My Early Story (22)

 

Eufemio and Carmen Alvarez

 

Carmen Alvarez, Eufemio’s wife, was as patient and gracious a lady as I have ever met. The Alvarezs lived in a first-floor apartment in the projects off FDR Drive in Manhattan. Carmen was around 5’8”, taller than her husband, with long black hair, somewhat plump but not excessively so, and a round face that always had a smile for guests. With her six children and mercurial husband she had her hands full, yet she never revealed the least bit of stress or irritation.

 

Eufemio was indeed mercurial, he could go from zero to sixty in 2.3 seconds leaving rubber on the asphalt. Brother Alvarez’s way of parenting his children was often a matter of increasing decibels; whereas Sister Alvarez brought harmony from cacophony with a smile and melodious words. If you’re familiar with the clarinet, Eufemio played upper-register notes and Carmen played the middle register, along with occasional lower notes with deep soothing resonance.  

 

This is not to say that Eufemio didn’t embrace his children and didn’t have a warm smile and cheerful word for them, he often did; but Eufemio was always on the go and when he was home it was to grab a bite to eat, change clothes for that evening’s preaching, and exit the apartment the way Jeff Gordon exits Pit Road during the Daytona 500, the difference being that Eufemio didn’t observe a speed limit.

 

Mrs. Alvarez always had coffee for visitors, and if you were there during mealtime you could expect an invitation to eat with the family. This was true of every family I knew in NYC. Hospitality was a way of life for the Hispanic community. Perhaps one of the blessings of a basic diet of rice and beans is that you don’t need to worry about calling up Martha Stewart for a recipe for honored guests; guests know they are honored by the simple experience of sharing a meal – it is in the sharing that we find the substance. After all, the greatest meal any of us can prepare for another or partake of with another is bread and wine. Next to the bread and wine I think I’ll list rice and beans.

My Early Story (21)

 

Miguel Diaz – Part Two

 

I lost track of Miguel around 1973. He had married Carmen Maria and moved to Boston to pastor, where I paid him a couple of visits. Then they went to Latin America as missionaries and I didn’t know how to contact them.

 

As the years went by Miguel was on my list of people that I wished I could reconnect with. As with George and his family, so with Miguel and his family, they remained in my prayers.

 

In the summer of 2001 Vickie and I were in Toronto at a pastors’ conference sponsored by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. There were around 1,000 people there and the format consisted of plenary sessions and small workshops. On the second afternoon I was in a meeting room for a workshop on worship music. I was seated and chatting with the man next to me, waiting for the workshop to begin, when I heard a deep distinctive voice, “Are you Robert Withers?”

 

I looked up and saw Miguel Diaz – 28 years since I had last seen him, I was looking at Miguel Diaz – he was a bit more then than 185 pounds (sorry Mike!), but it was Miguel Diaz.

 

After our embrace he said, “Last night, in the worship meeting, I heard a laugh, and I looked at Carmen Maria and said, ‘Withers is here. That’s his laugh.’”

 

Ah what a blessing, what a treat to see Miguel again, to have a wish fulfilled – how sweet. Vickie and I had lunch with them and spent time with them before the conference ended. A year or so later they visited us in Virginia while on a ministry trip.

 

In the years since 1973 they had served as missionaries in Central America and pastored in Philadelphia, which is what they were doing when we reconnected. We exchange emails from time to time and now that I’m writing this I think I should probably give him a call and do some more serious catching up. After all, it isn’t everyone who will wipe bird poop off your head.

My Early Story (20)

 

Miguel Diaz

 

Life at Ayers Kaserne in Kirchgoens, Germany was lonely for me. The men in my infantry unit were good guys, but I hungered for Christian fellowship. The chapel services were plain vanilla, about as inspiring as Interstate 64 between Richmond and Charlottesville, straight with no scenery, a drive that can easily put you to sleep. Our chaplain was nice enough, but in the military you never know what you’re going to get with a chaplain – I guess it’s the same way in churches with pastors, some guys and gals should have gone into social work and skipped the ministry.

 

I taught Sunday School for a crowd of military children, and I mean a crowd. There must have been fifty of the rascals. I only mention this because I might forget it and years from now this will remind me.

 

A new chaplain arrived on base, a tall, balding, red-haired, slender colonel in his mid-40’s. He was a Southern Baptist. Shortly after his arrival there was a notice: GOSPEL HYMN SING THIS COMING SUNDAY, 1900 HOURS (1900 hours is military talk for 7:00 P.M.). That Sunday evening a group of about 40 of us gathered and sang hymns. A few pews in front of me I noticed a Hispanic soldier. When the hymn service concluded I made my way to him and asked, “Are you from New York City?”

 

“Yes,” he replied.

 

“Are you Pentecostal?” I continued. (In those days if you were Hispanic and lived in NYC and were not Roman Catholic you were probably Pentecostal.)

 

“Yes,” he said.

 

So began my friendship with Miguel Diaz. Miguel is about 6’1”, was around 185 pounds in those days, wore glasses, and had a deep voice that ended sentences on high notes. Perhaps that was the Spanish coming through the English? Miguel was a medic. We quickly got to know each other, spending time praying, reading the Bible, and talking to other soldiers about Jesus.

 

We soon received permission from the new chaplain to hold Sunday evening services at the chapel. We put posters up around the base and folks showed up. We ended up receiving support in the form of hymnals from the Church of God, Cleveland, TN. Miguel remembers a time he and I prayed with a distraught soldier out in the rain, kneeling on the ground – since I’m accustomed to people remembering things that I don’t I’ll trust him on that one.

 

Miguel was thoughtful, good natured, patient, and a good friend. After our Army days I looked him up in Manhattan and we had more time together. He was going into vocational ministry and I visited his church on more than one occasion. One of my shining moments was my participation in a street meeting his church was holding. There we were on the street, singing and preaching, I guess at least 20 of us.

 

Now you never know who or what you’ll attract at a street meeting. Some folks will be respectful, others derisive.  D.L. Moody was warned not to go to some places in the UK for open air meetings due to the roughness of the population, but he went anyway. John Wesley went into some pretty tough areas too. David Wilkerson established Teen Challenge on the streets of NY. If you are going to put yourself out in public you have to be willing to suffer the consequences.

 

There we were, on a street corner, sharing the Gospel – not knowing what might befall us…when it happened…

 

A bird pooped on my head.

 

Miguel cleaned it off. I told you that he was a good friend.

My Early Story (19)

 

Retrospective Thoughts

 

In reading about my expulsion from Bible College and arrival in NY you may be thinking, “That’s pretty neat. What a great experience for Bob.” If you are thinking anything along those lines I want to disabuse you of the thought. Yes, it was wonderful meeting the Spanish-speaking Christians of NY and I treasure what they taught me and most of all their friendship. I also treasure George Will – I have been blessed to know him and without my early exposure to our inner life in Christ, which came through George, my life would be much the poorer.

 

On the other hand, I didn’t have an adult male or males mentoring me, guiding me, directing me, and holding me accountable. I had been a poster boy for The Little Church in NW D.C. and for the church in Silver Spring, MD. Then I was a poster-boy of sorts for the NY circles I was in – and George, well, George I’m sure did the best he could with me, but I don’t recall direction or challenge from him either.

 

I had been a Christian for less than a year after my arrival in NY – and this poster boy was anything but mature, in fact I was markedly immature and self-centered. I needed a framework within which to live and I didn’t have it. I needed accountability and didn’t have it. I was building a house without a foundation and it was not a good thing.

 

The fact that I could speak publicly and that I knew the Bible reasonably well (I use the term "knew" in a sense of storyline and data rather than in a sense of understanding and wisdom) didn't mean that I had internal character or maturity. I've seen this mistake made throughout my life in the church, with both young and old. How many times have I seen a successful businessperson come to Christ and be given a position of leadership in the church without a period of discipleship? Too many. It's the same thinking.

 

This lack of direction and accountability would cost me dearly in my early adult life – and so my point is that responsible accountable relationships are critical in formative years (actually in all seasons of life) and that if you are young that you should seek out older folks to mentor you – and ask them to hold you accountable. If you are older – consider approaching younger people to come alongside them in an intentional and accountable fashion – not controlling, but accountable, there is a difference.

 

If you are a pastor or church elder – every young person in your congregation should have someone walking alongside him or her. The liftoff is critical for the Space Shuttle, if its trajectory is off the mission will be off; yet we let our teenagers and young adults launch their lives without helping them with their trajectory, we abdicate responsibility. Whatever the reasons we do this we need to get over it, take the risk, and get involved in the lives of our teenagers and young adults – and this includes young married couples.

 

Our young people need much more than programs or cool music or hip-hop or “contemporary” services and events – they need relationships – which seem to be one of the things we don’t have time for anymore.

My Early Story (18)

 

George Will After NY

 

As I mentioned earlier, the last time I saw George was in 1977 in Gainesville, FL and the last time I talked with George was a few weeks ago when he called from Italy [the first edition of this was written in 2010].

 

After our brief time together in 1977 I talked with him a time or two over the phone that same year but then I don’t think we spoke until shortly after September 11, 2001. That was a 24-year interval. If I did talk to him during those intervening years I don’t remember – kind of sad in a sense, no, not my memory, rather the fact that we didn’t keep up communication. But again, I continued to pray for him and his kids and I’m sure he continued to pray for me and I guess that’s a higher form of communication – kind of like using heaven’s switchboard.

 

Now if you aren’t sure what a switchboard is let me refer you to old black and white movies, or to the Smithsonian Museum of American History, or to your grandparents. While you’re at it check out “party lines” and “rotary” phones and phone numbers that begin with two letters, like WH6-9456. The WH stands for Whitehall, that was our exchange back in Kensington, MD. Oh, and if you try WH6-9456 and I answer see if Rod Serling is listening in because that was our actual phone number and if I answer I think we’ve got another storyline. Who is Rod Serling you ask? Ask your grandparents or try the Smithsonian or try black and white television.

 

Okay, back to George. I called him a day or two after 9/11 at his parents’ home and was told that he was in Italy but that he was trying to make it to the States. Then a week or two later I called back and he was there and we talked.

 

After that it was 2007 or so before we talked again. I had been telling some guys in my church about George and a few days later the phone rang and it was him – pretty neat. Since then he usually calls when he is in the States – though three times he has called from Italy. One time he called from Italy when I was with a group of men and I put him on the speaker so the guys could say “hi” to this man I’d been telling them about – that was fun.

 

When I saw George in Gainesville in 1977 it was bittersweet for me because I had changed – I wasn’t the kid George had known and that may have thrown him, I’m not sure. Also, our thinking about some things had gone different ways – though we were both anchored in Jesus there were some doctrinal areas that I had moved away from in terms of emphasis – and when I realized that George took it for granted (which he had every reason to do) that I was still tracking with him about certain points of emphases I decided to shy away from those areas out of respect for him.

 

I think one of the things that happened was that I was exposed to different Christian traditions and had a lot of cross-pollination, while my guess is that George worked within more confined settings. Having written this, however, I think I should also mention that George approaches everyone everywhere and doesn’t know a stranger – but he is also pretty intense and his intensity can be tough for some religious types to swallow – if you are not sure what you believe you’ll find that out pretty quickly if you’re around George.

 

Our phone conversations the past few years have affirmed that we share the same center of gravity in Jesus Christ, going back to our relationship at the Bible College – we both believe that only God can live the Christian life and that He desires to live it in us and through us.

 

In one of our 2007 or 2008 conversations I sensed that George was assuming that I had bought into certain toxic attitudes and practices in the North American Church – exchanging the Biblical for the pragmatic you might say. I wrote him a letter – he had gone to  Italy – setting the record straight. He called from Italy and apologized. It mattered to me what George thought because he had built so much into my early years; I wanted him to know that I was still on track with the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ.

 

I have known few people as unashamed of Jesus and as openly in love with Jesus as George Will. I have known few people as dependent on Jesus for daily direction and provision as George – I am in diapers compared to George. I have never known anyone who so consistently focuses on Jesus in his words and actions as George.

 

Maybe I’ll hear from George again and maybe I won’t – he’s getting up there in years; but of one thing I’m certain, I will see him again and then we’ll do some real catching-up.