See What a Little Faith Can Do?
by Godfrey J. Ellis
This article was published in the April 2020 Ensign magazine, now called, Liahona magazine.
Rather than give you the text of the article to download, below is a photograph of the article in the April 2020 Ensign with the excellent illustration that the staff provided.
Here are two photo taken of the two boys exploring the castle ruins just before the storm hit. You can see it approaching in the distance.
Below is the original article I submitted, before the Ensign staff shortened it (they always do). There are not a lot of differences. However, the article as published made it sound as if we had reached the bottom of the hill before the torrential rain hit. That wouldn’t have made sense. No, we were only half-way down. The otherwise excellent illustration makes it look as if our youngest son was 5 or 6 years old. Braden was actually 15 years old when this incident took place in 1995. I was on a leave of absence from Saint Martin’s University to work, periodically, at the Université of Rouen in France. After the semester ended, we traveled around France.
Faith Among the Ruins
Godfrey J. Ellis – Lacey, Washington
Some time ago, we took our two youngest sons to tour the areas in France where I had served a full-time mission 24 years earlier. We visited branches of the Church where I had served and rejoiced with members that I had taught. But we also saw sites that my companion and I had visited on our preparation days.
One of those was the un-restored ruins of a medieval defensive castle called the Château of Chalucet. It was not far from the city of Limoges in central France, where I was serving. This massive fortress was built in the 12th century high on a steep, jutting promontory where two small rivers met. During the Hundred Year’s War, it was attacked and largely destroyed.
Despite the vegetation that had grown up all around the ruins, it was still most impressive. We had a difficult climb up the side of a hill to get there. The trail was narrow and very steep, and we had to climb single-file. It was well worth the effort once we arrived. There little left but the castle walls, however, the size that this fortress must have once been was remarkable. We were worried that the boys wouldn’t enjoy it at all. The ruins of Chalucet had awed me as a young man, but would it awe our two sons?
Yes! The boys absolutely loved it. They climbed down into the dungeon and up high on a section of the wall that was still intact. It still had a passage-way up on a remaining wall with slits to shoot down arrows. They loved being able to touch, grab, climb, jump, and feel, and their imaginations took over just as mine had 24 years earlier.
While we were there, a tremendous summer storm appeared. We hadn’t noticed it coming, but it was moving fast, and straight toward us. Dark angry clouds began sending out sheets of lightning, which were followed instantly with great claps and rolls of thunder. As it raced toward us, we made a run for the car, scrambling down the same, narrow, dirt trail we had just climbed. We had not gone far, maybe a third of the way, when the clouds opened up. The torrential storm thundered down with sheets of pounding rain. The dirt trail turned almost instantly into a narrow stream of fast-flowing mud. We obviously weren’t going to make it down.
Our situation looked serious; we were in trouble. We were not so much worried about us being drenched through; we were already wet. We were more concerned about one or more of us being washed off our feet. It was far from a flash-flood, but the fast-flowing mud stream could easily have loosened our footing and sent one or more of us sliding down the steep and rock-strewn trail. We spotted some shelter, of sorts, in a small and leaky lean-to that someone had thrown together among the trees on one edge of the path. At least it was some protection. We gratefully scrambled under the little shelter it offered, huddling together as best we could.
But we wondered how long we’d have to wait, and how on earth we’d get back down.
“Let’s have a prayer,” said our youngest son, barely 15 years old.
“Yeah, sure. Good idea….”
He asked to offer it and prayed fervently that the rain would stop, so we could get down the side of the hill safely. Then he looked at the rest of us and solemnly announced, “Now all we need is enough faith.”
I tried to explain that it didn’t usually work like that. We couldn’t just ask for anything and get it, even with a lot of faith. We had to ask for things that were expedient to have.
“No, it’ll stop in ten minutes!” he said.
Our older son, just 17, was chattering away about something, but our younger son wanted quiet. We could see what he was trying to do. He was trying to stop the storm with faith.
After about 10 minutes, the rain suddenly stopped, and the muddy stream eased. “Okay, let’s go!” he said. “It’s stopped.”
“The rain has just died down for a minute or two. If we leave our shelter, it’ll re-start, and we’ll be trapped,” the older son objected.
“It won’t! Let’s go!” said our youngest.
Again, we could see what he was trying to do. We picked our way through the dryer parts of the path, holding back bushes and branches for each other as we went, avoiding the largest of the rocks. And, we made it.
Back at the car, we offered another prayer of gratitude for our protection …and it started to rain hard again.
“See what a little faith can do?” he humbly said. Our youngest son taught us all a great lesson on faith that day.