Cameron Townsend: Good News in Every Language

Mr. Smith didn’t miss a beat. “Why don’t you meet her anyway? It can’t do any harm, since she’s in the area. The war won’t last forever. It’s an opportunity you shouldn’t miss.”

When Mr. Smith put it that way, Cam didn’t have the heart to refuse, and so a meeting was arranged for the following evening.

As the following day passed, Cam began to regret agreeing to the meeting. He convinced Robby Robinson to go to the meeting with him in case he ran out of things to say to some old spinster missionary. When he finally arrived at the meeting, Cam was surprised to discover that Stella Zimmerman was only about thirty years old. She was tall and willowy and had striking blonde hair. After greeting Cam and Robby, she launched right into a conversation about Guatemala. She painted such vivid word pictures of the place that Cam found himself wishing he were going there instead of France.

When Stella had finished telling them all about the tribes in Guatemala who had never had the gospel presented to them in their own language, she looked straight into Cam’s eyes. “When will you be arriving?” she asked.

Cam had been dreading telling her he wouldn’t be going at all. He wished he had told her straight out when he’d introduced himself. Now he felt very uncomfortable as he searched for the right words. Before he managed to get anything out, Robby came to his rescue. “Cam was interested in going, but he’s a corporal in the National Guard, and his unit has been called up.” When Stella looked at Robby with a look that asked, What about you?, he quickly added, “I’m thinking of applying for officer training school myself. We both want to do our part for the war effort.”

Stella looked indignant. “What cowards!” she exclaimed. “You would go off to war where there are already millions of men fighting and leave women to carry on the Lord’s work! God needs you in Central America!”

Both men sat in uncomfortable silence. What could they say? It was true, there were now thousands of men being shipped off every day to Europe to fight. Yet Cam knew there was nothing he personally could do about it. It would have been different if he had met Stella before he’d signed up for the National Guard, but now it was too late.

Finally, Robby turned to Cam.” How about it, partner? What do you say we go to Central America?”

Cam stared back at his friend wondering if he was crazy. There was no way he could go anywhere. “I’m due to leave any day now, and I’ve never heard of an able-bodied person being discharged,” he finally spluttered.

Robby put his hand on Cam’s arm. “Let’s pray that you do!” he said, his eyes shining brightly.

Cam didn’t know what to say. In the end he said weakly, “Well, if that’s what God wants, I’m willing.”

Robby and Stella grinned at each other as if they had planned it all along. Cam, though, just thought they were both carried away with enthusiasm. There was no way he could get out of going to France to fight.

Having said he was willing to go to Guatemala if discharged from the National Guard, Cam felt obliged to ask for a discharge, even though he knew it would be turned down. His history professor helped him write a letter to the captain of the local National Guard unit.

Cam was certain the captain would roll his eyes and say he’d seen it all now. But the captain did not. He read the letter through once, and then a second time. He stood thinking for a minute and then turned to Cam. “Go,” he said. “You’ll do a lot more good selling Bibles in Central America than you will shooting Germans in France!”

Cam stared blankly at the captain, trying to take in his words. “Go?” he finally stammered incredulously. “A discharge, sir? You mean you’ll sign my discharge?”

The captain laughed out loud. “That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

Cam nodded in delight. He could hardly wait to tell Robby. They were going to Guatemala after all!

Chapter 4
Mr. Jesus

The whistle of the S.S. Peru pierced the early morning air as Cam and Robby stood on deck watching the docks of San Francisco glide by. It was September 15, 1917, and they were finally on their way to Guatemala. Cam thought back over the previous months. It hadn’t been easy to get this far, but once he received his discharge papers, nothing could stop him. Though the Bible House of Los Angeles would pay them each thirty dollars a month once they reached Guatemala, Cam and Robby had needed to raise one hundred fifty dollars each for their fares. To raise the money, they had spent the summer on a ranch pitching hay and planting corn. It was backbreaking work, but they broke the monotony of it by quizzing each other on Spanish vocabulary. As they worked they waited to see whether Robby would be drafted into the army to fight in Europe. Since he hadn’t been called up so far, he and Cam were both free to leave the country.

Cam and Robby had traveled north to San Francisco to catch the ship. Since the war effort had put a strain on shipping, the few ships that still traveled between the West Coast of the United States and Central and South America mostly left from San Francisco. When they arrived there, Cam and Robby discovered that the only passenger ship headed south anytime soon had only first-class cabins available. The two men had planned on staying in a cheap tourist-class cabin deep in the bowels of the ship and did not have the extra money to cover a first-class fare. Undeterred, they set about earning the extra money they needed. They stayed in a cheap boarding house near the docks and took jobs loading crates onto ships for the Wells Fargo Company. They were paid fifteen dollars a week, and they saved every penny of it they could. To save money, they ate poached eggs for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. By the time they were done, Cam never wanted to see another poached egg in his life. Still, they had managed to save the extra money they needed for their fares. It had been hard work, but it paled in significance when compared to the adventure that lay ahead of them.

As the steam-driven propeller churned the waters of San Francisco Bay and gently pushed the S.S. Peru along, twenty-one-year-old Cameron Townsend turned and grinned at his friend. Robby was leaning against the rail, his foot resting on the small trunk he had brought aboard. Neither of them had been below deck yet to check out the first-class cabin they had worked so hard to pay for. They were too excited to go below and stow their belongings. Neither of them wanted to miss a thing.

Cam looked back towards the docks where the day’s activities were beginning. Wagons filled with barrels and crates were being unloaded, and an army unit was assembling near a tin shed at the far end of one pier. Each soldier had a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. Cam supposed they were probably about to be shipped out to join the fighting in France, which was where all the action in the war seemed to be taking place. Cam thought about his friend Carroll Byram, who had been shipped off to France a month before. Carroll would probably be fighting there by now along with the other men in the National Guard unit Cam had trained with.

As a seagull swooped low overhead, Cam could hardly believe he was back at sea. Ever since his stint as a bellhop aboard the S.S. President three summers before, he had longed to be on the ocean again.

At dinner that night the captain told them it would take about twenty days to reach their destination. They would sail down the Baja California peninsula and then head southeast past the remainder of the western coast of Mexico and then on to San José, Guatemala. Eighteen days later, and two days ahead of schedule, the S.S. Peru dropped anchor off the coast of San José.

“Hop in. You first, Cam,” said the captain, eyeing Cam’s scrawny 130-pound body and pointing to the large metal basket the ship’s crane had lowered to the deck.

Cam did as instructed, and then Robby followed him into the basket.

The captain handed them their luggage. “Put this at your feet and sit on it. Got to keep the center of gravity low or you’ll tumble out,” he instructed.

Cam nervously peered through the slats in the side of the basket as he and Robby were jerked into the air by the crane and swung out over the handrailing. The basket was lowered, and soon Cam felt the bottom of it bump onto the deck of a lighter boat. Quickly the two men climbed out.

“Buenos días, señors,” said one of the deckhands on the lighter boat as he reached into the basket and pulled out their bags.

“Good day to you, too,” replied Cam in Spanish, realizing as he did so that the trip in the basket had transported him from an English-speaking world into a Spanish-speaking one.

The lighter boat rose and fell in the swell as it chugged its way into the harbor at San José. Once Cam and Robby were ashore, a crew member escorted them to the customs and immigration office, where their passports were inspected. The officer on duty hardly noticed their luggage.

“I guess we don’t look the smuggling type,” said Cam with a grin as the two men walked out of the office.

“I guess not,” agreed Robby. Then looking at the size of his bag he added, “Couldn’t fit much in there if we tried anyway.”

“So far so good. We need to find a bank and exchange some money to buy tickets to Guatemala City,” said Cam, looking around for a building with the word Banco on it.

Cam and Robby found a bank soon enough and then headed for the train station. Both men were grateful for the Spanish they had learned, but Cam was a little dismayed at how fast the locals spoke. “Repeat please” and “Slow down” became two of his most-used phrases.

From the giggles Cam got when he introduced himself to the woman sitting near him on the train, he suspected there was something wrong with his name. He pulled out his Spanish dictionary to find out what it was. No wonder the woman had laughed. “Cameron” sounded just like the Spanish word for shrimp! Right then and there Cam decided to do something about it. He was skinny enough as it was without introducing himself to everyone as Mr. Shrimp. Instead, he decided to use his first name in Spanish-speaking countries. He would be don Guillermo (Guillermo being Spanish for William, his first name).

Later that night, as the train pulled into the station at Guatemala City, a wave of relief swept over Cam as he spotted Stella Zimmerman. Stella’s tall, blonde figure was easy to see above the sea of dark heads. Stella greeted Cam and Robby and introduced them to a pastor who had accompanied her to the station. She told them they would be staying in an attic apartment belonging to Central American Mission.

It was eleven o’clock before a horse-drawn carriage dropped the two men off at the apartment. Edward Bishop, the director of Central American Mission (CAM) in Guatemala, was waiting downstairs to meet them. The Bible House of Los Angeles had asked him to keep an eye on the two raw recruits. After introducing themselves, Cam and Robby headed upstairs to their tiny apartment. Cam dropped his bag and flopped onto the bed, exhausted from all the traveling, while Robby unpacked all his shaving gear for the next morning. As Cam lay in bed, he could hear conversation wafting up from downstairs. He could make out Edward Bishop talking to another man about the work Robby and Cam would be doing. At one point, the other man laughed. “I think Robinson will do fine. He’s the big fellow, right?” he said.

“Yes,” agreed Edward Bishop.

The other man continued. “That skinny Town-send kid, though, won’t last two months!”

Cam rolled over, trying not to hear anything else the men were saying. It had cost him a lot of money to get this far, and he was determined to last longer in Guatemala than two months.

The following morning, Cam and Robby met with Edward Bishop, who explained that he already had their first month planned out. They would spend the first two weeks getting used to their new surroundings: the food, the language, the customs. They would then all head over the mountains to the old capital of Antigua to attend a Bible conference. This would give Cam and Robby an opportunity to meet some local Christians. When the conference was finished, they would collect a supply of Spanish Bibles and head into the mountain regions.