Finding My Way Back

 

Alan

The baby brother I left behind when I began college was now four-years-old. I was still in Spain working with Operation Mobilization. When would I see my family again?

    During the summer of 1967, my team, from the O.M. headquarters in Madrid, joined all the new recruits for the training and prayer conference in Belgium before dispersing throughout Europe for the evangelism crusade. 

    As interpreter for the Spanish-speaking group, I stood behind them, facing the speaker, and relayed the English messages simultaneously in their language. I was young then and could hold out for hours. However, I do remember a few times when I was falling asleep as I continued to interpret almost automatically, until my listeners told me to rest for awhile.

    Another memory included for the first time a certain Michael Koch. He was in charge of the conference facilities and clean-up after the conference in his role as assistant to the O.M. Belgium team leader, Jonathan McRostie. My summer team was the last to leave the premises, so Mike put us to work while we waited. My task was to clean the toilets. He made mental note of my joyfull attitude as I worked; I tend to hum a lot.

   I was assigned to the Carcagente team under Ron Anderson's leadership. In addition to his wife, Shirley, and their three children, there were twelve of us from different countries. Throughout the seven weeks, the numbers varied as new members were added and others left. 

   The six-page report, hidden away in an old album, stirred up blurry images. As I studied the treasured old document, long-forgotten names, faces, places, and events began to come into focus. 

   I searched the map of the autonomous community of Valencia and learned that Carcagente is a town in that province. I was not able to locate or even recognize the more than twenty other cities, villages, towns mentioned in the report.

   I did, however, learn an interesting piece of trivia: Valencia claims to be the birthplace of the orange fruit. From there it spread throughout the world. In Greek mythology there is reference to "golden apples," oranges perhaps? According to Wikipedia:

When Arabs brought orange farming to the Iberian Peninsula, they called the fruits naranjah. The Region of Valencia maintained the orange-farming tradition after the Arabic period, with references to orange trees in the city of Valencia dating back to the 14th century. In fact, there is an Orange Courtyard inside Valencia’s 15th-century Silk Exchange market (La Llotja de la Seda), a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The first references to commercial orange plantations date back to the 18th century.

According to the historical records, in 1781 parish priest Vicente Monzó and two acquaintances, notary and scribe Carlo Maseres and pharmacist Jacinto Bodí, planted the first fields of orange trees in the municipal area of Carcaixent known as Les Basses del Rey. The trees thrived in the land, favoured by the benign Mediterranean climate, and adapted perfectly to Valencian soil both on rain-fed farmland and irrigated land fed by the river Júcar, whose extensive irrigation channel distributed fertile water around the whole of the Ribera Alta. In the early 19th century, orange trees gradually started to replace other crops, such as rice, cereal and mulberries, taking over as the main local crop.

Carcaixent has developed the Orange route to introduce national and foreign visitors to this interesting and celebrated agricultural, commercial and cultural legacy. The project analyses the history of the fruit, providing information on its origins and on the municipality of Carcaixent’s standing as the birthplace of oranges.

    Oranges were not mentioned in the report, but rather of far greater value, the spiritual fruit was enumerated in detail. The varied results came from the Gospel seed planted July and August of 1967 in more than twenty towns through New Testament and Christian literature sales and distribution, personal encounters and conversations, and numerous meetings. More than thirty salvation stories were recorded in the report and ten baptisms took place in the last week.

    What impacted me most was the prayer preparation that went into producing such a harvest, modeled by the pastor of our host church. Juan Llopis was in the habit of retreating to a mountain spot he called "the Temple of God" to cry out for the city, hear from God and rehearse the Sunday sermon seven times as he knelt by a tear-stained stone or trod a worn path. He led us there the first day before we began any evangelistic activity. From then on we retreated once a week to a mountain spot wherever we were on our travels.

   Pastor Llopis had a different special "mountain top" experience when he attended his first O.M. conference in Belgium. In the Sunday evening service he related the experience to his congregation. He read Mark 9 and compared the conference to the Transfiguration experience. A church member who accompanied him said, "This is like heaven." The pastor explained that you could hear singing and praying continually; day and night there was always someone on bended knees. Traveling in the O.M. truck with 20 others had been like two days of "Purgatory," but well worth it! So much so that they now felt like saying with Peter, "Master, it is good for us to be here." However, the last day at 4 AM they had a free ride to visit churches in Holland. There they found situations of disunity and evil in the churches and again could relate to the disciples when they descended from the mountain. Prayer and fasting brought about a change.

    The congregation in Carcagente practiced the discipline of corporate prayer. Over a period of three weeks before the special meetings the last week of the summer campaign, the believers met for an hour of prayer and study every morning and continued during that final week.

    As an example of the move of the Spirit of God in those meetings, I remember that a woman stood up and cried out "I give myself to Jesus!" after the reading of Scripture prior to the sermon. Like in the Acts of the Apostles, the Lord added to the church daily.  

    The promise our team received during our first day on the mountain was from Exodus 34:10: "Before all your people I will do marvels, such as have not been wrought in all the earth or in any nation; and all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the Lord."

    We did indeed see great things, not only in the lives of people we were sent to, but in our very own hearts and lives. I can attest personally to the truth of the following statement from the team report.

Almost every day of this summer we were exhorted to seek God, to search our own hearts, to hear His voice, and the heart cry of our leader has been that even if we don't sell many books or reach many towns that each one of us might experience a real living relationship with our Heavenly Father. We have seen our own lives being changed as one by one we have been broken and touched by His ever so loving Hands. 

    My parents in Argentina followed what God was doing through my letters and urged me to return "home" to Argentina and help start a similar summer crusade. Is that what God would have me do? 

    However, in their correspondence came recurring references to divisive winds stirring in the denomination, an impending schism. I was deeply troubled. Our leader, Ron, sensed this and allowed me to stay back one day for a time alone. Did God want me to go back and be involved at this difficult time?

    On one of the mountain retreats I was comforted by the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. And I also felt He wanted me to return to Argentina.

    The next question was, when and how.

    As I waited for the answer, I would continue singing our team song, Alabaré, alabaré, alabaré a mi Señor. (I will praise my Lord forever more)