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The block that intersected the street where I grew up was called Church Street. On one end was St. Angela's, the Catholic church my friends attended. At the other end was Beulah Baptist, where I first heard the gospel. St. Angela's seemed to be a dark mystery with its statues of Jesus and Mary and its holy smell. Beulah, on the other hand, met in a plain-looking building, with pale walls and blond furniture. It did not smell holy. No statue of Jesus could be found in the place.

One Saturday I walked with my friends to their catechism class. When we arrived at the back door to the church, they told me that I could go no farther because I wasn't a member of the parish. I peered through the glass at the Christ mounted on a pedestal that was attached to the wall. His arms were spread in welcome, but not for me. Instead, he surveyed an empty hall below. His mother hung at the other end. She too had her arms spread, as if inviting an invisible audience to enter their embrace.

I spent several minutes gazing from one to the other, my heart pounding. Surely, at any moment they might climb down and wave me away from the door. I wished I could step into the hall and examine the two figures more closely, but my friends had made it clear: I could not cross the sacred threshold.

When the lesson ended, my friends appeared again in the deserted hallway. They opened the red door and fled the place. The faint scent of holiness escaped with them, clinging like the musty smell on an old woman's wedding dress. I gave the statues one last nervous glance, just to make sure that they had not sprung to life, and went off to play.

Beulah Baptist was at the opposite end of Church Street. I visited there because of a parade that took place during that time of year when summer stretches out like the rest of eternity. I was bored. My friends weren't around, and I couldn't think of anything to do. Suddenly, I heard the sound of music and children's voices. Coming down the sidewalk was a parade made up of wagons, balloons, and someone dressed in a clown suit. A group of children marched behind, waving. One of them ran over to me with a piece of paper inviting me to attend something called vacation Bible school.

This might be a good idea, I thought, though I felt ambivalent about attending. The fact that I didn't attend church didn't make me nervous. The "school" part bothered me. I did not enjoy school. The thought of joining vacation and school into some kind of hybrid seemed perverse, like the pictures one sees in the tabloids of babies reportedly born with the head of a dog and the body of a human. Who wants to go to school on his vacation?

Still, the clown was a hopeful sign. These people seemed to promise that if I attended vacation Bible school I would have fun, an intriguing thought. I had never viewed church as a fun place. Perhaps the Baptist church was more like a circus—all colored lights and sounds and laughter.

Beulah Baptist, however, was all business. On the wall behind the pulpit hung a large metal map of the world, sprinkled with pinpoints of light. I thought this was an odd choice for a decoration, more suited to the United Nations than a church. I learned later that the map served to remind church members of the importance of missions.

The people at Beulah were big on missions. Every day in vacation Bible school, we were treated to a missionary story. I could never remember the names or the locations, but the plot was always the same. Some child realizes that the whole world is going to hell and dedicates himself to becoming a missionary. He leaves his weeping parents behind and goes to a distant jungle land. Communication with the natives is hard because he doesn't know the language. It doesn't help matters that the natives are cannibals. As he tries to tell them about Jesus, whose own story seemed to me to be almost as depressing, the natives capture him, cook him in a pot, and eat him. He is quickly replaced by another missionary who has been inspired by his sacrifice. The moral of the story, as far as I could tell, was: "Come to Jesus and this can happen to you too!"

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December 2004, Vol. 48, No. 12