55. 1983, Continued

I'm just sitting down to dinner now. It seems like everything's a big deal and has to do with health. So here's today's preparations for dinner, for example.

iced tea? check
pill bag? check
Restasis (Rx eye drops)? oops! okay, check!
something to eat so my pills will go down? oops, I finished the salad I was having for dinner. Quick fix: omelet with dill & Swiss cheese. check!
Aleve for my fever (99.3)? check!
stimulator for my 45 minute evening session? check!
something to work on at the computer while I do my stimulator and have dinner? check!

Long gone are the days when my dinner prep would just involve food and drink.

***

The document that's being mailed to me still didn't arrive yet. That's not too surprising, as it's from an institution that the mail is notoriously slow in leaving and (for mail going the other direction) being processed once it's received by the organization.

***

In the meantime, and before we move on, I thought I'd share some "realia" as we call it in language teaching. Realia is just something from real life, such as a ticket, menu or the like. This might just give another dimension to my life at this time and let you sort of experience a few more thing of my life vicariously.



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These images are the front and back of a post card. The relevance of this post card to the discussion at hand is that it comes from a gal I met on the Luther Tour. Most of the people on the tour were Lutherans from Australia; I may have been the only American. Lynette and I kept in touch for a few years, but she was one of the people that my 1987 to 1989 Vienna experience resulted in losing contact with. We were about the same age and we had a lot of fun together on the tour, although we didn't know each other before that.



This is sort of a quirky incident of my time in Berlin. Somewhere along the line there I needed replacement contact lenses, and I had the company that I had insurance for my lenses with send me a new pair. Upon receiving a notice that they were at customs ready to be picked up, I had a little trouble convincing the customs agent that I really only paid $15 for them because they were insured. The agent said they don't have that kind of insurance there (at least back then, I guess that was the case) and I had a bit of a time trying to convince him I didn't pay a great some of money for them. The reason why this mattered is that there was a 15% customs fee and 15% on, say $2,000 was beyond my means. Eventually I convinced him and got my lenses for a customs fee of 9.95 Deutsche Marke. Phew!



This is the first page of a handwritten copy of a prayer latter I sent out from my summer 1983 mission trip. I didn't put the whole letter here because it's hard to read and my editing doesn't help the matter. So I'm going to transcribe the whole thing here for you:

***

As my time here in Vienna draws to a close, I am again amazed at God's leading and direction in the lives of individuals and in situations. As a team we have worked in several youth camps, in a Christian printing press, in a refugee camp and in literature & clothing delivery. It was been a hectic summer, but one with few mishaps. Indeed, God has seen fit to bless our ministries more than we could ask or think.

My last week at the refugee camp was a sad one of farewells. I was glad to see Orsolya, my Hungarian friend, show an increasing interest in Christian things. Several years ago she had a close friend, a believer, who shared often with her. I'm not sure if she is a believer, but she is interested in talking about God & shares with her children from the Hungarian children's Bible story book that I gave her. I am hoping that one of the missionaries here will begin a regular Bible study with her soon.

I also spent a week at a camp in Eastern Europe recently. We were there as campers, along with the other youth (mainly in the 15-22 year old range that week), and we were conscious of our setting an example to the others, who mainly had not been Christians for more than 3 years. The Christian fellowship of such summer camps is craved by young people who are often ostracized by their Roman Catholic peers. I was able to share my experiences & growth as a Christian as well as an answer of prayer in two evening meetings. I was also glad to be an encouragement to the camp director. He works hard and cheerfully all summer with little help. Currently, as seems to be frequently the case in Eastern Europe, the campers sleep in tents and share 2 sinks and a lake for washing in. However, there is construction under way for a new building. The campers even help with the work after lunch (in the morning there are Bible lessons). The love & unity of the campers who came from all over the country was a ministry to me. The high point of the week was when four young people decided, in an evening service, to follow Christ.

I appreciate your prayers and gifts this summer. I know that without either of these I would not have been able to come here. I would appreciate your continued prayers as I continue in related independent work for the next 3 months, in E. Germany, with Russians in W. Berlin, visiting missionaries in Hamburg & Amsterdam, and working with an information gathering service [in England].

... I am so glad that God is sovereign. Even in times when I really want to live for myself (take the easy way), [H]e keeps directing me. This way God gets the glory and I must trust in His sufficiency.

Waiting on Him,

[Meg]

***

I found my calendar for 1983 and it's very full. I don't want to bore you with too many details, but here are just a few of the entries I have for the second half of 1983:

On the short-term mission:
June 28-30 I was at the refugee camp

July 2-8 I was traveling in Czechoslovakia [notice that there is very little time between these trips for briefing/debriefing, doing laundry, etc.]

In Hamburg
August 21 I went to a Brethren church, had lunch with an Egyptian emigrant couple, and went to the harbor to see the ministry with the truckers

In Berlin
Oct. 5 Work at Bethel, then to the coffee bar being held by the church I was going to for a youth evangelism week

Oc. 6 Dinner at Bethel for sending missionaries to Korea [this was a special event; I didn't go to this as a volunteer]

Oct. 21 11:15 monthly test at Goethe. Hans arrives from Amsterdam.

Oct. 22 Hans and I go to a Baptist retreat in E. Berlin

In England

Nov. 27 (Sunday) Thanksgiving dinner with an American working at the research center

Nov. 28 Take a day trip to Eastbourne to the British SGA office there, where I meet the staff and am taken out to a fish and chip lunch.

***

These are just snippets, but I hope you have enough to go on to have a fuller picture of my experiences and who I am. I don't think I would have gone to the Eastbourne SGA office if I had given up all interest in working with SGA, although I've already told you of my concerns leading up to this point. However, I also would not have collected all the names and addresses of missions to Eastern Europe while I was at that research center if I didn't still have doubts either. I'll tell you before too long how I used that list I developed and what happened there.

That's all for now. I think we've discussed this period of my life enough to move on. Of course, since we're not having a two-way conversation I don't know if you have questions, but I'm trying to reasonably cover as many potential questions as I can.

Good night.

~ Meg

54. 1983, 2nd Half of the Year

Once again I'm going to quote from the human rights report I wrote about 15 years ago. However, I'm not to provide some details (e.g., some people's names, many of whom are consequential anyway as far as the gist of my story goes). Some of this text

***

After a week of orientation at the [mission] headquarters... we left for Europe in the beginning of June. There were about 20 of us. We flew to Luxembourg and drove from there to [Vienna] which would be our base for the summer.

I was on one of the two refugee camp teams working in [name of town], Austria. The two teams alternated weeks there. Other than that I worked one week at an evangelical summer camp in Poland... I also traveled in Czechoslovakia setting up meetings... Finally, I made 1 trip to Budapest bringing in Christian literature.

We stuck to ourselves, per instructions by our leaders and didn't mix with the Austrians or other Americans. We even had our own church service[s], as, we were told, everyone would know what we were there for.

It was that summer I also had my first contact with [the mission I worked 2 years with in Vienna]. I was sent to their office in one of the missionary vans to pick up a "light table" (for drafting). I didn't really remember anything of that trip - the people or what we discussed - but I later realized that they sent me there on purpose as they wanted me to work there. When I returned to the States one of [the mission's] workers made a point of showing me [the Vienna mission's] brochures and describing their work to me.

Then from there I went to Hamburg, Germany, where I spent a week with a dear elderly couple working with [a different mission to Eastern Europe]... George [the husband] was a Russian Baptist pastor and [his wife], of Czech descent, was the sister of a lady in my church [where I went to Bible school]... They worked among emigrants from various countries and shippers and truckers from E. Eur. and the Soviet Union. They also travelled into the Soviet Union, although less and less as they got older.

I would say that this trip to Europe was a trial for me - I was trying to find out how I could best fit into E. Eur. ministry, what the needs were, what my spiritual gifts and interests were. But my German studies were also a training time - acquiring another useful skill.

I decided to study German because it seemed that few worked solely in the Soviet Union - access was too difficult - and people in the satellite countries didn't like to use Russian. I wanted to study in E. Germany to experience what it's like living in a Communist country so that I could relate to the people I was working with more. But I was still pretty much a beginner, having only studied the language half a year, and to study German in E. Germany you had to be at the graduate level. So I settled for West Berlin with trips to E. Germany.

I studied at the Goethe Institut in Berlin from the beginning of Sept. to the end of Oct. We had classes every morning for four hours. I also attended the Evangelische Freikirche Gemeinde Schoneberg district. I enjoyed this church and met once with Pastor Brandt. I also volunteered three afternoons a week at the Diakonewerke Bethel, an evangelical residence for the mentally handicapped. I cleaned and set up for dinner in the dining room for the workers, for their evening meal.

I had come to Berlin knowing that there was a seminary in E. Berlin, which I soon found at Georgenkirchestrasse, 70. I visited there often and several of us became friends. Once I visited a Baptist retreat in E. Berlin... Later, when I was living in Vienna, I was prohibited from the mission from going to visit Sabine and Thomas Guenzel, friends from the seminary...

From Berlin I went to England. I lived with the Research Director's family actually on the grounds of the [research center], who provided me with room and board, for which I paid a weekly fee. My work at the college was [as a] volunteer. I monitored Soviet newspapers for articles related to religion in the country. Then I updated (re-wrote) the second half of [a report on religion in the Soviet Union using their files]. My last assignment was to translate some letters from believers in the Soviet Union into English[, one of which was later published in a mission's newsletter].

I [volunteered there] thinking that I might be interested in that kind of work. But I saw that [they] were really an ecumenical organization, and not at all what I would call evangelical, and I wanted to be involved more in evangelical mission work... I also was continuing my search for how I could best be involved in E. Eur. missions. When I had time I read through [their] collection of newsletters from missions and myself collected quite a list of missions which I was to use later in my continued search [for how to be involved in E. Eur. missions].

I returned to [where I did my Bible school studies] in the beginning of December, making my stay in Europe 6 months. Then I left for Seattle to spend Christmas with my family. I was there for about a month.

***

End of citation.

I'd like to end this quote with a discussion of some of the details in it.

1. At this point it seems (from this vantage point) that qualms were on my end rather then on than from a mission. I was still coming at this, decisions about the specifics of my career, pretty straight on. I don't mean that I was transparent regarding my questions, but that I was just approaching this from trying to find a good fit between my values and what I thought were my strengths and trying to find a mission and specific ministry to link up with.

In turn, however, I also think that problems I saw with the missions were things that were inherent in themselves and as such had nothing to do with how they treated me specifically, because I was being treated pretty well personally. So you can't say, at least up to this point in the game, that I was just lashing out as a disgruntled worker, because I had no reason to be disgruntled and did not think of myself as being mistreated either. Rather, my complaints were about the mission(s) apart from how they treated me, but how they operated in general. And I stand by those same complaints to this day. In some ways I haven't change in all these years, be that fortunate or unfortunate.

2) Also, I'm not sure at this point why I once and for all decided not to go with SGA after these 6 months. If I find something in my notes and documentation about that, I'll let you know. It can't have been how I personally was treated though, so it must have been something else; maybe it's just that my earlier qualms weren't assuaged and that was enough in and of itself.

3) I did enjoy the work in London, doing the kinds of things I was doing there. Some of the work they did was a support for evangelical missions, but their work involved all kinds of religions, so in the end I didn't feel like it was evangelical enough for me.

4) As an aside, later as and English as a Second Language instructor, although I could relate to students coming from abroad to America based on my experience, especially in Berlin, I couldn't always related. The Goethe Institut (German spelling), as is common with language schools pretty much globally, offered social opportunities and excursions. But I only remember going on one of their excursions, and my life otherwise was very full during those 2 months with non school-related activities, although I did a bit of socializing with at least 3 of the other students that I can remember. So based on my experience I wasn't too sympathetic of students I taught who, outside of formal opportunities the school offered, had virtually no other exposure to Americans. It was hard for me to imagine being so afraid to step out of their comfort zone, since I was all over the place (literally and figuratively) outside of my comfort zone. How on earth did they even have the guts to come study in America anyway if all they were going to do was stay in the confines of the school and its official activities the whole time? And how much added benefit was there for their language learning, compared to, say, learning English in Japan or Bogota? It was sort of incomprehensible to me. And it wasn't like I was fluent in German when I was in Berlin. I remember having some difficulty understanding the instructions for what I was supposed to do in my volunteer work, for example. They were very patient with me, I guess.

That's sort of on another subject though... and doesn't really have anything to do with anything important as far as my autobiography goes...

***

I've got to run as I have some things I need to try to do before 3:00.

~ Meg