This is a complete and accurate transcript of the tape of the oral history interview of Rev. William A. Drury (CN 492, T9) in the Archives of the Billy Graham Center. No spoken words have been omitted, except for any non-English phrases which could not be understood by the transcribers. Foreign terms that are not commonly understood appear in italics. In very few cases words were too unclear to be distinguished. If the transcriber was not completely sure of having gotten what the speaker said, "[?]" was inserted. Grunts and verbal hesitations such as "ah" or "um" were usually omitted. The transcribers have not attempted to phonetically replicate English dialects but have instead entered the standard English word the speaker was expressing. Readers should remember that this is a transcript of spoken English, which follows a different rhythm and rule than written English.
. . . Three dots indicate an interruption or break in the train of though within the sentence on the part of the speaker.
. . . . Four dots indicate what the transcriber believes to be the end of a incomplete sentence.
( ) Words in parentheses are asides made by the speaker.
[ ] Words in brackets are comments by the transcriber.
This transcription was made by Robert Shuster, Matthew Drobnick, and Maria Bergstedt and completed in March 1998.
Collection 492, T9. Interview of William A. Drury by Robert Shuster, June 21, 1996.
SHUSTER: This is an interview with Reverend William Drury by Robert Shuster for the Archives of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College. And this interview took place at 2:30 on the afternoon of June 21 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Reverend Drury, I know you've spoken several times overseas. What was the first time that you went outside the United States to preach?
DRURY: The first time I was...they asked me, the Incres Line, the S. S. Victoria, the Incres line...that was the only ship that they had, they asked me. It was a rather unusual situation. They came to me and asked me if I would serve as a Protestant chaplain. And I thought it was some kind of a come on....
SHUSTER: It was a cruise ship?
DRURY: Cruise ship. Cruise ship. And I thought it was some kind of a come on to...that you go if you bring twenty-five people, you know? So forth. But they had run into a little bit of a problem. (It's sort of a long story). But the....
SHUSTER: Somebody had canceled out on them?
DRURY: No. No, they...they didn't have Protestant chaplains heretofore and the entire staff of the S. S. Victoria (although it was owned by a Dutch Company)...the staff was Italian and everybody signed on there was Italian from cabin boy to captain of the ship. Therefore they...they had an Italian priest and that was his responsibility, was being a chaplain on the cruise ship. And so they sent over the brochure from Holland to the United States and there was a...there was a mistake in the translation. A guy from Long Island called the Incres Line and said, "I see you have chaplains on your ship." And they said, "No, we have chaplain, a chaplain. Singular." He said, "No, that isn't what the brochure said. The brochure says 'chaplains'." So because of a little "s"[Shuster laughs]. They called Charlie Carr [?] from Philadelphia and Charlie Carr had been involved with me in Youtharama and was a Christian businessman. He called and he said, "Drury, how would you like to serve as chaplain?" I said, "I'd like to go to the moon, too, but that isn't going to happen in my lifetime." He said, "No, I need a Protestant chaplain."
SHUSTER: What year is this? Approximately?
DRURY: Oh, approximately, it was in the 50s, I couldn't tell you exactly when, but....
SHUSTER: So this was even before you'd started Teen Haven.
DRURY: Oh, yeah. It was before. It was back in the days of Youtharama when I was still with Percy Crawford. So I said, "OK, if there's no strings attached?" He said, "The only thing you have to pay for is your gratuities. You think you can manage that?" I said, "Yeah, I can." So I went with visions of grandeur on this luxury liner, this cruise ship, and I brought all kinds of material. And there's a guy, Robert Coleman...Dr. Robert Coleman's brother, Lyman Coleman. Lyman Coleman has come up with some great material over the years, but I knew Lyman when he was...when he was single, and he....
SHUSTER: You know that Robert Coleman is Director of the Institute of Evangelism at the Billy Graham Center?
DRURY: Is that what his title is now?
SHUSTER: Yeah. He also teaches at Trinity [Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, in Deerfield, Illinois] still, but he's also....
DRURY: Uh-huh. I had dinner with him in Amsterdam, whenever Amsterdam was. [Reference to the International Conferences of Itinerant Evangelists, held in Amsterdam; referred to as Amsterdam '83 and Amsterdam '86.] Was it '83?
SHUSTER: '83 and '86.
DRURY: Yeah. I was at the '83 in...in Amsterdam. Well, his brother, Lyman Coleman, came up with materials. And he heard I was going on a cruise ship and he said, "This would be excellent to use this kind of material." and so forth. But I was getting on a cruise ship (and this was a secular cruise ship; this was not a religious cruise [laughs]) and I realized that most people who go cruising don't go to hear the gospel. But, we...I invited everybody on the ship (I was introduced the first night out as the Protestant chaplain) and that was Saturday night and worship service was Sunday morning. So I invited everybody. I invited my Jewish friends and Roman Catholic. I said, "If you are here and you're Buddhist, I'd love to have you." So I threw out the net and we had a half-way decent crowd. The cruise staff...cruise director said, "You've got the best crowd we've ever had on here for a Protestant service." And I preached an evangelistic message. One of the things I said...I said I didn't realize how religious the people were on the cruise. Now, on Saturday night you would go around Cape Hatteras (it's really rough, it's the roughest part of the cruise) and I said "It's amazing how religious these people are." But I sure wouldn't find a cabin door...you heard the people praying, "Oh, dear God. Please stop the ship. Oh, dear God, let me get off, let me get off.." [Both laugh] But, it's interesting, one of the things that I've probably said before...through the interviews or during the interviews is that Evangelical Christians say one thing in Evangelical circles and they don't act out or they don't behave or they don't witness or they don't testify for no other reason than rejection, that they're going to be rejected. [unclear] And I found out through cruising, sharing the gospel, witnessing to unsaved people. I had unsaved...wealthy unsaved people come and sit at our table in the lounge in the evening. You...quite often you were assigned to the same table in the dining room at the early sitting and the late sitting. But I found this out, Bob, that you can witness, line upon line, in a very loving, caring, concerned, compassionate way, line upon line and word upon word and precept upon precept, letting people know that you are genuinely concerned about their spirituality, where they are in relationship to God Almighty through faith in the Jesus Christ. And I made friends of wealthy unsaved people...stayed in one home up on the Hudson River after these cruises. But I had many opportunities on these cruises. After...after Helsinki I said to Charlie Carr, "If you know anybody else who needs a Protestant chaplain, let me know." So he called Holland-American and said, "Well, this guy comes with some experience and was extremely well accepted on the Incres Line." And I did about, oh, maybe three cruises, and once a year over Easter. And the first cruise they wouldn't let my wife go for free and we didn't have the money so she didn't go on that cruise and then later on Dorothy was pregnant with Deborah Jean (who's now twenty-eight years of age, so that was twenty-eight years ago). And so they called me...Holland-American Line called me and asked if I would be willing to serve as a chaplain. So I did on the Rotterdam which is their flagship. It's a floating city really, anything you want is on Holland-American and there was also gambling. And it took me back to the days when I gambled: three card monte and blackjack, twenty-one. And it's amazing how you can revert back. And I would walk around the gambling tables and in my mind I would be saying, "Don't hit. Hit."[Shuster laughs] That means you either don't take a card or you take a card. So....
SHUSTER: Were the card dealers on the up and up?
DRURY: Oh yeah. I think so, I think so. I don't...there's a lot of money won and lost. Mostly lost. It's a casino atmosphere. So I...altogether I think I did eleven cruises, always speaking on Sunday. That was your only obligation. Your only obligation was to preach when the ship was at sea. And the first time, on the Incres Line, I announced that we would be having a Bible study and asking some questions. And I outlined the question, "Who is God? What is man's relationship with God? And how do you enjoy your relationship with God Almighty, the Lord God Jehovah (I put "Jehovah" in there for any Jews)." Nobody ever came. Nobody ever came to the Bible study. There were a few people who gave the impression that they were nominal Christians, at least they were religious people. My witnessing and sharing the gospel in all of the islands of the Caribbean - Haiti and Grenada and Guadalupe and as far down as Caracas, Venezuela - was simply one-on-one evangelism and distributing Christian material.
SHUSTER: This is while you were on the cruise?
DRURY: On the cruise. And we stopped at these different islands, San Juan, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. And it was a fabulous experience, a fabulous experience and like I said, the only thing it cost me was the gratuities. But I remember I had the heart of an evangelist and I had the heart of a missionary and I wanted to do missionary work. Sometimes you have a guilt complex if this is what you're sent out to do and you don't do it, you know? But I remember going into Haiti and there was always...in all of the ports and most of those islands are just poverty personified, dirt-poor people. I almost started a...a Teen Haven center on the island of St. Vincent and I'll tell you that in a minute...about that in a minute. But in Haiti, you get off this ship and I was one of the last ones to get off the ship and there's a group of Haitian kids. And I thought, "Here's my first opportunity to evangelize." So I went over to these kids and very slowly (thinking that they couldn't speak a word of English) I said, "Do...you...know...God?" And they're staring right through me. I said, "Hejsus. God...Almighty...Jesus, Jesus." The kids were still staring at me and I didn't realize that they thought I was some kind of a kook talking like this, you know. I said, "Do...you...know...Jesus...loves...you?" This one boy said, "Yes, we know that." "I see." [both laugh] "I see." So they sang Jesus Loves Me and so I thought, "So much for the evangelistic thing." So the upshot was that I gave them some change, all of the change I had on me. But, probably learned a lesson at any rate, you know? Sometime we have a mindset as to who we're dealing with and so forth and so on, only to be....
SHUSTER: When you were a chaplain on the cruise ships did anybody ever come to you for counseling?
DRURY: Oh yes, yeah. We had...we had somebody die. They were off the ship, they were important, I can't tell you right now whether it was a heart attack or what but he died and so his wife...I don't know if she got the stuff out of the state room while they were there or whether.... It was a mind-boggling thing for me, you know? And people said to me, more than one, because there's nothing going to shake you up more than to have one of the people, one of the guests drop dead, and I remember that time that people came to me and said, "What do you think about that, Reverend?"
SHUSTER: Hmm.
DRURY: "And I said, "What do I think about what?" "Well, you know, what happened in port." I said, "What happened in port?" and I wanted to get them to talk about it. So they did. And I said, "That's...that's why it's so imperative. Death speaks to us about the life hereafter." So I had ample opportunity to share. And then there was a psychiatrist, a psychiatrist, not a psychologist but a psychiatrist, and his wife was on and they were a weird couple, Bob, they were really strange. And they wanted to sit with us a couple times. Well, I determined that I was going to share the gospel up front and he had no religious inclination whatever. And so I got to share Christ with him and his wife and they had some pretty good questions. So, yes, on almost every cruise there was people came. And like I say, total strangers came and they sent bottles of champagne to the table where Dorothy and I were sitting. There was a very devout Jewish layman. And he and his wife and then there was a rabbi...there was a rabbi on one of his ships which was a rarity, (it was the only time on any cruise ship that I was on that there was a rabbi and his wife) and they came and sat with us. Getting back to the fact that if you project just a loving, caring, even humorous attitude, you know, that you're not a kook, you're not a square, you're not a holy roller, you can get next to these people. And we did. So that was my experience in the Caribbean.
SHUSTER: Why did you stop going on cruises?
DRURY: Well, they stopped asking me. Within the last year or two I said to Dorothy...I said, "It would be nice to go back on a cruise ship." So we inquired and they would have accepted me if I went for six months. Cruise after cruise after cruise after cruise for six months. And I said, "No, I can't do that." I said, "I'll do it for a month." That might be two or three cruises at the most. Some of them are seven day and some of the are weekend cruises. Some are seven days and if you keep going through the Mediterranean it can be two to three weeks. So they never got back to me and I didn't push it, I didn't push it. I'm paranoid about leaving the ministry. What would the ministry do without me? Well, that's four or five months...what our listeners don't know is that I had major surgery back in January 16th and I've been incapacitated ever since. I...I've got one bad leg and I can't walk without a walker. And I found out that the ministry, if it's God's ministry, can get along without you. [Shuster chuckles] And I'm amazed, it's been five months now and God meets the need. And I'm thrilled and excited that he just...he said, "Drury, step out of the way and I'll show you how to run the ministry." So...but I would love to go back on a seven day cruise. The longest cruise ever was one back in the 50s or early 60s and it was fifteen days and that was too long. I was....
SHUSTER: It got boring or...?
DRURY: Yeah, you've got the [unclear] and all of that and I was thinking about, you know. And the only way you could call was ship to shore and get them to call back. I think I went to...so I was out of touch, I was out of touch, you know, with the ministry for fifteen days. And it... it...it's for somebody.... I think I told you before [some words unclear]. I was a chronic workaholic, chronic. All I ever knew was ministry. I didn't look forward to vacations, I was the world's worst tourist. When I tell people that I have been in Haiti and I've been in San Juan, they said, "Did you do this, did you do that, did you do that?" And I said "No, I didn't see this, I didn't see that, I didn't see that." And we were up in the...in the rain forest one time...and they would provide me with free tours on all of these islands there, whether it was in Bermuda or wherever. It was free tours. I was up in the rain forest, the [unclear] rain forest in San Juan, Puerto Rico and we walked out to a beach (it was the ocean or a lake or something), walked out and you know in the [unclear] rain forest the skies just open up and the rain comes. There's no warning or anything like that. So we were out there and this Jewish couple was with us and the rains came. And I had a warm shirt, not a long-sleeved shirt but a warm shirt, and I saw this Jewish gentleman had a chill. So I took this shirt off my back and I gave it to him. He said, "No, no, no." I said, "Yeah, you take.... Let's get back to the bus." So I got him back there and I told him to keep the shirt on. [laughs] (I had an undershirt on.) And we went back to the ship and he told some of his Jewish friends, he said "This is the first time that a Gentile ever gave me the shirt off his back." [Shuster chuckles] And we became buddies, we became buddies. He owned and he built round stone houses in New York and he was...and when he died, when he died his wife called me in Philadelphia (I lived in Philadelphia). She called and she said, "I just wanted you to know that...that Jim died." And I said, "When is the funeral?" And she said that it already...that it already was. If they died before sundown or whatever, you know, they get buried immediately. I forget the.... So I made an awful lot of friends on the cruises. And as far as other overseas experience, I...I was asked to go to Seoul, Korea in '63.
SHUSTER: Who asked you to go?
DRURY: King's Korean Mission, which had been founded by Dr. Percy D. Crawford. Percy died. I think I shared with you. Just all of a sudden he had a heart-attack on Saturday night....
SHUSTER: On the Pennsylvania Turnpike, yeah.
DRURY: New Jersey Turnpike.
SHUSTER: New Jersey Turnpike.
DRURY: He was on his way to preach the gospel at Youth for Christ in Lancaster and had the heart attack. So they had this work and a fellow by the name of Dr. Al Black who taught philosophy at King's College tried to step in to take over the work. Of course, in years gone by Al Black was the music director for Percy's TV show called Youth on the March. And he stepped in and he approached me. He said, "You've traveled overseas. Would you go? I have some question marks about Dr. Peter Pak [pronounced "Park"]." (He was the guy he was setting up to go to Korea). "Would you go if we paid all expenses?" And that was '63 and that's when I had an inkling to work with inner-city kids, about the same time as....
SHUSTER: Uh-huh.
DRURY: So I went to Korea and this Dr. Peter Pak opened up schools for me to speak in Korea. And I remember how cold the schools were (this was in November)...and how cold the schools were. All...all of the messages were evangelistic messages and....
SHUSTER: Did somebody translate for you or did the kids speak English?
DRURY: Yeah, Dr. Pak, you know. And I said, "Please, if you don't understand the words don't translate thoughts," you know? Because when I was in Helsinki, one of the people in Finland said, "He's not translating the words, he's translating the thoughts and sometimes he's screwing up the thoughts." [chuckles] So I learned that and when I was in Korea said, "Please try to translate...." So he did. And I preached through an interpreter, gave an invitation, and kids raised their hand for salvation. And I tried to simplify it in the most basic, fundamental, one-syllable words. And every once in a while I'd say, "Do you understand?" And the kids would sit there. [chuckles] They kept sitting on the floor and rocking back and forth to keep warm. So I had ample opportunity to speak in these schools...Korean schools or whatever (this is 1963).
SHUSTER: What kind of response did you get?
DRURY: As far as hands being raised I got...and I asked Peter Pak to deal with them. It was far better that he would just counsel with them than me trying to counsel through an interpreter. But the schools, the schools...they had no public school system. At least then they didn't, what [pauses] thirty, thirty-two, thirty-three years ago. So the schools were so-called private schools. The kids, the young kids (I don't know how young), but they would work for somebody. And this entrepreneur would hire all of these kids and they would work four hours and they would go to school for four hours. So they would pay for their education that way. And I thought that was mind-boggling when you come from a place like the United States of America. And I must confess that I looked for some of these Christian ministries that I heard about in the States and found that it was minuscule. And I won't name any one of them, but some of them have got a lot of pr [publicity] back here. But I...I found that orphanages had been started by GIs and GIs part-time piecemeal ran these orphanages. You had to be impressed that all of this had come together with part-time piecemeal effort. I...to this day...I was saying to my wife before you got here that, "I don't know who arranged for me to speak to a group of GIs up in [unclear]...at the thirty-eighth parallel, but I was up there. And a Colonel Pinson who I met years later, he heard me on radio in the Washington D.C. area, (I was on a Virginia station), and he heard the voice and he called me up (this was years later), and he said, "Is there any possibility that you would have been in South Korea in 1963?" I said, "Yeah, very definitely." He said, "This is Colonel...." And he was a full colonel then. He was a lieutenant colonel when I got to.... And I don't know who introduces me. It's all vague but I remember him arranging this meeting and for him to give me his driver and his jeep and his new driver over here took me everywhere I wanted to go. And how that all came about, I don't know, but I know it happened. And I preached. Again, there was a response and I said so many times that I think part of evangelism is emotionalism that people get psyched up, you know?
SHUSTER: Uh-huh.
DRURY: But a real comprehension of what is being said and total commitment to the will of God, you know, so.... And I think that at any invitation time and I think that Billy (especially with the type of...the invitation that Billy gives) is rather inclusive, all-inclusive, you know. And I think that these people come forward at that particular moment with the desire for some kind of religious experience. But to understand the repentance of sin, turning from sin, from all sin.... (And the word of God says that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin.) Well, you have to confess all sin. You can't hold anything back. So I saw decisions at the [?]. I was...I think....
SHUSTER: Did you counsel with them afterwards? Did somebody...?
DRURY: No, no but there were a couple of officers that claimed to be Christians, you know, born again Christians. And I said before the service, I said, "Make absolutely sure that these people know what they are doing." And I said, "Just...just go over the plan of salvation very quickly with them and counseling them. Be bold with your counseling." And they did. And where else did I preach in Korea? That was probably it, that was probably it. And I investigated the work that this man was supposedly doing....
SHUSTER: The one with the King's Mission?
DRURY: The King's Korean Mission. Dr. Peter Pak. And I found out that it was really a farce as to what he was doing. He was being paid by some college, some university to preach there and for these so-called private schools he was coordinator or some such. I didn't even know his responsibilities.... But he was getting paid from two or three different sources plus he was getting money from the King's Korean Mission back in the States. And Percy was over in Korea for a preaching mission and he came back and there was this Peter Pak. He was either studying or he was on staff at King's Korean Mission and they set up the King's Korean Mission.
SHUSTER: So he wasn't doing anything, really?
DRURY: Yeah. Next to nothing. And I came back and I told them, you know, exactly what I found. I told them, "You sent me over to investigate and that's exactly what I did. And Dr. Peter Pak is a very nice guy, a gentleman, but he wasn't doing anything to be funded or to receive monies from the States." But they went right on funding him. I found out that a couple of people on that make-shift board back here in the States thought he was doing wonderful work. Well, he was sending letters back and so forth and so on. And he would talk about one illustration here and one illustration here and one illustration here. So I told them and I did what I had to do. On my way to Korea I stopped off in Tokyo, Japan. A friend of mine was a missionary in...in Tokyo and I stopped there. I spoke at some small meeting that the missionary had, there might have been fifteen, twenty people. And when you see the numbers of these that come to some of these meetings, you know, the missionary outreaches, and your mindset of what you think they're doing and then you find out that...like when I was in Ireland.... When was I in Ireland? Oh, yeah, I guess after Amsterdam. Amsterdam was '83. I went over to Drahada ...Drahada, Ireland. And I...they had organized a week of meetings for me there and when I found out what the mission was not doing, you know, again I.... 'Cause a missionary and his wife were being funded by our church in Lancaster County. And to find out the handful of people they were working with, and these are English speaking people. They might talk with a brogue, but it seemed to me that had I been over there twenty, twenty-five, thirty years that I would have made contact with more people than just a handful.
SHUSTER: When you were in Korea and you talked to the kids, you might not have had enough time but did you have enough contact to make some kind of comparison with American kids?
DRURY: Oh, it's altogether...altogether a different ball game. As I said, the Korean kids, number one, wanted to go to school and therefore they were willing to work for their education and were educated in...in some rough situation and circumstances; cold, cold buildings with very little if any heat in the buildings. And when you consider back here in the States the luxury. Of course, how many kids back here even know to compare the luxury of education that we afford all young people here in the United States of America. That is not true in some of these...these underdeveloped countries. And back then to whatever insight I had into South Korea, it was underdeveloped. So it was a big difference, big difference between these kids here. And yet they learned and they learned well, I think, because they wanted to be there. It's the same way with Christian schools back in the States, that so many of the kids are there because they have to be there. Because Mommy and Daddy said, "You're going to go there, you're going to get an education." And I've talked to enough Christian schools here in the United States (I'm talking about parochial schools) and the...the kids are somewhat hostile because their parents sent them there, not that they wanted to be there. In Korea these kids wanted to be there. They want an education. They understood that that's where you're either saved or unsaved and if you're going to get anywhere you have to have an education. And I preached, I preached for TEAM, now that I think about it in....
SHUSTER: The Evangelical Alliance Mission?
DRURY: Yeah, at some meetings they had. Whether it was a conference or exactly what it was over in...in east, the east side of South Korea. And I remember [chuckles] going over on Korean Airline which was like a two motor job or something like that. Noisy! And I thought, "Dear God, is this plane ever going to make it?" And then I made the mistake of using a tape-recorder on the plane. That I was [some words unclear], "This is Bill Drury over the..." Whether it was the Japanese Sea, the Korean Sea, or some....
SHUSTER: The Sea of Japan?
DRURY: Some body of water. And the...one of the attendants came through the plane looking for this device, whatever it was that was interfering with the controls [Shuster laughs] and she told me, "Shut it off! Shut it off! Shut it off!" So I did. So, to get back to 1962, a pamphlet crossed my desk that Communists from all over the world were going to have a youth festival in Helsinki, Finland. And nobody invited me to go but I saw this brochure (I can't even tell you who sent out the brochure) that this festival was going to take place in Helsinki, the seaport capital of Finland, and I thought, "Boy, that would be a place to go to do evangelism because all of these Communists are atheistic individuals and just everybody you talk to would have to be unsaved and unchurched people." So it really whetted my appetite and I determined that I was going to go. I had no idea where I was going to get the money or whether the board from Youtharama would allow me to go. It was a far cry from Youtharama [Shuster chuckles] to go to a Communist youth festival in Helsinki). So I....
SHUSTER: Do you think that that's the kind of thing that Percy Crawford would be sympathetic with?
DRURY: O yeah, yes. And Percy...Percy had already passed away.
SHUSTER: Died in 1960.
DRURY: Right. And so, yes, he would...he would have...any opportunity for meaningful evangelism he would have.... And most of Percy's preaching (other than on radio and TV)...most of his preaching was set up by Christians and most of the people who came to the meetings were Christians and he was not a crusade evangelist like Billy Graham. Percy for the most part was a one night evangelist. They had meetings in Philadelphia convention hall but never a series (that I knew of), as far as a series. And even when he went on his world tour, that they preached, you know, one nights here, there and everywhere in the British Isles and so on and so forth. But yes, he would have been interested in any...and something like this which was absolutely unusual, that you're going to evangelize unchurched, unsaved, atheistic people. It's a rarity. How many times in a lifetime would anybody have that kind of an opportunity other than in street meetings, which I think I told you about in New York? You were on a street corner talking to unchurched, unsaved people. So I saw this brochure and this crazy thing was going around in my mind that, "You ought to go there." I didn't even know that Finland was an independent state or country and that they were not...they were socialist but not Communist. I had lunch with a fellow by the name of Bill Pringle (P-R-I-N-G-L-E). He had...he said he made switches and I thought they were little toggle switches 'til I visited his plant and they made these monstrous switches that went on and off in these factories, you know, where ever they could use them, automatically. And I ate lunch with him and I said, "Bill," I said, "I've got a crazy idea." I said, "Let me tell you about it." He said, "What is that?" I said, "I have desire to go to some meetings over in Helsinki, Finland." He said, "The Communist youth festival?" [Shuster laughs] I said, "Yeah." I said, "Pray with me. I'm gonna be talking...I have a meeting with J. Howard Pew of the Pew fortune." So between the two of these guys, they both said, "Plan to go and I'll see that you..." So I did. I went over. However, I found out that (because they contacted me)...that somebody knew that I...I had a desire to go. And the Pocket Testament League (I was trying to think of the fellow's first name), McFarlane and his wife were in the States. I don't know whether they had ministered in...in Finland, but they asked me if I would go on to auspices, not that they were going to pay any part of it [both laugh], but here was one...and they would set up....
SHUSTER: Did you need some kind of institutional sponsor or...?
DRURY: No, no. No, no. But I thought it was a good thing to...to...if they had a team going, at least you would have somebody with you, that if you got killed, somebody would know about it. Because I had no idea what was going to happen at a Communist youth festival. And I went. And a very dear friend of mine who I saw the other day, John Jesberg, John Jesberg was with the Pocket Testament League for years. He was fifteen years a missionary in France, and he was supposed to meet me at the...the airport. But I flew in on Icelandic Airlines and again those were two and four-motor, not jets. I remember going from...oh, I don't remember where....
SHUSTER: Reykjavik?
DRURY: Reykjavik. Reykjavik, yeah, and the reindeer on the runways and all of that, over to Helsinki and a baby...baby screamed all the while, during the whole trip. But I got over there and I think of how many hours I had to wait for Jesberg to show up. And I talked to people at the airport and at best they spoke broken English and they couldn't make head nor tail out of what I was talking about. And I thought, "Wait a minute. This guy forgot. I'm absolutely lost." And you don't realize until you get to a place like this that you are a minority of one and they don't particularly care, you know, whether you get a room that night or anything else. [Both laugh] So I was flustered and frustrated and all of that. Finally this guy showed up and the Pocket Testament League was doing evangelism in Finland in various towns before the cru...the....
SHUSTER: The festival?
DRURY: ...before the festival started. And that was an experience for me. That they had sound trucks built for outdoor evangelism. They had ladders on the side and a platform on top of these sound trucks and they were made especially for the Pocket Testament League with amplification and record playing and all that. So I had opportunities in these various towns to preach the gospel. And again, as I said before, I had a priest for an interpreter. And I said, "Make sure, make sure that you're translating exactly what I say. Don't, don't water it down. So when I talk about hell, I'm talking about the lake of fire, you know?" some of that stuff. And it might have been McFarlane [sp?] or Jesberg said to me, "You cannot give an invitation here the way you would back home in the States" you know. He said, "You have to soft-pedal." I said, "I don't like that word," you know? I said....
SHUSTER: Why did he say you had to soft-pedal?
DRURY: Well, the Finnish people are a very proud people, a very staid people. They have a word in Finnish called "rohkea" [It is hard to understand the word Drury is saying, "rohkea" is a Finnish word for "people"] which means guts, courage. They stood up against the Germans in World War II. They were the ones that came up with the Molotov cocktails where they would....
SHUSTER: Uh-huh. Against the Soviets.
DRURY: Huh?
SHUSTER: Against the Soviets.
DRURY: Yes. The Soviets. Against the Soviets, yeah, I guess it was the Soviets. And they would (so we were told)...that they would lay in the snow with white sheets over them and wait for these huge tanks to come rolling by. And they would get up from the sheet, jump up on the side of the tank, and throw the Molotov cocktail inside the tank and, of course, that would explode and catch fire. So they...they thought that they wouldn't respond if you gave that type of invitation: "Step forward, come forward, raise your hand," any kind of demonstration. So I preached the only way I knew: a very simplistic message on John 3:16, John 1:12, I John 5:10, 11 and 12, 13 whatever, but very, very simplistic. And I gave an invitation, I said, "You are here. You are outside of the family of God. Maybe you have religion. Religion is a big thing here in Finland. You have a Lutheran church which is a state church, wholly in politics." Politics could get you in so they're actually state offices. And if you walked into the bottom part of the great church in Helsinki (this is a big cathedral type, a gorgeous facility)....
SHUSTER: Yeah, I've been there.
DRURY: You would...you would think that it was with all of the offices that they were political offices, whatever. But I gave an invitation the way that I knew how and I told them that, "If you are sincere and you raise your hand and you say, 'Yes, I want to know Jesus Christ personally, I want to turn from the sin and bad things in my life, you want to ask Jesus into your heart, then come walk behind the sound truck.'" And we had [unclear] and some Finns, Evangelical Finns were working with us. So we had good meetings, we had good meetings. And....
SHUSTER: Now the crowds would be just people on the street who would gather around your truck?
DRURY: Street, street.... We would go to the market places...go to the market places and set up on the periphery of the market places. They would come in on these cobblestone (as I remember) cobblestone walk places. They would set up at four or five o'clock in the morning so they would be ready to go when the sun came up and the Finns would come to you. They would just migrate to market place. And we got permission, at least the League did, to hold these meetings. It's a religious state, it's ninety (or at least we were told)...it's nighty-eight percent Protestant and ninety-six percent Lutheran. So we had the privilege to preach at these marketplaces and it worked out real well because the crowd...crowd was ready-made and invariably we would start off.... You ask the question, "Well, why would they stop? Why would they..." "We had free material from you, from the United States" (which was true), we would ship this over from the United States and tried to whet their appetite that we were giving something away free. And they came. You'd have sixty, seventy, eighty, sometimes a hundred people. A crowd would swell. A hundred people is a lot of people. And we preached, we handed out, you know, the literature, and the few Evangelical Christians that were cooperating with us, we asked them to do the follow-up work after we left, because it was just shotgun evangelism, to try to follow-up these people. And we saw decisions. After, after....
SHUSTER: And these would be all ages, right? Not just young people?
DRURY: Oh yeah, oh yeah. It was families, people doing their shopping, merchants, whatever. It was an excellent opportunity, an excellent opportunity to preach the gospel in a foreign land. It was quite an experience for me. Then the festival came and they had their meetings, big meetings. Yuri Gagarin [cosmonaut] was there, the first man in space. And you can name anybody who was anybody in the Communist party was there at one or more of these meetings and they went on for a week, the best part of a week. And we, the League, and I was glad I was with the League because the League had Gospels of John in I forget how many languages. When they opened up the festival, they had eighteen thousand delegates there, and I remember walking through the parade [laughs] which was "verboten,"[forbidden] you shouldn't do it. But the parade was coming down and these Communists from all over the world, one hundred thirty-nine nations, kept shouting, "We will change the world. We will change the world." And these are dead men out on furlough. They were committed to the Communist cause and to atheism and the whole nine yards. And I had bags of Gospels, much as we did in Ireland a couple of years ago at the D-Day celebration [June 6, 1994]. We had these bags of Scriptures and I walked through the parade [chuckles], and it's just one of God's miracles that somebody didn't grab me by the scruff of the neck. 'Cause they did at one of the meetings. They grabbed me and I thought they were going to do me in for sure.
SHUSTER: Who grabbed you?
DRURY: Two Communist goons. They had these armbands on and they were Communist police and Finland let the thing happened there, you know, because Russia is right next door (I think seven hundred and fifty miles of the Russian border) and they were not about to cause a real ruckus. "Yes, you can come, you know, as long as there's no shooting, or anything like that, you can come and have your festival in Helsinki." And the Communists, of course, say, "This is going to be in a free state or a cooperative state," to get...they get other countries to.... The second largest corporation, Bob, is from the United States of America. The second largest delegation of committed Communists was from the States. But I was at this one meeting...I can't even tell you who it was. The...Captain Mitsuo Fuchida with us.
SHUSTER: Yes.
DRURY: The air commander who led the attack on Pearl Harbor. Somehow, the Pocket Testament League was instrumental in bringing him to Christ; I don't know all the particulars. But he was there. I remember going to the Japanese delegation of young Communists, and all of a sudden this Captain Fuchida, this little Japanese guy, took on a whole new personality, that he was the commander, he was the man who led the attack on Pearl Harbor. And we walked through these dormitories. They were schools. They'd taken out the chairs and put in these bunk beds, like three high. And I remember going in with him, and handing out Japanese Scriptures while he talked to these Japanese guys. And the only reason that was the only school we were allowed in because he...they couldn't quite understand that this former Buddhist (I think that's what he was) came to know Jesus Christ.
SHUSTER: You say he took on a whole new personality. How do you mean?
DRURY: Well, he took on a personality....
SHUSTER: Authoritative?
DRURY: Authoritative, macho man, shoulders back, head up high, hands behind, as one having authority. And you knew that, just by his mannerism and his walk, that he was somebody important somewhere, at any rate. And he came through, as I said, head up high, hands behind, you know and he gave his testimony in Japanese, you know. "I am Captain Fuchida. I led the air attack on the United States Pearl Harbor, December 8th, Japanese time, December 7th, American time..." and so forth. And then God came into his life. I had him speak for us back in the States after the...after the....
SHUSTER: At Youtharama?
DRURY: Yes. At Youtharama. I was trying to make a point there, about the.... We went to these various meetings where Yuri Gagarin spoke, and some of the other Communist leaders. We had a [tape turned off and turned on again].
SHUSTER: ...about the Finnish athlete?
DRURY: Yeah. Pablo [unclear]. And, we had a [tape recorder turned off and turned on again] Pablo [unclear], the great Finnish athlete. And we gathered together all of the nominal Christian religious people, Protestant people, Lutheran people, at the statue [?] and we sang "A Mighty Fortress is Our God." And I never heard that song sung the way it was there. It was a certain amount of bravado.
SHUSTER: Hmm.
DRURY: And....
SHUSTER: Now these were Communists who were attending your meeting?
DRURY: Some of them...some of them...yeah. Once they realized what we were talking about, they were bad-mouthing us, you know. In witnessing...people said to me, "How in the world can you witness to young Communists from all over the world?" And I would say to them, "Let's compare, let's compare. Trotsky ...Trotsky (was that his name?)
SHUSTER: Uh-huh.
DRURY: Lenin, any of them...Khrushchev, I don't know whether Khrushchev was in office at that time. But all of these people. You put your men there, and I will put Jesus the Christ here, and we will compare. We will compare, and we'll see what your men did, and see what our man did." So it's line upon line. I had the opportunity to witness to the director of the Moscow circus. And again, it was just one of God's little miracles; I had no idea who this man was. We were in an open place, and I was handing out Scriptures. You say, "Ruski, Ruski! Polski, Polski!" One thing led to another, and I found out, lo and behold, that he was the head of the Moscow circus, and he was receptive to the point that he listened, and he understood some English. So he invited me, as a guest, to the Moscow circus, which was also that day. The Communists put on their best performances, best foot forward, and all of that. He invited to come to the Communist...to the Moscow circus. He introduced me to this woman who was one of the leaders of the Moscow.... She, unquestionably, was a hard-core, fully dedicated, committed Communist. She spoke through him. She said, "Is...is Mr. Drury a Communist from the United States?" [Shuster laughs] And I told her, "No. A committed Christian...CHRISTian... Christian...a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ." So he translated that, and I saw her eyes go like this.
SHUSTER: Her eyes got big.
DRURY: Yeah. And she said to him, "What are you doing with him?" So he said to me, "She wants to know why I am with you, and why you are our guest here at the Moscow circus." And I said, "You tell her that I am trying to bring you to Jesus Christ, that you might know Him as your Savior." Well, now he's looking at me, and he's looking at her, [Shuster laughs] and he didn't know how far he wanted to push this, you know. But I got to share the gospel with him, and...and with a group of his friends at the circus. He was quick to introduce me. We had become comrades, you know. Again, as I said before, if you witness with loving, tender care, even to committed Communists, and they know that you're genuinely interested in their spiritual life, as best as they understand spiritual things (and for the most part, they don't).... But you still have liberty, licensed freedom to tell these folks what you believe. Time and again, time and again, we would go to these meetings.... We...we had their agenda, as to where they were having certain meetings, Polish, or whatever. Most of these...most of the Eastern European block countries had their elite there. Back in the States, there they were peddling this thing as a bunch of kooks and weirdos and beatniks and hippies. And they were not that. They were guys that were going for their Ph.D., and working on their MA, whatever. They were shrewd intellectuals; many of them spoke three or four or five languages. The kids...I was amazed that the kids in Finland could...all the Scandinavian countries: Holland and Sweden and Norway and all these.... And these kids thought we were weird: "You only speak one language?" [Shuster laughs] But we would go to these various delegations and hand out our Scriptures. We'd find out who they are and what Scriptures we should bring, and we'd go to the delegation. And it was at one of these meetings, that all of a sudden I felt two hands on me. And I looked, and sure enough, they had these armbands, and they were police from the Communist group, not Finnish police.
SHUSTER: They were private security.
DRURY: Yeah, private security guys appointed by the Communist leadership. And they had me by the arms, and I was by a lagoon, a body of water there. And we were headed.... And all I could see was them putting my head in this...in this body of water. I looked for any of the guys that were with me. Glenn Wagner, Glenn Wagner was a former football star from some university here in America. He was a big guy, and I lost him in the crowd. I lost everybody else, and I was alone...I mean, I was really alone. And I thought, [chuckles] "This is the end of Bill Drury." I could see it: "Missionary, Evangelist, Martyred in...." But I.... My voice was a lot stronger than it is today, and I really had lungs. I bellowed...I bellowed at the top of my lungs, I screamed so that these other people in the crowd could hear me, or whatever. And the only words.... Very few words that I knew in Finnish, and one was Horocut 222 - Horocut is where I lived and I'm screaming at the top of my lungs, asking these guys where Horocut is. And I finally broke loose (and I was a skinny mini back in those days) and I took off like a scared rabbit and I was gone into the crowd. [Shuster chuckles]
SHUSTER: Did they chase you?
DRURY: No. Well, if...if...if they did I don't know. You know, there was these people all standing up, they wanted to see. So I got into the crowd and I thought, "Well, if...if you have to die for anything, you can be a martyr for Jesus." But I had many, many opportunities at the festival. Again, I think the best kind of evangelism is on-to-one and I don't know how or when I met this ballerina, and she said, "I want to talk with you about God. Can you come to the hotel and we will meet in a tea room." So we met in a tea room and she accepted Christ...
SHUSTER: Huh.
DRURY: ...(as best she understood) over a pot of tea in the tea room in this hotel in Helsinki.
SHUSTER: She was a Russian?
DRURY: And then I witnessed to the wife of the Cuban Ambassador. Again, a committed Communist, and she was very receptive. I couldn't get a decision out of her but she kept saying, "You really believe this. You believe this God...." I said, "Yes, Ruler of the earth." And I asked her, "The stars, the moon, the galaxy, who made that?" you know, "Lenin or..or...?" you know. "Who made all of these things?" And she was very receptive, she was very receptive and in broken English she...she got across to me, "What if I do this thing, I will not be accepted by my husband, by anybody." So she didn't...she said she would pray about it. Two Communist kids, two girls, got gloriously saved. I mean, you talk about conversion, two kids that totally committed to Communist youth movement and they got saved. The very next night they were out helping us. And they almost got done in, after they realized who...because they were saying, (whether it was Finnish or Polish or what) they were saying, "Yesterday I was Communist. I worshiped Lenin and..." uh...the other leader of the Communist party....
SHUSTER: Stalin?
DRURY: Huh?
SHUSTER: Stalin?
DRURY: Stalin. Stalin. And they would say, "Today I am a believer in Jesus Christ and no longer believe in Stalin or Trotsky or Lenin or any of these." So they almost got done in by the....
SHUSTER: How did that happen?
DRURY: Huh?
SHUSTER: You said "almost got done in."
DRURY: Yeah, that these Communist goons (I call them "Communist goons") knew what they were peddling, you know, and that they had been converted from Communism. And the very interesting thing is that when you witness to Communists (now listen closely to what I am saying)...when you talk to hard-core Communists they would say, "Karl Marx is my god. Lenin is my savior. I am a disciple of Karl Marx. I am a disciple of Lenin." Rarely in my Christian walk have I ever met man, woman, boy or girl who ever said to me, "I am a disciple of Jesus Christ." They'd use other expressions. I think that in Evangelical circles we realize [chuckles] the cost of discipleship and when we say that we are a disciple, what all of that entails, you know, unconditional surrender to the work and the will of Almighty God, and what it could cost us in other settings like the Communist youth festival. But they said, "I am...I am a disciple of Karl Marx. I am a disciple of Lenin, a disciple of Trotsky." And they were not ashamed (of course, they were in their own camp at that time at the festival) and yet it surprised me. I had been taught otherwise, that it was a very immoral scene. Of course, they had no concept of morality, you know. Who would have taught them about morality? And there was a lot of sexual things going on that were absolutely deplorable in open places, in parks, in stuff like that. So we had a fabulous time, a fantastic time at the Communist youth festival. Again, one of the highlights of my Christian experience was sharing Jesus Christ with,,,with young Communists from all over the world.
SHUSTER: Do you recall the names of those two Communist girls who were saved?
DRURY: Oh, no. No, I wouldn't have any idea. But...I...I do remember this Glen Wagner who was an ex-football player, him being involved in saving these kids from being hurt by the Communist police. I forget how it all came about. It's a long, long time ago.
SHUSTER: Uh-huh.
DRURY: Thirty something, but I do remember their conversion and the very next day, twenty-four hours later, they wanted to serve this Jesus Christ. And you have to ask yourself, "How will they understand? How will they comprehend? How will they know what it is to say about conversion within twenty four hours?" They simply told that they came to God, Jesus Christ is their savior now. No, I didn't get their names. I...I....
SHUSTER: Were they Finnish girls?
DRURY: Yeah, yeah. It seemed to me that they were Finnish, that they were Finnish girls. And I...and I stayed in Finland after the festival and the young Finnish girl that had got saved under my ministry over here in the United States Bible Club Movement, now Bible [unclear] Ministry, Bible Club Movement had a role in a camp outside of Philadelphia. And she came...a doctor and his wife lied to get a cheap fare that she was their daughter. She was not their daughter, she was a maid-servant that came to work for this doctor and his wife, paid a pittance really. But she came to this camp....
SHUSTER: Uh...au pair. Was that au pair? I think it's called an au pair. When a girl comes over to work for a year it's called an au pair.
DRURY: Is that what it is?
SHUSTER: I think so.
DRURY: I couldn't tell you that. But at any rate, she was a maidservant and she babysat their...their kids. She was at a park one day and a Hebrew Christian worker was out there also baby-sitting some children. They got to talking and she invited her to this camp that was being run by the Bible Club Movement. She said, "I don't think I can come." And so this Jewish worker, who knew she wasn't a Christian, said, "We will raise the money for you," probably twenty dollars a week back in those days. So she said...and miracle of miracles they allowed her to go.
SHUSTER: Hmm.
DRURY: To take the time off and go. And so she came and I preached on John 3:3. I'll never forget it. And so she came to me the next day (I was standing by a tree, talking to some guy on the campus)...she came up to me and she said, "Reverend Mr. Drury." She said, "I am [words unclear. Apparently the girl's name.] Yesterday I was Lutheran girl. Today I am born again Christian."
SHUSTER: Hmm.
DRURY: "Born again. I'm born again." And her and her husband are heading up (I think) all the world...all the work in Scandinavia now for the Bible Club Movement. And married. And they've got family and grown kids. And it's just an incredible story how this girl got saved and then went on to walk with the Lord in Finland. But I stayed there to go up to her village. I asked if she could arrange for me to speak in the Lutheran church (the Lutheran church had never had a woman on the platform before). And they said, "Yes." And I went up to the village of Joronin and it was something like out of the wild, wild west as far as rural...being rural. And I was the first American that some of these Finns had ever seen, you know, and when you walk through the village they would come out from the stores, "Come here. Come out. Look at the American." You know. [Shuster laughs]
SHUSTER: [laughs] Like an elephant going through town.
DRURY: Yeah. The Yankee, the American. So I preached in...in the Lutheran church and she translated for me. And I spoke on the love of God and I was explaining about love. I said, "I love my wife. I love my daughter, Kathleen Sharon" (that's her name).
SHUSTER: Uh-huh.
DRURY: And I didn't realize that these proper names mean nothing in translation, you know. And she stopped in the middle of the sermon and said, "What is Kathleen Sharon?" [Shuster laughs] I said, "Daughter, daughter. I love my daughter. I love my son," you know. So, again, it was quite the experience. Her father leaned toward the Communist part, you know, and I stayed in their home, I stayed in their home. I didn't know where I would sleep. Well, they had this affair and what they would do is to take off the cushion, role out a mat on there and that was your bed. So he said to her, "Before the American leaves...." Oh, the night before I guess it was, he said through his daughter (he couldn't speak a word of English)...he said, "What...what does the American like about Finland? Is there anything he likes?" I said, "I love the people. Asuttaa, asuttaa" [It is hard to understand the word Drury is saying, perhaps it is "asuttaa" a Finnish word for "people"] (I picked up this word) "Hyvã, hyvã," which means, "great, tremendous." And I said, "lakes." Everywhere you go there are lakes in Finland. Sixty thousand lakes I was told, something like that. And I said, "I love the sauna. Sauna - hyvã, hyvã. The sauna of it is wonderful." He said to her, "City sauna or farm sauna?" I didn't know one from the other, I said, "I've only been in the city sauna in Helsinki" (I went there with Glen Wagner and this big, ex-football player. That's a story in itself). But I said, "I've never been to the farm sauna."
SHUSTER: Sanna?
DRURY: Sauna...sauna...sauna.
SHUSTER: Oh, sauna, sauna.
DRURY: Sauna, [changes pronunciation] Some say "sauna," some.... [both laugh] And I said, "I would love to go with you to a farm sauna." So he sends the grandmother, who's the workhorse, "Go make ready the sauna." [Shuster laughs] And they have this special wood that they use. They don't have an electric switch they can flip on, flip off. That's a city sauna. So they got the sauna ready and we walked out there and I had a towel around my neck and...and a t-shirt on and shorts. And we were up there and he starts babbling to his daughter who is translating all this. "My father wants to know how you will talk in the sauna [Shuster laughs] because I cannot go in the sauna with you because you will be naked in there." So I said, "We will find a way to talk." I didn't realize that he had a bad heart but I wanted to witness to him and I wanted to show him that Christians were not kooks, you know, and that they were not wishy-washy, namby-pamby, milk-fed religious misfits. And so we got in the...in the sauna and threw our clothes, such as they were, outside, and we got in there and it was hot. And he said to me...there is a vent to let the heat out if it get's too hot, there is a vent in the wall with a chain on it and you pull this. And he said, "Kyimä, kyimä." Well, I found out that "kyimä" is cold. To make it.... And I said, "No, hyvã, hyvã." [Bob laughs] He kept saying, "Kyimä, kyimä." It was getting to him with his breathing problem and the whole thing. And I was just about dying and I thought, "I'm not gonna let that Finn open that...that vent. I'll die first." [Bob laughs] So finally he yelled, "Finn, Finn. You are a Finn." [Bob laughs] And he went through the door and went through the door after him and Perijo was nowhere around because she knew which I didn't know that you come out of the sauna and go right into the lake. And these lakes are cold! I went in there and I thought I was going to die. [Shuster laughs] And he said to me (What was the word?) "How is it?" or whatever.
SHUSTER: Uh-huh.
DRURY: And I kept saying, "Hyvã, hyvã." [Shuster laughs] It almost killed me, you know. So then he came back to the house...to the farmhouse and he said, "Ask the American if he would have church service in our home tomorrow morning. I said, "I would be delighted."
SHUSTER: You passed the test?
DRURY: Yes. And they came all dressed up like they were going to Sunday church. They sat in that kitchen and they all sat there and with the thought [?] impressed me. Her mother, Perijo told me, that when she came home and witnessed to her mother, her mother was semi-receptive but didn't dare do anything that her husband didn't approve, you know. So I preached on the love of Christ, John 3:16, and explained it's not religious, it's not the church. It's not the Lutheran church. I think they only had one church in the village and that was the Lutheran church, which as I said was the state religion. And he was very receptive, they were very receptive. I said, "You cannot become a Christ...Christian until you ask Jesus Christ, the author of Christianity and the savior of man, to come into your heart." When I gave the invitation, her other brothers and sisters were looking at the mother and she was looking at the father to see if he would raise...and he didn't raise his hand. But to this day I thought most assuredly that they wanted to commit their lives to Jesus Christ. The mother and the girls went to Lutheran church. Whether he did or not I don't...I don't think so.
SHUSTER: When you were at the youth festival, Communist youth festival, did you have any heckling or arguing or anything like that?
DRURY: Yeah, oh yeah.
SHUSTER: What kind of things did they say?
DRURY: Oh, they...they said that the Americans, the Americans were...were the trouble makers of the world over. You know, we encouraged wars and so on. And that we had ruined Europe during World War II and all sorts of things. And sometimes when we were speaking over a loud speaker they...their voices would rise in some kind of a chant. As I said, in the parade they would say, "We will change the world. We will change the world." And I said that they changed the lives of fifty-five thousand kids in Vietnam who died because of Communism and they changed the lives of those kids. So there was a lot of heckling that went on and on when we were tried...and we were told by the Communist goon who could speak English that, "This is our festival. You are not welcome. You are not invited. We came here to have our meetings." And so.... But nobody, nobody on our team (that I knew) was hurt. Even my Pentecostal friend [laughs] who had...they sent you out two by two to do evangelism. He was what I call, "hard-core charismatic, Pentecostal individual." And I said...he...he said to me, "You have the second blessing?" I said, "Second, third, fourth, fifth." [Bob laughs] "No,"he said, "you have the baptism?" I said, "Yeah I was baptized. I was a christened in a Roman Catholic church and I was...I was baptized when I got saved." He said, "No, no, no, no. He said the baptism of the Holy Spirit." I said, "Do you have the second blessing of the baptism of the Holy Spirit?" I said, "Has it been manifested in tongues?" He said, "Yeah." I said, "Wonderful," I said, "Tremendous." I said, "You're going to make a convert. I always wanted to find a place where this could be demonstrated and we've got a hundred and thirty-nine nations here. And the word of God, when they spoke in tongues, said they understood everyone in their own tongue. So, when we go to Poles, or Polskis, or Russian, or Czechoslovakian, I want you to turn it on, brother. I want you to turn it on in Japanese, Chinese, whatever." And I really pushed him, pushed him. So much so that when we got back to headquarters he said, "I want to go with somebody else." [Bob laughs] I said, "He told me he speaks in other tongues but," I said, "he didn't do it. I was just curious. I thought what a tremendous blessing this would be."
SHUSTER: Do you recall what his name was?
DRURY: No. No, I do not know. And there was a young British evangelist who got saved at the first Harringay meetings [Billy Graham's 1954 London Crusade]. And I met him and he was really on fire for the Lord and a very Cockney, British guy, a young man. And (of course, I was pretty young myself back in those days) he invited me to come to England, could I spend some time there. So I worked it out and I'm sure even back in those days the airfares wouldn't have changed, it probably cost you a lot of money. But I thought, "Well, I'm not gonna have the opportunity to preach in England again." So I...I did it. And, again, I spoke in the Sunday English parochial school and then, I don't know who arranged it or what, but I...the British Youth for Christ was meeting outside of London and somebody got me there to give my testimony. And I spoke there. And I spoke in a...in a Baptist church. And it was a good-sized church and I say good-sized - a couple hundred people. And then we had lunch in the pastor's home and after the blessing, his wife said to the pastor, "That's the kind of gospel you should be preaching, what Mr. Drury preached today. [Bob chuckles] He's not ashamed to ask people to come." Men and women...it was a good response.
SHUSTER: What did the pastor say?
DRURY: He...he just gave her a dirty look. [they laugh] He said something but what it is I don't know. And then I spoke to a Sunday school in the Evangelical Anglican church. I don't know who arranged that or how I got in there. And there was the High Anglican and what they call the Low Anglican. And Low Anglican, quite a few were Evangelical in...in theology. So I had a real opportunity to speak to these Anglican Christians which I didn't think I would ever have an opportunity to speak in an Anglican church but I did. And that was about it as far ...as far as England. And I kick myself that I didn't (and when I went to Ireland more recently)...that I didn't take time to arrange meetings in Scotland and Wales and the British Isles. Always then I would take off and preach and take off and go, you know. But they were thrilling, exciting times.
SHUSTER: When...I know you were, of course, very active in Philadelphia in '61 and that's when Graham...Billy Graham had a crusade there. Did you have any contact with that or...
DRURY: Oh yeah,
SHUSTER: ...memories of it?
DRURY: We were involved from the beginning. I think it was Bill Brown who was married to the English act...actress. I can't think of her....
SHUSTER: Katherine Winmill Brown. [Actually Joan Winmill Brown.]
DRURY: Yeah. He was the forerunner for the crusade and I got to know him. He was in my home, he and his wife were in my home. We had a row house in north Philadelphia. And we got to know him. We had a thing called Sailspiration where we rented the cruise ship on the....
SHUSTER: This was for Youtharama.
DRURY: Youtharama. He came and he spoke there and we had Bev Shea sing for us at a banquet. So I got to know the team and as I said before, that we were quick to lend them our mailing list, which I understand just isn't.....
END OF TAPE