We Finally Got a Building Constructed
After Jim left, Charles and I paired together to continue our ministry in Jamestown. Because we often appeared together at area functions, Lon Elkins, a friend from Bufffalo, named us “The Gold Dust Twins.” Of course we were nothing alike. I’m tall and Charles is short. Charles is quiet and I’m loud. Charles is well organized, and I’m not so much. Although neither one of us is given to loud outbursts of anger, Charles holds a lot more of his temper inside than I do.
We worked together very well. We each had areas to which we were assigned, but we also made a lot of visits together, conducted the radio program together and engaged in many acts of shared ministry. Our best times were those occasions when we would take a few minutes for theological chats. Charles is a cautious individual, but he’s always thinking. He’s not afraid to think new thoughts, although he probably would never think as many new thoughts as I do. He asks difficult questions, and forces one to think. He and Joyce have a wonderful marriage, and their three children are outstanding. I have enormous respect for them.
Because of his organizational skills Charles was selected to be the chairman of the new building project. His attention to detail was incredible. We employed a contractor who sent out a building superintendent. The man he sent out was a former preacher whose personal life was messed up. At one point he had been the partner of the contractor. When the fellow’s personal life went south, he took assets from the company and fled the area. Just before we got ready to build, he actually called the contractor and asked for a job.
The contractor was a man with a soft heart and a fellow Christian. I have a great deal of respect for him. He thought he ought to practice forgiveness. He told us the whole story and said, “He’s an excellent job superintendent. I’m hiring him and sending him to Jamestown. He will do you a good job.” The man actually started out very well, but he didn’t count on having to deal with someone as thorough as Charles.
One Sunday morning Charles went by the construction site and found him loading up lumber on a truck. The man had taken on a Sunday job, and was using our lumber for the weekend job. As building chairman, Charles ultimately approved all materials. When he got the bill for the roofing, Charles figured out the number of squares that were needed in the roof, and realized that the job superintendent had ordered about 20 percent more shingles than he used. Those shingles were apparently being used in his moonlighting job.
We reported all this to the contractor, and he ultimately had to pull the superintendent and finish up the job himself. Of course we felt used. One night we invited the contractor to our home for dinner. I said to him, “I know you’re a good builder, and I know you’re an honest man, but your reputation is only as good as the people you send to work here.” He agreed with me. The experience left something of a bad taste in our mouths but when the job was done, we were proud of the building.
Jamestown was a union town and our contractor was non-union. A union representative asked for a meeting with Charles. When Charles got to the meeting, he faced union representatives from every construction trade in the city. They told him they were concerned that our building be constructed by qualified union craftsmen. It would have cost us 20 per cent more to construct the building that way. We later learned that they considered picketing our job, but I think they eventually decided it wasn’t a big enough project to mess with.
John Featherstone told us about going through the same experience when they built the building at Hamburg, New York. They threatened to picket the job. John told them, “I used to belong to a union. I was a member of the merchant marine union. If a missionary had been trying to get to Africa in a rowboat, it would never have occurred to me to picket him.” They decided not to picket the job. John had a creative way of expressing himself.
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