Waymarks # 1000DATE
OF PUBLICATION: JANUARY 2000 Those
who have read my autobiography know the background of what happened on
one spring day in 1977, when I went upstairs into the attic of our
little country home in southern Illinois, knelt down, and told God I was
giving Him the rest of my life. I
already loved Him, but this was a deeper commitment. Henceforth, aside
from time for my family, I was going to spend all my hours working
exclusively for the Lord. The
decision was immediately made to go back on the radio, with a weekly
broadcast of dynamic Great Controversy readings, as I had done in
1963-1964. There were absolutely no funds to work with; but I had
learned, from earlier years of living and working by faith, that my task
was to do my appointed work--and my kindly Father would care for the
details. Skipping
over some of what followed (you can find it all in my book: The Story
of My Life, 120 pp., $7.95 + $1.50 p&h), the first broadcast
started in September 1977, using part of a nest egg of $400, which a
friend donated for air time. By the end of the month, I decided to start
a newsletter to any supporters I might have, telling them what was
happening. But
what should I call the newsletter? I discovered, as I have found ever
since, that when I prayed the Lord gave me the best name to use. An old
song by Frank Belden (Ellen Whites nephew) came to mind: Look for
the Waymarks as You Journey On. You will find it in Christ in
Song 586, Church Hymnal 671, and Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal
596). I had
a typewriter which I had purchased new in the late 1960s; and, looking
around, I found some old carbon paper my mother had given me 20 years
before. So I interleaved five sheets of carbon paper between six sheets
of paper and typed a full page. That gave me enough copies for my
supporters, plus a few extra. Then
I mailed out the first issue of Waymarks. It carried an October
1977 date. As I recall, there were three or four folk sending a little
money to help out by that time. This
continued on for a time. By January 1978, the broadcasts had been going
for three months, and about 12
broadcasts had already aired. I was dickering with radio
stations for possible expansion. That, of course, was done by faith; I
had no certainty that, from month to month, I could keep even one
station going. January
was a great turning point for Waymarks. It was the last month I
typed one-page carbon copies. I clearly recall that I had eleven donors
by that month. So I had to type the newsletter three times in order to
get enough copies to mail out. That left me with four extra copies. Then,
after mailing the newsletters, in the back of the stationery store in
Harrisburg, I noticed some
high-priced photocopiers. At least I thought they were high priced! a
couple thousand dollars for just one! Looking at them, I thought I would
never own one of those things; economy was needed in the Lords work
and they were just too expensive. But
the sales clerk mentioned, in passing as he was ringing up a ream of
paper I was purchasing, that the store let selected friends make copies
on their photocopiers for 5 cents a copy. Well, I was a selected friend,
for I purchased stationery supplies there. And
that was the story of how I discovered the photocopier. I went home and
put the old carbon paper back in a file folder and tucked it deep into a
drawer. I had learned of a new way to publish Waymarks. The
months passed, and I kept working on the broadcasts. All this is told in
my autobiography. My concern at this time was to overcome a variety of
obstacles in making broadcast tapes and keeping them on the air. But,
in the summer of 1978, the thought came to mind that it would be a good
idea to reprint something from the Spirit of Prophecy on a sheet of
paper for distribution. Thinking about it, it seemed well to put all, or
most, of The Sufferings of Christ, by Ellen White, into a single
11 x 17 tract. I had
no typesetting equipment, and probably could never afford any. But I
could make photocopies in town. So I tried to prepare a layout of
portions of the book. But that afternoon as I looked at the result, it
was clearly a poor representation of Gods Word. The type was reduced,
hard to read, and photocopy material had to be twisted sideways on the
sheet in order to make everything fit. That
night, as I retired, I prayed to my wonderful heavenly Father. Surely,
there must be a way that all this excellent material could be printed in
inexpensive format for easy distribution. Everyone needed the Spirit of
Prophecy writings! Climbing
into bed, as I lay there, the thought came to check on IBM Selectric
Composers. Years before, in eastern Washington, I had a friend who had
purchased one that used 7-inch tape reels. But, as I recalled, he paid a
lot of money for it. Then a picture, of how wonderfully such a machine
could prepare Sabbath tracts and Spirit of Prophecy compilations on 11 x
17 sheets, came before me. Was it possible that I could somehow obtain
something like this? The
next day, I drove to Evansville, Indiana, the nearest IBM dealer, and
was there given a demonstration of an IBM Selectric Composer. A rather
small, black, stand-alone machine; it had replaced the earlier, clumsy
Composer model my friend in eastern Washington earlier had. No longer
were the 7-inch reel tapes needed to store memory. But
the price of this brand new machine was $12,000, plus tax. I drove home.
The months passed; and, although some
months were skipped, issues of Waymarks continued to made on my
typewriter, photocopied, and mailed out. Eventually, my mailing list
grew to about 20, then 25. As
discussed in detail in my autobiography, in November 1978, accompanied
by my oldest daughter, Linda, I drove to the home of an elderly widow in
Arkansas, who offered to let me make radio recordings in her home during
the winter months. I had no other warm place in which to make them. At
about that time, the strong conviction came over methat the written
word was more powerful than the spoken word. I continue to hold that
belief to this day. What is spoken goes out in the air, and the hearers
soon forget it. What is written is read over and over again, then passed
on to still others to read. Gradually, the conviction deepened, that I
should write instead of broadcast. One
might wonder why I would not continue doing both. The problem was that I
was working essentially alone. I could not work at the radio broadcasts
and carry on a serious writing and publication schedule also. But the
changeover did not occur all at once. While
in Arkansas, a friend in Ardmore, Oklahoma, phoned and told me of a man
in that state who was occasionally willing to help Adventist projects. So
one spring day, Linda and I drove past Tulsa to his country home. We
stayed there that night; and, the next morning, I presented my project
to him. I wanted to purchase some used printing equipment and,
hopefully, some kind of typesetting machine. He
paused for a moment, and then said that, in a
few months, he would give me $10,000 for my publishing
project. But, he added, not a dime more. And he never did. That faithful
brother and his wife are now at rest in the Lord. I will meet them again
later and tell them what their money got started. A new
IBM Composer were obviously out of the question, but was there not the
possibility of purchasing a used model? Checking into this, I contacted
a man on Long Island, New York, who bought and sold used Composers and
fonts. Arriving
back in Illinois that spring, two $5,000 checks eventually came in the
mail from our friend in Oklahoma. A secondhand Composer would cost
$8,000; yet I knew that, without some type of useable
type composition device, I could not accomplish what was needed. So I
contracted to purchase one from New York. I
clearly recall the day I went down to a bank, in Harrisburg, and cashed those checks. I had $10,000 in
cash in my pocket. I had never seen so much money in my life, and was
quite nervous. Then I drove to the airport, at Marion, to get the
Composer. It was a COD arrangement; and I feared that, as I handed over
the $8,000, that I might be getting a lemon which would never work. From
what I later learned about how things are done in New York City, it was
a very real fear. But
it did work, just fine. Acquiring that typesetting machine in July 1979,
I immediately set to work. One project consisted of Sabbath tracts; the
other was the Spirit of Prophecy compilations which I considered to be
urgently needed. Yet I
had no place to work. Without going into detail, my sister-in-law, Fay,
who lived a mile down the road purchased a small two-section, one-room,
former schoolhouse and parked it on her property; she told me I could
use it free of charge. Throughout the fall and winter of 1979-1980, I
prayed for funds for a press, folder, and plate-processing equipment; I
began typing material for tracts. One
day, I pasted up my first 11 x 17 tract layout. It was Out of the
Cities [RS1] and included most of the booklet, Country Living.
As I stood there, looking at the finished job, Fay walked in and I
showed it to her. Deeply moved, her eyes filled with tears. Little
by little we were moving forward. And, little by little, issues of Waymarks
kept being mailed out. Of course, they were not printed. But now
they were being typeset on the Selectric Composer. When each one was
completed, I would make photocopies in town
at that stationery store, bring them back home, fold them by
hand, put them in envelopes, handwrite addresses, and mail them out. Fortunately,
I had my children to help me in the office by this time. Ellen (named
after our favorite author) would help me receipt donations, make radio
tape copies, and mail them off. Eventually,
we were able to purchase a used Multilith 1250 from a firm in St. Louis.
Now, we could print. But, oh, did we have problems with that printing
press! Mark, only about 11 at the time, helped me with the printing. I
prayed that God would give him talent for what he was doing. That prayer
was answered. Mark did his best; and he became very capable at
everything he attempted thereafter. Eventually, we traded that press in
on a used A.B. Dick and had no further press problems. But,
try as we might, we could not get enough money together to purchase a
good, used folding machine. So everything we sent out we had to fold by
hand. Because we lacked a power cutter, everything we cut had to be cut
with a utility knife. (One of these projects was a complete set of 5 x
8 Sabbath tracts.) Every
possible problem, hindrance, and delay occurred. I wondered, at the
time, why we had so many problems; but, eventually, I realized that it
was preparing us for the future. No matter what happens, we just keep
going. It has become a way of life. But,
all the while, I kept typesetting and pasting up tracts. One afternoon,
as I was typing, Ellen walked over to me. She had been sitting at a
table as she worked. A friend in Washington State had sent us some
audiotapes and Ellen, with earphones on, listened to them as she worked. Daddy,
she said, Youve got to hear this! I
dont have time, I replied and kept typing. Soon she said it again,
Daddy, youve got to hear this! I dont have time, was
the response. Then
she walked over, while I was typing, and clamped the earphones to my
ears. Before taking them off, I heard a snatch of something unusual. Soon
she said, Daddy, youve just got to hear this! Walking over, she
claimed the earphones on my ears once again. Marching, marching,
always marching backwards! I listened a little more. The guy was
tearing down our Sanctuary message! Taking
off the earphones, I told her I will listen to that tape as soon as I
finished this tract. It
was Desmond Ford, giving his October 1979 forum lecture at Pacific Union
College. In it, he ripped apart a number of our historic beliefs. The
date: about February 1980. Since June 1979, I had completed the typing
and layout of 23 missionary tracts on the Bible Sabbath (BS1-23),
16 tracts from Great Controversy (GC1-16), and 5 key tracts
from Great Controversy (FC1-5). (The night I completed
the 16 Great Controversy tracts, it flashed into mind how I could
put the key sections of it all into a few tracts. That was how the 5 Final
Crisis Series tracts came to be. Consisting of 60 pages from
Great Controversy, they are now in the back half of our books, Shelter
in the Storm and Mark of the Beast). Also completed was IC1-2
(Spirit of Prophecy compilations on overcoming sin) and RS1-2
(Spirit of Prophecy standards for our people). So I
listened to that tape Ellen brought me. It made my head whirl. Years had
passed since my graduation with three degrees after seven years at college and our Adventist Seminary. But whatever needed to be
done must be tackled. I knelt and asked for wisdom. Then I sat down at
the typesetting machine, listened to a short segment of the tape, typed
it out and commented on it. I was stunned to discover that everything I
heard could be answered! Fortunately, I was well-versed in the Bible and
Spirit of Prophecy, but there was something more. I felt the hand of God
in this. The
completed study, which I titled, How Firm Our Foundation, was 8
tracts in length (FF8-15). It completely disproved Fords
lecture. I then went on and prepared 30 tracts, providing additional
refutation of his new theology errors, and called them the Firm
Foundation Series (FF1-30). Ron Spear later thanked me profusely
for my work; and, later when he moved to Hope, he used the title for the
name of his magazine. From
the day I knelt and asked for help in replying to Fords tapes, I have
had no trouble writing on any subject. God does the work and I
cooperate. But is not that the way it is for all of us? Nothing can be
done by ourselves. We were not made to function in isolation from our
Creator. One
afternoon, Jeanine, an Adventist lady who lived in the area stopped in
to see what we were doing. An earnest worker, she saw we were
laboriously cutting paper by hand. Offering to help, she spent the rest
of the afternoon doing it for us. The next day she came back; and, from
then on, she helped us all the time. Soon, we were able to hire both
Jeanine and her husband Charles. They were extremely faithful and
dedicated helpers. One
day, Lela Campbell walked in. An elderly lady who lived with Fay, she
wanted to see what was happening here. We set her to work putting labels
on envelopes by hand. Whereas normally she lay awake for hours worrying
about imaginary burglars breaking in; that night, she dropped off to
sleep immediately. Awaking fresh the next morning, she decided to help
us every day. And she did just that, for several years until she moved
to a nursing home in Michigan. By
the spring of 1980, we stopped the radio broadcasts. They could have
been continued, but I did not have time for them and it was obvious that
another work had been given me. (By
this time, we were airing in Pennsylvania; Washington State; XERF, which
blanketed southern California; and WWL in New Orleans the most
powerful radio station in America. Friends in southern Illinois said
they could hear it.) At
last, by May 1980, we were able to get enough money together to purchase
a $3,000 Baum folder. This was the final piece of equipment we needed in
order to do serious publishing. Were we busy printing and folding
tracts! The
initial 30 tracts in the Firm Foundation Series had just been
completed. In all, by the end of May, 78 11 x 17 tracts were ready for
the press. The
timing of all this was exquisite. The Glacier View meetings were to be
held in July, during which time leading church leaders and Bible
teachers from the world field could decide what should be done with
Ford. Our Firm Foundation tracts (now in our 320-page New
Theology Tractbook, $24.00 + $2.00 p&h) had the answers. So I
mailed a couple large boxfuls of the 30 tracts to the General
Conference, to be given to the men who would be attending those
meetings. You
will smile at my naivet. Later, I did also. The boxes were sent to the
office of President Neal C. Wilson, with a letter asking him to
distribute them. Later,
in September, the thought occurred to phone the presidents office and
inquire if those tracts had been taken to Glacier View and distributed.
I learned from Wilsons personal secretary that, incredibly, the boxes
were still setting on the floor in her office! She said she surely
wished someone would get them out of there, for they were in the way.
Extremely thankful that the thousands of tracts had not been burned, I
told her to mail them back and I would pay the postage. Later those
tracts were sent out to people asking for them. But,
in June, now that we had the press and folder, there was another task to
do: the mailing out of the first printed issue of Waymarks. It
was Number 18, and bore the date, July 80. Only a year and a
half had elapsed since I had stopped preparing copies of Waymarks with
carbon paper. Emblazoned
across the top of every printed tract, from WM-18 through WM-91, were
the words Pilgrims Waymarks. But that issue (September 25, 1984)
was the first in an extensive series on the plight of over a thousand
faithful Hungarians who had been ejected from the Adventist Church
because they upheld Spirit of Prophecy principles. I was so busy
preparing tracts, that the bannerhead was forgotten. Yet
the little Waymarks tracts continued, year after year. However,
until 1994, just as many non-Waymarks tracts were being printed.
In all, there were 19 tract series with issues of concern to the church;
Waymarks was only one. In addition, there were 9 other tract
series which comprised missionary hand-out materials for non-Adventists. The
tract, you now have in hand, is numbered WM1000. It has been
slightly over 20 years since WM18 was released. Looking
through my Master Tract List, I see that the non-Waymarks
tracts fill nine pages, and the Waymarks tracts fill eleven. If
we include Checkpoints, Inspirational Nuggets (the lengthy
predecessor of Checkpoints), Songs in the Night, and the
many ad sheetsnone of which are included in the Master Tract List,we
would probably arrive at a figure of about 2,500 titles. But
numbers matter little. All that counts is to help one another get to
heaven and to provide you with the needed missionary materials to help
others find the path. Historic Seventh-day Adventism is the greatest
message in the world. Without the Spirit of Prophecy, we would really be
in trouble today, with all the errors and apostasy floating around! From
early 1984 onward, I have been busy writing and preparing books. Why?
Gradually, I realized that books are more durable than
tracts,especially for those not of our faith. Will
we ever reach Waymarks 2000? I doubt it. Long before that
happens, we will all be with Jesus. May our kind Father bless and keep you. I
would not have prepared this tract; for, as you probably know, I do not
talk much about myself. But last month, when I realized that the next
tract was to be WM1000, it seemed appropriate to dedicate that tract
to a review of What
God hath wrought.
vf The
great waymarks of truth, showing us our bearings in prophetic history,
are to be carefully guarded, lest they be torn down, and replaced with
theories that would bring confusion rather than genuine light.2
Selected Messages, 101 (cf. 1SM 208, GW 103, Ev 223, 3T 440). |