Categories
Poetry

Habits and Change

There is a poem by Portia Nelson that most people who are in recovery from some addiction or destructive habit have read or heard. Although I worked for many years with those who were addicted to a substance, I believe An Autobiography in Five Chapters is a poem that speaks to most of us.

Someone who was interpreting for Joe Ann at an AA meeting in Slovakia told us that he had gotten into a habit of playing games on the computer and that it had become a habit that absorbed more and more of his time and was interfering with what he should have been doing. There are people who spend more time than they want to on social media or watching television or eating the wrong things or any number of things. I believe the reason these habits are so difficult to break is because we experience them as pleasant, a relief from stress, or an escape and we like what we feel. When they become habits we do them unconsciously and they have a life of their own. We are all good at rationalizing, justifying, and minimizing what we don’t want to give up.

If you have a habit that you want to change, think about replacing it with something better. And let someone know that you are working on getting rid of a habit. Ask them to ask you how your doing. I think this statement: “you alone can do it but you cannot do it alone” applies to most of us trying to make significant change.

An Autobiography in Five Chapters 

Chapter 1 
I walk down the street. 
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. 
I fall in. I am lost... I am helpless. 
It isn't my fault. 
It takes me forever to find a way out. 

Chapter 2 
I walk down the same street. 
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. 
I pretend I don't see it.
 I fall in again.
 I can't believe I am in the same place.
 But it isnt my fault.
 It still takes a long time to get out.
 
Chapter 3
 I walk down the street.
 There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
 I see it is there.
 I still fall in ... it's a habit. 
My eyes are open.
 I know where I am.
 It is my fault.
 I get out immediately.

 Chapter 4
 I walk dow the same street.
 There is a deep whole in the sidewalk.
 I walk around it. 

Chapter 5
 I walk down another streer.
Categories
Relationships Self Reflections

The Love of Learning

The image above was painted by my dear friend, Johnni Johnson Scofield, who took up watercolor painting when she was close to 70. I have always called this painting her self-potrait. Johnni loved learning.

Earlier this week my bookcase looked liked this. Then, I invited a young pastor, who is a real student of God’s Word, to come and help himself to what he wanted of Joe Ann’s theological library, half of what you see on these shelves. There is a wealth of theological exposition in those volumes; just looking at them made me feel rich. But like all of our riches, what good are they if they are not used? I picked up a volume of the set of fouteen by Martyn Lloyd-Jones on the book of Romans and paged through it. The underlining and the notes show they were used by Joe Ann. As much as I think I would use that set, I know I will not. Why should they and others be left until I die?

When he left my house, the bookcase looked like this and I was deeply satisfied. The exercise of relinquishing treasured things has been good for me. It was a reminder that there is much more I need to release that can be used by others. I don’t make New Year’s resolutions but I am hoping that I will expend the time and energy in the months ahead to let go of more tangible objects. I suppose the reason I have so many in my storage area is that it is the easiest place to put something I no longer need or use or that is taking up space I want for something else. It takes thought and work to decide what is junk that needs to be discarded, what needs to be given away and where or to whom, and what should be kept and why.

My bookshelves are full again. They now hold books with my notes and underlining. As I sat quietly this morning sipping a cup of coffee with my little dog on my lap, I began to think of intangible things I also need to look at and about which I need to make some decisions. Just as we sort through piles of material things and put them in boxes to be dumped, given away, or kept, I know I have a storage room in my head that needs to be decluttered. There are things there to let go of that are junk and of no use to me or anyone. I have tried over the years not to allow too much of that in my storage area. But there are many more things that if I took them out, unwrapped them, or dusted them off would be wanted and useful to someone.

Don’t we all have things like that we should and could let go of? One of the greatest things I learned from those who see the value of the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and practice them is that they share their experience, strength and hope with others. And those who hear them can take or leave what they want and can use. AA and similar meetings remind me of a potluck where everyone brings something to share and all those attending can take what they want. If you come to a potluck without anything yourself, there is more than enough to go around.

There have been more times than I care to remember when I have left a person or a group and felt stingy. I really hate that word and I hate that feeling. Not offering a word of encouragement. Not acknowledging someone’s pain. Failing to give praise due. Not extending my hand to touch or arms to embrace. Holding back a compliment needed for a good effort or a task completed. Not seeing something and saying something.

I know the greatest gifts we have to give one another are not tangible. I started out writing about the love of learning and it seems that I may have taken a detour. Not really. I have gained much that is intangible from tangible things like books. But maybe more of what I have learned is from the stories of people’s lives spoken and unspoken but shared. I have nothing new to pass on. Like giving away Joe Ann’s used books, I’m just passing along what has been underlined in my own life. Those tested and worn gifts are what I like best from others too.

One man gives freely, yet gains even more: another withholds unduly, but comes to proverty. A generous man will prosper; he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.

Proverbs 11: 24-25

Categories
Slovakia Memoir

A Christmas Celebration

Sitting in my study on Christmas Eve in 2022, while there is a blizzard outside, I am remembering fondly one of my favorite celebrations of Christmas in Slovakia. It took place probably 15 or 16 years ago and was celebrated at the end of a week in July with a group of a dozen children and half that many adults.

For three years in Slovakia we organized summer residential camps for children who had a parent addicted to alcohol. For one week these children between the ages of seven and twelve were out of their normal home environment spending time with adults and other children who understood them and knew what it was like to be growing up in a family where everything revolved around alcohol.

We had decided to make the theme of this particular week of summer camp a celebration of birthdays. Many times children who live with an alcoholic parent don’t have wonderful memories of birthday and holiday celebrations. There are times when a parent doesn’t show up or someone is drunk or maybe there is no celebration. There may be fighting and tension and sometimes more tears than laughter.

We decided we would celebrate every child’s and every adult’s birthday at camp that week. Each day of the week we celebrated all those who had a birthday in a three month period. Monday we celebrated January, February and March birthdays. On Tuesday we celebrated those who had birthdays in April, May and June, and so on through Thursday. Since the children’s parents would come for them on Saturday after lunch, we reserved Friday night to celebrate Christmas and the birth of Jesus.

Paper, and stamp art material, stickers, colored pencils and everything needed to make birthday cards and write birthday wishes were available. Every afternoon there was time to prepare cards and put them in a special mailbox to be delivered to the recipients that evening. Special desserts of cake or ice cream were on the menu each day. Everyone at camp that week had a special time to be recognized and celebrated.

Joe Ann and I had a lovely artificial tree which we brought to camp. As a part of our daily activities we prepared for our Christmas celebration. The children made the decorations for the tree – paper chains, snowflake cutouts, and more. We strung the lights and added some special ornaments. One day cookies were baked and everyone decorated cookies.

On Friday we had the Jesus birthday cake, a special round, three-layer cake with a chocolate cake layer on the bottom, strawberry in the middle layer, and a layer with green food coloring on the top. The cake had white icing and around the outer circumference of the cake were chocolate hearts and in the center of the cake was a single candle.

After we finished eating our cake, we shared its symbolism. The colored cake layers represented the reason for Jesus’ coming – our sinful, fallen nature, the blood of Christ shed for us, and new life for those who receieved his gift of eternal life by trusting in him. The round cake represented the world and the chocolate hearts the people of the world. The center candle represented Jesus, the light of the world. Then we had a short program that included the Christmas story, some singing of carols and a small candle for each child to light from the larger candle and place on top of the cake.

Finally, there were gifts. A church responsible for distributing the Samaritan’s Purse shoebox gifts to children in Slovakia had some boxes left from the last Christmas. They shared them with us and we were able to put under the tree an appropriate gift box for each boy and each girl at camp filled with games, candies, stuffed animals and other items. It was a joyful time for all of us.

Tonight I hold in my mind the joy of that July Christmas celebration, remembering each child, wondering what has become of them and saying a prayer that they have received the gift that Jesus offered them.

Categories
Poetry

Living a Life that Matters

Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom

Psalm 90:12

What Will Matter?

Ready or not, some day it will all come to an end.
There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours or days.
All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten
will pass to someone else.

Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance.
It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed.
Your grudges, resentments, frustrations
and jealousies will finally disappear.
So too, your hopes, ambitions, plans and to-do lists will expire.
The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away.
It won't matter where you came from
or what side of the tracks you lived on in the end.
It won't matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant.
Even your gender and skin color will be irrelevant.

So what will matter?
How will the value of your days be measured?

What will matter is not what you bought
but what you built, not what you got but what you gave.
What will matter is not your success
but your significance.

What will matter is not what you learned
but what you taught.
What will matter is every act of integrity,
compassion, courage, or sacrifice
that enriched, empowered or encouraged others
to emulate your example.

What will matter is not your competence
but your character.
What will matter is not how many people you knew,
but how many will feel a lasting loss when you're gone.
What will matter is not your memories 
but the memories that live in those who loved you.
What will matter is how long you will be remembered, 
by whom and for what.

Living a life that matters doesn't happen by accident.
It's not a matter of circumstance but of choice.
Choose to live a life that matters.

Michael Josephson

I am remembering Joe Ann this Christmas with joy and gratitude for the way she lived her life and the contribution she made to me and so many others. 

Categories
Self Reflections

If it’s worth doing…

You all know how to finish the title sentence above, right?

As an undergraduate student at Texas Woman’s University, I had a teacher who was stunning in the way she looked every day. She was dressed impeccably, hair and make-up perfect; she was never in a hurry and never seemed to get ruffled. When she walked into the room I always looked at her from head to toe to see if there was any flaw. She always knew the content she was teaching and presented it well. She seemed so put together in every way that she was intimidating.

Imagine the surprise of our undergraduate sociology class one morning when Miss Porter began the class by saying “Think about this. If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing poorly.”

Had she finally made a mistake? Had she misspoken? Apparently not because she repeated the statement and added, “Is that good advice? Why would anyone say that?

She wanted some response from us and she got some feedback. Some said it might have been said as a joke or an excuse, or said to provoke an argument. The responses came without giving the statement serious thought and the preponderance of responses was that it was not good advice.

When the input ceased, Miss Porter went on, “Imagine that someone did make that statement and that it was good advice. In what context might that take place?”

Our thinking took a turn and the comments were a bit more thoughtful until we came to a point of seeing that if someone has something valuable to offer another – a product, a program, a proposal, or anything of any kind – it was not necessarily a good thing to wait until you had it perfected.

While some people do shabby work and are willing to put anything forth and consider it “good enough”, there are others who offer nothing because it just is not right yet. They are paralyzed by their perfectionism. Or maybe fear.

Courage to try

The first time we do anything we are by definition doing it without experience. We can get advice from those with experience, we can learn and prepare, and then we try to our best according to the ability we have.

If I think back on every area of ministry in which I have worked, I realize that there was always an element of fear of not being able to do it well when I started out.

When I was a teenager, I was asked for the first time to teach a weekly Sunday school class for young children in an afternoon outreach ministry. I said yes, although I wasn’t sure I could do it. I know I wasn’t a great teacher but I learned from the experience -preparing, presenting, listening, responding, handling a group, and more. The next opportunity to teach was not quite as scary and I found that I liked teaching. The more I taught, the more I enjoyed it.

Many times I heard Joe Ann say to people, “Obey the light you have and your light will increase. Disobey the light and your darkness will increase.” When I said yes to an adult who asked me as a teen to teach, I had no sense that I could do it, but he believed I could. He held out a light and offered it to me. I took it and it was fanned into a bigger light. Eventually, I learned that sometimes God uses the potential others see in us as the light we need to obey.

Responsibility to challenge

As I’ve gotten older, I have also learned that sometimes I need to be the one that recognizes potential in another and offers them that light. Although I was not able to articulate this in the past, I know that I have been doing it without awareness. Now I see that being observant of those coming along and challenging them to do what they think they can’t do is a responsibility I have.

At a farewell celebration for a young woman who was venturing out on a career that was going to take her overseas I overheard an older man say to her, “My wife and I are very proud of you. We saw things in you that made us know that you were the kind of girl who would do something like this.” Her reply, though not accusatory, was a question. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

Complimenting the effort

I loved watching Joe Ann work with a music group because she worked for excellence not perfection. When it was time to perform, they performed and she said to them afterward, “You did well for where you are.” It was a compliment that came with a challenge to improve.

None of us will ever go from doing nothing to doing something perfectly. If it is worth doing, we need to be willing to do it poorly to the best of our ability with the promise to keep on trying.

When we make maximum use of what we learn from our experience, it is always better next time. We tweak what needs little adjustments. We add, substract, change, modify, adjust, and more.

Assessing the worth

I read somewhere that when people have a vision for a ministry and decide to lauch it, they should ask themselves if they are willing to stay with it for three to five years. Why? Because it will take that long to establish it to the point it can be handed off to someone else.

When I look back on our years in Slovakia, I see that those things that have lasted beyond us and grown were those undertakings we at first did poorly but found worthy of working at and investing in. Also, the people in whom we saw potential and confronted with their own gifts and emerging abilities, have blossomed.

Now that I find myself at a new time and place in my life, I am asking what is so valuable that I should invest my time, my energy, my material resources, my heart, my life into it? What is so valuable that I will stick with it no matter what happens?

Where do I find my answers? I ask God to give me a passion for what he has for me. Then, I ask for direction and courage to follow the light in that passion. The older I get the more I realize that the new things I find worthy of doing I will do poorly, but I’m willing to keep trying.

Categories
Self Reflections

Then and Now

All that you are ever to be you may already have been.

Bob Pierce

I am adding a new category this week called self-reflection. I do a good bit of it these days and decided to share some of my thoughts.

Then

Bob Pierce, founder of World Vision, came to speak at our church in the 1950s when I was in my early teens. I don’t remember anything he said except the quote above. As a young teen my head was full of the future and what I wanted to do and be someday. I was imaging a long life ahead of me and plenty of time to do all the things I dreamed of.

I was aware of the question “What is your life?” in the New Testament book of James and the answer that follows, “You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” But I don’t think I applied it to myself at thirteen or fourteen until I heard the statement from Bob Pierce that night. It jolted me into considering the present and I resolved to make now count.

Over the years, every time someone I knew seemed to die too young – a high school classmate who died over the summer after our freshman year, my Aunt Gert’s nephew, Warren, who died in a auto crash at eighteen, my niece, Gwen, whose life ended of cancer before she was forty – I thought of this statement. It caused me to take a fresh look at what I was doing with life at that moment.

Joe Ann was sixty-five when we went to Slovakia and seventy-seven when we returned to the U.S. By the way she lived her life, she didn’t say at that time or anytime, “I’m content with what I’ve been and done. It is now time to relax, retire, and take it easy.” Of course, what she was able to do changed with age, health, energy, and other limitations, but it didn’t diminish who she was; until the end she was living her life aware of the importance of now.

Now

My dear friend, Frances Fuller, who finished a book called Helping Yourself Grow Old at age ninety is continuing to make positive contributions to the lives of others in a number of ways. Her writing today is still about aging and can be found in her blog.

There are others around me both my age and older who are also good role models for me by enriching the lives of their familes, friends, and others as they live each day in menaingful ways with gratitude for the gift of now.

When I was working on my doctorate in sociology, my related field of study was gerontology. Then, I studied aging and now I am one of the aged. The quote from Bob Pearce that spoke to me deeply when I was a young teen is still relevant to my life today. Whatever happens to me in the years ahead, I want to continue being and doing with purpose.

Categories
Slovakia Memoir

Thanksgiving and Harvest

I spent this Thanksgiving Day with my sister and her family – her husband, children, grandchildren, and their spouses, four great-grandchildren, and a granddaughter’s boyfriend. There were 18 of us in all and a few others missing, a grandson in the military and a granddaughter, who with her husband and four boys we would not see until the week after Christmas. Everyone not only contributed to the meal but also to the noisy, joyful interaction. It was a change from the last several years and a lovely day that included some treasured memories.

Our first Thanksgiving in Slovakia

I thought back 25 years years to our first Thanksgiving in Slovakia, November 27, 1997. By that time we had been there for three months. A couple of weeks before our American holiday arrived, Joe Ann and I talked about how we might use that day as an introduction of ourselves to our neighbors. While we were able to interact with those at the church who spoke English and with others through interpreters, when we were on our own in the apartment building we had no way to communicate with our neighbors. We didn’t know what they knew, if anything, about our reason for being in Slovakia. We were simply two American women living on the 3rd floor.

Since we had not met the families in the other 15 flats, we decided to write them a letter. We found some printable Thanksgiving stationery on the internet. Wrote our letter and had Daniela translate it for us. In the letter, we introduced ourselves and told them about Thanksgiving Day in America. We said we were thankful to be in their country and appreciated living in the same building with them. We told them we were grateful for their kindness and patience with us and our limited ability to interact with them. We also said that to show our gratitude we wanted to give them a gift.

Among the things we brought with us from the States was a box of Joe Ann’s cassette tapes. When the letters were ready and signed, we put them in an envelope along with a cassette. On Thanksgiving Day evening we knocked on the door of each of the other 15 apartments at 25 Bernolakova Street and gave them our Thanksgiving letter and tape.

Meeting a Slovak neighbor

Although we lived in our flat for over eight years, we didn’t get to know many of our neighbors. However, one afternoon we were surprised in the elevator by a woman who inititated a conversation.

“Hello. How are you?” the woman said in English.

Taking the question literally, Joe Ann replied, “I haven’t been feeling well.”

“Then, you must come see me,” said the woman.

“Are you a doctor?”

“Yes, I am Iveta Nedelova. I live on the eighth floor. My office is at end of this street.”

“Your English is good,” Joe Ann commented.

“Thank you. It is not as good as I want it to be,” Dr. Nedelova responded.

“Then, you must come to see us. We will talk together and you can improve your English.”

The beginning of a relationship

Besides spending time in conversational English together, Iveta became our doctor, gave us our flu shots each year, and helped me when I had knee surgery in Slovakia. Her son, when he was in high school, helped us with a camp for children from addicted families. She has been with us twice in Michigan, once alone and again before the pandenic with her husband and son. She serves on the board of the Slovak nonprofit we were part of forming in 2006.

But that is only a part of Iveta Nedelova’s place in our lives. It began in 1997 and continues to this day. We meet weekly on Skype. When my memoir is complete and our story is told, you will find her in several places. She is one of the cherished Slovak friends I am thankful for today.

Categories
Poetry

Why Do I Love You?

The poem below I wrote in 1974. It was not written with anyone specific in mind but was written in response to a sentence from a deep, insightful paper entitled If I Were Your Counselee; it was written by Milton Cudney, a professor of counseling at Western Michigan University.

“Think what we would have going for us, though, if you and I and others contributed only a little to each other, but that this little was multiplied by each succeeding experience we had with each other.”

Milton Cudney

WHY DO I LOVE YOU?

Why do I love you?
Because you love me.
And when you love me,
You become a part of me.
And I love you
Because I love myself.

Why do I love you?
Because you love me.
And when you love me, 
I become a part of you.
And when I become a part of you,
I am bigger than myself.

Why do I love you?
Because you love me.
And your love for me
And my love for you
Makes us both
Bigger than we are.

What happens whe we
Are both bigger than we are?
We have love to give
To someone else -
Even to someone who
Does not love us back.
Categories
Relationships

Breaking Unwritten Rules

Thanksgiving Day and Christmas are just ahead of us. The kind of image we see here is not what we want but it is what it is. Dysfunction within our relationships is often experienced at this time of the year when families gather for holiday celebrations. From generation to generation we can become carriers of dysfunction actively repeating behavior we once experienced passively as children and passing on dysfunction to those with whom we should have the healthiest relationships.

What we live with we learn. What we learn we practice. What we practice we become.

No one is 100 percent dysfunctional nor is anyone perfectly healthy. If we look at ourselves and our families honestly we will see that we are somewhere on a contiuum with the possibility of moving more towards healthy, maturing relationships.

In this post I want to talk about three unwritten rules that are part of unhealthy scripts learned in the roles we play opposite each other and how we can begin to break them. It takes time and work but is worth the effort. I know that from personal experience and from years of working with addicts and their families.

Don’t Talk

This is the first unwritten rule. Don’t talk about the painful things that go on in the family. Don’t talk to those in the family about anything really important and certainly don’t talk outside the family. Most children growing up in dysfunctional environments learn this well by the time they are eight years old or earlier. It is a pattern carried with them the rest of their lives and leaves them guessing at what healthy is and struggling with a certain level of loneliness.

Even when we don’t have secrets in our families, if we are unable to talk to one another we are susceptible to moving further apart rather than closer to one another when faced with a crisis.

Don’t Trust

The second unwritten rule is don’t trust. Experience teaches those in dysfunctional relationships that promises are made and promises are broken. They cannot count on what others say. People they thought were trustworthy are not. The only thing that is consistent is inconsistency. Among other things this leads them to grab what they can at the moment because it may not be there later.

Don’t Feel

In these settings where needs are not met family members also learn a third rule: don’t feel. No one will validate their feelings. People tell them how they should and should not feel about people and experiences. They also have others tell them how they are feeling or not feeling and how intensely. They come to doubt and question their own feelings.

These unwritten rules isolate family members from others and isolation keeps them from realizing how common their problems are. The only way to begin to get help is to break the unwritten rules.

For any of us, whether we have a mildly unhealthy relationship or a seriously dysfunctional one, we can do something that will make a difference.

Breaking the rules

When I was growing up my relationship with my father was not what I wanted it to be. There was no abuse or problems to hide in the family. There was simply silence; we didn’t talk about anything significant or important to us and therefore we didn’t know each other. As an adult, I didn’t know how to change the relationship until an activity I did with a university class I taught gave me an idea. On the first day of class I asked the students to introduce themselves and tell the class something they liked about themselves that they got from either of their parents. I told them I would start so they would have a moment to think.

I told the students I liked my love for learning, my creativity, and my curiosity and those were characteristic of my dad. When I got home that day I wrote a letter to my dad and told him about the class and what I had said and thanked him for modeling those things for me. We never talked about that letter but I know he kept it. However, that was the beginning of a 12-year journey to disclose more to one another and appreciate each other more. When he died, I still did not have the full relationship I wanted but it was so much better and I had no regrets.

Another activity that I have done with those I want to know better is to share with each other what we consider the most memorable event of the first 15 years of our lives. I like this kind of activity because it allows each person to choose what they feel safe in sharing. Telling my grandmother and my dad about an experience I had with this activity led them to spontaneously share their memories. My grandmother told us of her brother coming home from the Spanish-American war. Dad said he remembered the end of World War I and the German kaiser being burned in effigy at the end of a streetcar in downtown Holland.

These are tiny things that are like baby steps in getting to know and understand each other better and they can add joy to a family gathering. What was dysfunctional in my relationship with my dad was not huge but it was there and I’m glad I didn’t ignore it.

Breaking the rules in major dysfunctional relationships takes more, of course, but it is worth every bit of the time and work it takes. Support groups made up of people with a common problem are often a good place to start. For years Joe Ann and I participated in Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-anon groups respectively. They were safe places for people to break the unwritten rules. They provided a place to learn to talk, trust, and feel. We saw miracles happen in the lives of those who kept at it.

Knowing and understanding others and being known and understood by them is what we all want, isn’t it?

Categories
Slovakia Memoir

Making Our Flat Home

Dali showed us through the empty flat that was to be our new home. For sure it didn’t look like home but it had a lot going for it. There was a good-sized living room with windows that overlooked the street, a bedroom with a balcony on the backside of the flat, a guest room, and another room right inside the door to the right that would become our office; it was the only room that was carpeted. The kitchen was small but adequate. The toilet was in a tiny space like a small closet separated from the bathroom. In the bathroom was a deep tub, a sink that overlapped the tub with enough space next to it to put a washing machine.

The church placed a small refrigerator and table and chairs in the kitchen for our use until we purchased our own. The kitchen was a narrow L-shaped room. You could enter the top of the L from the entry room. It contained a small gas stove and oven, a sink, and a short counter top with cabinets above and below. You could enter the bottom side of the L from the living room. Right inside was the refrigerator and then an old-fashioned standing radiator beneath three side-by-side windows like those in the living room. The small table was pushed up against the radiator leaving room for three chairs on the open sides of the table.

The most unsual feature of the flat was that there was bright red linoleum with flecks of pink on the floors in the living room and bedrooms. It seems that when the building was erected, red linoleum was put on the odd-numbered floors and gray linoleum of the even-numbered floors.

As there were no closets in the flat, we would need to purchase wardrobes for the bedroom to hang our clothes and some kinds of shelves for storing various items. I was beginning to make a list in my head as we moved through the flat. I love to decorate and since we had to start from scratch to furnish the place, I was excited to think about what we could do with it.

When Joe Ann and I merged our belongings in our first house in Grand Rapids, we saw that we both had a lot of decorative items that were oriental – a Japanese silk screen, paintings of Chinese landscapes, celadon vases from Korea, ink sketches with black bamboo frames from Bangladesh, decorative boxes and one or two oriental figurines. This turned out to be ideal for our flat in Banska Bystrica. The red linoleum made us think Chinese!

Part of our living room with the green leather sofa and the Japanese silk screen attached to the wall by Velcro. The other half of the room is in the picture under the title of this blog post.

To go with our red living room floor we bought a black dining table that could seat six, a black etagere on which to display some of our oriental items, a dark green leather sofa and matching chair, and two other chairs with a black base and arms and an oatmeal color fabric. Since the walls were concrete, we hung our Japanese silk screen, our pictures of Chinese landscapes, and the bamboo framed ink sketches with Velcro. We added a couple of silk plants, a table lamp or two and a floor lamp we brought with us from Michigan.

The office was furnished with six tall brown bookcases set side by side covering the space of two walls. They were filled with the 2500 books we brought with us. The majority were music, theology, and addiction and recovery books. To finish the room, we added a desk and another workspace, plus a filing cabinet and a piece of furniture on which we could put a printer and store supplies in the cabinet space below.

For our bedroom we chose a white chest of drawers and white wardrobes. Our floral bedspreads were forest green. In the guest bedroom we placed two Slovak beds, a blond wardrobe and chest of drawers.

The small three-drawer chest we brought with us was in the entry room along with a small white stand and chair for our telephone. On the floor was an octagonal area rug with an oriental design.

Entry to our flat

Almost all our furniture was purchased at a nabytok (furniture store) one block from our flat. I’m sure they were happy to see us coming time and time again, although they found some of our purchases strange.

The two items not bought there were our appliances. We bought a refrigerator with a freezer section below that was a product of Sweden and a washing machine that was German made. The refrigerator was different enough that everyone who came to our flat took a look inside.

More than thirty American visitors spent time in that flat over the eight plus years we lived there; many stayed overnight. Slovaks in multiples of that number were in and out of our home over the years. We laughed, cried, had dinner parties, counseled individuals, read, prayed, played games, watched movies on the little television that played American VHS tapes, and worked in that space.

Before going to bed on air mattresses that first night, our container parked on the street waiting for another day to be unloaded after paperwork was done, we walked through the rooms again and prayed that God would be honored by the things that took place within those walls.

Writing this brings a flood of memories, a feeling of joy and gratitude, and a sense of peace that we made that flat into a haven for ourselves and others. I felt good about being home every time I walked in the door.