Sounds of Hope

Like something from an old black and white TV show, their faces look young and vibrant.  Their large print dresses must have been a kaleidoscope of color.  But the black and white echoes that most have gone home to the Lord.  It seems so odd to think that women would gather on a Monday night once a month to pack a missionary barrel to go to India.  One of their own was helping lepers in India.  Karin and I would take torn sheets and roll bandages.  I often wondered about the person whose wounds would be bound by the fruit of our labors.  These women made quilts to cover the lepers while I was rolling bandages.  Before the night was over, several quilts would be finished.   A page from LIFE magazine served as a pattern.  Colors and texture were blended and pinned together on those pages.  A zip through the sewing machine and a quilt was finished in hours.  Once the bandages were rolled, the quilts lovingly fold...

I think every child loves Saturday.  Saturday is that day when you don’t have school.  It is the day to sleep late and play.  It was on a Saturday that my father would take me on excursions of delight.  Holding his hand, we’d place our token in the turnstile to ride the 4 th Avenue local.  However, there was one part of Saturday that I did not like. Saturday night meant a soak in the tub.  Ours was an old tall claw bathtub.  We had no shower.  While we each had our own bathwater, one by one, we’d make the trip into the tub to be clean for Sunday.  I often entertained myself in the tub with boats sent to me from my relatives in Norway.  I enjoy the tub.  What I didn’t enjoy was the shampoo.  I’d cover my eyes with a washcloth as the cups of water were poured over my head.  Usually some got in my eyes and I’d wince or cry.  My ears, between my toes, and my neck were all checked to see if they were clean.  There w...

This may not be the most profound blog I’ll write.  Hopefully it will make you smile.  Smiling and joy are sometimes the most profound of things.  Having been in a place where joy was scarce, I am rediscovering it.  I hope this give you at least a smile. There was a comment to my last blog, My Roots Are Showing .  It was from an old and yet new friend.  We grew up together, sort of…  She is a several years younger than I am.  I remember her well.  I think her memories of our childhood are less.  We were Norwegian children running through the basement of Salem Gospel Tabernacle, marching in the Sunday School Parade, attending released time, navigating the world of Brooklyn, and sitting under the teaching of a tall white haired Norwegian, Pastor Dahl. Here is what she wrote: Joyce, as you know, our roots come from the same Norwegian Pentecostal church -- and I remember the ladies with the "Pentecostal roll" hairdo.  My earliest memo...

Every Sunday morning my mother would put a few pennies, sometimes a dime, rarely a quarter, in my hand for offering for Sunday School.  At the appropriate time, my mother now on the small platform of the church basement would wait for the appropriate chord from the piano and she would start to sing, Dropping, Dropping, Dropping, Dropping Hear the Pennies Fall Everyone for Jesus, He will get them all One by one we would march to the front and drop our offerings for Jesus.  Often I would wonder if Jesus really needed my pennies.  I would much rather go to the candy store next to the church between Sunday School and church to get something to tied me over until church was over. Brooklyn Day Sunday School Parade My mother is the teacher.  I'm in the 2nd row on the left I've been counting change this morning.  I had a plastic bag full of it that we brought back from South Dakota.  I thought it was time to cash it in.  There was over $50 in that ba...

My mother loved children.  Perhaps because of her own lack of self confidence and self-esteem she found it safe to be with children.  She blossomed with the care of children.  She cared deeply for their souls.  Her life can be told through countless Sunday School lessons, Released Time sessions and Vacation Bible School.  At 80 she was back in a nursery serving the “cradle roll” as she had so many years before in the basement of our beloved church, Salem Gospel Tabernacle. There are photos in my memory of her with Sunday School classes of young girls holding their Bibles.  There were other photos of these same girls smiling in our backyard as she hosted them for a picnic.  Later, came leading the “downstairs” Sunday School, Released Time, serving at Camp and helping on the Lower East Side of Manhattan with the mission work of her friend Sister Jacobsen.  Curriculum and music had to pass the Elsie theological tests.  She wasn’t a particularl...

I’ve been looking at a lot of old photographs lately. I picked up a very odd collection of photographs my mother had in her room. I take greater delight than most in finding an old photograph. A house fire and too many moves have claimed our treasures forever. I was particularly delighted to find this assortment. It included photos of my dad as a young man, some of his brother and sister-in-law’s trip from Norway to visit us, his son and the 1963 New York City World’s Fair. There were photos of my mother with her siblings. I found photos of my mother as a very young woman with her first two children. How very young my mother looked. Her youthful beauty that she never saw in herself was striking. She always referred to herself as “homely” and as I looked at those pictures, I thought how sad that she never saw what an attractive woman she was. There have been other old pictures to look at as well. I’ve written before that I had the very unique and wondrous experience of ha...

Last year I went to a celebration of Norwegian Constitution Day in the little town of Hendricks MN. It’s a far cry from the grandiose 17 th of May parades in Brooklyn. Nonetheless, anytime I can sing the national anthem of Norway and celebrate being Norwegian, I’m up for it. The program in Hendricks included a skit featuring the “Church Basement Ladies.” These ladies, had decided to open a restaurant to help people through rough economic times. Their culinary feature would be “hot dish,” also known in other parts of the country as casserole. They had some interesting variations of Campbell soup inspired dishes. They of course would have macaroni and cheese one day. Another day that would have the “hot dish” with the tater tots. Every day the desert would be some sort of “Jell-O.” Or as they said “Yell-O.” This is a Norwegian community after all. Some creative person had put together a wonderful play. I am not Lutheran, and I didn’t grow up in the upper Midwest. I did understand th...

I got a call yesterday from the funeral home that handled the arrangements for my mother. A pleasant woman called to tell me that the date of my mother’s date was now on the headstone. Having purchased this headstone in 1982, for 18 years it has been waiting for this date. The many times I have visited my father’s grave I have also stared at my mother’s would be grave. I have looked at that headstone and wondered what date will appear. Now there is a date. Now it is final. It is official. On February 25, 2010, almost one month ago, Elsie Mae Bumbaugh Johannesen Martin joined with my father all those who worship around the throne of God. Many years ago while still a teenager I had a pastor who is buried not far from my parents at Memorial Cemetery in Columbia MO. I stopped at his grave when we buried my mother. I think I will stop there often as I visit both of my parents. Brother Parker, my pastor, preached a sermon series that I still remember. He preached from Hebrews 12:1 The...