Moving Forward

The next couple of hours were spent greeting people and sharing time together. When they finally got back into Pedro’s truck for the trip home, Danny said, “Pedro, you know your people did far more for us than we did for them. You know that, Don’t you?”
Pedro thought for a minute, then said, “No, I do not know that Padre. You and Pastor Davy were the first people in this country to even treat us as humans. Others smiled at us when they wanted much labor for little money. Like the man said tonight, you smiled at us, gave us a miracle, then went away. No, I do not know that, Padre.”
When the two arrived at Mrs. Peele’s, most of the lights were out. Everyone was asleep. Danny and Davy took seats on the front porch.
Danny rocked back in the chair. “It looks like we have the world’s first Baptist Episcopal church. My question is, what do we do with it?”
“Danny, I don’t want to get too gushy in the God stuff, but that church was given to us for a reason. You think maybe God does want us to do something special with it?”
“Oh, I have no doubt he does, but what?”
“That, my friend, I have no idea, but we do owe those people Sunday services. If you want to go Episcopal, I can get a Spanish book of Common Prayer and be good to go. And since you can speak Spanish and I can’t, and you are so damn good at preaching, I guess we have the Baptist part pretty well covered. But, what we don’t have covered is two congregations in town who may not appreciate their pastors moonlighting.”
“Ohhh, I hadn’t thought about that,” said Davy, But you know something, I believe that’s one of those bridges we’ll just have to cross when we get there.”
The two stood, shouted a muffled, “Yes,” and jumped up giving each other a high-five. When they did, an envelope fell out of Davy’s back pocket onto the floor.
“What’s that?” questioned Danny.
“Something Pedro gave me tonight at the church, but to be honest, I was so emotional I forgot about it.”
“Probably a card or something,” said Davy as he sat back down.
“Yea, probably, but I didn’t know Hallmark had cards for occasions like tonight.”
Danny watched Davy read what was in the envelope. Davy turned totally white and said, “Danny, Saint Davy’s and Saint Daniel’s. . .”
“The church, yes, what about it?”
“Did you know it was on nineteen acres of land?”
“How would I know that? How would you know it?”
“Because it’s right here on the deed.”
“The deed?”
“Yes, a deed made out to Reverend David Tate and Reverend Daniel West. Dude, tonight when they said ‘Padres we give you this church with our gratitude,’ they actually gave us the church, hell, they gave us the whole camp.”
“No, no, no,” said Danny, “that’s not right.”
“You look at it then,” said Davy as he handed the paper to Danny.
Danny looked at the sheet of paper and turned as white as Davy. He began shaking his head. “No, we didn’t do this for any kind of personal gain. It’s never been for personal gain.”
“You’re right, we would never do it for money.”
“I think the best thing for us to do is to be at that camp in the morning. We need to straighten this out. This is just wrong.”
“I agree. We need to be at the camp in the morning at sunrise. I guess that’s when they leave for work.”
“Can we even find the place, it was out in the country, do you remember how to get there?”
“No, but the address is right there on the deed. Somebody can tell us how to get there.”
As the sun lifted over the woods, Davy and Danny pulled in the road to the camp. There was a neat sign beside the road they hadn’t noticed the night before, “Camp Eden”. Sitting on a hill in the center of the camp was a beautiful white church and the sign they had seen inside the night before had been placed in the front. The gold leaf letters of “Saint David and Saint Daniel Baptist Episcopal Church” glowed in the morning sun. The two sat silent in the car looking at the sight.
Danny broke the spell, “We need to find Pedro,” he said. Just then a man came out onto the lawn and lit a cigarette. “I’ll go ask that guy,” said Danny.
“Oh, you’ve learned Spanish now?” said Davy as he opened the car door and stepped out.
Danny watched Davy speak with the man and he got a lump in his throat as he watched the man pull Davy to him and give him a hug. Davy returned to the car, “Down the path, third cabin from the front. The man said there is a cross on the door.”
“Why am I not surprised?” commented Danny.
They drove to the house and tapped on the door. A yawning Pedro came to the door obviously surprised to have visitors.
“Pedro, can we talk?”
“Si, Padre. Please come, sit.” Pedro motioned them to the edge of the small porch in the front of his cabin.
“Is something wrong, Padres. Have we done something to–“
”No, Pedro,” began Davy, “nothing is wrong. Yes, something is wrong. It looks like your people gave us the church and the camp.”
“Si,” said Pedro matter-of-factly.
“We have done nothing, and I mean nothing, to deserve such a great honor.”
As Davy was speaking, Danny looked at the camp. Labor camps were always the property of a landowner and were the least that could be offered. But here, there were no ramshackle cabins or block barracks, just neat rows of small, neatly painted cabins sitting on neatly trimmed grass. If anything, the camp was pristine.
Pedro looked confused. “May I go get Signor Fuentes, he is a wise man and can explain much better than me.”
“Yes, please, my friend, do.”