by Barton Carter
Retired BBFI missionary to the Philippines
The senior citizens’ class has become the largest adult class in many churches. Where are they coming from? Where have they been? What have they done with their lives? How do they think? What was it like when they were young? And what about the missionaries who often attend those classes? What was it like when we first started our deputation? What about our finances back then? How did we get to the field and what were the conditions there?
Last year my great-granddaughter did a telephone interview with me as a project for her high school class. She could hardly believe, when she found out during the interview, that I was in the second grade before I ever saw a flush toilet. I was in high school before I used a telephone. Harriett and I were already married before we lived in a house with running water and indoor plumbing. Our first two children were born before we got a telephone. Three children were born before television came to our area.
When Harriet and I started deputation, I wrote a letter to David Cavin, pastor of High Street Baptist Church in Springfield, MO. He answered and said High Street wanted to be our first supporter, and they put us on for $50 per month. What a blessing that was, as the average church’s support during that time was $15 per month. Those first months were hard, as we had to try to live on our love offerings that averaged $15 to $25 for presenting our field, and if they took us on for support it was two or three months for it to come in. The church had to vote on it, they sent it in at the end of the month, and then the end of the next month we would get it.
We drove 50,000 miles on deputation. Thank the Lord, gas was only 29 cents a gallon. We stayed with relatives a lot, and I sought out churches near where my relatives lived. Before DVDs and video, we used a slide projector, and I would narrate them as I went along. We would vary the length according to the wishes of the pastor. God blessed with souls saved and people surrendering their lives for full-time service. In just about one year we had raised almost $1,000 a month in support and we left the States for the mission field. Our journey to the Philippine Islands took about a month on a freight ship. It really brought home to us just how far we were from the States.
We pioneered our first church in San Carlos City, a town with no electricity — no problem for a couple that had grown up without electricity. We used kerosene lanterns to light the building for our evening services. The real problem was trying to walk on the streets with no light. I would put a lantern on the pulpit so I could read my Bible.
We had no baptistery so we would walk about a half mile to the ocean and baptize. When someone would get saved we urged them to be baptized right away. There got to be a saying in San Carlos, “If you go to the Baptist church, you are going to come home wet.” No electricity also meant that we had no electric tools when we built our first church building. Each board had to be hand planed, and every sack of concrete had to be mixed by hand. Filipino carpenters and builders were the real thing. For transportation, we hired 100cc motorcycles with sidecars for church buses. And later I used my pickup truck with a shell camper. We could get about ten on the motorcycles and one time Harriett counted 55 get out and off of my pickup.
Progress came to the Philippines, and by our second term we had reliable electricity, an air conditioned bedroom, and even a telephone. On our first term, we had to Xerox our letters home to our supporting churches. Later, I had a flex-o-writer that operated on the teletype principle that used a paper tape to tell the writer what to write down. I even had a second reader that put in the addresses and the pastor’s name. By the third term I had one of the first personal computers — a Radio Shack as the personal IBM had not come out yet. Now my prayer letters were a cinch. I remember a visiting pastor from the States being shocked when he saw my computer. He said, “Oh, Brother Carter, you have a computer, but don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”
Success on the mission field depends on obedience to God. When we transferred home from the Philippines, we had 35 churches and I planned none of them, although the Filipino pastors and I had a goal for 100 churches on the Island of Negros. Almost ten years ago, Pastor Eddie Gerodias of San Carlos City wrote me that they had reached the goal. Filipino missionaries have now gone out from Negros to other countries and are starting churches.
The years have gone by. Sometimes at night I still dream that I am building a church building. Those days have gone, except in my dreams. Would I change anything? Not a thing.