I was in Waco to visit with our students at Baylor. But before I headed on to Dallas for the YCT convention, I just couldn’t leave Waco without checking out the site that it all went down at in 1993 – the site where the rest of the world outside of Texas learned about a place called Waco. The only association I have ever had of Waco, Texas was when the AFT and FBI stormed the Branch Davidian compound against that nutball, David Koresh. Most people my age and older are very familiar with the scenes that were blasted on the tv every day. There was a 51-day standoff, where controversial religious extremist David Koresh and the 300 other people living there were confronted by our government, mostly based on rumors, but still some very wacky things were probably going on there. The debate still to this day is what role did the government have going in there, and were the plans, executed by our government, under Janet Reno and the Clinton Administration, appropriate?
The 51-day standoff ended when the ATF and FBI stormed the building, and a fireball explosion forced out the people living there. Over 120 of them were killed, including about 5 government agents who stormed the building.
So, last night I looked up the directions there. It’s about 5-10 miles outside of town, in the rural farmland area. Once you get on this one road, literally called a farm road (for example, it would be like “State Road 7” instead out here it’s “Farm Road, etc.”), you go about 5 miles. The website I consulted told me where to turn, etc. I then went down this gravel road (I was a bit nervous at this point, all I saw were cows and farmhouses in this area). I then saw what appeared to be the accurate description of this place. There was a gate in the front, about 200 feet or so back was a little house (which I later learned is really a worship center). Theere were also 2 little small real houses on the property. Between the gate and the homes are about 120 planted trees – each one commemorates a victim, some as young as one year old.
I didn’t cross into the property at first because it looked more like private property. Based on my only images of this place, I didn’t want to get shot. I had no idea who was living there or keeping up the place. So I just stopped for a moment, and looked on, thinking to myself, “Should I take a picture?” I passed the property by about a 1/2 mile and made a u-turn. I slowed back up again as I came to the front gate and a man walked out of that worship center that looked like a home, and waived at me in a motion that said, “come on in.” So, I thought, why not, this is what I drove all the way out here for.
I pulled up and at first didn’t get out of the car. He came up to the passenger side window (which I had rolled down) and introduced himself, “Hi, I’m Ron,” he said. He was probably in his late 50s/early 60s… I can never tell age. I explained to him that I wanted to come by the property “because of what happened here.” I had no other way to describe it without appearing rude. He understood easily. He told me briefly about what he was up to there and said, “This place is part of our history now… despite the unfortunate events that happened here.”
He told me I could feel free to look around, take some photos, and he humbly asked for a donation of whatever I wanted to give. I later ended up giving him two dollars. There was nothing official about this place… no official guided tour. There were however some stone markers by those trees with the names of the victims. There were also a couple stone markers honoring the victims as a whole with a very brief description about what happened and how the tyranny of our government could do such a thing. There was also a stone marker commemorating the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing, which happened about a year later.
I walked into the worship center that looked like a house from the outside. On the inside, it looked more like a small, non-denominational church. There was a tiny stage, about a foot high, that had instruments on it, and about 30 chairs. I asked Ron how many people worship here. He said, “about 10 or 20 every weekend.” The rest of the place had a few desks where he was working on stuff, and it looked like he was framing some kind of art, but I really didn’t pay too much attention.
He told me that all of the original building there had been destroyed – he showed me out back where the gymnasium used to be – the foundation was still there – with a moveable basketball hoop and a toddler’s bike. The very neat looking swimming pool (which looked more like a swimming hole) was still there outside. But the worship center house was all new – Ron and a few others had built it there so that they could honor God’s name there and pray for the victims of the 1993 incident.
Ron was never there then. He doesn’t care much for David Koresh. In fact, he told me that his reasoning of “why this happened” was he felt it was “God’s punishment.” “David Koresh represents the bad elements of Western Civilizaton – the girls, the guns, the sex, the violence, the corruption… and God showed his judgment on that…. however,” he continued, “God also shows his judgment on our government and what they’re doing… the government is held to the same God that David Koresh was held to… ” He wasn’t advocating vengeance on our government for the Waco incident, such as Timothy McVeigh did with his bombing of the federal government building in Oklahoma City. He was just making the point that we, as Americans, have to be better, from our perspective as individual citizens, to our perspective of government officials. Otherwise, God will cast his judgment and punishment will be handed down. He had a point.
He also told me that he was from Philadelphia. He was a veteran of the U.S. military (I can’t remember, but I would say he’s probably a Vietnam Vet). He also said, “Our government has a history of this kind of thing.” He told me about an incident in the early to mid 1980s where a similar raid happend on a house of black radicals in a Philadelphia neighborhood. When the Waco incident happened, he had had enough. So, he came down and with some others (I believe they’re from the Seventh Adventist Church if I recall his words), they built this worship center.
On the property there was a bus which was there when everything caught fire, and you can still see the fires that ripped through it. I took a bunch of pictures, but I have no way of downloading them on here now until I get back home. So I promise to do that. It was a moving place, and it was kind of weird being out there – it was just me and Ron. I had felt very nervous at first, I almost didn’t want to get out of the car. But, there was something very humbling about this guy that made me feel very comfortable being there. And he was clearly moved by the incident and has devoted his whole life and his whole sense of worship to preserving the memory of what happened there and calling for reform in a peaceful, religious way – and not the so-called “religious” way that David Koresh was advocating.
I am not saying I agree with him totally on everything, but he made some great points. I do believe Koresh was crazy – if even half the rumors are true, he’s a nutball. But I also believe our government acted improperly. For 120 people to die, many of them children, something went wrong.
In any event, I told Ron briefly about what I do and why I was in town. He said in a few years he’ll be speaking on college campuses himself, to encourage students to get involved with faith-based initiatives. I’m sure he has plenty of stories to tell.
As for me, it was very neat to come out here and see this place in such a tranquil setting that Ron has left it in. My only vision of Waco, Texas before this week was of flames burning up a building where children were in, causing 120 deaths. Now, I have seen the rest of Waco, including beautiful Baylor University, and the serene farmland that surrounds Waco, including this site where the “Brach Davidian compound” was located. As I looked back at the property one last time, I only thought to myself, it’s amazing that just 13 years ago, the whole world was watching this place during the 51-day standoff, the whole world was watching U.S. government tanks and agents moving in to end the standoff, and then seeing the place erupt into a fireball of explosions. On this day, no one but myself was watching this place and if I had not known what happened here 13 years ago, I might just have imagined this serene farmland with a quiet humble man living on it, to be just a little slice of heaven on earth.