In my senior year of high school, I prepared to be moving away from my parent's home in Massachusetts to a Christian camp ministry in New York state. I would graduate in May, 1971; then head to the Word of Life Inn Bible Conference for adults in June and slide a few miles south to Word of Life Bible Institute in September to study God's Word and theology. I was preparing to do some sort of Christian ministry. While at my home church in Connecticut, I loved being used to teach the youth Biblical truths. My thoughts at that time, I may become a Bible teacher after graduation and further training in seminary. My thoughts and my plans were flipped when the summer camp ministry door closed after I arrived in about three weeks. I won't go into detail as to what happened but my perspective at that time had some facets of blame-shifting which absolved me of any blame. I tried reasoning why the summer job ended without seeing anything I may have done to warrant being told to pack my things, I was going home. The person who told me this was a friend, I thought. The manner in which I was told was without explanation. So in my dismay, I sought the reasoning from a higher up staff member. I was slightly troubled by his words as he stumbled through the facts of what occured. Later, when meeting with John DeBrine at Rumney Conference on the weekend of being hired as a junior counselor, I shared my issue and repeated to him a sermon title he taught on his radio broadcast. The title: "Deserved Difficulty".
I hope you see at this point, the real path the Lord was setting for me. It was sharply different than my pre-set path. My plan for after graduation was to work at WOL in a job I knew and was good at and use the summer to fill my head with Scripture truth from the many Bible Teachers that came during the summer's conference. That was an honorable plan, don't you think? But it wasn't God's plan. Instead at Rumney, I served God and was able to see young people's lives change as a result of my ministering to them. Years later, one of those campers (I don't believe I had a direct spiritual impact on him) became the interim director of the Conference there in Rumney, NH. Also a number of others are now serving in churches in the USA and missions world-wide. I am doubtful this would have happened in my dishwasher career that summer in NY as the job was more demanding than in past years and time off less frequent. Also, I was able to attend the Bible studies at Rumney Conference on occasion
Even though my summer ministry ended at WOL, my higher education there did not. I did return to NY state that fall.
My time there was very fruitful. I was able to really fulfill that desire I had to study the Scriptures and grow spiritually. But it was difficult for me. My lazy study habits in HS (which was the reason for my being rejected at Tennessee Temple University), led to some lower grades at the Bible Institute. Some classes I exceled in. One of them being New Testament Greek. I found if I loved the course of study, I did spectacular. But if I encountered a challenge I'd become that lazy student again.
The result, the courses I exceled in could not raise me above a D average. As a result, I was put on academic probation to give me 30 days to improve my grade. I worked harder than ever to get to the 2.0 (C grade) requirement but in the end, I missed it but .02 points. I rose the 1.2 to 1.98! Pretty good, I thought, but not so the administration. This was their second year of operation and had to stick to their guns with academics. I wasn't allowed back after the first semester was completed. I was told to take a year off and come back to complete my second semester which was a kind gesture but kind of left me not bitter just dismayed especially after being fired from the summer job.
I had really befriended some of the professors there. One had a similar last name as me just a few letters different. I spent time at his home and in his office enjoying fellowship. I even taught him how to play the ukulele which is interesting as I never played one before picking his up. But as a guitarist I know chording and was able to use it with the uke which had the first four strings of a six string guitar! We got along really well. When I bid him farewell in early January before the start of the next semester he kind of said in his own way he didn't agree with that .O2 deficit in my grade in between his shedding of tears. Oh, did I mention that this prof was my Greek teacher?
The Academic Dean was a great guy but we would never be open to being friends like my Greek professor. He was matter of fact and hard going in his teaching methods. My lazy study habits along with his 1a, 1b, 2a, 3c etc. outlines were difficult for me. Even though he taught one of my favorite subjects, Systematic Theology, I struggled with all the requirements he set forth in that required course.
My time at Word of Life Bible Institute was not wasted. In fact, it became the second of my three impactful events like the first I spoke about in Part 6, the Worcester Church revival encounter. The BI had required chapel services in the evenings. At one of these chapel gatherings well into the semester, ended with a Spirit directed time of confession and prayer. It was very similar to the Church Revival in Worcester. Years before in the city church Ray and I were observers to the Spirit's prompts for others to confess, pray, get right with each other and be stirred in Spiritual ways. But here, I was not an observer but a participant. Because I was not an outsider but one on the inside. These were my peeps, so to speak. WOLBI was small enough that we knew everybody. Chapel was long over but the awakening was ongoing. After sometime, I learned that I had offended someone. I don't recall exactly what the offense was but I remember them asking my forgiveness for the hard feelings they were harboring. Not only did I forgive them but I too sought restoration after hearing my actions that harmed them. But to my surprise, my heart began to melt as I too felt an action was inadvertently lodged against me and led to my holding hard feelings toward them. Then it happened. This was not natural Mike Tremblay. At this time, public speaking was not my practice. That came much later. But I was broken and in this broken state, I tearfully confessed my sin of being unkind in my thoughts and words to this person. Again, the offense I cannot recall, because when you confess sin, the Lord buries it deep in the sea forever, never to re-emerge! The Psalms say as far as the East is from the West is as far he has carried our confessed sins. You see, there's no East Pole or West Pole. You start going East you continue to go East. The same with the West. So here I am once again witnessing a work of the Spirit that I am actively involved with. Relationships were restored that night. Hurt feelings were removed that night. We went into that mandatory chapel service but remained in a spontaneous spiritual revival service that led to a changed BI class of 1972, which I never had the joy of graduating with. But I did graduate only in a different way. I went from one degree of glory to another degree of glory because of that incident and a few more.
Remember, I was only at the Bible Institute for a short few months. From September 1971 to January 1972. When we returned of the Christmas break just one day after Christmas, Snow Camp Weekends were upon us. That winter in upstate NY was very unusual as snow normally covered the ground by Thanksgiving. In '71, that was not the case. Here it was late December and only a splattering of white spots were on the ground. Snow was a tool to get young teens to snow camp to hear the Gospel and over the years many found Jesus as Savior there. The possibility of cancelling Snow Camp was becoming a possible reality. I remember very distinctly sitting in the second story lounge of my dorm looking out over the mostly bare, sunny ground of the campus, which was used for Snow Camp feeling a deep urgency to pray ... pray for snow. It was just a few days before the opening of camp and I sensed the Lord was waiting to hear me pray. It was mid afternoon, I probably should have been studying, especially my 1a, 2b outlines, but I instead closed my eyes and began crying out to Got. I just kept pouring out my heart to Him. I believe it was nearly an hour I was deep in prayer. I mean how do you pray for an hour for snow? I guess the lives of young people who would be changed when choosing Christ came up as well. I'm sure the person who would be preaching at the gatherings came up too. I don't recall the words but I fully remember the results. When I opened my eyes I witnessed God's prayer answering power. I often had God answer prayer but always in the future. This day it was different. God's answer came WHILE I was praying. Yes. The snow was flying ... and had been for some time. The ground was covered. That original layer of ground covering snow remained until the end of snow camp. Even though at the completion of the Snow Camp season, and class graduation - I was not there, my life was shaped in some very significant ways for those five months.
It was also during those dynamic months I was led by the Lord to take some of the words of the Psalms and put them to music. Kat and I actually sang one of the songs I wrote at the BI in '71 at the church we planted in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire in 2014 during my teaching series on the Psalms called "Poetry in Motion". I don't know if it is on video but if so, I'll post it soon.
So that's it for part 7. Now part 8 next time will be the story I will share that was inspired from hearing about the new movie, "The Jesus Revolution". Watch for it.
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