Post by Hans on Jun 18, 2006 13:47:26 GMT -5
When the Gospel first came to us, Mother was very moody, and had been praying that if the Lord had His. way on the earth, that He would send help. It was for the benefit of our whole family, because previous to that, Mother would attend her own services, and father would go to his; he'd give money for her to support hers, and he would take for his, but Mother worried because they weren’t one. She said, "We are one in everything except in what we believe. If we're going to be one in Heaven, we should be one here but we're not!" Her pastor would always use Father's side for an example of those who were damned, and it would hurt her terribly. So one Sunday, she decided she'd go to his church, and that Sunday his Priest preached against her side of it, and said, "If we bury (so-and-so) there, we might as well bury that man there, and bury that dog there." My mother said, "That's not right either." So then she began to pray that IF the Lord had His way on the earth, He would send it. A year after that, two of the workers came -two young brothers. One had been in the work five years, and the other three. (Peter Hanson was from Sweden and Hugh Brown from Scotland). They came to our district with the Gospel. Father and Mother both began to read the Bible, because they were seeking for what was right, and when they attended this meeting in the town hall in the town of Houlton, Mother said, "Well, now, there are two of them there. I wonder if that's what we read in the Bible?" Then she remembered where she had read that Jesus sent them out two and two, so she invited them to come over to her house, and she had many questions to ask. They would always turn to the Bible, and read the verse that answered her question. Before they were through with their visit at our place, she was convinced that 'this is what I'm seeking for'. So she went to the Gospel meeting and decided. She was so happy, whereas before that she was always sad, always felt, 'we're not saved’. Father said no matter what he did, she'd be happy for two weeks, and then she'd be sad again. He'd buy her a new dress -- new material. She'd sew it, wear it for two weeks, and then she was sad! He bought a car (in those days they didn't have many cars), and ran around with it for two weeks, and then she was unhappy. After she heard the Gospel and made her choice, she sang all day long, and Father came into the house and said, "If these meetings could do for me what they've done for you, I would go too." (His side of the house never went to any kind of services, hardly even to funerals, because they were taught not to listen to anything else) -- and he went! He went for two weeks -- and after that Father and Mother were one. I started going at that time, and my sister soon after, and then our household was one, because of what the Lord had done for us through the Gospel.
(The following year) It was Herbert Vitzhum's first year in the work, and he came to Abbotsford, Wisconsin, in a tent mission. I was ten years old and they brought in an old organ, and I played the organ for the mission. It was very interesting for me because it was a start, but later on, many years later, Herbert Vitzhum was at a convention in Wisconsin, and he told how many years ago it was since he was in that first mission in Abbotsford, Wisconsin, where Arvid and his relatives attended the mission too. Then he said in the course of his sermon, "Irene sitting here, was ten years old then!” I could see people's brains going like that, figuring, adding up -- so after the meeting I said, "Herbert, I dare you to tell that one again, because now everybody knows how old I am!"
Three years (i.e. two more) passed by. We had convention on the farm - my folks' place, in 1916. (In 1915 it was at Stilberg). This was all so strange. The neighbourhood was divided then. Before that, they were all just a jolly, dancing, card-playing crowd. They'd get together at this home and that home; they'd dance on the barn floor, in the house, or where ever. Then, when the Gospel came, it brought a rift, because those who accepted the truth no longer went. Naturally the workers and the friends were blamed for all of this. The neighbours had all been waiting for a floor to be put into our "wagon shed", as they called it then. Upstairs was the granary, and beneath was where they kept the implements. They wanted that floor to be put in because as soon as the floor was in, they were going to have a dance up there. When the floor was put in, it was for the convention. So they never had the dance.
One year when the convention was on the farm, I was working away from home, but I came home for the convention, and I went into the work. I was one year in Wisconsin, two years in Iowa, and almost two years in Minnesota. Then the way opened up for me and I went to Europe. I was 24 years of age. I was quite young for pioneering, but I had the gumption. I was in Germany that first year with Henrietta Schildt. We later were changed around, and Bessie Corcoran, a little girl from Scotland, was sent to Henrietta, and I had another companion. We lived in a little upstairs granary. We'd come home late it night and it was dark, and beneath we'd either step on a goose's back or get butted by a
goat or something, because they were all downstairs, and where we slept was upstairs. They felt so sorry for Bessie – poor Bessie, and I said, "I wasn't raised in a barn either!" I was the same age as Bessie.
That was the first year. The next year, I was with Bertha Schmidt. We went over to Austria. Ten months before that Arnold Scharmen and his companion, Gustav Ege, had gone to Austria. It being a Catholic country, we had no religious liberty. It was against the law, really, to propagate or tell anything of religion. Arnold had come back to Germany for convention, and said he believed that Austria would be a good field IF they would send reinforcements -- with only two brothers there, it would go too slowly. My companion, Bertha Schmidt, had been sick so we had no field until she was able to go forth again then she was ready to go, we came to Austria. We were riding on a very slow train, like a freight train, because we didn't have funds for a fast train. When we were half an hour's ride from Vienna, the capital of Austria, Arnold said, "You know, it never dawned on me that they would be sending sisters to Austria, because when I asked for reinforcements, I was thinking about brothers coming!" I said, "Arnold, you're twenty three and a half years behind time! Now you've got to put up with us. We're here." We were just entering the city of Vienna.
They had rented a room before they left. Arnold said we should take their room, and they would go down to the city of Graz, which is on the Yugoslavian border. We just exchanged fields. They weren't there but a month when they discovered that the detectives were on their trail. They were dogging their steps -- every place they went they followed them. So he wrote back and asked if we would change fields because they wouldn't know us ~et. Bertha and I went down to Graz, and the brothers came back to Vienna. We were there :our years before the detectives got on our tracks, but we couldn't have any public meetings.
When we arrived in Graz we said, Well. now, what are we going to do? We know not a single soul here. How are we going to get acquainted with people? How are we going to find the needy souls?" And we were not allowed to make ourselves public. But we kneeled down and prayed and we said, "The Lord knows where they are, and the Lord knows how they can be found, if we can't." We had that confidence. To get acquainted with people wasn't so simple. You had to be careful who you were talking to, what you were saying to them, and about inviting them. We'd go to a park and sit down. If there was someone sitting on a bench alone in a park, we'd sit down beside them, so we'd have an excuse to visit.
If nothing opened up, I would drop something on the ground, maybe a book or a handkerchief, and I'd have to stoop and pick it up, and bump them. "Excuse me, please." you have a foreign accent. Where are you from?" "I'm from the States." "What are you
doing here? I'd be so glad if I were living there!" Then we'd explain why we were in Austria. Because they had no knowledge of the Bible, this was all so mysterious to them.
They said, "We'd like to hear a little about "Well, just come on over to our room, and we'll tell you what's in the Bible."
In the course of four years, we made quite a few acquaintances. We’d invite them to our room for Thursday evening for a Bible talk. We never called it a meeting because ‘meeting' was the word that was in the paragraph of the law that said all meetings were prohibited unless the Priest in that area consented to it. We never let him know what we were doing. These were invited guests. We had seventeen coming to our room every Thursday
evening and every evening of the week in different homes. But Thursday evening was spent our room, talking Bible. Everyone had a Bible by that time, and would look up the references because Bibles were very unfamiliar and they were curious to know what was in them. It was very easy to talk to these people and tell them what we were doing and why were doing it. Some had enough light -- enlightenment -- to make a decision. They said, now we know this is Jesus' way, and we want to walk in it. " So they made a start. Others were just beginning to attend, so we had a mixed crowd.
After four years, we knew there were too many of us because the neighbours began to get curious. Someone reported us, so one night three detectives walked in on us, treating us like criminals. They grabbed our Bibles and took them, wrote down the names and the addresses of everyone present, and said we'd all be called to court to answer for what we were doing. There were seventeen in our little room -- we had a very small room. We said, “ We'll come up tomorrow morning; we don't need to wait until we are called, because we can answer for what we have done."
My companion and I, a Swiss girl, Katie Berger, went up the next morning, and tried to explain what we were doing. We said, ‘This was not a meeting; these were our invited guests. We've invited every one of them, and it wasn't conducted on the principles of a public meeting." Four forenoons we spent with them in the courtroom, and after the fourth day was about over with, I decided that these poor men (the room was lined up with lawyers) have never heard the Gospel, and they perhaps never will, but they're going to hear it today! I knew they were trying to get us out of the country, and if they could possibly find a reason, we'd be expelled. Finally, when I finished, one of them said, "Personally, I've nothing against you. This is my position, and I have to execute what I've been hired for." The next one said, "Wish you good luck." So I knew two men were on my side, or sympathetic. One fellow was really antagonistic. It was just twelve o'clock when it was all finished. The church bells were ringing, which meant it was twelve o'clock, and they were going for dinner. They said, "Now go and get the Bibles, (they returned the Bibles) and we'll dismiss the case."
I said to Katie, "This is our chance. We'll take the Bibles to all of these homes, where they came from, because we were warned by one of the men: "We're going to watch You closer than ever because we're going to get the goods on you. We're going to find out what we can do to get you out." I said to Katie, "Now let's rush around to these different homes with the Bibles, while these men are away eating their dinner because afterwards they will be watching us." They were watching whose homes we were affiliated with, and who came to our room. These people were so happy to see us because they wondered when they would be called to court, and some were very timid and frightened. One poor soul said, I didn't know what I would ever tell them if I were called up. " She had only come to our room for about six months and didn’t know too much about how to defend the faith. On her way home that night, she had trembled so terribly she could hardly walk, because she thought, "My turn will be coming next." They were quite relieved when they heard that they wouldn't be called, that the authorities were satisfied with our explanation, but we warned them all not to come anywhere near our room on Thursday night, because we knew that night in particular they would be watching. Those of our friends who understood would drop in anytime of the day on their way home from work or to work and say, 'Let's have a little Bible study now -- why wait until a particular hour?" One man stopped at five o'clock in the afternoon on his way from work. His wife said, "I’ve often wondered when I read about persecution what it would be like. I’m so happy that we can have a little of it now. This was an evidence to her that this was like the Bible days.
Five weeks before that, one of the brothers had passed through and had given us a little card. We listened to see if these lawyers, these detectives, knew anything about this brother, and they didn't, so they hadn't been following us that long. On one occasion I had come down to a shop to get something on our way out to visit someone. A big tall man was standing in this store and when I walked in, he just whirled around on his feet and I, thought, "Why does he do that? He doesn't need to do that, " and I stood and gazed at him. It developed that he was one of the detectives who had been watching us. They knew every home we went to, how long we were in each home, and they had this all down on their papers. They would say, "Tuesday night at seven thirty you were in that home." "Yes. ', "Where did you go Wednesday night at seven-thirty?" They were trying their best to corner us to get us mixed up in our explanations so that they would have something on us.
During the time when we were coming together, a lady from the western part of the country had visited her girlfriend. She had written, "I’m coming to see you. I haven't seen you for seven years, but when I come, I don’t want to know anything about your new religion." Our friend said, "We'll be coming in tonight. When Rosa comes she can just stay home, but we are coming in anyhow." At one o'clock in the afternoon, they appeared, and Rosa was
with them! She didn't stay home at all! All afternoon and all evening she sat in to listen and watch - didn't miss anything. She did that three evenings and then she had to go home. When she returned home, she said, "I hadn't even taken my coat off, and I told my family about what you were doing over there in Graz." They said, "That's just what we want. Write and tell them to come here too." They were waiting for that.
She wrote three different times asking us to come to this western part of the State near the Swiss border. But we said, "We have seventeen people here; we can't up and go. Maybe when we get there, they won't want it at all. Besides, it's a long distance." But when the detectives got after us and threatened us, I was praying the next morning and it was just like a voice said to me, "GO NOW. WHAT'S KEEPING YOU?" I said to Katie, "We'll go now and see what Rosa has to say, what she's like, and by that time the detectives wi11 have forgotten about us, and then we can come back again." But there was another hitch. I ran down to the station to see how much the fare would be to the western part of the State. We counted up every penny we had, even taking apart the linings of our purses to see if we could find another penny. We had just enough to get there. This town was Kitzbuehel. We wrote to Rosa, "We're coming on a certain train." (We took a slow train, like a freight train, changing trains every three or four stops, because it was much cheaper). We didn't know what would happen to us when we got there because we couldn't stay in a hotel or a rooming house, and it was too cold to sleep in a culvert, because it was in April. "But we'll go; we'll see what Rosa wants."
We arrived at a quarter after four in the afternoon, and Rosa and her husband were at the depot to meet us. He picked up our little bag and walked off with it, and she took us by the arm and led us to their little house. They had a very, very small apartment -a little kitchen, a little bedroom, and then there was a little porch on the side where a young man had a rusty knitting machine that he used for knitting socks. In those days rich people from Great Britain (the Prince of Wales and the Royalty) came over to ski and wore big heavy white socks. Rosa would do the hand work because they had no machines to do the ending. The husband would peddle the socks. That is how these three people made their living. The young man that had the rusty knitting machine had this little porch. It was where he lived.
Rosa's husband cooked coffee, and she hung up our coats. Then she said, "We want you to give thanks, but real slowly so we can hear how it's done, because we want you to teach us everything that we’re supposed to do. " I felt like laughing and I felt like crying to think we had worked for four years to get a little bit of interest and now out of the clear blue sky, somebody wants you to teach them everything! We talked until a quarter to twelve, answering questions and talking Bible, and the next day we started at the breakfast table. This kept on for two weeks. They were so curious to know everything. "Teach us everything."
But that first evening, Rosa said, We have just two little narrow beds. My husband and I can sleep together in that one bed, if you two can sleep together in that other bed. ', I felt like saying, "Thank you, Lord, that we are not sleeping under the culvert. You're looking after us. There's a roof over our heads. We're taken care of." After two weeks, they said, We want you to know that we want to walk this way. We're making a start by committing our lives to Jesus." The young man told us he used to go out into the pasture and look up at the stars and would cry, and say, "Lord, if you are up there, send me help. Send me help. " He said, "I had no idea how the Lord was going to do it." The Lord heard that cry, and He sent him help. This was in 1935, and we had convention in this young man's knitting factory until just a few years ago. Now his nephew who decided after Alwilda and I went back, has the convention in his knitting factory, so we still have the conventions there after all these years. That was a good start.