Camp Meeting Memories
In 1961 my children and I were invited to attend the Southern New England camp meeting in South Lancaster, Massachusetts. I signed up for the Voice of Prophecy Bible study courses, and accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior. After I became a Seventh-day Adventist I attended the Pawtucket Seventh-day Adventist Church in Rhode Island.
From that point on, my children and I attended camp meeting every year, staying in the large Army/Navy tents in the “valley,” on the campgrounds. I devised a way to contact all my five children for mealtimes by attaching a long pole to the outside pole of the tent and running a “flag” up to let them know when it was time for meals.
When our neighbors in the other tents saw what I had done, they let their children know that when my flag was raised, it was time for them to eat as well. It worked quite well!
—Joan Philbin, Alvarado, Texas
Sound Bite
“It is Satan’s work to discourage the soul; it is Christ’s work to inspire with faith and hope.”
—Ellen G. White, from her book The Desire of Ages, p. 249
Adventist Life
Last November my father, Angel Rodríguez, flew from Maryland to Texas to spend Thanksgiving with me. I waited for him just outside the terminal gate at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. Finally I saw him stride down the terminal hallway. Just then two Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers stopped him, and I experienced a moment of panic! As director of the General Conference Biblical Research Institute, my dad travels extensively, and his passport reads like one belonging to a National Geographic journalist. I expected to see them pat him down and maybe lock him up. But after a short conversation he walked through the gate and quickly came and gave me a hug.
“What did the TSA officers want?” I asked him.
He explained that they had recognized him from his picture in Adventist World, for which he writes the monthly column “Bible Questions.” “They thanked me for writing the column, said they read the magazine all the time, and let me go,” he said.
I’ve always viewed my dad as an important person, but when TSA officials recognize him and treat him as a celebrity, it impresses even me.
—Dixil Rodríguez, Fort Worth, Texas
