A Prayer Meeting In The Home Of A Moonshiner


Long before we moved into this community, I had heard that this section was known far and wide for its bootlegging and moonshining activities, and so I was not at all surprised after we had moved here to meet a man one day out on a mountain trail with a half gallon fruit jar under each arm. We stopped and had quite a talk. He said he had found the jars along the road, and that they had been used to carry moonshine liquor.

He also said that on Saturdays and Sundays the liquor flowed in this valley like water in the creek, which I found later to be very true. It was not al all unusual to see someone going up and down these mountain trails drunk—staggering, yelling, and firing a revolver in all directions. One day a very young boy, about 14 years of age, came by our home in a pitiful condition; he was so drunk that he could hardly stand up, much less walk. With cigarette hung loosely between his lips, he went reeling and staggering up the road.

Over a year ago, a good while before we had moved here, I was going through this section of the mountains on foot, stopping at every home, leaving tracts, Gospels of John, and pleading the cause of Christ. At one home where I stopped, a very old lady and a young man were out in the field hoeing. They were planting potatoes, and were working very fast, as they were trying to finish before a storm came, which seemed likely to break at any moment. I went over to the old lady, who was tired out, and asked her to let me take her place which she did. After we had finished the garden, we went over and sat on the cabin porch. There, I had a wonderful opportunity to witness for our Savior, after which I continued on my way through the mountains.

Soon I came to another home in which there were a man and his wife and several children. I talked to this father and mother about their souls' salvation. Later I learned that the man was typical mountain moonshiner, one of the old timers. Many times we have prayed for this man and his family, and since we have moved into this community, God has used us in leading him to the Cross.

One day he told me that he could not read very well, but he believed the Lord was helping him to read the Bible. He also told how that one night when they were later than usual in having Bible reading and prayer, one of the children, a little girl about seven years old said, "Daddy, ain't we going to read the Bible tonight? Daddy, ain't we going to pray tonight?" Just a few short months ago this father did not know what it was to pray.

Last night I conducted a prayer meeting in this home. As the darkness was settling down over these mountains and little cabin homes, when mothers were singing lullabies and rocking their little ones to sleep, I made my way over a winding foot path to this home. Stopping along the way, I listened to a whippoorwill calling to its mate; far away on the side of another mountain I could faintly hear the answering call, Whippoorwill! Whippoorwill! in the growing darkness.

Soon I reached the little cabin in which we were to have the prayer meeting. We did not have any light, but fortunately, I had carried a flash light which I used to read the Scripture lesson. We all joined in singing some of the old hymns. One of the was In the Sweet By and By, another was Lord, I'm Coming Home. After the singing we went to God in prayer. I was kneeling by the side of this moonshiner, and oh! how wonderful to hear him lift his heart to God in prayer—not with beautiful words nor high sounding phrases, but just the simple words of an humble child who just a short time before was all and more than the devil wanted him to be. But praise God for the blood that shed on Calvary's Cross, he can say with all of God's children:

I'll be present when the roll is called, Pure and spotless through the crimson flood. I will answer when they call my name, Saved through Jesus' blood!


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Walking Barefoot Ministries

© 2000 by Jeff Doles