This is a new series of very short items about spiritually meaningful moments in the lives of our Caribbean saints. We will be delighted to receive your “moment,” but to avoid the distraction of personal authorship, they will be published anonymously.
MEANINGFUL MOMENTS-1
For me, a truly meaningful moment was when I visited the late Bro. Enos Campbell of Argyle Mountain ecclesia in Jamaica when he was critically ill in Cornwall Regional Hospital in Montego Bay.
The ward was deathly quiet when I approached. His bed was completely screened. A nurse lifted a corner of the screen and I slipped inside. Enos was propped uncomfortably against a pile of pillows, breathing in slow, shallow sighs. His eyes had lost their customary glint of humor. He was obviously in very great distress.
I ventured very tentatively, “I wonder if we could have a prayer?” An amazingly strong, sterling voice responded in his always precisely grammatical English: “Of course, my brother. For whom would you like me to pray?”
MEANINGFUL MOMENTS— 2
Visiting the Arima ecclesia in northern Trinidad was my greatest experience. For anyone it is a spiritual thrill. For me it was like climbing a spiritual mountain peak. At this meeting are brethren, sisters and friends of high understanding and practical wisdom, with fervent brotherly love, a godly spirit and a truly awesome knowledge and appreciation of the word of God. May God bless those faithful ones who labor in this part of God’s vineyard.
MEANINGFUL MOMENTS —3
It was a dusty, overcrowded urbanizacion in Panama. The ranks of multistorey tenements devour the handbills (tracts) delivered by a chattering group of young Christadelphian campaigners. One old man looked for a long while at the invitation I had given him.
“Cristadelfianos?”, he queried. “Here in Panama?”
“Yes, you may not have heard of us before, but we do hold regular meetings about the Bible. And we have a new meeting hall not far from here!”
He studied me long and hard. “Fifty years ago, early in the twentieth century, my mother taught me insistently that the Cristadelfianos ‘believed the truth.’ All her life she was the only member in this big city. She gave me Sunday School lessons, and said, ‘Son, you must never forget what I have taught you. You are to keep a lookout, and if ever you meet one of them, hold on and you will find the hidden treasure.’ She really believed that, however long it would take, God would lead me to you eventually.”
The inexpressible joy of this old man when he became a new man in Christ was a magic moment in my life.
All preaching/fellowship visits nowadays end at some crowded airport. Leaving Timehri Airport in Guyana after such a visit, I looked back as I walked to the plane to give a final wave to the four Christadelphians who had come to see me off. There they were by a fence, arms intertwined in love: one white, one black, one Indian and one Chinese. They waved and shouted “Next year in Jerusalem.” Then for the first time I understood Mark 16:15.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One