We Are Commanded To Love

About the Book

A century-old box of papers, which had been shipped west from Illinois to Colorado to California. What did it hold? It turned out to be a literary and family treasure. It contained the sermons, notebooks and letters of a Methodist minister whose untimely death in 1899 left a desperately grieving widow with little means and their four-year old son. She packed the box of papers and may not have opened it again, perhaps to avoid reopening the pain of their loss. The box traveled westward with the family to Colorado and eventually to California. The box was left to the descendants of the widow, Lottie B. Peak, and her only child, Paul, to read, document and enjoy. Giles M. Peak was a Methodist Episcopal minister active in the West Jacksonville District of Illinois from 1891 to 1899. During this period he preached on five different circuits, held revival meetings at other churches, and spent a year of evangelism in California. His theology was happy and positive, and expressed in beautiful language. He preached to uplift his listeners to the glory that would be theirs if they believed. This book includes the story of Giles and Lottie Peak growing up in Illinois in the years after the Civil War, his college experiences, his adventures as a salesman in the mining camps of Colorado and New Mexico, their marriage, and his subsequent miraculous healing in San Francisco. It describes his life as a minister in Illinois and Los Angeles, his death, and the subsequent lives of his wife and son. John C. Peak, a grandson, wrote this work aided by his brothers’ insights and family correspondence. Several years ago, Martha (Peak) Helman, a great-granddaughter, and her husband Frank began a series of exploratory trips to find the churches where Giles preached and the parsonages where he and Lottie lived. Traveling from their home in Chicago on extended weekends, they found all 21 of Giles’ churches—or at least the foundations where they used to exist—and documented the century-old story on the ground. Their explorations went beyond recovering family history—they learned a great deal about 19th century farming communities, the constant threat of flooding along the Mississippi and Illinois river plains, the power that the Methodist church holds in these communities even today. They also found that the past is still all around us, but that an explorer must use research, intuition, determination, and also have some luck to really find it. Their adventures are documented with pictures and descriptions of what they discovered. This book also includes 23 of Giles’ sermons selected from over 250 surviving manuscripts. We hope you will find them enjoyable as theology, or literature, or as reflections on history at the turn of the 20th century. How our world has changed!

About the Author

Imagínese que usted es un niño de siete años asistiendo a la escuela de su comunidad. Si vive en un área rural de Guatemala, sus padres no estudiaron, y son agricultores subsistiendo, ya que abandonaron la escuela en sexto año. Muy probable que nunca ha tenido contacto con un libro, tanto en el colegio como en la escuela. Además sus maestros probablemente han recibido sólo educación secundaria, el entrenamiento y recursos son escasos para hacer una diferencia significativa en su vida. Sin una adecuada habilidad de lectura, entrarás a la edad adulta sin estar preparado para enfrentar problemas complejos, como entender los términos de un banco, una boleta electoral o un periódico. Serás el objetivo de la injusticia y explotación, y el ciclo de desigualdad y pobreza seguirá para ti y tus hijos. Cooperative for Education (CoEd) es una organización estadounidense cuya base está en Ohio y que se dedica a romper el ciclo de la pobreza en Guatemala proveyendo recursos educacionales y oportunidades a niños desprivilegiados. Desde la fundación de CoEd en 1996, se han brindado oportunidades educacionales, a través de libros, computadoras, capacitaciones, becas y bibliotecas, a aproximadamente 100,000 jóvenes, particularmente aquellos que viven en áreas indígenas mayas pobres. Martha H Peak llega como una voluntaria de literatura en 2005. Ella y su esposo, Frank G. Herman, han regresado todos los años desde entonces, atraídos por tantos niños que han conocido, que lo unico que piden es una oportunidad de poder asistir a la escuela para que puedan tener ellos y su familia una mejor vida. Marty y Frank, ambos Rotarios, residen en Boothbay Harbor, Maine.