Something Old, Something New

Perhaps you will have a hard time believing this, but I have never roasted a turkey for a family dinner, neither for Christmas nor for Thanksgiving, until this year. We spent many years in Africa where there were no turkeys available, and we had free-range chickens for our festive dinners. When we returned to Canada we continued this tradition. We found chicken to be juicier and more flavorful. 

This Christmas, however, we had turkey. The reason for this change of family tradition was that one of my sisters received a free turkey for making a large purchase at a local grocery. She asked me if I wanted it since they already had turkey for Thanksgiving. I accepted it with thanks. The bird turned out to be quite delicious and we had enough left over to make a turkey noodle soup to share with friends over the holidays. 

That is my story about something new I did this Christmas. 
Now let me tell you about something old, which I consider to be my favorite Christmas present. It came unexpectedly and was actually regifted to me.

When we moved from Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario to Winnipeg almost nine years ago, one of my biggest tasks was to go through all the books we had accumulated over the years and reduce their number. This was difficult for me, but I knew we simply owned too many. I managed to cull quite a few but we're still left with a good-sized library.

Among my books I found a selection of German titles I received from my grandmother for Christmas when I was a preteen. I had begun my schooling in German and became an avid reader as soon as I knew the alphabet. We emigrated to Canada when I was nine and I soon began to read English books. My grandmother knew that I would always be happy to receive a book as a Christmas present. She did not want me to forget the German language, so she supplied me with German books which she ordered directly from Germany. To me it did not matter whether I was reading English or German; I wasn't even aware which language I was reading!

When I looked through our books before we moved to Winnipeg, I once again felt that tug of home. The books took me back to Christmases past. I noticed there was a book missing from my collection. It was probably a favorite of mine, and I wondered what had happened to it. I could still recall the story and how much I enjoyed reading it. I even remembered the title: Luthers Singerlein ("Luther's Little Singer") and I felt sad that this book wasn't there. It was probably the first historical novel I ever read and one of the best, written especially for children. Its story takes place during the time of Martin Luther and the central character is a young girl who loves to sing and play her violin. She is not validated for her gifts because, according to her aunt who raises her, these are not suitable for a young girl who should be working on her home-making skills. Also, her hair is black and curly, not typical of a German girl. Martin Luther, who lives in the same city (Wittenberg) and notices her musical ability when he visits her school, affirms and validates her gifts. 

When I learned English I read Anne of Green Gables, another story about a girl who doesn't really meet the expectations of the people she lives with. The theme of this book is quite similar to that of the German book my grandmother gave me. The characters in both these books thrive when someone appreciates them for who they are and convinces their loved ones to do the same.

Recently my sister went through some boxes my parents had left in their garage. Several of them contained books, and she gave them to me to sort and dispose of. To my surprise and delight, when I opened one of the cartons, I discovered the book I had been missing all these years. The next Sunday afternoon I took time to read it again, and I must say I enjoyed it as much as I did when I was a child! I identified with the main character because I too had gifts that were not "productive" in the eyes of my Mennonite mother. She wanted a daughter who could stitch and sew and be her right hand in the house, taking care of the younger siblings. I just wanted to read and play with words. 

As an adult taking university courses, I finally felt validated for my love of reading and writing. One day, in a telephone conversation with my mother, I told her that I actually got paid for reading books and writing about them! She said she was proud of me because I had raised a family as well as pursued a career. In her eyes, I had gone about it the right way, by having my family first. I valued and appreciated my mother's words of affirmation (even though I didn't necessarily agree with her assessment about the order in which the events in my life took place.) Her words mitigated the childhood message I had internalized that the gifts I had been given were of less value than others. However, the fact that I can put a delicious turkey meal on the table as well as read a good book would make my mother happy. We won't talk about my sewing skills.

A Christmas Letter

Because it is the Christmas season, the thought of writing a Christmas letter came to mind. Not an electronic version, but one written by hand with pen and paper. Hardy and I discussed it. Most of our friends are on the internet, but we did come up with a list of about twenty-five names that would not be receiving anything unless we wrote a letter by hand and actually mailed it. Those people will be getting a handwritten greeting from us. Family will also receive a Christmas card at our family gathering. I decided my December blog post would be my Christmas greeting for those of you who follow it. I hope you don't feel somehow cheated!

Living in Zaïre/DRCongo, Africa for almost twenty years (1965-1984), letters were very important in our life. Hardy was there alone from 1965-1967 and our courtship was done by mail. 
After we got married in 1968, we lived in the provincial town of Kikwit for eight years. During those years we could not use the telephone to communicate except for emergencies. We did not have our own phones but had to go to the post office in the capital city, Kinshasa, and there we often had to wait close to ten hours before we had access to one. Never mind that it took us several days to travel to the capital city, some of it by road and some of it by cable ferry.

Computers were not yet in use. So we wrote letters, lots and lots of letters. Most of them were in the form of aerograms. One small sheet of thin light-blue paper, folded twice and then sealed along the sides. If you wrote very small you could get quite a lot of information on this piece of paper, and I usually poured my heart out.

                                                 

When we returned from Africa in 1984, Hardy continued working in Bible translation with the United Bible Societies and then with the Canadian Bible Society. This necessitated that our family settle in the Kitchener-Waterloo area of Ontario. Our extended families lived mostly in Manitoba and that meant we were only able to see them once a year, usually in summer. It was certainly easier to communicate with them from Ontario than from Africa. There was good phone service but I still wrote a lot of letters and sent birthday and Christmas cards. Our parents sent packages at Christmas.

About three years after we returned to Canada, on a snowy December afternoon, I was walking across an  empty lot when I saw something in the snow. I bent down and picked it up. It was a Christmas card. Inside the card was a letter. This is what it said:

There was no cheque, just the card. The letter made me sad. It sounded like a man who was lonely. It seemed to me that his children did not care much about him. They had taken the cheque and discarded this loving letter from their father. It was left lying in the snow. I decided to pick it up and bring it to them, since the address on the letter was not that far from where we lived. I was hoping they had dropped the card accidentally and would be happy to receive it from me. However, I received no warm reception and no thank-you for having retrieved the card. Although they didn't verbalize it, I felt like I was being told, MYOB.

Before I took the card to the family, I copied it as a reminder to myself that family is precious and that there are lonely people in the world especially at Christmas. I have discovered that sometimes, when I feel rejected or left out, it helps me to do something special for someone else who feels abandoned and is much worse off than I am.

Mary and Joseph, in the Bible narrative (Luke 2), must have felt lonely so far from home, particularly with a new baby. However, angels came to their rescue, and made sure they did not feel as if no one cared about them.

I leave you, my friends, with this Christmas greeting: 

May the beauty, joy and blessings of the Christmas season be yours to share with those you love!

Remember Me

It is November, the month of remembrance. In Canada we celebrate Remembrance Day in honour of those who went to war for our country.

I'm doing my own remembering. I’m holding my grandmother’s notebook in my hand. It is a dark blue "Hilroy Exercise Book, #993 Wide Ruled," the kind I had in high school back in the early sixties. In her frugal Mennonite way, Oma would often take our old discarded notebooks and write between the lines where we had done our math or science exercises. Although this notebook is not a used one, she still writes between the lines to save paper!

My grandmother writes in German, her mother tongue. Her hand-writing is small and neat; I have no trouble deciphering it.  

The blue notebook is not a diary but a recollection of some of the events of my Oma’s flight (together with our family) from Ukraine to Poland and Germany. She wrote in retrospect, after she was finally reunited with her siblings and her mother in Canada. I can still see the small table she had set up in her tiny bedroom. There was always a Bible on it and usually a Mennonitische Rundschau or Der Bote (two Mennonite papers of the time). She spent many hours in that room—reading, meditating, writing letters, and praying.

Oma’s recording of her memories begins with a tragic event in our family. It is one of many she has had to endure since the Russian Revolution and its aftermath. (See my post of July 15, 2012.) For some reason, she wrote this one down, not at the time it happened but years later, when she had time to think about it. I have not seen any reflections of her other major traumas [for example, the death of her father and her in-laws within weeks of each other during the typhoid epidemic of 1919 and 1920; the resulting immigration to Canada of her mother and most of her siblings in June 1923 (this is recorded in the family Bible she brought along from Ukraine); the loss of her infant son Gerhard in 1934; the false accusation, imprisonment and disappearance of her brother Dietrich in 1937 and her beloved 
husband Abram in 1938]. 

At the time of this event, my grandmother and her youngest son, sixteen-year-old Jakob, were in a refugee camp in Stargard, a small Prussian village. Two of her sons, eighteen-year-old Dietrich and twenty-year-old Hans, had been conscripted into the German army. Her daughter, Tina (my mother), with her husband and two small children had found refuge in Bernsdorf, a village in East Germany. 

My grandmother writes about her young sons in the army: “Our hearts were heavy with an almost physical, palpable pain as we feared for their lives. This fear soon became a terrible reality.”

Oma writes that she was sitting on a bench under some evergreen trees with a friend. It was 8:45 on a balmy June evening (June 15, 1944) and they were engrossed in conversation, when all at once my grandmother experienced “a jolt that sent shock waves throughout my body. I jump up from my seat, exclaiming, ‘What is going on with me? What is happening?’” 

The next morning, she woke up with no idea as to what had caused her anxiety attack. Late in the afternoon her neighbour in the camp is called to the office of the director. She returns, and after much agony and trembling, she finally manages to stammer, “Something terrible has happened to your son Dietrich. He is dead!” A visit to the camp director confirms the terrible news and my grandmother prepares to go to the funeral at the military headquarters at Fürstenberg near Berlin. The German army is generous: she is given train tickets for herself and for several family members and a dear friend. The camp director himself telephones family members with the news.

When she tells her youngest son what has happened, “he leans against a tree and bursts into tears. They were close in age as schoolboys and true friends together, always getting into scrapes and sticking up for each other. Now everything was over, they were never, never to see each other again in this world. Their paths had parted forever and another path must begin."

                              

The Kroeger family, just before their father was arrested. Dietrich is leaning against his father's arm.

Oma continues, "We come to Berlin where we see the results of this destructive war. The once so beautiful railroad station is roofless, tattered and with broken pillars, every corner utterly devoid of beauty. We have just become eyewitnesses to this terrible scene when the sirens begin to howl and we have to leave the train and flee into the bunker where many other frightened faces stare at us. However, the danger is soon past and we can return to the outside world. 

“When we arrive at the military camp everything that had happened to our dear Dietrich is revealed to us. In the evening the soldiers were told to clean their unloaded weapons. Carelessly, the person sitting directly across from Dietrich had forgotten to unload his rifle. He hit the trigger accidentally, and the bullet went directly into Dietrich’s right eye and through his head, killing him instantly. It happened at the exact time that I experienced such a jolt to my heart!”

My grandmother goes on to describe how she went to view her son’s body and the full military funeral that followed. She knew that there was one more thing she needed to do. She asked the captain if she could visit the person who had caused this accident. Reluctantly, he agreed. 

“The door opens and in walks the deeply regretful, guilty one. I pity him greatly; unwanted, unplanned, to have brought such a great heartache on himself and others. I stretch my hand out toward him, which he grasps immediately and willingly. Quietly we look at each other for a long moment, then he bows his head, and tears stream from his eyes. I will remain silent about the short discussion that followed. I just said to him that I took it as an act of God. He can be assured of full forgiveness from me, and I will not remember his guilt. At the end, I asked him if he was willing to give me a kiss in my son’s place—which he willingly did, and our forgiveness was sealed by God. Both of us were left feeling comforted."

On Remembrance Day, I choose to remember this act of forgiveness. If only all of us were so ready to forgive we would not have to remember the ones who died horrible deaths in battles that need not have taken place at all. 

Trick or Treat?

I am composing this post on the last day of October; by the time you read this it will be November. Today is the day after Halloween, the big holiday celebrated here in North America mostly by children going from door to door asking for treats. It is believed that Halloween was originally a Celtic harvest festival, which was adopted by the church as a Christian holy day in honor of the departed saints.

                    

When our family arrived in Canada in October 1952, we knew nothing about this special day. We only learned about it the next year when we moved into town (our first year was spent out in the country in a farmhouse made available to us by the owners who no longer lived there).

Of course we children were eager to participate in what all our friends were doing and excitedly told our parents about this big day. They were not impressed. Dressing up like devils, witches and dead people, and going from door to door begging? That was not going to happen. We pleaded and begged, to no avail. Papa was a softy, however, and when he saw how disappointed we were, he made a deal with us. The Eaton's catalogue, that amazing tome of everything we wanted but would probably never get, featured surprise packages, the contents of which were unknown to the recipient until the package was opened on arrival. How would we feel about getting one of those? Papa asked us. He made a deal with us: he would order the surprise package for us and, instead of going trick-or-treating at Halloween, we would open this surprise parcel and have fun at home. We all agreed. 

Interestingly enough, I cannot remember anything about the contents of that package. What I do remember to this day is that my older brother did not keep his side of the agreement. After we had received our surprise, he played his own Halloween trick on Papa by sneaking out the back door and going  trick-or-treating anyways! No one stopped him. After that year our father decided to allow us to go trick-or-treating with our friends. Because I was short for my age, I did this until I was fourteen!

Speaking of tricks, the next big event this month is the American election.Trump is making all kinds of promises to trick people  into voting for the person who supposedly ''will make America great again.'' Neither candidate is very inspiring, and I'm happy I don't have to cast a vote. If I did, I would vote for Hillary Clinton of course. She has a lot of experience, a good work ethic, and it's time a female took the reins. 

Trump is playing a very dangerous game by dividing the country against itself. When Abraham Lincoln ran for president in the U.S. election of 1860, he warned of the danger of disunion in his ''house-divided" speech, basing it on Mark 3.25. When he won the election, the union split into north and south over the slavery issue and ended up at war with itself. This civil war lasted four years and as it drew to a close, Lincoln was assassinated. Some Lincoln haters cheered when they heard the news, although there was a general outpouring of grief and anguish, not only at Lincoln's too-early death, but at the death of so many in the civil war that had just ended. Why is it we never seem to learn the lessons of history but keep making the same mistakes?

There are a few more sunny days in the forecast and at sunset I will walk around the small lake close to our home to watch the staging of the geese. They are so purposeful and earnest in their endeavour. They know exactly what to do and when to do it, all the while lovingly caring for each other. They must have an inner compass that directs them.            I sometimes forget to listen to mine, and then I'm in trouble.

Zwieback Anyone?

Some things I have come to enjoy later in life. One of these is yeast baking. When I was younger, I was too busy and involved with children, work and studies. Baking with yeast is a process that can take most of the day, although I can do something else while the dough rises for several hours. While I'm mixing or shaping the dough, I listen to the radio or I often just enjoy the thoughts that arise when my hands are busy. Reminiscing is part of the aging process and I thoroughly enjoy it. As I grow older, I have more people to remember, some who have died before me and whose lives have inspired me and are still inspiring me.

Recently, as I was baking Zwieback (buns that consist of two balls of dough, one on top of the other) in preparation for spending time at the lake with some of our grandchildren, I thought of three wonderful women who were important to me at a certain time in my life. They encouraged and blessed me when I needed it. I remembered these three when I was working with yeast dough, because I associate them with that process. 

ANNA came to my aid when I left home and began my first job at a bookstore and printing press. I worked in the bookstore, preparing orders, clerking, and packing. Anna worked downstairs in the printing press. She was a beautiful woman with dark hair, thick and curly. Her brown eyes matched her hair and always seemed to sparkle. As a young woman, fleeing for her life from war-torn Ukraine during WWII, one of her eyes was severely injured and it was replaced by a glass eye. Anna did not let that dampen her spirit. 

We soon discovered that she knew my parents, having grown up with them in a Mennonite community in Ukraine. She took an interest in me and asked me some leading questions about my life away from home. (I had moved from Alberta to Manitoba right after high school and was temporarily living with some distant relatives until my parents and siblings could join me within a year.) Realizing that I was unhappy with my living arrangement, Anna encouraged me by listening sympathetically. She helped me by finding me a room to rent across the street from her house, within walking distance of my place of employment. It was a win-win situation. I no longer had to deal with family dynamics or a crowded bus, and I had caring people living across the street who took an interest in my life. 

Anna was at home on Saturdays, that was her day to bake and clean. She also gave part of that day to me to spend at their house -- not to help her clean, but to enjoy her fresh baking, have supper with the family and take some baking home with me. On Sundays she invited me to go to church with them. My weekends no longer stretched out endlessly. When she and her husband decided to go to B.C. on a holiday, she invited me to come along with them. They dropped me off in Calgary, where I took a train to Didsbury and spent a week with my family. Anna was an angel to me and she still inspires me to be generous and loving.

JOHANNA entered my life shortly after Hardy and I returned from Congo (where we spent the first 16 years of our married life). We moved to Ontario where Hardy had opportunity to work as copy editor with the Canadian Bible Society and I began my university studies.

Johanna baked Zwieback for every occasion and we always enjoyed them at church events that involved food. Johanna served God and the church with body, mind and soul. She conducted an after-school program for kids in the neighbourhood during the school year and in summer she ran the Vacation Bible School program. She encouraged our second daughter to be involved in these activities. Johanna's influence certainly must have had a part in our daughter choosing to become a pastor. Johanna also adopted an immigrant family and totally made them part of her life. While in her early seventies she went to university and eventually received a BA in psychology. 

Johanna taught me to bake Zwieback, generously sharing her recipe. She told me not to use butter because it made the Zwieback too heavy. She was right. I always use margarine and they turn out very light. When Johanna's husband passed away, she baked Zwieback for the occasion. She told me it was therapeutic for her (something I didn't understand at the time, but do now!).

GLORIA is the third person I want to mention with reference to Zwieback. She was the director at the retirement home where our daughter served as chaplain. It is her recipe for Zwieback (with a hint or two from Johanna) that I use. Whenever the home had a celebration, Gloria would bake large batches of Zwieback. I can still see her standing at the door, greeting guests as they entered. She was not tall but she stood very straight and carried herself with dignity. The retirement home published a recipe book as a fundraiser and Gloria's recipe is included. I always use it but substitute margarine for butter. For several years I volunteered as a devotional speaker at Parkwood Mennonite Home, gaining confidence in public speaking. Always, Gloria was my example of a woman who was a natural leader and used her gifts with humility and grace.

                                         Gloria's recipe (with some minor changes) 

Last, as is my habit, I have a book to recommend. It involves Zwieback and is "a Russian Mennonite Alphabet of Stories, Recipes and Historic Events."  Put it on your Christmas list as a potential present for your children or grandchildren!

The very last entry in this delightful alphabet book (Lisa Weaver, Julie Kauffman, Judith Rempel Smucker, CMU Press, 2011) states:

"Zwieback: A yeast bun with two parts -- a round roll with a smaller ball on top. They were often baked on Saturday to be eaten for Faspa on Sunday. When Zwieback is sliced in half and toasted in the oven ("twice baked"), it will keep for a long time. What a delicious ending to our Russian Mennonite alphabet!

Love Story

When you survive something titanic, it makes you stronger. It can make you wise and gentle if you've learned the lessons well. In the end, you're not a survivor anymore. You've become who you were created to be.  (Richard Wagamese)

Our summer is turning out to be a busy one, but in the good sense of the word "busy." We have had several wonderful visits from friends we have not seen for a very long time. We have renewed our ties and strengthened our bonds. We have looked way back into the past when we were young and strong and felt like we could do just about anything. That's when we first met each other. Then came the times of testing and the times of weeping which life inevitably brings to the table.

We are close enough to each other to know about the boomerangs that hit us head-on, the waves that rolled over us until we thought we would drown, the panting on the shore that left us almost lifeless. We went through most of these times together.

How these events shaped us in the meantime and how they made us who we are today became a topic of discussion. Nancy and Becky (mother and daughter), who visited us, have both lost their husbands. Nancy's husband died of cancer just at retirement age; Becky lost her father. Only a decade later, Becky's husband died tragically, and again there was a double loss; that of a husband and that of a son-in-law. Years earlier, both Nancy and Becky were present when we lost our first-born, who lived only one day (see blog entry of June 24, 2014, "Remembering is a Way of Meeting"). These experiences have created a powerful bond between mother and daughter, as well as between us as friends.

Becky brought along two photo albums which she had created digitally. One is of her mother's life as depicted in photographs, a gift to her mom. The other is of her husband's life which she made for her sons. It is by looking at these albums that our discussions took root. It is also through creating the album about her husband that Becky said she came to love him again.

Those of us in our seventies and eighties have the privilege of knowing our story, because most of it is behind us. Sometimes, while looking back and reminiscing, we are amazed at what we all experienced and how we got through the hard stuff life threw at us. Just recently Hardy and I looked back in time by leafing through one of my "menu books." I am in the habit of writing down the guests we have hosted and what we served them, along with some comments. I began to do this in 1981 when we were still in Africa and have kept it up. Not long ago we were trying to recall some people we had hosted. We found the names of our guests and also what I had served that evening. These people have since passed away, but as we read about that day we thought of them and what that visit meant to us.

Lately I have been reading some published works in which the authors look back and reminisce. One is a collection of essays by men who examine their relationship with their mothers. The other is a memoir in which two women cousins, a professor of Bible and a pastor, write about their call to ministry while researching how various family members before them experienced this call. Both books discuss what it means to come to different conclusions than their forebears and still respect and honour the choices they made.

Christine Kampen, one of the authors of the memoir, writes:

This project has made me aware that it is best to exercise some humility when judging the faith practices of generations that have come before us -- they lived in a particular context, as do we. In years to come, what might our descendants say about our current faith practices?

I have often asked myself this question, and it has stopped me from being judgemental. Each generation has its context in which it struggles to be authentic. Each family has its joys and sorrows. It is good to have friends who walk with us through it all.

Growing Pains

Our ten-year-old granddaughter, Kathryn, is realizing her dream this summer. She is enrolled in an intense, one-week gymnastics course, something she has wanted to do for a long time. Her parents are both at work and she is staying with Oma and Opa for the week. Our job is to get up earlier, help her make her lunch, get breakfast ready, drive her to the gym for the day and pick her up again. After gymnastics, she has an hour of "electronics" to relax, then we eat supper, play a game or two of "Aggravation," talk about the day, and go to bed. Opa washes her gym suit and hangs it up to dry for the night, while Kathryn and I spend a bit of time reading before bedtime.

Yesterday was her first day and Kathryn came home very stiff and sore. "No pain, no gain" is one of Oma's favorite sayings, but I bit my tongue and had lots of sympathy. Kathryn's mom came over in the evening and there was more TLC. 

At bedtime we decided to get a chapter book from the book shelves downstairs and I told Kathryn about one of my very favorite children's authors, Jean Little. Little grew up in Taiwan, the child of medical doctors. She became blind very early in life and has great sympathy for children with disabilities. This shines through in every one of her books. I have wonderful memories of going to some of her readings with our youngest daughter. Jean always had a seeing-eye dog with her, which was an added attraction for the children.

Kathryn decided on the book called Home From Far. It is about a girl, Jenny, whose twin brother is killed in a car accident, and how that affects the rest of the family. They decide to reach out to another troubled family by taking in two of their children, one of whom has the same name as the brother Jenny lost. Kathryn loves the book and decided that we should read two chapters after gymnastics (instead of spending time with electronic games) and two before bedtime, in order to get trhough the book in five days. We'll see if that happens!

 

Home From Far was published in 1965, and Little has some "archaic" expressions and terms we wouldn't use today, such as, "Hilda was fat. Her face was fat and her legs and arms were fat and her clothes made her look even fatter." Kathryn has been taught not to use that word to describe people because of the effect it has on them. However, this does not detract but rather enhances the book for Kathryn, as it gives us an opportunity to talk about some of these things.

This morning Kathryn got up and moaned and groaned about how much her body ached. We were making her lunch and having breakfast. Opa was taking her to the gym and I stayed at home to catch up on some things I needed to do. She looked at me with her big hazel eyes and said, "Oma, I wish I was like you. You just get to stay home and do whatever you like."  Secretly, I had been wishing I was like her, so fresh and young, her whole life before her! I said, "Kathryn, you have the whole summer to do what you like." "But Oma," she said, "you have your whole life to do what you like!" I smiled, gave her a hug, and told her some day she would probably be as lucky as me!

Mother Teresa says it well: "It is not how much we are doing but how much love, how much honesty, how much faith is put into doing it. It makes no difference what we are doing. What you are doing, I cannot do. Only sometimes we forget and spend more time looking at somebody else and wishing that we were doing something else. We waste our time thinking of tomorrow, and today we let the day pass, and yesterday is gone."