Grams’ husband, Jim, is a former development director for Haven who still works part-time for the nonprofit ministry, including as a counselor when a caller to Haven has a crisis. “My dad was the bass singer with the college quartet and the baritone was standing next to him,” Grams said. Myers said he had a first tenor and second tenor and was looking for a bass singer and a baritone. Payne was a student at Southern California Bible College in Pasadena in 1934 when Myers walked up to the campus entrance and told Payne he was starting up a Christian radio program, Grams said. Payne became the bass singer through a serendipitous meeting with Myers. Payne sang with the quartet for 43 years, performing at Billy Graham crusades and other evangelical gatherings across the country. five days a week and was transmitted live to many stations, she said. His daughter, Charlotte Grams, now 75, recalled accompanying her father and older sister to the studio during school vacations. The bass singer in the original quartet was Ernie Payne. The film also showed the recording of a broadcast, with the quartet live in the studio singing into microphones. The program expanded from Los Angeles up the West Coast before going worldwide.Ī 15-minute film from the 1940s that offered Haven listeners a behind-the-scenes look at the program showed a separate Cape Cod-style home that housed Haven’s printing and publishing facility and a mailroom that sent 30,000 households a weekly publication with song lyrics and other materials from the radio program. In 2007, the city of Los Angeles declared the Silver Lake building a historical-cultural monument. Haven moved from Los Angeles to Costa Mesa in 1998 and, after a brief time there, settled in Riverside. The building, which was designed for Haven and opened in 1941, featured porthole-shaped windows, upper and lower “decks” and a gangway-type ramp. “Ahoy there, shipmate, eight bells and all’s well,” Myers would then say.įor most of its history, the program was based in a ship-like building in Los Angeles’ Silver Lake neighborhood. Hearkening back to that night in San Diego, the broadcast began with ships’ horns, followed by eight bells and the quartet singing “The Haven of Rest,” a 19th century song about a sinner anchoring his soul in Christ. Myers’ alcoholism had ruined his career as a Los Angeles radio manager, but he used his radio background to start what was then called “The Haven of Rest.” Paul Myers was in what he described as an alcoholic stupor when eight bells of a ship startled him, spurring him to re-examine his life and accept Jesus as his savior. The program’s roots lie in a drunken night 80 years ago along San Diego’s waterfront. “Haven” is made for radio, so it sounds more personal, said Bruce Munsterman, president and general manager of Houston-based KHCB Network, which broadcasts “Haven Today” over 37 Christian radio stations in the South. Many Christian radio programs today are broadcasts of Sunday sermons. It is broadcast over about 600 radio stations in the United States, Canada, Africa, Asia and the Caribbean, attracting about 500,000 daily listeners.Ĭurrent host Charles Morris, 62, mixes combinations of biblical teachings, interviews, discussion of current events and Christian music into the half-hour, 5-day-a-week programs. “Haven” this year is celebrating its 80th anniversary, making it one of the oldest religious programs in the United States. But “Haven Today,” which is recorded in a studio in an office park in south Riverside, still is centered on the same gospel message that has kept fans like VanderPol listening. They had the quartet back then, and it was a beautiful quartet.” “I listened daily to the message, the singing. “Oh, I liked it so much,” the Ontario woman, now 90, recalled. Oh, come to the Savior, He patiently waits To save the His power divine Come, anchor your soul in the “Haven of Rest,” And say, “My the loved mine.Irene VanderPol began listening to Haven Christian radio broadcasts in 1934, when she was 9 years old. How precious the tho’t that we all may recline, Like John, the beloved so blest, On Jesus’ strong arm, where no tempest can harm, Secure in the “Haven of Rest.”ĥ. The song of my soul, since the Lord made me whole, Has been by old story so blest, Of Jesus, who’ll save whosoever will have A home in the haven my rest!Ĥ. I yielded myself to His tender embrace, In faith taking hold of the Word, My fetters fell off, and I anchored my soul The haven of rest is of Lord.ģ. Refrain: I’ve anchored my soul in the haven of rest, I’ll sail the wide seas no more The tempest may sweep o’er the wild, stormy, deep, In Jesus I’m safe evermore.Ģ. My soul in sad exile was out on life’s sea, So burdened with sin and distressed, Till I heard a sweet voice, saying, “Make Me your choice” And I entered the haven of rest.
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