A Test of Faith

The congregation didn’t celebrate its planned move into a spacious new home.

Instead, a record 200 worshipers at Tapestry Covenant Church listened to Pastor Ed Salas and cried.

Ten days earlier, his 10-year-old son had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer.

If you want to see whether your pastor’s faith is real, watch how he reacts after a tumor is found inside the brain of his son.

Study whether his faith wavers after the doctors remove a quarter-sized mass from his child, after a biopsy reveals an aggressive cancer, and after his son is left dizzy and so nauseated that he drops from 84 pounds to 67.

On that Sunday service last June, which should have been a day of jubilation about the church’s new home at Villa Intermediate School, Salas delivered a sermon about how to stand firm in faith.

He chose Daniel 3:17-18:

“If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us. . . . But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods. . . .”

“Faith doesn’t depend on circumstances,” he told his congregation. “It depends on who God is.”

The emotional message--which included the story of Timothy’s illness--profoundly changed the congregation.

“It brought a closeness that’s given a whole new life to this church,” said Cesar Ramirez, the congregation’s music leader. “We were close before. But now, it’s our son who’s having this illness.”

Ramirez still wonders how Salas showed up for church that Sunday last year.

“We were all thinking, ‘How would I have taken the news?’ ” said Ramirez, who has two young children. “I think I would have given up this church thing.”

Nine months later, Sally Varela cries when she thinks about that day.

“It just hit home,” she said. “Everyone can relate. Ed makes everyone else strong. We’re a family now.”

Said Ginny Salas, Ed’s wife: “The church is much more tender because of what we’ve been through.”

For seven years, Salas, 45, was an associate pastor at Mariners Church, a mega-congregation in Irvine. But then he felt called to follow his dream of starting a multiethnic church in central Orange County.

Integrated churches are rare, making up fewer than 5% of the congregations in America, scholars estimate. But Salas, whose parents came from Mexico and East Los Angeles, felt he was ideally suited to attract a mixed congregation, both ethnically and economically.

He also knew he had to do it slowly, making friends with each new church member.

“A friend told me, ‘Whatever you do next, make it God-sized,’ ” Salas said. “We’re seeing what God does from the ground level. It’s been more challenging and more rewarding than we thought.”

In February 1999, the church officially opened.

Tapestry now meets in a school gym, with 120 folding chairs at center court. Behind the four-piece worship band, colorful banners create the illusion of stained glass.

Marco Varela, 42, and his wife, Sally, commute from San Dimas to Santa Ana each Sunday to attend.

“The drive doesn’t mean anything. I’d drive anywhere for this,” said Marco Varela, who helps set up and break down the church each week. “It’s just like family here.”

*

In a living room where boxes of medical supplies are stacked in the corner, Timothy cuddles with his mother on the couch. It’s one day after his latest round of chemotherapy. He’s tired and nauseated. His hair fell out long ago. His words are few, more from the illness than any shyness.

But his eyes remain bright.

Dr. Violet Shen, a pediatric oncologist, said patients with Timothy’s form of cancer, if caught early, have an 80% survival rate. And Timothy’s outlook is “quite good.” So far, he has avoided any long-term damage to his hearing and kidneys from the cancer treatment.

The parents’ faith “definitely helped them support him during his difficult time,” Shen said. “They are always very, very calm, pleasant and encouraging. I think that makes a big difference. They’re just saints.”

Though flattered, Ed and Ginny Salas laugh when told of her description. The family--which includes two other sons--has struggled, mightily at times.

“We began to live a parent’s worst nightmare,” Salas said. “We had to fight the fear.”

Ginny said she was always honest with God: Can you hear me, Lord? Are you there? God, why Timothy?

“It was so difficult to see him so sick,” Ginny said. “But God knows my heart. I’m not going to hide my feelings from him.”

The help that she did resist, at least at first, was of the neighborly kind. But the couple has a grown son and a 6-year-old at home. Ginny has a home-based business, and Ed is the sole employee of his fledgling church. And because at least one parent was at Timothy’s hospital bedside 24 hours a day, she quickly realized she needed reinforcements.

Ginny keeps a diary of Timothy’s recovery and has posted it on the Internet, at https://www.geocities.com/howistim/.

Timothy, a soccer all-star, has passed the halfway mark in his yearlong chemotherapy. And from this vantage point, Salas can look back and see “the hand of God in everything we’ve been through.”

“We’ve met God in a way that you won’t meet him any other way,” he said. “And the truth is, we’ve gotten all the grace that we’ve needed when we needed it.”