Another week, Another opportunity.

That afternoon, after the last person left the church, Danny and Davy walked back toward the cabins. “Did you notice the time?” asked Davy.
“Not really, I forgot my watch this morning.”
“It’s almost one thirty.”
“You need to check your watch, fella. That means we would have been in church over two hours. That could never happen.”
“I know. Usually the people start squirming by eleven forty-five. By noon, their feet are pointed toward the door.”
“That’s the truth. We may have gone a few minutes over, but not an hour and a half.”
Just then, they walked past one of the buildings in the camp. Davy stopped Danny, tugged at his shirt and pointed at a window. “See that clock inside? What does it say?”
Danny looked and said, “That is impossible. We were in there for two and a half hours. That is impossible. Nobody left.”
“Danny, the service this morning was good. It was really good.”
“Yea, but Davy, two and a half hours?”
“The thing with the communion went for a good thirty or forty minutes. I imagine by the time all the questions were answered it went well over an hour. That sermon of yours. . . I can’t say enough good about that sermon.”
Danny’s face lit up. “Did I almost give a good Baptist sermon?”
“Oh, I think you went well past it. If you had have thrown in a few altar calls, you could have almost made it to level three.”
“Level three, what is level three?”
“A Pentecostal Holiness sermon with people jumping, screaming, yelling and speaking in tongues.”
“Is there a level four?”
“Yea, but you don’t want to go there, it’s real hard on the furniture.”
“Ohhh, that good?”
“That good?”
The two laughed, then Davy’s smile faded. “Two and a half hours, I’ll bet we won’t have twenty people here next week.”
“If that’s all we have, we’ll give those twenty people the best service we can muster. Agreed?” smiled Danny.
“Totally agreed, Padre.”

Tuesday evening the phone rang in Danny’s cabin.
“Father West,” Danny answered.
“Preacher West?” asked the man on the phone.
“Yes.”
“The preacher at St. Egbert’s Episcopal Church?”
“Yes sir, for now, one in the same.”
“Preacher, I just heard something and I just wanted to check and see if it was true.”
“What is that, sir?”
“Fella said he went to that Mexican church of yours last Sunday and somebody there said there was a couple of things in the Bible that didn’t agree.”
“Okay.”
“You’re not denying it?”
“No sir, there are quite a few things in the Bible where the ones who wrote the gospels don’t agree.”
“Look, I was told the Bible is the word of God. Ain’t that what you were told?”
“Yes sir, we consider the Bible the inspired word of God. I don’t see a problem.”
“No, you miss my point. Is the Bible the word of God? Either it is, or it ain’t. Which is it. If God wrote the thing, God don’t make no mistakes.”
“Sir, the Bible was written by men. We like to believe that God inspired the men who wrote the books of the Bible to write the words they wrote. The men who selected what would go into the Bible believed the books were inspired works, inspired by God.”
“Men who selected? I don’t understand.”
“Books to be included in the Bible were selected over several years. Some books made it, some books didn’t.”
“Who did this decidin’?”
“Several hundred bishops about sixteen, seventeen hundred years ago. Over time, they voted on what would be included and what wouldn’t. It was a long process.”
“Bishops? What kind of bishops?”
“Catholic bishops.”
“An’ they voted? Catholic bishops?”
“Yes. That is correct.”
“I was always told God wrote the Bible and it couldn’t have no mistakes because God wrote it.”
“All I can tell you, sir, is the way it happened.”
“An’ that was the way it happened?”
“That was the way it happened.”
An abrupt,“Thank you” followed and then a dial tone.
Danny was concerned about the phone conversation and grabbed two cold drinks and headed for Davy’s cabin. When he arrived, he told Davy about the phone call. Davy laughed and shook his head. “You’ve had one call? I’ve had eight. Same questions the man asked you and I give them the same answers you gave. The way I figure it, these people think that one day God decided he would write a book. He sat down at his desk and started writing. When he was through, he decided he would call his book the ‘Holy Bible’. He dropped the book from Heaven to earth and from then on, we had the Bible.”
“Nobody’s that stupid, Davy.”
“Maybe not, but what did the man who called you think?”
Danny just looked at Davy and shook his head. Davy was right.
“And that part about the bishops deciding? Try telling some yellow dog Baptist that the Bible that they worship so fervently was put together by a bunch of Catholic bishops. Try it. They go ballistic!”
“We were worried about not having twenty next Sunday, you figure we need to cut that number in half?”
“That still may be generous. Tell you what, if nobody shows up, why don’t we just go fishing?”
“You got it, brother.”
But it didn’t work that way. Sunday morning, one of the men knocked on Danny’s door. “Padre, you need to come right away. Someone has gone to get Padre Davy.”
“What’s the problem, Fernando. Is someone hurt?”
“No, Padre, please come.”
As Danny stepped off the porch, he looked toward the church. Cars filled every available space. “And Padre, the cars are lined up well down the road. The cars fill the road.”
“Just then, Davy ran up beside Danny. I cannot believe this.”
“You can’t. I can’t either.”
“Padres, what should we do? There’s so many people.”
“Fernando,” said Danny. “I don’t know what you need to do, but Padre Davy and I need to play Baptist.”
“Pardon Padre, I do not understand.”
Davy smiled and placed his hand on Fernando’s shoulder. “What Padre Danny means, Fernando, is that we need to go do something bigger and better.”
“Can we do it? Davy?”
“Hell, Danny, we’ve got to do it.”
And they did it bigger, and they did it better. Each week the crowds increased. People who had always looked upon going to church as a duty, an obligation, something they had rather not do, were now flocking to the little church in the middle of Camp Eden. Each week, Danny and Davy took something from the Bible and showed in detail the history of the chapter or verse and, above all, how it related to every person there.
For the balance of the spring and that summer, when the weather was nice, church was held outside on the lawn. On cooler days or when it was raining, as many people as could huddled in the little church. Those who couldn’t get in  gathered as close as possible. Regardless of whether the people sat or stood, regardless if the heat came from the furnace in the church or from a wool blanket they brought, when the people left the little church, God had new meaning. God wasn’t some far off entity floating on a cloud. God was their friend. God was someone they were beginning to know better and God was someone who already knew them.