Every February

A three-day themed Bible conference centered on Jesus Christ and the Word of God, hosted at The Village Church at Advent Christian Village along the Suwannee River in North Florida.

Teaching • Worship • Fellowship

Morning Bible Studies • Evening Worship • Biblical Teaching • Guest Speakers • Christian Fellowship • Workshops & Breakout Sessions

Carrying the Harbinger Heritage Forward

Harbinger Bible Conference South carries forward a treasured heritage of Bible teaching, Christian fellowship, and service. The purpose remains simple: proclaim the Gospel, teach the Word of God, strengthen believers, and make it possible for people to gather around Scripture without a financial barrier standing in the way.

Harbinger Bible Conference South holds one three-day conference each year in the winter. Following the principle that shaped the original Harbinger Bible Conference, there is no charge to attend the conference or receive conference materials.

Everyone Is Welcome

There is no registration fee. An offering may be received for those who wish to help support the ministry, but giving is never required in order to attend. Lodging and dining arrangements are available through Advent Christian Village.

The Heart Behind Harbinger

The original Harbinger grew from a conviction that no one should be kept away from Bible teaching because they could not afford to come. That same principle continues in Harbinger Bible Conference South: the Gospel is free, and the Word of God should be opened freely to all who desire to hear it.

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The Harbinger Story

Harbinger and the Ministry That Followed

“Freely you received, freely give.”Matthew 10:8

The Boy Who Could Not Go to Camp

Long before there was a Harbinger Bible Conference, there was a little boy who wanted to go to Bible camp. That little boy was my Grampa Earl. His childhood, as we have already seen, was not an easy one. His father died when he was young, his home life became difficult, and his family had very little money. Yet after Grampa came to know Jesus Christ, the church became an important part of his life. He loved being around God's people, hearing God's Word, and learning more about the Savior who had changed his life.

There was one experience, however, that he desperately wanted and could not have. He wanted to go to Bible camp. Other children were able to attend, but Grampa's family simply could not afford to send him. So he stayed home. Year after year, he watched others enjoy an experience he longed to share. For a child who had already experienced so much disappointment, it must have hurt. Grampa never forgot it. But something remarkable happened to that childhood disappointment.

It became a dream.

Instead of allowing his disappointment to make him bitter, Grampa began thinking about other children who might someday face the same situation. He often said that if God ever gave him the opportunity, he wanted to establish a Bible conference where money would never determine who could come. Rich or poor, everyone would be welcome. No child would have to watch his friends leave for Bible camp while he stayed behind simply because his family could not afford it.

At the time, it must have seemed like nothing more than the dream of a boy who knew what it felt like to be left out. But Grampa never forgot that dream. Years passed. The little boy became a man. He married, raised a family, worked, studied the Scriptures, and became a pastor and Bible teacher. Yet somewhere in his heart remained the memory of the Bible camp he had never been able to attend.

He could not have known it then, but God would eventually place twelve acres of mountainside in Whitefield, New Hampshire, before him. And the little boy who could not afford to attend Bible camp would spend the final decades of his life making certain that others could.

Twelve Acres on a Mountainside

Dreams sometimes remain with us for years before God opens the door for them to become reality. By this time Grampa was serving as a pastor in Clearwater, Florida. New Hampshire was far away, and there was no obvious reason to believe that the dream he had carried since childhood was about to become reality. Then the telephone rang.

On the other end was a friend from Whitefield, New Hampshire. What he said would change the direction of Grampa's life. “I have twelve acres on the side of a mountain that I'll give you.” There it was. Twelve acres. A mountainside. And an opportunity. The boy who had once been unable to afford Bible camp was being offered land upon which he could build one.

Grampa was fifty-four years old. That detail is important to me. Many people reach their fifties and begin thinking about security. They have spent decades working and raising families, and naturally they begin wondering when life might become a little easier. Grampa did something very different. He started over.

He left Florida and returned to New England. He moved into the home of his elderly mother and began the enormous task of turning twelve acres on the side of a New Hampshire mountain into a Bible conference. There was no beautiful conference center waiting for him. There were no cabins filled with campers. There was no tabernacle where people could gather for worship. There was no dining hall filled with families eating together. There was a mountainside. And there was a dream.

Trees had to be cleared. Rocks had to be moved. Buildings had to be constructed. Money had to be found. And people had to believe in the vision enough to help make it happen. Through it all, one principle could never be sacrificed: No one would be kept away because they could not afford to come. That was not merely one feature of Grampa's dream. It was the reason for it.

Four More Acres

As Harbinger began to take shape, Grampa and Grammie looked beyond the original twelve acres. Beside the property were another four acres of land that would be valuable to the future of the conference. They did not own them, and there was no assurance that they ever would.

But Grampa and Grammie did something characteristic of the way they approached the ministry. They walked around those four acres and prayed. They asked God to give that land to Harbinger. Then they waited. Within a couple of years, the owner agreed to sell the four acres to them for very little money. The original twelve acres had become sixteen. And sixteen acres is what Harbinger Bible Conference has today.

I love that part of the story because it reminds me that Grampa and Grammie did not see Harbinger simply as something they were constructing. They prayed over it. They believed that if the ministry was going to grow, the Lord would have to provide what was needed. Sometimes that provision came through people willing to work. Sometimes it came through donated materials. Sometimes it came through unexpected financial help. And in this case, it came in the form of four additional acres of New Hampshire mountainside.

Harbinger

Eventually that mountainside had a name: Harbinger Bible Conference. The word harbinger refers to someone or something that announces what is coming. The name was especially appropriate for a man who had spent so much of his life studying and teaching biblical prophecy.

But Harbinger became much more than a name on a sign. It became a place where people gathered to hear the Word of God. Children played there. Families ate together. Christians worshiped together. Pastors and Bible teachers preached there. People prayed there. And lives were changed there. Eventually, several generations of our own family would walk across those sixteen acres. I would be one of them.

“I'd Do It Again”

Building Harbinger was never a hobby for Grampa. It became one of the great commitments of his life. It required years of work and sacrifice. It required far more than his time. Near the end of his life, Grampa said something to me that I have never forgotten: “I gave the last forty years of my life and every penny I had to make the Harbinger Bible Conference—and I'd do it again.”

Those words tell us more about Grampa Earl than a list of accomplishments ever could. He had begun life as a poor boy who could not afford Bible camp. He knew what it felt like to stand on the outside wishing he could participate. So when God finally placed something into his hands that he could give to others, Grampa gave what he had. His time. His money. His strength. And the final decades of his life. All so someone else would not have to stay home.

The Family God Gave Us

Not everyone who becomes family shares our blood. Some people enter our lives through friendship and, somewhere along the way, the word friend simply stops being large enough to describe them.That was true of Nellie Bonet and her husband, Earl.

When Aunt Rita first moved out on her own, she met Nellie. The two young women became close friends, and that friendship lasted for the rest of their lives. But Nellie did not remain simply Rita's friend. As the years passed, she became increasingly close to our entire family. She shared our celebrations, our difficult times, our faith, our music, and eventually our ministry. Before long, she became Aunt Nellie.And her husband became Uncle Earl.

I cannot remember ever thinking those names were unusual. As far as I was concerned, they were family. But before I knew Aunt Nellie and Uncle Earl as the wonderful Christian couple I remember, their marriage had traveled a very difficult road.

Nellie and Earl had met at church. Their courtship centered around the church, and Nellie believed she was marrying a Christian man. For her, that was not a small matter. Her faith in Jesus Christ was at the center of her life, and she believed that she and Earl shared that faith.

Then came their wedding day. They were married in the church and drove away together to begin their new life. But as they were leaving, Earl brought out a bottle of whiskey and a carton of cigarettes. Then he told his new wife the truth. He was not a Christian. He never had been.

He confessed that he had pretended to share her Christian faith in order to persuade her to marry him. For Nellie, the discovery was devastating.

The man to whom she had just promised her life had deceived her about something that went to the very heart of who she was. Their marriage was unhappy for many years. Yet Nellie remained faithful to Christ. And although she could not have known it at the time, their story was not finished.

At some point during those difficult years, Nellie contracted polio. The disease affected her legs so severely that she had to wear special shoes attached to braces that extended up to her knees. Then came a week of revival services. Aunt Rita and Nellie attended together, and the two friends sang in the choir. One evening during that revival, Nellie went forward to the altar and prayed for healing. What happened that night became one of the stories Nellie told for the rest of her life.

Nellie believed that God healed her.

The effects of the polio that had required the braces were gone. Her thin, frail legs became strong. When she returned home that night, she wanted to put on an ordinary pair of shoes. There was only one problem. She didn't have any. Her shoes were attached to the braces she had needed because of the polio. So Nellie had Earl get a hacksaw\...and cut the braces off her shoes. For the rest of her life, Aunt Nellie had no question about what she believed had happened. She believed the Lord had healed her.

But the revival was not over. And neither was God's work in the Bonet home. Two nights later, Aunt Rita and Nellie were once again singing in the choir. During the service Rita suddenly elbowed her friend. “Look who just came in!” Nellie looked toward the back of the church. There was Earl. Sitting on the back pew. Then the invitation was given. Earl came forward and received Jesus Christ as his Savior.

For Nellie, believing that his conversion was genuine was not easy. She had been hurt too deeply. She had once entered their marriage believing Earl was a Christian, only to discover on their wedding day that he was not. It was understandable that she would be cautious about believing him again.

So she watched. And this time she saw something different. Earl stopped drinking. He stopped smoking. And from that day until the day he died, he lived the faithful Christian life Nellie had once believed they would share together. I never knew the Earl who brought out the whiskey and cigarettes on their wedding day. I only knew Uncle Earl. And I thought he was wonderful.

A House Filled with Music

Aunt Nellie and Uncle Earl loved music. Their house seemed to be filled with musical instruments. And those instruments were not there simply to look at. If you came to visit, sooner or later someone was going to put an instrument in your hands. Then everybody started singing. That was simply what happened at Aunt Nellie's house.There was music. There was laughter. There was fellowship. And there was always room for one more person.

During my hippie days, my friends and I would travel from Lenox, Massachusetts, to Aunt Nellie's house in Whitefield, New Hampshire. We arrived with long hair, bell-bottom pants, medallions, jewelry, and beaded headbands. We looked every bit like the young hippies we were. There were places where people looked at us with suspicion. Sometimes we were treated with scorn or rejection. Aunt Nellie never did. She welcomed us. She fed us. She cared about us. She let us spread our sleeping bags out on her wraparound porch and stay there. Most importantly, she loved us.

Looking back, I understand the importance of that better than I did then. Aunt Nellie did not wait for me to get my life straightened out before she cared about me. She loved me before my conversion. And she loved me afterward. Uncle Earl did too. They were living testimonies to me of a Christian love that welcomed people rather than pushing them away.

Years later, that love reached another generation. When my own children were in college and beginning lives of their own, they visited Aunt Nellie too. They loved being with Aunt Nellie and Uncle Earl just as I had.

A friendship that began between two young women—Rita and Nellie—had somehow expanded until several generations of our family simply regarded Nellie and Earl as our own. They were not Watermans by blood. They did not need to be. Love had already made them family.

They Helped Build the Dream

When Grampa Earl began turning those sixteen acres of New Hampshire mountainside into Harbinger Bible Conference, Aunt Nellie and Uncle Earl were there. They did not merely support the ministry from a distance. They invested themselves in it. They attended the conferences. They worshiped there. They supported the work. And Uncle Earl contributed a great deal of the manual labor required to build the camp. I remember working with him.

My cousin Kevin Willey, Uncle Earl, and I were once high in the rafters of the first tabernacle, putting in the ceiling. At the time, we were simply doing a job that needed to be done. Today that memory means much more to me. I can still picture us up there working together. Those memories remind me that Harbinger was never built by one man. Grampa carried the dream, but God surrounded him with people who believed in it. Some gave money. Some gave materials. Some cooked. Some taught. Some preached. Some carried lumber, drove tractors, hammered nails, or climbed into rafters. And some simply did whatever needed to be done. Aunt Nellie and Uncle Earl were among those people.

They shared our family celebrations. They shared our sorrows. They shared our music. They shared our faith. And they helped build the place that became one of the most important parts of our family's story. They were a perfect fit for our family. And when I think about them now, I realize that perhaps there is another kind of genealogy that cannot be traced through birth certificates, marriage licenses, or census records. It is the family God gives us along the way. Aunt Nellie and Uncle Earl belonged to that family. And our family's story would not be complete without them.

Building Harbinger

Sixteen acres of land did not make a Bible conference. They made a beginning. When Grampa Earl first began working on that mountainside in Whitefield, there were no cabins filled with families, no dining hall serving meals, and no tabernacle filled with singing and preaching. There were trees. There were rocks. There was rough ground. And there was plenty of work to do. Most of all, there was Grampa's dream.

Somehow that mountainside had to become a place where families could come together, hear the Word of God, worship Christ, enjoy Christian fellowship, and do it all without worrying about whether they could afford to be there. Grampa could never have accomplished something like that by himself. Thankfully, he didn't have to. People began coming alongside him. Family members came. Friends came. People from churches came. Some gave money. Some donated materials. Some brought tools. Others brought strong backs and willing hands. Harbinger did not suddenly appear on the side of that mountain. It was built little by little. Board by board. Stone by stone. Prayer by prayer.

The Earliest Days

The beginning was about as simple as it could be. One of the first structures was little more than a foundation with three sides. Plastic was used to cover the open areas, and a wood stove provided heat. And Grampa and Grammie lived there. I think that detail says something important about how committed they were to the dream. They were not building a comfortable retreat for themselves and then inviting other people to come. They were living in the middle of the work.

The conference began before there was much of a conference to see. In those earliest days, people came and camped. Some stayed in tents. Others brought campers or recreational vehicles. There were no rows of finished cabins waiting for them. People came because they believed in what Harbinger was becoming. They came to worship. They came to hear the Bible taught. They came for Christian fellowship. And somehow, in those primitive surroundings, the first Harbinger conferences began.

The Mountainside Began to Change

Little by little, the place grew. The simple beginning was expanded. A house took shape. A dormitory was added. There was an apartment. A kitchen and dining room made it possible to prepare meals and feed the growing number of people who came.

Then other facilities followed. A hotel was built. An RV park was developed. Trailers provided additional places for people to stay. And eventually a larger tabernacle provided more room for worship, preaching, Bible teaching, and prayer. The mountainside I had known when there was almost nothing there gradually became a real Bible conference. But I remember when it wasn’t. That is one of the privileges of being part of the story from the beginning. I can remember what stood there before the buildings did.

An Old Red Tractor

And I remember the rocks. There were plenty of them. My cousin Reggie Willey and I helped clear the property, driving an old red tractor over ground that would someday be crossed by thousands of people coming to Harbinger. At the time, I doubt I understood the significance of what we were doing. We were simply helping Grampa. There was work to do, and everybody worked. But I can still picture that old red tractor.

I can remember the rough ground. I remember a time when places that later became so familiar to us were nothing more than part of a New Hampshire mountainside. Before there were buildings, I camped on that land. I slept on the ground. Later I slept in tents. Eventually I slept in the cabins that rose on the property. In a very real sense, I grew up watching Harbinger grow up too.

Building the First Tabernacle

One of the most important early projects was the first tabernacle. That building would become the spiritual center of Harbinger. It was where people gathered to sing. It was where the Bible was opened. It was where pastors and teachers preached. It was where people prayed. And it would eventually become the setting for some of the most important spiritual memories in our family's life.

My cousin Kevin Willey and I helped build that first tabernacle. As I mentioned earlier, Uncle Earl Bonet worked on it too. I remember being high in the rafters with Kevin and Uncle Earl, helping put in the ceiling. Later, Kevin's brother Reggie and I painted the steeple. That produced another memory I can still see. We were finishing our work as families were beginning to arrive and gather for worship. There we were, still painting the building...while the people for whom it had been built were already coming. I like that memory. In some ways, it seems to capture the early spirit of Harbinger perfectly. The work wasn't finished. But the ministry had already begun.

Everybody Helped

That was how Harbinger grew. Everybody helped. The large Wilson family built a two-story cabin, and I helped them with the construction. Others contributed according to whatever abilities God had given them. Some could build. Some could cook. Some could teach. Some could preach. Some could give money. Some could clean. Some could move rocks. Some could carry lumber. Some could swing a hammer. And some simply showed up and asked what needed to be done.

Grampa had the vision, but Harbinger became a reality because a community of people made that vision their own. When I think about those early years, I don't picture a professional construction company arriving and building a conference center. I see family. I see friends. I see volunteers. I see ordinary people working together because they believed that what was being built on that mountainside mattered.

More Than Buildings

Eventually the mountainside looked very different. Where there had once been rough land, there were places to sleep. There was a place to eat. There were places for families to gather. There was a tabernacle where people could worship. But Grampa understood that Harbinger was never really about buildings.The buildings were only tools.

The purpose was people.

The purpose was to proclaim the Gospel. The purpose was to teach the Scriptures. The purpose was to give families a place where they could step away from everyday life and spend time with God and with one another.

And through all the growth—from those first primitive accommodations to the larger conference that eventually stood on the mountainside—one part of Grampa's original dream never changed. No one would be kept away because he could not afford to come. A family with plenty of money could come. A family with almost nothing could come. A child like the little boy Grampa once had been could come.

They would worship together. They would study the Bible together, they would eat together. They would stay together. And no one would receive a bill. Everything was free. That was not merely Harbinger's financial policy. It was at the heart of Grampa's understanding of the ministry. He knew what it felt like to stand outside something wonderful because there wasn't enough money to go inside. So when God gave him the opportunity to build a place of his own, he determined that the door would remain open.

Perhaps Grampa saw in that something of the grace he himself had received as a little boy. He had walked into a church with nothing to offer Christ. The Gospel had been freely offered to him. Now Grampa wanted to spend his life freely offering it to others. “Freely you received, freely give.” For Grampa Earl, those words were more than the theme verse for Harbinger. They were the way he built it.

Providence on a Mountainside

Building Harbinger was not without hardship or danger. There was always another project underway, and much of the construction was being done by people who had simply come together to help build the ministry. Then one day, something went terribly wrong.

Hired workers were installing the large roof trusses on the new Tabernacle with a huge crane. During the work, one truss struck another.

Then another fell. Within seconds, the heavy wooden trusses began collapsing one after another like a row of dominoes. Grampa was standing below. The falling timbers came crashing down around him, and Grampa was struck. He was badly injured. What had begun as another ordinary day of construction had suddenly become a frightening accident that nearly cost Grampa his life. Thankfully, he survived.

The accident eventually resulted in a financial settlement. After everything Grampa had suffered, no one could have blamed him for using that money for himself. He had needs of his own. He had already invested much of what he possessed in Harbinger. But when the settlement came, Grampa saw another opportunity to provide something the conference desperately needed.

A Kitchen for Harbinger

About that time, a restaurant had gone out of business, and its commercial kitchen equipment became available. Harbinger needed it. If families were going to attend without paying, they still had to be fed. And as the number of people coming to the conference increased, preparing all those meals required much more than an ordinary household kitchen.

So Grampa used the money from his settlement to purchase the restaurant's industrial kitchen equipment for Harbinger. I have always thought that decision said a great deal about him. The money had come to him because he had been injured. He could have kept it. Instead, he put it back into the ministry. Even something that had resulted from a painful experience became, in Grampa's hands, another means of helping Harbinger grow.

Feeding People Was Ministry Too

An industrial kitchen may not sound very spiritual. It was not a pulpit. It was not a Bible. It was not a hymnbook. But Grampa understood something very practical. If you invite families to spend days together at a Bible conference, somebody has to feed them. And if you have promised that everything will be free, then feeding people becomes part of the ministry. Every meal prepared in that kitchen helped fulfill the promise Grampa had carried since childhood. No family would have to calculate whether they could afford the meals before deciding whether they could come. They could simply come. There would be a place for them. There would be food for them.There would be Bible teaching. There would be worship. And there would be Christian fellowship. The kitchen was simply another part of making that possible.

He Kept Building

Perhaps what strikes me most about the accident is that it did not stop Grampa. After being badly injured beneath the falling trusses, he could easily have decided that he had done enough. No one would have blamed him. But Grampa kept going. He kept building. He kept giving. And Harbinger continued to grow. Years later, when he told me that he had given the last forty years of his life and everything he had to Harbinger, I knew those words were not an exaggeration. I had watched some of those years myself. Harbinger had cost him money. It had cost him labor. It had cost him physical strength. And on that day beneath the falling trusses, it had nearly cost him his life. Yet he never told me that he wished he had spent those years differently. Quite the opposite. He had already told me: He would do it again.

My Harbinger

Harbinger Bible Conference was Grampa Earl's dream. But somewhere along the way, it became part of my life too. I had known the place when it was little more than a mountainside. I had moved rocks there. I had driven the old red tractor with my cousin Reggie. I had camped there before there were comfortable places to sleep. I had helped build the first tabernacle with my cousin Kevin. I had worked high in its rafters with Uncle Earl. I had helped the Wilson family build their cabin. And I had painted the steeple with Reggie while families were already arriving for worship.

At the time, I was simply helping Grampa. I did not understand that I was helping build a place that would become woven into the story of my own life. As Harbinger grew, I grew with it. I slept there on the ground. Later I slept in tents. Then I slept in the cabins that rose on the property. I attended services there as a young man. I listened as others opened the Scriptures and preached the Gospel.And years later, something happened that I could never have imagined while I was hauling rocks and helping with construction. I stood behind the pulpit at Harbinger and preached there myself. There was something very meaningful about that for me. I had once helped build the place. Now I was being given the privilege of preaching the Word of God in it.The boards and rafters were no longer simply pieces of lumber that we had nailed together. They had become part of a place where generations of people gathered to worship Jesus Christ. And I had watched it happen.

Another Generation Arrived

Eventually, I stopped coming to Harbinger only as Grampa's grandson. I began coming as a father. I brought my own children there when they were little. The place that had been part of my childhood began becoming part of theirs. One of my favorite memories is of my son Mickey when he was still very small. He was young enough to be crawling around the feet of the congregation. I can still picture Grampa kneeling beside him.

Here was the man who had given so much of his life to build Harbinger, bending down beside his little great-grandson and asking God to bless his life.At the time, it was simply a tender family moment. Today I see something more. I see generations. I see the little boy who once could not afford to attend Bible camp...the man who spent decades building a place where others could attend freely...and now the old man kneeling beside his great-grandson on the grounds of the conference he had built. Grampa could not know everything that lay ahead for that little boy. Neither could I. He simply prayed for him. Today Mickey has a very blessed life, and when I think of him, I often remember Grampa kneeling beside that little boy and asking God to bless the life that still lay ahead of him. Some memories become more precious with time. That is one of mine.

Returning Years Later

Years passed. My children grew up. Eventually our family returned to Harbinger for a reunion. By then, much had changed. The children who had once crawled across the floor were adults. Those of us who had once been young were older. Some of the people who had helped build Harbinger were no longer there. But the mountainside remained. So did the memories. I could look around and remember what the property had once been. I remembered the rocks. The old red tractor. Sleeping on the ground. The first tabernacle. Working with Kevin and Uncle Earl in the rafters. Painting the steeple with Reggie. I remembered the people who had worked beside Grampa when Harbinger was still more dream than conference center. Everywhere I looked seemed to hold a story.

More Than a Conference Center

That is why Harbinger has never simply been a conference center to me.

It is part of the geography of my life. It is where some of my childhood and young-adult memories were made. It is where I worked beside people I loved. It is where I heard the Scriptures taught. It is where I worshiped. It is where I later preached. It is where my children became part of the same family story.When I walk across those grounds in my memory, I do not first see buildings.

I see people. I see Grampa and Grammie. I see Aunt Rita.I see Aunt Nellie and Uncle Earl. I see Kevin and Reggie. I see the Wilson family. I see friends and volunteers whose names I may no longer remember. I see people carrying lumber, preparing meals, singing hymns, opening their Bibles, praying together, and doing whatever needed to be done. Harbinger was constructed from wood, nails, concrete, and stone. But those things were never what made it special. People did.

People who loved Christ. People who loved one another. People who believed that the Gospel should be freely proclaimed. And people who believed enough in Grampa Earl's dream to help make it their own. There are many memories I treasure from Harbinger. But one of the most remarkable belongs to my brother Joseph. Now “Joey” as the family calls him, has our family history in his name. Joseh after Grampa

I was not there when it happened, and that distinction is important. What I know comes from the family members and friends who were there and witnessed it. My brother was thirteen years old. He was terribly ill. He was confined to a wheelchair. And our family believed he was dying. Then, in the first Harbinger tabernacle, God's people gathered around him and prayed. What happened next became one of the stories our family would never forget.

A Day Our Family Never Forgot

Some family stories are told so often and remembered so vividly that they become part of the family's history. This is one of ours. My brother was thirteen years old and desperately ill. Our family believed he was dying. His illness had left him confined to a wheelchair, and there seemed to be little reason to believe that the life ahead of him would be a long one. Then came a day at Harbinger that our family would never forget.I was not there that day. That is important for me to say. What I know about what happened was told to me by members of my family and friends who were there and witnessed it themselves.

They were gathered in the first Harbinger tabernacle—the same tabernacle that members of our family and friends had worked together to build. My brother was brought forward in his wheelchair. The people gathered around him. They laid their hands upon him. And they prayed. They prayed earnestly for this thirteen-year-old boy whom our family feared we were going to lose. Then, according to those who were there and witnessed it, my brother stood up from his wheelchair. That moment became part of our family's story. But what makes it even more remarkable to me is what happened afterward.

The Life That Followed

The thirteen-year-old boy whom our family believed was dying grew into a man. He entered the United States Air Force, where he served for two years. He then transferred to the United States Army and continued serving his country, ultimately completing a twenty-year military career. The boy whose future once seemed so uncertain had been given years none of us knew he would have. And his story did not end with his military retirement. He entered another kind of service. He became a pastor.

The brother our family once feared we were going to lose went on to spend twenty years serving his country and then entered the Gospel ministry. When I think about that, I cannot help thinking about the prayers offered in that first Harbinger tabernacle. I was not there to see my brother stand. So I will not tell this story as though I was. But I know the people who were there. I know what they told me. And I know the life my brother went on to live. For our family, those things will always be connected.

The Tabernacle We Helped Build

There is another part of the story that moves me. That prayer took place in the first Harbinger tabernacle. It was the building Kevin and I had helped construct. It was the building where Uncle Earl had worked with us high in the rafters. It was the building whose steeple Reggie and I had painted while families were beginning to arrive for worship.When we were building it, we could not possibly have known everything that would someday happen inside those walls.

We were putting up a building. God knew the people who would eventually walk through its doors. There would be preaching there. There would be singing there. There would be Bible teaching there. There would be laughter and fellowship. There would also be tears. And there would be prayer. One of those prayers would be for my own little brother. That gives those old boards and rafters a meaning for me that they could never otherwise have had.

Harbinger Was a Place of Prayer

Harbinger had been born from Grampa's desire to provide a Bible conference that everyone could afford. But over the years it became much more than a place where people came for free lodging, meals, and Bible teaching. It became a place where Christians shared life together. When people rejoiced, others rejoiced with them. When people hurt, others hurt with them. And when someone needed prayer, people prayed.

That was the kind of Christian community Grampa wanted Harbinger to be.

For our family, the story of my brother became one of the clearest examples of it. A frightened family brought a very sick thirteen-year-old boy to Harbinger. Christians gathered around him. They prayed. And the eyewitnesses who were there told me what happened next: He stood.

Years later, that boy would stand in a military uniform and serve his country. Still later, he would stand behind a pulpit and preach the Gospel. Those who gathered around his wheelchair that day could not have known any of that.They simply prayed. And our family never forgot.

The Ministry Continued

Harbinger Bible Conference was one of Grampa Earl's great accomplishments. But Harbinger was not his only legacy. There was another legacy that could not be measured in acres, buildings, cabins, or conference attendance.

His family.

The little boy who had once walked into an Advent Christian church because he heard Christians singing eventually became the father of six children. Those children grew up. They established homes of their own. They served Christ in different ways. And the faith that had begun in the heart of one little boy continued into another generation. And then another.

Two Sons Who Became Preachers

Both of Grampa's sons eventually entered the Gospel ministry. His son Earl, whom everyone called Pete, became an ordained Advent Christian minister. Pete eventually ministered in Nova Scotia, where he became a beloved pastor. Grampa's other son, George, whom we called Butch, also answered God's call to preach. He became an ordained Advent Christian minister and faithfully served churches throughout California for much of his ministry. I find something especially meaningful about that. Their father had not been raised in a Christian home. As a nine-year-old boy, Grampa had walked into a church because he heard people singing. There he heard the Gospel and gave his life to Jesus Christ. Now his own sons were spending their lives preaching that same Gospel to others. But the ministry did not stop with them.

Pete's oldest son also entered the ministry. Another generation of Watermans had answered the call. He became a pastor in Nova Scotia and also served as chaplain of the Nova Scotia Christian Motorcycle Club. Different generations. Different places. Different kinds of ministry. But the same Christ.

Aunt Rita

Grampa's daughters carried his Christian influence into their lives as well. His oldest daughter, Rita, never married. But Aunt Rita certainly did not live an empty life. She devoted herself to serving Christ and caring for others. We have already seen something of her character. When her younger sister Marion needed someone to care for her, Rita brought her into her own home and raised her. When Aunt Nellie entered her life, Rita became the friend who would remain beside her for a lifetime.

And when Harbinger needed leadership, Aunt Rita was there. For many years she served as president of Harbinger Bible Conference. The ministry that had begun as her father's childhood dream eventually became part of her own life's work. She helped preserve it. She helped lead it. And through Harbinger she helped many people hear the Scriptures and grow in their Christian faith. Grampa's dream had passed into the hands of his daughter. And she carried it faithfully.

My Mother

Then there was Grampa's daughter Theresa Alice Waterman Saunders.

My mother. Mom's life of service looked different from that of her brothers and sister. She became the wife of an Advent Christian pastor and helped create the Christian home in which my brother, my sisters, and I were raised. Through Mom, something else happened that would eventually become important to the story of this book. The Waterman family and the Saunders family came together. Two families with different histories and different journeys were joined when Theresa Waterman and George Saunders met at the New England School of Theology. The Watermans brought their heritage. The Saunders brought theirs. And through their marriage, the two streams became one family.

Another Generation

Then the ministry continued again. Both of Mom's sons eventually entered pastoral ministry. My brother—the same little boy whose family and friends had gathered around his wheelchair at Harbinger—eventually became a pastor. And so did I. Neither of us simply repeated Grampa's ministry. God gave each of us our own path. Our ministries were different. Our experiences were different. But the Gospel was the same. The Bible we opened was the Bible Grampa had devoted his life to studying. The Christ we preached was the Christ who had changed Grampa's life when he was nine years old. And the call to give what God had given us was the same principle that had shaped Harbinger.

More Than a Family Tree

As I have worked on this book, I have spent countless hours thinking about genealogy. Genealogy can tell us a great deal. It can give us names. Dates. Marriages. Children. Places. It can tell us that one person was the father or mother of another. But a family tree cannot tell this whole story.

A family tree can show that Earl Ellsworth Waterman was my grandfather. It cannot show me driving an old red tractor across his mountainside. It cannot show Grampa and Grammie walking around four acres of land and praying that God would someday give it to Harbinger. It cannot show Aunt Rita caring for her little sister.

It cannot show Aunt Nellie opening her home to a group of long-haired young people and loving them when others looked at them with suspicion. It cannot show Uncle Earl working beside Kevin and me in the rafters. It cannot show Grampa kneeling beside little Mickey and asking God to bless his life. And it cannot show Christians gathering around a thirteen-year-old boy in a wheelchair and praying.Those things belong to something larger than genealogy. They belong to legacy.

What Grampa Really Left Us

Grampa Earl did not leave his family great financial wealth. He had poured what he had into the ministry he loved. But he left us something far more valuable. He left us an example. Love the Scriptures. Serve Christ. Care about people. Give what you have. And when God places an opportunity before you, use it for Him. That legacy continued through his children. It continued through his grandchildren. And it continues still.

The little boy who once could not afford Bible camp could never have imagined where his story would lead. He could not have known how many members of his family would eventually enter Christian ministry. He could not have known how many people would come to Harbinger. He could not have known that generations later his grandson would be writing his story. He simply followed Christ.

Then he passed what he had received to those who came after him. And  eventually, one of those who came after him would find himself many miles from the mountains of New Hampshire, wondering whether Grampa's old dream could live again in a very different place.

This time...in north Florida.

A Living Legacy

For many years, Harbinger Bible Conference was Grampa Earl’s dream. Then it became part of our family’s story. Eventually, it became part of mine. Years later, after I had moved to Advent Christian Village in north Florida, I found myself thinking again about what Grampa had built on that mountainside in New Hampshire.

By then, much had changed. Grampa was gone. Many of the people who had helped him build Harbinger were gone. I was no longer the young man driving an old red tractor across the mountainside, sleeping on the ground, or working with Kevin and Uncle Earl in the rafters of the first tabernacle. I had lived a lifetime of my own. I had married, raised a family, pastored churches, preached the Gospel, and taught the Scriptures. But something Grampa had taught me remained: the Gospel is free. People should never be prevented from hearing God’s Word because they cannot afford to come. That principle had not grown old.

Carrying the Dream South

Eventually I sensed the Lord leading me to continue that vision in a new place. With that goal in mind, Harbinger Bible Conference South was established at Advent Christian Village in north Florida. I was not trying to duplicate everything Grampa had built on that New Hampshire mountainside. Times had changed. Places had changed. Methods had changed. But the heart of the ministry did not need to change.

Like the original Harbinger, Harbinger Bible Conference South exists to proclaim the Gospel, strengthen believers, open the Word of God, and remove financial barriers to attending. We hold one three-day conference each year in February. There is no registration fee, and conference teaching and materials are provided without charge. An offering may be received from those who wish to support the ministry, but giving is never required in order to attend. Lodging and dining arrangements are available through Advent Christian Village.

Grace Is Still Free

Grampa Earl learned that as a little boy when he walked into an Advent Christian church and discovered the grace of Jesus Christ. Years later he built a conference where families could freely hear that same Gospel. Now another generation has been given the privilege of carrying that heritage forward.

Perhaps that is what legacy really means. It is not merely remembering what those before us accomplished. It is taking what they placed into our hands and faithfully passing it on.

“Freely you received, freely give.” — Matthew 10:8