"Heart Of The Poppy: From War To Amor"

When the Evangelical Free Church of Chico partnered with Amor ministries (amor.org) to build homes in Mexico, Amor's founders, Scott and Gayla Congdon, little knew of a historical connection with World War I. 

Now, after seven years of research, church member Dan Irving tells the story in vivid detail. "Heart Of The Poppy: From War To Amor" ($10 in paperback, self-published, available at ABC Books in Chico; also for Amazon Kindle) begins with "The War to End All Wars" and a Christian hospitality ministry that arose near Ypres, in Belgium, during the height of the conflict.

Trench warfare is unimaginable. "Your senses are numb, you are surrounded by death. Its lifeless stare bores right through you…. The stench of death is everywhere, and it will never leave you. Never! You cannot escape death’s objective: to hunt you down and destroy you, anyway possible. You would prefer a merciless bullet to the brain. … For now, this is your home, where the mud and blood flow together in the trenches on the Western Front."

In 1915, a man named Philip Thomas Byard Clayton, ordained by the Anglican Church, was sent to the Western Front, to Poperinge, Belgium, in West Flanders, a small town near Ypres. "He was short and pudgy," Irving notes, and his nickname, "Tubby," stuck with him.

Tubby performed services on the front lines and saw the need for respite. He turned a damaged mansion in Poperinge into "Talbot House," named for one of the war dead, a place of hospitality known by its initials, Toc H (the "toc" sound a way for Army Signal Code to distinguish t from p).

The Toc H movement grew worldwide, later including a ministry in Mexico building homes, which influenced the Congdons and, years later, led to the formation of Amor. 

It is an extraordinary history, involving 800,000 dead at the Third Battle of Ypres ("for the Allies it represented a gain of two inches for every dead soldier"), and, astonishingly, a field of dark red poppies "sprouting up in life" in Flanders fields, a memorial to death--yet one day, a hundred years hence, yielding life and hope for Mexico.

A Chicoan's adventures building houses for the poor

In 2009 the Evangelical Free Church of Chico teamed with long-time missions partner Amor (amor.org) "to build Amor experimental homes in South Africa." It fell to church member Dan Irving to organize the trip, recounted in "Don't Expect Luggage To Arrive" ($15 in paperback from Memoir Books; also for Amazon Kindle). It's available locally at Lyon Books in Chico.

The story also reaches back into Irving's growing up years and the intertwining of the work of another missions organization through a friend of a friend who knew the British Queen Mother. Irving's story is one of God's working in mysterious ways, of seeming coincidences and even setbacks that strengthened his own faith.

"Amor Ministries," he writes, "was founded by Scott and Gayla Congdon who fell in love when they started building an orphanage in Mexico in 1980." Amor, based in San Diego, "has grown from building the orphanage into building homes for the poor, which helps keep families together in Mexico, South Africa, and on an Apache Indian Reservation in Arizona."

In 2005 he was in Mexico with his son, David, and a team of volunteers to build seven houses through Amor. "We had three-and-a-half days ... from start to finish. Three-and-a-half days with lots of helping young hands, many who have never held a hammer, pounded a nail, cut a piece of wood, mixed or poured concrete; helping hands who were willing and soon would be able." In the end, all seven houses were completed despite "sleet, rain, heat, and hurricane force winds!"

Amor houses go to the poorest of the poor. Instead of living in "shelters" ("constructed of discarded scrap metal, corrugated iron, shredded pieces of plywood, tires, rocks, broken pieces of cement, hubcaps, and cardboard"), children are united with their families.

In expanding the work of Amor to South Africa for the first time, Irving assembled a Chico group of 26, including EV Free pastor Lou Diaz, Irving's family, students, medical and fire personnel, and even "the chairman of the board of Lundberg Farms."

Flying Delta, the volunteers arrived in Johannesburg but their 52 pieces of luggage? They went missing. (So the first letters of the book's title spell "Delta.") What happened next, though, is part of the story of God's grace.

Dan Irving will be the interview guest on Nancy’s Bookshelf, with Nancy Wiegman, Friday, January 24, from 10:00 – 10:30 a.m. Pacific Time, on KCHO (Northstate Public Radio), 91.7 FM. There’s a link to interview archives on this blog.