mind their own business and that I would go where I wanted. I didn’t get any more arguments from them.

Checking Out the Religion

I left my buddies and went over to the little upstairs room in a building that George Campbell had rented in the community. The meeting had just started. Mr. Campbell was standing in front of six or seven people seated on 2X10 plank benches mounted on boxes. I sat and listened to the man that evening preach from the Bible. I had never heard anything in my life like it before. He spoke about Heaven, and he spoke about Hell. He spoke about each of us having a soul, and that it was going to live eternally, either in Heaven or in Hell. He spoke very plainly and said these things were all in the Bible. Well, I didn’t know if they were in the Bible or not. But one thing I did know was if these things are, in fact, in the Bible, I was wrong. I had never read the Bible and didn’t know what the Bible said.

Tearing off the Door in Rage

After that meeting, I was quite stirred up. How dare a man get up and tell you that if you’re not saved and if you don’t have Jesus Christ as your Savior, you’re going to be in Hell! I was so upset that when I went down the stairs to leave, I took the door with me. I tore it off the hinges and threw it off to the side. Nobody said anything to me or stopped me, so I just kept going.

Eaton’s Didn’t Send a Substitute

After I got home, I began to think that if what that man was saying was actually in the Bible, then I was wrong, and I was going to be in Hell. I thought to myself, I better get down to business and find out if the things he said were really in the Bible. I didn’t have a Bible, and you couldn’t buy a Bible in the village where I lived. But we did have the old catalogue for Eaton’s of Canada. So, I got the catalogue out, and I found a Bible and filled out an order form. Anybody that knows anything about catalogue-ordering back home on the coast, especially back at that time, knows you could get anything. Eatons provided all kinds of substitutes. You might order a shirt and get a pair of pants. But I often thank God that Eatons never sent a substitute! I got the Bible!

So, for two and a half months, I read the Bible. I was never much of a reader from the time I got out of school. I never read books and never had any time for it. Back in the bunkhouse in Seven Islands (Sept-Îles) someone would occasionally throw a book over on my bunk and tell me I should read it because it was really good. I would pick it up and read the last three or four chapters and get the gist of the story. That was the way I used to read my books. So, when I got the Bible, I thought the Bible was the same thing.

Reading My Bible

I didn’t know the Bible had an Old Testament and a New Testament. I thought l would start at the back – so, I started in the New Testament. It is amazing how God works! I could have gotten stuck in the complicated Old Testament books like Numbers and Deuteronomy and might even have remained stuck there right up to today! But thank God, He has His way of working with each of us.

The more I read the Bible, the more I found out that what I heard that man preach in the upstairs room of the rented building that evening was really true. I had a soul that was going to live forever. Eventually, the body was going to get six feet of mother earth on top of it, but the soul was going to live eternally. And if I died the way I was, my soul would be in Hell.

Afraid to Fall Asleep

I remember one night in January 1957, reading my Bible and coming to this verse:

I read it over a couple of times and then got in bed. We didn’t have any electric lights where I lived. Rather than using the old oil lamp, I had hooked up a ceiling light to a dry cell battery. So, after reading that one verse, I turned off the little switch and got in bed.

I started thinking that If I were to die in my sleep that night, I’d be in Hell. Or, if there was a house fire and I couldn’t escape, I’d be in Hell. I remembered the bad bunkhouse fire back at Seven Islands (Sept-Îles) when six men I knew quite well perished. We had talked to them in the evening, but when we got up the next morning, their bunkhouse was just a pile of ashes. The six men were gone out into eternity. Another night, there was a fire in my own bunkhouse. I escaped with nothing more than the clothes I had on. I couldn’t even get my boots.

With eternity weighing heavily on my mind and deeply bothered, I got out of bed and switched on that little light and opened the Bible and looked down at that verse, “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” I said, “Oh Lord, I’m just a poor sinner, and I’m going to Hell. And I’m a whosoever. Lord, save me!”

Saved! Born Again!

I looked back at that verse and realized it was saying I was saved. I saw that evening for the first time that the Lord Jesus Christ bore my sins and my judgment and my Hell. By receiving Him as my own personal Saviour I would never be in Hell. I got back into bed, and I went to sleep that night, and I slept like a baby – little realizing that God had changed the entire course of my life and had set me up to be blessed so richly in this life and forever.

Reflecting now on those experiences and the close encounters I had with death, what was God doing in my life back in the bunkhouse days and other times in my life? God was hemming me in and showing me that it’s not all of life to live nor of death to die. Eternity follows. There is so much more than this life He wants us to receive and appreciate. This all was going through my mind that night as I lay on my bed on the far side of that little upstairs bedroom. Perhaps, as you are reading my testimony, many things are going through your own mind. You are recalling experiences in your life when God was at work and seeking to get your attention. Even now, God is reaching out to save you and to give you eternal life.

By simply trusting the Lord Jesus Christ as your Saviour, God will do the same for you as He did for me. You can be saved for Heaven and saved from Hell by the precious blood of Christ. Will you make that choice today and call upon the name of the Lord as Acts 2:21 says? If you do, God says, you will be saved.

Check out: Three Minutes Alone With You

I have enjoyed God’s great salvation for 64 years. Knowing Christ as my Saviour and Heaven as my eternal destiny has been my anchor in the storms of life. The joy of sins forgiven and being at peace with God is not something I would exchange for anything else in this world.

I’ve had the privilege of taking the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ to many remote towns and ports of Newfoundland and Labrador and the coast of Quebec by boat and plane and to other places in Canada and the United States. And yes, Olive Belbin, became Olive Buckle on November 4^th, 1957.  We have enjoyed the decades together serving the Lord, and we look forward to being with Christ forever. That is our future, and I pray it will be yours too.