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My three-part series, “Martyrs and Exiles in Southern Mexico,” about the religious intolerance in Chiapas, including my own photos, was originally published in World Pulse. Soon afterward, it was reprinted by Indian Life (published by Intertribal Christian Communications, Inc., of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada).

Part One

The murders of evangelical leaders

Confusion and many misconceptions have relegated the true plight of the evangelicals in Chiapas, Mexico, to a shadowy place away from accurate media coverage. The Zapatistas and the recent massacre in the village of Acteal have jumped to center stage, but neither is directly related to the persecution against Christians that spans the last thirty years. In an effort to focus on the evangelicals’ predicament and separate it from the other, complex issues that are churning that region, I travelled with a retired Mexican gentleman as my companion to Mexico’s southernmost state, bordering on Guatemala.
We drove toward San Juan Chamula, Chiapas, on a gray, rainy morning. As we ascended the mountain on a winding, two-lane road, it was shrouded in fog. A centuries-old, stone church sits in ruins at the entrance to the town, amid a crowded cemetery where all the graves are marked with black crosses. The taxi driver informed us that we were prohibited from taking photos once we entered the town. He also mentioned that he wouldn’t be allowed to pick up passengers in Chamula for his return trip to the city of San Cristóbal de Las Casas.
We were traveling in a taxi because the Christian leader whom I’d just interviewed, Abdías Tovilla Jaime, is not permitted to enter Chamula. So he took us in his yellow Volkswagen only as far as the intersection where the road to Chamula begins. The “caciques,” or political, gangster-style bosses in that area, keep a careful watch on Tovilla, and on other evangelical leaders like him. If he tried to enter the town of Chamula, the caciques could kill him. Such killings in Chiapas occurred three times last year alone.
On October 9, 1997, at a meeting with the evangelical leaders and their opponents in the community of Cruz Ch’ot, designed to achieve a harmonious solution between the two sides, five caciques refused to recognize the declaration of unity and tolerance that was drawn up. Upon hearing of this disagreement, the State Committee of Chiapas for Evangelical Defense (CEDECH), of which Tovilla is the director and legal consultant, sent a document to the state government as notification of the potential conflict represented by the five caciques.
However, the government secretary did not respond, and on November 12, Salvador Collazo Gomez was ambushed by the caciques from Cruz Ch’ot. Collazo’s body was riddled with fifteen bullets, and he died in the presence of his mother. His assistant, Marcelino Perez Lopez, was also killed in the attack.
Collazo was the treasurer of the Organization of the Evangelical Peoples of the Highlands of Chiapas (OPEACH). OPEACH, among other objectives, helps provide employment for the indigenous population of the highlands of Chiapas. When evangelicals are forcefully expelled from their native communities, they typically forfeit their belongings as well as their land. Without land, which is the livelihood of an indigenous family, they have no food or any way to make a living. Yet OPEACH assists not only evangelicals, but also all the indigenous people in that region, regardless of religious affiliation.
The secretary of OPEACH, Manuel Hernandez, was likewise attacked at the end of October, 1997, in the Terraplen Marketplace in San Cristóbal de Las Casas. (Both he and Collazo had previously been ambushed and injured in July.) The assailants were natives of Chamula who oppose the work of OPEACH. Due to the severity of his injuries, Hernandez was taken to Tuxtla Gutiérrez, the state capital, in an attempt to save his life. But his injuries were so grave that after two months of hospitalization, Hernandez died on December 29.
In January, CEDECH issued a statement that declares: “The worst thing in all of this is that the municipal authorities of Chamula knew of the planned attack, but nonetheless, the president (of Chamula) washes his hands of all this, saying he knows nothing, when in fact he himself backed these men.”
“CEDECH sent documents to the governor, but got no response,” says Tracey King, a short-term missionary from California who is working at the CEDECH office in San Cristóbal. She adds: “Justice is not being done. Our objective is that they don’t turn a blind eye (to these murders).”
Tovilla refers to Hernandez, who died December 29, as “the most recent martyr” among those who have been killed in Chiapas during recent years. The region’s “first Protestant martyr,” Miguel (“Cashlan”) Gomez Hernandez, has now become legendary, and the interdenominational seminary in Nueva Esperanza, on the outskirts of San Cristóbal, bears his name. He was kidnapped and brutally murdered on July 24, 1981. Before being hanged, he was tortured; his nose, ear, lips and scalp were cut off, his feet were burned from being forced to walk through fire, and his eyes were gouged out.
Miguel Cashlan was the first evangelical preacher in San Juan Chamula. Tovilla explains that sometimes he preached until one o’clock in the morning. He also preached at the market in San Cristóbal; it’s estimated that approximately 2,000 people were converted through his testimony. “That’s why the Chamulans thought that by killing him, they could prevent further conversions,” Tovilla says. But, of course, the outcome was just the opposite.
“The caciques don’t want the evangelicals, and they might kill us,” expresses a quote attributed to Miguel Cashlan; “so perhaps it is our fate to suffer as Jesus Christ did. They will burn us, but we will not be afraid.” Currently, according to Tovilla, CEDECH is aware of 35 orphans and five widows as a result of similar attacks. “Yet the gospel has grown; we are a suffering church, but victorious. The blood of the brothers has not been shed in vain,” Tovilla declares.
“Some advise me to buy a pistol (to protect myself),” he continues, “but if God wants us to die in this way, we know it’s not in the hands of the caciques, but in the hands of God.”

Part Two

“Caciques” rule the highlands of Chiapas

The region of San Juan Chamula, in the highlands of Chiapas, Mexico, has been a major source of hostilities against evangelical Christians for more than thirty years. Besides the very small town that bears the same name, which is nestled in a bowl-shaped depression in the mountains, Chamula also represents the largest municipality in the highlands region. It encompasses 87 other, separate villages or communities, each with its own heirarchy of “caciques” (or gangster-style, political bosses). These traditional, rural leaders usually control most, if not all, of the local businesses, governments and land.
The power of the caciques often keeps the rest of the community in a “state of virtual servitude,” stated Pedro C. Moreno, International Coordinator of The Rutherford Institute, during a U.S. Congressional hearing on worldwide persecution of Christians. This cultural legacy spans centuries. For instance, during the colonial Spanish era, the natives who failed to attend Catholic mass were whipped, and the caciques did the whipping. “For hundreds of years, they have exploited their own people of race and language,” says Abdías Tovilla Jaime, director and legal consultant of CEDECH, the State Committee of Chiapas for Evangelical Defense. “(Modern) caciques are not interested in maintaining cultural values, but in their businesses, and their economic and political interests. They have imposed customs and festivals that are very expensive to celebrate.”
For example, everyone in each community is expected to participate in and contribute to the local, syncretistic festivals, which involves buying candles, fireworks and posh, a locally-made, hard liquor — all enterprises that caciques control. “In the state of Chiapas, the economy is dependent on the sale of ‘posh,’” according to Moreno. In this way, Tovilla says, the caciques “cause families to be indebted, even those without food or houses.”
Consequently, many of the indigenous people became seasonal workers in the coffee plantations on the Pacific coast of Chiapas, hoping to earn enough money to pay their debts. While there, they were exposed to evangelical Christians. A large number of them were converted, and they brought the gospel back to their communities in the highlands. “Thus, the Protestant faith is a new form of religion that upsets the interests of the caciques,” explains Tovilla. A substantial economic loss for the caciques is represented by the large number of people who no longer buy the candles, fireworks or posh.
As a result, Moreno said, “caciques resort to persecution,” which began to be documented in January, 1966, over thirty years ago. This persecution primarily has taken the form of forcefully expelling the evangelicals from their native communities, including the destruction of their homes and belongings. Evangelical believers also have been beaten, raped, kidnapped, threatened, jailed, ridiculed and forbidden to practice their religious beliefs. Many, too, have been murdered (see Part 1 of this series).
But the fundamental motivation behind the expulsions, according to Tovilla, is really not religious at all. Instead, he says, it is “economic, political, and agrarian, because Chamula has little arable land; so when (the evangelicals) are expelled, their land remains for the caciques.”
Between thirty- and thirty-three thousand evangelicals have been expelled from their own lands since 1966. The majority of them have resettled along the outskirts of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, due to its close proximity to Chamula. Now they live in neighborhoods with names like Paraíso (Paradise), Getsemaní (Gethsemane), and Nueva Esperanza (New Hope).
Yet expulsions have been officially prohibited since 1993, according to Tovilla. For this reason, the caciques have begun to use other tactics. “The face of the problem has changed. Now the caciques are terrorizing the people so that they leave,” says Tracey King, a short-term missionary with the Reconciliation and Mission Program of the Presbyterian Church USA, who is assisting CEDECH in San Cristóbal. Tovilla explains that the caciques have adopted “the armed method,” and that a large portion of the money that goes to Chamula ostensibly for public works is actually used to buy arms. “They can’t expel, but they can kill,” says Tovilla. However, he points out that the Acteal massacre in December was not directed against evangelicals.
Another aspect of their new tactics, which is a “useful means of control for the caciques,” declares CEDECH, is “withholding education (from) the children of the evangelicals. In some cases, this practice has been allowed to go on for more than four years.” Government authorities have not responded, and the schools in several villages remain closed.
And even though expulsions were officially “prohibited,” they still continue. As recently as December 12, 1997, ten evangelicals, including one pastor, were forced to sign a document stating that “by their own will they abandon the community in order to not generate more problems,” and that “having changed religion they violated an internal agreement.” Furthermore, the document states that “the assembly (of local leaders) declares that if anyone of the community changes his religion, he must abandon (the community) voluntarily to prevent generating problems of this type.” The document permits the evangelicals to visit their families in the village once a month, provided they do so “in a peaceful manner and without religious proselytism.”
This latest episode had begun on October 18, when 23 Presbyterians in the village of Saltillo (in the municipality of Las Margaritas) began to receive threats. Later that month, as they fled from the community, one of the men was detained and beaten. On December 8, the group returned to Saltillo for the purpose of reaching an “agreement with the rural authorities (caciques),” according to CEDECH. “But instead, they were imprisoned. On the fifth day of their imprisonment, December 12,” they signed the document “to officially guarantee their expulsion. …They are now living in the city of Las Margaritas, trying to survive with what little they have left.” A church there is helping support them, King says.
“It is especially grave,” states a report from CEDECH, “because there had been signs of growing tolerance and less violence. …One can only hope that it is an isolated incident…and not a renewal of the horrible religious persecution.” However, it was not an ‘isolated incident.’ Another evangelical family was likewise expelled from the village of Jolbón in San Juan Chamula. According to CEDECH, this expulsion “broke the existing peace agreements between the municipality’s caciques and the evangelical Christians.”

Part Three

One man’s response to religious intolerance

“When there is greater (religious) liberty, then God can send us to another place,” states pastor and lawyer Abdías Tovilla Jaime. He is director, legal consultant and founder of CEDECH, the State Committee of Chiapas for Evangelical Defense, located in the city of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Mexico. In the meantime, 47-year-old Tovilla, a native of Chiapas, continues to handle the “matters of expulsions and religious intolerance,” as his business card says.
On the day that I met with Tovilla, he had just returned from a meeting with the new governor of Chiapas, Roberto Albores Guillén. This fact in itself demonstrates that CEDECH is a recognized participant in the process to secure reconciliation and peace in the state. During this meeting, Tovilla says, they talked about problems of persecution from the previous year, including the expulsions from Saltillo; the thirty children from San Juan Chamula who have been barred from attending school since 1993; and the widows of recent murder victims. “The government feels it is better if the church intervenes to unite the various factions and work toward reconciliation,” Tovilla explains. Toward that end, CEDECH helped sponsor the “Third Ecumenical Encounter For the Reconciliation of Chiapas” at the end of February in San Cristóbal de Las Casas. Tovilla asked Albores Guillén to send a representative. The purpose of this event, according to Tracey King, a short-term missionary serving in the CEDECH office, was to permit dialogue “between the evangelicals and Catholics of Chenalhó (i.e., location of the massacre in Acteal on December 22, 1997).” Tovilla was one of the event’s coordinators. However, “as far as government representation, there was none,” states King.
Tovilla began this ministry as a volunteer in 1981, in response to the needs of persecuted believers. “Christian brothers arrived (in San Cristóbal) who’d been beaten,” he recalls. “They’d say, ‘Pastor, help us;’ so I had to do something, even though how to defend human rights was not something I learned in seminary.” In 1992, the National Presbyterian Church of Mexico made CEDECH one of its official ministries, with the slogan “For an integral, Christian liberty” (“Por una libertad cristiana integral”).
Consequently, there are four primary “roles” that CEDECH performs. First of all, it fulfills a legal function. For example, when massive expulsions occur (see Part 2 of this series), the initial task is to evaluate the case. Of course, if the expelled believers arrive beaten and injured, they are first given medical attention. (As a matter of fact, one of our objectives in traveling to Chiapas was to deliver a large box of medicines.) Next, the formal accusation is presented to the appropriate authorities because in nearly all cases, constitutional rights have been violated.
For instance, after Christians are expelled, they can only “return to their communities with many limitations; they cannot preach, sing, or even listen to evangelical music, or have meetings,” Tovilla says. “These are the conditions the caciques present, wanting them to continue to participate in their pagan rituals. But this is a violation of their constitutional rights.”
Carlos Martínez García, a Christian columnist for the newspaper Uno Mas Uno, asks: “Are perhaps the indigenous people prohibited constitutionally from the right to freedom of conscience? Should this right only be valid in the non-indigenous society? To maintain cultural unity, is it necessary to expel those who elect diversity? Is it so difficult to accept that there is more than one way to be indigenous?”
Second, CEDECH serves a pastoral and spiritual function. Many of the believers who have been beaten, jailed and expelled from their land are new converts, “just beginning to read the Bible,” as Tovilla says. So he helps them cope with these experiences that leave many traumatized. “Some have been tied to trees while their wives and daughters are raped in front of them. Children see their houses burned. Pregnant women have been forced to stay in a vacant school for three or four days without food because there was no more room in the jail.”
Salvador Lopez assists with this aspect of the ministry. Lopez is the treasurer of Agape Network (“La Red Agape”), which is a network of leaders from various denominations. He also is the pastor of a large evangelical church called The Divine Savior, located in Nueva Esperanza, a community of expelled believers on the outskirts of San Cristóbal. So Lopez helps coordinate relief efforts in the community. Aid is distributed—sometimes simply in the form of cornmeal for tortillas—that arrives not only from other areas of Mexico, but also from other countries.
Third, CEDECH performs an educational role. As the size of the congregation at The Divine Savior continues to swell, the church has spawned many daughter churches, which have been constructed nearby. Therefore, the upper floor of this church houses an interdenominational seminary that is part of the Agape Network. It was designed to help meet the leadership needs in all of these new churches, as well as in the outlying areas where the evangelicals have not been expelled. The seminary, of which Tovilla serves as director, consists of two small dormitories, a kitchen, and two large classrooms. They receive donated books. Since 1997, approximately 30 students have been coming from different ethnic groups and languages in southern Mexico.
In addition, CEDECH tries to meet the need for Bible courses in the indigenous languages. On the streets of San Cristóbal, the natives speak Tzotzil, not Spanish. So two part-time workers at the CEDECH office, Armando and Sebastian, are translating courses from Spanish into Tzotzil.
Finally, CEDECH fulfills a social and political function. Tovilla says: “We are not against the development of many different social groups to defend the rights of the indigenous peoples. The National Presbyterian Church supports this. What we do not support are the social groups that divide the communities due to political ideologies, which results in conflicts and bloodshed.” He points out that this was the cause behind the massacre in Acteal. “It was not an issue related to religious intolerance or expulsions, but purely political. The indigenous peoples are becoming ‘politicized,’” he says.
Furthermore, CEDECH assists in the economic development of the region. It provides agricultural orientation, and also helps with the sale of native crafts. Tovilla says he is looking for contacts outside of the immediate region in order to broaden the market for these items. CEDECH also is able to receive financial aid for needy families, as well as donations for scholarships at the seminary. The annual cost to sponsor a student is $850, for which contributions may be given either fully or partially.
Unfortunately, the persecution against evangelicals in Chiapas has been largely overshadowed by the Zapatista militant uprising. In fact, Emiliano Zapata, for which the militant group is named, was such a popular, Mexican folk-hero that his portrait appears on the ten-peso bill. However, the national policy of overlooking or ignoring the situation in Chiapas has proven to be a “costly” omission, says Tovilla.
After 17 years of responding to adversity and deprivation of religious liberty, Tovilla asks: “When will there be freedom to read the Bible? When will there be even a small evangelical church in Chamula?” His question, in part, is already being answered. One sign of hope and potential tolerance is the fact that the first Protestant church is under construction in the municipality of San Juan Chamula. Located in the village of Arbenza I, the project is currently suspended due to lack of funds. Yet CEDECH reports: “This is an incredible milestone for the evangelicals and one that no one imagined possible even a few years ago.”

(This piece was published in the “Valley Voices” column of Fresno’s daily newspaper, The Fresno Bee.)

I vote a definite “thumbs up” for Jan M. Biggs, Fresno lawyer and former trustee of the Clovis Unified School District. As reported May 25, an audit uncovered that he had apparently embezzled partnership and client funds from a local law firm. However, Mr. Biggs acknowledged his wrongdoing. Furthermore, he said: “I am working to pay back what I took.”

I am overjoyed that the principle of restitution is clearly being applied in this case. In fact, the article’s final quotation actually utilizes this word: “’…and he’s paying for it by making restitution,’ (Ralph Lockwood) said.” Restitution means the offender agrees to repay the victim the amount that was embezzled or otherwise stolen.

Effective measure

Restitution provides both an equitable punishment and a deterrent to crime – factors the prison system does not deliver. Restitution is founded upon the “principle of similar measure.” In other words, “thieves are required to pay back something to the owner from whom they have stolen,” according to forensic author Dr. Vern Poythress. In the voice of the Old Testament prophet, “As you have done, it will be done to you; your deeds will return upon your own head.”

In societies where restitution has been implemented successfully, “The amount paid varies with the situation: sometimes double, sometimes four times, sometimes five times,” Dr. Poythress states. “The (first) repayment … is simple restoration, while the (second) repayment … is punishment for the criminal intent. …The penalty must involve two parts, restoration of the original and punishment for evil intent.”

Restitution also delivers practical social benefits. The chief advantage is that a criminal, rather than going to prison where he’ll likely become worse, is required to do something constructive by paying someone else. And instead of creating additional cost for the taxpayer, he himself pays off his “debt to society.”

Indeed, prisons and jails have lost their purpose of being a place where a convict expresses “penitence.” We derive our word “penitentiary” from this purpose. Instead, modern prisons foster a sense of impunity. Statistically, convicts serve only a fraction of their sentences. According to James Wootton of the Safe Streets Alliance, “Judges pretend that defendants will get long sentences, and they get out of the back door.” Thus, “(young offenders) learn early on that crime pays,” writes Mortimer B. Zuckerman. In fact, Zuckerman states, “They are not deterred by the pangs of conscience or the prospect of prison, which is for them a peer group rite of passage.” Furthermore, neither adding more police officers, in itself, nor the so-called “Three Strikes and You’re Out” laws can solve the inherent problem. To the contrary, they make the problem worse by over-burdening the prison system.

Wrong approach

So I ask myself why Fresno Mayor Jim Patterson advocates more jail space for juveniles, along with adding more police officers. He made these references in his State of the City address, and they were lauded in a May 26 editorial. The jail system teaches young offenders that crime pays. While I fully recognize the severe problem of juvenile crime locally, as well as the unusually high level of automobile thefts, I believe the solution is not more jail space. Rather, we should focus on a socially constructive alternative, one whereby not only the guilty parties receive real punishment, but also the victims are repaid for their losses. Restitution provides the feasible alternative. I wonder why this important item is absent from our local, state and national agendas when we talk about reducing crime rates.

Unlike Mr. Patterson, however, Mr. Biggs is on the right track. Mr. Biggs deserves our accolade for his courage to admit his misconduct, for his honest repentance, and for his strength of character to accept and to apply the correct legal consequence. His example of upholding an age-old principle that is so sadly lacking in our modern society should be emulated more widely.

(This article was the cover story for the January/February 2007 issue of InSite magazine, published by the Christian Camp and Conference Association.)

“I honestly don’t think there is an institution in the Southeast that’s been used more than the Alpine Camp for Boys to build up churches and to lay a foundation in communities for reponsible, spiritual male leadership, whether in corporations, educational institutions or the church,” says Bill Boyd, senior pastor of All Saints Presbyterian Church in Austin, Texas.

He continues, “If you were writing a contemporary Christian history of the South, Alpine might have the most significant chapter. You see a huge cultural impact that Alpine has had.”

Dick O’Ferrall, Alpine’s founder and director emeritus, says, “One of our former campers who went on to serve as a counselor, is now president of one of the larger evangelical seminaries in the United States.” Dick recalls a father talking with his daughter before she went to college as a freshman. “He told her that he would definitely consider it a good qualification for a candidate to be her husband if the boy had worked at Alpine.”

Situated “high atop Lookout Mountain” – as Alpine’s slogan states – this all-boys camp has a reputation for cultivating “men who have this interesting combination of what it means to be leaders and to be nurturers,” according to Bill Boyd. “And that’s what wives want. They’re saying to their husbands, ‘I want you to lead me, but I also want you to nurture me.’ ”

The 340-acre Alpine Camp for Boys is located in the far northeast corner of Alabama, outside the town of Mentone. Its property includes massive rocks; lots of green leaves; a rushing waterfall; a clear, quiet river; an athletic field; a huge waterslide; and rustic log buildings. Its program offers horsemanship, watersports, climbing, archery, riflery, crafts, biking, team sports – as well as Project Adventure.

But beyond its facilities and programs, the Alpine Camp is “an environment where parents can send their boys that will shelter them and provide an opportunity for them to build character and confidence,” says Glenn Breazeale, who co-directs the camp with his wife, Carter. Carter and her sister, Toy, are the daughters of Alpine’s founders and owners, Dick and Alice O’Ferrall.

Timeless impact through unique attributes of ministry

How has the Alpine Camp earned its reputation for building character in boys and young men? “The main ingredient is to hire well-rounded Christian, college men as counselors,” Dick says. “This has been the key to impacting the lives of young men for Christ. Without mature, Christian college men, this ministry would not exist.” Glenn adds, “We want the counselors to show what it looks like to be a Christian, not only in the devotionals they do with the boys, but in every aspect of their lives.”

For this reason, according to Bill, “Dick has always invested heavily in ministering to the staff. Dick’s understanding of camp is that your camp is only as good as your staff. He would say, ‘With a good staff, we can have a great camp in a parking lot somewhere.’ The facility is a luxury after that.”

Alpine’s character-building ministry to campers – boys in grades two through nine – is the direct beneficiary of the character-building that’s occuring among its counselors. These two levels of ministry – to campers and to counselors – differ in many ways. But first, we’ll explore briefly the elements they have in common.

Extended stay residence program. “Our main thrust is our two, 25-day sessions, which would seem to be less and less popular, because families want one- or two-week sessions,” Glenn explains. Yet each of Alpine’s two, main sessions (or “terms”) lasts essentially one, full month. Although this is rare within modern camping, Dick says, “we emphasize the 25-day experience with our camp parents, and encourage them to allow their sons to participate.” Glenn adds: “We’re committed to that because we feel it really allows the boys to build those relationships with their counselors, which is key to our philosophy.”

Recorded music stays home. Rather than being a fasting time away from their music, Bill explains, “we view it as a feasting time – feasting on relationships, feasting on creation, community.” For more details, see the sidebar titled “Sounds of silence.”

Only boys. Although it seems obvious, this environment – different from a co-ed camp – permits boys to develop their unique, male characters. “While girls learn face-to-face, boys learn side-by-side,” says Glenn. Carter adds that Alpine provides supervised independence within a safe environment – a combination that allows boys to gain self-confidence. She says, “We have so many former campers who want their sons to have the same experience that they had. We really are the same camp that Dad started out in 1959.”

Standard of excellence. Dick credits his wife: “Alice has particularly led us in a direction of excellence in everything we do at Alpine – from program to facility to relationships. She says, ‘If you surround children with order, beauty and excellence, they’re going to respond in kind.’ ”

Beyond these elements in common, Alpine’s primary objective is to build into the lives of their counselors so that they, in turn, are equipped to minister to the campers. Glenn recalls, “Besides my parents, my counselors had probably the biggest influence on me.”

“All of sudden, what’s true and how that should look in a life, they see it embodied in their hero, because their ‘hero’ is their counselor,” according to Bill. How is this accomplished?

Incubation chamber. God uses Alpine as an “incubation chamber,” according to Wilson Shirley, who is Director of Student Ministry at a church in Ridgeland, Mississippi, a suburb of Jackson. “One reason is that it’s a place where your spiritual gifts really have the opportunity to express themselves. For me, I did not know that I had the gifts of leading or teaching. Teaching is my strongest gift, but my first opportunity to teach in front of a group – and lead people in God’s Word – was at Alpine.”

Wilson, whose eight-week-old son already has an Alpine Camp t-shirt, worked at Alpine several summers. He points out that Dick O’Ferrall is instrumental in helping counselors identify their spiritual gifts. “Mister O gave me leadership responsibility. He saw that in me even before I knew that I wanted to be a leader.”

Camp minister. Carter observes, “What we’ve gleaned from Dad is that you have to take care of your staff in the summer.” For this reason, the camp minister’s “only job is to have Bible studies and one-on-one appointments with counselors,” says Bill Boyd, who has served as Alpine’s camp minister twice. He explains that a lot of those appointments are ones that counselors set up with him. But also, as the counselors are being observed, the minister often wants to talk with them about what he’s observing. In this way, they receive support and encouragement on a regular basis, and when issues arise, they can be “engaged very quickly.” Glenn says that they tell counselors: “As you pour out yourself into these boys, we’re committed to pouring into you.”

Huge commitment. Staff are the people at Alpine with the longest time commitment during the summer – between 11 and 12 weeks – which is roughly twice as long as any of the campers. This is a big commitment for a college student, but Glenn says: “in allowing themselves to serve for that long, they really end up growing.” Carter points out that some camps hire separate staff for separate camps. But “we find that the counselors gain so much from being here, from day one, to be committed to something: a self-sacrificing job.” “At Alpine,” says Bill, “the breadth of the ministry is dealing with campers; the depth – the deepest ministry – is going on with the staff. You can see a real transformative process take place.”

Changing wet sheets. For most of the counselors, as Carter points out, this is the first time they’ve been responsible for someone else. She observes that counselors are in a cabin with six boys, and some are bed-wetters. “The counselors have to change those sheets every day.” Glenn says: “We tell the staff, ‘You are being just as much a Christian, a witness to the boys, by changing wet sheets for 25 days in a row, and keeping his confidence, never letting other boys in the cabin know about it.’ ”

Carter says, “A lot of the counselors wind up calling their moms, halfway through the first term, saying ‘I don’t know how you did it as a mother.’ ” They tell them, “Thanks for all you did for me,” because now they realize what a big job it is.

“It is very difficult to recruit male counselors,” Dick admits. “If I thought I had to go out and find 74 Christian college guys, I’d run in the other direction. But the Lord is faithful.” Because the counselors are of paramount importance, Alpine places priority on their recruitment, training and accountability.

Below, Pastor Bill Boyd addresses each of these points. Besides serving as camp minister, Bill has been cabin counselor, head counselor, and full-time staff member. He has traveled to help with Alpine’s recruitment, served as program director, and now teaches at their staff training each year for a ten-day period.

Recruitment. “Alpine spends more time, more money and more energy on recruiting staff than they do on recruiting campers. I’ve seen them fly to Texas to interview one person.” Alpine’s process always includes application; background check; and face-to-face interview. “We’re looking for someone who exhibits a real hunger to grow in Christ themselves. They’re also guys who can generate fun. We want campers to remember this environment, where God’s Word is center, and where they say, ‘I had the time of my life!’ ”

Training. “This is where Dick gets five stars.” For ten, straight days prior to the first session of camp, he provides practical training on how to deal with the boys. He always brings in experts, such as Christian psychologists who can speak about child development and discipline, plus ancillary topics like Attention Deficit Disorder. The staff also does serious, team-building exercises, and a lot of role-playing with critiques and discussions revolving around specific scenarios, such as a camper who simply won’t obey you.

Accountability. As a basis for accountability, the expression of expectations and standards begins at the recruiting stage. Over the years, Dick has added more oversight staff. For instance, each age group now has more than one head counselor, so that the counselor-to-head counselor ratio is about 4- or 5-to-1. Like managers, head counselors are responsible for maintaining a certain tone and order within an age group – observing, demonstrating, encouraging, correcting. Cabin counselors turn in a cabin report to their head counselor once a week.

Many counselors previously were Alpine campers

During each 25-day term, 250 campers are the direct beneficiaries of the character-building that’s occurring among the 74 counselors. For example, Carter says: “Camp is a safe place to learn about not always winning. It’s great because so many things are going on at camp, so many places where boys are able to excel, but sometimes their team might not win.” Glenn continues, “Camp is a safe way for a boy to learn how to deal with disappointment or loss, or things not going exactly the way he wants it to. Things like that help to build character in boys. And if they hear it from this college-age guy that they really look up to, maybe that’s going to reinforce it even more than if they hear it from their dad.”

In addition, campers learn responsibility and teamwork through cabin inspections; through team sports, they learn how to handle their tempers even when they’re angry; and they learn etiquette and courtesy through family-style meals in the dining hall. “Today so many families aren’t sitting down even once a day together,” Carter says, “and so we’re really committed to keeping that tradition.”

In fact, both Carter and Glenn agree that one of their core objectives is to maintain the legacy that Dick and Alice established at Alpine Camp for Boys, nearly fifty years ago. Carter says, “I love being here and being a part of raising up the next generation of Christian men and Christian leaders. In today’s world, these kinds of men are rare. So we want to keep the tradition that Mom and Dad started.”

Glenn concludes: “My passion is to continue the legacy that Carter’s parents have started and the ministry that they’ve built up: to provide a safe place for boys to come in the summer, a safe haven from the world where they can gain a lot of the things I got, growing up, when my parents sent me here. We always want to be thinking of ways that we can do our programming better and upgrade facilities, but in terms of the key principles, goals and mission of our camp, we want that to stay the same.”

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