The Upper Peninsula of Michigan has a persona of toughness. The mining and logging history of the region have made it the land of austere, hard-bitten men. But the servants of Christ who have been sent there have often been gentlemanly folk. Leonard Sheldrake worked out of Sault Ste. Marie. The bookish Joe Balsam came from far north at Laurium. Louis Smith and Jim Beattie have regularly worked with the assembly in Pelkie. Jonathan Brower and Don Welborn also have an open door there. John Duckhorn, Ed Burdick and others have encouraged the work in Little Lake near Upper Peninsula Bible Camp.
One unique and honored servant of Christ in the region was Benjamin “Pat” Yeadon. He understood the gentle part of being a gentleman. He was born February 9, 1931, at Carlshend, Michigan of sturdy stock.
When God saved him, he wanted to be all for Him. So with his wife and baby daughter, he enrolled in Prairie Bible Institute (1957-1962). Pat graduated at the top of his class.
L. E. Maxwell, founder and president (author of the books, Crowded to Christ, Abandoned to Christ, Born Crucified, and World Missions: Total War) instilled the principles of faith in the students there. When Maxwell began the institute, he had no money to pay teachers’ salaries, so he advertised for teachers to apply using the phrase “hoping for nothing” from Luke 6:35 to describe the pay arrangement.
After graduation, the Yeagers moved back to Michigan where Pat was manager of Upper Peninsula Bible Camp from the fall of 1963 until 1968. They then came to a town with a simple, solid name befitting the rugged north—Rock, Michigan. They came to help John and Earlene Small (now serving the Lord in Washington). The Smalls, who had seen an assembly established there, became their dearest friends and spiritual mentors.
John Small had been the public school superintendent and had wisely used his influence in the community as a platform for gospel witness. Rock, in the heart of the copper and iron mines, had been settled by the Finnish. These Finns fit the picture of the rugged northwoods men.
Finland, which borders Russia, had a strong Communist influence, and Rock, being a mining community, had a strong labor union and became a headquarters for the Communist party. The Communist thinking was so dominant in that region that during World War II dozens of Finnish families uprooted from Michigan to help the Russians in the war effort under Stalin. These Finns lost everything in Russia.
The Communist slogan, “Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains, and the whole world to gain” is answered by a rhetorical question from One greater than Marx, “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his soul?”
If a Communist died in Rock, his family would often not have a church burial, and that was when John Small and Pat Yeadon would get their opportunity. Being non-denominational, Small discovered that he was considered safe for the job of “putting down” a lifelong Communist. He recalled times when preaching a funeral, that the dead man’s atheist friends would sit at the back and talk loudly while the funeral message was in progress. But is not God’s Word like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?
It is the gracious persistence of truth spoken in love that has thawed out hard hearts in the Upper Peninsula.
When the Smalls moved on from Rock, the Yeadons with their family moved into the Smalls’ house and carried on the work.
Perhaps the success of Pat’s witness is best seen from the events that surrounded his homegoing. “A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.” God had put Pat and Carol Yeadon in a public place, and the light was hard to miss.
When Pat was diagnosed with cancer in November of 1997, he was sent to Milwaukee to have most of his stomach removed. A half-dozen doctors and interns gathered around his bed and the spokesman informed Pat of the severity of his condition. A bit puzzled by Pat’s serenity, they wondered if he understood. He said, “Yes, I understand what you’re telling me. I have enjoyed serving the Lord all these years, and I will keep on serving the Lord for as much time as I have left. I understand that my condition is serious, but you have to know that God is in control of whether I live or die.”
Pat’s last full preaching message had been given in October 1997. He spoke that day on the will of God. Pat sensed, as he shared that day, that he was in the middle of God’s plan, the only happy place to be.
After surgery, the cancer went to his liver. He was given six weeks to live. When the oncologist informed Pat and Carol that he was dying, Pat sat quietly, and then turned to Carol and gently said, “Well, I will just get my things together and let God have all the glory.”
It seemed over the next nine months, as he slowly lost weight and strength, that his ministry proved to be his strongest. People from all corners of the Midwest came to see Pat and he presented Christ daily to all comers. On one occasion he presented the gospel one after another to the local Roman Catholic priest, his barber, a grocer, the gas station owners, and several farmers, in a steady procession. This mild man was so strangely bold.
Pat participated in a weekly Bible study till the end. One night, a young man showed up. He said he was once a long-haired hippy. He wanted to drop by and tell Pat that because of his influence he was now a devout believer involved in ministry at his home congregation.
In February of 1998, as Pat came into the final stretch, he told Carol, “I have no regrets.”
Carol responded, “Not many can say that,” but she didn’t doubt Pat’s sincerity in saying it.
Pat began to leave on Thursday, July 16. Carol, his daughter Faith, and a nurse named Tracy were present at 3:30 pm. Suddenly Pat sat up in bed. Raising his hands, with a loud voice he shouted, “Hallelujah! Praise be to the Lord! I see Jesus; I hear music!” He had glory in his face, his eyes were alert, he was smiling. At this point in his illness, Pat barely had the ability to speak audibly, no strength at all. But that afternoon he began singing “That will be glory for me.” He said, “I’m in heaven. I can’t figure out how I can be talking with you. I’m with Jesus. No pain, no tears, only joy…peace…glorious… beautiful…no fear! I don’t need any more treatment. I don’t need anything.”
Later he said, “I failed God, but He never failed me.”
Son-in-law Bill Ducote came at 4:30 and asked Pat to describe heaven. Pat said he couldn’t describe it, but speaking directly to Bill, he said, “God is so gracious—we are much too hard on ourselves.”
He hung onto life throughout Monday, July 20—long enough to see the Smalls, his long-time friends and companions in labor. He went to be with the Lord on Tuesday morning, from the sofa in his living room in Maple Ridge Township. The soft man from Rock, Michigan, was Home.
The two funeral homes in Gladstone both applied for the privilege of handling the funeral. Pat was regularly called to conduct funerals in the area, and never accepted money from the funeral homes for his services.
The funeral was the largest within memory in the community of Rock. The number of those in attendance at the funeral exceeded the entire population of the town! The entire first level of the chapel was filled with chairs. There were speakers in all the other rooms. The foyer was filled to overflowing, and chairs were set up on the lawn outside for people to hear the singing and preaching through the open window. They sang with emotion, “O, that will be glory for me!”
John Small preached the gospel at the funeral. At the graveside committal service those weeping, those rejoicing, those in amazement, all mingled in the throng. Pat Yeadon, had caught the heavenly fire that L. E. Maxwell always spoke and wrote about, and it seemed like the whole county had come out to warm their hands around the glow.
Death, the old serpent’s son,
Thou hadst a sting once, like thy sire,
That carried hell and ever-burning fire;
But those black days are done;
Thy foolish spite buried thy sting
In the profound and wide
Wound of our Saviour’s side:
And now thou art becomes tame and harmless thing;
A thing we dare not fear,
Since we hear
That our triumphant God,
To punish thee,
For the affront thou didst Him on the tree,
Hath snatched the keys of hell out of thy hand
And made thee stand
A porter at the gate of life, thy mortal enemy.
O thou who art that gate, command that he
May when we die,
And thither fly,
Let us in the courts of heaven through thee!
—Bishop Taylor