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ОглавлениеFrom Sea to Sea
River Plate To Lake Michigan
by
Nelda Bedford Gaydou
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.
Text Copyright © 2018 Nelda Bedford Gaydou
All rights reserved.
Published 2018 by
Progressive Rising Phoenix Press, LLC
www.progressiverisingphoenix.com
ISBN: 978-1-946329-61-5
Cover Illustration and book layout by Sabrina Bedford
Visit www.msgbedford.com
For my parents, with love and gratitude
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my brother, David A. Bedford, for all his practical help and encouragement and my niece, Sabrina Bedford, for her delightful artwork.
Table of Contents
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Murals, Clock Chains and Soccer Scores
Motorcycles and Bone Fragments
Surprising End of a Mission Trip
Another Twist of the Kaleidoscope
From Daycare to Graduate School
Full Throttle Down Memory Lane
Afterword by Dr. Allen Benjamin Bedford
“He will proclaim peace to the nations. His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth.”
Zechariah 9:10, NIV
Shellbacks and Pollywogs
Nancy’s eyes grew wide and she clapped her hands in excitement as the waiter set the cake with two glowing candles on the table and her one hundred and twenty fellow passengers broke into a rousing chorus of “Happy Birthday.” Every night for the remainder of the voyage she expectantly awaited a repeat performance.
Sailing from New Orleans to Buenos Aires was sheer luxury for the entire Bedford family: three whole weeks of rest and relaxation. For Ben, the gangplank onto the ship was a release from his indentured servitude to higher education (two years crammed with classes, dissertation and oral examinations to earn his doctorate in theology), although he was still bound by one paper chain—he boarded with a sheaf of finals to be returned to the professor for whom he had been grading. For La Nell, it was literally a chance to catch her breath after having a lung collapse during a bout of double pneumonia brought on by the stress of keeping the family going while Ben studied, typing his endless papers and dissertation, seeing her teenage son through painful knee surgery and, most of all, dealing with the death of her only sister. The graded papers and mandatory medical reports would be mailed from the first port of call. They were taking no chances on delaying their return to the mission field.
The month of pampering after their breakneck pace and the penny pinching required by nearly half a year off salary was simply delightful. There was no housework, no cooking and no errands to run. Their spacious cabin was kept in order by a steward whose performance rose from merely perfunctory to devotedly assiduous as the end of the voyage and the hope of a good tip approached, while delicious meals were served at their assigned table in the dining room by a charming and efficient waiter, except for the days when abundant and delectable buffet lunches were offered in the lounge. Trays with tempting delicacies were passed around in the afternoon to bridge the gap until dinner.
They were traveling on the S.S. Del Sud, one of Delta Line’s “Del Triplets” (Del Norte, Del Sud and Del Mar) that carried passengers and cargo between New Orleans and eastern South America. The vessels were 495 feet long and 70 feet wide, capable of traveling at 17 knots and accommodating 120 passengers and 367 crew members. Built some fifteen years earlier, in the late 1940s, they were the last word in comfort for the time. Their distinctive appearance included tall twin smoke uptakes just behind a squat dummy funnel that housed two decks of officers’ quarters, the radio room and the emergency generator. The forward superstructure was almost circular, giving a wedge shape to many of the staterooms, all located on the outside and equipped with private facilities and air conditioning. Each ship had a Grand Lounge, library, deck café and domed dining room as well as a large salt-water swimming pool on a spacious deck.
The passengers soon settled into comfortable routines. Those who felt the need for something more than reading, napping and talking to while away their time could choose from board and card games, ping pong, putting and shuffleboard, to name a few of the options. La Nell won the table tennis tournament despite her respiratory problems and Ben met some fellow golf enthusiasts, one of whom recommended links in the general vicinity of the Bedfords’ new assignment. David chatted with everyone and picked up a smattering of Portuguese from the polyglot voyagers, besides taking the time to teach his ten-year-old sister to play ping pong and shuffle a deck of cards. Nelda spent most of her days roaming the ship with a new-found friend her age and most nights babysitting Nancy while the older members of the family took in movies at the lounge.
The first week they sailed some 2,000 miles through the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean to reach Barbados. This beautiful little island in the Lesser Antilles lies just outside of the Atlantic hurricane belt, 250 miles northeast of Trinidad and Tobago and almost due north of the border between Venezuela and Brazil. The Spaniards who named the island were the first Europeans to land there and its name, which means “the bearded ones,” may refer to the hanging roots of the bearded fig tree that is indigenous to the island or to the allegedly bearded Caribs who once inhabited it. It was the English, however, who first settled there permanently in 1627 and made it a colony. In 1966, two years after this trip, it became an independent country and a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations.
During their short stay the Bedfords did some rapid sightseeing in the capital city, Bridgetown, taking in their stride the traffic that circulated on the left side of the road, British-style. They dutifully mailed their medical reports and graded papers to the U.S. and found a cobbler for David. He had boarded the ship on crutches, recovering from surgery intended to stop the growth in his left knee joint, thus allowing a polio-induced difference in the length of his legs to be shortened and the consequent deviation in his spine to straighten out. Struggling up the gangplank and catching a glimpse of the number of stairs on the ship, he instantly decided to forego the crutches. Now he needed an insole and a lift for the heel of his right shoe to even up his legs, and the friendly cobbler soon had him ready to go. Thanks to his timely operation, David never developed a limp and his spinal column recovered its rightful shape.
They reached the Equator approximately 1,000 miles further along, an event known as “Crossing the Line,” which has traditionally involved initiation rites in many of the world’s navies. It usually takes the form of a “Court of Neptune,” in which Trusty Shellbacks (veteran sailors) induct Slimy Pollywogs (first-time crossers) into “the mysteries of the Deep,” and generally involves an increasingly embarrassing series of ordeals similar to fraternity hazing. Shellbacks are allowed to capture pollywogs, interrogate them and crack eggs on their heads or whatever else strikes their fancy. Passengers often celebrate with a considerably scaled-down version of the initiation rites. The S.S. Del Sud was no exception: there was a costume party complete with heavy teasing of the pollywogs that included a race in which they had to push ping pong balls with their noses along the floor of the Grand Lounge. Fortunately for the Bedfords, they were all confirmed shellbacks except Nancy, and she was too small to be hazed. David attended the festivities as one of the newly famous Beatles and sang She Was Just Seventeen to the accompaniment of a table tennis paddle guitar. Afterwards, the inductees received certificates with the name of the vessel and the date on which they had crossed the Equator.
The long, lazy days also gave the Bedfords time to prepare themselves for their new assignment in Argentina. The entire first term and part of the second had been spent in Rosario, the great port city on the mighty Paraná River. They had loved it there and formed many close ties until they felt called to do pioneer work in Comodoro Rivadavia, the Oil Capital on the Atlantic coast, deep down in Patagonia. There they had fallen in love all over again and had been looking forward to going back. However, while they were on furlough in the U.S., the Mission informed them that there were so many needs around the country that there could only be one set of missionaries in Comodoro. Ben and La Nell offered to leave the choice up to the other family, which had arrived there shortly before they themselves had left, and the Pippins chose to stay. A long period of praying and soul-searching began. Among the many requests for help, the Bedfords received an invitation from the South Zone Association in the Greater Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area. Multiple letters were exchanged between them, the Convention, the Association and the Mission, and they gradually became convinced that it should be their new place of service. Just about when they had made their peace with the idea, the Mission wrote that the Pippins had decided not to return to Comodoro after all and the slot was still open. It was a great struggle between heart and mind: if they had been guided by the heart alone, they would have returned like a shot; however, the church had called a capable national pastor and they knew that they were not needed there nearly so much as in Buenos Aires. So, they accepted the South Zone’s invitation, with the proviso that at first they would continue to have some responsibilities as interim area missionaries for the Comodoro area.
By the time they reached Rio de Janeiro, 2,700 miles after their first brief stop, everyone had to get used to walking on land again. As in 1957, the Bedfords were met and shown around by friends, this time the Gray family. Dr. Jack Gray had been one of Ben’s Missions professors and he was in Brazil gathering first-hand information and perspective on the field.
Rio is a fascinating city. It took over colonial administration from Salvador in 1763 and in 1808 the Portuguese royal family and most of the aristocracy fled there from Napoleon’s invasion, making it the only European capital outside of Europe. Prince Pedro proclaimed the independence of Brazil in 1822. Rio was the administrative head of the nation, first of the empire and then of the republic, until Brasilia was made the new capital in 1960.
The Bedfords took in as many sights as they could, crowned by the magnificent view from the enormous art deco Christ the Redeemer statue that overlooks the city, before going on to the next stop in Santos, the busiest container port in Latin America. Ben took advantage of the opportunity to get his hair cut. He was feeling quite pleased with the flow of bilingual conversation with the gregarious barber. He pondered out loud on the fact that the Portuguese-speaking Brazilians tend to understand the Spanish-speaking Argentines better than the other way around, attributing it to the pronunciation characteristics of the respective languages. Spanish has only five vowel sounds and is timed so that all syllables are of equal length, while Portuguese has a much broader range of vowel sounds that can be loosely categorized as open, closed, reduced or nasal and is timed so that stressed syllables are longer than the others. The barber cut into these linguistic musings, allowing his professional courtesy to slip and unmasking the deep-seated Brazilian-Argentine rivalry with a curt:
“Não, é porque argentino é máis burro!”1
Ben manfully swallowed this insult to his beloved adopted country and continued to try to understand as much as possible on a bus trip to São Paulo, the largest city of Brazil, with a local church member as tourist guide. The only significant breakdown in communication was when he mistook the Portuguese falar (“to speak”) for the Spanish fallecer (“to die”) and wondered who had passed away.
The weather had been turning increasingly cooler as they advanced southward and eventually turned into full-fledged winter. As they rounded Uruguay, they met the waters of South America’s second largest drainage basin.2 Some geographers consider the Río de La Plata a gulf or marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, while for others it is a river, the widest in the world, reaching as much as 120 miles across. It behaves like an estuary where freshwater and seawater mix. The huge discharge of its tributaries prevents salt water from penetrating the inner Río de La Plata. The capitals of Uruguay and Argentina are both important ports flanking the river, Montevideo on the east and Buenos Aires on the west. The shipping route is kept open by constant dredging.
The next-to-last port of call was Montevideo, with an overnight stay. The Bedfords were received and shown around by their longtime friends the Bartleys. The family’s excitement reached fever pitch: tomorrow they would once again be on Argentine soil!
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
What kind of vehicle would they be assigned this time? So far, their experience had been mixed. On their first term in Rosario, it had been an ancient and arthritic Humber that forced the family to get around mostly by bus, streetcar and bicycle. During the second term, they had negotiated the long, dusty distances of Patagonia in a sturdy and utterly dependable little Opel station wagon. They had experienced the good and the bad. Now came the ugly: a 1960 Rambler Cross Country station wagon. Pre-power steering and pre-power brakes, it had a three-on-the-tree manual transmission, that is, with the shifter on the steering column, so that it required wrestling rather than guiding. On the other hand, its tank-like design and strength could be a distinct defensive advantage, for this would be traffic on an entirely different level.
Although Argentina was the country with the seventh largest territory in the world, at that time it had only 20,000,000 inhabitants, of which one third, 6.6 million, lived in the Greater Buenos Aires area, making it the sixth largest megacity in the world, after Tokyo, New York, London, Paris and Shanghai. Besides cars, the streets of Buenos Aires teemed with pedestrians, buses, streetcars, trucks and trains. With the port and downtown at its apex in the east, Buenos Aires fanned out beyond the Federal Capital into mile upon mile of solid city in three large administrative areas: North, West and South.
For the first two months, until their assigned house was ready, the family’s center of operations was the Capital, in a Mission-owned apartment on the same block as the International Baptist Theological Seminary. They had arrived at the end of June, right before the winter break from school and just in time for Mission Meeting, where Ben was promptly elected president. They enjoyed showing off Nancy and got acquainted with several families they had not yet met. For the older children, all missionaries who arrived in Argentina after they went on their second furlough were forever “new.” David was enrolled at Lincoln, the American Community School in the North Zone, and Nelda met with a tutor every morning to catch up on the first half of fifth grade.
Ben had made his initial forays by train, but now he was running up the mileage on the Rambler. Right away he met with the Executive Committee of the South Zone Association, which represented nineteen congregations and was presided over by Francisco “Pancho” Pluís, pastor of the church in Rafael Calzada, but he was shown around mostly by Pastor Quattrocchi of the Avellaneda Norte church, who was quite a character. He confided that he had practically been ordered into the ministry by former missionary Martin Blair. Despite being considered somewhat of a stickler for the rules, he was one of the biggest-hearted of men and was known to travel whatever distance was required to offer consolation when anyone in the Baptist world passed away. The Association asked for Ben and La Nell’s help in emphasizing and promoting evangelism, Christian education, fellowship, church planting and Seminary extension programs. At first, every Sunday the family visited two different churches of the Association and soon Bienvenidos (“Welcome”) became Nancy’s favorite hymn, which she could belt out with the best of them.
Frequent trips were also required to supervise the repair and paint jobs at their future residence, recently vacated by the Mills family, now reassigned to Jamaica. It was located in Adrogué, head of the seventh of ten districts south of the Capital.3 The usual way there was by Avenida Pavón, originally the Camino Real4 that had been used mainly to transport cattle to the stockyards in the early nineteenth century and was now a wide and extremely busy thoroughfare.
The house was very attractive and comfortable, facing a cobblestone street in a pleasant residential area, with neighborhood stores and the railway station within easy walking distance. In fact, the whole town was quite attractive. It had been conceived with an advanced urban design—generous tree-lined streets in a grid, intersected by diagonals, parks and boulevards—whose plans were approved in 1873. Esteban Adrogué donated lands for the railroad, city hall, town square and several important buildings. He wanted to call the train station “Almirante Brown” but the name was already taken. Since it was customary to honor the person who donated the land, it became “Estación Adrogué,” and the moniker extended to the town itself, although the name was not legally adopted until the late 1990s. Many of the original buildings, designed by a renowned Italian architect, are still standing today. It became a cultural center and was nicknamed “The Pearl of the South.” A great number of the original country houses remained, large buildings in the English or Spanish style, with ample grounds, ornate dark green or black iron gates and fences, and, everywhere, huge shady trees. Jorge Luis Borges, the great Argentine poet and master of the short story, spent a great deal of time there in his childhood and once said: “In whatever part of the world I find myself, when I come upon the scent of eucalyptus, I am in Adrogué.”
Humpty Dumpty
Only Nancy regretted the change of furniture. When they unpacked their belongings that had been in storage in Comodoro Rivadavia during their furlough, the Bedfords enjoyed being reunited with so many familiar objects that had represented continuity throughout their numerous moves, but there were some disappointments.
One had to do with Nelda’s dolls. She had amassed quite a respectable collection by the time they left Comodoro. There were dolls of all sizes, colors and materials, from babies to brides, miniature to life size. There was even a boy doll whose entire outfit—shirt, shorts, belt, hat and shoes—had been made by La Nell. The little girl received dolls every birthday and Christmas and sometimes in between, for example, when her father returned from a trip. She took turns playing with them all and put them on loving display in a bookcase. Although she had outgrown the tea-party stage, she looked forward to decorating her room with them and enjoying the memories.
The dolls had been carefully packed and placed in storage cabinets above and separate from the closets in the Mission house in Comodoro. Box after box and barrel after barrel were unloaded from the moving van, but the doll boxes were nowhere to be found. Finally, an old suitcase was opened and there were the remains of the collection: perhaps three whole dolls and random pieces—a leg here, a head there—of a few others. They could not be put together again. It remained a sad and rather disturbing mystery.
Another disappointment was the condition of the living-room furniture, which could best be described as pitiful. The Patagonian climate had taken its toll and replacements would have to be found. In the meantime, Nancy enjoyed the indoor sport of jumping up and down on the couch, for once unhindered by her parents, who knew she couldn’t make it any worse.
So they began the search. Not far from the Seminary was the furniture district and they found a shop on Avenida Rivadavia that made pieces to order. Except for the beautiful set in Rosario, the Bedfords had always had to settle for basic functionality. Now La Nell chose elegant Louis XVI in walnut, with olive green upholstery for the living-room group and forest green for the dining-room chairs. They were able to order everything but the bargueño,5 for which they would have to wait several years, until the exchange was favorable enough for a reasonable price. This furniture was to accompany them on every move for the rest of their lives.
It was the golden age of antique shopping, with amazing bargains to be found. Over the years La Nell gradually added just the right accessories: light fixtures, lamps, a dressoir6 and even a telephone. It was all beautiful and perfect for entertaining their frequent guests—but Nancy’s days of jumping on the couch were over.
Solar System
Each family member settled into an orbit that revolved around the home, where, sun-like, La Nell’s gravitational pull kept their paths on track. She ran the house, kept everyone’s schedules straight and seconded her husband, all the while somehow carrying out her own personal tasks in Christian Education, the Women’s Missionary Union, the Association and the Convention.
Nancy was of course the nearest planet and spent most of her time at home, entertaining herself with toys and books indoors, or with the swings in the big back yard, or relaxing in the shade of the lemon tree with its heady fragrance. Most days she wore her hair pulled up into a ponytail, but on Sundays and special occasions it was let down with only a barrette to keep it from falling in her face. Her big sister liked to take her to the neighborhood merry-go-round because she enjoyed it so much, its operator shamelessly favoring her in catching the ring,7 and because of the sensation she always created. When the sun shone, the little girl’s waist-length hair would glow in living gold, silver and copper, so beautiful that people would stop and stare, often with their mouths open.
Nelda’s personal orbit extended to a radius of a little over three city blocks. She spent much of her weekends exploring the neighborhood on her mother’s old but dependable bicycle from Rosario. She was enrolled at St. Michael’s College, a bilingual institution within easy walking distance. In the morning, the school offered the Cambridge program and taught all things British. Nelda acquired a lifelong fascination with English history and was soon able to mimic an upper crust British accent perfectly, but she reserved it for private entertainment. She had been deeply offended by her Language teacher, Mrs. Hall, who on her first test marked her American spelling wrong and perpetually winced at her vowel sounds.
“Can’t you at least try to sound British?” demanded Mrs. Hall in a maddeningly condescending manner.
“No, I can’t!” replied Nelda with the most American “a” possible.
Mrs. Hall would grind her teeth and grudgingly give her Colonial pupil high marks because her performance was unobjectionable in all other respects.
Nelda’s feelings were somewhat soothed by the attitude of Mrs. García, the school’s Anglo-Argentine founder and principal, who was thrilled to have a living example of the wonderful variety of the great English language.
In the afternoon, the school followed the national education program. Nelda’s first teacher was amazed that she achieved perfect Spanish in less than a month and La Nell was forced to dispel the idea that they were in the presence of a linguistic genius. She explained their long absence and that re-immersion into Argentine culture had brought it all back.
The school uniform was typically British: white shirt; dark green tunic, sweater, blazer, neck scarf and hat; green and silver tie and knit belt; gray pullover and knee-high socks; brown leather shoes; and abominable green bloomers for physical education.
David’s orbit was more elliptical and extended all the way to Olivos, in the North Zone where his school was located. It offered a first-rate U.S. college preparatory education. Initially he lived in a boarding house during the week and went home on weekends. The pension was a large two-story house run by a single middle-aged German surnamed Vieler whom David suspected of being a former Nazi officer, a hypothesis supported by the Mauser rifle mounted on the drawing-room wall. Over a dozen boys from the interior lodged there, half of whom went to Lincoln and half to other schools. There was one bathroom on each floor and showers were taken according to a strict schedule. David was fortunate enough to have a room all to himself on the top floor, and shared breakfast and dinner with the other lodgers. An elderly Swiss or German woman was in charge of cleaning and cooking. She summoned them to meals by rapping out “Zu Essen!”8 There was a train station nearby, Estación Borges, but it did not carry passengers as it belonged to a freight line called Tren de la Costa9, so the landlord drove the boys to school in his Estanciera,10 holding the steering wheel Continental-style.
David finally decided that he would rather live at home and make the trip to school every day by public transportation. This merely involved walking three blocks to catch the 7:28 a.m. train, riding to the end of the Roca Line at the Constitución Terminal, catching the subway to the Retiro Terminal, taking a train from the Mitre Line to the Olivos station, and then walking fifteen blocks if time allowed and the weather was fine, or riding a city bus that dropped him off two blocks from school. The reverse process got him home at 4:50 p.m.
However, David did not mind this seemingly onerous program. On the contrary, he took advantage of the opportunity to acquire an intimate knowledge of the place he wholeheartedly adopted as his own. It was fabulous to live in a world-class city. He studied maps and buildings, thereby developing his native bump of locality even more and gaining a working knowledge of a variety of architectural styles. This fascinating melting pot, of a predominantly European and Middle Eastern mixture, connected him with the whole world. He felt a heady sense of freedom: for a few pesos he could go just about anywhere.
Ben’s duties covered an area perhaps not as long as David’s but considerably wider. He visited all the pastors in the South Zone individually to hear their concerns and learn what he could do to help, and his duties in the Convention and the Mission often took him to the Capital.
The Associational pastors were an outstanding group of gifted, energetic and committed men, most of them close to Ben’s own age, many already known by him, some all the way back from his first term. One of these was Daniel Gaydou, who had moved from the South to lead the church in Adrogué and was generally considered the most handsome pastor in the nation. He and his wife Dolores now had three stair-step boys. The middle son, Alberto, was Nelda’s age and usually delivered the messages sent to the parsonage because the Mission house did not yet have a telephone. The infrastructure was old and woefully inadequate, often forcing people to wait for years to get a line. The Bedfords joined the local church right away and the rest of the family attended there while Ben made the rounds of the other congregations and was often invited to preach.
A Monument to Cooperation
As when they were assigned to Comodoro Rivadavia in 1959, the Bedfords were commissioned to start a new church in an area with no Evangelical presence. Apart from tremendous prayer support, the experiences were very different.
In Comodoro they had been forced to “wing it,” so to speak. There was no plan and only one family of believers to help. They visited neighbors, handed out fliers and put an ad in the newspaper, meeting first in their home, then in rented quarters and finally in their own church building. When they left after three and a half years, there were two thriving congregations and a school. This time around there was an abundance of planning and support. Within one year, where there had been nothing, a vigorous thirty-nine-member congregation was meeting in its own building.
At their annual session in December 1964, the nineteen churches of the South Zone Baptist Association unanimously voted to begin a new work and requested that Ben be its pastor. They decided that it should be in the Quilmes District, specifically in San Francisco Solano, a place that in the space of ten years had gone from being mostly open country to a city of nearly one hundred thousand inhabitants.
The town’s name was due to the fact that its lands had been bought by the Franciscan Order in the mid-1700s and used for plantations called Chacras de San Francisco.11 They were sold to two private individuals in 1826 and in turn by their heirs to the Tulsa Company in 1948. In December of that year the Government of Buenos Aires authorized their subdivision and sale as well as the foundation of a town. At that point, it consisted of a collection of empty blocks and dirt roads covered with thistle patches, dotted here and there with lonely little houses. There were no shops, no schools, no medical or postal service, no police and no fire department. As people flocked to Buenos Aires in search of work during the industrial boom, workers began building their houses. The brick-and-mortar type of construction allowed them to do so in stages. Many started with a basic living area and bathroom and, once they moved in, they could use the money that had gone to rent for gradual expansion. The town square with the first park was built in 1958. In 1963 the neighbors formed a commission to work toward municipal autonomy.
A church-planting plan was soon put into action. The project kicked off with a ten-day revival on the main street. Permission was obtained from the owner of an empty lot to set up the Association’s tent, which could hold up to 200 persons. The nineteen churches took turns watching the tent overnight, setting up the chairs and sound system, and preaching. They all pitched in to visit the neighbors, hand out fliers and paste posters on walls. Attendance was very good and decisions of faith were made every night.
The next step was to set up a smaller tent loaned by the Emanuel Baptist Church on the permanent site and begin to hold regular services. The lot was only two blocks away from the paved main street and had been bought at a very reasonable price from a widow who belonged to the Quilmes church, pastored by Juan Cornaglia. Materials from shipping crates donated by the Ford Motor Company were used to build a small temporary wooden building. A new missionary family, the Davenports, contributed the container in which they had brought their belongings and it was used as a Sunday School classroom.
Construction soon began on an 850 square-foot auditorium, which required approximately 9,000 U.S. dollars. The Mission loaned $2,000 and the Association and budding congregation raised the remainder while labor was contributed by the new believers and members of other churches. The Woman’s Missionary Union (WMU) of the Association collected money for the pews and pulpit. These were made by Pastor Daniel Gaydou, who had grown up in his father’s carpentry shop and put his considerable manual skills at the service of all who needed them. A member donated sheet metal from his shop for the baptistry and one of the new converts welded it into place.
The building was dedicated on the first Sunday in October 1965; fifteen persons were baptized in November; the First Baptist Church of San Francisco Solano was organized early in December with thirty-nine members; and it was formally received into the Association at the very next annual meeting after the one in which the project had been voted. A layman who was sitting behind Ben leaned forward and tapped him on the shoulder. He whispered, “I will donate a parcel of land in Solano for new work.”
The Association’s dream of sparking enthusiasm for opening new works had come true. A mission point was started in the donated lot. Young people from the Association’s churches led the effort, beginning with a tent revival in April 1966. Another gift of wood from packing crates was received, this time from the Chrysler Motor Corporation.
The lead article of the May 1967 issue of The Commission, the Southern Baptist Foreign Missions Journal, was called “A Monument to Cooperation.” It summed up the history of the Solano church and ended with these words on the mission points that grew out of this effort:
On the Sunday before Easter a group of men and boys, none of them residents of Solano, gathered at the site. After Bible reading and prayer, they spent the day mixing mortar and laying a foundation for the chapel, though there was not a professional bricklayer among them.
Sunday School attendance increased quickly to more than 30. Bible study was begun on Wednesday evenings. A seminary student, Augusto De la Calle, assisted with the services. To the small chapel building three classrooms soon were added. The association provided all the money for this project, and the chapel became a mission of the young church in Solano, with associational young people cooperating.
While all this was developing in one suburb, at least 11 other mission points were being established by individual churches in the area, and five of these new works were provided permanent buildings in which to meet. In addition, almost every one of the [now] 21 churches was involved in some type of building project for its own growth. Many of the churches have conducted these building programs without outside financial aid, and others have put in a sizable portion of the total cost. It is reassuring to witness the effort these churches put forth on their own.
Who Is Going to Help You Now?
When the project began, the participants had no idea how it would snowball. At the end of the initial revival, participants from the various churches helped take down the tent and put away the equipment. Ricardo Kölln, from Florencio Varela, was helping Ben stack folding chairs in the back of the Rambler.
“Who is going to help you now?” he asked.
“So far, my wife and my children!” answered Ben ruefully.
“You know, I’ve been thinking and praying about this, and I believe that God is calling me to serve here.”
This was wonderful news for the Bedfords, but it was with very mixed feelings that Pastor Schmunk watched this faithful deacon and trustworthy treasurer, a veritable pillar of his congregation, take up the challenge. Like Ben, Ricardo was in his late thirties. He had recently been widowed and had three children—two daughters whose ages matched those of the two eldest Bedford children and a son who was several years older than Nancy. Silvia and Nelda clicked from the very first and soon became inseparable, the beginning of a life-long friendship. Ricardo, son of World War I immigrants, had been born and raised in a German colony in the Province of Entre Ríos, but he had long since gone to Buenos Aires to seek his fortune. He was now the owner of a prosperous small business that anodized and galvanized metal parts. Honest and hardworking, he was always willing to help and many young men got their start working with Ricardo. Later he was instrumental in starting two more new works that became churches.
As the regular meetings got under way, new and old friends joined the effort. The mostly do-it-yourself construction generated a lot of camaraderie and not a few humorous situations. Ben long had a vivid image of himself staggering slightly under the weight of yet another two pails of mortar, preparing to hand them off to the three men plastering the tall brick wall from the makeshift scaffolding. The one on the near end took a step to the right, leaning slightly to catch the hook dangling at the end of a long rope on the handle of the first pail with the confidence born of multiple flawless executions of the maneuver. Yet something must have been different, for the board tilted, slowly at first and then gaining momentum. The first man slid off, the second rolled down the board, and the third was launched into a spectacular summersault high in the air before crashing to the ground, while mortar flew in every direction, generously spattering them all. Thankfully, no one was seriously injured and the incident soon became legend. Ben was irresistibly reminded of one of his little daughter’s favorite shows, The Three Stooges. They were among the most enthusiastic and generous members of his congregation—Baez, Albornoz and Loberche, the first two new Christians and the third a volunteer from another church in the Association.
The Baez and Albornoz families were the first to be baptized in Solano. Mrs. Baez was pregnant at the time and was later to joke that her son was baptized twice—once with her and once on his own. Mrs. Albornoz was so eager to learn that she volunteered to act as secretary for the Auxiliar de Niñas,12 the girls’ missionary activity, not only to help out but to soak up every bit of instruction.
Mrs. González became a Christian at the mission point and proved to have exemplary faith. Her favorite Bible story was that of Paul and Silas with the Philippian jailer. She took for her own the promise “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household” (Acts 16:31), and she lived to see it fulfilled as one by one her family members became believers.
Not only did the Bedfords come to know and love a new group of people, they also got to renew cherished bonds. The plans for the worship center and the designs for the pews and pulpit were prepared by none other than José Ragni, the architect with whom they had teamed up for a series of building projects in Rosario and who, together with his wife Delia, had been the first to be baptized in the new building of the First Baptist Church of that city.
The Marzocchis, the family that had helped them pioneer the new work in Comodoro Rivadavia, had recently moved back to Banfield and soon offered their services. They faithfully rode a bus for thirty to forty-five minutes over badly potholed roads in all weathers to teach Sunday School. Although the pavement was only two blocks away, the walk to the church building could be quite hazardous, since the streets turned into squelchy rivers of mud whenever it rained. Even those who went in cars were forced to park on the pavement and go the rest of the way on foot. Umbrellas and galoshes were standard equipment.
Another welcome addition, a little later, was Mercedes Pitoiset, the teenager who had lived with them in Comodoro while she finished school and was now a Seminary student. She struck up a close friendship with Esther Roberto, surgical nurse and sister of the lady who had lent her empty lot for the initial tent revival, and both sisters eventually became believers. Esther’s husband Julio was at sea most of the year as chief engineer on a merchant ship, so she attended with her seven-year-old daughter Patricia. This was to prove to be a most important connection for the Bedfords, particularly David.
Par for the Course
Shortly after arriving in Buenos Aires, Ben and La Nell tried an alternative route to the South Zone. It was called the Camino de Cintura,13 and was reached by a continuation of the Federal Capital’s ring-way known as the Camino Negro,14 a veritable “black belt” of a road. It had been paved that very year, and the complete absence of lighting made it pitch black at night.
Signs indicating that they had reached Lomas de Zamora rang a bell:
“Didn’t that guy on the ship say that there was a golf course around here?” asked Ben.
“Let’s find out!” answered La Nell.
They stopped the car, got out and inquired of a passerby if he knew where the Lomas Golf Club was.
“You mean where the ingleses15 play? Sure.”
Following his directions, they were soon in open country. It transpired that what the ingleses were playing there was not golf but polo, a sport which has been dominated by Argentina since the 1930s. As they pondered their next move, a man approached and asked if he could help. He turned out to be the Vice President of the Lomas Golf Course who just happened to be watching polo that day.
“The golf course is actually right outside of Ezeiza,” he explained.
He went on to say that the membership drive had just closed but the Club had a tradition of extending free membership to ministers and their families who lived in the South Zone. The Bedfords became honorary members, complete with IDs, even for little Nancy, and full access to all benefits, including use of the golf course and swimming pool.
Except for a brief period in Rosario, Ben had not golfed regularly since he had stopped caddying when he was fourteen. He had not been able to practice the sport at all for ten years, until they were in Costa Rica to learn Spanish before going to Argentina. There he played once, with borrowed clubs. His game was somewhat rusty.
“Have you ever seen anyone play worse?” he ruefully asked his caddy.
“Yeah—the guy who owns those clubs,” was the dry response.
Before they left the U.S. in 1953, one of Ben’s speaking engagements took him through Amarillo, Texas. He stopped at the golf course and purchased a partial set of clubs. During their first term, he played once at the Rosario Swift packing plant’s course and once at the country club, but it was expensive.
An interview with a psychiatrist was part of the missionaries’ complete periodic medical exams. During their first furlough, the doctor told Ben that he needed to take up an activity to help him relax. Golf was the most attractive possibility, but he felt that it would eat away even more of the little time he had to spend with his family. La Nell offered to learn so they could play together, and they bought a set of clubs each.
When they returned to Rosario and moved from the apartment to a house, they discovered that there was a nine-hole golf course close to them, near the Belgrano railroad. They found that they could just fit in a quick round about once a week during the siesta when no one else was around. La Nell proved to be a natural and looked forward to their outings just as much as her husband. Ben began to regain and build upon the skills he had acquired as a child and teenager, to the point that one day the caddy asked if he had been a professional player. The only appointment Ben ever missed in his life was when he was playing golf and forgot a meeting with the senior area missionary, Thomas Hawkins.
They also initiated their good friend Bill Ferrell into the game. On his very first round he hit a really beautiful spoon shot. Later that evening as he relaxed in an armchair at the Bedfords’ house, a dreamy look and wistful smile would steal across his face every time he thought about that ball curving gracefully onto the green. He ended up playing more frequently than they did, on the lush fairways of Córdoba.
In Comodoro Rivadavia Ben played only once, on a dry bumpy course where oil pipelines marked the hazards and the “greens” were made of sand, much like a golf course he had once seen in Odessa, Texas, but on their second furlough they played on several occasions. Once they were in Arlington, and the three college students ahead of them waved them through. La Nell was a bit embarrassed and self-conscious at having to make her next shot under their watchful gaze. Her ball was some thirty or forty feet away from the green; she swung and it arced up into the air, landed on the green and rolled gently into the hole.
“Get out of here!” exclaimed the young men.
Ben even played a couple of times with a broken hand at a golf course in Fort Worth which later became the site of the TCU baseball stadium and tennis courts.
La Nell had learned to play with pointers from Ben but now was able to take advantage of the availability of a pro at the Lomas Golf Club for a few lessons.
“¡Brava, Señora! But the follow-through is not so good,” he said as he helped her correct her tendency to slice.
One day they gave him a Bible and when they got back from their eighteen holes he had already gone through much of the New Testament.
As far as possible, they tried to play once a week. When they left the South Zone, they informed the Club because they did not want to abuse its generosity. It responded by making them members as long as they lived in Argentina. When they retired, they received a letter giving them access and reduced rates at private golf courses around the world.
Yet another benefit was that they could take paying visitors, who otherwise would not have been allowed to play at all. They often treated friends and overseas guests. Ben and La Nell got to where they were pretty much par for the course, and their children became well acquainted with the language of bogeys, birdies and even eagles.
AWOL
“The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men gang aft a-gley”16 was a very fitting motto for the Bedfords in 1965.
During the first term of service in Argentina, the Bedfords and their best friends the Ferrells had purchased a lot together with the intention of building a little getaway. Every time one of the couples thought they could manage it, the other was in a particularly tight spot. The two families were now in their third term and had yet to do anything about it.
“At this rate it will never get done.”
“Then let’s just close our eyes and do it!”
“Okay!”
So they had carefully drawn up their budgets to pay for plans and permits, bricks and mortar, wood and labor—tightening their belts to the very last notch. It was the only time in the Bedfords’ forty-year missionary career that the dollar fell and became weaker than the peso, so they were pretty much broke for a good while and had quite a struggle to make ends meet.
But it was worth it—in spite of everything it was definitely worth it, and they were able to use it the very next summer, January of 1966. A local architect by the name of Bonamico drew up the plans for a very serviceable house that made the most of every inch of available space.
The center of the structure was open for the kitchen and dining areas, forming an L to the right at the back with the den. Halfway down on the left the wall opened up onto a small hall with a bathroom in the middle, flanked on either side by a bedroom—to the left Bill and Opal, to the right Ben and La Nell. Across the hall was the bedroom for the four girls (Lynn, Betty, Nelda and Nancy), just large enough for two built-in sets of bunk beds, each with two large drawers underneath. All three bedrooms had a small open closet as well as a triangular slab of marble rescued from the leftovers of grander building projects and shaped to fit into a corner with a mirror hung above to create a “dresser.” Immediately to the right of the front door was another small hall, with a tiny bathroom and a tiny bedroom with bunkbeds for David and Curtis. There was a fireplace in the corner of the living-dining area and a door that opened onto a small porch and stairs leading down into the back yard.
After dismissing the carpenter, whose incompetence literally made La Nell cry, Bill, who was handy with tools, built the cabinets and finished the baseboards. They soon realized that something was wrong with the adhesive that had been used to lay down the vinyl tiles. It began squirting out at the joints whenever weight was applied. They were forced to take up all the tiles, soak them in thinner, scrub them clean, wash and dry them, and then re-lay them with proper adhesive after scraping and cleaning the cement floor to obtain a smooth surface. This involved practically every member of the two families in a veritable assembly line where practice made perfect, although quite a number of rubber gloves were ruined in the process.
The location and the view were fabulous. Not only were they in La Falda, a little jewel of a town in the heart of Córdoba’s Punilla Valley, reputed to have the third healthiest climate in the world, they were perched on a hill looking down toward the east onto the town and across to Cerros Banderita and Cuadrado,17 with turquoise skies by day and velvety black star-studded skies by night. There were charming walks in every direction and the swimming pool at the Baptist campgrounds was only ten minutes away by car.
The two families were to spend a good part of their summer and winter school vacations there for years, although Ben and Bill had to go back to work in Buenos Aires after a few days and make quick trips whenever they could get away.
At that time, most of the houses in the area had names rather than numbers, and the new owners went back and forth a good deal trying to come up with just the right thing. In the end, it was Ben (Allen Benjamin) who hit the nail on the head.
“I’ve got it! We’ll name it for all of us: Allen, William, Opal and La Nell. Let’s call it AWOL!”18
Although it puzzled their Spanish-speaking neighbors mightily, they always got a kick out of the wrought-iron name proudly affixed to the front wall. They had told the Foreign Mission Board’s Area Secretary, Dr. Frank Means, about their plans and were able to take him there on a visit. When he saw the sign he chuckled, “You really did it!”
Gaining Traction
The children soon grew used to seeing their mother hanging from a door. It was one of the few things that could relieve the pain.
La Nell had been in full swing. Besides running the house, keeping all the family members on course with their schedules, hosting innumerable dinners and acting as secretary for her husband, she had an impressive list of activities of her own. At their local church in Solano, she taught Intermediate girls in Sunday School, organized and led the activities of the Girls’ Auxiliary, and headed the Women’s Missionary Union. In the South Zone Association, she promoted the WMU. In the Convention, she served on the Christian Education Board and represented the WMU on the Executive Committee. In the Mission, she held various positions, from committee member to recording secretary to vice president and acting president.
In the midst of all this hustle and bustle, she began experiencing pain in her lower back and neck, at times very intense and often shooting down her arms and legs. When it persisted over several weeks, it was time to get medical advice. They consulted Dr. Jack Edward Davis at the British Hospital, recommended by their friends Charles and Bernadine Campbell, who had been missionaries in Bahía Blanca, the physician’s home town.
Dr. Davis, a second- or third-generation Anglo-Argentine, was a renowned plastic surgeon who had trained under leading doctors in that field in England. He was a founding member of ISAPS (the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery), of which he was president in 1979 and from which he received two of its maximum awards, for his work on Dupuytren’s contracture and on the reconstruction of the auricular pavilion. He was the first surgeon in Latin America to perform microvascular anastomosis in toe-to-hand transfer, but he had started out as a general practitioner, earning his medical degree in Córdoba, and was an excellent diagnostician. He had become interested in plastic surgery in his native southern Buenos Aires Province from seeing field workers crushed and maimed by farm animals and machinery.
Dr. Davis diagnosed rheumatoid arthritis. This condition would require inactivity during the painful periods of inflammation and contracture, and preventive measures in between. As far as possible, the movements required by sweeping, mopping and ironing were to be avoided. Golf would provide the right kind of exercise when the painful symptoms abated.
He recommended buying a home neck traction unit. A metal support was placed over the top of a door. It held and guided a rope and pulley system with a bag full of water on one end and a heavy-duty cloth halter on the other. La Nell would sit in a straight-backed chair against the door with her head cradled in the halter. The weight of the bag would stretch out the vertebrae, separating them and giving relief to the sciatic and cervical nerves pinched by inflamed tissue.
The initial bout with arthritis kept La Nell in bed for several months. Although Ben was pretty handy around the house, learned how to make biscuits for breakfast (later adding brownies and a few other recipes to his repertoire) and got the kids off to school, his hectic schedule kept him out of the house most of the day. They were forced to admit they needed help and finally hired a young woman from the Province of Santiago del Estero who went by the nickname “Pechi.” She lived with them for nearly three years, helping with housework, cooking and babysitting. Nancy spent the most time with her, and it was Pechi who taught her to drink mate. Yerba mate is a green tea drunk from a gourd through a metal straw, with or without sugar. More than a beverage, it is a social ritual for most Argentines. Pechi also introduced the girls to the world of the novela, basically soap operas in magazine form, arranged like comic books, with photographs instead of drawings.
The humid weather of Buenos Aires made La Nell’s condition worse so that now AWOL, located in the perfect weather of the Córdoba mountains, became a veritable godsend. Every few months La Nell and Opal would take an overnight bus to La Falda and spend several restorative days there reading, playing cards and relaxing, while they basked in the warmth of the fireplace.
At home, La Nell’s bed became the family conference center, where the children would take turns gently sitting or lying down at its foot to go over the day with their mother or join her in a game of gin or canasta. On one such occasion, Nancy and La Nell heard a loud siren. The little girl wanted to know what it meant and her mother explained about ambulances, police cars and fire trucks. They talked about different kinds of accidents and Nancy wondered which would be the most painful way to die. She mused that knives or bullets or fire would hurt.
“I’d rather die from old age,” she decided. “But it will be a long time before that happens.”
She looked earnestly at La Nell as she unconsciously switched languages: “¡Pero a vos no te falta tanto!”19
Nancy was quite offended when her mother reacted to her existential ponderings with whoops of laughter.
Business as Usual
The little clouds of condensed breath and the proliferation of transistor radios pressed up against the commuters’ ears as they waited for the train that cold June morning in 1966 were nothing new. What struck David as unusual as he neared the platform was the intensity on the listeners’ faces. When he got within hearing range, he realized that nearly everyone was tuned to the same station—Radio Colonia from Uruguay.
“Something big must be going down!” he thought.
A newspaper vendor who was hawking La Razón by blaring “Grampa ousted!” informed him that a widely expected military coup must have taken place. He decided he’d better go home.
After listening to the official announcement that confirmed the removal of President Illia and urged the population to carry on business as usual, Ben drove David across town to school and arranged to have him spend the night with the Ferrells to avoid potential trouble. As it turned out, there were no major disturbances and life went on with barely a ripple, at least on the surface.
Once again, the Bedfords marveled at the way Argentines on the whole took the changing fortunes of their country in their stride and forged ahead. Recessions, devaluations and price hikes alternated in a bewildering and unpredictable manner with social and economic improvements and gains.
Since their arrival in the country in 1953, Argentina’s government had gone through an impressive number of changes. They had been in Rosario when Juan Domingo Perón, who had himself risen to power through the military only to establish his own party and be elected democratically, was deposed by the military in the so-called “Liberation Revolution.” General Pedro Aramburu became the de facto president in 1955 and banned the Peronist party.
Elections were held in May of 1958, a few months before the Bedfords moved to Comodoro Rivadavia. These were won by Arturo Frondizi, of the Intransigent Radical Civic Union, aided by a pact with Perón, who was pulling his underground party’s strings from exile in Spain. During the next four years, Frondizi managed a wobbly balance on the political tightrope at times twitched and at others yanked by Peronists on one end and the military on the other, but ultimately pleased neither. When Frondizi lifted the ban on the Peronist party in the 1962 elections, it won ten of the fourteen governorships at stake. In March, about four months before the Bedfords left Comodoro, the military decided to take charge and ousted Frondizi, who said he would not resign, commit suicide, or leave the country.
Senate President José María Guido was appointed as Frondizi’s successor, while the military once more proscribed the Peronists and dealt with its own internal rivalries between the far-right “red” faction and the relatively moderate “blue” faction, which eventually prevailed and named General Juan Carlos Onganía as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. A period of “normalization” followed and elections were finally held in July of 1963, while the Bedfords were on furlough. The Radical Civic Union’s candidate won with about one fourth of the vote, most Peronists having turned in blank ballots. In the first round of the Electoral College, he was seventy votes short of the required number, but it was finally reached with the support of three small centrist parties.
Arturo Illia, a moderate pragmatist, was a physician with a long and distinguished history of social and political service. Although organized labor initially supported him, secret plans for Perón’s return turned it into opposition. Big business was made nervous by his economic and social measures20 and the military feared the political freedom21 he allowed. A media campaign was orchestrated to make Illia seem slow, dim-witted and inefficient, and to encourage a coup. Although many years later he was vindicated as one of the most honest and hard-working presidents in Argentine history, political cartoons of the day portrayed him as a turtle or a kind but bumbling grandfather.
With the military running things again, much of what was going on was not made public. Newspapers, radio and television focused on non-controversial topics. Argentines were up to date with sports, books, movies, music and fashion from around the world—no sooner was something new out in New York, London or Paris than it appeared in Buenos Aires. International political news stories were given prominence and often chosen so that careful readers who looked between the lines were able to make interesting parallels with the domestic front.
When their hectic schedules allowed it, perhaps two or three times per year, the Bedfords would make a family outing downtown. It was fun to dress up, because everyone was expected to look their very best. Calle Lavalle was known throughout the twentieth century as the “Movie Street” due to its large number of theaters, and that is where they saw such iconic films as My Fair Lady and The Sound of Music.
However, once in a while something would happen that hinted at the hidden depths. A case in point occurred on one of the numerous occasions when Ben was headed to a committee meeting of some sort. This time he was in a taxi with two old friends, Ignacio Loredo and Ananías González. They were just passing the Congress building, deep in talk, when a Molotov cocktail exploded right behind them. It hadn’t been meant for them; they were unharmed and never knew what it was all about.
Quite an Impact
The vortex of activities into which the Bedfords had been spun was not random. It became apparent that they were merely in one of the hotspots of a complex system. In Rosario, they had seen their church’s Sunday School enlargement program expand into a citywide campaign with unexpected offshoots that spread across the country. They were now at another such moment of convergence and expansion.
Ben’s election as President of the Mission in 1964 automatically placed him in the Convention’s Coordinating Committee for that year. It consisted of an equal number of national and missionary members. Once again he was privileged to be working with an outstandingly talented, committed and visionary group. It came up with a bold idea for growth on a national scale and created the Commission for a Decade of Advance to work on it. Ben was one of its members.
A ten-year plan was put into action immediately. The goal was to grow from 200 churches and 15,000 members in 1964 to 400 churches with 30,000 members by January 1, 1974: 10 new churches in 1964 and 10 more in 1965; 15 new churches each in 1966 and 1967; 20 each in 1968 and 1969; 25 each in 1970 and 1971; and 30 each in 1972 and 1973. These ambitious numbers might not quite have been reached, but there is no doubt that the program had amazing success and gave shape to Baptist work for many years.
Growth was to be achieved through a series of efforts to strengthen the churches’ evangelistic spirit; retain new converts; choose strategic locations for new works; have pastors support a circuit of churches near their own; encourage field missionaries to go to new areas with no work; inspire mission points to become autonomous churches; make financial plans for aid, equipment, prefabricated chapels and building loans; deploy Seminary professors and students; and carry out intensive lay training programs for both men and women. All Convention and Mission activities would be geared to support this plan, under the supervision of the Convention through its Executive Board.
It also went hand in glove with the preparations for the continent-wide 1969 Campaign of the Americas whose slogan was “Christ the Only Hope.” At that time Jacobo Vartagnan was Chairman and Ben Vice Chairman of the Convention’s Evangelism Committee. Vartagnan was ill for a time so a good bit of organization and legwork fell to Ben. Together with Ananías González, he co-authored a practical guide for the churches of the Buenos Aires area for the Simultaneous Campaign of 1968, a lead-in to the Campaign of the Americas the following year.
Meanwhile, encouraged by the success of its initial coordinated effort in Solano and the upsurge of new works, the Buenos Aires South Zone Association planned and executed a Stewardship and Mission emphasis in 1966 and set its sights on opening new home Bible studies as possible mission points and future churches: 66 in ’66, 67 in ’67, 68 in ’68, and so on. Courses were offered throughout the area to prepare laymen, and Ben was pressed into service as a teacher. Enthusiasm was so great that, at the conclusion of his report to the National Convention, Francisco “Pancho” Pluís got a bit carried away: “In the South Zone we have the best association, the best churches, the best pastors and the best missionary!” When Ben returned from a furlough several years later, Daniel Gaydou, who had been in charge of Evangelism that year, caught him up on the South Zone’s progress: “I’m afraid we didn’t start 68 new home Bible studies in ’68,” he said very seriously, before breaking into a huge grin. “There were 84!”
The Mission duly went about gearing its efforts toward supporting the Decade of Advance. At the July Mission Meeting following its implementation, Ben declined reelection as President, but he did offer the suggestion of doing something along the lines of a very successful program carried out in São Paulo, Brazil that he had been privileged to hear about on a bus trip between Santos and that metropolis during a stop on the way back to the field. He was asked to present a proposal the next day, so he and his fellow members on the Evangelism Committee, Charles Campbell and Bill Ferrell, were forced to pull an all-nighter.
What they came up with was a plan to concentrate staff, money and resources in one place to create a veritable “impact.” They suggested Córdoba, with the largest metropolitan area in the country after Buenos Aires and Rosario as well as the advantage of already having several missionaries and quite a few resources. The Mission liked the idea but felt that it was a lot of money to put into only one place so it proposed dividing it into two: Córdoba and Tucumán. A committee was formed to coordinate the “Impact Program” and Ben was elected chairman.
The kickoff would take place at the National Convention in Córdoba in April of 1967, with simultaneous revivals in ten places in that city, and thirty couples would be prepared to do personal work. Tucumán’s kickoff would be in September. Some missionaries were already in place and others were appointed as they arrived: Córdoba had the Malones, Mines, Taylors, Saunkeahs and Johnsons, while the Baileys and the Reeves went to Tucumán.
The Bedfords were able to participate in both initial campaigns. Since it was before the seatbelt law was in force, Ben managed to cram about eight Seminary students into the long-suffering Rambler for the trip to Córdoba, but it was in Tucumán that the appositeness of the program’s name was borne in upon him in a forceful and tangible manner. They were staying with the Baileys and the men left to pick up Pastor Horacio Juárez at the train station. On the way they were struck by another vehicle.
“You go on ahead in a taxi while I deal with this,” suggested Doyle.
Ben flagged down the next cab and climbed in. It had barely gotten under way before it was involved in a second crash. In the end, he and Doyle arrived at the station at about the same time. Ben had received a double impact in less than five minutes!
Rail Jockeys and Dragons
“Why don’t you run on up while I find a place to park the car?” asked Ben.
“No, I’d rather go with you,” replied Nelda.
As usual, getting to the appointment with the orthodontist on time was going to be a very close call. Choosing the method of transportation and the time to leave home was always somewhat of a gamble.
Sometimes they went on public transportation, which usually ran pretty much on schedule, but took a very long time and was a bit wearing. They had to walk several blocks to the station in Adrogué, take a train to the end of the line in Constitución, walk through the huge station to the subway, transfer to another line and then walk the rest of the way to the doctor’s office. It was located deep in the heart of the Capital, in the “Once” 22 neighborhood, part of Balvanera, one of the forty-eight legal divisions of Buenos Aires.
The other option was to drive, thus avoiding all the walking, crowds and clouds of cigarette smoke that billowed through the rail cars. However, it was not without drawbacks. They had to traverse the entire South Zone on the very busy Avenida Pavón until they reached the Riachuelo, the river that separates the Province from the Capital. The river had been spanned there by one bridge after another since the late eighteenth century. Several of them fell victim to flooding and one was purposefully set on fire to stop the British from crossing in 1806.23 The latest, from the 1930s, included a swing bridge to allow larger ships to pass. It was usually plain sailing, but if the bridge was up, they were in for a long wait and an impressive buildup of traffic.
Once across the river, there was a series of challenges to be faced apart from the breakneck speed and the lack of anything resembling lanes. Although today Buenos Aires has traffic lights on some 3,500 street corners, more than any other city in the Americas (even New York) or Europe, at that time they were just beginning to appear. The first one was installed in 1958. Most people thought they would never work and, in fact, they were removed for a time but eventually prevailed. Meanwhile, on busy intersections policemen wearing white elbow-to-wrist sleeve covers directed traffic, blowing shrill blasts on silver whistles from elevated platforms that were often protected overhead from sun and rain. Even so, tremendous bottlenecks could form, forcing motorists into exasperating stops and crawls.
Cars vied for space with black taxis with yellow roofs, buses and trucks. Although many commuters traveled by train and subway, the most common form of public transportation was the bus. Originally called a taxi colectivo,24 it was dreamed up in 1928 by eight enterprising taxi drivers over coffee at their favorite café. Because of the economic situation at that time, few could afford taxi fares. They decided to offer to take several passengers at the same time at a reduced rate. The route was down Avenida Rivadavia, from Primera Junta to Flores. At first people were skeptical but the idea soon caught on. Women’s initial reluctance was overcome by a clever marketing ploy: free rides for girlfriends and sisters. Regular taxis began by accommodating three passengers in back, one in front and two on the side seats. The vehicles evolved until the average colectivo had room for thirty-three seated passengers and the same number standing. Eventually there were 200 routes, distinguished from each other by the buses’ numbers and bright colors.
The streets of Buenos Aires were paved, some with asphalt but many with cobblestones.25 The process began in 1783 and the first cobbles came from Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay and Martín García, an island in the middle of the Río de la Plata. In the mid-nineteenth century, many stones came from Ireland and Wales as ballast in ships from Great Britain that went home loaded with grain. A whole industry grew up in the early twentieth century in the quarries of Tandil, in southeast Buenos Aires Province. The first skilled laborers were immigrants from Italy, followed by others from Spain and Yugoslavia. This age-old trade had at least fifteen specializations, including stonecutters, drillers, stone splitters and draymen. The average output was 250 cobbles per man per day, and the stones were transported to Buenos Aires by train.
Trams had run throughout Buenos Aires, first pulled by horses in the 1870s and later driven by electricity. At their height in 1950 there were sixty-seven lines, but they were gradually phased out in the mid-1960s. However, the rails remained and Ben, like many other drivers, grew quite adept at riding them at top speed, achieving a smooth ride in the midst of bumpy cobblestones.
The length of the trip in terms of time thus depended on the volume of traffic, the position of the drawbridge over the river and how many trains had to be waited for at the crossings. Nevertheless, Nelda preferred being late to going into the office alone. The orthodontist himself, nearing the end of his career, was not only an excellent professional but a sweetheart, exuding grandfatherly charm and benevolence. He was Dr. Ramón Torres, who had developed a very effective treatment for correcting misaligned teeth with removable braces. The front desk, run by his wife-cum-receptionist-cum-accountant, was another story: she was a veritable dragon. Although they had never seen her spout actual flames and smoke, her blistering remarks and stony expression terrified patients and parents alike. She was particularly fierce with any who were tardy or missed appointments.
Appointments with Dr. Torres were a fixture in the Bedford family for many years because, although David’s teeth were perfect, first Nelda and then Nancy required lengthy treatments. Eight years of faithfully paying orthodontic bills did not soften Mrs. Torres. She sounded grumpy and skeptical when Ben informed her that he needed to cancel Nancy’s next appointment because of a family health emergency. A couple of months later she grudgingly asked about the relative’s health. Ben told her that, unfortunately, she had passed away. Mrs. Torres gasped and her face became a mask of anguish.
“I am terrified of dying! I don’t sleep at night because I’m afraid I might not wake up.”
“I know someone who can help you not to fear death and a book that tells you why,” Ben told her.
“I’d like to read that book. Could you get me one?” she asked.
“I’ll bring it next time,” he promised.
At the following appointment, Ben gave her a New Testament and recommended that she start by reading the Gospel of John. He told her that he and La Nell would be glad to explain anything she did not understand.
“I’ll read it and call you when I want you to come,” said Mrs. Torres.
A few days later the phone rang.
“I have read the book and I’m very interested. When can you come?”
They arranged to go on Thursday afternoon when the office was closed. Mrs. Torres took them back to the apartment where she and her husband lived.
“Where is Dr. Torres?” they wanted to know.
“You just explain it to me and I will explain it to him,” she countered.
After they had answered all her questions and talked a while, they asked if she would like to attend a church service with them. They agreed on the next Sunday evening.
Ben talked to Dr. Tinao, pastor of the Once Baptist Church, the congregation nearest to the Torres’ home, so they were expected. Mrs. Torres was amazed at the warm greeting from so many persons who didn’t even know her.
“They are nicer to us than at our club!” she exclaimed.
They occupied a whole pew: La Nell at one end, followed by Mrs. Torres, Nelda, Nancy, Dr. Torres and Ben at the other end, so that the couple could not see each other when they sat down. At the end of his sermon, Dr. Tinao made an invitation, and both Dr. and Mrs. Torres raised a hand in a public profession of faith. They left the church armed with goodwill, offers of help and contact information.
When the Bedfords took them home, La Nell got out of the car to say goodbye. Mrs. Torres turned to her and, to everyone’s amazement, embraced her warmly.
“I’m at peace. For the first time in years, I can sleep!”
The dragon had been tamed.
Westward Ho!
Disgruntled muttering hovered in the air as the entire family, on hands and knees, cleaned and waxed the vast expanse of parquet floor. They had just finished this process in the house in Adrogué, leaving it spotless and ready for the new occupants to step in, although when they returned for the last few items that had not fit into the moving van they found Ben’s sermons, which had been neatly arranged by books of the Bible and dates, strewn all over the house by disappointed thieves. Now they—the Bedfords, not the thieves—were whipping their new home into shape.
And there was a lot of it. In fact, it was the largest house they ever lived in: entrance hall, living room, dining room, kitchen, breakfast room, three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a garage/boiler room downstairs, plus two attic bedrooms and one bathroom upstairs, to say nothing of a patio and an immense backyard. It belonged to the Mission and had been unoccupied for some time.
They had had to vacate the house in Adrogué so that the new South Zone area missionaries could move in—Charley and Darlene Westbrook with their three children and German Shepherd—because the Bedfords had a new assignment: although Ben would continue to pastor the church in Solano, he would be leaving his Associational responsibilities for a position at the International Baptist Theological Seminary.
The invitation had been made and accepted several months before. On June 6, President Jack Glaze had written:
Dear Ben:
The Board of Trustees of the Seminary has requested that a Director of Practical Activities be secured to intensify this phase of training the Seminary now offers.
The Director will assume the status of professor on the Faculty after official approval by the Board of Trustees in their called meeting of November 9-10, 1966. In addition, the position will entail an initial teaching assignment as needed while the approach to the area of “Practical Theology” is being undertaken. Eventually, the permanent field of teaching will center in that which is currently known as “Teología Pastoral”,26 or the academic discipline that complements the practical application of “Obra Práctica”.27
After much prayer and consultation with the Faculty and individual members of the Board of Trustees, I would like to offer you this position in a full time capacity, beginning at least by the first of next calendar year. This would enable the preparation of materials and approach for the academic year of 1967.
It is with pleasure that I can report a unanimous desire on the part of the Faculty that you join the staff directing the urgently needed “in-training-program”. Rest assured that our prayers will accompany you as you consider this invitation.
The newly assigned residence was in the West Zone of Greater Buenos Aires, roughly a twenty-minute drive from the Seminary. David would have a shorter commute to Lincoln, while the girls would be within easy walking distance of their new school, where Nancy would begin kindergarten and Nelda high school.
This was Colegio Ward, named after George Ward28 and founded in 1913 with the support of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Episcopal Methodist Church. It opened in March 1914 in the Capital barrio of Flores with three students from Santa Fe Province. In the beginning, it emphasized business disciplines. An English division was established at the same time—the American Grammar and High School (AGHS), which eventually broke off in the mid-1930s and evolved into the Lincoln School or Asociación Escuelas Lincoln, the only school in Argentina accredited in the U.S.
Over time, Colegio Ward achieved official accreditation from the Ministry of Education and grew to offer classes from kindergarten through high school, with college prep and teacher training programs. It developed a school magazine, literary society, music department with a highly regarded band, philosophy club, student center, sports program and boarding facilities. It progressed steadily toward self-support, until the faculty became wholly national (that is, of the country) and the first Argentine director, Dr. Ernesto Bauman, was named in the early 1960s.
In 1926, the school bought a handsome property in the West Zone, with what was probably the oldest building still standing in the area. It had been the country home of Marta Ramos Mejía, whose ancestor Gregorio had immigrated to Argentina from Spain in 1799, raised a large family and, after a short but productive stint in Upper Peru, bought extensive lands in La Matanza, the first district immediately to the west of the Capital. The property was handed down to his descendants, who eventually had the area mapped and plans drawn up for future subdivision into city blocks. The railroad arrived in 1858 and the family donated four square blocks for the station. Seventeen years later Ferrocarril Oeste was electrified and allowed commuters to pass conveniently from train to subway, promoted with the rhyming motto “del subte al tren sin cambiar de andén.”29 Ramos Mejía received city status in 1964.
However, all that mattered to the girls was that they felt very much at home in the school that, like them, was Argentine with an Evangelical background and a love of English. Enrollment was so high that year that a fourth first-year secondary division of the national program had to be created by taking students from the three overcrowded ones, resulting in a class of twenty boys and five girls, including Nelda.
At that time, the twelve years of school in Argentina were divided into seven years of primary and five years of secondary. High schools had one of four orientations: national (college prep for arts and sciences); normal (certified elementary teachers; college prep for secondary teachers); commercial (certified secretaries and bookkeepers, college prep for accountants and administrators); and industrial (certified builders, electricians and mechanics; college prep for engineers or architects). The first three years shared a basic curriculum and it was possible to change tracks.
Nelda’s class remained in the same room while the teachers came and went. The list of subjects was long: Spanish Language, History (Ancient), Geography (General, Asia and Africa), Math (Algebra and Geometry), Botany, Political Science, English, Music, Art, Practical Activity and Physical Education. Core subjects were taught four or five times and the rest once or twice per week. The school year was divided into three quarters and at the end of each there were comprehensive written examinations on three subjects, which the Ministry of Education determined randomly, lottery style, by taking three numbered balls from a sphere that held one ball for each subject, after several brisk turns of the handle.
Kindergarten was in the morning only, so Nelda walked her little sister to and from school, and returned by herself after lunch. She got to know many of the kindergarteners’ mothers and could hardly believe her ears when one of them identified her son as “Félix,” clearly considering her choice of name very clever since their last name was Gato.30 The poor child was actually called “Félix Gato,” like the cartoon. Nancy was thrilled to be going to school, at long last, like the big kids. She was to attend Ward until the middle of the fifth grade. Among other things, her contact with many students from various Christian denominations gave her a broader experience of Argentine Protestantism than her siblings, whose acquaintances were almost all either Baptist or Catholic. Further down the line, this proved to be a source of many fruitful connections for her.
Matchmaker
“Excuse me, Ben,” interrupted Foreign Mission Board Area Secretary Frank Means during a briefing with Mission officers held in the Seminary’s Board Room, “is there something you don’t want me to know about?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, for starters, you’ve been giving your report in Spanish.”
“Oh!”
The thing was, there were so many committees and so many meetings that sometimes it was hard for Ben to know if he was coming or going. His office in the Seminary was the scene of a daily struggle to keep track of requests and assignments for the Decade of Advance. He could hardly complain because he had been in on the whole thing from its design and launching in 1964. He had scarcely stepped off the ship after the furlough in which he had earned his doctorate when he was elected President of the Mission. As such he became a member of the Convention’s Coordinating Committee, which proposed the creation of the Commission for a Decade of Advance, an ambitious program to double the number of churches and members in Argentina in ten years. Ben worked both in its planning and execution as part of the Commission and pastor of a new church in the South Zone Association, where he was area missionary and promotor of new works.
One of the key components of the Decade of Advance was the training of pastors and lay people for the evangelistic effort. The Seminary was to play a leading role by strengthening existing programs, offering new courses for lay people, and putting students and professors out in the field.
The International Baptist Theological Seminary had been established in 1953, the very year that the Bedfords had first arrived in Argentina. It was not really a new institution, but rather the culmination of a long process that had begun at the turn of the century with the first Baptist missionaries who, besides planting and pastoring churches, dedicated a significant amount of time to teaching everything from the basics to systematic theology on an individual basis. The fledgling Mission saw the wisdom of prioritizing education and in 1912 the Theological Training School opened classes to nine students, two of them by correspondence. It was led first by J.M. Justice, until 1917, and then by Sydney Sowell until his retirement in 1942. The institution gradually became known as the Baptist Seminary.31
The Mission purchased property at the corner of Ramón Falcón and Bolaños in the barrio of Floresta in Buenos Aires and gained permission for the Seminary to meet there. Outstanding students became leaders in the Baptist work and some of them went on to be professors. There were women students practically from the start and soon they represented half of the enrollment: missionaries, church workers, writers, teachers and directors of departments of theological institutions, as well as pastors’ wives.
An Education Board oversaw the institution, first under the leadership of Santiago Canclini and then William Cooper, until it was replaced in 1953 by a Board of Trustees with members from Argentina and the bordering countries of Uruguay, Paraguay and Chile. The Baptist Bible Institute and the Women’s Bible Institute from Rosario were incorporated, and the Foreign Mission Board set about recruiting missionary professors with graduate degrees in various fields. The reorganized and renamed International Baptist Theological Seminary soon became the preferred institution for training Christian workers in the South Cone.
Dr. Cooper resigned as Seminary president in 1966 to finish off his missionary career in the field, in the Province of Misiones. Dr. Jack Glaze was elected in his stead and Ben officially welcomed him in his capacity as President of the Board of Trustees. Ben was President of the Board and of the Mission when a proposal was submitted to have half the members of the Board of Trustees elected by the Mission and half by the Argentine Convention. The nationalization process continued to advance as more qualified Argentine professors became available and began to occupy an increasingly higher proportion of the faculty and staff positions. The first Argentine president, Dr. Daniel Tinao, was named in 1975 and all twelve members of the Board were elected by the Convention by the end of that decade.32
But now the Seminary professors were stretched to the limit and decided that a full-time coordinator was required to keep up with the challenge of the Decade of Advance. They invited Ben as Director of Practical Activities and Professor of Practical Theology beginning in 1967. He used the months between the invitation and the beginning of the school year in March to contact and meet with the pastors and representatives of all the Associations of the Capital and Greater Buenos Aires to learn their requirements.
When classes started, it was his job to find places of service for around 100 students and pass on requests for help from the professors, as well as to coordinate logistics. Some of the students were ready to pastor and others to preach, teach or lead worship. Some of the churches were able to cover the students’ weekend travel and boarding expenses, while others required help finding funding, for example through the Fraternal Aid program. Constant contact had to be maintained both with the churches and the students to ensure that things were running smoothly and make adjustments on the way. Ben’s filing cabinet filled up quickly.
Just Be Natural
“But, Professor, shouldn’t the Holy Spirit be the one leading us to witness?”
This argument was put forth by nervous students in Ben’s Evangelism class to cloak their reluctance to speak to strangers in a mantle of spirituality.
“Of course, but I’m sure that you will have many opportunities every week and will be led to act on at least one of them. It will soon become natural.”
In addition to writing, each student was required to witness to at least one person during the week. They were then to recount their experiences on tape, so their professor could hear all of them, and take turns sharing with the whole class. The initial grumbling was gradually replaced by excitement as they began to gain confidence and see the fruits of their efforts in many who listened to what they had to say and came to know Christ personally. They also learned to deal with rejection and became more sensitive to when people were ready or willing to listen.
Ben himself never left home without some kind of literature to give away and his trusty little Agenda Bautista, a yearly pocket planner put out by the Publication Board of the Convention that included a directory of all the churches and pastors in the country. If he took a taxi, for example, he almost always found some way of bringing the conversation around to Christ, give away a portion of the New Testament and write down the name, address and telephone number of the nearest church or pastor, or, if the driver wished it, take down his name and information to pray for him and help put him into contact with a church.
Students shared their weekend experiences in the various churches where they were assigned in the Practical Work class. Here, among other things, they learned the nuts and bolts of ministry: how to visit, baptize, give the Lord’s Supper, officiate at business meetings, perform wedding ceremonies, dedicate children, organize church ministries, and so forth.
Ben had all the Seminary students in Practical Work and Evangelism, whether they were working toward a degree or a special diploma, and taught other classes as needed. Some courses were designed by track so that, for example, for Old Testament Jack Glaze taught the degree students and Ben the special diploma students.
They had just really gotten into the routine of the school year when the Foreign Mission Board reported that the Sunday School Board wanted to produce a film portraying the fictitious story of a young man from his calling to ministry through his preparation at the Seminary. Several scenes were shot there, including one in the Practical Work class. Ben’s was the only voice not dubbed by actors. The film was used countless times to promote missions and Christian education in the United States.
The producer, Don Fearheiley, wrote the following letter on October 31, 1967.
Dear Ben:
Let me thank you for your contribution to the film, FOR MANY TOMORROWS. I believe you did a fine job for us in the film, as we were able to get into your classroom. It isn’t easy to act in such a situation. But a great part of acting is just to be natural. And being natural, I feel you came across as good as any other teacher I have photographed. Not only in this film, but others that we have made through the years.
Colleagues and Coworkers
Coordinating Seminary student and professor placement throughout the churches of the Greater Buenos Aires area took networking to a whole new level. Building on skills acquired over years of associational and area missionary work, Ben kept the telephone wires humming, clocked up the miles on the car and public transportation, and sent La Nell’s fingers flying over the typewriter keyboard.
There was already a good working relationship with many pastors, especially in the South Zone, and now the circle was broadened. Heretofore most of Ben’s contacts with other missionaries had been on committees, but now he saw those who were professors on a regular basis and pressed them into service where there were empty pulpits.
Jack Glaze was President and taught Old Testament. Interestingly enough, Ben was President of the Board of Trustees when Bill Cooper resigned. Up until then the Foreign Mission Board had nominated new presidents and the Trustees had simply approved the candidates. Ben and Secretary José Missena now argued that if the Board was truly to be the governing body it should elect the president. The FMB agreed and Jack Glaze was the first president both nominated and approved by the Seminary Board of Trustees. He had a unique way of admonishing his students to “Take care!” (aiming a finger at them in the manner of a pistol) that was wickedly imitated in many skits. Once, early in their missionary careers, he and Ben were at the market searching for popcorn kernels, but neither of them could remember how to ask for them in Spanish. In their defense, the variety of terms used by Argentines can be confusing: maíz pisingallo, pochoclo, palomitas de maíz, pororó or even pururú. Finally, Jack told the vendor, “You know, corn that explodes!” That did the trick.
Cecil Thompson was Dean and taught Theology and Ethics, while his wife Jean taught Pedagogy and participated in musical events playing the violin. At one point, they lived next door to the Bedfords and one Sunday Jean sent their son Andy to borrow a bit of butter. He returned with amazing news: “Mommy, Mommy, guess what? The Bedfords are eating in the dining room and using the good dishes, and they don’t even have company!”
It was indeed a Sunday lunch tradition at the Bedford home to use a nice tablecloth and set the dining-room table with china, silverware and crystal. The usual menu was eye of round roast (which had been gently cooking while they were at church), rice or mashed potatoes with homemade gravy, and fresh green salad.
Then there was Dan Carroll, who taught Christian Education and was known for his beautiful chalk-art evangelistic presentations. His wife Betty Alice initiated her students into the mysteries of Greek. Back in the Bedfords’ Rosario days, Dan and Ben had made a trip to close a property deal in Junín, in northwest Buenos Aires Province, in a venerable old Jaguar formerly assigned to the Watsons. Dan suggested a cross-country short cut, part of which was over an unpaved road. Unfortunately, an axle broke and the time required for repairs forced them to make their separate ways home considerably later than originally planned.
Justice Anderson taught History and Homiletics and had covered Pastoral Ministry before Ben’s appointment to the Seminary. The two men shared a profound love of evangelism. Justice crisscrossed the country with mission teams and was instrumental in encouraging home mission pioneers Alba Montes de Oca, Miriam Brunner and Gladys Greca. His wife Mary Ann’s many talents included organizing memorable social events. She was the unforgettable roastmaster of a party honoring a Mr. Underwood, who had given a series of lectures on evangelism and publicity. Her imitation, complete with board and diagrams, had them all, roastee included, breathless with laughter. After the furlough in which Justice earned his doctorate, a spoof graduation ceremony was held at the Mission’s New Year’s Eve party. Former president Bill Cooper did the honors, capping the presentation in his deep Mississippi accent: “Some people graduate magna cum laude, but in your case, it’s ‘Lawdy, how come?!’”
Julio Díaz, a native of Santiago Province, had attended the Seminary in Buenos Aires as a young man, striking his professors with his potential. Bill Cooper paved the way for him to go to college in Mississippi, where he saw a very attractive redhead on campus and told his friend, “You see that girl? I am going to marry her.” His friend laughed and told him he had no chance, but Julio proved him wrong. The Díaz family had first returned to Argentina as independent missionaries and started a church in Mar del Plata. Recently Julio had earned a graduate degree from Southwestern Seminary and Ben had been the grader who had evaluated his exams in the class on Revelation. Now Julio was teaching New Testament and Dorothy was the official Seminary nurse. Their daughter Gwen was one year and one day younger than David and Nelda was one year and one day younger than their son Walter. Julio’s office was near Ben’s and he made a point of popping out to see Nancy while she was waiting to be taken home after being dropped off by the school bus. He had a stash of caramelos33 that he shared with her and called her “Nancy Francy.” She fully reciprocated his affection.
Stanley Clark, a brilliant scholar and linguist whose main field was New Testament, was Ben’s prayer partner, early every school day. Thirty years later, Stanley reminisced in a letter:
Kathleen and I remember with a great deal of joy the many happy times we have spent together. It was your initiative that got me involved in many opportunities of ministry, for example, a preaching mission and the organization of the church in Río Grande back in 1965.
One of the delights which you and I enjoyed, Ben, was praying together when we had adjoining offices here in the Seminary and both of us served on the faculty. When I meet now with faculty members to pray, my thoughts go back to those times when we prayed together for the ministry of the institution.
At last there was a full-time music professor, Kent Balyeat. He and his wife Lloydene were so beloved by the students that many called them Mami and Papi. Kent made countless trips to churches and mission points with student groups and a ride in his Estanciera34 was an unforgettable experience. He was a wild and erratic chauffeur who hailed the mad drivers of Buenos Aires as long-lost brothers. Lloydene was a legendary hostess and made beautiful handcrafted candles for every occasion.
Besides his duties as professor, John Cave was Seminary Librarian. One of his great successes was developing contacts in England that resulted in substantial donations and a huge shipment of used books at amazingly reduced prices that greatly enriched both the school stacks and the individual professors’ collections. His wife Laura was a talented musician and delighted congregations with her solos and many duets with Kent Balyeat. John was pastor at Florencio Varela, a South Zone congregation, and had worked with Ben by lending not only young people from his church but his own time to help with the mission point in Solano.
Ann Margrett, a veritable institution in herself, headed the Women’s Department until her retirement. She was quintessentially feminine and, in addition to academic courses, had taught deportment, etiquette and kindred subjects for years, so that it was with considerable astonishment that Ben witnessed her unexpected performing abilities during a Seminary social hour, in the course of which she crawled up onto the piano. From his very first year in Argentina Ben had often been teamed up with Ann in what the Mission liked to call “oiling committees,” special task forces set up to defuse and solve conflicts. In addition to the spiritual side, she was able to understand the cultural aspects of any given situation as both missionary and missionary kid.35
There was also an impressive group of part-time professors, including psychiatrist Daniel Tinao; physician, pastor and Renaissance man Carlos de la Torre; pastor, Old Testament scholar, journalist and editor Daniel Daglio; and social work champion Sarah Wilson, among others.
Santiago Canclini, beloved elder statesman of Argentine Baptists, fondly known as “Mr. Baptist,” was now Chaplain. He had taught, pastored, preached, written and led for decades. David and Nelda remembered his inimitable mop of snow-white hair flapping in the wind during a visit to Comodoro and how he had told jokes and made them laugh (in her case, painfully since she had the mumps).
Juan Ciéslar, a very able and successful pastor, was Seminary Administrator for several years. He was followed by Alberto Pizzicatti, chairman of the deacons at the Bedfords’ first church in Argentina, who applied all his brilliance and experience as former General Manager of Rosario’s electric utility company to help the Seminary run smoothly. Other good friends from Rosario were there, too: Ananías and Nelly González, Ignacio and María Teresa Loredo, Alberto and Rosa Cáceres, Marcelo and Leonor Rodríguez, just to name a few, now students preparing for full-time Christian service. Ananías and Ignacio were working for the Convention’s Publication Board and on literature for Training Union and Sunday School, respectively. Their ties to Christian Education had them collaborating closely with La Nell as well.
One of Ben’s most valuable colleagues outside the Seminary was Pastor Miguel Bollatti, secretary of the Convention’s Mission Board. He was instrumental in placing students and working out which churches needed help with supporting student helpers. He and Ben spent hours poring over lists and crunching the numbers.
This group of pastors, professors and students yielded an amazing crop of leaders for many years to come. They became pastors, missionaries, educators, musicians and social workers who made lasting contributions not only in Argentina but throughout the world.
Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina
“Mom, can you do me a favor?” asked David.
“What is it?”
“Please don’t cry when you see me off at the airport. I don’t want my last image to be of you in tears.”
“Well, I’ll try, but I’m not sure I can promise,” hesitated La Nell.
David was graduating from high school. The caption under his picture in the school yearbook said, “He walks, he talks, he eats, but mostly he talks!” He was planning to develop that gift by majoring in French. He would be attending Texas Technological College (soon to become Texas Tech University) which, in spite of its name, had a strong School of Arts and Sciences and offered an excellent degree in French, and its location in Lubbock, Texas had the advantage of being near some of the extended family in New Mexico.
His parents and sisters cheered as he spoke at graduation. Traditionally, the salutatorian’s speech was the only part of the ceremony in Spanish and it fell to David. The other orator they were interested in was the guest speaker who, astoundingly, was world-renown writer Jorge Luis Borges. Of course, they were just a small part of the proceedings: procession, speeches, diplomas, awards and recession. The whole thing seemed to last forever, especially to five-year-old Nancy. Just when it looked like it was finally over, a woman took the stage to give a long and mournful rendition of Climb Every Mountain. For months afterwards, humming the opening bars of that song was enough to send the little girl into a frenzy of irritation.
David turned eighteen in July and dutifully registered with the U.S. Selective Service, which gave him a student deferment. This was important because the Viet Nam War was in full swing. In December of 1969 the order of call for military service for all men born between 1944 and 1950 was determined by a draft lottery. Three hundred sixty-six blue capsules, one for each birthdate of the year, were placed in a water-cooler sized jar and then removed, one by one, and listed in order of appearance, from 001 to 366. The first third corresponded to the draftees, who were sent off to war; the middle group, with numbers 120-240, had a 50/50 chance of being drafted the next year, while the last group was not drafted at all. David’s birthday drew number 023, which meant that he would surely have had to go to war when his deferment ended had it not been for his leg, for which he sought and received a IV-F classification, that is, not eligible for military service. As the doctor put it, “The military will not want to bother with you.” The slight case of polio in his early childhood kept him from having to make a terrible choice between duty and conscience, a luxury denied to so many young men. Remembering the life-long effect that serving as a medic in World War II had on Ben’s brother Ira, the Bedfords were profoundly grateful.
All too soon, the family was gathered at the airport to see David off to college. True to his wish, La Nell made it through the last hug, the last backward look and the last wave without shedding a tear. Afterwards, it was another story.
From Hero to Villain
Braced between forked branches, Ben hugged the trunk with one arm while he reached for a twig with several leaves on it with the other. Through the foliage, he could see cars zoom by beneath him on the General Paz beltway. He climbed down and got into the car, which was rather precariously perched on the bank. Nelda received the vegetable offering gratefully and jotted down the time and place of collection.
This was the latest addition to her herbarium, the Botany class project which required each student to make a book with some fifty specimens, neatly labeled with specific characteristics. They learned that leaves have an astounding number of features. Their arrangement on the stem (phyllotaxis) can be alternate, basal, cauline, opposite, whorled or verticillate, rosulate or row. Their blades (laminae) can be simple or compound and, in the latter case, palmately compound, pinnately compound (odd or even), bipinnately compound, trifoliate or pinnatifid. Their edges can be entire, ciliate, crenate, dentate, denticulate, double serrate, serrate, serrulate, sinuate, lobate, undulate or spiny/pungent, and there are just as many types of tip, base, surface, hairiness, timing, vein patterning and size.
The catch was that no more than two specimens could be collected at the same place or time. This was unfortunate because the Bedfords’ huge back yard probably would have yielded every type of leaf required. As it was, the entire family was on the lookout whenever they went out and Ben’s intrepid forays into the urban jungle made him a veritable hero to his eldest daughter.
The pedestal on which she usually placed her daddy crumbled to dust when he and La Nell imparted the plans for the upcoming year. The family would be moving again in January, since the house in Ramos Mejía was needed for the Garners, the new West Zone area missionaries. After a decade of heading the Publication Board, Billy Graves was turning over its reins to a national director, Aldo Broda, and he and Chris were vacating the Mission apartment in the heart of Buenos Aires to do field work in Misiones, so the Bedfords would go there.
That wasn’t so bad, but the next item was a bombshell: they would be enrolling Nelda at Lincoln. Neither pleading, nor tears, nor rage were to any avail. Not only would she have to leave her beloved Colegio Ward, which she had considered the perfect stepping stone to university in Buenos Aires, but she would be going into the belly of the beast, thrust into the environment she most wanted to avoid. To add insult to injury, Nancy would be allowed to remain at Ward.
For their part, Ben and La Nell reasoned that at the end of the next year they would be going on furlough and, judging from past experience, it would be easier for Nelda to make the transition if she was prepared for the new system. Besides, they suspected that she would never give the U.S. a chance unless she was forced to do so, and they wanted her to be acquainted with and appreciate their native culture. Then she would be able to make an informed decision about her future.
So Nelda sought solace in her books and records, reading mystery novels and listening to the Beatles, the Mamas and the Papas, the Byrds, and Simon & Garfunkel, courtesy of her big brother who had left her his record collection.
Apartment 3C
Apartment 3C was reached by an elderly elevator with classic double manually-operated scissor-type doors. The ground floor had no number, European-style, so it was actually on the fourth level. Although the building was rather nondescript, with nothing much to distinguish it from hundreds and thousands of others, the apartment itself was roomy and beautiful, boasting a small entrance hall, study, living room, dining room, kitchen, three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a balcony. There were parquet floors, a hatch connecting the kitchen and the dining room, and a small metal door to the incinerator chute in the kitchen.
It was located in the barrio of Balvanera, in the section known as Once, only a block and a half from the Pasteur subway stop of the B Line that runs underneath Avenida Corrientes, so that it was quite easy to get almost anywhere from there on public transportation. Now it was Nelda’s turn to learn the stops on which to make connections with other subway lines, trains or buses. On weekdays, she rode the subway for three stops, caught a bus one street over, and got off two blocks from school after a forty-five-minute ride.
Meanwhile, every morning La Nell got Nancy ready for her school day. Having their third child had been pure joy. She was a bright spot in every family member’s day and kept them all entertained with her precocious vocabulary and insightful opinions. They told people she was their yapa, the extra loaf in the “baker’s dozen.” But now it suddenly dawned on La Nell that they would have to do first grade all over again! She wasn’t sure she could handle it. However, she had already taught Nancy to read in English, which she did beautifully, and they asked the kiosquero36 to save them a copy of Anteojito and Billiken, weekly children’s magazines that contained stories, games and, most importantly from a parent’s point of view, articles and illustrations that followed the school curriculum.
It was a rare and precious time for Ben, because he got to share quality one-on-one time with his little daughter while they drove to and from school. Besides lively general conversation, he would tell her Bible stories and she would grill him on the whys and wherefores. He also sang to her. Although he had a beautiful voice, carrying a tune was not his strong point, probably because of his lack of musical education as a child. As La Nell put it, “Never mind, if you were a great singer on top of everything else, it would just be too much,” and, anyway, Nancy assured him that she liked his version of many of the hymns and choruses better than the originals.
Murals, Clock Chains and Soccer Scores
As always, the Bedfords entertained frequently, both for business and pleasure, and there were many memorable occasions. One of these took place on the Sunday that the Plunks—a missionary family serving in La Plata, the capital city of Buenos Aires Province—visited them for lunch after Mel preached at the morning service in Solano. The two oldest boys, Jamie and Danny, rode back with the Bedfords. The children played while La Nell put the finishing touches on the meal and they waited for the rest of the guests to arrive.
On one of her trips between the kitchen and the dining room, La Nell’s eye was caught by a perfect reproduction of a page from a first grade cuaderno,37 complete with name and date, prominently drawn in bright colors on the wall. She summoned Nancy and Jamie.
“Who drew this?” she asked, offering a chance for confession.
Guilty silence.
“Actually, I know who it was. You see, Nancy does not know how to spell Jamie.”
Jamie turned red and hung his head. La Nell dismissed the matter and sent them off to play. This was hardly the first event of its kind with which she had been forced to deal. When Nelda was three she had written on the front wall of the house with black crayon. Lucía, who helped with the housework, was horrified when La Nell set the little girl to scrub with a brush and a pail of soapy water while tears streamed down her face.
“Don’t worry, Lucía. I know she can’t get it off, but I’ll let her work on it just long enough so that she won’t want to repeat the experience.”
Nancy, on the other hand, had recently chosen a medium that was much easier to clean for her mural—the glass panels of the balcony doors, so that she had actually been able to scrub it off herself.
Meanwhile, a fascinated four-year-old Danny had yanked on one of the tantalizing weights dangling from the wall clock, snapping the chain. La Nell put the pieces away and hoped no one would be the wiser.
When Susie and Mel walked through the door, practically the first thing they saw was their eldest son’s artwork. They were naturally mortified and, although La Nell made light of it, they kept casting reproachful glances at Jamie throughout the meal, until he could bear it no longer and, undoing the Bedfords’ tactful silence, he blurted out:
“Well, what about Danny, then? He broke the clock!”
If his parents could have sunk through the floor, they would have.
Because of its convenient central location, meetings were often held at the apartment. One evening La Nell was hosting fellow members of the Education Board. After the third or fourth time she had excused herself for several minutes, her guests exchanged worried glances.
“Poor thing, she must have an upset stomach!”
Little did they realize that the meeting was taking place at the same time that La Nell’s beloved Racing Club was battling Estudiantes in the semifinals of the Copa Libertadores de América, the most important soccer championship of the Americas. The suspense was killing her, so she was making quick checks on the score on her bedroom radio.
Musical Houses
Lady, the Collie, was telling them all about it. She extended a paw, looking at them with mournful liquid eyes while she uttered a heart-rending series of throaty sounds that clearly asked, “Who are you and where is my family?”
The Caves had left on furlough and the Bedfords had gone to their house, six months after moving to the apartment and six months before their own furlough. The latest change of abode affected the various family members in different ways.
As far as La Nell was concerned, the main point in favor of the move had been to get away from the neighbors in the apartment immediately above them. The family’s son must have been in a band for he practiced his drums assiduously. The mother apparently wore high heels day and night and rearranged furniture as a hobby, judging from the clacking of her stilettos and the scraping and dragging that could be heard at all hours. La Nell adjusted home logistics and continued to juggle her responsibilities as Sunday School teacher and pastor’s wife; chair of the Stewardship Committee and member of the Youth Organizations Committee of the South Zone’s W.M.U.38 and corresponding secretary and Executive Committee member of the National W.M.U.; secretary of the Mission’s Administration Committee; and chair of the Social Committee of the Seminary.
The Foreign Mission Board paid for one round trip for college M.K.s to visit their parents, so David was back for three months between his freshman and sophomore years, and was in on the transition. He had loved the apartment and its location, but he was just glad to be home and game for anything. Nevertheless, all the excitement must have affected him at some level because one night Ben was startled out of sleep by banging noises. Tracking them down to their source, he discovered a sleepwalking David muttering in French as he purposefully attempted to climb into the closet.
Nancy began riding to school in a van that took her and several other students to Ward. She enjoyed the yard and the dog (once Lady had been taught not to jump, as she was taller than Nancy when she leapt up and put her paws on the little girl’s shoulders).
Nelda withdrew into a private world. Her comfortable cultural balance had been upset: English was supposed to be the private language of home and reading for pleasure; Spanish was for everything else. An occasional American (or even a group) was acceptable and at times even delightful. Now, not only did she have to go to an American school, she had to ride there in a vehicle full of American kids and live in “the compound,” an area that went through the heart of the block and contained five houses occupied by missionary professors and their families. Although she liked almost everyone at school and in the compound individually and got along perfectly with them all, put together they were overwhelming. Church provided both spiritual and cultural refuge.
On the other hand, for Ben the move meant huge savings in terms of time and wear and tear, since the house was on the same block as the buildings in which he had his office and carried out most of his work. As Director of In-Service Training, he coordinated the placement of 102 students in 58 churches in the first semester and 86 students in 45 churches in the second semester. In addition, he taught Pastoral Ministry, Old Testament Prophecy and Practical Work.
Apart from his Seminary activities, Ben served as chairman of a subcommittee of the Mission’s Fraternal Relations Committee. He was the Coordinator of the evangelistic emphasis for 1968 of the five associations of the Greater Buenos Aires area,39 which would reach its high point with simultaneous campaigns in October. There were numerous planning meetings, crowned by a dinner for the pastors and their wives with 125 attending, representing ninety percent of the churches. Ben also served on the Executive Committee of the Federal Capital Association and on its New Works Commission, together with Santiago Canclini, Víctor Sedaca and Samuel Martínez. A new personal challenge grew out of this.
In their 1968 Annual Report to the Argentine Baptist Mission, the Bedfords wrote:
The greatest privilege of every Christian is to be a member of a local church. Until recently, Ben served as pastor of the Solano church and each member of the family had his respective responsibilities. Mr. Raúl Duarte began serving as pastor on March 1. We are grateful that the Lord continues to bless it in a wonderful way. Since April our family has enjoyed working with the Andersons, Caves, Carrolls, Díaz and others in the new work which meets in the Seminary chapel. This work started with 21 decisions in the first revival in which Santiago Garabaya preached. Many of these decisions are the direct result of years of faithful witness by Seminary personnel, in particular that of Kitty Cooper. The work in this community will be slow and hard and we desire your prayers as we seek to make this a true testimony.
Initially, the new work was led by Ben. When it was time for the Bedfords to leave at the end of the year, Juan Ciéslar took over, and the Thompsons felt called to work with him, lending invaluable aid. Eventually this group and the small congregation of Floresta decided to join in forming a new church they named Betel (“House of God” in Hebrew).
The Hub of the South Plains
Their first furlough without school! For the adults at any rate, since the children, each born in a different decade, were in elementary, high school and college, respectively. Up to now, their time in the U.S. had been spent in Fort Worth, Texas so that the parents could study at Southwestern Baptist Seminary. Ben had earned his Master of Missions on the first furlough, while La Nell had been forced to drop out of her classes toward a Master of Christian Education to spend a month at the hospital in Dallas with seven-year-old David and his badly broken arm. On the second furlough, Ben graduated as Doctor of Theology, while La Nell had to withdraw from two different semesters, first due to her husband’s broken hand and then because she came down with double pneumonia.
This time they could choose their destination and they opted for Lubbock, where David was in his sophomore year at Texas Technological College, which became Texas Tech University as he started his junior year. The Hub City, as it was known, also had the advantage of being only 100 miles from Clovis and Portales, New Mexico, where Grandmothers Bedford and Watson lived. After spending Christmas with them and getting a 1969 Buick Skylark from their friend the car dealer in Clovis, La Nell looked for a house to rent while Ben nursed a nasty flu.
The challenge was to find the nicest house possible within their budget. In the field, housing and vehicle were provided by the Mission, but on furlough missionaries had to stretch their meager dollars to cover these costs. However, they got a helping hand from the congregation of the First Baptist Church, which rounded up some furniture, and even lent them a washer and dryer.
The house was at 2824 65th Street, only a couple of blocks away from the elementary school where Nancy entered the middle of first grade. No one there had the least idea where or what Argentina was, and she was frequently asked things like, “Do you eat monkeys there?” and they considered her pierced ears barbaric.
The teacher soon put Nancy in charge of the advanced reading group so she could devote her own time to those pupils who were struggling. One day the class read a story about a Hispanic girl.
“Muh-ree-ah,” ventured the teacher. “Is that right, Nancy?”
“No, it’s Ma-rí-a,” said Nancy distinctly, tapping her tongue on the ridge behind her front teeth, just about where the hard English “d” is pronounced.
“Muh-ree-ah.”
“No, no. Ma-rí-a.”
After several failed attempts, Nancy sighed, “You just have too much ‘r’.”
At home, she got to ride her new bicycle around the block and made friends with the six children next door, who were being raised by their grandparents and had a bus, converted into a travel trailer. During a visit from his mother, Ben found Nancy and her friends gathered around Mrs. Bedford’s chair, breathlessly hanging on to every word, for she was a renowned story teller. Nancy was amazed at the sheer number of things that people had in their houses, as well as the abundance of Formica and carpet. Along with her mother and sister, she was an assiduous patron of the public library.
