Adventures in the Christian Life

By Robert Euclide Poudrier

My book, Adventures in the Christian Life, is an autobiography of how our Lord directed our lives. The pictures are from some of the places the Lord sent us to. I spent some time in China, on the borders of China, and with the beautiful people of the Hmong Tribe in Northern Thailand. The adventure begins in the late 1950's when my bride and I leave from San Francisco, California for our first of three experiences in the Philippines. From the jungles of the Philippines, to the inspiration of the student center in Berkley, California, Gospel Center in the Manila, and mobilizing the movement to cross the bamboo curtain of China. The excitement, risk, and uncertainty of the next forty years of travel with my wife and three children living in the Philippines, Taiwan, and California were fruitful, honorable, and pretentious. For we live by faith, not by sight. "" 2 Corinthians 5:7

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 21, 2019
• ISBN: 9781645694540

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Adventures in the Christian Life

Robert Euclide Poudrier and Marion Lind Nelson Poudrier

Copyright © 2019 by Robert Euclide Poudrier and

Marion Lind Nelson Poudrier

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

In Memoriam

Robert E. Poudrier

Born: 18 February 1927

Died: 27 April 2019

My father dedicated his life to reaching out to those who needed to find the light and salvation in Jesus Christ. He touched many lives over the years and inspired many to follow the same path including those in our family. Just before the republication of this book he passed away peacefully at the age of 92 in his home in Victorville, California with his oldest daughter Jane and his wife Marion by his side. He was a very wonderful father, grandfather, and great-grandfather whose presence will be greatly missed by all. He was one man but, his actions made a huge difference in the Christian community. Although he has departed from this world his legacy will live on in the hearts of those he has touched and may the endless ripple in those actions continue.

His Little Flower of the Desert

Introduction

Over the years, Marion and I kept records of the major activities and adventures in our lives. We compiled a chronicle for our family records. People who read it kept admonishing us to write a book. It would be so helpful to others.

Finally, the Lord convicted us to do this. It is our fervent prayer that some may come to embrace the Savior, Jesus Christ, and that some may be encouraged to accept our Lord’s challenge to go into all the world and preach the Gospel, and that everyone that reads this book will receive some of the blessings that we have received in writing it.

Robert Euclide Poudrier

Chapter 1

Top of the World

But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles: They shall run and not be weary; They shall walk and not faint.

—Isaiah 40:31

Indian soldiers carefully guarded the Air India jet as it sat alone on the lonely barren airstrip of Amritsar in northwest India. A hot dry wind blew across the brown dusty plains. The plains seemed endless and foreboding. I wondered how the people could eke out a living from them. The landscape was all one color, brown. Endless miles of brown earth, a few brown buildings scattered about the countryside, and brown earth mounds around the dismal airstrip. The earth mounds were covered with brown camouflaged netting, attempting to conceal antiaircraft batteries.

The soldiers tried to look important in their ill-fitting uniforms and antique rifles as they watched the few passengers allowed to stand in the shade under the wing of the airplane. We were waiting for the next stop in the Kashmir, the Srinagar Valley.

The few new passengers who joined us on the tarmac were carefully searched from head to toe before being allowed to board.

Again, we took off. As the plane gained altitude to fly over the Himalayan mountains, I relaxed in my seat. I thought back over the years of the wonders that God had performed in bringing me to this side of the world, to direct in the delivering of Bible portions to Christians inside Communist China.

My thoughts went back to that night seventeen years earlier in my bedroom in Anaheim, California. I had reached the end of all hope. I was contemplating taking my own life.

My small restaurant was doing well. The bar was always busy. The two gambling machines were profitable. I was living the kind of life that I always thought would be exciting and fun. Nightclubs, dancing, parties till the early morning hours. Always lots of people, jokes, and laughing. But when I was alone, I wondered if this was all to life. If so, it was not worth living. I wondered what kind of worthwhile contribution my life could make in this world. I came to the conclusion that there was nothing to hope for. To work and to struggle and to gain materials or fame, and even to live a full life, and then to give up everything in death. It all seemed so futile.

I looked out my bedroom window. The rainy season was beginning. Large black thunderclouds were fighting their way across the sky, intermittently blocking out the light of the full moon. Drops of rain began exploding on the windowpane. The majesty and might of the weather brought my thoughts to a Creator.

A Creator? God? Is there really a God? I had been raised in a religious family. Attended church regularly until my early twenties and attended a religious school. But I had come to the conclusion that if there was a God, I surely had no relationship with Him, nor He with me.

In a last, desperate effort, I turned to God. I called on Him and told Him I no longer had any use for my life. If He would show me that there was a God, then I would give my life to Him because I had no use for it. As I watched the thundering clouds silhouette against the moon, I pleaded with God, if there was one, to help me. After several hours, I fell asleep, exhausted from crying and begging God to help me, if there was a God.

I woke up the next morning and nothing had changed. However, I decided to start reading a Bible that I had. I had purchased it about eight years earlier. It was still in the same box. I started reading from page one in the book of Genesis, where you start with most books. After two weeks of carefully studying the first forty pages, I finally gave up. It just did not give me the answers I was looking for.

I noticed toward the back of the Bible it said New Testament. I thought that possibly someone else had tried to read and understand the Old Testament, gave up, and decided to write a new one. I don’t like to admit that I knew so little about the Bible. But I simply did not know anything about it.

I started reading the New Testament, and by the time that I completed the first four books—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—I decided that if Jesus Christ is God as He says He is, that if I followed His instructions, like He tells us to, then He is under obligation to do in our lives the things that He says He will do. Mainly, give us a personal relationship with Him, as sons of God (John 1:12).

In my own simple way at that time, I decided to give my life to Jesus Christ and to follow Him. How little I realized at that time the magnitude of this decision and the magnificent adventures, the peace, and the exciting and fulfilling life it would lead me to.

Our plane started descending, and as I looked out the window, I saw the beautiful snowcapped Himalayan mountains reaching up into the clouds in all their glistening splendor. As the plane circled to land, I could see the huge lake in the center of the Srinagar Valley. The lake was being fed by huge rivers flowing from melting mountain snows. The beautiful palaces and gardens of the old Mogul conquerors crept like huge giant steps up the sides of the mountains. They were terraced with tall and stately poplar trees and spring-fed fountains. It was a wonder to behold.

As the plane circled for a landing, my attention focused back to the early days of my new Christian life.

The New Testament became a living exciting book. The teachings of Jesus Christ reached into my heart and mind and convicted me of my sin and wrong mental attitudes and ways, while always showing a deep love and desire for me to follow him.

I fell in love with Jesus Christ.

When my friends would see the change in my life, I would tell them that I was reading the Bible. That I was trying to follow Jesus Christ was something they could not understand. My friend and business partner, Bud Anderson, thought surely I was becoming a fool. They would laugh and curse God and call me a religious fanatic. My other friends and family members thought much the same. At times I was not sure myself.

However, because of their persistent attitude, I felt torn to make a decision between my friends and my newfound Savior.

It was a very difficult decision to make. If I gave up my friends, where would I go? Who would I fellowship with? If I did not give up my friends, how could I follow Jesus? After much torment of soul, I realized that I could not continue in my old life. It only brought emptiness and despair. I had found a new life in Christ. He was fulfilling the needs of my soul. I knew I was walking with God. There was a heartwarming relationship with God Himself. I must follow Him.

I decided to sell what I own, give up my friends, and move to another area. I still pray for these friends, and I truly hope in some way they may come to know the love of God as I have.

For about three months, I was alone in a nearby community. Just me and my Bible and the Lord. I just could not get enough of the Word of God.

The Bible became a Living Word and personal to me.

On Sundays I would drive to different churches, looking and listening, but never finding one that had the Christ that I had.

This was in 1956. The Reader’s Digest carried a story about five missionaries who had died by the hands of savages in Ecuador, South America, after they landed their plane on a sandbar deep in the jungles. I remembered when the incident first happened several months earlier, before I had started reading my Bible. I commented to my partner, How foolish these missionaries were. How could they expect much more from these savages? After I read the story in the Reader’s Digest, I knew why they were so anxious to reach these savages. They wanted to share the love of Jesus Christ that they had found in their life. The same Christ that I had found.

The article mentioned the name of the mission that the pilot was with, the Missionary Aviation Fellowship in Fullerton, California. That was only a few miles from where I lived. I decided to visit them. It sounded especially interesting to me because I was a pilot and enjoyed flying.

I walked into the office of the Missionary Aviation Fellowship and asked the receptionist if I could speak to someone in charge. She introduced me to Jim Truxton, the vice president. He invited me into his office. We talked for about twenty minutes, about God, Jesus Christ, and the Bible. It was a thrill to my heart. Up to this time I thought I was the only one in the world trying to follow Jesus Christ. Jim invited me to attend their monthly meetings. These meetings became a real blessing to me as I began to fellowship with other people who were following the Christ of the Bible.

The jet hit the short runway and the pilot applied the brakes and reversed his engines, bringing the plane to a screeching, grinding halt just in front of the small wooden administration building and air terminal, six thousand feet up in the basin of the Srinagar Valley.

Soldiers were scurrying around the airport, which looked like an armed camp. Aircraft from West Pakistan had been dropping bombs and strafing the airport just a few days before.

There was a cold, icy wind blowing, and everyone was heavily dressed. After being processed by customs agents and told not to travel outside the valley without special permission, I took a taxi to a prearranged houseboat that I rented on the lake. The old vintage Chevrolet bounced and rocked as each wheel stepped from one mudhole to another. The happy bearded driver talked on and on and hardly noticed the condition of the road. We drove through the business section of the brown-boarded buildings heavily stocked with local wares hanging from the ceilings and walls. Many varieties of fresh fruits and vegetables filled the markets. Old English pony carts, remnants from the colonial days, stood in a huddle in the market, hoping for a customer.

We drove through the city and along the lake to a waiting water taxi. My bags were handed to the boy, and he shoved off with his long pole across the lake to the huge houseboat. The wind was cold and gusty and pulled up little white caps on the lake. An occasional wet spray would whip in our faces. The boy told me it would go down to sixteen degrees tonight.

When we arrived on the houseboat, the barge keeper was there and gave instructions to the wood boy to