FATHER HOLLAND

All of our friends know that Carol and I have two sons. However, not many are aware that on one occasion I was placed in a very special situation where I was "Father" for a day, or at least, part of a day. I hasten to explain.


On a visit to Bolivia it was my duty and pleasure to visit the church at Baja Pampajasi where Bro. Allejandro Flores was pastor. I was to preach the morning message, and was told that at the close of the service a Catholic lady was to become a convert. Many of her friends had been converted and she had seen the great change in their lives. Now she had made up her mind and announced the fact. Possibly the great change had already taken place in her heart, but the way to do this thing was to "go public" at the altar.


At the close of the message, I made an appeal to the unconverted. It was the custom there for the women to sit at the left of the speaker and the men at the right. From the back of the church a lady headed for the altar, and from the other side of the church a man followed. To the surprise of all, it was her husband. Together they burst out in tears and earnest praying. Spanish was a puzzle to me, and Aymara was something else. I'm not sure what the mixture was, but felt they were sure what they were after, and that praying like that would be answered.


After a while they both looked up at me with tears on their cheeks but with smiling faces. Each one had something to say, but I don't know what it was. Many of those people are bilingual, but I, for all those courses in Latin and Greek, was still locked up in English as far as conversation is concerned.


These new converts had perhaps often gone to the Catholic Confessional with sad faces and heavy hearts to tell the priest, the Father, their sins. Now, they had gone to a higher level and were hilariously happy about it. They were making their confession to me, and I knowing only a bit of their language, could only say "God bless you" in Spanish. I think that the missionary and the Bolivian pastor were thinking that they were having all the fun in observing my awkward performance, but they had it all wrong.


It was one of the high points of the whole trip!