Pauline Martin

I love the Lord with all my soul and all that’s within me. He’s been so good to me. He’s healed me so many times. I wish I could tell it like I believe it and know it. I was born in 1910, and it was a couple of years later that my mom received an Apostolic Faith paper.

One of my earliest memories is of having mastoid problems. My mother carried me in her arms, riding horseback to an old country doctor. Not too long after that, when I was about three years old, I contracted rheumatic fever, and I was healed instantly. I had been in bed, and it seemed like forever: I was just a child. Mom had a big family and a lot of work, and she was just praying as she walked around. I called to my mother to pray for me, and she would say, “Mother is praying.” All of a sudden one day, I sat up and said, “Take these old night clothes off me and dress me.” I got up and she dressed me, and I ran, even though I hadn’t walked for weeks. I ran to her. It was the first wonderful healing in our family. Then, when I was about four or five years old I was instantly healed of malaria.

I was saved in that little church, at eleven years old.

Our family was traveling in Oklahoma, and our car broke down. My Daddy always looked up a church when we traveled, which he did this time. I was saved in that little church, at eleven years old. I was so happy, I was singing the next day, “There’s a new name written down in glory, and it’s mine.” Oh, God has been so good to me down through the years!

Ever since my mother received that first Apostolic Faith paper, she had always wanted to come to Portland. We had been getting the papers, and we moved from Arkansas to Colorado in 1919, where we homesteaded. We had a store, and Mother always put the literature in the grocery boxes she packed. There are many people in Heaven today who received those papers in Colorado. It was in Colorado that I met my husband when he worked for my father.

The truck that we had for the grocery business was how we made the move to Portland. We put hail screen and canvas on the side, and our first trailer house was a Model T Ford truck. We had wall-to-wall beds in the back to sleep about ten of us, and my husband drove the truck. There was very little pavement between Denver, Colorado, and Portland (only through the towns) so some days we would travel only about 12 or 14 miles, and if it was raining or snowing it was almost impossible. But we camped in this truck and cooked our meals by the side of the road, and after a month we got to Portland.

At this time, I was expecting my baby. This trip was harsh, but every mile of it was worth it to get to Portland. We had looked forward to being in Portland so many years that it was almost like getting to Heaven.

When we arrived in Portland it was Memorial Day, and we started to go to Sixth and Burnside. When we got to Sixth and Burnside on the east side of the Willamette River we didn’t see the church, so we inquired at the Peter Lee Restaurant. Old Brother Bob Irvin met us and welcomed us to Portland, and he said the church was on the west side of the river. So we got our greeting from Brother Peter Lee and Brother Bob Irvin. Our first meeting was at the downtown church, at Sixth and Burnside, and I testified that first night. I can’t explain the joy that we received in getting to the church. It was home at last!

A few weeks later, camp meeting began. I didn’t stay on the grounds because I was expecting a baby—I stayed at Sister Maynard’s home on Tolman Street. My parents had a cabin in section 500 on the campground, and they cooked their meals in the kitchenette. I would go over there quite often to be with my parents.

I was not baptized in water that year, but the following year. The first year I was in Portland, my husband was saved, and was baptized in water, and was healed of appendicitis. We rode the streetcar from fifty-second and Woodstock out to the Columbia River, and we were both baptized in the Columbia River—he in 1925 and I in 1926.

I had cancer, rheumatic fever, malaria, and one heart attack after another, and God has healed me of all of them.

Sister Florence Crawford was very precious to us. That first year we were here, my daughter was born on August 28, 1925, and she was seemingly all right when she was born. When she was about three weeks old she had a tumor between her stomach and the lower bowels, and she wasn’t expected to live. Dr. Brown said that he didn’t expect her to live because she was too small for an operation. He said, “Your God or an operation, but I have no faith in either one.” Sister Crawford prayed all night long, and she sent Sister Samuels the next day. Sister Samuels came in and she said, “This is supposed to be the crisis.” My husband said he never did think my daughter was going to die, and Sister Samuels said, “Amen. Faith is the Victory.” My daughter was healed of that tumor. The tumor passed out through her bowels. She had weighed nine pounds at birth, and at three months she weighed only seven pounds. God instantly healed that baby, and she is a strong healthy seventy-two-year-old woman today.

It was about 1932 that I prayed through to my baptism. Until then, whenever I prayed, my thoughts would be about my children, and I couldn’t get through. That year a good friend of mine at camp meeting told me not to think about the children: she would look after them. That was when I prayed through and received the baptism of the Holy Ghost.

A few years ago I was so sick that I couldn’t do anything. God has restored my health, and now, in my old age I am healthier than I was when I was younger. I never could tell all the beautiful things He has done for me. I have been healed of so many incurable diseases. I had cancer, rheumatic fever, malaria, and one heart attack after another, and God has healed me of all of them. He has never been known to fail.

Through the years I have had the privilege of helping with Sunday school children, and I spent twenty-five happy years taking care of the cabins on the campground. I took care of assigning campground cabins, and I supervised the laundry area. I sold kerosene, gave out trailer tags, and distributed keys. I’ve always loved to help people. My mother said, “Pauline, you’ll never get anything in this world,” because I loved to give, but I never went without. God has always supplied my every need, and most of my wants. I have always trusted God for everything.