Dust Bowl

In his book, The Day I Burned the Hotel Down, Canadian pastor Don Cantelon tells of growing up as the son of a preacher in the Canadian prairies during the dustbowl days. His parents labored faithfully, but saw little fruit from their work. Their area of Saskatchewan in the 1930s was bleak and cheerless, and residents were tormented by constant bitter winds. Dust blew into the house so relentlessly that the dishes in the kitchen constantly bore a powdery layer; and no matter how hard Don’s mother tried to clean, there was always grit in the food.

As the local economy collapsed, Don’s family lost their house and moved onto an old, abandoned livery barn in the middle of the village. The boards were scarred and dirtied by the horses, and family members took each board up, washed it, turned it over, and nailed it back to the floor. Don’s father made a makeshift kitchen, a living room, and two bedrooms---nothing but bare boards. When it was time for church, chairs were placed around the little living room, and a few brave souls gathered for an old-fashioned gospel service.

“Some of the grand cathedrals of the day have their great choirs and majestic pipe organs,” Don later wrote, “and if you compare them with our barn church, one might be tempted to say my father with his little congregation was wasting his time and effort. But wait a minute. The Bible tells us in Ecclesiastes 11:1. ‘Cast your bread upon the waters for you will find it after many days.’”

Reverend Cantelon’s ministry had a great convert---his son. Don grew up to become a prominent pastor in Canada. But that’s not all. One night while preaching at a prairie camp meeting, Don learned of another convert from his father’s years in Ceylon. A distinguished man approached him and introduced himself. It was Dr. John Wesley White, an evangelist with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, a popular author, and researcher for Dr. Graham. “I thought you would be interested to know I accepted Christ as my personal Savior in one of your father’s meetings in Ceylon,” White said.

In his memoirs, Don wrote: “I was not able to tell my father about the boyhood conversion of the famous evangelist. He had passed away a couple of years earlier. When he preached his sermons in the old drafty barn, maybe he thought his words blown into the air by the ever present prairie winds. His body lies in a poor, isolated graveyard on those same Canadian prairies.”

Don Cantelon, The Day I Burned the Hotel Down

(Abbotsford, Canada: CeeTeC Publishing, 2002), chapter 3.

Faithfulness, Serving, Reaping. Ministry

Turning Points

August 2007

Pages 14-15