Frostburg
Maryland
April 2015
We are on our way to scale the mighty hillock that is the 409-foot tall summit of Washington D C. On the north side of Interstate 68 in Frostburg, Maryland, we drive past a steel girder framework that looks like it could become a small, ordinary three- or four-story hotel. It won’t. It is intended to become something else entirely.
And God said to Noah, Make thee an ark of gopher wood… and then went on to describe the size, the floor plan, how to insulate it against floodwater and what to do with it; fill it with animals, two by two. Why? God was very dissatisfied with the behavior of his crowning creation so, as he said, I will take away all men from the earth that I have made; because the men of the world are evil, and do evil continually. Basically, he decided on a do over which, because he is God, He can do.
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You may recognize these quotes. They are in the book of Genesis, a Bible story from thousands of years ago.
And apparently, God said to Richard Greene, “Dick, I want you to re-build Noah’s Ark.”
Why? I want you to make it your new church. This time, it’s to be a sign to the world of my love and that Jesus is coming soon. I want you to warn the world.
This according to Richard Greene, recounted in several articles in 1974.
Noah was a righteous man, the only blameless individual living on earth, a man without sin. Richard Greene is the pastor of God’s Ark of Safety Ministry in Frostburg, Maryland. He’s building an ark, the one that supposedly God told him to build. It is a replica of the one in the Bible story, about the same size, 300 cubits x 50 cubits x 30 cubits, which is to say, 450 feet x 75 feet x 45 feet.
Even though Pastor Greene has appeared in an impressive number of countries, publications and broadcasts, spreading the Word and seeking donations, not much construction has occurred in the past 40 years. “If you wait on the Lord it will renew your strength,” Pastor Greene says. “If Jesus is coming any time soon,” I say, “Greene had better step up the pace.”
It’s quiet in our car for a few minutes after passing the nascent ark, now just a bunch of mostly parallel girders. Lisa conjures up a song she learned in Sunday school. Surprising me, she begins to sing…
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The Lord told Noah to build him an arky, arky
The Lord told Noah to build him an arky, arky
Build it out of gopher barky, barky, children of the Lord
The animals, they came in, they came in by twosie, twosies
The animals, they came in, they came in by twosie, twosies
Elephants and kangaroosies, roosies, children of the Lord
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…and this song just goes on, including such fabulous, fantastical creations as the dovey, dovey who report back that, “There’s clear skies abovey-bovey,” and “Everything was fine and dandy, dandy,” because the dove found “landy, landy.” The “birds and beesies, beesies” rejoiced.
There are sixteen verses (sixteen!) to this songy songy. Lisa does not sing all sixteen. If she were to sing the entire song, Greene’s ark might be finished by the time she hits the last verse, the one where everything becomes hunky dory, dory and there is glory, glory on the land.