Photo by Sandy Huffaker, Jr.

Man at the camp

“Have you ever heard of the Whole Earth Festival? I was going to them way back before I was a Christian." Speaking is Steve Behncke, a do-it-yourself Christian missionary, who lately has been preaching the Lord in Mexican migrant worker camps 175 miles south of San Diego. Most Americans are unaware that Mexico has gigantic farms and that they too require field hands. Mexican agribusiness recruits workers from all over the country, puts them on company buses, tells them not to bring anything, tells them that the company will provide for all their needs. Workers endure a three-day, three-night bus ride, then are dumped in remote areas — entire families living in 12- by 12-foot rooms; 2000 people warehoused in temporary camps with seven outhouses dedicated to their convenience.

A mom and her baby

Photo by Sandy Huffaker, Jr.

Behncke and I are sitting on either side of the kitchen table inside my 8- by 16-foot 1954 Kenskill trailer. The trailer is parked on the beach. Pacific side of Baja, 160 miles south of Tijuana. Right now, the sky’s reds and oranges have turned purple; the ocean’s blue has mutated into a washed-out gray. A cold wind has popped up, predictable, even in the summer, the instant sunset arrives. There is not another human being within sight, but two ridges north is Steve’s migrant-worker camp, the one he preaches in seven days a week. I pick up a Coleman lantern from the table-top, flick it on, crank down the west window to shut off the cold air. I hop up and set about making a pot of coffee. Standing over the sink, I call out, “What about the Whole Earth Festival?”

“The Whole Earth Festival represents just about everything you can imagine. ‘Save the sea snail’ and the banana slug, save this indigenous people, and this rain forest — some worthy causes — but what wasn’t represented was the unborn baby. So I called up the organizers and said I was part of the Movement for Reproductive Rights. It sounded liberal enough, and they gave me a booth. This was in Davis, California. The Whole Earth Festival was a three-day affair. There were concerts and there was reggae, and every god and crystal you can imagine. Here I was, a genuine product of their environment. I knew them as well as they knew themselves.”

Behncke is 39 years old, six feet tall, and 185 pounds. He has a handsome, square face and a longish gray-black beard that grows in an extraordinary way — every hair is always in place. Behncke is a charismatic man, pumps out energy that you can feel at 50 feet. He has the look of a swashbuckler; make that, he looks like a swashbuckler in a 1950s movie. The seldom-used word dashing comes to mind. His clothes are third- or fourth-hand: jeans, work boots, and long-sleeved shirts. But somehow, on him, they look stylish. However, understand this, he is a preacher man. His voice, always engaged, has an enthusiasm that’s a force of nature, like the tide or a cyclone. Behncke will begin a sentence in normal tones, and when he finds a topic he likes, his voice speeds up, then simply goes on a ride as if another being is carrying it. And as he slips into higher and higher gears, HE TALKS LOUDER AND LOUDER, AND FASTER AND FASTER! You can see he’s lost self-consciousness and is just in the words, delighted with the moment and having a glorious time.

I don’t run into a lot of missionaries down here. I don’t run into a lot of missionaries anywhere. I’d seen Steve around the village, in the camps, and become curious. I’d invited him over this evening to hear his story. Good stories are the best entertainment I’ve found, and there’s one certainty I can bank on: no one gets to a place like this because they’re boring.

Behncke continues, “So, I had a booth at the Whole Earth Festival, and on my table were these very nice models that came right out of a medical school. They were models of a baby from conception until birth. Now, abortions in America have this legal first-trimester, second-trimester, and third-trimester thing. I had gone down and Xeroxed off the paperwork that said what the law was. The first trimester you can just go in and have an abortion. The second trimester you need a doctor’s signature. The third trimester, to have an abortion, you have to have what is considered an emergency, but anything can be considered an emergency. It can be ‘I’m very mentally stressed over this. I’m in danger of having a nervous breakdown.’ So, literally, it’s legal to have an abortion up until nine months. And when I was doing rescues, some of our rescues were at abortion clinics that specialized in third-trimester abortions.

“There’s an incredible thing going on in the mentality of the American people. Somehow the actual humanity of that little baby has been lost. And no one knows what the baby, the fetus, looks like. SO I JUST HAPPENED TO HAVE WITH ME NINE MONTHS’ WORTH OF BABY DEVELOPMENT! THEY WERE MODELS I GOT FROM A UNIVERSITY! And there I was in my booth at the Whole Earth Festival. Right away radical feminists and lesbians came up to me and screamed, ‘THIS ISA LIE! THIS IS NOT REAL!’ Children were playing with the models, because you could pull the baby models right out of the uterus. One model was a 13-week baby model, A UNIVERSITY MODEL, WITH TOES, FINGERS, EYES, AND EARS! All the parts were there, they were just very, very small. A fetus has brain waves. It’s interesting, because you’re not considered dead until you’re brain dead. But with babies, you’re not considered alive even if you have brain waves.

“So, suddenly I had this crowd I never expected. Behind me I had people praying, but in front of me I had the most angry thing. There was a hatred, especially amongst radical feminist lesbians. I thought, ‘What is THIS? WHY do they hate this information so much?’ THEY WERE JUST ON ME. THEY WERE JUST HATING ME. THEY USED VULGAR LANGUAGE ON ME! And all the kids were fingering the models, and I had this crowd, and it was ruining this beautiful experience that Whole Earth Festivals say they are. And so the festival wasn’t this wonderful experience anymore. There were debates and anger going on, and it was all happening around this stupid little table of mine.

“I won’t say how this happened, but I had friends who wound up in possession of a 17-week-old baby in a jar, barely second trimester. I’ve delivered my own children, and I’m telling you this: a 17-week-old baby is a FULL-ON BABY! When you looked at that baby in the jar, you knew that when that baby was aborted at 17 weeks, especially with the techniques they use — they go in, crush the head, and pull it out — you knew that something RADICAL had happened in that baby’s life the day of the abortion. This is regardless of your beliefs. And it moves you, even talking about it right now....” Steve’s eyes redden, his voice chokes, “It was very hard for me to possess that baby in a jar. I want you to know that. Just to have it was almost sacrilegious.

“I didn’t want to use it. It was my nuclear explosion underneath the table. I was trembling. I wanted to reach for this thing, because I wanted to blow those people away who were telling me, ‘This is a lie. Those models are lying.’ I had a crowd. People were coming and coming, and at its peak, I did. I reached under the table, brought the jar up, and went, ‘POW,’ and put the jar on the table. I said to the lesbians, ‘TELL IT TO HIM!’

“You should have seen it. The lesbians went, ‘Gasp,’ and stepped back. I was so profoundly moved. It was funny. The children were not afraid of the jar. They looked at it with pure innocence and said, ‘Mama, it’s a BABEE!’ And all the radicals, who had been in my face, now couldn’t get near my table. They were pacing around like angry wolves afraid to get closer to the fire.

“I suddenly realized what truth was, the truth hidden behind words, behind philosophies, behind agenda. Now it was out front. And the children knew the truth, when all the other people were afraid of it. I said to the radicals, ‘Come on, come closer and look at what you call a lie. Can you handle it?’ And they couldn’t, and they hated me. And their teeth were grinding, and their temples were moving. They went and got the organizers, and the organizers came, and they were looking like, ‘What about our wonderful fair? We’ve got pictures of pigs being burned for science, pictures of rhesus monkeys being dissected alive, and we’ve got all these things that we support. BUT WHAT DO WE DO WITH THIS BABY?’ The whole feminist and lesbian agenda is so embraced by the New Age movement, but this baby was abhorred.”

Behncke has sucked me into his world. Like a little kid listening to a parent’s bedtime story, I ask with wide eyes, “What did the organizers do?”

“They came to me and said, ‘You have to leave.’ Because ALL the people around me were selling stuff — had their own booths — and they were telling the organizers, ‘GET HIM OUT OF HERE! GET HIM OUT OF HERE!’

“I told the organizers, ‘If you kick me out, you are such liars, such hypocrites, because you say you represent all freedom here, all thought. Unless his voice is expressed here, you guys are liars and hypocrites.’

“And they debated, and they went to little meetings and finally came back and said, ‘Okay, we’re going to move you. We won’t kick you out, but we’re going to move you.’ So they MOVED ME! They moved me,” Behncke explodes in laughter. That faraway moment has arrived in the present with a slam and is here in its entirety, and Steve is inside it, face turned pink with the joy. “They moved me to an obscure corner. I thought, ‘It’s over.’ IT WASN’T OVER! All it did was give me more room. And the crowd grew. I just left the jar on the table. And every time a radical came forward, I said, ‘LOOK AT IT! COME HERE AND LOOK AT IT WHILE WE TALK ABOUT ABORTION!’ ”

I pour two cups of coffee, look outside to check the wind. It’s still blowing hard, but in another hour that will end, and it will be calm and 15 degrees warmer. Behncke was born in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, one of five kids. His father was a bricklayer. Steve left home at 18, tried college, traveled Europe, lived in New Age communes in California, then moved on to Christianity. Really curious now, wanting to know the thread of it, the how of it — as in, How do you get from a Whole Earth Festival in Davis to a Mexican migrant-worker camp in Baja? — I take a seat and begin, “When was this Whole Earth Festival?”

“Nineteen ninety, ’91, something like that. I had been in the Rescue movement for a couple years. There were mainstream groups that would come together for rallies. We had inside groups that did the planning, because it all had to be very secretive. There were tactical things to consider. I organized pickets. Sometimes we would have a rescue day, and we’d lie down in front of an abortionist’s door, and the cops would come and tweak on us. Those who didn’t want to get tweaked on and go to jail, they would be picketers. So, there were picketers and rescuers. And sometimes we’d make a deal with the cops. They’d say, ‘We’ll let you hold the doors for three hours if you’ll quit after the third hour.’ Sometimes our goal was to keep a clinic closed for a day. The cops would say, ‘We’ll let you keep it closed if you’ll break up at 3:30 and switch to picketing.’ That was great, the behind-door deals with the cops. Some went on for months.

“After that festival I suffered severe burnout. It looked like the pro-life movement was losing momentum. People were spending a lot of time in jail. It seemed like the message wasn’t getting across. Rescue was getting its back broken. Judges were breaking the law; they were doing things that were contrary to law. I was still called on, still went to some rallies, but I started to see that part of the problem was the church wasn’t coming out. Pastors were afraid to participate; they were afraid of losing their nonprofit tax exemption. The dotted line on that form says, ‘You can’t get political. You can’t say things bad about the government.’ That’s part of what the taxation exemption is all about. That’s why, a lot of times, you sell your soul to get one. The cops were moving us off the sidewalks; they were coming against picketers heavy. People were losing big lawsuits. It was breaking the back of Rescue.

“It began to seem futile. Christians weren’t listening. At this point I realized that maybe I was wrong, maybe I was too political, maybe I was off base. I realized there wasn’t a cohesiveness among the Christian body. I thought, ‘Well, how can I make that happen?’ I was a musician, played the guitar. I’d cut an album. I was involved with musicians, and we played music at the Rescue rallies. We thought that music was a good glue for Christians. One night, after a prayer meeting, I came up with an idea called Pilgrim Café. I looked around for a restaurant that was only open for breakfast and lunch, so we could use it in the evenings. And I got some people to donate money. We built a stage. I recruited other musicians, got the mailing list from Operation Rescue, and sent out fliers. I always thought revolutions started in coffeehouses. So I was going to start a revolution in a coffeehouse.”

One must learn patience, then practice it like a monk every day. I find that to be one of life’s most disagreeable lessons, but there it is. What I want is the Mexican labor camps, but in order to really get it, I want Mexican labor camps to arrive when Behncke is ready to tell it. I want it as part of a whole. On the other hand, if the getting there is as good as the baby in the jar, I won’t have any trouble waiting.

“WE PACKED THEM IN! The Pilgrim Café was wall to wall, and it represented every church in Sacramento. It was hot. We were getting hands laid on, people were getting cured of brain cancer, AND GOING OUT INTO THE COMMUNITY! We were bringing in drug addicts. People were talking about it, talking about coming in and getting cured of heroin addiction. It was just really emotional.

“I went on TV, Christian TV. I’d go on talk shows. People were calling wanting to start their own Pilgrim Cafés. The idea was music and a street-level, nonconformist kind of church, a real church: ‘Come on in, write on napkins, talk to people, change your life, be real, get rid of all the customary religious trappings.’ It was like, ‘What’s the message? Who was Jesus, this sandal-wearing carpenter, this guy who wasn’t rich? What did he do, and what was his real message? Let’s be like him.’

“On the stage, I had political people, poets, actors, mimes, singers, bikers, and jazz players. We were open two nights, three nights a week. But then it got heavy because radical lesbians found out where we were, and the next thing you know, windows were being broken. Big plate-glass windows. People were followed home. We went through three restaurants.”

I look at my feet, regard my Australian shepherd Sam. He’s lying on his back, legs spread, long pink tongue flopping out the left side of his mouth, black eyes flashing. He looks insane. I reach down to give him a pat, instruct, “Sam boy, add this to your duties. When patrolling the grounds, be on the lookout for radical lesbians.”

The comment sails past Behncke, who continues, “We never made money. We broke even. Like any organization, there was fighting and squabbling amongst the people. I got major attacked because I was the head of it. Next thing I knew, it was ‘You’re an egomaniac.’ I wasn’t a very good leader. I was coming to grips with my own lack of depth and my own spiritual growth.

“At that time, I felt like I was getting a message from the Lord. ‘YOU WANT TO DO THESE THINGS, I’LL LET YOU DO THEM. BUT YOU’RE NOT NECESSARILY THE MAN FOR THE JOB!’” Behncke roars, saliva runs from his mouth. He shakes his head, explains, “It was the worst time in my life. My personal relationships were so strained. I opened two Pilgrim Cafés.”

By now, I am certain Steve would have made one king-hell of a television evangelist. He’s too self-educated, too streetwise to be a standard-brand national TV preacher, but he could have carved himself out a nice little cult following. He’s got sincerity, boldness, originality, a trace of the cardsharp, good looks, great enthusiasm, and genuine charisma. He’d have had them dialing for dollars in a heartbeat. It was all there. Why didn’t he take the next step? I ask, “Did you ever think, ‘I’m going to be a superstar’?”

“I did, that was part of it. I produced a newspaper, Pilgrim Companion, that highlighted some of the political stuff we were doing and some of the talent that we had. We were selling advertising, the product looked pretty good, and then I met this guy who was going to plug us into satellite TV. The guy was a promoter; he was a shyster. He came off as a Christian and then started selling franchises behind my back. He sold Pilgrim franchises to investors,” Behncke laughs again, “took all this money from people and then left town.

“After that happened, I became a hermit. I pulled out of Rescue. I pulled out of Pilgrim. I just got out. Pilgrim is still going today in Sacramento. It’s bigger than ever. I went up and visited recently. I like it, but it’s not me. It was never meant for me.”

I sense a void here, one of those places in the road that people leave out of their biographies, like, “I’ve decided to pursue other career options” instead of “I was fired,” or, “Susan and I are renewing our marriage” instead of “She was going to leave, but her boyfriend never showed up.” At those moments, one feels the presence of an information sinkhole. It’s like you’re listening to somebody, and suddenly there’s an empty spot in the highway, and the story skips off the groove, then picks up again around the next bend. It happens so smoothly, so quickly, that the information void usually isn’t seen; at best it’s lightly felt like the brush of a kitten’s whisker. Wanting to get on to the migrant-worker camp, I decide to let it pass.

Behncke continues, “So, I said to my wife, Connie, ‘Let’s cut it off. Let’s get out of here. Let’s go to Mexico.’ We wanted to find the Jesus of the Bible, the simple man in simple clothes.”

“Why Mexico?”

“We figured it was a clean slate. See, there aren’t 200,000 Christians down here. There are a bunch of Indians who have drinking problems, who are still scared of the dark, who still go poo-poo in front of their front doors, who beat their wives and sleep with the girl next door. Who, if they come in contact with the Jesus of the Bible, will be changed. Their lives will be changed by the simplicity of what church was always meant to be.”

A large spider creeps across my trailer floor. I stand up and stomp my right foot and send the insect to glory, ask, “Did you just get up and go? How was the trip arranged?”

“I was with a caterer while I was in Sacramento — that’s how I kept my family alive. I was catering a party and overheard a conversation. The man was traveling the world as an English teacher. I said, ‘Excuse me,’ and popped out of my waiter’s role. The man told me about this school in San Francisco. After 100 hours of instruction, you got a certificate that entitled you to teach English in 35 countries. So, I moved to San Francisco for a month and got my certificate. Then I put out applications all over Mexico and got a job in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz.

“I went alone to Coatzacoalcos. It was a petroleum city. I couldn’t hang with that; it wasn’t like what the pictures showed. So I went traveling, got up to Chiapas, and came to San Cristóbal de las Casas, a 15th-century city. I fell in love with it. Neat place, San Cristbbal, real European, real old, 15th Century, cobblestone streets, Indians selling their wares all over town. It was pretty cool.

“I decided to open a salad-and-espresso bar. I found a 200-year-old building downtown. I rented it for $110 a month. Suddenly, I had a living area with a private patio, a room that would make a fabulous kitchen, servants’ quarters, another patio, big schoolrooms, and an office. I had my little XT computer, and a phone, cost me $800.1 hired a kid and redid the wood floors. I went out to the woods and brought in rock, did all the masonry. I got old, gnarly, burned-out oak for the archways. It was like a hobbit home.

“San Cristóbal is a tourist town. It’s on what they call the ‘Gringo Trail.’ That’s a tourist route that starts from Oaxaca and goes down to Cancun. I was right in the middle. I knew that everyone wanted a salad bar — tourists were so sick of Mexican food by the time they got to San Cristóbal. Well, here’s a fresh salad bar and all the soup you can eat. They would have flocked me. I met a retired ambassador; he was partying a little and painting. He’d been all over — Korea and Vietnam — he’d been an Asian ambassador for the United States. He was a really good painter and hung his art in my place.

“I had gotten in touch with the school I had gone to in San Francisco, and they’d agreed to teach students at my place in San Cristóbal. By then I had my classrooms, all my desks, chairs, boards, and paraphernalia on the walls. I had already started English classes. I was going to be making some good money. I was going to be living very high in Mexico.”

I fix a steady gaze into Behncke’s green eyes, remark, “I don’t hear much religion in this.” In fact, I don’t hear any. In fact, so what with the coffee shop in San Cristóbal. Sam the dog has slunk to the other end of the trailer, the wind has stopped, and the trailer has become suffocating. I get up from the kitchen booth, open the trailer door, and step down into the night’s blackness. I walk toward the surf, stop 30 feet later having found the men’s room. I carry out my manly duties and sink into the sound of the surf on an empty beach. I take a deep breath, not wanting to go back inside, then go back inside, ask without enthusiasm, “What happened?”

“Marcos hit town. The retired ambassador came by, dropped off a painting, and asked me, ‘Have you seen all the soldiers in the city? There’s trash and furniture piled up as barricades.’ I said, ‘What?’ I walked to the town square, and there were Marcos and his indigenous army of young kids and women. The peasants looked like they were dressed in used Boy Scout uniforms. They had ransacked the government buildings and thrown all the art into the streets. They had carried off furniture and made barricades around the zocalo, sat there and just chose the army off, said, ‘Come get us.’ ”

All right, this train is picking up a little steam. Attentive again, I ask, “How many insurgents were there?”

“Probably 300.”

“What kind of weapons did they have?”

“Junk, .22s and .410 shotguns. The only ones who had sophisticated weaponry were the hard-core Marcos people. They wore black Ninja outfits with black hoods. They carried little Uzis and drove around in VW Kombi vans. They were positioned and sophisticated. They jumped the police force, liberated the local jail, freed everybody, then wrote slogans over the walls: ‘Power to the People,’ ‘We Want Bread and Land and Rights,’ ‘Justice for the Ones Who Have Been Tortured.’ And then they waited, and waited, and waited. That first night, Marcos gave a speech from the top of Casa del Presidente.

“Marcos told us, ‘No need for fear. We’re here for rights, not to hurt you.’ They occupied the town for three or four days. Then they collected donations and split to Ococingo, which is down the road toward Palenque. After they left, the army came in. There were still guerrillas right outside San Cristóbal, so the Mexican Air Force started bombing. We’d go up on the roof and watch the planes bomb the hillsides. There was martial law; you had to be in by curfew, which was nightfall. You couldn’t walk down the street without getting stopped, even during the day. If you walked out after curfew, the army pulled guns on you.

Worker at the camp

Photo by Sandy Huffaker, Jr.

“We couldn’t get any information. We had to go down to the big-screen TV in one of the bars and get ABC news by satellite, find out what their version of it was. All the journalists were sitting in cafés sipping coffee, because they weren’t allowed to go anywhere. They were pumping us for something to write about.

“There was no business, no tourists. Everyone was afraid. The store owners pulled in and closed up. My group — the English-teacher training school in San Francisco — canceled as soon as they got word. I was in a wait-and-spend mode, and I’d already spent everything.

“I was friends with Juan Carlos and Oscar, who’d opened a French restaurant. I remember going over, and they were crying and they were just drunk as skunks. They’d pull one bottle of French wine off the wall after another, just drinking and crying, because they’d put all their money in this restaurant. They were going to split. A whole bunch of people were closing down.

“I can remember having what I would call a lightweight breakdown. I’d put so much into this. I didn’t know whether to hang or to go. I was looking for home, home. Then it was all taken from me. I didn’t want to quit. I kept spending money and spending money and didn’t want to quit. Finally, I went into my bedroom and prayed. I cried, and the Lord said, ‘Go.’

“I’d met a family of 11 living in a school bus. They were Christians. I’d first met the kids, and they’d introduced me to their father. He was getting freaked and wanted to leave. When he heard I was leaving, he said he wanted to caravan with me.

“So we left town. Connie was due to deliver Leah when we caravaned out. We pushed it hard. I was driving the truck, and it was raining heavy. Suddenly, Connie went into labor. I had a CB, and the guy we were caravaning with had a CB. I called him and said, ‘Put the hot water on. Connie is going into labor.’ They stopped their bus by the side of the road and made a bed for Connie. Then, just as quickly as it began, Connie shut up and didn’t have any more contractions for two weeks. We got across the border in six days, crossed into Texas.

“The guy we were traveling with told me, ‘I know these people in Tennessee who deliver babies.’ So I called them, and they said, ‘Come on out.’ They had a two-bedroom place in Bethel Springs, Tennessee. They told us, ‘This is your house as long as you want it.’ That really moved me. I’d never been in a place where I felt like I could go to the refrigerator from day one and say, ‘That’s my refrigerator.’ They made me feel that way. They had eight kids.”

Sam the dog is having a dream. Eyes shut tight, his front paws begin to move, doggy toenails scrape the gray linoleum floor. He looks to be chasing a nice, fat, furry cat. I stare at Sam’s twitching nostrils as Behncke’s trip echoes in my head. I spent most of my 20s hitchhiking, seven years of it. I was never in one place for more than three weeks, never had more than 50 bucks at a time. But that was one person, and I was young. To do a modified Bataan Death March with a pregnant wife and five kids requires insane selfishness, which is not Steve, or an absolute belief that people will help you out along the way. What the hell, it always worked for me. Missing those years, missing them hard, I wistfully ask, “The family had two bedrooms and eight kids. Where did you put your children?”

“The girls were pushed in with the other girls. My little boy slept with me and Connie. It was kerosene lamps and wood fires, story time around the fire, bodies lying over the floor, people eating popcorn. I felt so at home. And then February 10 there was a huge ice storm, the once-in-a-hundred-years ice storm. IT TOPPLED TREES, MAMMOTH OAK TREES, FORESTS OF PINES, laid them over from Tennessee to Georgia to Alabama. It was beautiful. All night I heard trees falling over from the weight of ice. Power was out two weeks.

“That night the midwife arrived. She walked into the bedroom, checked everything out, told us, ‘I’ll leave you a little time alone,’ and closed the door. Connie went, ‘Oh, I felt the push.’ None of our other babies came that way. She just went, ‘Ohhhhh,’ and the baby pushed, and I didn’t have time to get the rubber gloves on, and the midwife came back and said, ‘You’ve been there before; just do it.’ I replied, ‘Okay,’ and delivered Leah, my fifth child.”

I forgo saying “ohhhh” and glance down at my feet, notice that Sam is awake and gnawing on the table leg. I stare down, snap, “Sam boy, check the perimeter,” and guide the beast toward the door with my right foot. “There’s a brave lad,” I call out as he slinks into the darkness. Returning to Behncke, I ask, “What were you doing for money?”

“After the ice storm, there was tons of tree work, especially in the rich people’s areas around Memphis. We climbed up to the tops of trees and trimmed them. We were making good money, four to seven hundred a week.

“We were eating communally, living communally — lots of singing, playing in the snow, and caving. We were living plain, living simple, coming out of the system. For church, we had big family get-togethers and feeds. Big meetings. Not your typical church scene. We were meeting in homes and cabins, huge groups, a lot of reading, a lot of testimonies.”

“Would there be a form to the service?”

“Usually it was the elder brothers and sisters who would share something about what they were learning — about life, about what God was teaching them. Maybe there would be someone there who was a new believer or an unbeliever. There would be songs, a reading, and then an expounding upon the reading. Then questions and answers.”

“Who would expound?”

“You’ll find different things in different churches. In this group, most expounding was done by brothers and elder brothers. Younger brothers would not be encouraged to do that. The sisters would not be encouraged to do that. It was usually the men. The sisters might share a testimony, but it wasn’t normal that you would see a sister stand up, read, and expound in depth upon the Word. It’s not normally accepted in regard to fundamental or historic Christian theology.”

I love the word expound. It has that full-mouthed, meaty flavor that says you’ve put the horses in the field and are ready for some hefty verbal work. As for the sisters not being allowed to expound, my guess is that they’ll work that out. I softly ask, “How long were you in Tennessee?”

“I was there for Leah’s birth on February 11, and I left the following September. That summer, I landed a big landscaping job, got enough money to buy a school bus and convert it. We decided to leave for my 20th high school reunion. But it wasn’t just that; it was also time to leave. I can only handle so much church. I can only handle so much reading. I can only handle so much talking. I can only handle so many dinners and so many testimonies. I don’t believe that’s what Christianity is supposed to be. You can say, ‘We’re all healed, and we’re all feeling good about our lives, and we all know how to teach our kids, and we all know how to talk about victory over circumstance.’ That’s a real thing that you have in a Christian church. But that’s not enough for me. FOR ME, IT’S ABOUT PUSHING THE ENVELOPE! I didn’t want to live in Tennessee and just be around Christians. Christianity is a means to me. It’s not the end. It’s not about a happy life. I’m not interested in just a happy life.

“And there was a little bit of backbiting going on, and I thought, ‘I’m not interested in participating in this. I’m going to leave while it’s still nice.’ The leaving was interesting because there were prophesies. Mac, the man we were staying with, told me, ‘Every time I try to leave, something happens. Don’t be too sure you’re going to go.’

“All the children loved my Stories, and they were always after me to tell them. One kid said something totally strange the night before I was planning to leave. He said, ‘Steve, tell the story about your engine burning up.’ I was startled and said, ‘What?’ His father rebuked him, ‘Sye, stop talking foolishness.’

“It didn’t make sense. I’d never told him a story about an engine burning up. The next day I was running around trying to get out of there, because I’m really fond of Mac. He’d gone to the store for something, and I was going to leave while he was away. I can’t handle saying good-byes. I climbed in and started my engine, told my family, ‘Everyone get in the bus. We’re out of here.’

“I noticed I had a little bit of a water leak, and I got out to check it. The leak was a simple thing, a hose. When I straightened that, I saw a gas leak in the carburetor. It was a Ford carburetor, and I had another one. So I decided to switch it out. I popped the four bolts off, and I was real nervous because I wanted to leave before Mac got back. I was gonna pop the other carburetor on, but I could only find three bolts. I thought, ‘My goodness, I’ve dropped a nut down the intake manifold. If it’s down the intake manifold, it’s going to get in the piston and it’s over.’ So I decided to bump the ignition and see if I could hear a rattle. If not, maybe the bolt was on the ground somewhere.

“So I went, ‘Da,’ and bumped the key. It sparked and the engine caught fire. All the hoses and wires were aflame. There was a polyester rug on the ground that caught on fire. Now there were huge flames. I threw dirt on it. I couldn’t put it out, and I finally ran for a hose. By the time the fire was out, what was left was a big quagmire of mud and dirt and melted wires. I thought, ‘It’s over.’ I had wanted to leave so bad. I threw up my hands and said, ‘Oh, Lord, I give up. Do you want me to stay? I’ll give the bus away. What do you want from me?’ And I sat down on the steps and laughed hysterically.

“I went in the house and Connie was there. She said, ‘Well.’ I said, ‘My bus burnt up.’

I was still laughing. She nodded, ‘Well, it’s good to see that you’re laughing.’ I said, ‘I’ll take the car and go for a drive. I’ll get milk.’ So, I went to a little market that had gas and stuff. I filled up with gas, and I was going in to pay, and there was this small black man sitting on the steps. He had short gray hair, red shirt, white shorts, white knee socks, and white shoes. As I walked by, he said, ‘Well, what do you say?’ ” Behncke chortles, “I looked at him and said, ‘God’s good.’

“ ‘Oh no, not all the time he ain’t.’

“I thought I was in a dream. I said, ‘I didn’t say he was Santa Claus. I didn’t say he gives you what you want all the time. I said he was good, with a capital G.’ And the girl behind the counter jumped in, ‘That’s right! That’s right! That was the right answer!’

“I paid for the gas and I got out of there, and I was driving down the road. It was so surreal. I felt like I had passed a test, and I noticed I was crying. I hadn’t cursed God, but I had come close to saying, ‘I don’t understand what’s going on here.’ I got home and I moved real slowly, without anxiousness. I went back to the bus, and I said, ‘God willing, I’ll take this hose off,’ and ‘God willing, I’ll pull these wires off,’ and ‘God willing, I’ll get this fixed.’ And in two days I had it all back together again. When I started the engine, there was no rattling sound. I said, ‘God willing, I’m leaving. Kids, get in. God willing, we’ll make it.’ ” Behncke blankets the trailer with a smile. “It was that way the whole trip. We made it all the way back to San Bernardino, California, and got to my 20th high school reunion, then went to the high desert to stay with friends.” Okay, I have Steve 2000 miles closer to the migrant-worker camps of Baja. Feeling like I’ve scored a personal achievement, like losing weight or going to the gym, I attempt to cut to the chase. “How did you become a missionary?” “I’m not sure how he tracked me down. I had an 800 number—voice mail, cost ten dollars a month. One day I got this message from my friend Gary. He said, ‘Steve, call me in Ohio.’ Gary’s the guy I met in Chiapas, in the school bus.

“We got in touch, and he said, ‘What are you doing?’ I replied, ‘Waiting on the Lord.’ He said, ‘Well, I’ve got some money here from some people, and I’ve got a tithe of my own. It’s for somebody who wants to go to Mexico and preach the gospel. Are you the guy?’

“Gary has a farm in Ohio and 11 kids. Gary’s my methodological Christian. He’s a heavy thinker, an intellectual. He doesn’t have the same passion that maybe I do. He thinks method, he thinks tithe, he thinks 10 percent. Gary got ahold of his 10 percent and thought, ‘Now, who do I give it to?’ The answer came back, ‘Steve.’ Someone else looked at Gary, saw an honest man, asked, ‘Gary, who would you give my tithe to?’ Gary answered, ‘I know a guy named Steve.’

“Gary flew out to California, said, ‘Here you go; here’s the money. What do you need?’ I thought for a minute and said, ‘I need a truck. The rest I’ll live on.’ He said, ‘Okay.’ The truck was $1700. The money came out to six months’ support at $475 a month, and then I was on my own.

“So we bought a used Toyota pickup and drove south, past Tijuana, past Ensenada. I just drove with a map on my lap and prayed. We came to this small village, saw the beach, a store, a place to rent for $50 a month, the migrant worker camp, and the need. And then we kept driving, about an hour longer, and Gary looked over and said, ‘What more do you want?’ I replied, ‘I don’t know. That’s it, turn around.’

“That was a year ago last November. Right away, I went back to San Diego and started going to garage sales. I’d ask the sellers, ‘When you’re done with your garage sale, what are you going to do with your leftover stuff?’ They’d say, ‘We were going to give it to Amvets or the Salvation Army.’ I’d say, ‘Would you consider giving it to me, and I’ll give it to the Mexican Indians?’ I got piles of stuff: clothes, pots, pans, tools, and radios.”

Here is the moment. We are closing in on Mexican migrant camps. On cue, Sam the dog climbs into the trailer, finds his spot underneath the table, and flops down with a loud thump followed by a great heave of a sigh. I lift my right foot to rub his tummy, lean forward and ask, “How did you get through the border?” Behncke howls, “I CAME ACROSS IN THE SCHOOL BUS! I saw the green light. I didn’t know you have an automatic inspection when you drive a school bus. The Mexican customs people came running out, all freaked out, and as I pulled over I ran into their barricades and knocked some down. The tall guy said, ‘You’re going to have to pay for this.’ I replied, ‘It’s not my fault. You guys pulled me over and scared me.’ He went, ‘No, no, no.’ And I said, ‘I don’t have any money. I might as well go back. If you want money for roadwork, forget it.’ The man shook his head, ‘No, you’re going to have to pay for this,’ and then, ‘How much do you think it’s worth?’ I went, ‘I don’t know. I’ll give you 50 bucks.’ He shook his head some more, ‘Ahhh, no way. This would cost a lot more than 50 dollars.’ And we were,” Behncke gathers the memory tight, beams, roars in laughter, “sitting there doing this whole thing, and we’re right in the middle of the passion when the man said, ‘Go ahead, go.’

“I said, ‘Excuse me. My Spanish is not that good. Did you say go ahead and go?’ He said, ‘Yes, go, go, just go. We don’t want to do the paperwork.’ I drove on. Connie was in the green truck pulling the trailer. She’s such a woman. We got here, went to a trailer park out by the harbor. We pitched camp, bought some chickens, and settled in. I started my learning process. I didn’t know anything about missionary work.

“I figured I had six months to pull this thing off. I spent too much of that time worried about what would happen at the end of six months. I tried to work with an Indian making willow furniture. I’d travel to San Diego to sell his stuff. Then I was spending too much time in San Diego. It just wasn’t going to work. Then I gave up, because my Spanish wasn’t improving. I was going to the migrant camp, but I wasn’t getting anywhere. I had some serious doubt. I never had doubt about Jesus, but I’ve often had doubt about me and Jesus.”

If I had a dime for every doubt I have, you could reach me on board my personal luxury liner, in the billiard room. Call ahead and I’ll send the helicopter.

“I got out my resume and sent it around to landscapers. I thought, ‘I’m just going to get a job. Forget it.’ I had met this guy at a coffeehouse in San Diego, and we’d become friends. He liked me, because I wasn’t giving him the same thing he heard in his church. He worshipped at a very typical California culture church. I was at his house, and this girl came over.

“She was crying. She said, ‘You’re not supposed to leave Mexico. Would you please go back? Here’s $200. Go back.’ Something broke inside me. I thought, ‘Lord, that’s what you want from me. You want me to live on the edge, because you want me to live on faith. You really want me to rely on you.’

“I didn’t know that girl. I could never have anticipated that $200. I had been handing out tracts in the camp, but I wasn’t really getting into it. So I drove back down, went to the camp, and started preaching. One of the first people I met was Antonio. I knocked on Antonio’s door and said, in very weak Spanish, ‘Hi, I’m here to talk about the Lord.’ And he went and got his Bible and said, like he’d been expecting me,” Behncke’s voice dials down to a conspirator’s whisper, “‘Let’s talk.’ So we read, and the next thing you know people started coming around. That was June of ’95.”

For the first time this evening, Behncke is still. After several moments I gently prod, “So you’re back with $200, and you felt changed, felt that you had found a direction?”

“The funny thing was that there was no clear direction. I realized that God doesn’t always send complete, detailed information. Most people don’t go into the missionary field unless they have it all handled for them. They get a thousand a month for three years. For me, it wasn’t going to be that way. I was going to have to not know from week to week. And I was going to have to trust God that money was going to arrive. I was just going to have to get right in the pool. I wasn’t going to understand Spanish any better. I wasn’t going to have any clearer idea. I was going to have to sit in that room, light a candle with Antonio, and start talking.

“I was in a university, that’s what I realized. God was trying to tell me, ‘You’re in school, son. I’m trying to teach you faith.’ That’s the way it’s been. A check arrives. Someone talks to somebody. I get another $50, $100. A church I’ve never heard of drives down with 1500 pounds of beans, barrels of flour, rice, clothes, and medicine.”

I smile to myself, thinking back to my hitchhiking years. I did seven years on the road, never had money, never was in one place for more than three weeks, and was never cold or hungry. Something always came through. Faith works, but the thing about faith is, you can’t fake it; it has to be real. The trick is cutting the lines and making the jump. Once you land on the other side, everything is fine, but it is terrifying, the getting ready to jump, and then the jump itself. For me it was a necessity.

I trusted that food and lodging and good times would come along, and they did. But, particularly after the first couple of years, I didn’t have a choice. I was out there with no place to go and no place to come back to. Steve has, and always will have, other options, which makes finding faith much more difficult. Wondering how that worked for him, I ask, “How did that church find you?”

“A friend of a friend moved to Sacramento. I sent him a letter, and he shared it with his pastor. The pastor said, ‘Let’s go show Steve we love him. Let’s not just tell him we love him. LET’S GO SHOW HIM WE LOVE HIM!’ Everyone else goes, ‘Yeahhhhh! Let’s show STEVE WE LOVE HIM!’

“I had sent a list up. I was doing child-care in the camp, and I needed diapers, baby formula, and a VCR to show films. I needed all this stuff that I didn’t have. So here was this church in Sacramento that said, ‘We trust you to be what God wants you to be,’ and they drove down. I met them in San Diego. I saw this big trailer filled with STUFF, and I said to the pastor, Leonard, ‘There is no way you’re going to get across the border with this.’ Leonard said, ‘GOD SENT US. WE’LL JUST PRAY ABOUT IT RIGHT NOW.’

“I told him, ‘Listen, man, I’ve been across the border, and there is no way they’re going to let all this across.’ They had a brand-new generator, clothes, everything laid out inside the trailer. I said, ‘I told you how to pack it. You didn’t pack it the way I told you. You’ve got to pack it in suitcases. You’ve got to do it a certain way. Look, there are brand-new items here. You can’t do that.’ It was two in the morning. Leonard kept saying, ‘No, let’s just pray about it.’

“I went, ‘Yeah, right, okay.’ So we prayed about it, and I got in the cab of my truck, and the guy who was riding with me said, ‘Man, you don’t know Leonard. He’s a man of faith.’ I replied, ‘Man of faith or no man of faith, I’ve been across this Border enough times to know that you are not going to be able to get this stuff across.’

“We get to the border. I was driving my truck, and behind me was this huge, double-axle equipment trailer. The Mexican customs guy took one look and said, ‘You can’t bring this across.’ I replied, ‘Hey, I told these guys. I told these guys.’ Leonard joined us and cornered the customs agent, declared, ‘Surely this is all right. All this is for your people.’ He kept talking, talking, talking, and finally the Mexican guy said, ‘Stop. Don’t say any more. You can go, but the next time have your paperwork in hand.’ ”

Behncke roars again. The sound shakes my trailer. “THEY WERE ALL RUNNING AROUND SCREAMING, ‘PRAISE THE LORD, PRAISE THE LORD, PRAISE THE LORD!’ Leonard came up to me, said, ‘There was never a doubt in my mind. God sent us, and that’s all there is to it.’ ”

The hour is late. This conversation has taken on a stillness, a quietness of mind that one rarely finds in life, because it takes so long to get here. Charm, verbal play, the decorations of daily communion have melted away, and we are at the front door of what is. I allow three heartbeats to pass and quietly ask, “Tell me some more about your first night in the migrant camp.”

“I remember the reverence Antonio had. I realized that this man had what I’d lost. The Bible can sometimes become very commonplace. I’d been through it so many times, and here was this guy, who got his Bible out of the corner — it was a cheap Bible, but the way he unwrapped it, that’s what moved me. And when he read it, it was like it was really written for us. He was ministering to me.

“He was reading along, and I’d ask, 'Do you want to know what that means?’ And I’d explain a little bit to him, and he’d go, ‘Hmmm.’ Then we read a little more, and I’d say, 'Do you know what that means?’ And he’d say, 'No.’ And I’d explain it to him. He had his rich life experience, but he didn’t have any knowledge about history, cultures, nations rising and falling, no education whatsoever. He could read, but that was it.

“I stayed quite late, midnight. Everyone was asleep when I left. On the way home I felt exhilaration, felt like I had passed a test. I felt that God was pleased, that this is what he really wants from people. He wants people to stop, take a moment, gather others up in ones, twos, and threes. You don’t have to be Billy Graham for him to say, ‘Ah, that’s good work.’ It was a good enough thing that two people stopped and read through the Scriptures and applied it to themselves. That was good. I felt very good.”

I can visualize that moment Keeping that picture in my mind, I gently prod, “Tell me about the daily life in the camp.”

“Well, people throw their dishwater in the mud alleys that separate the dormitories. That is where they urinate. Think of the bacteria. Then you have various levels of cleanliness. Some workers, culturally, are cleaner than others. Some are absolutely filthy.

“There are 2000 people in camp: the company has built seven outhouses. I sat down with my calculator and figured out how many times you go to the bathroom every day and multiplied it by 2000. You don’t want to know. Once, I had to use one of these outhouses. I was making a list of the things I needed to deliver my baby, and suddenly I had to go. The list was the only piece of paper I had. So I ran to an outhouse. I got in and saw all the fecal matter. It was a horror.

“So, what do the people in camp do? They don’t use it either. What do they use? They crap in the fields. The volleyball court is where everybody goes to the bathroom. The kids are playing right in the poop, walking around barefoot. Diarrhea is a big deal here, everyone is dehydrated.

“Mexico has socialized medicine. There’s a local doctor who is doing his internship in the village. His name is David. He speaks a little English. Nice guy, good heart, but that’s it. He’ll come out here on emergencies, but what he usually deals with is a superstitious feeling that people have in regard to medicine. They’re hypochondriacs, so they will see him for everything and say, ‘Give me a magic pill.’ David has had to get a little cynical in order to get through his day.

“Potable water comes in barrels. Everyone uses that water for drinking, but no one washes their hands after they go to the bathroom. They all go to the water barrels with their little containers. You watch them during the day, and all their hands are going into the water, and all their plates. They don’t wash with hot water and soap.”

I’ve driven past those water barrels a hundred times. The children, from two years old on up, are trained to scream, at the sight of any American vehicle, “Money, money, money,” and chase after your truck like a dog. Thinking out loud I mumble, “Amazing there isn’t an epidemic.”

“There is. Suddenly the camp will have an epidemic of diarrhea. You don’t want to play it as a Biaffa thing where everyone is lame and dying. There’s just a percentage of sickness and death that’s the standard percentage.

“When I first came here, the workers only had candles. Then, toward the end of summer, the company brought in a generator and fired it up. Everyone was real excited they had lights. We had lights in the evening. Then the TVs arrived, the radios, the lights were going, people were cooking and talking. It was really great.

“They live in 12- by 12-foot rooms. The only thing they sleep on is a piece of carpet, an old piece of crap carpet. Picture 12 people lined up vertically, all lying down. We’ll be sitting there having a Bible study, and one by one you watch them all lie down on the ground, in their clothes, with a couple blankets on top. From babies to old men.

“Most everybody piles their wood in the alley, and they’ll have a cooking fire on the porch. But they don’t cut any holes in the tin roofs, so the walls and ceilings are black from smoke. People build a fire, the smoke goes up, hits the metal awning, and then the smoke drifts down to your knees. When I’m visiting I almost have to lie down on the ground to talk. Then eye conditions start happening; people are rubbing their eyes. They’re living in smoke, because they didn’t cut little chimneys for their wood stoves.”

Kids at the camp

Photo by Sandy Huffaker, Jr.

I’ve walked through the camp. The last time I saw anything like it was in the black townships of South Africa during the state of emergency. One is assaulted by dirt, mud, flies, babies squatting on pathways, stray dogs, sewage smells, people with bad limps, an occasional crushed arm. The full Third World package. If you can make yourself stay with it, you’ll find that the people underneath the visual shock are like people anywhere: some dumb, some smart, some generous, some criminal, the same human canvas. The hard part is to stay with it.

“My second week was more of the same. I’d always go to the migrant camp in the evenings. I was laying groundwork, meeting people, finding out their names, finding out where they were from. Pretty soon, when I arrived, people carried out their buckets, turned them over, and took a seat. I’d read with them, and we’d talk about the Scriptures.”

“How was your Spanish?”

“It got better very fast. I always kept an electronic translator with me, and every time I lacked a word, I’d look it up. Sometimes I’d drive into camp with clothes and food, and people would come out and throng me. I went through that a couple of times. Very distasteful. I realized that these people had no sense of propriety, no sense of pride. Clothes and stuff arrived in somebody’s truck, and that’s how it always arrived, and you WENT AND YOU GOT IT! I realized that a missionary trip wasn’t about just giving; it was about careful giving. Giving wasn’t going to transform them. You could never give enough to transform them. As a matter of fact, giving would actually make the opposite happen; it would maintain their servility. My friend, a missionary in San Vicente, told me, ‘Steve, don’t become a Santa Claus.’

“I’d had some bad experiences with giving. One day, when I first got there, I realized that the people in camp didn’t get fruit. And so this guy drove through the village with this truck full of melons. I stopped him and said, ‘I want to buy half these melons.’ I got a whole bunch of plastic bags, bought melons, and loaded up my truck. I thought, ‘I’ll take my daughters over to the camp, have them participate.’ So, I filled all the bags with melons and put a tract about the Lord in each one. And I drove to camp, went door-to-door, knocked, said, ‘Here’s a melon,’ nothing more. It was ‘Here’s a melon. God loves you,’ and leave, walk to the next door. It was real nice, people were taking the melons, cutting them open, and reading the tract. I was just going through the camp.

“So, I got these bags around my shoulders, walked up and down the dirt alleys handing out melons. Next thing you know kids were following me. I had another idea. I thought, ‘You know, these kids really need melons. These melons will keep them from illness.’ So I started giving them out to the kids. Pretty soon everyone in camp was wondering what was going on. Then the adults, the men, they’re all around me, and this MASSIVE FIGHT BREAKS OUT! Suddenly, I have this ugly thing in front of me.

“THEY’RE FIGHTING EACH OTHER! I’ve gone from being this lovely missionary man, ‘Da-de-da-da, isn’t this good for the children,’ to WHACKING KIDS IN THE HEAD, SCREAMING, ‘STOP IT! STOP IT!’ They never got hip. I’m whacking them in the head right and left, and they’re looking at me, and I’m thinking, ‘What’s THIS all about?’ Because they’re all rowdy, just TEARING AT ME! So I took the melons and threw them on the ground, and they’re all rolling around on the ground, and I tell my kids to get back in my truck, and we split.

“I drove away and I got this really strong sense that the Lord had just told me, ‘I AM NOT GLORIFIED! DO NOT DO THIS AGAIN! IT DOESN’T MEAN A THING TO THEM, AND IT DOESN’T MEAN A THING TO ME!’

“So, I went home and read the Scriptures and found a real plain example. It was the Lord feeding the 5000 with a few fishes and a few loaves. Before he distributed the miracle, he had them all sit down in companies. Then food was brought to them. After they were fed — and, by the way, he had compassion of their need — but when it was done, the people followed him. He turned around and said, ‘You’re not following me because you want the truth, but because you were fed.’ And at that, all the people turned and left.

“HE HAD COMPASSION, just like the pure compassion that I had, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that the workers will come closer to God because I give away stuff. They don’t look at you and say, ‘Oh, he loves God, he loves us, we’ll love God now.’ It doesn’t work that way. You have to be as wise as a serpent and as gentle as a dove. I wasn’t being wise, so I don’t give like that anymore. I give quietly and secretly.”

I look at the clock. It’s past 11:00, which is very late for this part of Baja. We keep farmer’s hours around here: up at 5:00 a.m., tucked in by 9:00 that night. I look out the trailer window, see my reflection, and wonder, “When was the last time I gave something secretly?” I decide to leave that thought for another time, circle back, and push Steve a little harder. “Tell me some more about how it began.”

“I was trying to figure out what the Indians needed. For instance, I saw kids working in the fields, in the spray of the tractors, in the sun all day, and I thought, ‘God, this is sick.’

“I got together with the village pastor at the Church of Christ. Actually it was his wife. She was sharing with me her hurt over the migrant workers’ condition. I thought, ‘This is after God’s own heart. I’ll see what I can do to help out with this. We’ve got to start child-care!’ SO WE STARTED CHILDCARE! I had clothes that had come in from the States, and I figured we could pay a child-care worker, because the company wasn’t going to do it. So I started selling clothes in the marketplace in San Vicente, took the money, and paid a woman to come out of the fields to care for the children. I acquired some furniture, a gas tank, a stove, and a kitchen. We were feeding the kids. Then I got a bathtub, and we bathed them.”

“Where did you get the space?”

“Petitioned the company. They gave us two rooms. We took chicken wire, built a little child fence. Then I found that the women were suspicious of us. We were trying to get them to pay a peso per day. I had this thing: I wanted them to pay for everything that they could, based on their economy. But they weren’t coming in like they should have been. We had six, eight kids, but we should have been packing them in. I thought, ‘What’s going on?’ And then I thought, ‘Well, maybe it’s the pay thing.’ So I said, ‘Okay, we’ll do it for free.’ It still didn’t grow like it should have. It was growing, but it wasn’t growing like it should have.

“I also had two free rooms in the camp, so now I could teach. I was teaching English and Bible history two nights a week. The classes were packed, 30 students at least. English was exciting for them. My bent was teaching a historical perspective of Christianity. How is it that Christianity has come to you today?

“I was on a roll, but it was like an ice sculpture, nothing stays the same. I came in one day, and the woman we had — we were paying her, not the company — said, ‘The social worker was here today.’ The company had a government social worker who was supposed to look out for the migrant workers. I said to my friend, ‘Oh yeah, what did she say?’

“My friend replied, ‘She was going around asking whose stuff this was. I told her it was yours. Then she asked me,’ pointing to a pile of dirty clothes, ‘what I was doing with the clothes. I told her I was washing the kids and changing their clothes. She told me not to wash the kids. I told her that it was okay, you were paying me to wash the kids, but she kept saying not to wash them. She wants to-talk to you.’

“So I went to a meeting at the packing plant, in the guard shed. I met the social worker. She was real cold. She said, ‘I’m a missionary too.’ I answered, ‘You are?’ ‘Yes, I’m a Catholic, and we do good things, and we care for people just as much as anybody.’ I said, ‘Okay, fine.’

“I was just listening to her as she went on, ‘We want to take over the child-care. It’s our responsibility.’ I said, ‘Okay.’ She said, ‘We want to know if we can buy the clothes off you.’ I nodded, ‘You don’t have to buy them, they’re yours. You want to take care of the kids, I’m out of here.’ And then she said, ‘If you have anything more to give, you have to give it to us, and we’ll give it to them. And we would like you not to talk about God, because it mixes the people up and gives them different ideas.’ That woke me up. I said, ‘That’s where I draw the line. As far as child-care, you guys can afford it more than I can, and it’s your responsibility to get the babies out of the field. As far as not talking about God, THESE PEOPLE ARE GOING TO BE POOR THEIR WHOLE LIVES! NOTHING IS EVER GOING TO CHANGE THAT! You’re going to deny these people the right to talk about God. God is the only hope they have.’

“She was real cold. She shot back, ‘No, that’s our decision.’ So, I told her, ‘Well, if I can’t talk about God, and you’ve got the child-care, then I don’t know what else I can do in camp. I won’t come just to give stuff away. I’m not interested in the give-stuff-away thing. I’ll give

stuff to you, but only if I’m free to talk about God directly to the people.’ She said, ‘Well, I’ll let you know my decision in a couple of days.’

“I left very upset and called a friend and asked for prayer. He suggested, ‘You know what, they may be afraid of you: too many changes, people start living better, and the company loses control. You better tell them that we teach “Be content with your wages.”’

A mom and her kids

Photo by Sandy Huffaker, Jr.

“I realized he’d hit it on the head, because I had been talking in camp like a union organizer. I had talked about rights. I’d started getting into my old self, my political self, and I was building CROWDS. I’d sit on a corner and talk, and crowds would grow. So the word must have been getting back. I went back to the social worker the next day and said, ‘I’m going to teach them to be content with their wages. You have nothing to worry about from me. I’m not interested in changing their scenery as much as I’m interested in their having hope.’ “She looked across the table and announced, ‘Okay. You can go in. You can talk to them about God all you want. As a matter of fact, you’re the only one I’m going to give permission to do that. But give all the stuff to us. We’ll give to the people, not you.’

“So, they took over the child-care, and child-care evaporated. One day I ran into the chief of security for the camp, who was broken down on the highway. I gave him my spare. He liked me after that. He’d come over to my house and say, ‘Hey, Esteban,’ and shake my hand. He was just my buddy, you know. I said to him one day, ‘Do I have to give this stuff to the company?’ He looked around to see if anyone else was there and said, ‘Naaah, you just do what you want.’ So, I was back to where I could give directly to the people. But I had to give carefully. I’d give at night, very quietly, just put it on the door.”

Suddenly, this conversation is over. I pick up the cups and spoons, go over to the sink, begin to wash up. Steve is standing with his hand on the door, and we say our goodnights. I throw out one last question, “So where are you going from here?”

“I’m still in school. I don’t know. I try and look for signs. I go up to San Diego and see there’s hunger up there, even amongst the church. I meet people who say to me, ‘Oh man, you need to come to our studies and talk to us. We need to hear from someone who’s doing something else.’ I ask, ‘Well, Lord, is that what you want me to do? Do you want me to talk to other people and get them energized? Am I supposed to be a catalyst for people to participate? What am I supposed to do?’ The question is too hard to answer. Because every time I try to put my finger on it, God moves the mark.”

Since that conversation, the company quit paying its workers, stranding 2000 of them in their wretched camp with no money and no transportation home. Six months later, all the workers had left and the company returned, along with 1000 new migrant workers. As of this writing, the field hands have not been paid in three weeks. Steve still preaches in the camp and has set up a school to train Mexican Indians to be missionary workers. Interested persons can reach Steve Behncke at the Church in Mexico, Mission to Mexican Indians, P.O. Box 573, Imperial Beach, CA 91933.