Don't Joke Around About Angels on April Fools Day

I was living in Costa Rica when I received an email on the morning of April 1st from Eric Swanson. “You might want to extend your stay in Costa Rica a little longer,” the email said. “As it turns out Dr. Bright fell for your angel prank and was about to go to print with your story before being told it was a joke. He is not amused.”

It’s a joke. It has to be a joke, I repeated this to myself over and over. My Regional Director Eric Swanson loved to play jokes. I tried to convince myself it could not be true that Dr. Bill Bright, the founder and President of Campus Crusade for Christ had nearly shared with the world that I had seen an angel before being told it was a joke.

But it was true. Dr. Bright really did believe my angel sighting. Later I learned that our headquarters in Orlando had nearly shut down for a day as people went from cubicle to cubicle asking each other if they had heard that one of the Campus Crusade for Christ staff had seen an angel. Everyone believed it.

This all happened in a world before Facebook and instant communication. It was the late 90’s and we lived in a world where there was no instant way to check the facts on stories that came along.

I was a Campus Director and it seemed that at least once every semester someone got up front of our weekly meeting to share a testimony of an angel sighting. Angel sightings were common in those days. They were talked about in churches and at Christian meetings. It did not take long to see a theme. The angel sightings never took place with a person anyone knew. It was always the cousin, friend, or brother of a very credible person. But you could never actually talk to the person who saw the angel.

Among my circle of friends I started joking around about angels. I became the first person witness to the angel stories. My friends were amused.

To understand how my angel sighting story could reach Bill Bright I need to explain the technology of the late 90’s. Before the widespread use of email and cell phones we had Audix. Staff would dial a toll free number to be connected to Audix and receive messages left from other staff. It was so awesome to take a quick break between meetings and check your voice mail and hear messages from your friends. Many staff would check their Audix voicemail 15-20 a day.

On Audix not only could you send voice messages to each staff person in our region, you could also punch in a code on your phone to send your message to all of the staff in the region. You always knew when you were receiving a regional broadcast message because the person would start out their message by saying, “this is going out to all staff.”

Within my circle of staff friends I would occasionally fill their voice mail with jokes of how I had just seen an angel. And typically I would start out the message by saying “this is going out to all staff.”

It would take a “perfect storm” for one of my angel jokes to be credible. But that is what happened.

While living in Costa Rica I returned to the USA for a wedding. Before leaving the country after the wedding I checked my voice mail during a layover in Dallas. One of my friends left a message wishing me a good trip back to Costa Rica. We had been trading jokes back and forth on voice mail so In my reply I started out my voice message by saying “this is going out to all staff.” Then I left a message saying that on my flight from Omaha to Dallas I was in the aisle seat and was talking with a man seated in the window seat. Regardless of the topic of conversation, the man repeatedly turned the conversation to talk about end-times. When the flight attendant came with the beverage cart I asked for a Coke and reached over to take it. When I turned back to the man sitting in the window seat he had disappeared. On my voice mail I surmised in a matter-of-fact tone that I was convinced that I had just seen an angel. For some reason I did not sign off the voice mail by says "just kidding." We had been joking back and for constantly so it did not seem necessary.

As I read the email from Eric Swanson saying Dr. Bright had believed my angel story I wanted to yell, “I was only joking.” But by this time it was too late. As it turned out my friend in a momentary lapse of intellectual flexibility had believed my story. I said on the message that I was sending the message to all staff. But no other staff received the message. So it was summarized that I must have punched in the wrong codes. My message was forwarded to all of the staff in my Region. Included on the forwards to all staff were members of the National Team. Apparently one of them passed on to Dr. Bright the incredible news that one of our staff had been visited by an angel.

I was in my kitchen in Costa Rica on that Saturday morning far far away from my angel-believing organization when I received the email from Eric Swanson saying Dr. Bright had believed my story. Within a hour I was being counseled by Warren Caldwell----a veteran staff friend who was living in Costa Rica studying Spanish with his family. I poured out my heart to Warren and told him what happened. A a few minutes he interrupted my story to say “bro what is the date?” “April 1st”, I replied. “Think about it.  Eric is playing an April Fools joke on you.” Warren went on to say, “If it’s true that Dr. Bright believed your angel story then I promise you that I will leave Staff.” At the time Warren’s words and counsel meant a lot to me and made me feel a lot better.

Every two years when I see Warren at our National Staff Conference in Ft. Collins I remind him of his promise to leave staff if the story was true. He's still on staff.

There actually positive results from the angel story including the story of a revival that broke out in a small town in Missouri. I'm not sure this story is true, but what is true is that one of our staff in Missouri heard my voice message and immediately called pastors around the state to share the news of the angel sighting. No doubt everyone was excited to finally have an angel sighting with a credible name attached to it. The story spread like wildfire. That weekend my angel sighting was preached in pulpits across the state of Missouri.

I no longer joke around about angels.

Comments

[Andy]

You took me to see this angel once. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Angel-de-la-Independencia--Mexico-D.F.jpg

[Andy]

Actually one part of your story is not totally as I recall it. I think you sent that message of the angel on a plane that to several of your friends. I received the original too. But it only took person to believe it and then forward it on to 'all staff'. The person who forwarded it got the bad rap but someone in Orlando believed it too enough to pass the story around to where Dr. Bright believed it. And then you have a bunch of pastors in MO too. Maybe I shouldn't say gullible. We live by faith and that makes us susceptible to stories we receive via email etc.