Chapter 25 Colin's Disciples

Colin had collected a group of disciples–two couples who had joined the church through his ministry and another couple also fairly new to Adventism. They eagerly attended his Bible studies and became his allies in thinking and dreaming about an expansive ministry. A Filipino family was also an important part of Colin’s social circle in the church. The two Almario brothers were bright and energetic. Their mother considered Colin another of her sons. Their baby sister, Ruth, was a high school junior.

Ruth was quiet. To me she seemed shy, but as I watched her interact with others I was frequently surprised by her confidence and boldness. After awhile it seemed every time Colin did anything with his group Ruth was there. She hung on his every word. She took notes when he preached or taught classes. She was intensely devout.
She never gave the slightest indication that she was interested in me. But I couldn’t help but notice her. She was always there. She was the only person around who was younger than I. In conversation with me, she was always grave, serious, shy. But interacting with everyone else around me, her eyes sparkled. She laughed. She touched people. She teased them.

In March, Calvin headed back to school. That left Colin and me in the apartment. Five evenings a week, I stood on the street usually on Seventh Avenue, near 46th Street, handing out cards inviting people to “The Ark” for Bible studies at seven o’clock. The Ark was our name for the large meeting room in the basement of the Center. I’d hand out cards for a couple of hours until just before seven o’clock, hurry back to the Center to wait hopefully for people to show up, then go back out on the street from eight to ten p.m. Occasionally, someone would come in.
On Friday evenings, we often met with Colin’s disciples. Ollie was a tough, forceful Black man, a singer. His wife was a good looking blond. They often arrived separately coming straight from their jobs. They always greeted each other with a kiss. I wasn’t used to seeing people kiss on the lips. That wasn’t done publicly in our clan. And for sure I wasn’t used to seeing Black men kiss blond women. But they seemed happy enough.

Henry was thin and gentle with a very white face and wispy black hair. He wasn’t short, but his wife was four inches taller, blond and animated.
The other couple was the Barbers. He worked as a minor functionary at a bank. She taught high school.

They all revered Colin. They sometimes talked of creating a retreat center where people could come for extended periods to study under Colin’s tutelage. This dream of a retreat center was fueled in part by the people who attended our monthly smoking cessation clinics.

The Five-day Plan had been created by an Adventist minister and doctor in New England a few years earlier. We ran the program the first week every month at the Center. Mrs. Toby registered the people. Miss Harding made sure we had all the requisite supplies on hand–magazines and pamphlets, the pocket-sized syllabus inserts for each evening that outlined the strategy for that particular day.
Each evening, the program began with a film. The first film featured a lung cancer operation. We wanted people to go home that evening and clear all cigarettes out of their homes and cars. There was no better time to quit than right now. We asked the participants to fast for the first twenty-four hours, drinking only water and fruit juice. If they had to eat something, we wanted them to limit it to carrot and celery sticks and apple slices.

Following the film, each evening featured a presentation on physiology by a health professional and a short lecture on psychology by Colin. Sometimes Mrs. Croft helped us with the health lecture, but our mainstay was a Dr. Jones who drove all the way from Reading, Pennsylvania. He was a captivating speaker. His credentials as an M. D. helped our credibility. My job was to circulate among the class members and be friendly. From the second night on, just before we closed the meeting, we had the class break into small groups to talk about their experience in quitting. I was asked to chair one of these groups. I knew nothing about smoking and even less about quitting. These people were all old enough to be my parents, some old enough to be my grandparents. My leading a group seemed preposterous. Colin insisted, so I did it. I read all the material trying to learn all I could. By the end of the week fifty to eighty percent of the people reported they had successfully quit. That was cool.



Beginning in May with good weather, Colin had me go with him to Battery Park several days a week to do street preaching to the lunch time crowds. Colin would preach; I would stand and listen as “audience bait.” Then, if other people stopped to listen, I would hand out literature, including cards advertising “The Ark.”

I envied Colin his daring, his brashness. Sure, Battery Park had a tradition of street preaching. At the lunch hour in good weather, the park was jammed with people. Sometimes as many as five or six difference speakers would be holding forth at different places in the park–Christian preachers, Jewish preachers, socialists, atheists, right-wing conspiracy theorists. But I couldn’t imagine standing up and shouting at a milling crowd of indifferent strangers.
Colin kept bugging me to try it. “Come on, Johnny, my boy. No one’s going to hurt you.”

I wanted to do it. It seemed so quintessentially Christian. I remembered stories of Joseph Wolff, a converted Jew, who traveled throughout the Middle East and Central Asia in the late 1800s, talking of Jesus to all sorts of people whenever he could get an audience. I recalled stories of native preachers in interior China who would stand and preach on market days. These evangelists preached through storms of rotten produce and sometimes stones. What was I risking? People not stopping to listen?
I resisted, figuring I was already doing my part by helping Colin. Besides I had no idea how to preach in three minute segments. To be an effective street preacher you couldn’t presume a stationary audience for a thirty minute sermon. People were constantly drifting in and out. Your preaching had to have enough progression to keep the interest of people who had been standing there awhile. At the same time newcomers had to be able to pick up an intelligible train of thought immediately.
I finally tried it once. For ten minutes. Crowds did not gather. I did not try it again. But I continued to feel guilty for my lack of courage, my unwillingness to be a fool for Jesus.