I was s Peace Corps volunteer when
interfaced
with a dream vision that changed my
life forever.

I was a Peace Corps Voulunteer when Interfaced with a Dream Vision
by Uriah J. Fields

     "... God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people, your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams" Acts 21:17

      It was March 1, 1961, not quite a month-and-a-half after becoming President of the United States, when John F. Kennedy issued Executive Order 10924, establishing the Peace Corps, just as he said he would do during the presidential campaign. His Republican opponent Richard M. Nixon had criticized him for suggesting that taxpayers' money be spent interfering in the affairs of other countries
     On August 3,1961 Kennedy sent the very first 52 Peace Corps volunteers to Ghana and on September 22, 1961, he signed legislation, the Peace Corps Act (Pub. L. 87-293 creating a permanent Peace Corps that would promote peace and friendship in the world. The Peace Corps is comprised of volunteers who sign-up for two years.
     By the end of 1961 some 750 volunteers had joined the Peace Corps and were serving in 13 nations.
      Early in 1962, about a year after the Peace Corps was established, there were just a few more than a thousand people serving in the Peace Corps. This is when I seriously considered becoming a volunteer to serve in the Peace Corps. Some 14 years earlier I had volunteered to enlist for three years in the Army. At the beginning of the Korean War my enlistment was involuntarily extended by the Government for a year. Two years of my military four-year tour of duty was during the Korean War. I served as a Chaplain's Assistant three years of my enlistment.
    During the 14 years, prior to taking up residence in California, after my discharged from the Army, I worked for sx months as a post office worker in Chicago before returning to my native state of Alabama. I enrolled as a freshman at Alabama State College (now a University) and received from that college a Bachelor of Science and a Masters of Education degrees. Subsequently, for three years I matriculated at Gammon Theological Seminary  (now a federated school wirh the Interdenominational Theological Center) in Atlanta and received a Masters of Divinity degree.
    During my sophomore year in college I became pastor of the Bell Street Baptist Church. At that time I was the youngest pastor in  Montgomery.
     On December 1, 1955 Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give her bus seat to a white person. Four days later, on the day of her trial when she was found guilty of violating the segregation laws of Alabama, eighteen persons, most of them ministers, and other laypersons, founded the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) to give structure to and conduct the Montgomery  Bus Boycott. At that founding meeting Martin Luther King, Jr, pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church was elected president, Uriah J. Fields, pastor of Bell Street Baptist Church, was elected secretary, and E. D. Nixon, a leader of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters union and, at that time, the chief African American leader in Montgomery, was elected treasurer of the new organization. Ralph D. Abernathy, pastor of the First Baptist Church, was selected chair of the Resolutions Committee and instructed to draw-up resolutions which people attending the first bus boycott mass meeting would vote on to determine whether there should be an on-going bus boycott. These resolutions would also be submitted to city officials of Montgomery. The Montgomery Bus boycott lasted for 382 days and ended with the desegregation of buses mandated by the United States Supreme Court. Desegregation of buses in Montgomery became law. Those who had previously  used the unjust law and boast of the fact that they were obeying the law now had a new law to obey which in time they did but not before committing more violent acts, that included bombing churches and homes and shooting into buses.
     Although it was difficult for me to become a registered voter in Montgomery, during the second year I was a resident in Montgomery, two years before leaving Montgomery to  live in another state, my name appeared on the ballot as a candidate for the Montgomery County Board of Education which  accounted for me being the second African American, after E. D. Nixon who in 1954 ran for a seat on the Democratic Executive Committee, since Reconstruction to have the name of an African American on the election ballot in Montgomery. Both Nixon and I were threatened by the Ku Klux Klan. The KKK burned crosses on Nixon's front yard and I was told over the telephone and by letter to take my name off the ballot and leave Montgomery. I did not do either. Neither Nixon or I was elected but we proved that an African American could be on the election ballot in Montgomery and helped in some way to make it possible for Montgomery to now have an African American, Steven Reed as mayor and a number of other African Americans elected to political offices.
       In 1962, I was led by the Spirit to volunteer to join the Peace Corps. In April of 1962, I submitted my resignation to the membership of the Bell Street Baptist Church to become effective on July 1, 1962. I informed the membership that I had made a decision to volunteer to serve in the Peace Corps. I had served as pastor of Bell Street Baptist Church for nearly nine years and led in rebuilding the church after it was bombed by racists.
        After I fulfilled the requirements for joining the Peace Corps which included having a physical examination and other tests, administered at the Maxwell Field military base in  Montgomery, I received a letter of congratulations from Sargent Robert Shriver, husband of Eunice Kennedy, President Kennedy's sister, and director of the Peace Corps. I also received a letter from the Peace Corps headquarters instructing me to report to the University of Pittsburgh for my orientation and informed me that my assignment will be in the field of education in Liberia. In early 1962 the Peace Corps was invited to serve in Liberia.  During the orientation the Peace Corps staff explains to volunteers the purpose of the pre-service training and assist them in how to adapt to living in the country which they will serve
      As I was about to leave Montgomery and go to the University of Pittsburgh, I had a DREAM VISION. A dream happens when you are asleep and in a certain way unconscious. A vision happens when you are awake and conscious. My dream vision was both and as much reality as anything I have ever experienced. It occurred just before I was about  to go to the University of Pittsburgh for my orientation. I was told "not to go east to the University of Pittsburgh; go west to California." I had visited California only twice, once in San Francisco where I attended the National Baptist Convention's annual convention and, two years before volunteering to serve in the Peace Corps, after I was invited by the committee searching for a pastor to preach at a church without a pastor in Los Angeles. I preached at that church but was not chosen to be pastor of that church. Several years later when I was a resident of Los Angeles  the chairman of that church's Deacon Board informed me that the only reason I was not chosen to be the pastor of that church is because I was not married. I responded, neither was Jesus married. But I know what happened was divinely ordered.
     I loaded my station wagon and headed not to the University of Pittsburgh but to Los Angeles. This 1956 station wagon was used during the bus boycott. It originally belonged to the Montgomery Improvement Association.The station wagon was one of the church-operated station wagons to transport people boycotting buses in Montgomery. Each of these station wagons had the name of the church and pastor of the church painted on the passenger side that picked-up people. The station wagon I was driving during the bus boycott had painted on it Bell Street Baptist Church - Rev. U. J. Fields, pastor. After the bus boycott ended it was decided by the MIA Executive Board that these churches be given the opportunity to purchase these station wagons. On my recommendation the officers of the Bell Street Baptist Church agreed with me to purchase the station wagon that had been used bearing the name Bell Street Baptist Church - Rev. U. J. Fields, pastor. A few years later the Bell Street Baptist Church gifted to me this station wagon that I was driving for the long haul to California. These church-operated station wagons was the MIA's way of making it difficult for city officials to prevent people from providing transportation for people boycotting buses. People transported in these station wagons did not have to pay to ride.
     Driving this station wagon that was overloaded I headed for Los Angeles where I did not know anyone and had no job promised. I had only the faith and confidence that I was obeying God as revealed to me in the dream vision. So I set out for this 1,836 mile journey to Los Angeles.  Everything was all right until I reached Yuma, Arizona sometime between afternoon and evening when the axle on the right side of my vehicle broke. The mechanic that checked the vehicle told me that he would not be able to get the part needed until the next morning. I spent the night in a hotel in Yuma. After my vehicle was repaired by mid-morning I continued on my  272 miles more to go before reaching Los Angeles. The rest is history. For the next thirty-three years I was a resident of Southern California - Los Angeles and San Diego.
       I know from my experience what this Scripture means which says:
"...God says. I will pour out my Spirit on all people,
your young men shall see visions, and your old men
shall dream dreams." Acts 2:17
      I also know from my experience what this Scripture means:
"I have been young, and now am old, Yet I have not
seen the righteous forsaken, Nor his descendants begging bread." Psalm 37:25 NKJV