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Ivan Waite |
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Ivan was only ever minister in Cromer - he wasn't converted until 1959. He was converted at work lying on a mat - he had an hour off to get his head down. He’d been wrestling for four or five nights. I knew that though we didn't talk about it. He said ‘Lord help me’ and He just came. He never ever had a doubt - it was incredible. He came home from work that Wednesday morning, came in the door from his moped. Our daughter had gone to school and he came in and said, ‘Something happened to me at work last night’. I said, ‘Yes, I know it did.’ It was amazing - I hadn’t been able to sleep properly for four nights and I always describe it as prayer that was beyond me. I couldn’t help but pray - I’ve experienced that once since. The Holy Spirit was praying through me and I just knew that he’d come through. We went across that evening to the meeting - they were having meetings in the village at the time and he’d been to one because he’d been particularly invited. Whenever he came to church with me I was very conscious of him and though we talked about it a lot he’d always say, ‘Well, we just think differently - we’ve got a perfect marriage’. He came across the first night he was converted and we stood to sing a hymn: From sinking sand He lifted me He said to me, ‘Living, but that’s what he did for me.’ That night we prayed together for the first time - it was wonderful. Our daughter was eight and was converted herself in October because she saw how her Dad was changed. There were eight or nine converted during this mission by two London Bible College men. They came at the invitation of the little Methodist church. A Friday night Bible Study started and Ivan was leading it within a fortnight. Ivan would walk there puffing his cigarette. Ivan had often asked me if I’d like him to go to church with me now that we were in the village and had a little chapel just across the road. I always said, ‘You come when you want to come, not to please me’. And I was so thankful he didn’t come because we had some weird old boys speaking! For anybody who was a bit critical - it would have been terrible! So he didn’t come. One day Ivan was putting the carpet on the stairs. He’d been a Christian about six weeks. He said, ‘Have you noticed anything?…I haven’t smoked since last night.’ He always rolled his own. ‘It came to me that either I’m a slave to cigarettes or I’m a servant of God - I can’t be both so I’ve stopped smoking.’ He’d tried so many times because of the money but he would be in absolute agony and he’d have to go back to it. Next day he said, ‘Well, I’ve proved that I’m not a slave so I can have one again now, can’t I?.’ But he didn’t - he said God had taken the taste away. He never smoked again. Our whole life changed. He went to college 1964. In between time he learned New Testament Greek at work - took his little case to work full of books. He said to the minister at the Baptist Church in Leominster, ’What should I do to prepare?’ He was quite sure the Lord was calling him to some Christian work very early on…so the minister thought he’d give him the hardest thing he could so he said, ‘Ivan, I suggest you learn New Testament Greek’. So he applied to London Bible College and got a correspondence course, learnt New Testament Greek and took it to degree level. He used to go to work with his little Bible and his books and in 1964 he went to college. He had been thinking more of work in SGM, London City Mission. The Evangelical Library offered him a job. He was accepted for London Bible College but on signing the papers he knew that this wasn’t ‘it’. A year later the way opened up to Cardiff for the three year course. He was to get a part-time pastorate in Cardiff with a house and study at the same time but then the principal wrote to him in July after he’d handed his notice in to tell him that the pastorate had fallen through and that the college was full. Ivan wrote back and said ‘I’m coming anyway’. Living stayed in the flat in Leominster and the principal wrote back to say ‘Where God guides, God provides’. So he went and they put him in sick bay! He had no grant from the local authority - he had been given one from the county for London Bible College but by the time he applied for the grant to go to Cardiff it was refused so we had no money coming in. He went to college. The church at Leominster opened a fund for two missionaries and Ivan. I can’t remember how much we got - we got a little every six months. When he got to college they obviously saw the need and they started a special fund which provided for his tuition fees and his board - nothing else. Theologically it was a very modern college and the church was very worried for him and prayed every week for him. But he said it was good for him because he had to iron out all these problems. He had no background - no background at all. I remember going out the first month he was away, being frightened to spend any money because his monthly salary wasn’t there any more. I walked down the High Street thinking that I mustn’t buy anything. I had to get over that. But it was wonderful - he came home at Christmas and we’d been given a cheque for £100. I wasn’t well - I couldn’t work at all. I was far worse than I am now. He saw me hand-washing at the sink and he said, ‘We’ve got to have a washing machine’. He insisted that it was right as I needed it. We bought a Phillips twin-tub washing machine and I’d still got it in 1995. We got it in 1964. They made them good then! That was just under £100. The same Christmas the men he worked with at the BBC station - he’d always witnessed to them from the very first day…and he’d been told from London that he could have his job back - the men were amazed at what he did. They sent him off with a nice briefcase and all sorts of things. That Christmas one of the couples from the station came to see us and they brought a big box and it was packed full of groceries and a chicken - that Christmas we had three chickens! They weren’t Christians but I think it was the esteem they held him in. He was a transmitting engineer at the BBC. He was converted on March 4th and the first Christmas he was on nights - they always had a meal together and when he went into the dining room they were all standing behind their chairs and said, ‘Ivan, would you like to give thanks?’ That was a tremendous encouragement to him. When he went to college we never had any money - he worked on the post every Christmas delivering letters. But we had enough money to see us through his time in college. Every year your Mum received an envelope through the door with just ‘Daughter’ on it, a piece of flimsy paper wrapping a £1 note. I think I know where it came from but I wasn’t supposed to. There were a couple in the church - I’m still in touch with them - he was a teacher and she had three children. Every month they’d give me an envelope with £4 in it. That was a lot of money at that time. We kept a list of all the monies that were given to us. When we moved to Cromer we’d got £55 and we had enough to buy that red stair carpet - I took it from the manse. Our money finished there! The taxman came on the scene and wanted to know what we’d lived on for the last three years. ‘Well, the Lord provided for all our needs’…’Well that’s not good enough!’. Although we’d got a list of everything, Ivan didn’t feel it was right to give people’s names and there was a bit of a shindy about it. Somebody came and interviewed him and eventually they took Ivan’s word and considered it good enough. We threw that away - a bit of a shame really. We had 25 years - we weren’t going to celebrate but people in the church said we ought to. That was the July and Ivan died in the February. He’d never been ill. Son-in-Law, Daughter, and William had been down for the weekend and he was so thrilled to see William. On the way home from morning church I told my daughter that he wasn’t well. He asked her if there was anything the matter with his heart - she said he ought to go to the hospital the following day. He’d felt ‘old’ at 47 the previous day because of a walk he’d found hard. The doctor was phoned on the Sunday evening and told him to take it easy but rang up later because he wasn’t happy. At an appointment the next day the doctor wanted him to see a specialist. He then felt very ill and the doctor announced that he’d had a coronary. The hospital then found nothing wrong with him. Then, in hospital, he had a massive coronary - he was virtually unconscious. Whilst I was in the sisters room I asked the Lord for a word…‘Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid’ and then ‘In my house are many mansions.’ I didn’t want that…’My peace I give unto you.’ He was a little better. When I got home I phoned my daughter and they came back after having been there at the weekend. The doctors reckoned that, if he got through, he’d always be an invalid. He said to me that night, ‘Whatever happens I’ve got to preach - I must preach. Whatever else I give up, I must preach.’ He got through the first ten critical days. On the Friday my son-in-law was coming back for the weekend but I told them that they could go home now. William always went in in the carry-cot and Ivan was always pleased to see William. I went into the hospital and the nurses told me that Sister didn’t want me to go in because the doctors were busy with Ivan. He’d gone while he was talking to a nurse. But God has been good since. Ivan’s father died the year before and, because Ivan had become a Christian, he cut Ivan out of the will. The new will hadn’t been witnessed but the old one had been torn up. One month before Ivan died we got £7000 which bought the house at 28 Central Road. And that house bought this flat in Dumfries and provided the finance for the move up here. As told to William & Julie Cumming, August 2001. |
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