Bob Jones University

Brethren Alumni

• Malachy Pierre - elder @ Valley Bible Chapel, ME (formerly Madawaska Gospel Hall)

Letters of Interest

1940's

1949-6: Youth Work - "Student Need Results in Assembly Construction" by Ernest Gross

"In 1946, we learned that Bob Jones College planned to move to Greenville, S.C., and to open as Bob Jones University in Sept. 1947. This quickened the exercise we had had for some time about a testimony in Greenville, the textile center of the South. When the University opened we found some 45 students from various assemblies among the 2,400 enrolled. College rules allow male students to go out of town only to preach or take active part in a meeting and permit girl students to attend only meetings held in public buildings. So our place of meeting had to be inside Greenville city limits and at first we were able to find only a private home, to which the young ladies could not come. Therefore for a time only the boys attended.

After months of fruitless search for a place to rent, in Feb. 1948 we received permission to use Leisure Lodge of Parker High School temporarily. Now the girls could come. However we were still restricted to the remembrance feast and to public preaching Sunday night. We felt that we needed our own building where the work could grow. After much prayer we purchased a lot in the Overbrook section of Greenville, within a mile of the university and of the city center. It is on the city bus line in a section that has no church and is developing rapidly. In March, the building was started and we trust it will be finished by late summer. It is two-story frame and will accommodate better than 200 in the main auditorium.