Ellenville Christian Training Center
We rolled into Ellenville, New York after an all-night journey through Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Ellenville was a beautiful little town in the Catskill Mountains, some one hundred miles north of New York City! It was already November and the trees were beginning to change their colors.
That first morning I remember meeting Don Slovenski from a Catholic-Polish family like my own. He had been President of the Catholic Young People's Association and had represented the Association in the Washington, DC’s Christian Young People’s Convention. He picked up a conversation with me and we were soon immersed in an interesting Bible study of Daniel 2 and end-time prophecy.
He then showed me Matthew 24 about the signs Jesus gave concerning His return to Earth and the end of the world. I had tried to read the Bible before, starting at Genesis, but had gotten bogged down soon afterwards in Leviticus or Deuteronomy. But reading with Don, the Bible made so much sense. In the Bible, I was finding confirmations of the experiences I was going through and the conclusions I had been making as a person. The Bible was confirming my own thought-out conclusions and showing me they were right. Jesus was indeed the truth I had been looking for. My search of many years into different religions and world views ended. I had found the answer: the way, the truth and the life[1], the Word of God, the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ.[2]
I was in no hurry to go back to Marietta, with the FBI on my trail, so I decided to stay at the Ellenville Christian Training Center and enter its three-month course called Biblical Evangelism & Ministry Training. The course was comprised of Bible studies, lectures, Scripture memorization and afterwards personal witnessing in Greenwich Village in New York City. I was also required to be part of the work crew, as there was no tuition, but an obligatory work load. I was assigned the job of breakfast cook and also dish-washing overseer. That sounds simple enough. The only problem was there were around two hundred people living on the campus.
The center’s campus was actually a group of summer cottages, and one main house which was used for meals and united meetings. The breakfast was not too complicated, as I had worked as an assistant breakfast cook during my years at Marietta College. However, the dish-washing overseer was a greater challenge, as I was still quite shy and found it difficult to correct others and enforce discipline.
I was one of the older people at the camp and one of the few with a college education. My work crew was mainly rebellious 18 and 19 year-olds coming from the hippy scene, who did not take kindly to schedules and overseers. As a result, many times I stayed up late until 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning finishing up the dishes. The problem was I had to be up at 5:30 am to start breakfast. After a few weeks of this grueling schedule, I was suffering from physical exhaustion from lack of sleep.
Also, I was still holding unto my old vegetarian eating habits. But here, very little vegetarian proteins were available to eat, as most of the food was donated by local businesses or fast-food joints, and consisted of sandwiches, donuts, pastas, and some local in-season fruits. I remember on various occasions fainting from exhaustion. I finally saw the necessity of eating what was set before me, as Paul so wisely admonished.[3]
Notes:
[1] John 14:6 Jesus said unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
[2] John 1:14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
[3] 1Corinthians 10:27 If any of them that believe not bid you to a feast, and ye be disposed to go; whatsoever is set before you, eat, asking no question for conscience sake.
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