by Gerald Whitely | Oct 19, 2015 | Friday Update
In 1992 I took a group of Americans to the Ukraine to distribute New Testaments. On the way in and out of Romania, we stayed with a pastor near Suceava in the little village of Impotesţi. Pastor Viorel Condreanu was a gracious host with five daughters. The winters are bitter in Romania and their outhouse was drafty. So the girls had covered the cracks in the outhouse with posters. They had pictures from magazines, but stiffer posters could better hold out the winter winds. With my first trip to the outhouse, I examined the walls. I laughed as I saw all of the discarded political posters. All over the outhouse were posters of the former dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu! He was where he deserved to be: in the...
by Gerald Whitely | Oct 19, 2015 | Friday Update
My son, Phillip and Pastor Florin’s son, Cipri hit it off in Romania. That was sort of scary, because those two were bad news together. Phillip came in one day and said that he and Cipri had been hunting. “Hunting?” I said. “Yes, hunting,” Phillip said. “Do you want to watch?” he asked. Well, my curiosity was up so I agreed to go on their next hunting trip. The next day, they announced that they were going hunting and I could go with them and watch. We walked behind the house to a small shed where everything was stored. I noticed Cipri had a cat tucked under his arm. Phillip and Cipri found a storage barrel of wheat that had a lid on it. Phillip lifted the lid, Cipri threw in the cat, and Phillip quickly put the lid back in place. The two boys smiled at each other, and in about a minute Phillip removed the lid. Sitting in the barrel of wheat was the cat with a mouse in its mouth. A successful...
by Gerald Whitely | Oct 9, 2015 | Friday Update
Last week was Jude Boeyeo’s birthday. Jude attends a university in Yaoundé, Cameroon. I met Jude in 2005 when Kathy and I visited missionary friends, Ben and Becca Sinclair. Jude lived just down the hill from Ben and helped keep Ben’s yard. Grass mowing is important in Cameroon in order to keep poisonous snakes away from the house. Jude and his mother wanted to give us a gift, so they brought us a live chicken. We thanked them and asked Jude if he would butcher it for us. Becca asked if Jude and his mother would like to keep the organs and entrails. They were pleased and did. They brought us the dressed chicken. Kathy made two chicken casseroles and we took one down to Jude’s house. He and his mother lived in a one room mud hut with a tin roof and a dirt floor. They cooked on an open campfire that was in the middle of the hut. Their front door was a ragged cloth curtain. When they went to town or church, they had to lock all of their possessions in a wooden chest because they had no door. How thoughtful and giving they were to us. They had so little, but shared it with us, who had so much. Through their gift, we were blessed. Happy Birthday,...
by Gerald Whitely | Oct 9, 2015 | Friday Update
It was 2000 and we were staying overnight in Metz, France on our way from Holland to Romania. We had a group of high school and college students from Mt. View Baptist Church in Hisperia, California. We had walked from our hotel to a little pastry shop downtown. One of our kids gave a tract to a young man, who seemed interested. Between my sparse French and his little bit of English, we were able to communicate somewhat. I offered him “petit déjèuner” – breakfast, so he came into the shop with our group. Each of us, including the young man, picked out a pastry which went into the to-go box on the counter. But as I was handing the cashier a bill, the young man grabbed the box and ran out the door. We were caught off guard, and in a moment, the young man was gone . . . with our breakfast! The cashier shrugged and handed me my change. So much for kindness. We had to pick out more doughnuts and I had to pay for them –...
by Gerald Whitely | Oct 9, 2015 | Friday Update
It was the summer of 1992 and I had a group of twenty Americans with me to distribute John & Romans in the small town of Moldova Noua. We were staying in the only hotel in town, which is another interesting story. We ate breakfast in the hotel and stamped invitations for the nightly meetings after breakfast. Then we loaded up the vans and went to a neighboring village each day and distributed the John/Romans and held an evangelistic meeting that evening. We traveled to the pastor’s home village one Saturday, which was way up on top of a mountain nearby. It took us an hour to get to the top of the mountain and our little vehicles didn’t ever get out of first gear the entire time! We had a wonderful meeting and a sumptuous lunch afterwards at the Pastor’s sister’s home. Pastor Adolphie Copriva’s brother-in-law was a gracious host and his family had set a wonderful table for all of us. And there was indeed a bunch of us! There were twenty of us Americans, our three translators and others who were our guides – probably over 40 people for lunch. Pastor Adolphie’s sister was out back cooking for all of us. I wandered out back to visit her and saw her cooking for all of us on her little wood cook stove. It was a hot day and she was sweating up a storm. But what I noticed was the smile on her face. She was not frustrated with the large crowd and the heat of the day, she was happy to be a blessing to...
