Next to arrive was Richmond McKinney, who had returned for his second year at Camp Wycliffe. Then came Bill Sedat, a young, blond German-born student. The last to arrive was Ken Pike, who had hitchhiked all the way from Boston because he did not have enough money for the train fare. Ken Pike came with his heart set on becoming a missionary. Indeed, he had already applied twice to the China Inland Mission, and both times had been turned down. According to the China Inland Mission his health was “too fragile” for them to accept him. Cam had to admit that Ken was very thin and pale. Ken looked like he’d never spent a day in the sun in his life.
Still, Cam had suffered from tuberculosis and had a wife with a serious heart condition. As a result, he had promised himself he would never turn down a person on the basis of his or her health. He reasoned that if God wanted the person to become a missionary, who was he to stand in the way?
Camp Wycliffe was run much the same as it had been the year before. The students sat on the same nail kegs and took notes from the same lecturers. There were also chores to do every day, and each student learned outdoor survival techniques. On the second day of camp, the men were asked to gather dry firewood so that they could cook dinner over an open fire. Cam and L.L. watched in amazement as Ken Pike hurried off and climbed a nearby tree.
“What on earth does he think he’s doing?” asked Cam. “You don’t find firewood up a tree. You find it on the ground.”
L.L. shook his head and muttered, “Lord, couldn’t you have sent us someone better than this?”
Cam chuckled. “You should hear him imitating Cakchiquel sounds, though. I tell you, Ken might not win any outdoor awards, but he has potential as a linguist.”
This time around, Dr. McCreery was able to come to Arkansas to lecture at Camp Wycliffe. Everyone, including Cam and Elvira, took copious notes as he spoke. During one of his sessions, Dr. McCreery suggested they hold a special day of prayer and ask God to open the doors into Mexico so that the students would be able to work freely in the country.
This was no small matter. Since the election of Lázaro Cárdenas as president of Mexico, the noose had been tightening around the necks of missionaries. President Cárdenas had chosen many atheists to be in his cabinet, and they had put in place harsh new laws aimed at stopping missionary work altogether. One law banned religious material from being sent by mail. Thousands of Spanish Bibles had been seized as a result of the law, and missionaries were not even allowed to send out their monthly newsletters. Another law made it nearly impossible for a missionary to obtain a visa to enter the country, let alone stay there.
July 24, 1935, was set aside to pray for Mexico. In the morning, the students and staff gathered around on their usual nail keg seats and listened as Cam outlined the already familiar state of affairs in Mexico. As the morning progressed, everyone got down on his knees and asked God to open the doors into Mexico so that they could all go there and work among the Indian tribes and do their translation work unhindered.
Cam was still outside praying at lunchtime when one of the students tuned in the large valve radio in the dining room to hear the midday news. “Come and hear this!” he yelled to the others.
Everyone raced into the dining room and gathered around the radio. The news announcer spoke in a booming voice. “And now for an update on the political situation in Mexico,” he said. “Only minutes ago, President Lázaro Cárdenas announced a major shake-up in his government. He has dismissed his entire cabinet, saying he wishes to build a new one with more moderate views.”
A cheer went up from the group. “It’s amazing!” declared Cam.
Indeed, the change was amazing. Each night over the next two weeks, the news described the developments unfolding in Mexico. President Cárdenas appointed a new cabinet and struck down many of the harsh antireligious laws. The ban on mailing religious material was lifted. New immigration laws allowing missionaries to stay in the country for longer periods of time were announced. Most exciting of all, the president recommended that translators be invited to the country to work among the Indian tribes!
The Mexican government had made a 180° turn in favor of missionaries. Cam could hardly wait for the classroom stage of Camp Wycliffe to be over so that they could all head south and try their hand at translation.
By mid-August, everyone in the school was ready for the trip south to Mexico, where the students planned to begin working with six unwritten languages. Some of the students planned to stay in Mexico until the task was done, while others planned to return to the United States in the fall to continue with their regular courses of study.
Cam had been very concerned about taking Elvira south again, but his niece Evelyn Griset offered to travel with them and act as a nurse and companion for her aunt. That took care of the worries about Elvira, but Cam fretted about where they would live once they got to Mexico. Given Elvira’s condition, he felt she needed something more substantial than a cornstalk house to live in. This problem, too, was taken care of. Tom Haywood, a local Christian businessman, had a washing machine sitting around the house. In 1935, a washing machine was a fairly valuable item. Tom traded the machine for an old house trailer, which he gave to Cam and Elvira for them to tow to Mexico to use as a house.
Cam was delighted with the house trailer. It had a tank for running water and a pull-out table and chairs. It had just one drawback: It weighed nearly two tons. The trailer might make it to Mexico, but Cam’s car towing it might not. The car was an old relic that hardly went twenty miles without breaking down. Still, there was little Cam could do about it. Since he had no money to buy a new car, he took the old car to the blacksmith’s workshop and asked the blacksmith to attach a trailer hitch.
A local pastor had heard about the situation and gave Cam his car. Although the car would not tow the monstrous trailer either, the pastor was sure that Cam could trade it and his old car for one large enough to pull the house trailer to Mexico. He was right. Cam traded the two cars in for an old Buick. The car used almost as much oil as it did gas—about a quart every twenty-five miles—but it was solid enough to tow the trailer, and that was what mattered.
Cam had everything he needed now, and he and Elvira and Evelyn Griset climbed eagerly into the old Buick. They were finally headed for Mexico, and nothing was going to stand in their way. The rest of those in the school had gone on ahead in a second car.
There were many stops along the way to top up the oil, but eventually the trio made it to Dallas, where they spent several nights as guests of Central American Mission. Then it was on to Laredo and the Mexican border. The travelers did not have anywhere near the sixty dollars per person per month that Mexican Immigration required foreign visitors entering the country to have. Cam, though, did not worry. He believed that something would work out.
And so it did. As Cam drove up to the border, all the Mexican immigration officials there came out to meet him, their mouths agape in wonder. They had never seen anything like it before. “A house with wheels!” they exclaimed, walking around the car and house trailer when Cam pulled to a halt.
As always, Cam saw an opportunity. “Yes,” he said, climbing out of the driver’s seat. “My family is going to live in it while we work with the Indian people. Would you like to see inside?”
One by one the immigration officials clambered into the trailer, chattering away in rapid Spanish as they examined everything.
When all the paperwork had been done and the passports had been stamped with visas, Cam wished the officials well and climbed back into the car. As he drove off, the immigration officials stood and waved good-bye, so in awe of the huge house trailer that they seemed to have forgotten to ask Cam how much money he had on him.
“What about the money, Uncle Cam? Did they want to see it?” asked Evelyn as they bumped along the road.
Cam looked back and smiled. “Didn’t even ask. Praise God, I think this is going to be a trip to remember!”
The car and house trailer made slow progress along the Pan American Highway. It seemed to Cam that every five miles or so there was road construction they had to stop for. Finally, near the village of Tamazunchale, there was no way through the construction. Workers were blasting a cutting for the road through solid rock. There was nothing for the trio to do but wait until the way was clear. A local missionary took them in and provided a place to stay. It was a week before word came that the road would be opened for a few hours to let traffic through.
Cam was glad to be on his way again, but not for long! As he rounded a bend, there in front of him was a steep, muddy road. Something inside him told him there was no way the car would make it up the slippery hill, but Cam had little choice but to try. There was no other way to get to Mexico City by car. Sure enough, about halfway up the slope, the wheels of the Buick began to spin in the mud. In his rearview mirror, Cam could see clods of mud spewing out from the back wheels. He gripped the steering wheel tightly as he began to lose control of the Buick and the trailer it was pulling. Slowly, unavoidably, they were sliding towards the side of the road—and the edge of the cliff that lay just beyond it. As they slid, the car jackknifed slightly, sending the rear right wheel over the edge first. They all held their breath, waiting for the fall—but it didn’t come. Instead, the Buick teetered on the edge, its back wheels dangling over a three-hundred-foot precipice.
It took Cam a few seconds to realize that the car wasn’t going over the cliff right away. “Get out the left side of the car as smoothly as you can,” he told Elvira and Evelyn. His voice was calm, but his stomach was tied in knots. Slowly, he opened the driver’s-side door and stepped out onto the muddy road. He hugged Elvira, who by then was white with fright. The three of them backed away from the Buick and the edge of the cliff. A construction worker was operating a grader a little farther up the road, and Cam managed to persuade him to tow the Buick back onto the road and away from the edge of disaster.
The three of them continued on their way, and although the Buick did slide several more times on the muddy stretch of road, it never slid close to the edge of the cliff again.
Several days later, when the twin volcanoes of Popo and Ixta came into view, Cam knew they were near Mexico City. He was not looking forward to navigating the Buick towing the huge trailer through the narrow streets of the capital to Coyoacan, their destination on the other side of the city.
“I had better pull off here before we get into heavy traffic,” Cam told Elvira as they arrived in Villa de Guadalupe, a suburb on the outskirts of Mexico City. “I’d like to check the trailer coupling and put some more oil in the car. The last thing we need is to have the car break down in traffic.”
Evelyn agreed, handing her uncle a bottle of oil as he climbed out of the Buick. “There are only three bottles of oil left, Uncle Cam,” she added.
Cam lifted the Buick’s hood and was just about to unscrew the oil cap when he looked up and saw two Mexican motorcycle police officers coming to a stop beside the car.
“Having a problem, señor?” the taller of the two officers asked Cam.
“No,” replied Cam. “I was just putting some oil in the engine and checking the trailer coupling. I’m getting ready to drive across the city. How is the traffic?”
The police officers looked at each other. “You are an American?” the tall one asked.
“Yes,” replied Cam. “I’m from California, and I’m here in your country to teach rural Indians to read the Word of God in their own languages.”
The shorter officer smiled a broad smile and switched to speaking in English. “I was privileged to visit your state last year as a member of the Mexican shooting team. The chief of police in the town where we were staying was very hospitable to us, as were many other Americans we met along the way. It would be my pleasure to return some of that hospitality to you. Follow us. We will escort you across the city.”
