At Bible School, Bill was learning more than the Bible. Being a child of his own culture cast into a strange new setting, the young Cree from Whitefish Lake Reserve ran into misunderstandings. His own thoughts, based on his life experience, were part of the mix. Responses of others around him didn’t always help. Canadian society of that day didn’t have official government policies of tolerance, human rights, and campaigns against racial discrimination as it does today. In that day, Indians were generally regarded as second class citizens. They weren’t full citizens. For example, they were not allowed to vote. It was illegal for them to go into a place where liquor was sold. These laws, and other laws like them daily reminded Indian people of their dissimilar place in society. 

        People, even some Christian people, who were prejudiced against Indians quite often seemed unaware of their attitude. But those who suffered from these attitudes, namely members of the Native population, were very aware of them. If, sometimes, Native people appeared overly sensitive to the treatment they received from individuals, it was no wonder. They suffered a lot. 

        During Bill’s first two years in Bible School, the mere fact of his living with a population of white people went a long way in changing attitudes on both sides. Nevertheless, it was this whole matter of prejudice and discrimination which God used to rub some rough edges off the young Christian. Proud of his heritage, he also was typically quiet and unresponsive socially. When something happened to Bill, he usually brooded over it. This sometimes resulted in a matter being carried inside him instead of being resolved. Under such circumstances, bitterness and resentment can easily obtain a stronghold in a person’s mind. 

        “I don’t remember ever apologizing to anybody before I went to Bible School,” Bill later affirmed. “At Bible School, God humbled me to apologize to a staff member. In my heart, I thought she was really the one who should have done the apologizing.” 

        The incident was simple enough. Students who were assigned to kitchen duties always left the dining room tables as soon as they finished their meal. This gave them a head start on cleaning up while the other students waited to be dismissed together by the presiding staff member. 

        One day, when Bill was assigned to kitchen clean up, he left the table as he had seen others do. The staff member followed him into the kitchen and, rather unceremoniously ordered him back to the table. 

        “I had noticed this staff member before,” Bill claimed. “She seemed to me to be prejudiced. I knew that this was the last straw. All my feelings of being treated differently, picked on by this woman, rose to the surface. I was really angry at her.” 

        Before the Lord in prayer, Bill was confronted with his own anger. Though the circumstances were different, the same question with which God faced Jonah now filled Bill’s mind. “Doest thou well to be angry?” 

        “No, Lord!” Confessing his need to let all anger be put away from him, Bill surrendered it to the Lord. That was not an easy step. But the next step was even more difficult. 

        “I was angry with you. I ask for your forgiveness.” Facing the staff member, Bill shuffled from one foot to the other. He knew God wanted him to apologize. It didn’t mean that Bill was enjoying the moment.

        “Oh! I noticed you were acting funny.” That was the staff member’s response. Perhaps she was taken aback by this unexpected humility. Perhaps she was uncomfortable about her own part in the matter. Perhaps, Christian leader that she was, she had yet to deal with a willingness to humble herself and admit wrongdoing. Whatever was going on inside of her, Bill knew that inside of him something bad been settled, something Peter had in mind when he wrote, Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, (1 Peter 5:6). 

        “Since then, I’ve had to apologize to people a number of times. I’ve had to apologize to family members, to missionaries and to other people at different times for different things.” Bill admits, “I never find it easy to apologize. God has taught me that It’s better to admit wrong and apologize than to carry a wrong spirit inside.” 

        Learning humility is not a course from which one graduates on a given date. Humility doesn’t come by merely completing three years of study at Bible School. There are levels of humility which it takes a whole lifetime to learn. Maybe the learning process never ends in this life. But it certainly has a beginning. And, for Bill, learning humility began with that incident when he first humbled himself to apologize.