Miraculous Old Vegetable Truck

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University

Billy Sunday's visit to Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1924, had a big influence on the locals, and ten years later, in May, 1934, as the nation struggled through the Great Depression, a group of locals, mostly businessmen, decided to meet in a pasture for a day of fasting and prayer. One man, Vernon Patterson, prayed that "out of Charlotte God would raise up someone to preach the Gospel to the ends of the earth." That someone was the 16-year-old son of the pasture's owner--though he would not have believed it. When he saw the men praying in his father's field, he told his friends, "Oh, I guess they are just some fanatics who talked Dad into letting them use the place."

Later that year, those same businessmen build a tent and invisted Mordecai Ham (1877-1961) to preach.

Mordecai Flower Ham was a controversial character, loved by his followers and hated by his enemies. Many had attempted to kill him because of his ardent opposition of gambling, drinking and corruption. He was loved by many, hated by many. After his wife died, the 30-year-old widower married a beautiful 15-year-old, which only added fuel to the enemy's fire (the marriage lasted over 50 years). He also angered people with his occasional racist and ant-Semitic remarks, or comments such as "vote for that Roman Catholic and you're going straight to hell!" Still, he pressed on, and had over 300,000 converts--his most famous one being in Charlotte...

In the summer of 1934, 24-year-old Albert McMakin was converted at one of Ham's meetings. From then on, every night he filled his beat-up old vegetable truck full of blacks and whites, and one night he took the 16-year-old who had seen the "fanatics" praying in his father's field. After attending many times, the youth became a Christian, though it did not seem to make much of a change in him at the time. He later said, "I didn't have any tears. I didn't have any emotion...I didn't hear any thunder, there was no lightning. I saw a lady standing next to me and she had tears in her eyes and I thought there was something wrong with me because I didn't feel worked up. But right there, I made my decision for Christ. It was as simple as that, and as conclusive."

His conversion did not impress others. He tried to join a youth group, the Life Service Band, but they rejected him as "too worldly". So he became a Fuller Brush salesmen, went to a couple colleges, and became an evangelist--though his first sermon was a disaster.

He prepared notes for four forty-five minute sermons, but was so nervous that he went through all four sermons in less than 8 minutes. He later said "Nobody has ever failed more ignominiously." But he persevered, and today Billy Graham, "the Protestant Pope," is not only the most famous evangelist but also consistently rated as one of the most admired and respected men in the world, by Christians and nonChristians alike (even as of last week).

What a strange chain led to Graham's conversion! What if one person had not done their part? What if Mordecai Ham had given up his work after the devastation of his first wife's death? What if Vernon Patterson had not prayed for someone to come out of Charlotte? What if Albert McMakin had not been willing to serve with his beat up old vegetable truck? And what if young Billy Graham, after giving four forty-five minute sermons in less than eight minutes, had given up and gone back to selling Fuller Brushes?

A long chain of circumstances led to Graham's conversion, as well as his subsequent success--and not one was inconsequential. No wonder Paul wrote in 1 Cor. 12:14-19 "For the body does not consist of only one part but many....Now if all of it were one part, there wouldn't be a body, would there?" And in verse 22, "..those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are in fact indispensable."

Not all things are good. The death of Ham's first wife was not good; the Great Depression that led to the prayer in the pasture was not good. But all things can work together for good (Rom. 8:28), and we can choose to be a part of it--or not.

Who have been the Albert McMakins in your life? And whom can you be an Albert McMakin to? Whether you have a fortune or a widow's mite, a talent or a beat-up old vegetable truck, use it.
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