247. Vienna Mission Years, Pt. 7

"The Mennonites are Anabaptists of Dutch and German origin who found sanctuary in Russia from the eighteenth century, and were by and large well treated under the Tsars. The Soviets found about 100,000 in their territory after the Revolution - and within a decade had set about rooting them out completely, a process accelerated during the purges. They were suspect partly because of their Western origins, but even more because of their traditional pacifism - a key feature in their religious outlook. It should be emphasized, however, that there is not hint of extremism in their religious make-up. A recent Soviet writer on the subject F. Fedorenko (Sects, their Faith and Practice, p. 153), admits that a new wave of activity began in the sect in 1956-7, when active preachers began to return from prison - in other words, the effort at total suppression by Stalin had signally failed. The Soviet Union Remains the only country of the world where there is a major Mennonite colony which has no right to set up an administrative body. Since 1963 they have been encouraged to throw in their lot with the Baptists which means being forced to give up their pacifism and other special characteristics. In 1967 came the first news of registration of a Mennonite congregation in its own right (Bratsky Vestnik - 'Fraternal Herald' - the official organ of the Russian Baptists, No. r, 1967, p. 42), and others have followed."

Religious Minorities in the Soviet Union: A Report, rev. 4th ed. (1984). Minority Rights Group, report no. 1. London: Minority Rights Group, p. 12-13.

***

I think the month of August, my second full month in Vienna, the great welcoming fanfare subsided... the honeymoon period of my relationship with the mission ended. I guess all the people that felt like they had to make initial acquaintance with me had done so, although I wouldn't have thought of it in these terms at the time. I do know, however, that it didn't bother me so much that the fanfare ended (since the welcome seemed overblown to me anyway), as it did that the stressors increased. That is, I hadn't expected so much apparently positive feedback right away nor so much negative feedback that followed.

Actually, I had been getting negative feedback in the form of non-work (reading software manuals) and the mission's continued effort to set me up with a roommate from the very beginning. But the negative feedback at work kept building up even after the positive welcome dwindled. As my mission-centric social engagements tapered off, however, my Austrian activities increased, so that it began to look more and more like my relationship with the mission being a 9 to 5 affair with somewhat more social interaction than one might have at a regular office job back home. So in this way, I was treating the mission as an office job with no real intentions, on my part, of pushing for more than that. Neither did I particularly feel an obligation to anyone to tell the mission what I was thinking nor what I was intending to do in my off hours. So the vacuum left by the mission by way of dwindling off-hour social activities I gradually filled with Austrian activities.

Besides my feeling comfortable in the Austrian context in general, my personality also made the withdrawal of excess attention rather insignificant to me because 1) I hadn't expected such an overblown welcome in the first place, but also 2) my personality is such that I don't mind alone time. That is, the drop off in mission-centric social activities and the resulting alone time didn't particularly phase me, where it might have been meant as a stressor and it wasn't.

That being said, however, I think it was in August that I began having more and more troubles at work. These are hard to explain and I would have had to document them step by step to be able to get them across to you very well now. But what happened for the next two or three months was that I began having more and more problems getting things done at work. That is, when I was given anything to do that involved any interactions outside of my office, such as phone calls or even needing to get supplies, I started having problems in carrying out these responsibilities. But everyone else seemed to have a "logical" explanation for any particular problem I was having. In this way, it made it look like everyone just thought that these problems were normal and to be expected but they seemed too contrived and limited to the work setting for me to believe that. Nevertheless, I felt like I shouldn't open up too much about my frustrations.

A lot of times it felt like I had to do things over and over again to get them right or problems with the phone system, for example, were unpredictable. In this way, my attempts to figure things out was always thwarted because nothing ever worked the way I thought they should or the way I'd been explained. I did express my frustration too, although I wouldn't say I got angry exactly and nor did I let on that I thought these things were intentional tests, but I did think that. The thing was, a lot of times I couldn't explain what the possible mechanisms for these things were, and if I thought I could explain them that would attribute actions and, therefore, qualities, to my fellow workers that I knew wouldn't be believed.

I should also say that these problems at work were particularly a part of my experiences until I was sent back to the States and after that they subsided. Also, this is the only time in my life where I've experienced this kind of thing and it was specific only to my experiences at the office. That is, my experiences in my outside relations and activities did not include these kinds of stressors. This meant that my Austrian activities allowed me to maintain a sense of grounding in the face of my mission-centric problems and shifting sand foundation. My mental map of how to function in Austria grew stronger and continually more accurate, whereas my understanding of the mission grew weaker, if anything.

Now this is a strange thing, when you think of it, because I was working mostly with Americans with a very similar background to mine in many ways, which I've discussed at some length elsewhere in this blog. But then, the problems at work seemed to be more things that just "didn't work" rather than strictly with people. So the main way the people would have been involved would have been if I attributed to how things didn't work to them, and I didn't have concrete enough proof to do that, although I was sure it was true. So I never told anyone I thought these things I was experiencing were contrived.

So through all this what were my complaints that I expressed to others? My complaints were just the problems I was having at work getting things done. So that was the one hook they had to catch me with, the work-related stress.

***

The month of August is rather sparsely populated in my calendar. On Saturday, August 1 I invited the director of human resources and his wife over for dinner. I don't really remember that evening, but in hindsight, considering what eventually transpired - several months later - it's rather ironic that they seem to have been my first dinner guests. They might have been being friendly to me in an effort to try to get to know me, because they would be key people in deciding on the mission's path to take with me. In any event, by that time I was set up enough to feel comfortable entertaining already.

***

As I continued at the Austrian church, there was a wedding Saturday, August 15 and I brought a green salad for 10 people to it. So I was beginning to get settled in there a bit too. This might be a good time to discuss the church.

The church, Evangelikale Gemeinde Döbling, at that time was a church-planting effort led by an American couple. The attendance was about what my current church is, that is around 30 people or so on any give typical Sunday. The people there were very friendly and received me well. Since the pastor and his wife, my colleague from the mission and I were all Americans and the idea was for it to be an Austrian church, I was mindful of wanting to work under their leadership. That is, despite the fact that the American presence included more Bible and theological training than would have been so for the Austrians, many of whom were young Christians, the point was to let them have the leadership. Of course, my German wasn't so great anyway at this point, although I was able to function well enough, as we'll see as things move along here. I expect that bringing a salad for the wedding was my first contribution to the church functioning.

In any case, the problems I had at work most definitely did not carry over to my relations with the church.

***

On Thursday, August 20th I had another appointment with my doctor to get new prescriptions.

***

Then on Saturday, August 22 I had two of the young families over for a picnic. Both of the men in the families were instructors in the ministry to Eastern Europe. I remember this picnic really well, so I'll go into more detail about it.

The reason I had them over for a picnic was because my apartment was so small and I thought the younger kids, especially the ones of the new family, would enjoy being able to run around.

I spent a lot of time preparing for the picnic, including a salad and dessert. I packed everything up and they men helped carry it all to the picnic site, because it was at the edge of the Wienerwald (Viennese Forest) near me, so we walked to it from my place, about 1/2 a mile (ca. 1 km.).

***

Here is one of the recipes I prepared:

Corned-Beef Picnic Buns

6 oz. corned beef, chopped
2 tablespoons chili sauce
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon pickle relish
1 tablespoon finely chopped onion
2 ounces Monterey Jack cheese, diced
1 (8 oz.) can refrigerated crescent rolls
1 1/2 teaspoons butter or margarine, melted
1/2 cup crushed potato chips

Prehead oven to 375F (190C). Grease 8 muffin cups. In a bowl, combine corned beef, chili sauce, mayonnaise, pickle relish, onion and cheese. Separate refrigerated dough into triangles. Place about 2 tablespoons corned-beef mixture on each dough triangle near wide end. Pull up sides of dough over filling. Roll to opposite point of triangle until filling is completely covered. Pinch edges to seal. Place buns in greased muffin cups with point of dough on the bottom. Brush tops with butter or margarine. Sprinkle potato chips over bun. Gently press chips into buns. Bake until lightly browned, about 20 minutes. Cool slightly on rack. Wrap warm buns in paper napkins or paper towels. Serve warm or at room temperature. If buns will not be served within 3 hours, refrigerate. Rehead buns on a baking sheet in a 350F (175C) oven 10 minutes. Makes 8 servings.

Deeming, Sue, & Deeming, Bill. (1983). Soups & Sandwiches. Tucson, AZ: HP Books, p. 91.

***

I think everyone had fun. After eating the women stayed chatting around the picnic table while the men and young boys walked around a bit. The boys had a bit of excitement when they found a harmless snake. Then we had dessert later on and eventually walked back to my apartment.

I always have enjoyed entertaining, so it's been difficult when I've been in situations that I haven't been able to do as much as I'd otherwise like to. I am resourceful, though, and always manage to find something else to fill my time with. Still, it's not like I don't know there's some compensating going on for what I'd maybe rather be doing or at least what I'd be happier doing.

***

This is the end of my August 1987 entries in my calendar, and I'm going to take another break here because I have more files I need to go through here before I reach the 5th month crisis point.

246. Vienna Mission Years, Pt. 6

This is a traditional Russian Evangelical hymn, based the Lord's Prayer. This copy is from a collection of Russian songs from my undergraduate coursework. I went to a Christian private university.

***

When I was in the thick of things and so much going on I didn't think about this, but afterwards I did. That is, I wondered what I could have done differently or whether it was my fault. I think, though, what had transpired up to this point could not be attributed to me, I don't think. It was the mission who was treating me so intentionally badly, and I hadn't done anything to deserve it. So then one has to look at the mission, I think, and try to figure out why they were doing these things if it wasn't a response to anything I had done. Up to this point it looks to me, in hindsight, that it would probably have to be socialization. That is, the apartment and work issues especially.

The other thing, though, is that I think they intended for my spending so much time just reading software manuals to lead to frustration or some reaction like that that could lead to me opening up and them guiding me into their kind of logic (way of thinking) and the like. All it did though was plant seeds of distrust in them, I think, because I couldn't think of an acceptable reason for them doing these things. If the idea was to lure me in they took the wrong tack with me.

***

After the junior high kids left I joined the other singles in celebrating one of the secretary's birthday's (the one whose jumper I'm wearing). I don't know what we did for her birthday, but I do know that we often went out to dinner and then got standing places for live plays at the Burgtheater. We would pay for the birthday person's ticket and dinner.

The next day I may have gone swimming with one of the other gals at the mission, whose sending mission was the one I'd had connections with before.

Tuesday my landlady took me out to dinner. My calendar says either Chinese food or a heuriger.

Wednesday July 29 one of the other secretaries, the one from Alaska, had me over for dinner.

Then July 30 I might have had dinner at the head of the women's ministry's apartment. I have "tentative" written on the calendar.

***

As you can see, people were very welcoming and social, inviting me over and treating me to dinner and the like. I do remember the first little while like that, being overwhelmed by the welcome, but it eventually wore off. Also, this needs to be seen in contrast to the work I was doing, which was basically nothing - typing a few letters, reading software manuals, etc.

The other thing that started happening somewhere around this time was that my meetings with my boss seemed strange. It felt like I was supposed to have sort of an emotional attachment to him and having a relationship with his family felt like it was a counterbalance to that. But there were a couple things he did in my meetings with him in his office that were really strange. First of all, it felt like he would just be staring at me like with enlarged eyes or something and the other thing is he would scratch his crotch. Really, I'm serious. This happened at least a few times - three or so. I talked about this to a friend in the States who'd had some contact with the mission I worked with before and she said she thought she'd experienced the thing with the eyes there too in meetings with individuals there. I've never experienced anything else like this... ever, and I'm not making it up either.

So what was going on with that? One was the crotch scratching made me think that maybe they knew about that unwise relationship I'd had with the Russian emigrant back in the States (if they knew about it it would have been via the mission I had connections with at that time, and that mission was one of the 15 member missions of the Vienna mission). So in that way it made me feel like they might know more about me than I thought (so then you might wonder what they do know), but it also could mean they thought that was a vulnerable spot for me, to be tempted by men.

As for the eyes, that was just unsettling, so if a person was not coping very well maybe that could unnerve them so that they'd capitulate, if you will. (Really, it did seem like a battle of the wills - them against me.)

So then having both of these things going on made me have to concentrate more on what was said - the spoken words - and try to ignore the body language. That was hard to do, really, though, because Americans (and we were both Americans) generally look people in the eyes a lot of the time when talking to a person, although I tend to look at a person's nose more than their eyes. To avert my eyes away from his face and eyes, however meant I also shouldn't look down because then you'd have that crotch scratching. So what are you supposed to do, stare at the ceiling or walls? That also would seem a bit strange. I think I managed to ignore it enough, however, for them to realize that that approach also wasn't going to work with me. This did happen several times though. In any case, I never "broke down" with confessions, struggles, or the like, which is what I think they wanted, because then they'd have me in a spot to start guiding me into what they wanted me to be like.

So what did we talk about in those meetings? I don't remember a lot about it, except talking about a letter he wasn't typing up or his plans or what he wanted to do or maybe how I'm settling in... small talk and a little about work thrown in.

I felt like I was supposed to have a relationship with my boss that had an intimacy to it, but was respectable and above board otherwise. But it was supposed to be something, I think, that had a strong level of commitment involved too. I could also see this with the other secretaries and their bosses too, this relationship, although I don't know what happened behind closed doors between them. But their interactions were such that it was almost like they knew their boss as well as the wife did, and vice versa, too, of course. In fact, the boss probably knew even more about the secretary than she knew about him. So there was definitely a vulnerability involved in that relationship and having made oneself so mutually vulnerable was a strong safeguard, I think, against doing anything that might cause a problem.

I think that maybe the wives knew about this aspect of the secretary-boss relationship, which made the secretary-wife relationship even more important than it would have been otherwise. It felt like if the wife wasn't connected with the secretary there would be a suspicion of having an affair (an "appearance of evil"), just because of the vulnerability and emotional attachment between the secretary and boss. But there wasn't anything actually going on that could be called an affair. Nevertheless, the flesh being what it was it would be better to have the wife in the picture.

I'm just telling you now how it seemed to me. I know this is strange, and that's how it seemed to me too, especially the meetings with my boss. I just didn't let anything rattle me. But I didn't know who I was dealing with yet, either, because I "hadn't seen nothin' yet" as the saying goes. So if this seems strange, this is only the beginning.

Also, I would just like to add that I came to the understanding about secretary-boss relationships at the mission based on 1) my experience(s) with my boss and 2) observation of the other secretaries and their bosses and how they interrelated.

***

The other thing I would like to say about all these invitations out is that they were mostly instrumental. That is, the people who invited me out were intended to have a relationship with me. Sometimes this was more instrumental than others though. For example, the singles get togethers weren't so much this way, I don't think. Also my relationship to a family from the mission that lived pretty close to me wasn't like that either; that is, we didn't work closely in the mission and so our work didn't require that we socialize together.

I think of all the invitations out that I've covered so far, the ones that would be the most instrumental in nature would be the dinner with the two secretaries (June 29), the dinner with the director of human resources and his wife (June 30), the dinner with my boss' family (July 15) and the dinner with the had of the women's ministry (June 30, tentative). So these weren't invitations just for straight friendliness, but for some work-related reason.

This gives you a little insight into how at least some of the relationships were at the mission, that is, instrumental. You were supposed to understand who in the mission you should be closest to and these people would be part of your control network - that is keeping each other in line according to the mission's norms. Also, invitations can also, then have other meanings to them, such as the invitation (tentative) to have dinner with the head of the women's ministry. This might indicate that they were considering me for some role in the women's ministry, and if I was alert and tentative to this kind of thing, I would understand that meaning of the invitation. At the same time, I might also realize that my dinner with her could have a similar significance as a job interview, for example.

So there was this kind of thing going on too. There was a huge amount of social control that was sort of in the unspoken realm of the mission's consciousness. This meant too, that social control could also include a disciplinary or negative reinforcement element too, which I found out at the end of my time with the mission.