By Mary Owen
Longtime evangelist Vern Sheler has shared his faith on the streets for decades.
The 82-year-old Lyons man still talks about God on the streets where he meets fellow vintage car enthusiasts, but the old Tin Lizzies he works on also give life to his dream of making movies.
“I fix up the cars to raise money to get my movies off the ground,” Sheler said. “I’ve written two scripts, good, uplifting Christian stories.”
His first, The Beginning of Sorrows, is a lengthy look at life, and his most recent, Gordon, is about a young boy raised on the farm during the Great Depression. Sheler has tried for years to get both off of paper and onto the big screen.
“I haven’t given up yet,” Sheler said. “And I still get to share about Jesus in the meanwhile.”
Sheler has led a colorful life, from when as a teenager he met his wife, Helen, at a square dance at a skating rink in Howard City, Mich., to his latest restoration of a 1931 Model A Ford “modified” at his modest Lyons home.
“I painted everything from automobiles, boats, planes to houses,” Sheler said. “It got us through.”
Pausing a moment, smiling at his wife, he added, “We’ve been married 61 years. Helen was born on a farm in Michigan. She went to Oak Grove Country School. After we were married, she taught children about Jesus.
“We bought a little ol’ shanty house in a town called Bailey for $2,500,” he reminisced. “It was a fixer-upper for sure.”
Reaching out for his wife’s hand, he continued, “We’ve got three girls and a boy – Charlotte, Joanne, Linda and Steven. We’ve also got 15 or 16 grandkids and some great-grandkids. Except for a hitch in the Army, we’ve been together ever since we met.”
After his stint in the U.S. Army Airborne, using his artistic talents to make maps and charts, Sheler moved his family from Michigan to Spokane, Wash.
“We came out west in a rusty ’49 Plymouth station wagon,” Sheler said. “So rusty that when I put my foot on the gas pedal, it almost went through the floorboard.”
While in Spokane, he attended Bible school to become an evangelist, training, he said, “to go into the streets and behind the hedges.”
“I got interested after I met a missionary while stationed in Japan,” said Sheler, who was wounded in the Korean War. He had six brothers who served in World War II all at the same time.
“I even got involved with the Jesus People Movement for a bit,” he said.
The couple moved to Oregon 15 years ago, first living in a converted school bus.
“We shared about Christ from that bus,” said Sheler, chuckling. “About three years before we came to Oregon, I dreamt of making a movie. So I studied computer word processing at Chemeketa and screenwriting at a Portland college. And to reach out to people, I rebuild these old cars.”
Sheler started learning how to paint cars in 1954 at a Ford dealership in Grant, Mich., which, in turn, led to his interest in restoring old Fords. He has even restored the vintage Tin Lizzie he thought could be used in his play, Gordon, if it ever gets turned into a movie.
“I sure would like to meet someone who could help me,” he said. Turning his thoughts back to evangelizing, he added, “I share little stories with the hot rodders – I’m not a hell and brimstone kinda guy.”
Storytelling is his gift, not something he brags about.
“God knew all these stories before I did!” he said humbly.
Sheler’s dream remains to get his movies “off the ground.”
“And to reach out to people and build my cars,” he said. “It’s a great hobby!”
