Big, Bad Pedro at Sebring Camp

{excerpt #2 from the memoirs of Pedro De Los Santos}

SEBRING CAMP

Two weeks after the 4th of July, Mr. Dawson asked me if I was interested in attending Sebring Camp. I did not know what it was, so I asked him to Explain. 

He said that every year, Doug and Kandy went to the town of Sebring, Ohio where they had a holiness camp. It was aimed at young teenagers but there were also plenty of adults. They had a youth program that involved lots of fun activities but there was also Bible study and worship. I had never been to a summer camp before, so I told Mr. Dawson that I would really like to go. He said he had already arranged for me to attend with Doug and Kandy. 

Sebring Camp was a wonderful experience. I made a lot of friends and enjoyed all the activities they had prepared for us. I really enjoyed the biblical teachings and the worship sessions too, especially during the evening services. 

It was during one of these evening services that I made a decision to give God control of my life by accepting the salvation that Jesus had offered to us all by dying on the cross. I felt great joy and happiness knowing that my sins no longer counted against me and that God had forgiven me and welcomed me with open arms. It was the happiest moment in my life that I can recall and it made the rest of the Sebring Camp experience that much more wonderful. 

BIG, BAD, PEDRO

I became friends with a guy named Ed Green at Sebring Camp. He loved to play the guitar and was always playing it and singing songs. He wrote a song about my misadventure at the swimming pool where I almost drowned. 

He called it “Big Bad Pedro” and sang it to the tune of “Big Bad John”. He went to other summer camps around the state and he would play that song during talent nights. That song made me famous, at least in summer camps around Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

About four years later I went to a summer camp in Columbus, Ohio where 

somebody asked me my name and I told him it was Pedro.

Upon hearing that he asked,

 “Are you the same Pedro that almost drowned

 at Sebring camp a few years ago?” 

I said “yes, how did you know about that?” 

To which he replied 

“Oh, everybody around here has heard the song and knows your name.” 

The rest of the summer was uneventful. 

Sebring Camp lasted only two weeks and I went back to work on the farm until it was time to return to Waynesburg so I could go back to school at Sandy Valley.

Thank You Pedro for sharing this part of your life with us. I have good memories from those times!