Welcome to the Journal of Dr. Gerald Whitely
Ceausescu in the Outhouse
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 outhouse!
Hunting with a Cat
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 hunt!
Jude Boeyeo
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, Jude!
Thief in Metz, France
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 – again.
Czech Village in the Mountains
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 all of us! She was doing what she could to help! What a blessed testimony!
Sunglasses in the Outhouse
In the summer of 1993 my son and daughter went to Romania with me and stayed for a month with Pastor Florin in Haţeg while I traveled to other places in the country. Philip and Becky had Bible schools for the kids in several villages. The kids’ favorite activity was learning American songs. Pastor Florin’s son, Cipri and his daughter, Corina, were the interpreters. Corina, loved to wear Phillip’s sunglasses and borrowed them every opportunity that she had. All was well until the day they were all in Simeria, where a new church was being built. During construction, an outhouse was the only facility available. Corina went in to use the outhouse, but came out upset. She had dropped Phillip’s sunglasses into the toilet. Phillip told her to go and get his sunglasses, but Corina was cool. She told him exactly where they were, and he could go get them if he wanted to. It only took Phillip a moment to decide that he did not want to retrieve his sunglasses.
Reaching Romania Beginning
The first time that I went to Romania was in August of 1990, just after the revolution. There were four of us. Ron Kuhns was the only one who had been there before. He told me of their hunger for gospel literature. I found a Mennonite publishing house in Ephrata, Pennsylvania that had hardback Romanian New Testaments for $5 each. I bought 200 of them along with several hundred gospel tracts, which were packed into two duffle bags. We flew into Frankfort, Germany and rented a small Opel Vectra car. The car was packed so full that two bags had to be strapped onto the trunk lid of the car – those two duffle bags with Scriptures in them! We crossed borders into Austria, Hungary, and finally into Romania. The countryside was beautiful, but the cities were crowded and drab. As we traveled across Romania to Braila, our destination, we would stop in a town and distribute some of the literature. We looked for a quiet park and would begin to give away tracts. Within minutes, we would attract such a crowd that we would have to move to another location. I have one wonderful scene burned into my memory: Our pastor, Clif Roth, was a big man. There he was with a handful of tracts and little kids crowding around him so much that he had to hold the tracts above his head with one hand while handing them down one at a time with the other hand. The children were so intent on getting their own piece of paper that they were a mobbing Pastor Roth! He was patient, but frazzled. One little boy climbed up a nearby tree crawling out onto a limb just above Brother Roth in order to get at the handful of tracts that Pastor held above his head! What a beautiful picture of hunger for spiritual information!
Charlie Frazier
In 1993 we took a team of twenty Americans to distribute John and Romans Scripture portions that we had printed the year before. We flew in to Munich, Germany and rented three vans driving through Austria and Hungary and into Romania. We stayed with Brother Florin Doboş in Haţeg in central Transylvania for a couple of days before going on to Braila on the eastern side of Romania. Charlie Frazier and his wife from Ft. Payne, Alabama were in the group. They had a kids meeting while we had evangelistic meetings for the adults. We had three days in Braila before moving on. The first night Charlie had about twenty children. Brother Charlie told them that if they brought a friend, their friend would get a piece of candy and they would get a piece of candy. So the next night he had thirty-eight children. The same promise was given. The third night, Brother Charlie came to me in a panic. He said, “We have a problem.” I asked, “What’s wrong, Charlie?” He said, “We have two hundred children tonight!” I answered, “That isn’t a problem; that’s what we have been hoping and praying for!” Brother Charlie relaxed, we rounded up more workers, and they had a wonderful time that evening.
Mariexus, Romania
In 1992 we stayed with Viorel Candreanu in the village of Impotesţi near the city of Suceava. Pastor Viorel had a large church in Suceava and preached at several smaller churches in the surrounding towns. We stayed at his house and distributed Scriptures during the daytime. As we drove our rented vans back and forth each day, we passed a soccer field that looked absolutely immaculate. The grass was short and well-manicured – the field looked beautiful. The village was Mariexus, but the local kids called it Marie-Texas. Obviously, they were proud of their little town. Our interpreter who was with us each day told us that the field wasn’t all that great. He knew the whole story: the grass was well cropped because of the sheep that grazed there. But with grazing sheep comes sheep manure. And the bare-footed kids of Mariexus had a reputation among their opponents. You could smell them a kilometer off!
Beer in Petrosani
It was a hot, hot day in Romania in 1991. We had a group of twenty Americans distributing New Testaments that we had bought from Couriers for Christ in Oshkosh, Wisconsin and shipped over to Romania. We divided up our group sending the three vans in separate directions in order to cover more territory in the town of Petrosani. We paired up taking as many New Testaments as we could carry. My wife, Kathy and her dear friend Wilma went off together. After some time, I went to find them. I found Kathy nearby on the sidewalk trying to get the lid off of a dark brown bottle. I took one look and exclaimed, “What are you doing!” She answered, “We gave this man a New Testament and he gave us a bottle of mineral water. I’m just trying to get the lid off of it.” I responded, “That’s not mineral water, that’s beer!” Haţegana bottled mineral water and beer and used the same looking bottles. You had to read the paper label carefully in order to tell the difference. Kathy said, “What should I do?” I said, “Just put it down on the sidewalk.” We both had a good laugh on the way back to the van.
Dr. Matthew
In 2003 I met Dr. Matthew Gwangfongbang, the chancellor of ENS teacher college in Bambilli, Cameroon Africa. He was cordial and invited me back to speak to his teaching students, and again in 2007 and in 2010. He had written several biology textbooks and we had good discussions about the Bible and biological evolution. He told me in 2010 that he was retiring the following year. Today (November 13, 2013) Ben Sinclair (my missionary friend) and I visited several schools to set up lectures for next week. The new director of ENS was pleasant and scheduled me for a meeting. We visited several other schools, ending up at Bamenda University of Science and Technology in the early afternoon. Ben had been unable to get through to the registrar earlier in the week and had only been able to leave a brochure for him with the secretary. Again, today the registrar was in an interview with prospective teachers and could not be disturbed. It looked like a wash-out. Ben was making a cell call as we sat in his Toyota. Suddenly, Ben nudged me and pointed. I looked up and was surprised to see Dr. Matthew Gwangfongbang walk by! I jumped out of the car, caught up with him, and called out his name. He was speechless as we shook hands, neither of us expecting to see the other. After pleasantries were exchanged, he told Ben and me that he had personally known the founder of B.U.S.T., who had passed away the previous year. The widow had asked Dr. Matthew to come and help run the school. After a year of begging, Dr. Matthew relented and came out of retirement. He was now the chancellor of the school that Ben and I had been unable to penetrate! After hearing why we were there on campus, Dr. Matthew marched right into the registrar’s office, interrupted the interview, and whisked the registrar out to meet his dear friend, “Dr. Professor Gerald Whitely.” God’s timing is perfect. I am sure we will have a lecture at B.U.S.T. next week.
Bus Ride in Venezuela
We were in Venezuela visiting Brother Carlos Arce and his church in the 90’s. We had a group of five seniors from Calvary Christian school and were at Brother Arce’s church in Barquisimeto. Stephen Arce asked if I wanted to help on a construction project out in the countryside. I agreed, and we were off. We rode for about an hour and then worked all morning digging a cistern in his back yard. Venezuela has such sporadic water service that everyone needs a storage tank to fill when water is available. After lunch, Stephen and I took a bus back to town. But when the bus arrived, it was already filled – even the standing room was filled. But not to worry: the bus was equipped with handles on the frame on the outside of the door. Stephen and I stood on the running board at the door and hung on to the handles. At every stop sign and red light, we jumped off and gave our arms a rest. Stephen said that we were actually lucky: since we were on the outside of the bus, we didn’t have to pay to ride.