{"id":1441,"date":"2016-05-06T07:54:21","date_gmt":"2016-05-06T14:54:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/welcometable\/?p=1441"},"modified":"2016-05-09T19:58:47","modified_gmt":"2016-05-10T02:58:47","slug":"salvador-the-truth-behind-the-fiction-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/welcometable\/2016\/05\/salvador-the-truth-behind-the-fiction-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Salvador: The Truth behind the Fiction, Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

T\"Salvador\"<\/a>he Atonement of Christ is the very root of Christian doctrine. You may know much about the gospel as it branches out from there, but if you only know the branches and those branches do not touch that root, if they have been cut free from that truth, there will be no life nor substance nor redemption in them. [Boyd K. Packer, \u201cThe Mediator,\u201d Ensign, May 1977]<\/em><\/p>\n

We Blairs were Dale\u2019s disciples.\u00a0 In some ways we were more Dale\u2019s disciples than Christ\u2019s. We saw Dale as a holy man who willingly surrendered every American luxury to consecrate all of his energies (and his family\u2019s) to helping hundreds of Mayan Indians in Guatemala.\u00a0 It was a visible consecration, not something imagined in hymns or paintings.\u00a0 We could see the people he was helping.\u00a0 When we visited him in 1975, we could see the dairy.\u00a0 We could hear the rabbits\u2019 dying shrieks as they were skinned for the rabbit meat business.\u00a0 Dale was giving the Kekchi people \u201cthe good life.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

When Dale told us about how easily the Church had dismissed his noble projects, we were astounded.\u00a0 Dale wanted to be in partnership with the Church in all the good he was doing; his vision was not complete without that partnership.\u00a0 The LDS group at Valparaiso would donate all they could and would be brought to an even higher level of prosperity as the foundation donated to the fast offering fund. However, when the group sent a financial report to the Church, the response was less than enthusiastic. As Dale summarized the message, it was \u201cWe just don\u2019t do those kinds of things in the church.\u201d Dale\u2019s reaction, which he shared freely with us, was, \u201cWhat!? The Church doesn\u2019t help widows and orphans? Nor take care of the sick? Nor educate the ignorant, nor work cooperatively to feed the hungry?\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

At the time, I did not recognize the leap he was making.\u00a0 He had casually compressed the Church\u2019s decision to not partner with his foundation as evidence that the Church did no humanitarian work.\u00a0 In other words, any true church or faithful church leaders would necessarily recognize his noble work for what it was.\u00a0 Their failure to do so indicated an abandonment of the fundamental mandates of Christianity.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I shook my head in disgust at church leaders who were so obviously blind and uninspired.\u00a0 How could I not be sympathetic to Dale?\u00a0 Aren\u2019t most idealists misunderstood?\u00a0 Wasn\u2019t Galilleo required to recant the truth because of religious powers who would not see what that visionary scientist saw? Honor often waits centuries before parading the persecuted in their overdue glory..
\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

When our family was in Guatemala in 1975, my brother and I stayed in the southern village of Patsun while Dad and our other siblings went for a week to Dale\u2019s project, northward.\u00a0 They came back with glorious tales of what our beloved Dale was doing.\u00a0 It was all a great success!\u00a0 He was teaching the people to become self-reliant. There was a small tragedy on the finca<\/em>, though. My sister\u2019s tooth got chipped.\u00a0 She put the half-tooth on her plate and my other sister ate it. It was an accident, of course, but my sister wept as she burst out, \u201cLisa ate it!\u201d That report was included with all of the magnificent accounts of Dale\u2019s work.
\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

My brother and I, meanwhile, had a transformative experience in Patzun. The missionaries, Elder Taz Evans and Elder Milo Garcia, invited us to the deathbed of the first Latter-day Saint in Patzun.\u00a0 \"guatemala<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

My brother and I walked down the dirt road, up the main street\u2019s cobblestone, then down another dirt path to a bamboo gate which led to Tomas Cujcuj\u2019s adobe dwelling. That unlatched gate would invite me to a new life, though I certainly didn\u2019t know it then.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

By the time we arrived, it was dark. There was no electricity in that part of town; the hut was full of Cakchiquel Mormons<\/a> holding candles. The women resembled Hermana Yalibat. All wore similar clothing-hand-woven, red huipiles<\/i> to which they had added their own embroidery. They all had long, braided hair. Some wrapped their braids around their heads and some wore them down. Some braids were black; some were silver. The men, including the one dying, were dressed in white.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Hermano Tomas<\/i>, wearing a knitted cap, lay on a bed which took up nearly half the space in the hut. His skin looked sallow even by candlelight. There was no question that he was dying. Weakly, he requested hymns, and the Indians sang. My brother and I used hymn books. Spanish was not native for anyone in that hut, but we all sang the words.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Cantemos, gritemos
\nCon huestes del cielo
\n<\/i><\/span><\/span>
\nUsing a battery-powered projector, the missionaries showed a filmstrip of \u201cMan\u2019s Search for Happiness\u201d above Tomas Cujcuj\u2019s deathbed. The pictures were grainy against the adobe. I had seen the film (where the images actually moved) many times at Temple Square, but had never felt the reverence I felt that night. Then the missionaries asked Hermano Tomas<\/i> if he would like to bear his testimony. He answered in Cakchiquel: \u201cHa.\u201d Yes.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I did not understand a word he said, but felt a swell of love and awe. Who was this man who lay dying before me<\/i>?\u00a0 I became aware that God knew him intimately. I could feel God\u2019s love for him, for it permeated the hut. It must\u2019ve permeated all of Patsun; surely it was too strong to be contained within one room. I knew there were angels in that poor, adobe hut where Indians, missionaries, and two red-headed gringos sang hymns by candlelight.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Tomas\u2019s conversion, I later learned, had resulted in many Cakchiquel families listening to the missionaries, for he had been the town mayor when he joined the Church. The night before the elders first visited him, he had dreamt of two messengers who would bring him words he must heed. I learned that he and his wife had saved up money for a year so they could take a bus to Mesa, Arizona and be sealed in the temple. I learned that in his last testimony, which I heard but did not understand, he had said, \u201cI know I will go directly to my Lord Jesus Christ.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

My brother and I left the hut a few hours before Hermano Tomas<\/i> died. Because of the twenty-four hours burial laws in Guatemala, funeral arrangements were hasty. Of most urgency was getting temple clothes from Guatemala City to Patsun so that Tomas could be appropriately robed in his coffin.
\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I visited Tomas\u2019s home the morning after his death.\u00a0 The floor was strewn with pine needles, and the scene made me think of Christmas.\u00a0 But there was no joy in this hut.\u00a0 I nodded sympathy and returned to our house.\u00a0 Dad and my siblings were still gone, and my brother was serving as a missionary companion to whomever needed one.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Later that day, Elder Evans knocked on the door.\u00a0 When I answered, he invited me to play the organ at Tomas\u2019s funeral, the organ being a plug-in keyboard which wouldn\u2019t make a sound without electricity. But when I walked into the chapel ahead of the funeral procession, there was no electricity. No light.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I ran to the office which controlled Patsun\u2019s power. The door was locked. I ran back to the chapel. I prayed. \u201cFather, please let there be light. Let there be light in this chapel so I can play music for your son, Tomas Cujcuj.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I waited.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Nothing happened.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I prayed again. Once more, I ran to the power office. It was still locked. I ran back to the chapel and touched the organ keys to see if God might grant me a miracle of sound without the electricity to power it.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Nothing.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Then the chapel doors opened. Six men were holding Tomas Cujcuj\u2019s coffin on their shoulders. They stepped into the chapel. Instantly, the lights came on. I closed my eyes, said a quick thank you to God, and sat down at the organ. I began playing \u201cBehold the Lamb of God.\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Behold the Lamb of God
\nThat taketh away
\nThe sins of the world<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The Indian men wept freely; they have not been taught to conceal their emotions. The women groaned in grief. The swell of love and recognition which had begun the night before continued. I loved them completely, and recognized that I was the least of them. I thanked God for their mercy. I thanked Him for their patience with me, an arrogant American teenager who had mangled their language and had refused to open her heart fully to them.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

That day pre-destined my many returns to Guatemala.\u00a0 I would learn Spanish, and would delight my dad by even speaking a bit of Cakchiquel.\u00a0 I wonder if the love for the Mayans and the miracles of that day somehow prepared me for what would happen two years later, when I would, upon my father\u2019s instructions, betray Dale Grover. By then, my father\u2013the chairman of the board for the foundation\u2013had discovered dark secrets.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

TO BE CONTINUED\"guatemala<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n<\/p><\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Atonement of Christ is the very root of Christian doctrine. You may know much about the gospel as it branches out from there, but if you only know the branches and those branches do not touch that root, if they have been cut free from that truth, there will be no life nor substance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1301,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[277,91,283,11,284,282],"class_list":["post-1441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-cakchiquel","tag-guatemala","tag-milo-carcia","tag-robert-w-blair","tag-taz-evans","tag-tomas-cujcuj"],"yoast_head":"\nSalvador: The Truth behind the Fiction, Part 2<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Atonement of Christ is the very root of Christian doctrine. 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