Rev. James E. Halbert

Jim Halbert was born in Los Angeles, California on August 26, 1923. He lived a life of service and sacrifice. He learned early on that temporal things are not what counts in life. His family struggled during the Great Depression, and Dad worked as much as he could from an early age to help with family finances.

His gift of preaching began when he was seven years old. Emulating the pastor from his family’s church, he had his own “soapbox” pulpit at home, where he would preach to his teddy bears, or to no one in particular.

His seventh year was also the time when Jim’s love of the violin was born. The special music one Sunday at church was violin music, and Jim was captivated with the beauty of the instrument. He immediately announced to his parents that he wanted to learn to play the violin, and his mother made this possible by doing laundry in exchange for his lessons. Jim’s love for the violin only increased through the years, as he became a talented musician.

In his high school years, his violin playing was pivotal in one of his early acts of what came to characterize his life—sweet submission to God’s will, and an unwavering desire to put God first and give Him the glory. Jim was offered a unique opportunity to audition to play the violin in a youth orchestra. This would have afforded him the opportunity to play in venues around the country, with a salary which was quadruple that which his father earned as a hard-working meat cutter. But he would have had to audition, and sometimes work, on Sunday. And so, though pressured by the talent scouts who believed he would be chosen at the audition, he told them he had given his life to the Lord and would put Him first in his life. He wanted his life to only glorify the Lord he already loved deeply.

There were several significant influences on Jim’s spiritual life during his teen years. One was the Church of the Open Door in Los Angeles where his family attended. This missions-minded church had a large map on the wall behind the choir with points of light to indicate where missionaries supported by the church served. A desire was born in Jim to add a light to that map.

Another important spiritual influence in Jim’s life was the Navigators ministry founded by Dawson Trotman in the Long Beach, California area where Jim lived. Jim became part of a Navigators’ Dunamis Club, which involved a serious commitment to weekly Bible study, memorization, and sharing his faith with others. After some time in the Dunamis Club, Jim was selected, along with four other young men, to form a Gospel Team which shared the gospel through music and testimony in local churches.

A wonderful woman of God, Anna Dennis, also deeply impacted Jim’s life. She was a dedicated Bible teacher, and radiated God’s presence. Jim had the privilege of being taught the Word by her personally on a weekly basis for several years. He later said that he had learned more “at her feet” than he had learned from all his other teachers put together.

Because Jim had dedicated his life to serving the Lord, He attended BIOLA (Bible Institute of Los Angeles) to prepare for that service. It was during that time that the love of his life, Viola, captured a special place in his heart. Together they prepared to give their lives in missionary service in West Africa. After earning a Bachelor of Theology degree at BIOLA and a Bachelor of Arts degree at Whitworth College in Spokane, Washington, Jim and Viola sailed for France for a year of language study. It was in 1951 that they first saw African soil, and Jim’s love of Africa was born.

Throughout Jim and Viola’s years of missionary service in the Ivory Coast of West Africa, Jim’s sphere of influence steadily increased. Their first two terms of service were in a remote village, Niellé, amongst an unreached people group, where they learned the local dialect and shared the good news of God’s love and the salvation He offers. The people were fetishers and bound by fear, and Jim and Viola longed to see them come into forgiveness and freedom in the Lord. After much labor, they had the great joy of baptizing their first handful of believers—the beginning of a new church.

Their third and fourth term of service saw Jim and Viola beginning a ministry amongst the educated, French-speaking Africans in one of the major towns, Korhogo. There Jim started a church which today has a few hundred believers. Eight other churches in the surrounding area, with a wide influence, are active today as a result of that first church. Jim was instrumental in starting a Bible bookstore in Korhogo, and in a literature ministry. His leadership abilities were recognized in his capacity of Field Chairman, and also as a guest speaker for many different mission conferences for several mission organizations. He was involved in the organization of several important organizations: Ivory Coast Evangelical Fellowship; Association of Baptist Churches; Association of Evangelicals of Africa & Madagascar; Bible Institute in Yamoussoukro; and Evangelical Publications Center. He coordinated a seminar on Theological Education by Extension, and was involved in the making three evangelical films. Because Korhogo was a major center in Ivory Coast, there were Africans from all over the Ivory Coast living and working there, as well as many Europeans. And so the scope of influence of Jim’s ministry was nationwide.

The French-language Bible Institute of Yamoussoukro was destined to play an important role in Jim’s fifth term of service in the Ivory Coast. He was a professor there, teaching mostly Old Testament and related subjects. In this capacity, the sphere of Jim’s influence expanded yet again, as he had a significant influence in the lives of future church leaders from several countries of West Africa.

God had a new ministry for Jim in his fifth term of service, working with AEAM, the Association of Evangelicals of Africa and Madagascar. Headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya, this organization served the African national fellowships, churches and theological schools throughout Africa. Jim counted it a real joy to serve all of Africa through the ministries of AEAM.

Viola had struggled with health problems, and so at the conclusion of Jim’s ministry with AEAM, he resigned from the Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society (now World Venture). In the ensuing years he served as Pastor and Associate Pastor in Conservative Baptist churches in Southern California and in Oregon, always infusing his passion for missions into his ministry.

When Jim “retired” in 1988, he simply moved into yet another role within the Conservative Baptist circle, that of Special Representative in the Southwest for World Venture. Though this was part-time, Jim’s love for the pastors he ministered to did not confine itself to those limits. In this role he served as a link between the Mission and pastors, and also offered much wisdom and Godly counsel and prayer to these servants of God.

Jim’s service to the Lord and to his beloved Africans was recognized by the Ivoirian government in a special way during a celebration in 1997 of the fiftieth anniversary of the work of the Conservative Baptist Mission in the Ivory Coast. Jim gave a speech as a representative of the Mission at this celebration. Following the official ceremony, Jim was honored by the Ivoirian government by being presented with the medal Chevalier de l’ordre National (Knight of the National Order) for “eminent services rendered to Côte d’Ivoire.” As the Secretary of State pinned the medal on Jim’s lapel he said to him, “You gave a brilliant speech.” Part of the celebration involved a parade of hundreds of believers from the various ministries of the national church. An estimated 1500 people from many villages and towns attended the celebration. Reflecting on the start of their missionary career in the Ivory Coast when there was just one believer, Jim was deeply moved by the sight of thousands of believers, and it brought an overwhelming response of gratitude to the Lord for what He had done from that humble beginning.

Jim served for seventeen and a half years as Special Representative before he and Viola moved to Portland to be nearer their children and grandchildren. Even there, God soon opened a door of ministry for them to teach a weekly Bible study, and this became one of their great joys.

Through all the years of faithful ministry for the Lord he loved with all his heart, Jim never complained at difficult circumstances. He had a servant’s heart, and could be counted on to offer wise and godly counsel. He took time to spend in God’s presence, and always wanted God to have the glory in all he did. He was a man of tall stature spiritually, yet had a humble heart. His life was served for others. His love for his wife, Viola, was a true example of Jesus’ love for the Church; and he was always there for his family. All who know him would say that Jim truly honored and glorified God in his life; and we know for a certainty that he heard his Father’s “Well done, thou good and faithful servant,” as he entered His presence around 2:00 A.M. on May 18, 2009. He has entered into the joy of His Lord!