THE REST OF THE SURVIVOR STORY

   Carol Weigle, Chester's wife, answered the phone at Trail To Life Camp on the afternoon of July 21, 1970.  It was Mike Mecurio calling from Canada.  Crying as he spoke he broke the tragic news to Carol that Don, Chuck and Tim were missing and presumed to have drowned.  It was senior girls week at TTLC and Chet and I were away from camp for awhile that afternoon.  We arrived back shortly before the evening meal was to begin.  I vividly recall Carol walking with Chet down toward the lake to break the news to him alone.  She then came and told me that Chet needed to see me.  After he broke the dreaded news to me I got Susan and we went to my parents' home to tell them.  They were not there and I had no idea where they were.  In the meantime I called their pastor and wife, Ron and Donna Lou Merrill.  They were ready to leave on their vacation but instead came immediately to my parents' home.  I made other phone calls and soon there were many people gathered and waiting in the living room.
   When my parents finally came home from visiting someone in Mansfield they were puzzled by the number of cars in their driveway.  I met them at the back door and they sat down on the porch swing.  My exact words were:  "We know that we will all be together again someday but Donnie is now with Jesus."  I have often wished that I would have had someone else tell them because it seemed to me like I had just driven a dagger into their souls.  But later Mom told Susan that she was glad that I was the one who told them.  Everyone there gathered around them and Ron Merrill led in prayer.  One by one more and more people began to arrive; my aunts, uncles, cousins and friends.  Before the evening was over I had to go to the home of Dr. C.O. Butner at Shiloh and get something for my parents to take to help then through the emotional trauma.
    I called a pastor friend in Lexington to break the news to Don's wife Twila.  I have since regretted putting that burden upon that pastor but I thought that someone should do it in person rather than just a phone call.  Since Twila was spending that week with her sister and brother-in-law Bob and Alice Witzky, I should have probably called the Witzky home and asked Bob or Alice to tell her.  Somehow Twila got the impression that Don was missing but that there was a possibility he was alive.
   The next morning Harold Laird, a long time friend of my parents, and Paul Enzor, dad's cousin, arrived.  They knew nothing about what had happened.  They had come to begin the work of taking out my parents' old coal burning furnace and installing a new gas furnace.  I met them in the driveway and told them what had happened and as they were about to leave and postpone the work my mom called out to me to have them go ahead and start work. In the sad days that followed, this project was actually a helpful distraction from all the heaviness.  I was often busy going to get parts and materials for them -- when I was not going to the funeral home to make arrangements.
   Shortly after Harold and Paul arrived Jim and Eva Mae Brundage arrived bringing Twila.  We began to get phone calls from news outlets and the Moody Bible Institute station in Cleveland, WCRF, picked it up on the wire services.  Their announcer Bob Devine dedicated the song "He Giveth More Grace" to Twila that morning.  That afternoon the phone rang again and the news came to us that the bodies had been found.  When I got off the phone and told what the call was about Twila fainted.  It was later that we found out that she holding onto the possibility that Don was alive.  I immediately went to see Atlee Meyers the owner of the funeral home in Greenwich.  He looked up the name of the funeral home in Canada that was closest to where the tragedy was unfolding.  It was Goulet Funeral Home.  I did not tell my family then but I soon learned that Canadian law required that an autopsy be performed on my brother's body.  Mr. Goulet brought the three bodies from Canada to the funeral home in Greenwich.
   On Friday afternoon I took our family:  Twila, Mom, Dad, Susan and myself to the funeral home to view Don's body.  Twila decided to have a closed casket and I agreed.  I feel this was another mistake on my part.  I should have urged her to allow Don's many friends to see his earthly form one more time.  I regret that greatly.  That evening there was a very large memorial service at the camp.  We borrowed many chairs from a local church to seat the great number who came.  Robert Collitt, who had been our pastor when Don and I were boys, was there from Maryland.  My brother had met and become friends with the Chief of the Mansfield Fire Department Leonard Boebel.  That evening Chief Boebel put fire station No. 7 out of service for awhile so that he, fireman Dean Scott, and another fireman could come to the service.
   The funeral the next day filled Bethel Baptist Church at Savannah (their old building) to capacity.  Chet Weigle and others from the camp went the next two days to the funerals of Tim and Chuck in western Ohio and Chicago.  About two weeks after the funeral Twila told Susan she was not feeling well.  Susan said, "I already have an appointment with Dr. Butner.  Why don't you come with me and have him check you out also."  That was the day we all learned that that Twila was expecting a baby.  Susan and I had been invited to move onto a farm that a Christian couple had purchased.  We asked Twila to come and live with us there.  So it was on the cold, snowy evening of February 23, 1971 that Susan and I took Twila to Mansfield Hospital where she gave birth to Aaron Eugene Enzor.
   Doctors had told Susan and I that it did not look like we would ever have children.  But on June 21, 1971, after being in labor for thirty-one hours (!) Susan gave birth to Miles Daniel Enzor.   During the previous winter, before Aaron was born, a carpet sales rep. came to the door one day.  We were getting a small room ready as a nursery for Twila and she had called to have it measured for some carpet.  When the carpet rep. rang the door bell both Susan and Twila went to the door and both were obviously pregnant.  The sales rep asked, "who's the lady of the house?"  They answered together, "I am".  He said, "where is the superman?"  My brother Don would have loved that.

YOUR GOD IS TOO SMALL

  This title is borrowed from a 1950's book by J.B. Phillips.  He was a friend of C.S. Lewis and the translator of the first of the popular paraphrases of the New Testament, "The New Testament In Modern English" (1958).  It is largely forgotten now but its literary qualities and forceful rendering of many passages have made it a favorite of mine ever since I bought my first copy as a senior in high school.  I used this title because it sounded much better that the dry, technical heading of "Some Thoughts On The Meaning Of Predestination And Election".   I'm sure these thoughts are not entirely original with me but I did not get them from any book, sermon, etc.  They have come from years of reflection on the Scriptures.
   This little essay should not be construed as a critique of 'Reformed' theology or any other system of interpreting Scripture, even though some may take it that way.  It is not that I believe certain doctrines about predestination and election are completely wrong, it is just that their advocates have not always been careful to clarify some things.  To 'cut to the chase' as they say, I will say right up front that it seems to me that the terms "chose", "elect", etc, are used in Scripture as anthropomorphic words.  'Anthropomorphic' is a word formed from two Greek words:  'anthropos' (man/human) and morphos (the form, essence or nature of someone or something).  Most people are familiar with the anthropomorphic images in many cartoons when animals are portrayed as humans.           Anthropomorphic terms in Scripture compare God to people so that we can better grasp things.  Scripture speaks of the 'hand' of God, the 'eyes' of the Lord, etc.  Just before the flood of Noah's time the Scripture says that God was "grieved" that he had made man.  The King James Version renders it "repented" that He had made man.  Now, of course, nothing takes God surprise.  He knows eternally all things.  (We need to let that sink in for a moment.)  When anthropomorphic terms are used of God they are intended to help us at lest partially grasp things that are ultimately beyond total comprehension.
   So it is with the words 'elect', and 'choose'.  If we are not very careful how we define and explain these terms we make God out to be finite/limited.  God is the Creator of space and time.  That is what happened at Genesis 1:1.  He is not bound by time or space.  There is no time at which those who are called God's 'chosen ones' or 'elect' were not chosen.  To give the impression that there was a point of time in the past when God said "I now choose _____ to be saved and I do not choose _____ to be saved is to put God into time and thus make Him finite/limited.  Hence, the title "Your God Is Too Small".   We can only grasp words like 'choose' and 'elect' in the way that we as humans use them.  At a certain point in time we decide and act.  We are finite/limited.  Before that time we had not made the choice or elected.   
   But now comes the most important part of all.  The words 'chose' and 'elect' must be defined in a way that fits how they are used of Jesus,  He is "the living Stone -- rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him" and he is the "chosen and precious cornerstone".  (I Peter 2:4-6 NIV)  If the words 'chosen' or 'elect' are used of Christ the way that some people have defined them (as applied to believers) then Christ was chosen from among a larger group of beings to be the Savior of the world.  This is, of course, exactly what some cults say about Christ.  He is the highest of the angelic beings chosen by God to be the Savior.  Now do you see why we cannot define 'chosen' and 'elect', when used of believers, as "God chose certain ones to be save and did not choose others".  If you apply this definition to Christ you have denied his absolute uniqueness.  Not to mention that you have also denied several explicit Scripture that declare God to be unwilling that any perish and that he would have all men to be saved.  (I Tim. 2:4 and II Peter 3:9)
   Now, we need a definition of 'chosen' and 'elect' that:  1) does not make God finite/limited; and 2) fits the words when they are used of Christ.  We have that definition in Jesus' great High Priestly Prayer in John 17.  Jesus said, "Father . . . you loved me before the Creation of the world"  (vs. 24)  That, my friends, is the biblical definition of what it means to be 'elect' and 'chosen' of God.  It means:  that the believer, like Jesus the unique Son of God, is eternally loved by God the Father.  To go beyond this definition and portray God as 'choosing' in the way that humans choose, is to portray God as crudely arbitrary and to portray Christ as just one of a larger group of similar beings.
    So now when you read these words in Scripture, or hear them used in a sermon, just think to yourself:  "John 17:24"; I am eternally loved by the Father, just as Jesus, the unique Son, is eternally loved.  It is supremely good to give God all the credit for our salvation but to do it in the way that some people have defined 'chosen' and 'elect' is, as we have seen, to portray God the Father and Christ the Son very poorly, even ugly.  Stick with John 17:24 and ignore the theologians.