Gretel's Call to Hobe Sound
by Gretel Grant
IT WAS IN 1973, when my friend Marilyn started attending the Mission in Bottle Creek, that I first heard about the Newtons, Winghams, Marilyn Marchant, and Germaine Hobelman.
I was living with a family who felt that the missionaries were false prophets, and I was not allowed to attend services there. My friend Marilyn and I would meet every day after school so she could fill me in on all that was going on at the Mission Church.
I remember Marilyn telling me about one lady who sang very loud. The words of the song "The Cleansing Stream" spoke to my heart. I wanted to know more about being free from the load of sin that I was carrying. Marilyn would tell me all about the preaching and each time my heart got hungrier to know more about being able to live free from sin.
One Friday evening, I told the people with whom I was living that I was going down South to see my mother. In reality, I wanted to get down to that Mission to hear about this good news.
When I arrived at the Mission, there was a group praying in the living room that was used for the church. When I entered that door, God had already on my face before God, and He changed my life. That was the last day I worked for Satan. I started serving my new Master… Jesus Christ!!! Again, my friend was faithful in teaching me all that she learned.
It was then that I heard about the college in Hobe Sound. Marilyn and I dreamed together about going to Hobe Sound. Of course, we thought it was heaven.
A year after my conversion, I was accepted into the nursing program on another island, and I was on my own spiritually. There was no holiness church on the island where I was living, so on my days off, I would fly over to the island where Marilyn and Germaine were living to get some spiritual food.
It was at the end of that year that Brother Phil Newton approached me about going to Hobe Sound Bible Collage. I had a tough decision to make. I loved nursing, and this was at the time that I would leave for my nurse's training. I went to God in prayer hoping that He would let me stay, but He clearly told me to go to Hobe Sound.
God worked out so many details in so little time, I knew it was Him.
I needed clothes for Hobe Sound standards, and God had Marilyn Marchant and Germaine Hobelman there to help. Marjorie Brown took me aside and told me that Hobe Sound wasn't heaven, and I would have to choose my friends wisely. Freddie Wingham did all the "dirty work" with immigration to get my visa, and in August of 1974, I arrived at Hobe Sound Bible College.
When I got there, God brought people such as: Anita (Barr) Halter, Barbara Neeb, Sharrona (Wingham) Dimmett, and Mark and Carole Vernon into my life just when I needed them. I am thankful to God for all the missionaries that left their handprint on my life.
