Grandpa's Prayers

My Grandma Personeus always told young women, "It's better to marry a man who can pray 'the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man that avails much' than to marry a millionaire." Grandma knew firsthand because that was the kind of man she married.

Charles C. & Florence L. Personeus

Charles Cardwell Personeus was born January 13, 1888, in Masonville, New York, the son and grandson of Methodist ministers. He spent 65 years of ministry in Alaska and died at age 98, in Ellensburg, Washington, on October 10, 1986.

Grandpa learned to pray early in life. He began preaching while still in his teens and became superintendent of the first Pentecostal mission in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 1910.

He had been preaching for several years when God called him to go to Alaska as a missionary. Feeling he needed to go to Bible school to prepare further, he enrolled at the Rochester Bible Training School in Rochester, New York. There he met my grandmother, Florence LeFevre.

After their graduations, ordinations, and marriage, the couple set out for Alaska by faith in 1917. En route, they joined the fledgling Assemblies of God but received no promise of monetary support.

Arriving in Juneau in November, they pioneered the first Assemblies of God church in the Territory. This year, Juneau Christian Center is celebrating their 100th year of continuous ministry.

During their 65 years in Alaska, the Personeuses also established and pastored small congregations in remote villages, opened a home for children orphaned in the 1919 flu pandemic, ministered to servicemen stationed in Ketchikan during World War II, and served with their son, Byron, on the first Assemblies of God Speed-the-Light mission boat, the Fairtide II.

Today, there are 92 Assemblies of God churches and preaching points from Ketchikan to Barrow.

Prayer was the strength of Grandpa's ministry. He and Grandma began each day with Bible reading and prayer. When anyone was sick, they prayed. Jesus was their Great Physician.

Grandma suffered a number of serious falls and life-threatening illnesses, often when no doctors were available. Grandpa's first response was to pray under the power of the Holy Spirit, and the prayer of faith raised her up.

In the mid-1930s, when she lay dying of advanced gallstones and the doctor could only offer a 50-50 chance of survival if she had surgery, Grandpa prayed. As they praised God for healing, the hard lump in her side disappeared in 10 minutes time, and she was able to eat for the first time in weeks. She lived to the age of 96 and never again had an attack of gallstones.

Courtesy Google.com

Grandpa and Grandma had a burden for the lost. One young man stumbled into their mission in Juneau while a service was in progress and sat with his head in his hands in utter despair. After the service, he poured out his story. He had worked hard for years at the Chichagof Mining Camp to save thousands of dollars to buy a house for his parents. On the boat to Juneau, he was enticed into a card game, and two card sharks had fleeced him of his savings. He had made up his mind to get his money back or kill those men.

All night Grandpa and Grandma prayed for him. The next morning, Grandpa located the man on the docks and brought him home for breakfast. During their morning Bible reading and prayers, the Word of God broke through his hardened heart, and he knelt to ask God to remove the hatred. That morning, although he had lost all his money, he gained eternal life. As a result of his testimony, his parents too found Christ as their personal Savior.

One time when my grandparents were visiting us, the clock struck the hour and Grandpa jumped up. "It's time to pray for Africa!" he exclaimed as he headed for the bedroom to intercede for the missionaries and for lost souls.

In their later years, Grandma suffered much pain from cancer, yet she would never take painkillers. Instead, she would ask Grandpa to pray until the pain subsided.

Grandpa set a great example of prayer and service for the Lord. He never lost his fire. Even in his nineties, his hearing nearly gone, he would pray and testify under the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

Grandpa taught his family to pray and minister too. His two children, Byron and AnnaMae (Cousart), followed in his footsteps in ministry. I too am an ordained minister of the gospel, as is my husband,.
Bob. Through Grandpa's righteous life and effectual, fervent prayers, generations are being blessed.

This fall, I've been invited to speak at the 100th anniversary celebration of the church in Juneau, Alaska, that my grandparents founded in 1917. What an honor!

If you enjoyed this account, you can read many more similar stories in my book, Frontiers of Faith, the Story of Charles C. & Florence L. Personeus, Pioneer Missionaries to Alaska, "The Last Frontier," 1917-1982.



















My grandparents also provided the inspiration for my Alaskan Waters Trilogy of historical Christian novels. As I researched their story, I came across true incidents of real people that triggered my imagination.


My books are available in paperback and ebook on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iTunes, and bookstores. The third book was released this summer. Learn more about them and order at www.AnnaLeeConti.com.

Harmony or Cacophony?

Four generations of my family taken on my
parents' 60th wedding anniversary

I've always loved music. In fact, my parents tell me that when I was a year old, I sang out so loud in church that everyone had to wait for me to repeat each line before they could sing the next.

As a child, I loved to listen to my mother and father sing duets, their voices blending together in beautiful harmony. As I grew up, I joined them in a trio.

Then I majored in music in college and met my husband singing in the Choir of the North at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. When we married, we sang duets together too. Now, our grandchildren are  making beautiful music as well.

Harmony is a musical term. It takes two or more instruments or voices to make harmony. A melody is made up of consecutive tones, but harmony occurs when two or more pleasing tones are sounded together.

Harmony doesn't happen by chance. When my young grandchildren "played the piano," the sound was dissonance and discord, not harmony. We covered our ears and demanded that they stop. When they first began to play musical instruments in their grade school band, we didn't want to discourage them, so we gritted our teeth and sat through their performances.

Soon, they learned how to blend together and play the intricate harmonies of the master composers. Nothing is more beautiful than a symphonic orchestra or an a capella choir singing in harmony.

For God's people to live together in harmony, we need to learn the lessons of harmony from an orchestra.

Courtesy Google.com

First, we all instruments must be tuned to Concert A. If even one violin string is slightly out of pitch, even if the musicians all play the right notes, dissonance, not harmony, is the result.

For Christians, Jesus is our "Concert A." He is the One by whom we must measure ourselves. If God's people all play in tune with Him, harmony is the outcome.

Another ingredient of harmony is timing. Not only must the right notes be played in the right pitch, they must be played at the same time. Have you ever heard an orchestra warming up? Each musician is playing the right notes in the right pitch, but in their own timing. Cacophony results.

We as God's people must operate in God's time for harmony in the Body of Christ. He is the Conductor. In order to make beautiful music, we must follow Him and those He has placed in leadership positions.

Courtesy Google.com

Composers and serious musicians spend years studying the fundamentals of harmony in order to write and play and sing well. So we as Christians must spend our lives learning from the Scriptures how to play in harmony with God's people. We must fellowship with one another as well.

Are you living in harmony with God's people? What do you need to do to facilitate harmony?

Repetition

This week the children in New York went back to school. In my training as a schoolteacher, I learned that repetition is essential to learning. I have read studies showing that a child of average to bright intelligence needs a minimum of 500 repetitions in order to learn a fact.

God, who created us, knew that, so He instructed parents to continually repeat His commandments to their children in every possible setting:

Courtesy Google.com

A young mother, listening to a missionary, remarked on how wonderful it must be to be the first one to tell someone about Jesus.

The missionary responded, "As a mother, you have that opportunity with your own children."

Have you ever thought about what a privilege it is that God entrusts parents with the awesome responsibility of teaching our children about Him and His love?

As parents, we need to look for and capitalize on every "teachable moment" to communicate biblical values to our children.

I still remember the times when as a child I got hurt doing something I had been told not to do, and my mother would wipe away my tears and soothe my booboos as she quoted Numbers 32:23:

"Be sure your sins will find you out."

As she taught me to ask Jesus to forgive me too, I learned that disobedience has consequences--in this life and in eternity. How thankful I am for that early teaching. It has saved me from many heartaches.

Courtesy Google.com

Research also demonstrates that children learn more by observing their parents' lives informally every day than by formal education. Vacations, holidays, and special occasions present wonderful opportunities for creating family traditions and "teachable moments" that communicate our Christian values. This is especially true because the emotion of the occasion will heighten learning. 

What do our celebrations say to our children concerning spiritual truths? Why not establish family traditions that teach truth and and fun at the same time?

What do our everyday actions and attitudes teach our children about God? Do we just send them to religious instruction or do we take them with us to church, thus demonstrating the importance of God in our adult life?

Do we keep spiritual reminders and Scripture plaques around the house?

Do our expectations and discipline of our children demonstrate to them the Father love of God?

As school gets under way again, let's look for memorable ways to

instill biblical values in our children's lives.