The Emancipation of Robert Sadler (28 page)

For a long time I had a deep burden in my heart for Native Americans. I had been on a reservation a couple of times, and I never forgot the faces and the hungry hearts. When a black brother by the name of Jesse from Minneapolis invited me to go to Canada to an Indian reservation there, I jumped at the chance. We planned to hold tent meetings and teaching sessions, and I could hardly wait.

We stopped in Detroit on the way to Canada and I visited my sister Janey. She was hard and bitter and had little to say to me.

In Detroit someone broke into my camper. When I discovered it, there wasn't a spec left in it. My organ, clothing, money, Bible, and even my dirty laundry were all stolen.

I didn't dare complain to the Lord, so I began to praise Him for it. “If you allowed all my belongins to be stolen, then that's your business. So I thank you for it, Lord.”

The pastor of the church where I spoke that evening asked me to stay and minister for a couple of days. I didn't have enough clothes to wear, but Jesse and I talked it over and we decided to stay anyhow. During the meeting a woman prophesied over me, saying that the Lord was going to replace my loss and double my portion. She didn't even know about the camper being robbed.

That night an offering was taken for me, and then the next afternoon a brother handed me a check and said, “The Lord wants you to have this.” We ministered in other towns on our way to Manitoba, and by the time we reached the border I had enough money to buy a much better organ than I had before, and some brand new clothes.

Finally Brother Jesse and I made it to Winnipeg, driving through Wisconsin, Minnesota, and North Dakota. We had to leave the camper in Riverton, Manitoba, and take a small boat with an outboard motor across Lake Winnipeg to Bloodvein. By the time we got our things in the boat, the water was nearly at the top edge of the boat. I climbed in and thought for sure we'd sink. I fixed my eyes on the other side of the lake and prayed us across. Jesse saw me staring at the other side. “Brother Bob,” he laughed, “we aren't going
across
the lake, we're going about 15 miles
up
the lake. . . .” My heart jumped into my throat.

The waves were high and water splashed into the boat and all over us and our equipment. I seemed to be the only one worried. I never swam a lick in my life. Were we going to land on the shore or the bottom of the lake? I prayed, reminding the Lord that I had lots more work to do before I came home.

The water inside the boat was getting higher and higher. I thought of a verse in the 91st Psalm, “For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.”

“Lord, send some of those angels over here to this here lake,” I prayed. Then I thought of another verse in the same psalm, “He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him.”

Jesse was singing at the other end of the boat.

Wonderful, wonderful,
Jesus is to me;

Counselor, Prince of Peace, Mighty God is He,

Saving me, keeping me . . .

My, he looked peaceful. I decided I needed some of that peace, too. I began to sing along with Jesse, even though we were getting more soaked by the minute. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, another boat pulled up alongside us. Our equipment was loaded into their boat. By this time the water inside our boat was already past our ankles. The boat rocked and jerked as our heavy equipment was removed. Jesse waved and shouted something to the men, and we continued on our way without our equipment. The water stopped splashing into the boat, and we bailed out what we could with coffee cans. Jesse and I started laughing. The Lord had come to our aid out in the middle of Lake Winnipeg.

We finally arrived safely at the Sioux Bloodvein reservation. The land was all rock. The people looked at us with expressions as cold as the rock. I could feel the hostility in the air.

There were only a handful of Christians and a little chapel. We met in the chapel the first night.

The following day I began to take sick during the morning meeting, and so I excused myself and went outside. I fell down on the hard rock earth and couldn't move. I felt as though my body was in a vise. I knew it was an attack of the enemy, but I didn't know what his purpose was. I would soon find out.

In about an hour the meeting was over, and a couple of the Native American Christians found me lying on the ground. They called Jesse and he came running. Jesse is a very large man and very strong. He picked me up in his arms and carried me back to the chapel. He laid me down and felt my pulse. There was none. He listened to my heart and there was no beat. I had stopped breathing. He called for the believers to come, and they gathered around me and prayed. The Lord told Jesse to command the life back in me in His name. He did and before long my pulse returned and I began to breathe. I didn't know I had been raised from the dead.

The evening came and the believers gathered around me again and prayed over me. Then I slept until the next morning.

I awoke feeling worse than when I fell asleep. The pain in my body was terrible. I rose up out of the bed, using every bit of strength I had. “Devil, you liar. In Jesus' name, I will get off this bed and minister to these people who need God.”

By the time I got to the chapel, I thought I might die. I don't believe I've ever been so sick. When the people saw me there, they praised God like never before.

“This is a spiritual battle,” I explained. “And Jesus has already won.”

They continued to pray over me, and I could feel the hand of sickness and death leaving me. The Holy Spirit moved wonderfully on that reservation. Young people, old people, and children started coming to the meetings. Pretty soon there wasn't enough room in the chapel for everybody, so we began to use the big meeting tent. Then the tent got too small.

Each day there were healings and deliverances among the Native American people. Demons that had held families for years and years were cast out, and the families were set free in Jesus. A little baby who was deformed pitifully was brought forward to the front of the church one evening. We prayed over her, and right before our eyes we saw her little arms and legs straighten out, and she was made whole.

God worked on the reservation like we never dared to imagine He would. We fasted and prayed and God broke many of the chains that had held the people in darkness.

There were those, though, who in spite of seeing a man raised from the dead and many other miracles, still didn't believe.

———

Up until now I had not told anyone about my being a slave. Even Jackie knew very little about it. It was not until 1964, when I was fifty-three years old, that I could finally bring myself to talk about it openly. I was in a meeting in Memphis, Tennessee, and the congregation was singing “Wonderful Words of Life.”

I felt my heart begin to pound rapidly, and I could once again see the parlor in the Big House. I could hear Juanita playing the piano and singing. Then Virginia, Ethel, and Thomas joined in while I stood outside the door sucking on my shirttail.

Sweetly echo the gospel call, wonderful words of life;

Offer pardon and peace to all, wonderful words of life.

Mary Webb was up in the kitchen preparing lemonade and little cakes for the family. In the children's room Harriet was rocking baby Anna to sleep. It was hot, and my toes curled under the soles of my bare feet. That music was mighty pretty. Mighty pretty.

Jesus only Savior, Sanctify forever;

Beautiful words, wonderful words,

Wonderful words of li-i-ife,

Beautiful words, wonderful words,

Wonderful words of life.

Almost forty years had passed since I ran away from the Beal Plantation. Yet it all flooded back that day in Memphis. I felt tears come to my eyes. Something inside me broke. When the congregation finished singing, I rose to my feet.

“I want to tell you about the first time I ever heard that song. . . .” I was able to talk about my childhood and about being a slave. I talked and talked. It all came out, easier than I thought it would.

Back in Bucyrus, I felt God wanted me to put my story in a book, and I began to seriously pray about it.

“Oh girl,” I said, taking Jackie in my arms, “I know I am not a fancy preacher man. I'm a simple man. If I can minister encouragement, faith, and love to the people, then I'm grateful.”

I grinned at her and she grinned back. “You are the most wonderful man in the whole world, that's what you is.”

My speech problem never completely left me, and I still mispronounced words, but I decided since it was the Lord who chose me to serve Him, it was His problem and not mine.

“I'm not capable of preaching no fancy sermon, Jackie. I just gives what God puts in my heart.”

“And Robert, honey, that's a powerful lot. You bet.”

———

In 1965 I took a trip to Anderson. The Lord blessed me with some extra money, so I was able to buy Margie a stove. She was so pleased you would have thought I bought her General Electric itself. I visited Corrie in the rest home and took Buck with me. She sat there without any legs and half dead and praised the Lord with all her might. It made me see how the real world is a spiritual world, not the one we see with our eyes.

I went to Clinton to see Tennessee and John Henry. They were so poor I asked John Henry to come north, and I would try to get him a job in Bucyrus or Detroit. He smiled at me with a wise old smile.

“Move up north?
Move up north?
”

“Yes, John Henry, you can make a living up north—”

“Now lissen hear, Robert, I ain't studyin' to move up north nohow. This hear South is mah
home
.”

“Yes, but you don't make a decent wage—”

“The South is mah
home,
” he repeated. “Mah granddaddy was a slave, Robert, and his daddy served in the Civil War for this here South. My daddy served in the war in Europe for this here country, yes he did. He ate grits and gravy, and they sent his battalion out first to die. He come back, and he come back to the
South
!

“Robert, we was
slaves.
We and our people built and made this here South what it be. We made the South rich. Ah done give my life to this here land. I got me a shack and a store and some land. Ahm an old man now, but ahm astin you, you want me to move up north and live in a strange city with a lot of other poor niggers who don't know nothin but farming? Robert, this here land you standin on now is
my land.
Ah done built the South. Me and our people. This here South is as much ours as it is the white man's. Ain't nothin gone git me to move and leave what's mine nohow.”

With that, he stuck a plug of tobacco in his cheek, crossed his arms across his chest, and gave me a shove with his knee. It meant “Don't mention it again,” and I didn't.

In the spring of 1968 I took a white brother named John to Arkansas with me. I was enjoying the prospering of the Lord and had just bought a new suit of clothes and some new shoes. I was feeling so happy as we drove along, and John and I were praising the Lord together. In the distance I saw a man standing at the edge of the highway. He wasn't hitchhiking, but I felt impressed to stop. John spoke up. “What are you stopping for?”

“I see a need,” I said.

I got out of the car and walked over to the man. He was dressed in shabby, dirty clothes, and his shoes were torn and without laces. I smiled. He was exactly my size.

“I don't need no ride,” he told me.

“I know what you need,” I said. “Come with me.” I took him into the camper and dressed him up in my new clothes and shoes. First, though, I heated some water on the Coleman stove and gave him a bath, a shampoo, and a shave. When I finished with him he looked like a different man. John was sitting up in front and very annoyed. “What are you giving him?” he asked me in a surly tone. “He's just a bum. He'll probably sell those clothes.” Sometimes people just won't listen to the Holy Spirit. I didn't even bother to answer him.

When I had the man all cleaned up, the Lord spoke to me and said, “Give him one of those twenty dollar bills in your pocket.” When John saw me do that, he said loud enough for the man to hear, “He'll just spend that on whiskey!” I took the man to West Helena, Arkansas, with us to attend the meeting that night and he gave his heart to the Lord during the singing. With tears running down his clean-shaven face, he confessed, “I was on my way to kill myself. I just didn't have a thing in the world to live for. Now I can see that I have everything to live for. I'm going to live for Jesus!” That man is still going on with the Lord down there in Arkansas. He led his wife and four children to Jesus, too.

It was when we were driving through the green hills of Arkansas that we heard the news on the radio that Dr. King had been assassinated. I couldn't drive farther. I felt the world turn inside out with its innards spilling out. I pulled over to the side of the road feeling sick and dizzy. My deaf ear began ringing and I could hear wailing and weeping from every corner of the South.

John, sitting next to me in the car, clicked his teeth. “Martin Luther King. He was a Communist, wasn't he?” For a long moment I resented that man—not for his whiteness, but for his fool insensitivity. “John, you shure don't know
nothing,
do you?”

The meetings in Arkansas were filled with crying, but we also could praise the Lord. This world is not our real home. After our meetings in Arkansas, I drove John back to his home and then went on to Anderson. Margie had taken sick, and I wanted to be with her. It was one of the last times I would see her alive. I drove along the narrow, hilly streets looking at the familiar little wooden houses, shingle or tar-paper covered, set right on the road. Roses grew over almost every one of them. Inside somewhere in every single house would be photographs of John Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, either hanging on a wall or standing on a table, mantel, or dresser top. Dear Lord, we need heroes.

Margie's older son, Alan, was at Margie's house, come down from Detroit. I called Jackie and told her Margie was more sick than I thought, and she took a bus right down. We stayed with her for a week.

“You has did so much for me,” Margie told me in a weak voice. “All the boxes of gifts you send.”

“Now, Sister, don't you remember the boxes you sent me while I was at school?”

“Robert, you a wonderful brother. And Jackie is a wonderful sister. You got a wonderful wife, Robert.”

I could see she was in pain. It hurt to see Margie suffer. She looked like Mama lying there, thin and worn. Her face was beautiful and radiant, though. “I'm strivin to make it at the narrow gate, Robert,” she said with a smile.

When I kissed her good-bye, we clung to each other. It was our last embrace.

Jackie and I drove to Detroit in the summer to see Janey. Alan told us that she had cancer and didn't want anyone to know about it. Janey was living in a fancy house on the west side of town with a new husband who waited on her hand and foot.

I knew she was dying. For a brief time she mellowed when I walked into her big, fancy bedroom. “Robert, you was kind to send all those boxes and packages.”

“You was kind to me, Jay, remember?”

“None of the other brothers ever bothered with me.”

“They just afraid of that evil temper of yours.”

“I am a Christian, Robert Sadler!” she said indignantly. “I'll have you know that I am saved and on my way to glory. Now get out of here before I run upside your head!”

She shook her fist at me, and I knew she meant business. “And don't come back!” she shouted. At the door I turned, waved, blew her a kiss, and looked at her dear, angry face for the last time. She had lived a wild and sinful life and missed out on the peace and joy that she could have had living a Christian life. But she had never forgotten that night in Anderson forty years earlier when she gave her heart to Jesus. I never saw her or spoke to her again. She died a month later.

In 1970 one of the brightest lights of my life went out when Margie died. We went to Anderson for the funeral, and it seemed as though I was a boy again and Margie was not only Margie, but Mama, Ella, Pearl, and Janey, too. All my kin was gone now except for my brothers Johnny and Leroy, and I hardly knew them.

As I stood at Margie's casket, I was overcome with a strange sense of loneliness. Many people had loved Margie and would miss her, but for me I knew there would be a hole in my heart all the rest of my life for the sister who held me and loved me when there was no one else.

I drove through town along Market Street and turned at a narrow, cluttered street called Church Street. It is the black skid row of Anderson. The Lord spoke to me and said, “Pull over here.” I thought it strange, but I obeyed and pulled over alongside a taxi stand. “Now take out your portable organ,” the Lord said. I did as He said and began to play right there on the sidewalk.

It wasn't long before a small crowd of men had gathered. One tall, dark-skinned man was very upset at my playing. “You a preacher?” he snapped.

“Why, yes, I am.”

“I hate preachers!”

“Now, why would you hate preachers?”

“A preacher called me a rat!”

I raised my eyebrows. “And did you believe him? It's plain to see that you are not a rat. A rat has four legs and you have only two.”

He stood staring at me, his mouth hanging open, and I played another song. After the song I said to him, “Will you get saved today?” He began to cry. He told me how he had been saved once, but he had fallen far from the Lord. He asked Jesus back into his heart that day.

I had a great time talking with the men on Church Street. The next day I went back again. Then the Lord spoke to me and said, “Rent a building on this street, Robert, so these men can have a place to come and call home.” I began looking for an available building and I found one. It was run-down and filthy. It would take a lot of work to clean it up and make a mission out of it. So I set to work painting, fixing, and cleaning, and as I worked the men came by to watch, and some of them would help me.

Finally one day the sign painter came and painted COMPASSION HOUSE on the window, the name I had chosen for the mission. “Lord, you always give me compassion,” I prayed. “I'm going to need lots of it now for these men.”

E. V. Adger, who owned and operated the taxi stand down the block, came over to see what was going on. “These men needs more religion and less whiskey; so you is in the right place, brother.” I discovered E.V. had been a slave on the Druid Plantation when I was a boy on the Beal Plantation. But we never talked about it.

In those early weeks of the mission, I saw the Lord touch the down-and-out men of Church Street with His hand of love, and men came to Jesus nearly every day. I played my organ, preached, and spent hours and hours talking with the men. Their response made me see the mercy of God in a new way every day.