Profile - A Little Church in NW D.C. PART THREE

In the summer of 1966 the denominational conference to which the little church belonged had a camp meeting outside Frostburg, MD. The first week was a youth camp and the second week was an all-church camp - I think I have the sequence right. Anyway it was two weeks. An older couple from the church drove me to Frostburg. It was hot. Since the car didn't have air conditioning we rode with the windows down. The wife put her right arm through the sleeve of a shirt so that it wouldn't get sunburned while resting on the car door during the ride. 

I don't recall discussing the camp with either of my parents, though I must of done so with my Mom. In essence I decided I was going and that was it. On the other hand, thinking back, the folks at the little church must have done some behind the scenes work for me - otherwise how could I have gone? I didn't have any money to speak of. I didn't pay anything to go. I did agree to work at the soda fountain in the conference center during the two weeks, but that would hardly pay for two week's of camp meeting. 

(By this time I was either living at my Mom's or I decided to live with her upon my return from camp. My return ride was via a widowed Dad who had kids at the camp and who belonged to a church in Silver Spring. Since my Mom lived in Rockville he gave me a ride to her house on his way back to Silver Spring from Frostburg.)

Camp was great. Being around other teenagers was neat. The services were exciting. During the regular camp meeting week I sang in the choir and loved it. Pastor Valentine from Baltimore led the choir and generated excitement in everything he did. I still recall some of the songs we sang: It Took A Miracle, The Song of the Soul Set Free, A New Name In Glory, Wonderful Grace of Jesus - oh how we sang those songs! I was in heaven.

Sometimes the other kids talked to me about things I didn't understand. Once I was asked my opinion about whether women should "bob" their hair. I didn't have a clue. Then one morning, following a night at which I'd been at the altar for quite sometime with people praying around me, the other kids wanted to know if I'd been sanctified or baptized with the Holy Spirit. I didn't know what they were talking about. I did try to understand - but wasn't sure what was going on with me or what they were talking about. I suppose I was the first teenager from outside the denomination to have attended the camp in a while.

If you are reading this with a critical attitude give it a break. You see, the story here is that these kids accepted me, they invited me into their lives. These adults were kind to me - a kid who needed kindness. That camp meeting gave me something that I had never experienced - and it is only as I write this now, almost 44 years later, that I see it ever so clearly - that camp meeting introduced me to joy. 

Singing in that choir, having wholesome fun with other teenagers, being around adults who were kind - I felt safe...and I experienced joy. This joy is more than emotion, it is the joy of which C.S. Lewis speaks, a joy found in beauty, a joy found in a window of time, a joy found in a vision, and a joy found in others. Joy penetrates our heavens in many ways - it first penetrated my heavens in a camp meeting in Frostburg, MD in 1966.

Profile - A Little Church in NW D.C. PART TWO

As I mentioned in my last post, the pastor of this little church was Walter Veasel. Walter and his wife had, I think, three children and lived on the other side of Baltimore. He was a school teacher. As an adult reflecting back on Walter, I wonder how he managed to be a husband, a father, a school teacher, and pastor a church that was easily over an hour from home - probably 1 1/2 hours. It's hard to imagine that Walter was in the ministry for himself. It must have been hard for Mrs. Veasel and the kids too - all that traveling, no other children in the church, long Sundays.

Years later I met Walter in Baltimore. He had since assumed the pastorate of a church in the Baltimore area whose meeting house had been destroyed by a hurricane - and thanks to insurance and Federal disaster aid a brand new facility had been constructed - I was happy for Walter.

I wasn't at the little church in N.W. D.C. for very long, for after my conversion tension between my Dad and I was such that I moved back to my Mom's in Maryland and I attended a sister church in Silver Spring. But for the time I was at the little church the people did the best they could and I'll always be thankful for that and be thankful for those long trips Walter Veasel made every Wednesday night and every Sunday to serve a little congregation that could give him nothing material in return for his long hours of travel, ministry, and preparation. 

I've seen others like Walter in my life. Men and women who do things that don't make material or temporal sense. Men and women who do things for which there is no apparent "return on their investment". I'm reminded of the woman who poured out precious ointment on the feet of Jesus, it didn't make sense to the disciples, they termed it a waste. 

Who knows where I might be if not for Walter? Suppose he hadn't been there and there had been no church? Of course we don't know the answers to questions like that, but we do know that God put Walter there, and that Walter was there when I came, and that he drove me home that first Wednesday night. I don't recall a thing that Walter said - but I remember that Pastor Walter Veasel was there - and I think that says a lot.

Profile - A Little Church in NW D.C. PART ONE

Howard Wall's church (see previous post on Howard) was in Seat Pleasant, MD, too far for me to travel. I did visit Howard one weekend and attended his church, which was Southern Baptist - some of my best friends are Southern Baptist, no kidding. They had a visiting preacher that Sunday and his message was from Matthew 23. I recall Howard commenting about the fact the preacher used the RVS, which meant nothing to me at the time. 

I visited the local Presbyterian Church in Georgetown by going to speak to an associate pastor. He gave me a booklet which explained the church year, church symbols, vestments, and the like. I'd only been reading the Bible for a few weeks, but when I realized that he didn't know where the Lord's Prayer was, and I did, well that sealed the deal - I thought the Lord's Prayer was probably more important than vestments and symbols.

I visited a Baptist Church in Georgetown, it was a communion Sunday. The folks were gracious and invited me to take communion - I guess that was my first communion come to think of it. They were all elderly, which was neither here or there to me in terms of age, but it was all rather subdued.

There was a cashier at the Food Mart who invited me to her church. I first went on a Wednesday night. I must have taken the bus, or maybe I rode with her, I can't remember. After the prayer meeting the pastor, Walter Veasel, drove me to the apartment I shared with my Dad on Wisconsin Ave. I returned on Sunday.

It was a little church, and other than the pastor's children I was the only one under 30, and I'm not sure there were many under 40. I guess there weren't more than 40 people on a good Sunday. They were old time Pentecostal - of course I didn't know what being Pentecostal meant anymore than I would have known what being a Seventh Day Adventist meant. I knew about the Washington Senators and NY Yankees, and I knew who in my old neighborhood were Baptists, Presbyterians, Catholics, and Methodists, and I knew that my classmate Donny Rothburg was Jewish, but beyond that Pentecostals were like a hockey team to me - I'd never seen ice hockey and didn't know the rules.

The excitement was great on Sundays, the exuberance intoxicating, and the praying...well I'd never heard praying like that - not that I'd ever heard much praying. The people were serious. More importantly, they welcomed me as best they knew how. 

I often think back to that little church when I read the latest and greatest ways to reach youth. That church didn't have a youth program. It didn't have good music. It didn't have anyone my age. But those people welcomed me as best they knew how and I came back. We make things too complicated. 

To be continued...