Nate and I had left the pump house because it was time for bed. We were walking down past the tabernacle and looked inside to see a young man kneeling at the bench which served as the altar rail down front. He was all alone and sobbing. We thought it was our young friend Eddie and were worried about about what he might be going through. We tiptoed in and sat down about three rows back behind him. We felt like we weren't preachers so we didn't know how to deal with someone at the altar so we didn't go forward to find out what was happening. We bowed our heads and were praying that he might be able to, as the preachers said "pray through." After a while we heard some noises around us and looked up and realized that lots of other people are also gathering. Then an older pastor named Harry came in with his wife and knelt by the young man at the altar. He soon stood up and announced, "If you would like to participate in this intercession John is praying for physical healing for his sister." That's when we realized that the man at the altar was not our friend Eddie but another of the pastors whose name was John and his wife was afflicted with muscular dystrophy or some such a ailment. There must have been 30 or 40 people there who then started to pray and ask God for that healing. As it happens so often in the Psalms soon the gathering turned from petition to praise and worship and people started to pray out loud and to shout their praises heavenward. People would lead out in choruses. Then I heard some noise up front and raised my head to see Florence, Pastor Harry's wife dancing behind the altar; she twirled and whirled in her black preacher lady dress the whole width of the tabernacle and back. I had heard of God doing such things from the old folks testimonies but I had never seen such a thing. I felt like we were on holy ground. I don't know what happened to John's wife in the long run but that was a powerful night of prayer.

Afterward as Nate and I were walking down to our cabin suddenly he started to cry, just sobbing. I asked him what was wrong and he said I don't know I just can't feel like I'm really saved. We went into our room and talked some but he just couldn't stop crying. Finally, not knowing what to say or how to help, I went and got Pastor Don and he came and as they say among the Wesleyans, prayed Nate through. I think the experience of being so unsure how to help someone agonizing in prayer and being short of the knowledge needed to help Nate come to a conviction of acceptance by God made me eventually want to enter the ministry. That and some heavy prayer in the backseat of my old Pontiac on a dark country road about three years later.