Tuesday 22 June 2010

How quickly we forget

How quickly we forget!
My friend Victor Ferrer said, ‘I will never forget you!’ as we embraced saying goodbye at New York harbour when I boarded the HMS Mormac Bay to sail via Rio de Janeiro to Cape Town.
‘Don’t say that!’ I told him, ‘you never know what happens!’
‘No, I will never forget you, because you are my best friend! You are my brother!’
Vic and I were at Miracle Valley Bible College in Arizona. He is Puerto Rican and I am South African. (They were amazed that I was not black!) After College he invited me to stay with him and his Mom in 89th Street East, New York, close to Central Park. He taught me the ways of New York. You don’t stop to help someone who collapses on the side walk or you will be involved in court cases for years! You don’t jog alone in Central Park at any time of day or night – you might get clubbed! You set your alarm clock to wake you at 3 am to watch your favourite movie! You go to one movie after another or to Broadway – there is so much to do! And then he took me to The Bronx where he grew up and we ate rice and beans with his Aunty Carmelita. He greeted the gangs with their baseball bats, knuckle dusters and chains waving at us, because he knew them well.
‘Wave your bible at them – they have respect for a bible. They won’t do anything to us if they see you have a bible. Smile, don’t look so nervous!’ We went to an underground church where I preached.
We watched them cut down a metal fire hose connection on the side walk and watched how they created their own car wash for all the people living there! You don’t see any police in The Bronx. I felt like David Wilkerson and Nicky Cruz from ‘The Cross and the Switchblade’ fame!
His Mother thought she looked like Marilyn Munroe and used to look at herself in the mirror and ask me, ‘what do you think?’ I had to agree – I was living with them!
And when my time came to leave, he went with me to the quay and stood there with his dimpled smile and curly black hair and dark brown eyes staring at me, telling me he would never forget me. He gave me his leather bible cover, which I still use till this day – with his name on it.
We corresponded for a few years and then one day he stopped writing. I wondered what the matter was. Finally he wrote back: ‘Don’t ever write to me again! I have met this girl who is an atheist and I fell in love with her. She convinced me that all this Christian stuff is a waste of time that other people designed to make everyone feel guilty. You are part of that world and I have left it behind now. I am no longer your friend. Goodbye!’
What a shock it was! My friend Victor told me off! An Atheist girl swept him off his feet!
I never heard from him again. I often think of him, when I open my bible and see his name on the inside cover. I wonder how Victor is these days. I tried to find him on the internet, but to no avail. He has not surfaced again.
How quickly we forget…
Jesus introduced Communion so that His followers would not forget Him that quickly. 'Do this in my remembrance, whenever you get together,' he told them. They are still doing it today, 2000 years later. Eternal friendship lasts longer...