Showering with Two Boys at a Church Conference

Zermatt, Switzerland, June 1977

When I was sixteen years old, I was selected to join 500 Nazarene teenagers from around the world in Fiesch, Switzerland for our International Institute.

It was like Nazarene summer camp, with daily sermons, Bible studies, jump quizzes, and seminars on soul-winning, except we had afternoons and one full day off for field trips and sightseeing  We could go out on our own, as long as we:
1. Didn't try to make friends with the locals.
2. Didn't set foot in any Catholic church.
3. Were back by 7:00 pm.

But every good Nazarene knows how to bend the rules.

"I'm sure the rules don't apply if we're going to save souls," my friend Annette, a delegate from Idaho, exclaimed.  "We're in a country full of Catholic and Reformed Church sinners.  Wouldn't it be great if we could plant the seeds of a mighty revival and win Switzerland for the Lord?"

Overbrimming with "Faith in God can move a mighty mountain" and "If you ask anything in My Name, that will I do," we decided to go soulwinning in the Belly of the Beast, the most evil, depraved site imaginable, a Catholic church!

But not in Fiesch -- we figured that would be well-traveled territory.  On our free day, we packed several copies of the Gute Nachricht Bibel, a English-German phrase book, some snacks, and a change of clothes, and took the train 2 hours south to Zermatt, in Valais Canton, a famous tourist town at the base of the Matterhorn.

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