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The
Beginning:
“On Our Way Rejoicing”
It was a chilly, gray morning in November, 1943. A
group of young people from Bethel Church stood on the railroad platform in
Clear Lake, Iowa, along with my parents to see me off on the first leg of
my journey to serve the Lord in Africa. My thirteen pieces of freight
baggage had gone on ahead, so Dad helped me onto the passenger car with my
hand luggage. I don’t remember what went through my mind as the train
pulled out of the station, but it was not fear, even though I knew World
War II was still raging in Europe and Asia. This was what I had been
preparing for most of my life, especially since the night I had
recommitted my life to the Lord and announced to my parents that the Lord
had called me to serve as a missionary in Africa. “Oh,” Dad responded.
“Before you were born, I prayed that one of my children would be a
missionary!”
My parents and my church had prepared me well for
that day. As long as I could remember, there had been visiting
missionaries coming to our country church, and usually they would be
invited to our home. Mom would say, “While I prepare the meal, you
entertain the guest.” So I was like Mary, sitting at the feet of Jesus,
soaking up information from many lands. Then, during our family devotions,
the names of these missionaries would be added to our prayer list. Many
years later, a former missionary to China told me that Dad had given him a
check for five hundred dollars to build a chapel.
During the summer of 1943, Rudolph Steffenson, a
single pastor working in Poli, in North Cameroon, had died. He was also a
“shirt-tail relative,” with roots in Lake Mills, Iowa. I felt that, in
some way, I was replacing him because it was about that same time that I
was officially accepted as a missionary by Mr. Gunderson. So, when I
completed my student work at the Swedish Hospital School of Nursing in
early September, I went home to shop and pack. Friends at my home church
gave me a “shower,” just like they did for girls who were getting
married.
Dear friends of our family, James and Viola Dalby,
invited me to their house one day after finding out about my acceptance.
Viola was dying of cancer, and she wanted me to have her little, portable
folding organ to take along to Africa. Thelan Elthon, in Fertile, Iowa,
made a sturdy plywood case for the organ, as well as two other plywood
boxes for packing. We made numerous trips to sales to find good, old
trunks. By the time I was ready to go, I had thirteen pieces of freight
baggage, including a twin-sized rollaway bed, which was crated. This was
all shipped to a warehouse near the pier in Brooklyn, where it was stored,
awaiting our sailing date.
When the train rounded a bend, and I could no longer
see the group on the station platform, I shed a few tears. They were not
tears of grief, rather of excitement, to think that I was actually on my
way at last!
The train took
several hours to get to Chicago, where I was to meet Laura Burton, a nurse
from Minneapolis. She had already spent one term of service in Africa and
would be my “big sister” who would get me to our “field.”
When I alighted
from the train, Laura was there waiting for me. We took a cab to the
Lutheran Deaconess Home where the deaconesses were expecting us. We spent
several days in Chicago. I soon realized that I had made a mistake in
bringing only my light spring coat. The “Windy City” was true to its
name, and the wind was cold! But wasn’t I going to Africa? Surely I
wouldn’t need my winter coat there. How wrong I was!
After a
few days, we took a train again on a journey of three days and nights to
get to Brooklyn, N.Y. There, too, the Lutheran Deaconess Home was our
destination. Laura and I had been commissioned under the Sudan Mission,
also known as the Gunderson Mission which was founded by Mr. A. E.
Gunderson, and that we were “faith missionaries,” having no guaranteed
salary. Our financial contract was summed up in the words of Phil.4:19:
“My God will supply every need of yours according to His riches in glory
in Christ Jesus.” Most of our friends and relatives knew about this
principle, too, so many of them contributed to our needs for equipment,
baggage, and train fare. Our address in Brooklyn became common knowledge,
so the mail often brought us checks to meet our needs and to buy the
steamship tickets to Africa. The precious sisters didn’t know when they
ushered us into their guest room that we would be occupying it for nearly
four months. These saintly ladies, many of whom were retired missionaries,
knew of our lack of ready funds, and they did not charge us. They also
provided our meals in the hospital dining-room. That was missionary work!
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