A PILGRIM IN ISRAEL

I wrote of this pilgrimage before (see March 2013), a kind of synopsis of the “Holy Land” experience.
This account is an elaboration; the subject is worthy of a revisit to me.

It took me a time to warm up to an Israel journey.

My wife had been ready for a long time, but for some reason I dragged my heels.

What eventually gave me the needed motivation was the reading of a book, Blood Brothers by Elias Chacour.

For that to make sense I need to tell you a little about that book.

           

It’s the story of a young Palestinian boy growing up in a small village in Galilee, not far from Nazareth.  It was a happy childhood.  For generations, his family had owned fig and grape orchards and enjoyed a simple life, with the Melkite Christian church at the center of their existence.  Home, church, and school nurtured his soul.  He came to love Jesus.

But one day, in 1947, his idyllic life and innocence were swept away when Jewish militias came to take their home, their orchards, their village, everything.  Tens of thousands of Palestinians were killed and nearly one million forced into refugee camps.

Somehow Elias, blessed by a brilliant mind and sterling character, gained an education, first in Israel, then in Europe where he graduated from seminary, after which he became the first Palestinian to receive a degree from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

But what had happened to him and his family and thousands of other families left a permanent mark on his soul, and a struggle to reconcile the wounds that had been inflicted with the promises of God.

The story stirred me with the injustice of it all.

But what really moved me was what happened next.

For his first assignment as an ordained priest Elias Chacour was sent in 1965 to a dying church in the remote and contentious Arab village of Ibillin where no pastor lasted longer than a few months.

The church, St. George Melkite Catholic Church, close to falling apart, had few attending members, and even those were often at odds with each other.

At times, Chacour was close to despair and giving up.

But he did not leave after a few months, as he had planned.

He stayed for 41 years.  And in that time Chacour became God’s agent of reconciliation among his church members, among the Jews and Palestinians of the town, among the Christians and the Muslems.

And he built a school on an empty hillside now known as the Mount of Light.  It started small, at first a kindergarten in 1968, housed in his humble office and bedroom while he slept in his Volkswagen Beetle.

But Chacour didn’t stop there. 

Today the co-educational Mar Elias Educational Institutions enroll nearly 4000 students from age three through university, including Muslims, Christians, and Druze; even some Jewish. 

When I discovered this story of Father Chacour, there was no hesitation left about going to Israel. I wanted to see what this man had wrought.

This would be a pilgrimage to a land where Jesus walked and taught and modeled what this extraordinary priest was trying to practice.

A pilgrimage to a land where the children of Abraham had lived for centuries and where Arabs and Jews, though blood brothers, were at war with each other.

I became eager to go and learn and grow in understanding and faith.

So off we went, some 35 pilgrims from all over the country with Bill and Lyn Vanden Bosch as our expert leaders.

Our tour of Israel was packed full from 7 o’clock in the morning (or earlier) till 9 o’clock at night (or later) with bus rides, hikes and climbs (we walked about 5 miles a day), lectures and descriptions, devotions and testimonies.

I want to highlight those experiences that continue strong in my memory, and that continue to bless and agitate me.  

Our first two nights we stayed near Haifa in a Carmelite Monastery, built over the cave of Elijah on Mt. Carmel on the Mediterranean – a beautiful and peaceful spot.

Our first full day in Israel included the visit I had eagerly anticipated.  The bus wound its way through untraveled country roads to the city of Ibillin, not shown on most maps because, I’m told, it’s an Arab city.

Ibillin is in the Galilee region, near Nazareth, where Christians and Muslims have lived together peacefully for hundreds of years.

The residents are an agglomeration of what remained from four different villages which were among the 460 towns that were completely destroyed or deleted or emptied for the arrival of the Jews, the same as what happened to Chacour’s family.

Those who fled the deportation and hid later agglomerated themselves in this village which then grew to 8500 inhabitants.

The Palestinians who lost everything – have no right of return or compensation, or even recognition.

All the Arab villages in the Galilee are surrounded by Jewish posts of observation, from which they are closely monitored.

Learning about such injustice began to weigh on us as our pilgrimage crisscrossed through the Promised Land.

But now, the bus chugged its way up a steep hill, and then we suddenly had our first glimpse of Chacour’s realized dream, the Mar Elias Educational Institutions.

We were welcomed by a throng of smiling school children. 

To me it was inspiring to wander through the hallways of this beautiful educational institution to which students come from all over the Galilee because of its high quality reputation. 

The principal of the school treated us to an impassioned talk about the mission of this place.

It includes Mar Elias College, the largest college in the Arab community in Israel with 384 students and 59 faculty members and which has earned a reputation for excellence.

Then there is the recently founded Mar Elias University, the first Arab university in Israel, operating as a branch of the University of Indianapolis. Mar Elias University at the time had some 200 undergraduate students and 60 faculty members.

Students learn in Arabic, English and Hebrew.

And what became of that ramshackle, forsaken little church that Chacour came to in 1965?

It’s become a place of beauty for worship and faithfulness in outreach.

Not far from the school campus is the Mar Elias Church constructed somewhat in the shape of a boat, according to Charcour’s intent to have it symbolize the Palestinian population’s need to move forward.

The steps to the entrance emphasize the profound impact the Sermon on the Mount had on Chacour and on the mission he embraced.

And inside there are many reminders of the biblical events that continue to inform Chacour’s mission.

What excited me about this pilgrimage after reading Blood Brothers and online information about Ibillin was not only the inclusion of this place in our itinerary but also  and especially the opportunity to spend an hour with Archbishop Elias Chacour in person.

Chacour was the first Israeli citizen to be appointed a Catholic bishop.

And this three-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee, in 2006 was elevated to the office of 

Archbishop of the Melkite Catholic Church for Haifa, Nazareth, and all Galilee.

We would have the honor of a private audience with the Archbishop in his quarters in Haifa.

Abuna (as he’s affectionately called by his parishioners, students, and friends) sat with us for at least an hour. Let me mention some bits and pieces of what he said.

He said he’s “a walking contradiction” – a Palestinian-Arab-Christian-Israeli, and told us about the challenges that causes in his mission to break down stereotypes.

He said: “Tell your friends that I was born in a village, a very beautiful village. When we heard the Jews were coming, we prepared a banquet for them. We gave them our beds to use, and only ten days later they deported us, and we are still deportees, while our homes and land were turned into wasteland.

“This is a people here who have a history of over 3000 years. And now it is no longer a fight of one nation against another nation because of their convictions, but because both claim the land to be theirs, and none is willing to share it with the others.

“The majority of Jews understand that the big land of Israel can no more belong to the Jews alone. But their heart is in love with all the land, and they don't know how to make the separation.

“Palestinians as well, especially Palestinian Muslims, say this is our ancestral land. And they know, with their intellect, that it is no more their land alone. But from their emotion, they cannot agree with the reality.

“What we have here is a majority of Jewish people, a minority of Palestinians living in Israel, and three or four million living in the West Bank. What can we do to improve the situation so we can live together.

“Palestinians do not ask for compensation. They ask just for the return of the occupied territories to have a viable independent state, side by side with Israel. Without that, there will never be peace or security. Unless the Palestinians, by divine power, decide: ‘We accept to be the slaves. We accept to be the Jews of the Jews. We accept to be the eternal deportees/refugees, no human rights observers.’ If that would happen, that would be a solution.

“There are 3000 Israeli settlers around the city of Gaza, surrounding 1,200,000 Arabs. And the 3000 settlers, to my knowledge, have the right to 85% of the water of Gaza, while the 1.2 million have only 15% of the water, which is hardly enough. They have water once or twice a week. These things are not right.”

Chacour,  who “has devoted his life to advocating non-violence and reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians”  challenged us to be peacemakers, and that sometimes means raising issues on injustice loud and persistently.

For me, and I think for all of us, it was not only informative but transformative: we brought much more thought and understanding and a prayerful spirit to the rest of our pilgrimage.  Our eyes, our minds, and our hearts were opened to the complexity and agony of the ongoing conflict in the land where Jesus as the Prince of Peace, teaching the Sermon on the Mount, lived the life of a servant, and sacrificed himself for others.

Elias Chacour is retired now. He is living again in Ibillin, having time to read, write, pray, and continue meeting pilgrim groups to share his story of “Building Peace on Desktops.”

 Sometime later that day we stood on Mt Precipice, overlooking the city of Nazareth, where Jesus spent most of his short life.

Next we had a good look from Mt. Arbel at the Sea of Galilee, including a distant view of Capernaum, Korazin, and Bethsaida where Jesus did much of his ministry.

The last stop of the day was at a very recent archeological site in Magdala, the home of Mary Magdalene, a spot where almost certainly Jesus walked.

Our pilgrimage included a long hike to the ruins of Gamla, a place where Jesus almost surely preached in the synagogue; it’s in the Golan Heights near the border of Syria.

And we reflected in the nearby pastoral site of Kursi where Jesus healed the demoniac. 

That healing started a Christian movement in the area which many years later provided a delegate to the Council of Nicea.  Now when we recite the creed in our Sunday morning worship we remember doing that together as pilgrims in that historic location. 

Then we returned to the Sea of Galilee.  We remembered the words of Jesus: “Come follow me.”

Of course we had to take a boat ride.

And we heard how on that lake, surrounded by low mountains, sudden storms can sweep down and endanger the lives of fishermen.

No such storm arose during our sail.

Nearby is Capernaum and the ruins of the synagogue where Jesus taught.

We ended that day on the slope of a promontory above the Sea of Galilee where some say Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount.  It was one of the most moving experiences of the trip when Pastor Bill recited the sermon from memory.  The words touched our lives as perhaps they never had before.

Close to where we gathered, there was a sculpture of the face of Jesus, hidden inside the bush. 

To me that hidden presence gave the words of the Sermon on the Mount even more import.

   

Next we stopped at Beth-Shan, where the bodies of King Saul and his sons were brought after their deaths.  

The Assyrians destroyed the city in 730 BC, and it was left in ruins for centuries.

It was rebuilt a number of times and was a major city in Roman times, considered a Gateway to Paradise.  It was destroyed by a major earthquake in 749.

We viewed the ruins of that meticulously designed and built city from high above, and then walked down the marble and stone thoroughfares to take a closer look.

They even thought of latrines.

These weary pilgrims are making grateful use of this public restroom!

Jericho was our next destination. 

Jesus walked the Jericho Road on the way to Jerusalem and the cross.
 

The road leads through a forsaken wilderness, emblematic of the spiritual wilderness Jesus came to redeem.

No one goes on a Holy Land pilgrimage without visiting Masada where Herod built a summer palace and fortress, and where, more famously, over 900 Jewish zealots made a heroic stand against a powerful Roman army.

It has become Israel’s most visited national park.

The replica gives an idea of the engineering challenge and accomplishment.

A full-fledged city operated on top of the huge rock, 1500 ft above the level of the Dead Sea, with sophisticated water systems and baths. 

It was a long and strenuous climb to reach the oasis of En-Gedi; this is where David found refuge from king Saul.

The place became more memorable for us when we sang David’s words “As the deer panteth for the waters, so my soul longeth after you.”

We went on to Qumran, the legendary home of the Essenes and the location where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found.

And not to be missed, of course, was the chance to float in the Dead Sea.

As we continued to drive through the West Bank area, we became more aware of the inequality of the land use for Israelis and Palestinians, which is of course the case throughout the country.

And we’d see signs like this:

Just outside of Bethlehem is the site of the Herodium Palace and fortress complex where he won a victory over the Jews and Parthians in 40 BC.  It is highlighted by a hill that he made into a mountain fortress. 

Herod’s complex included a large swimming pool and parade ground, a theater, and the recently discovered Herod’s tomb.  In the theater is the just uncovered royal box where Josephus tells us Herod entertained Agrippa, son-in-law of the Emperor Augustus.

Not far from this site one enters Bethlehem.  It was painful to see the dividing wall built by the Israeli; in many places it’s marked by angry graffiti but sometimes also by expressions of hope and reconciliation, like this:

Bethlehem District is home to more than 170,000 Palestinians, concentrated mostly in the  town of Bethlehem and two nearby towns. The wall surrounding the Bethlehem district is a 15-kilometer shackle that segregates a huge area of agricultural land, mainly olive trees.

The wall around Bethlehem serves to isolate and annex the religious areas.

 Hundreds of people are isolated between two walls, further strengthening Israeli control of historic, religious, and deeply significant places and strangling the city economically.

Close to 90% of the route of the fence/wall is on Palestinian land inside the West Bank, encircling Palestinian towns and villages and cutting off communities and families from each other, separating farmers from their land and Palestinians from their places of work and education and health care facilities and other essential services.

No gate in the wall allows residents access to their lands. As a result they must travel long distances to get to their land. The main roads are often reserved for soldiers and settlers, and so Palestinians are forced to take even longer routes, often on foot, and cannot bring equipment to harvest their crops. The walls in effect deny them the ability to earn a living from their land.

The fence/wall encompasses more than 50 Israeli civilian settlements in the Occupied Territories, in which the majority of Israeli settlers live and which are illegal under international law.

The construction of the fence/wall inside the Occupied Territories, projected to be about 450 miles in length, in its present configuration violates Israel's obligations under international humanitarian law.

But within the grimness of that divided Bethlehem, we found a place of compassion and  love: the Al-Basma Center for young Palestinians with disabilities, where smiles and hope abound.

Its founder, Abdullah Awwad, fled Libya to come home to Bethlehem where he felt called to lead Al-Basma.

The young people trained and cared for here were the outcasts of society.  Here they learn love and respect, joy and purpose and our hearts were filled just being part of their lives nd this place for an hour.

But Bethlehem is the birthplace of Jesus.  Instead of visiting the Church of the Nativity, which is built over a particular cave believed to be the Birthplace itself, we went to a much more peaceful place, a shepherd’s cave in a corner of the city, the kind of cave and manger (not a wooden box) in which Mary and Joseph welcomed the Son of God.

And that leaves Jerusalem. 

Bethlehem is what we remember especially during Advent and Christmas.

Jerusalem, a short distance from Bethlehem, is our focus in Lent, and the difference between Advent and Lent is the difference between life and death, joy and sorrow.

Except to this pilgrim there is more sorrow than joy in the land today, and that is true of Bethlehem as well as Jerusalem.

When we looked down on the city from the 2500 feet height of the Mt of Olives area, I couldn’t help but think of Christ grieving over Jerusalem, when he said: “…how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.”

There was much to pray for at the Western Wall.

The Western Wall is the holiest site in Judaism.

I stood at that wall, joining others from many places, praying with one voice, I hoped, for peace and justice.

We spent time at Yad Vashem, the official Holocaust Museum of Israel, an experience that penetrated our emotions to the core.

Such unspeakable suffering in the history of the Jews! 

We spent a time of reflection afterward in the Grove of the “Trees of Righteousness.”  Nearby a tree had been planted to honor Cornelia Blaauw of the Netherlands for her wartime courage on behalf of the Jews.

And then there’s the Temple Mount, and the majestic Dome of the Rock visible from all over, the Islamic holy place built on the site of the old Jewish temple.

This is a hot religious collision spot for Arab and Jew.

In the Old City part of Jerusalem are four holy sites of the three major monotheistic religions: the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the Via Dolorosa, the Western Wall, and the Temple Mount with the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, an Islamic shrine.

Only Muslims are allowed to pray there. Jews and Christians can visit, but they may not enter the Mosque.

For Jews the Temple Mount "is where Abraham almost sacrificed Isaac, and where God gathered the dust that created Adam. It’s there, the Bible says, that King Solomon built the First Temple, circa 1000 B.C., where Herod refurbished the Second Temple, and where Titus tore it down in 70 A.D. Its inner sanctuary is known as the Holy of Holies—a place where no one but the High Priest was allowed to tread.

The Temple Mount and Jerusalem have often been rocked by violent riots, terror attacks that claim lives, and attempted assassination.

On our last day of the pilgrimage, we went early to the Mt of Olives.

From the Mount you look down on the Jewish cemetery, where one can buy a grave site for around $25,000.  It’s been a burial site for about 3000 years and is still in demand.

Many Jews believe that when the Messiah comes to Earth riding on a white donkey, the dead will rise from their graves and walk to the holy Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City.

From the Mount you also look down on nearby Bethany, the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus…dear friends of Jesus.

The Mt of Olives and Gethsemane had only lived in my imagination, as had many other Biblical sites.  But not many places in Palestine are the way they were in Biblical times.  No compelling pilgrimage destination stays the same.

Here we also saw the Dome of the Ascension: A small shrine, now a mosque marking the place where Jesus is believed to have ascended to heaven.

And there’s a depiction of Jesus leading his disciples after the Last Supper to the Kidron Valley, or the Garden of Gethsemane.

An ancient staircase leads down towards the Kidron Valley and the Garden of Gethsemane.

This is where Jesus wrestled with his Father in dread of the days that lay ahead.

There are many memorials, one of which is the Church of All Nations.  A somber church at Gethsemane, built over the rock on which Jesus is believed to have prayed in agony the night before he was crucified.

On the façade of this Church, the triangular area over the great portal displays a much-photographed mosaic.

Christ is depicted as the mediator between God and mankind, on whose behalf he gives his very heart which an angel is shown receiving into his hands.

On Christ’s left, a throng of lowly people, in tears, look to him with confidence. On his right, a group of the powerful and wise acknowledge the shortcomings of their might and learning.

An atmosphere of sorrowful reverence pervades the Church of All Nations. The architect wanted to leave the interior in semi-darkness to evoke the night-time of the Agony.

We spent some time in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Time for silently meditating, praying, reflecting.

More signs reminded us of what followed after the arrest in the Garden.

Then we made our way uphill, through the Lion’s gate, into the Old City and along the Via Dolorosa all the way to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
And as you see in the background here, you’re never far away from the walls that encircle Jerusalem.

 

Defensive walls go back to ancient times, of course. Remains of one ancient wall that goes back to the Bronze Age are located above Hezekiah’s Tunnel that is still there the same way it was in Hezekiah’s day.

Most of the walls you see today were built between 1535 and 1538, when Jerusalem was part of the Ottoman Empire. They contain 34 watchtowers and 8 gates.

Today they mainly serve as an attraction for tourists since they ceased to serve as a means of protection for the city.

And what’s the experience today of walking the Via Dolorosa?

The stations and sites along the way reminded us of where we were.

And though the way of Christ as he stumbled to the final destination was undoubtedly not exactly the route we followed on that Friday, we felt more keenly than we ever had before the cosmic irony of our faith: the Son of God, his flagellated body sagging under a cross to which he would soon be nailed, staggering through the narrow streets crowded with indifferent merchants and hawkers and Passover observers from far and near – all this unspeakable humiliation and agony – to give his life for us, out of love for us.

We stop at the Church of the Flagellation, and we remember that with his stripes, we are healed.

In the Chapel of Condemnation, we contemplate the statue of Christ, taking up his cross.

The crowds move steadily toward The Church of the Holy Sepulcher where the walls tell the story.

We took turns going down into a burial vault nearby.

There we felt close to the Passion of the Christ.

Afterward we stood together as a group and professed the Apostle’s Creed together.  Here, on this sacred site in Old Jerusalem, we thought deeply about what we were professing.

We ended our pilgrimage in the Garden Tomb.

Some claim this to be the actual site of Calvary and Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb.

The Garden Tomb is a quiet place intended for worship and reflection.

There was beauty and peace here.

Our time in the Garden and our pilgrimage ended with a moving Communion Service.

We were reminded of the places we had walked together as pilgrims and the significance of each.

Then we sang “He Lives,” “In Christ Alone,” and our daily pilgrim song, “In the Light of Jesus.”

We had walked where Jesus walked.

We had walked “on ancient stones smoothed by the feet of millions of pilgrims gone    before.”

We had sailed the Sea of Galilee where Jesus walked on water and Peter sank.

We had been in Bethlehem where God came to dwell among us.

We had stood in the Garden where sweat turned into blood.

We had walked the Via Dolorosa.

We had stood near the place where our Savior was crucified.

And near the place where he emerged from the grave, so that even Thomas the doubter could say: my Lord, and my God.

Through this pilgrimage, we re-committed ourselves to keep walking the path of faith, hope, and love—in the steps of Jesus.

And yes, to keep on praying for the peace of Jerusalem.

THE IMMIGRANT ADVENTURE: The Quest to Belong

Foreword:

Emigration has fascinated many people: researchers, family members and descendants, the people who stayed behind, storytellers, and many more.

Hylke Speerstra is one storyteller who pursued the experience of the emigrant seriously.  He traveled to three continents to gather the stories; then he wrote a book, It wrede paradys.  It became an immediate best-seller in Friesland, and it sold well in the Dutch translation too.  [I translated it later: Cruel Paradise.]

The book incited so much interest that the Leeuwarder Courant, Friesland’s main newspaper, decided to sponsor a symposium on the topic of emigration.

Researcher Annemieke Galema who wrote a book on the emigration wave of the 19^th century (Frisians to America, 1880-1914: With the baggage), author Hylke Speerstra, and I were invited to be presenters to an audience of more than 500 in the Harmonie Hall in Leeuwarden, in October 1999.

[Note: the speech that follows was given in Frisian, which version is my blog entry of January 2012]

THE IMMIGRANT ADVENTURE: The Quest to Belong

Speech given at a Symposium on Emigration, held in Ljouwert (Leeuwarden) in October 1999, featuring talks by Dr. Henry J. Baron and Dr. Annemieke Galema, and an interview with the author Hylke Speerstra.

________________________________________

 Introduction

I'm very grateful to Hylke Speerstra and Pieter Sijpersma from the Leeuwarder Courant, because I'm really happy to be participating in this event. The subject of emigration is, after all, close to my heart.

Body

I've had my nose in the books practically all my life. The "School with the Bible" in Opende couldn’t boast of a large library in the 40s; I must’ve read through the whole collection at least twice. The reading and teaching of literature eventually became my profession; literature that reveals all the ways in which human kind practices its humanity and inhumanity. And in literature one soon discovers that a person, in order to remain human, has certain basic needs. One of the most important is a sense of belonging. A feeling that one is part of things. We need it for security. It gives us a feeling of satisfaction. It gives a sense of significance, the conviction that our life has value and meaning, for we cannot live without that.

 Not really. But the immigrant experience jeopardizes that sense of belonging. Now it’s true, that sometimes, when people feel they don’t belong, they don’t count, they have no standing or they’ve lost it, they flee: they emigrate, to pursue that quest in another place. But more often, I think, the decision to emigrate is made without much thought of that basic need to belong.

However, it quickly raises its insistent cry when the immigrants wake up in a strange place where they don’t know anybody, don’t understand anybody, and feel estranged from the culture.

 Let me give you some examples.

After our arrival in Hoboken, NJ, in May of 1948, we took the train from one end of the land to the other. I had had one year of ULO (middle school)-English , and I thought I knew something about the pronunciation system of the language. So I asked a fellow passenger: "We stop in Chai-cai-go?" I soon discovered there was no such place, but we definitely would stop in Chicago. We transferred to another train there that would take us all the way to the state of Washington. When passengers asked us how far we were going, I announced confidently, "To Seetle." There wasn't a soul that had ever heard of "Seetle." Fortunately we did make it to Seattle eventually, but my confidence in what I knew of English plummeted dramatically. We were very much strangers in a foreign land, objects of curiosity and even entertainment.

I worked in the fields that first summer, picking strawberries and then raspberries weeks after landing in the new land. The many other boys and girls I worked with became my language teachers. During the first few weeks they would tell me to deliver messages to the field boss. Well, I was eager to please, of course, for that sense of belonging, you know? But I still had no idea what the words I was to say meant. So I go to the boss with the message of my new friends, and I say without realizing what I said: "You’re full of shit." And another time: "Move your ass." And “Fuck you!” I sort of enjoyed that my new friends got such a kick out of that, much more so than my boss, of course. (Fortunately, she was blessed with understanding and later gave me a private lesson in the meaning of some vocabulary words.)

I wasn’t going to the ULO anymore, but I learned a lot of English that first summer.

The point is that language functions as perhaps our strongest bond of connection.

 Here’s another illustration. A group of us meets every other week for lunch. We call ourselves, just for the fun of it, "the Frisian Lunchers." Nearly all of us are offspring of first generation Frisian immigrants. We range in age from 60 to 80-plus. Not all of us are in the same profession or belong to the same political party. For nearly all of us English is or has become our first language. We get together because we love to practice the language of our parents, even if it’s rather brokenly. It links us together. No matter where we meet each other, in a store or on the street or at a concert, our greeting is likely to be in Frisian, creating an instant bond. Moreover, because in the States Frisian functions as our second language, it doesn’t have to be perfect to make us feel that we have a shared identity, that we belong together.

 But when language fails as the language of the land where you live, the connection is jeopardized or broken. And that was often the case with immigrants.

 I remember what a struggle my dad had with the new language at age 52. How frustrated he would get when he had to communicate with the farmer with whom he was in partnership and didn’t have the words. And Dad was a man who never had to search for a word, because he was a reader and facile with his pen. Now he had to depend on his children to find the right words for him. It’s not hard to imagine how frustrating that must’ve been for him. How could the immigrants feel at home without knowing the language of the new land!

 When you finally gain some mastery over the new language and you can handle it well, but still it's not altogether right and there's still a thick, foreign accent, your tongue is a constant reminder that you don’t quite belong, that you’re different.

Does that explain my struggle I alluded to at the beginning? It’s a struggle, self-conscious or not, that plagues nearly every immigrant who came to their new country too old to fully master the new language. It’s the reason that typically immigrant children at a certain age would feel embarrassed by their parents and tried to distance themselves from their parental roots. It’s one of the reasons that I, because I don’t have native fluency in Frisian and Dutch anymore, don’t and can’t feel as much at home here as I do in the States. It’s an important reason that most immigrants never quite come to feel at home in their adopted land.

 But if language jeopardizes their necessary sense of belonging, what then takes its place?

 For many immigrants, that’s been the church... the church where they could listen to sermons in their own language... where everything was familiar. Where everything could and should stay as it had always been for them: the doctrines and interpretations, the points of view and practices, the liturgy and the music. Where they could meet and talk with fellow immigrants in their own tongue. Where they could feel at home; where they could belong. Church: the safe haven in a sea of change that sometimes threatened to swallow them; the point of stability when everything else was in flux.

Not every immigrant belonged to the church, of course. Those that didn't often had an even more difficult time with loneliness. They tried to establish Frisian societies, but that succeeded only in those large cities where many immigrants had settled.

 My leitmotif in this talk is "the quest to belong." The language, I said, had much to do with that quest, but there were other problems as well.

 To accelerate their sense of belonging as children, they would have to attend school, of course. I had finished grade school already, really, but my parents on the advice of others decided to send me to 8th grade to gain a full mastery of the language. (If they hadn't done that, well, I hardly dare think how differently my life might've turned out.)

 So I went to school. But first shopping with mom for some new school clothes. We couldn't afford much, of course, for it was slim picking at first. But mom wanted her son, named after grandpa Hoekstra, to be well dressed. That good-looking wool pants with the nice-colored thread was a bit more expensive than the ordinary cotton pants, but OK, her son needed to make a good impression, after all.

 But that turned out quite the other way. All the boys had cotton pants, while I was in my dressy pants that was good enough to wear to church. As a new young fellow going to a foreign school in a foreign land you want to be as inconspicuous as possible. But I wore the wrong kind of pants. Everything went wrong. It was a situation something like Joseph and the many-colored coat. The 6th grade boys teased me mercilessly. So poor mom had to go back to the store to buy new cotton pants.

 For young folk between the age of 12 and 18 the quest to belong is especially an urgent and important one. That was often a problem for children of immigrants. In the first years for me too.

 A couple of other immigrant boys were in the 8th grade with me. That was good for some company, on the one hand. But there was another side: the more you would hang out with other immigrants, the more you were separated from the other kids you really wanted to be a part of.

 And then there was sport. As boys you really wanted to participate in sports, of course. But the sport wasn't soccer but basketball and baseball, and you knew nothing about those sports. All you could do was watch kind of helplessly, and the teachers didn't have time, naturally, to start teaching you some of the basics. So the quest to belong was frustrated here too.

 And then the girls. I already had an eye for cute girls. But most of the cute girls didn't want to have much to do with immigrant boys. Those girls had their own quest to belong, to be sure, and because immigrants were pretty low on the totem pole, the cutest and best looking turned their backs to us.

 Most Frisian immigrant children at that time were finished with their education after 8th grade. Though I wanted to continue, I too quit school. It was a difficult time for my parents, and as children we had to help out. But, of course, that also meant that you hardly had anything to do anymore with the young people of your own age who were still in school. I recall that time of the immigrant adventure still very clearly. Sometimes when I'd be working in the field with the tractor, my thoughts would wander back to the fatherland, to the fields around our farm where I knew every gully and thorn bush, and to the relatives and friends we had left behind. It would catch me by surprise, but all of a sudden the tears would come and a profound feeling of homesickness would momentarily weigh on my heart. Maybe that's why I started to write letters to girls in Friesland and other places in the Netherlands. But it's not easy to stick a date inside a letter, so that finally didn't go anywhere.

"The quest to belong" in the new land, however, continued, for the parents, but also for the children. And as the church played a role in the life of the parents, it often did likewise in the life of the children. In my church--and later on I attended a different church from my parents--I became a leader of the young people's society, a singer in a male quartet, became friends with non-immigrant young people, and gradually became completely integrated into the spiritual and cultural and social life of my second country. The church for me has always been a very positive influence. And it still is. And I'm grateful for that.

 I could, of course, go on to talk in detail about a lot of other things. About what happens when the church changes too. About the years of hard work for most immigrants before the future began to look a little brighter. About the ambitions of immigrant children and the remarkable success achieved by so many of the first and second generation. But we have Galema's book and Speerstra’s book, and we're still going to have a discussion period.

 Let me end on a personal note; and I wish that my dad and mom could’ve heard me say this, especially right here in the capital of Fryslân, for I think it would’ve warmed their hearts.

I don’t know why my parents emigrated. I regret that for them, for the most part, it turned into "it wrede paradys," especially because dad died before he had the chance to enjoy the heavy labor of his hands. But my brother and sisters will always be grateful that they did, for it has enriched our lives immeasurably.

[I must add something here too, at my wife’s request. She said on the way to the airport where she was dropping me off, "Tell them that your wife is grateful too." Wasn’t that sweet of her?]

Emigration opened up a New World of experience and opportunity in a land we have come to love. But it also intensified our connections to the Old World, our fatherland with its unique beauty and identity; the place of our roots, of the family we left behind: uncles and aunts and many cousins. We’ve kept coming back to all of it because it still fulfills for us our own "quest to belong."

THE CROSSING: a family’s emigrant journey

[tr. from the Dutch diary I kept just before, during, and right after the journey of the Baron family when it emigrated from Opende, Gr. to Lynden, Washington in l948]

  Notes: I tried my rudimentary school English a bit now and again, such as in the “preface,” indicated by quote marks:

“In this book is written the travel to the USA made through the fam. Baron.  This travel is written through Henry Baron.”

Also, I’ve tried hard to retain something of the style of the original.

                                                                                    *-*

May 24, 1948;  Monday evening, 11:30 PM.  Opende

I’m sitting by the table that’s loaded with stuff.  Tante Janke is sitting behind a mountain of buns that she’s buttering.  I have no idea where we’re going to put all that.
Brother Sietze and I just went to pick up Jan Westra. It’s been a terribly busy day.  Handshaking all day long.
Fiancee Bouke and sister Lies are snuggled next to each other on the sofa.
Dad and Mom are getting ready.
Folkert and cousin Griet are sleeping on a bed in the barn, now their barn.
We’re staying up, except Griet and Marijke.
I’ll be glad when it’s 3 o’clock and the bus stands waiting for us.
Well, I’ve made a start:  the rest will simply follow, we hope. 
For now this is enough.

May 25. Tuesday morning.
We did not go to bed.  At twenty-to-three the bus stood by Boonstra’s. At 3:00 we took off.
The bus was not full.  Let me tell who all went along:

-the fam. Baron (7);  -the chauffeur, Oom Martin (1);  -Oom Roel and Tante Luts (2);  -Tante Anke (1);  Oom Andries and Tante Janke (2);  -A. Kuperus (1);  -Tollie (1);  -Albert Baron (1); -Henk Boersma (1);
-Jan Westra (1);  -Bouke Steiger (1);  -altogether 19 people.

The first consternation was Marijke’s vomiting.  The swaying of the bus must have made her sick.
At 3:35 we were in Leeuwarden.  It was almost light enough by then for the lights to be turned off.
Every now and again  Jan Westra would liven up the trip with a little harmonica music.  At 4:20 we were on the Afsluitdijk.  There’s not much else to tell about the trip.
At  5:40 we were in Alkmaar, so we made pretty good time—a good 60 km. on the average, which is pretty good speed for a bus.  
In Velsen by the ferry we discovered that the people from Stroobos who were returning to America stood behind us.   
At 7:30 we were on the outskirts of Den Haag.  There we dropped off A. Kuperus because he had some business to do there.  At 8:15 we were in Rotterdam at the Wilhelminakade.
                                                                           ***

As I am quietly writing all this down, the VEENDAM peacefully continues its journey.  We are now at sea.  Dad and Mom and the others are downstairs in their cabins.  I’m quietly writing in the tearoom, and Sietze is sleeping on a sofa not far from me.
Not much news right now, and it’s gradually getting time to start thinking about dinner.  It’s 6:15 now, and at 6:30 it’s dinner time, so I’ll quit for now.

May 26,  Wednesday,  4 o’clock.
This morning I had a slight case of seasickness.  This is what happened:
I had had a great sleep.  When we sat in the dining room and we were served our meal, I suddenly felt sick.  I couldn’t eat a bite, but I ran as fast as I could to the cabin and threw everything I had in me up into the toilet.  Not a nice start, I thought to myself.  But it didn’t turn out too badly, fortunately.  I went to bed for a while, and then got up again, and I was OK.  I still did feel a bit nauseous, but I sure had improved a lot.
Mom felt worse at first, though.  But when at 10:00 we sighted England and when at 11 or so the boat lay still (to allow the mail to leave and people to board), Mom struggled out of bed.  We went up to the deck, where Mom lay down on a deck chair.  We had a beautiful view of the English coast.  At 1:30 we got underway again.  We were enjoying dinner at the time.
Now we see nothing but water.  And it’s going to be quite a while before we see land again. Sietze and I spent some time in the smoking room where they were showing a sound film.  But we didn’t get much out of it because it was all in English.
Now I’m sitting at a writing table.  Outside it’s blowing a storm.  The boat is going 14 mph.  A fairly good speed.  Sietze is going down to get the camera because there’s still a piece of the English coastline visible.  I’m going to quit now because I’d like to see it, too.
We admired the last view of England’s chalk mountains.  Took a picture of it, too.  That’s fun to do.  Well, I’m going to drink my tea.  Till next time.

May 27,  Thursday morning.  8:30 AM.
All of us had a great night and now are almost ready to go for breakfast.  Oh yes, I should tell of my adventures of last night.  First what came before:
We had met an old Scottish lady.  She talked English, of course.  But we were able to talk together a bit, though it wasn’t easy.  We had had something to drink in the smoking room (where Sietze earned a $1 from her) and took her at about 10:30 to her cabin.  Then we went to our own cabin.  And then it happened:
I had to go to the lavatory.  At the conclusion of that ceremony I was going to wash my hands.  First I turned on the cold faucet.  Then the hot faucet.  And then it happened.  First everything worked normal.   But then all of a sudden the water began to spout out of the side of the faucet.  That scared the dickens out of me.  I adjusted the faucet so that the flow lessened a bit.  For a while I held it like that, but I realized I couldn’t stay standing there like that.  Then I discovered a bell  button.
I thought to myself, let me press that once, maybe somebody will show up.  But to do that, I had to let go of the faucet and the boiling hot water would spout in full force, and the stream was directed right at the spot where the button was.  Still I took a chance at it.  But nobody came.
Then I could think of nothing else to do but to start screaming for Sietze with all my might.  The first to appear was a steward and right after him came Sietze.  The steward said I should take it easy.  “Yes, but sir, take a look at this,” I stuttered.  The steward saw it all too well.  He abandoned us in a hurry to fetch an expert who set things right again.
But that isn’t all.  When after all this we were standing in the hallway, a man emerged from the lavatory dripping wet.  He had been on the toilet and then got the full shot from the piping hot water right on his brand new suit.  What an experience:  “What kind of an outfit is this here,” he said.
We had ourselves quite a laugh then.

Now it’s 11:00 o’clock.  I’m writing this in bed.  We’ve had a wonderful fun day since I started feeling sick again.  But I quickly headed for the deck and lay in Coopman’s chair (he’s really a good fellow) and didn’t go down again for the rest of the morning.  But it didn’t get any better.   At about 10:00 I fell asleep and had a good nap for a couple of hours.  I threw up just a bit.  Sister Griet had a worse case and Mom was bad off too.  I didn’t go for dinner at noon.  I just stayed in my deck chair.  But around 3:00 I tried again and fortunately it went well.  I walked around a bit and gradually started feeling better.  Tonight I enjoyed eating in the dining room again.  Griet didn’t.
We’re really enjoying the Veendam.  The days fly by.  Lies seems to be enjoying herself, too.  Nothing bothers her—not seasickness nor homesickness.  You see, that’s how it should be.  Bouke has nothing to worry about.
Tonight we watched boxing a while with Chris Kooistra.  His brother Jelle was sick in bed too.  All in all the evening passed quickly, and now it’s 11:00 already.
Readers, listeners (in case someone should be reading this to you) I’m going to end this again for now and will try to catch myself a nice snooze.  “Good-night!”

May 29, Saturday evening.  10:30.
I better begin with the beginning again, and that’s of course this morning.  This morning all of us, except Mom, were present in the dining room.  We took Mom upstairs, so that’s a sign that she felt a little better.  But then the sea wasn’t nearly as tumultuous either.
I find the time racing along, so it’s clear that we’re not bored.  We’ve been playing games, such as ring throwing, table tennis, etc.
And now it’s night already again.  Pretty soon when I go to bed I’ll have to set back my watch another hour.  That’ll be the third time.  In Holland now it’s quarter-to-one.
I’m sitting in a very quiet spot here.  Everybody is sleeping peacefully while I’m writing at a writing desk.  Yes, we have a desk in our cabin.  Rather nice, eh?  I can hear the ocean roar below me.  Very interesting!  Well, people, tomorrow is another day, so “Cheerio!”

May 30, Sunday evening, Dutch time about 2 o’clock
So,  there they’re in deep rest.  My watch says 10 o’clock.  I’ve turned it back an hour for the fourth time.
This morning all of us except Mom made it to the dining room again.  They brought Mom some food in our cabin.  After that I played some table tennis and to the church service at 10:00 in the tourist class lounge. (We are first class passengers because the tourist class was full.) Well, it wasn’t a very good preacher, to be sure.  First we sang some hymns, then some scripture readings.  Then a short meditation, and after that the people could request some more numbers for us to sing together.  At 11:30 it was all done.
We didn’t do much in the afternoon.  This is a very strange Sunday, one we’ll not likely experience again for some time.  By next Sunday we’ll be a long ways from here.  The weather was beautiful today.
Two were missing at our table tonight, namely Mom and Marijke.  The little tyke was in need of sleep.  After mealtime we spent most of the night on the lower deck visiting Kooistra’s.  We did some singing, etc.  At 9:15 there was another service, but we didn’t go.  Dad and Mom did, though.
I’m the last one again tonight, so I better end this.  People, goodnight, and people in the fatherland, sleep well!

May 31, Monday evening, 10 o’clock
I just moved my watch back an half hour, so not an hour this time.
Well, I’ll make it short this time.  There’s not much news to tell.
It was a beautiful day today.  This noon there were nine of us gathered around the dinner table, namely our own whole family and Beverly and Elizabeth Commager.  Both of those are girls who talk English and don’t understand us, but still they’re always with us.
Marijke raises a fuss every night.  Last night was another really bad one.  There’s an old man in the cabin next to ours.  He’s bothered by all the racket and then he knocks with all his might on the wall.  And once awake, he told us, he can’t get back to sleep again.  Well, he turned in a complaint on us, and now we’re going to try something else.  Dad is going to sleep in our cabin and Griet is moving to 109.

June 1. Tuesday morning.  11:00 o’clock.
I’m sitting at a table here in the smoking room with Sietze.  A steward just brought us bouillon.
It went well with Marijke last night.  She never gave a peep.  But at 6:30 she started calling for Mom.  But Dad had her quiet in a hurry.
When I woke up this morning I heard the foghorn.  A thick fog hung over the ocean.  But at around 10:00 the sun broke through and by now the mist has cleared up to such a point that the foghorn is now silent.  Otherwise it sounded every minute.
The trip is coming along nicely.  We’re far past the halfway point.
Every night they deliver a paper to our cabin—“The Oceanpost.”  It includes the news of the whole world.
Well, I’ve told most of the news now.  Oh, yes, I forgot to tell that there’s a kind of theater on the ship.  They show movies there every day.
In the evenings at 9:15 there’s entertainment in the dining room of the tourist class.  Till 10:30 there wasn’t much fun. They played with cards with numbers on them.  Somebody called off certain numbers all the time, and when the number appeared on your card you’d have to put a red tag on the number.
Whoever had the completed card would get 50 cents.  But at 10:30 things got a lot better.  A magician was going to demonstrate his tricks.  The magician was a waiter from the first class.  All of his tricks were really worth seeing.  I’ll describe a couple of them.
He took two small balls in his hand—in the right hand a red one and in the other a white.  Then he made some motions, blew some air over them, and both balls disappeared.  Then again a white ball in his right hand and in the other a red one.  I couldn’t follow so quickly how he did that.  And so there were all sorts of tricks that made you watch with amazement.
It’s really interesting to see something like that.  It was 11:30 before we got to bed sound and safe.

June 2.  Wednesday morning
It’s 11 o’clock, and therefore 4 o’clock in Holland.  Right now I’m peacefully scribbling in the library or non-smoking room.  I just enjoyed a cup of bouillon with a cookie.  The service is fine here, to be sure.
It’s getting warmer, let me tell you.  Time for the jacket to come off.  The boat makes a lot more motion now, too, which means that Mom is getting worse again.
The voyage will soon come to an end now.  I believe we’re supposed to arrive in New York at 4:00 on Friday.
This afternoon at 5 we took a bath.  That was nicely refreshing.  Sietze didn’t feel like taking a bath.
I had a scare this afternoon.  I came to the discovery that my watch cover was gone and that only one hand was left.  What a pain!  And I couldn’t figure out for the life of me how that ever happened.  Anyway, nothing I can do about it now.  I put the watch away; it’s no good like this.  And the funny thing is that the watch was still running.
People, it’s a late night again.  So it’s high time for this “little boy” to get to bed!

June 3.  Thursday evening.  10:30.
I’m alone in the cabin.  Sietze and Lies are still in the tourist class where they’re enjoying a jolly party.  They have singing and readings, etc.  Really fun.  Griet and Marijke are asleep.
I have the chance now to catch up on this diary a bit.
The dining room was beautiful tonight.  They had the whole place decorated.  And there were all kinds of goodies on the long table and a decorative centerpiece with the words “Au Revoir!”  Well, I thought to myself, that might be a long time before you see me again.  But let’s hope for the best.
Griet and Marijke are lucky.  I picked up 6 balloons for them from the dining room.
In the meantime the boat just keeps on steaming along.  The foghorn blasts continually because it’s very foggy again.
A lady stopped me a moment ago to ask me if she could use my mouth harmonica.  Well, I didn’t understand her too well because she said it in English, but I did figure out what she meant.  I told her that Lies had it in her pocket and I didn’t know where she was.  Well, if I then would be so kind to find her?  And she dropped an American quarter in my pocket.  Well, at that point I couldn’t very well refuse her, right?  So I went to the lounge, and sure enough, there they were!  I got the thing and went back upstairs.  But they sure had a lot of fun in that lounge.  The lady was still waiting, so I gave it to her.  Tomorrow morning she is going to return it.
I must have sent at least 10 picture postcards of this boat to the Netherlands today.  Really!
Now I‘ve never said anything yet about my best friend.  His name is Casperd Coopman.  He is 55.  He is Belgian by birth.  Lives in Hawaii, I think.  I believe he is a priest.  Blue eyes and always jolly.  There you have him—my friend.  He’s an awful lot of fun.  I often play table billiards with him—for the championship.
Dear folks, I’m just about talked out.  Dad and Mom better not know that I’m still here, because I was supposed to go to bed early tonight, and now it did get late again.
So, till tomorrow!  Dididididadida!

June 5. Saturday morning.  7:30 PM.
I’m writing at a table in the dining-smoking car of the train on the way to Chicago.  Dad is in the dining car sitting next to a man, waiting for something to eat while Sietze and I are in the connected smoking car.
I will try to recall all the recent experiences.  I’ll make it short. 
Yesterday morning, Friday the 4^th of June, we really kept our eyes peeled.  There was something new to see all the time. First, all the airplanes that came circling overhead.  Then the small and big pleasure and fishing boats, etc.  Around 10:00, a harbor pilot boarded ship.  An hour later the customs people.  Something new going on all the time—a sign  that we were reaching the end of our voyage.
At 12:00 we had to eat.  When we finished at 12:45, we lay motionless in the water.  We were on the Hudson River.  But after 15 minutes we were moving again.  In the distance we could see the Statue of Liberty.  In another half hour we were there.
At the dock of the Holland-America Line we saw the Nieuw Amsterdam.  Yet another half hour and we were finally at our destination.
Meanwhile Dad had to show the papers, etc., so that around 3:30 we could finally leave ship. But that still wasn’t the end of it.
More next time.

                                             TRAIN TRIP:  NEW YORK-CHICAGO-SEATTLE-BELLINGHAM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                          June 6, Sunday evening, 9:15.
I’m in the smoking car again.  Not far from me lies Sietze because we are going to try to sleep here tonight.  We’re now on the way to Seattle.  But first I have to catch up.
When we stepped off the boat, we walked to a large area where all the First Class passengers gathered with their baggage.  A lady from the Seaman’s Home took us there.  We must have waited there at least two hours before they inspected our baggage.  It was then that we experienced the inconvenience of not being able to speak the language.  When our turn came up, though, things went very quickly.  Fortunately we didn’t get a real tough customs inspector.  We saw the Kooistras again too.
A brother of Oom Gilbert took us to the Seaman’s Home.  He was going to take the Nieuw Amsterdam to Holland the next day.  He also in part arranged the train trip for us.  The Kosters had already left.
We spent about an hour in the Seaman’s Home.  We bought a few things there, such as candy and bread, etc.  Then on to the station.  We left New York around 7:45.  It got dark before long, and then we had to try to get to sleep.  That wasn’t easy, but eventually you get used to everything.  Of course, you don’t sleep nearly as well as in bed.
We woke up early the next morning.  It gets dark early at night and light early in the morning here.
At first there wasn’t too much to see but when we got closer to Chicago the landscape improved.  I won’t say much about it because then I’ll never finish.  It’s better to experience and see it for yourself than to describe it.  We haven’t seen any mountains yet.
On Saturday, June 5, at around 5 o’clock we arrived in Chicago.  We had to transfer to another station, and there they told us that we could depart at 11:15.  So, a wait of 6 hours.  That’s a long wait.  How to spend all this time?  Well, we ate first.  It was almost 7:30 already when we finished.  We still had to take care of some things then, like tickets and information.  We also bought some candy, drinks, timetables, etc.  (Yuk, it’s miserably hard to write on the train.)  We did some window shopping and looked at a tape recorder and went into one of those booths where you can take a picture of yourself.  That works like this:   You deposit a quarter in a slot.  Then you see a bright light.  When you’d hear the quarter drop, they snap the picture.  Then you’d hear all sorts of sounds inside the machine and within 5 minutes you’d have the photo inside a neat frame on hand.  Unfortunately I didn’t have a quarter left.
Mom and Marijke slept.  At 10:30 a lady came to bring us to the train.  First we bought some apples, and then to the train.  That was quite strenuous, because we had quite a load to carry.  All of us were relieved when at last we sat safe and sound in the train.  This then would be our “home” for a few days.  By now we really began to look forward to the end, but there would still be lots to see before getting there. 
What a strange Sunday we had, like one I never experienced before and maybe never again.  Sunday on the train.  We stopped often.  I don’t like that.  But we knew the time of our arrival, and that is Tuesday morning at 7:30.  We took food along out of Chicago and in the train we bought our drinks.  In Milwaukee we bought some candy.
We didn’t get bored because there was a lot to see.  Beautiful scenery.  And you won’t believe the number of cars we saw—thousands of them.  We’re not used to that.
Sietze and I decided to sleep in the smoking car at night.  It’s quiet there and we’re able to stretch out.  But it took quite a while before we could settle down.  People kept coming in and then it’s hard to go to sleep.  But at last we went ahead anyway.  The people just kept sitting around and we got sleepy.  This is the first night that we slept well.

June 7.  Monday, 2:00 o’clock.
We can’t stop looking.  The world is beautiful here.  High mountains with eternal snow.  It’s simply indescribable.
Now and again it gets completely dark.  That’s when we go under a mountain.  Sometimes fairly long, sometimes short.  Or we twist our way up a mountain.  I’m looking right at the mountains now, covered with evergreens.  A beautiful sight.
It’s very warm outside here.  That’s not for me.  It makes you sleepy.  I better quit for a while now.
Till the next time.

OK, here we are again.  It’s evening now, 8:30.  The clock’s set back another hour.
This afternoon we enjoyed the beautiful scenery around us.  Mountains and more mountains.  High ones with snowy peaks, and smaller ones too.  And the train just kept twisting through it all—now climbing a mountain and then again going through it for a ways.  We had a great time!
Gradually we’re getting closer to our goal.  The three days which at first we dreaded haven’t been bad at all and have gone rather quickly, it seems to me.
The train is way late; I hope it’ll do some catching up tonight or else we won’t get there by 7:30 in the morning.
We did some singing a little while ago.  A couple of ladies liked that so we roared ourselves hoarse to the accompaniment of the mouth organ.  I’ll put down my pen again for now.  Till tomorrow.  “Good Night!”

June 9.  Wednesday.  9:30 PM.
I’m sitting here in the front room by Oom Gilbert and Tante Jeanette.  We’ve just finished eating.  Late, right?  But it isn’t like this all the time.
Let me start by telling about yesterday’s experiences.
At 7:05 on Tuesday morning we arrived in Seattle.  First we saw a huge airport with all kinds of airplanes, large and small.  A lady was waiting for us at the train station to help us.  Oom G. and Tante J were not there.  I’ll tell you why pretty soon.  The lady took us to the waiting room.  Then she called Oom G. and Tante J.
Let me tell you now why they weren’t there.  There were other reasons, too, but they are of lesser importance.  They had gotten confused by the three brothers Koster who went here for three weeks of vacation.  They left New York before us and therefore arrived before us too.  And the agreement was that all of us were going to get picked up together from Seattle.  So that’s how things got tangled up.
In spite of all that, we got here OK.  Dad and Mom talked with Tante J. a while on the telephone.  They were going to pick us up in Bellingham. So, we bought tickets, etc., and then on to another station.  At 8:30 we were on the train.  The last lap is always the toughest.  I think that’s true.  I got a headache and lost all my pep.  I tried to sleep and succeeded for a little while.  We thought we’d arrive at 11, but it turned out to be 11:45.  That was a long time.  We all were glad to be here.
It was unbearably hot on the train besides.  We did get to see some nice scenery again.  But all of us were very happy to finally get there.
When we got off the train we spotted familiar faces at once.  Oom G. and Tante J. as well as Meindert Tjoelker with his wife.  Then in the cars and off.   We  drove through Lynden.   It looks like a nice place to me.   Nice  surroundings, too.  At 12:30 we arrived at Oom G. and Tante J.  There we were treated to a wonderful dinner.  Tjoelker and wife also stayed for dinner.  It tasted terrific after such a long trip.  Since Friday we had not had a warm meal.  We really received a very warm welcome here.  It couldn’t have been better.
And now I will record the experiences ahead of us in the other journal.  Thus I have reached the end of my story.  The handwriting wasn’t always the best, but the boat and the train share the blame for that.

Readers, I hope you’ve enjoyed this,  then the effort of the writer is rewarded.  So this is then the conclusion of this diary.
“End of this little daybook.”

 

.

  

Christmas Eve: a Ratfink Story

(My children will remember many a bedtime Ratfink story I would share with them.  They are no longer at a bedtime story age.  Occasional nostalgia attacks make a parent miss those times.  But maybe we can gather around the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve, and revisit our Ratfink.)

It was Christmas Eve, and Ratfink was home all by himself.

Ratfink had always lived alone, ever since he had run away at age 16.

But he couldn’t run away from the world, though he had wanted to.

Instead he lived in a simple cabin, close to the woods.

It was quiet there and private, a place where he could be himself: a loner with a chip on his shoulder.

Except that a month ago, his private domain had been invaded by another loner.

A big burly bearded brute of a man with one eye and a bad limp had set a little old house-trailer only 200 yards away from him.

One-eyed Sam had a terrible temper, especially when he was drunk, and that was nearly every day.

One early evening he had been roaring and raging around his place when he spotted Ratfink coming out of his cabin. 

He had come swaying toward Ratfink, cursing and threatening to skin him alive if he set one step on his yard.  Then he sicced his pit bull on Ratfink, and the big dog had come flying, fangs bared and the kill-look in his eyes.

Ratfink had just managed to get back inside his cabin and slammed the door shut when the dog had thrown his full weight against it. 

But the door was sturdy and had held. 

More fury than fear had made Ratfink shake.

His whole body shook, and his hands rolled into fists.

Nothing could make him more incensed than to be cursed and yelled at as if he were a stupid cow.

It’s what he had tried to escape, and now the worst of all plagues had moved next to him.

Now it was Christmas Eve, and Ratfink sat close to his woodstove, cleaning his gun, the gun he used now and then for hunting in the woods. 

The gun he intended to use on his neighbor’s dog, should he ever be threatened again.

He cleaned and polished in the light of the kerosene lamp he had placed close to him.

Then he heard a fierce barking, coming closer, closer, then right at his cabin’s front door.

The rage rose in Ratfink again. 

He quickly re-assembled his gun, slid a bullet in the chamber, and cautiously advanced toward the door.

But the barking had now changed to whining and whimpering. 

The dog was scratching on the door, as if begging for someone’s attention.

Ratfink paused, puzzled.  He wondered if it was Sam’s dog and what it was trying to do.

The dog’s whimpering and scratching was becoming more urgent.  When it barked, there was no threat in it.

Ratfink opened the door just a tad, his gun at the ready still, his rage now mixed with curiosity.

He saw the hated pit bull now in the moonlight reflecting off the snow.

The dog did not attack but turned toward the trailer, barked, turned his head toward Ratfink, as if pleading him to follow, then ran ahead a ways before stopping again, waiting for Ratfink to come.

And Ratfink did come, his gun cradled in his arm. 

He did not want to come. 

He hated that dog and he hated one-eyed Sam even more.

He’d just as soon shoot both and have them out of his life for good.

Yet he followed the dog to that dilapidated trailer, as if compelled by another force that negated his will.

The pit bull led him to the trailer’s open door.

Ratfink paused there, wondering if he was walking into a trap.

He remembered Sam’s threat of skinning him alive if he set foot near his place.

Now he was about to go inside, and he held his gun in firing position, just in case.

The dog had preceded him and now stood whimpering by his master’s body, slumped on the floor near his chair, a handgun and an empty whiskey bottle few feet away.

Ratfink took in the gory scene and hesitated.

He could just leave and pretend he knew nothing.

Sam would die, or maybe he was dead already, and that would be that: good riddance.

He half turned to follow the impulse, but the dog was already at the door, barring the way.

Then this other force, so strange, seemed to surge deep inside again.

He bent over wild Sam, checked for a pulse, found a faint one, and saw the blood oozing from his chest.

Now the other force took over fully: Ratfink took out his pocket knife, cut away the shirt, uncovered the wound, cut a strip of shirt, placed it over the bullet hole, took off his own flannel shirt, folded it several times into a narrow band and bound it tightly over the wound and around Sam’s chest.

There was no telephone; and there were no other neighbors.

Sam was too heavy to carry; only one thing to do, and that was to drag him.

Ratfink grabbed a blanket off the nearby bed, rolled Sam onto it, and began to drag him toward the door.

Then he ran to get his pickup, backed it up to the trailer, and somehow wrestled Sam onto the flatbed where he covered him with all the blankets and burlap bags he could find.

When the pit bull had jumped in too, he raised and locked the gate in place.

The nearest hospital was 17 miles away.

He had no idea he would make it in time.

Before jumping in the cab, Ratfink got an impulse to look up to the clear star-lit sky.

One star, directly overhead, seemed to glitter more brightly than the others.

For the first time in a long time, Ratfink felt clean and good.

He almost smiled when he remembered it was Christmas Eve.

What have you done with the Child?

                                                    

Aukje dropped a couple of oranges, a few chocolate bars, and two dried sausages in her daughter’s large weekend bag.  Each time when her girl took off again after her days off, there was a surprise from mom between the clothes.  Well, okay, they both played a part in the game.  In the evening, the telephone would be sure to ring with Femke’s thanks for the goodies.
Now she came rushing down the stairs.  “What time is it, do I still have time for a cup of tea?  De bus won’t wait, of course.” There was just enough time.
“How about Christmas, are you going to be able to come home?” her mom asked.
“I do have off; I have to work both old and New Year’s.  To be honest, I’ve told Aart and Bram that they’re invited to eat with Guy and me on Christmas Day.”  She followed up with a hesitant: “Otherwise they can come with us over here, if that’s okay with you.”
“Who are Aart and Bram?”
“Two of my students.  Bram has no family and Aart’s parents kind of abandoned him.  He’s 18, but he won’t advance beyond the age of twelve.  On top of that, he always wets himself at night.  I’m not sure you’re up to that, mom.”

Aukje thought about her nice, clean beds.  A big strange fellow like that and then wetting everything!  Her daughter always did something weird like that.  Still, at Christmas time one really should do something for another and that’s why she said mildly: “Your friends are welcome here and we’ll manage with the bedding.  We will celebrate in our own way, of course.  A tree and something extra with the coffee and the dinner.”

She remembered last year when Femke called and asked how they had spent the day.  She hardly took time to listen to her mom, because she was so full of her own experiences of the day.  A group of twenty, all colleagues and friends.  One had put twenty-five guilders on the table. The meal consisted of stamppot, sauerkraut, and for each a small slice of sausage, and with the coffee a small piece of coffee cake.
“We had a good time, mom.”  She could still hear her say it.  The money that was left they sent to a children’s home in Brazil.

“I have to go and I’ll let you know what we’re going to do.”

Aukje walked along to the bus stop and waved her daughter goodbye.

Full of thoughts she walked back to the house.  What would Folkert say when they’d sit in church with three total stangers?  Guy, Femke’s friend, had been over only once before.  They couldn’t understand him.  Femke translated and so they really didn’t have a conversation with him.  He did his best to learn Dutch.  That wasn’t easy when you only know Portuguese and a bit of English.  Fortunately he could play a little chess, with Folkert winning both games, so that helped some.

The girl had been in a good mood lately.  But she could come up with some strange reactions.  To mom’s suggestion that they spend an afternoon at Klaske’s, the other daughter, she had reacted mockingly: “Sure, let’s make the rounds of admiring Klaske’s house, garden, and kitchen.”

The two little girls of Jurjen and Klaske had had a lot of fun with aunt Fem.  She really knew how to give them a fun time.  To the other children she seemed different.  That was no doubt because she worked with the handicapped in the big city.  City life in Utrecht was a lot different from life in a small village.

Lately she took offense at nearly everything.  When dad said that the foreigners had landed in the butter here, she could retort sharply.  “Didn’t those poor wretches have a right to a better life?  To shelter and freedom?” 
Don’t say anything, Aukje thought, that’s how they could maintain a little peace.  She could easily put up with that for a couple of days.

She, Aukje, had made excerpts from books which Femke had to read for her exam.  Needlework was the most difficult course for the girl, but mom was always in the background and had managed to help Femke get a good mark.  And now, she had so much trouble to simply let the child go her own way.  Sometimes she would get one reproach after another flung at her.
“You want me to become a duplicate of you and Klaske.  Marry a nice boy from the town and a year later push a child in a stroller.  And you knitting socks and jumpers.  Yuk!  Yuk!!  I don’t think it’s responsible to bring children into this dirty, miserable, egotistical, racist, and whatever I can think of besides, kind of world.”
Aukje was thinking that it would get better with time.  When she’d meet her true love, who knows but that she would change.  That it had to be that Guy fellow, Aukje could not really take seriously.  She would just have to wait.

And indeed a telephone call came from Femke.  She and Guy would come in the afternoon before Christmas Day and would stay one night.  The other two boys declined and would be taken care of by colleagues.  Aukje didn’t mind that one bit.  Now they would be more or less with their own.

In the morning they went to church well in time.  The church towers sent their happy celebration sounds across the village.  The church filled up.  The choir was already seated in front of the pulpit and the grand Christmas tree beamed its light over the congregation.
It was a beautiful, joyous service.  The people that walked out with them afterwards were in complete agreement.  The choir had sung the Christmas cantata so beautifully.  And the soloists, they gave you the shivers.   Femke and Guy walked silently along with them, arms tightly around each other.

But once they were home, she exploded: “So, you found it beautiful!  Not I!  I asked myself: what have the people done with the Child who was born two thousand years ago.  Who for three years showed the people how to treat their neighbor.  You can read it every day in your Bible.  And what do they do here in church?  They’re turning it into a big sweet chocolate truffle, that’s what I thought of it!  Nice singing, some nice poems, and a sermon about peace and love.  Where do we find that today?  Peace?  Do you know what’s happening in the world today?  All those refugees without shelter, warmth, or food?  No, they don’t know about that in this little hamlet.  Dad told us yesterday at least three times that he painted aunt Aal’s kitchen.  Isn’t that great!  My, my, what you don’t do here for another.”
Aukje looked anxiously at Folkert.  His face turned red, the veins stretched taut, and yes, there it came.  “You and your big mouth!  Are you going to read us the riot act here?  Shouldn’t it be up to us what we like?  This is where we live and relate to the people around us.  You….”
 “Oh sure, stay comfortable in your little corner and let others starve.”

Then Guy pulled her with him out of the room.

“Couldn’t you bite your tongue for once, you just spoiled our holidays.”
“Oh of course, you always want to keep the peace, but I’m not going to let me be told off in my own house.  Glad they didn’t take a couple of dim-witted bed wetters along.  That’s all we needed.”
“Quiet, they’ll be able to hear it!”
“So?”  Folkert grabbed the paper and Aukje got busy in the kitchen.  The beautiful church service was now entirely forgotten.  They drank their coffee silently.

Close to twelve the door opened quietly and there stood Femke on the threshold with a tear streaked face.  “Guy tells me I have to apologize.  He says…you live here, it’s different than by us…you lived through the war…had a business, the household, I don’t have the right to…. Each has to take care of the place where he’s settled, Guy says.”
Ït’s okay, dear,”Aukje says warmly, “come in, your stomach must be growling by this time.”

At first, dad doesn’t say much, but in the late afternoon Guy won the chess games.  Or…uh…did Folkert let him win?

Together they brought the young folk to the bus around seven o’clock.  The goodbyes were good, but at the same time a relief.  Aukje didn’t like to have it this way, wasn’t it after all your own child?  But on the inside she felt that the girl was becoming estranged.
They still took a walk through the quiet neighborhood.  In corners and in gardens, also on people’s yards and in almost all the homes lights burned in the Christmas trees.  Light, peaceful light.  In their house it had stormed seriously for a while.  They would not soon forget it.
When they entered their own street again, Folkert said: “Not such a bad boy, really, that Guy, though he’s a foreigner.  I’m thinking all the time what the girl threw at us: What have you done with the Child in those two thousand years?  She is right, we have done nothing with it.”     

                       -Wytske Bakker; my translation from the Frisian

The Lord of Marriage

 [Note: August is a month for weddings; we married on the 7th, 60 years ago.
   This selection from Talking with God was recently shared, in part, during the wedding
    of our granddaughter Lucy to Ami in their home state of Washington.
    I dedicate it to all 20017 wedding couples; but even after 60 years of marriage, the
    prayer still blesses us.  May it do so for others too.]

I don’t know how many weddings you attended, Lord.  In Galilee, I mean.

I’d think, though, after that sensation in Cana, you’d be a popular wedding guest.

Fathers of the bride would vie for your services. 

After all, turning water into wine would knock a big chunk off the total wedding tab.

But we don’t read of any repeat performance.

Maybe you sent your regrets to all the invitations?

I hope you still get invited to lots of weddings.

There’s been a spate of them again this summer.

And I hope you sent regrets for none!  For what’s a wedding without the presence of the Lord of wine, but especially the Lord of Love?

Where does love come from if not from the Maker of man and woman, whom he meant to become one flesh.  And when He gave one to the other, I can imagine that the Creator himself threw Adam and Eve a Garden Party that’s never been equaled in extravagance of sheer beauty and loveliness.

So when bride and groom vow to love each other, to honor and respect each other, to serve and support each other—what would be the weight of all those wonderful words if not said in the name of the Lord?

I hope you were the unseen Host at lots of weddings, Lord.

But when a wedding is over, marriage begins, even when there’s a honeymoon.  Two lives trying to become one.

Not exactly like two streams coming together to form one river.  Not exactly like two lumps of clay kneaded into one.

More like a pair of horses harnessed together to pull the same carriage.  Or two people trying to row the same boat as a team.

That takes some learning!

That’s when those wedding vows get tested.

For Lord, you do not expect the two to cease being uniquely themselves, but that they, as themselves, learn to be husband and wife who are building a relationship, and a life, which reflect the Lord of Love and Life.

Remind them, Lord, that truly loving each other must be learned anew each day, a love that will override the differences that inevitably surface, that will not be waylaid by personal pettiness or a fault-finder’s tongue.

We long for an ideal world where all vows are kept, Lord, where the temperature of love is constant, even when moods swing and the piled-up frustrations of the day are not left behind.

But Lord, you know that we seldom manage to be ideal people for very long.

Dear Lord, keep strong the wedding vows of love pledged in your name.

Help to ward off the invading plagues that can unravel the fabric of a solid marriage, like jealousy, insecurity, inattention, insensitivity, and distrust.

Help all be faithful in what they promised to each other: to honor and respect the other, in word and deed; to serve each other with a giving heart; to support each other when pain and burdens impose their weight.

And Lord, help those who are married to build a life together that’s marked by concern not only for each other, but for others too: a life of compassion for those who suffer, of fervor for seeing justice done, of ardor for the cause of peace, of longing for shalom.  T
Thus may their love flourish and their light shine!

Lord, hear our prayer.

THE COMFORT BIRD

The good news, finally, is that my translation of De treastfûgel/De troostvogel is published and available.

In 2014 and 2015 I wrote an extensive number of excerpts of The Comfort Bird for this blog.  I’m delighted that readers can now enjoy this remarkable true story in toto.

The publisher, Tom Bijvoet of Mokeham Publishing, wrote extensively about the book and this publishing venture in Dutch, the Magazine.

Click the link here, and I think the articles will entice you to get your copy of the book and enjoy the amazing adventure.

Comfort Bird info from DUTCH magazine

The book is available from the publisher, at various locations in Ontario (and if you Google title and author, you'll find it's available in other countries as well), from Amazon, and locally at the Calvin College Campus Store.