In the Secret Service

by Jerry Parr

  The only explanation I could think of was that God had brought us here. We never doubted that he was in this place.

  We distributed meds at 6:00 p.m. and again at 10:00 p.m. I said the rosary with a man who asked me to, then it was lights-out. We slept on cots in our jeans and sweatshirts, half awake like parents of a newborn, listening for anyone who needed help.

  One night we heard “Volunteer!” and recognized Franklin’s voice. He was now unable to walk, and the virus had hit his brain. He had begun to have delusions. Once he asked about the dog in his room. I said, “Franklin, I don’t see a dog.” He just said sweetly, “Oh. I must have imagined it.” Another time he thought Carolyn was his sister. But he had lost none of his gentleness, and the other men adored him. Before lights-out someone was always in his room, joking with him, talking seriously, praying, or holding his hand. As he had done for others.

  When we answered Franklin’s call, we were distressed at what we saw. He had soiled himself and was obviously in pain. We put on gloves, and I began to clean him up while Carolyn set about changing the sheets. When we rolled him over, we saw a huge open sore that took up almost his entire left buttock. As I washed him and covered the wound with salve, Franklin cried out, “Thank you, Jesus! Sweet Jesus!”

  We got him all cleaned up, and it came to me to take Franklin’s hand and say, with as much faith as I could muster under the circumstances, “God loves you, Franklin.”

  Franklin looked straight at both of us, with his depthless eyes, and said, “I love you too.” Not “God loves you too,” but “I love you too.”

  Others may think that was just a demented man making a socially acceptable response. But to us it was a life-changing affirmation whose source was beyond Franklin and beyond death.

  We had been Christ to Franklin, and Franklin had been Christ to us. Like the pair on the road to Emmaus who did not at first recognize Jesus, after that encounter with Franklin we couldn’t shake the feeling that we had been addressed by the risen Lord.[92]

  We spent our Sunday nights at Gift of Peace for most of a year. But when Carolyn’s travel schedule picked up, she often had to get substitutes, and Sister Dolores wanted more stability than we could offer. We left with regret, but our journey there had changed us forever.

  By 1989 we had completed our required Church of the Saviour courses in Old Testament, New Testament, Christian Growth, Christian Doctrine, and Christian Ethics—as well as others on call and community. We were setting aside an hour a day for prayer and Scripture study. We were tithing 10 percent of our gross income. We had interned in different mission groups who sponsored us.

  On Sunday afternoon, September 19, we read our spiritual autobiographies to the assembled Jubilee Church and were ordained by Gordon Cosby. When I said, “I unreservedly and with abandon commit my life and destiny to Jesus Christ,” I meant it.

  So did Carolyn. She said, “You know, this feels a lot like getting married.” It did.

  Almost immediately we plunged into three major Church of the Saviour undertakings that would open in 1989 and 1990: Joseph’s House, the Servant Leadership School, and a new congregation, Festival Church. All were located in Adams Morgan, near the Potter’s House and Christ House.

  Joseph’s House became the Church of the Saviour’s communal residence for eleven formerly homeless men living with AIDS. The founder was Dr. David Hilfiker (who also worked at Christ House and at a clinic for the poor); he would live there with his family. Carolyn was the first board chair, and I would follow her as a board member.

  The Servant Leadership School was a people’s seminary, classes open to everyone and taught by Bible scholars and lay leaders from across the spectrum of Christianity. Visiting speakers and teachers included Henri Nouwen, Richard Rohr, Jim Wallis, John M. Perkins, Walter Brueggemann, Tony Campolo, and more recently N. T. Wright. Carolyn and I were founding members, teachers, and fund-raisers.

  Festival Church was called to be a diverse, multicultural, and bilingual faith community that would welcome neighborhood Central American refugees as well as recovering addicts and other Christians of any race or class. It would become our primary faith community and place of belonging. Carolyn, who speaks Spanish, would serve as beginning copastor with Glennys Williams; after three years Rosy Cauterucci took Carolyn’s place, and I copastored for twelve years with Margie Ford. We all served without pay.

  Festival Church was born on an icy winter night in early January 1990, when Jubilee Church had four visitors. Reverend Charles Demeré had brought with him a Salvadoran family—Edgar Palacios; his wife, Amparo; and their two daughters, Xochitl (thirteen) and Amparito (fifteen). Charles was an Episcopal priest who worshiped at Jubilee and had ties to human rights workers opposing the military dictatorship in El Salvador.

  At the end of the service the visitors introduced themselves. In broken English, a small brown woman with irresistible eyes stood up to speak. “I am Amparo,” she began. “My husband, he is Baptist pastor. We come from El Salvador, from the war. No one in our family speak English but me. Please, if you speak Spanish, come talk with us.”

  Carolyn introduced herself. We learned that Edgar led the National Debate for Peace in El Salvador, a country the size of Massachusetts, ravaged by a decade of civil war. The family had fled with two of their three children[93] under UN guard after the military dictatorship murdered six Jesuits as well as the Jesuits’ housekeeper and her fifteen-year-old daughter.[94] Though Edgar’s name was on the death squad’s list, he would go back to his flock almost immediately. We invited Amparo and the girls to live with us. The girls returned to their Jesuit school in a couple of months. Amparo would stay to do all she could here to stop the killing in El Salvador. During the four years she was here, she helped us found Festival Church.

  Amparo attracted miracles. With no space or equipment or money or help, she soon opened a US office of the National Debate. The Methodists gave her a space in their national building right across from the Capitol. Two Spanish-speaking volunteers showed up to help. A computer was donated. She found a free phone. More important, this woman who barely spoke English taught herself to lobby Congress to stop giving aid to the Salvadoran military. It was a quixotic undertaking. She never doubted she would succeed.

  With a road map, a hearty round of good-byes, a few prayers, and plenty of black coffee, six of us set out on a beautiful April day in 1992 on a dangerous mission. In the midst of a civil war we were going to deliver a loaded school bus and two donated Hondas to Edgar’s church, Shalom Baptist, in San Salvador.

  Shalom had rescued twelve children orphaned by the still-raging civil war. Six months before, on a Festival Church mission of solidarity with Shalom, Carolyn and I (and six others) had met and fallen in love with the kids. They ranged in age from one year to twelve. Some were siblings. In their sun-filled house they had proudly led us from room to room to show us their drawings and where they slept and brushed their teeth. They sat by us and wanted to be held. They sang for us. When we asked Edgar what they most needed, he said, “Transportation and a washing machine.” We promised to do our best.

  Right away we found the perfect vehicle: a like-new green-and-white Italian bus (an Iveco) that seated fifteen and ran on diesel. It had only fifteen thousand miles on it and cost five thousand dollars. The bus—packed with two washing machines, clothes, and toys—was to be transportation for the kids. We had assembled a small caravan: a used Honda for Edgar and another for his church. Though Festival had only twelve members, the money poured in.

  We were a motley crew: two Methodist ministers, Andres Thomas and Doug Horner; Sally Hanlon, a former nun; Fanny Pantelis and Amparo, two bilingual pastors’ wives; and me. Maybe because I missed my former adventurous life as a Secret Service agent, I had rashly volunteered to drive the bus. Andres, Amparo, and Doug would rotate driving the Hondas and sometimes relieve me on the bus. Sally and Amparo would focus on interpreting. Carolyn had to stay in Washington for court trials, so she was our home conta
ct and liaison.

  We knew it could be dangerous. On our first visit in 1991, soldiers had boarded a public bus our group was on and marched us off at gunpoint, hands on our heads. Open trucks carried military men who pointed guns at other drivers just because they could. We’d prayed in the rose garden at the University of Central America (UCA), where the six Jesuits and two women were murdered. We’d crossed over a bridge that was firebombed a few hours later. In 1991 El Salvador was a place of terror and suffering. Now, in 1992, a cease-fire existed and peace talks were being finalized—but the killing continued. El Salvador was still a dangerous place. Even so, I felt called to help.

  In the six days it took us to drive from DC to El Salvador, we racked up over three thousand miles. Travel in the States was uneventful, but once we crossed the Mexican border, it seemed like a bizarre, never-ending chapter of Alice in Wonderland. We had driven in shifts twenty-four hours straight to the Mexican border at Brownsville, Texas, only to be held there for twenty-four hours with no adequate explanation. The farther south we drove, the more unreliable the maps became, not to mention the roads. We flounced from one pothole to another, and with each bone-jarring jolt, the washing machines strained against their makeshift moorings. I dodged all manner of varmints crossing the streets. Cows. Chickens. Coyotes. Stray dogs. Armadillos. I swerved to avoid hitting cars parked at night on the roads. Not on the roadside, on the roads.

  More than once we found ourselves behind wagons piled high with sugarcane, plodding along at three miles per hour. If I decided to pass, I was taking all our lives in my hands.

  We stopped for gas at dilapidated stations with rusted pumps and no safety levers on the nozzles, which meant that gas from the nozzle backed up and spilled onto the ground. Which meant I stood in a half inch puddle of gas while I pumped. One spark, and the whole enterprise would have gone up in smoke. More accurately, a huge explosion, and then I’d have gone up in smoke.

  There were no stripes on the road and no streetlights. By sundown my eyes were bleary from trying to stay on the road, which had been asphalted so many times the shoulders dropped off almost a foot in places. My sixty-something body ached. My neck ached. My back ached. My arms ached. My hands, even my fingers, ached. All I wanted to do was to stretch out and sleep. And take a bath. But it was hard to find a safe place. Robbers were everywhere, and Americans were easy targets—especially Americans in a bus full of supplies.

  We finally stopped—before dark, as instructed—at a motel with ghetto lights and armed guards in the parking lot surrounded by barbed wire. This did not make me feel safe, but I was desperate for a bath and a bed. We were all tired and cranky. Sally criticized Doug for driving too fast, and he made a crude retort. She stormed into the parking lot to pout. But when a guard pointed a gun at her, she returned in a hurry, figuring she was safer with Doug than with the guards.

  The next morning we threaded our way through the mountain passes with their precarious roads. Then police stopped us, pointing a gun at Doug, who was then driving the bus. They threatened to arrest him for being shirtless. Amparo said, “They just want a mordita” (“a little bite,” a handout). She and Fanny got out of the car and engaged in what seemed to be a very serious conversation with the officers. We waited nervously. Finally the women returned. The police walked away empty handed.

  “What did you tell them?” I asked.

  “I told them,” Amparo said, “‘We have a little money, but if you take it, you’re going to be robbing orphans. These are babies whose parents were killed in the war. You seem to be nice men. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to do that.’”

  She was a small woman with a soft voice, but underneath that deceptive cover she had the spine of a junkyard dog. We kept our money.

  At long last, after six days on the road, we arrived at the border between Guatemala and El Salvador. It was guarded by armed soldiers. I saw suspicion in their eyes and movements, and I knew anyone taking supplies into the country during the war was suspected of aiding the rebels. This moment could make or break our mission.

  “Descarguen el bus!” the boss shouted, motioning for us to unload the bus.

  The leader came up to me, studying my face. We had driven a long way to have it all end here. Our US citizenship gave us some protection, but the price they could get for a bus, two cars, and a couple of washing machines might be irresistible. I stared at him, showing no emotion. But I was thinking this mordita was going to be a big one.

  The guard moved away and motioned for Amparo to come to him. He asked a question, looking down on her small frame, his hands still on his gun. Amparo, sweetly smiling as if he were her brother, answered. He looked back at me, then to her. Then an unexpected thing happened. The creases on his weathered face softened. They talked some more, and he smiled. He called to his partner. His partner looked at me and nodded approvingly. They laughed and seemed to congratulate each other. They came over and shook my hand. Baffled, I went with it, reaching out my hand as cordially as I could under the circumstances. Then they waved us on.

  Amparo climbed in. “We don’t have to unload anything. Just drive on.”

  I couldn’t believe it. “What happened?” I searched Amparo’s face to see mischief and amusement. But she didn’t tell me until we were underway again, successfully inside El Salvador.

  “The comandante asked me, ‘Who’s that guy? He looks familiar,’” she began. “Then I told him, ‘That’s Jerry Parr. He is American hero. He save Ronald Reagan’s life.’ ‘Oh, yeah,’ he said. ‘I thought I recognized him! He was on TV last night!’”

  Amparo’s triumphant smile filled her whole face. “See,” she said, “I tell you Jesus always goes before me!”

  When Reagan’s life hung in the balance, I had prayed. And now I sensed that someone was praying for me, for all of us. Carolyn and all the people at Festival Church in DC were praying for our safety. So were the people at Shalom Baptist Church in El Salvador.

  None of us quite understood what had happened at the border. But the mystery was solved when we got to the Palacios family’s house that night. Xochitl grinned and produced a tape of me speaking Spanish. It was a Top Cops documentary of the attack on President Reagan—a program I’d filmed eighteen months before. Edgar said, “The Salvadoran channel advertised it all week. Many people were watching.” The comandante must have been one of them.

  It wasn’t luck. That border crossing was one more in a string of dangerous near misses from which God continued to deliver me.

  We had arrived during Easter week. I went with Edgar to help bury a young man who had lain dead in the street for four days. He was shot for breaking the curfew, trying to get water for his pregnant wife. Relatives were afraid to claim the body for fear of reprisals, and the police had left him there because they don’t work during Holy Week. Unarmed, he wore only a pair of shorts. He lay in a makeshift morgue: in the back room of a little store, on a door spread across two sawhorses. A naked bulb suspended from a cord shone down on the corpse. The cruelty—the meaninglessness—of the violence came over me.

  How did I wind up here? I asked myself for the umpteenth time. For the last thirty years or more God had taken me so many places I’d never expected to go. I had been to six of the seven continents. I had walked with paupers and kings. I had been wined and dined and had paint thrown at me. Some places, like the hospital in the Philippines, the burn unit at Lackland Air Force Base, and Trauma Room 5 at George Washington Hospital, were hard. Some, like Vietnam and El Salvador, were frightening. By now I was learning to trust God and learn what I could from the ride.

  As we sat in the Palacios family’s living room watching the tape again, my mind wandered to Shalom’s orphans. I remembered their joyful hugs and kisses when we’d delivered the bus earlier in the day. The love between them and their houseparents was palpable. In just six months since the last time we’d met, they had grown in size and self-confidence. Proud to be attending school, they showed us their blue-and-white uniforms and th
eir backpacks full of books, pencils, and pads. They read for us and showed us their homework. The oldest, a girl, was now thirteen. She struck me as a young Amparo, keeping a responsible eye on the younger ones, including her two brothers.

  As my thoughts returned to the tape, I wondered whether a child somewhere in El Salvador—maybe even that young girl—might also be watching and thinking, as I did when I saw Code of the Secret Service as a nine-year-old in Miami, When I grow up I want to be a lifesaver too.

  That thought made me smile.

  EPILOGUE

  The Lord has led me on many adventures in the years since that crazy mission to El Salvador. My body is slowing down, but my life in the Spirit is filled to the brim. I spend a lot of time visiting people in intensive care units and hospice, and a lot of time listening, holding hands, praying with people. I spend two or three hours a day on the phone simply being present to friends in distress. I accompany the dying, not only people in my church but also longtime Secret Service friends and their families. I sometimes bear loving witness to that most intimate moment when life leaves, moments when I know with certainty that I’m standing on holy ground.

  It’s a strange twist that having spent my so-called prime years protecting political figures from death, I now spend a lot of time helping people to surrender to it.

  But the impulse to protect and the impulse to bear witness come from the same place. I know those impulses come from God and that God is love. The love that created me is the love that used the hard events in my life for good, even when I was unaware. In spite of all the risks I took and all the near misses, I have lived a long life. God’s love has sustained me and sustains me still. It will carry me through my inevitable rendezvous with death.

  Deep in my soul I’m certain of this: it’s all about love. God’s love holds the whole ordered universe together. As Thornton Wilder said, that love is the bridge between life and death.[95] And that love is enough.