“Mother, haven’t you gotten all the people saved yet?” It was a sincere question that I asked my mother when I was about 7 years old.
We had just moved into the first house I ever remember belonging to our family. It was like the Promised Land to my sister, Roberta, and me. I would have been just fine if we never left that house again.
Until this point, I had lived in tents, Mother’s Gospel Car, borrowed rooms, rented houses and even in makeshift campsites along the side of the road. Mother had promised the Lord she would go wherever He asked, and Roberta and I went along for the ride.
During one of Mother’s campaigns in New York, Roberta nearly died from influenza in an outbreak that cost tens of thousands of people their lives. As she prayed for Roberta’s healing, the Lord assured Mother that He would provide a permanent home for our family, a base of ministry that she could call home, and a refuge for her children from the stresses of itinerant ministry.
We had been in Los Angeles a few months when Mother’s supporters banded together to build a house for us on a donated piece of land. It was a dream come true for Roberta and me. I had visions of living in a place where I could tend a rose garden and keep a yellow canary. “The House That God Built,” as we called it, provided everything we had hoped.
Until this point, I had lived in tents, Mother’s Gospel Car, borrowed rooms, rented houses and even in makeshift campsites along the side of the road. Mother had promised the Lord she would go wherever He asked, and Roberta and I went along for the ride.
I was particularly thrilled at the promise of attending the elementary school across the street with the other neighborhood kids. It would be my first experience attending school, and I always wanted to live like the other boys I had known across the country. In our new house, I had toys and a bike, and even a goat that reluctantly gave us rides up and down the sidewalk.
It was great fun for us kids. It was home. Friends I had met while we were on the road were temporary friends. I knew in a few days I would say goodbye and never see them again. Here, I was able to make friends with children and know that our friendships would last.
Mother seemed happy, too, in our new home, and she traveled less after we moved into our new house, at least while we got settled. She was still preaching nearly every day, sometimes as many as three services a day. Thousands of people were getting saved, and God was using her to bless many people.
She [finally] knew it was time to accept some of the out-of-town invitations from people who had been asking for a while if she would come. That’s when I asked my sincere but naïve question. I knew deep down I needed to share Mother with people who needed God. Still, I wanted my mother to stay home with us kids.
Mother sat me down to explain that there were many other people who needed to be saved, and she needed to go preach to them. It would only be for a few weeks, and while she was gone, she wanted me to be a good boy and help Roberta and our housekeeper.
It was tough to let her go. We were very much a family, but I learned that Mother’s call to preach would require Roberta and me to share our mother with the world.
“I understand,” I remember telling her. “Just hurry home as quickly as you can when you are finished preaching, OK?”
This article is adapted from a video interview prior to Rolf K. McPherson’s passing in 2009.
