Marseille  1929

The means they had of advertising an affair of this kind was to paste posters all over the various bill boards and buildings and to have the town crier announce the-meeting. We engaged the town cryer and as one of the missionaries was a commericial artist we decided to prepare the posters ourselves. We worked on them for about a week and then went over and pasted them up everywhere where there was no sign "defense dfaffiche" (post no bills). I had called in all of the missionaries in the district for these conferences and as we had working in Nimes, a young fellow who was a native Swiss that spoke French without an accent, we expected to have him as the principal speaker.

Three or four days before the conference was to take place, as we were kneeling in prayer one morning, I could see before me just as plain as if it had been put up in front of me, one of the posters we had prepared and as I looked at it I noticed that while the poster told the time and place of the meeting it did not tell the date. That morning we had prayed fervently that the coming conference would be a success and I feel that our Father in Heaven answered our prayers that morning. I immediately got on the bus and went down to the little fishing town and went around to the various posters and added the date. I also gave the date to the town cryer.

When the afternoon come for the conference we all went down to the village and when 2 o'clock, the time for the meeting to begin, arrived, there was not a soul in the theater. I noticed people would come and look in and then walk away. Finally I took the missionaries and scattered them throughout the hall. Within ten minutes every seat in the place was taken. We had a wonderful conference with the spirit of the Lord much in evidence. I actually gave the principal talk and I am sure that my French was never so good, nor had I spoken so well. This was a testimony to me that the Lord hears and answers our prayers.

Another very interesting experience which I had was the opening of the city of Beziers in southern France down near the Spanish border. I was told by the mission president that he was sending down two missionaries and that he wished me to take them down to Beziers and start missionary work in that town. In due course the missionaries arrived and we departed for Beziers. We found this city to be mildly affected by the spanish influence and to be a very beautiful and interesting city.

The first thing we did was to call on the Chief of Police and register as all aliens were required to do. We then inquired as whether there was any law or regulation which would prevent us from doing missionary work. We received a very cool reception from the Chief of Police and after being kept waiting in his outer office for about an hour, were ushered in only to be told that we could not do any tracting in Bezier. As this was about the only type of missionary work that can be carried on in a new city, this was a real blow to us. We inquired as to whether there was a law or some ordinance that prevented us from doing this. The "chief" did not cite any such law and I felt that this was just an arbitrary ruling of his own. I asked to whom I could appeal his ruling and was told that the Mayor was the only one to whom we could appeal. We then called at the Mayor's office and made an appointment for 2 in the afternoon.

(MISSIONARY JOURNAL OF JOHN GRIFFIN - page 40)

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