A Church For Christmas
Illustration
Stories
Contents
"A Church for Christmas" by John Sumwalt
"She Wouldn't Hear 'No' " by Frank Ramirez
* * * * * * * *
A Church for Christmas
by John Sumwalt
2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16
… the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house.
-- 2 Samuel 7:11b
Mary didn't know what she would get her father for Christmas. She knew what he wanted but what he wanted was not something she could give him. When she asked him on the phone the week before, he had launched into a long, angry rant about their old church up on the hill. Her father could see the small clapboard building, with peeling paint and reeling steeple, from his nursing home window. The whole structure looked like it could fall down at any moment. "Old Willard," as he was known to everyone in Centerville, was obsessed with idea of restoring the building to its "former glory," as he put it.
It was the church where Mary grew up and where her family had attended for three generations. Most of the congregation was long gone, moved to the city to be near children and grandchildren, or crossed over to the other side. The last service had been held and the congregation formally disbanded after Mary went away to college, and not long after her mother passed, more than thirty years before. Willard had spent the next 25 years, before he broke his hip, trying to organize a new church. He had succeeded for a while, with the help of a retired Pentecostal pastor and a few sympathetic neighbors, but in time everyone drifted away until most Sundays it was just Willard and the preacher.
Mary mulled over all of this while she drove the two-and-a-half hours from her apartment in Milwaukee that December 24, as she had done most every weekend since her father had gone to live at Centerville Manor. She didn't know what she was going to say to him. He had insisted that she do something about the church. "I want to see some life in it before I die," Willard had pleaded with her. They had had the same conversation over and over but this time was different. There was an urgency in his voice that Mary had not heard before. The social worker told her that her dad was depressed, something that was common among people his age, she said.
The sun was fast disappearing and it was beginning to snow as Mary pulled into town. Without thinking, she found herself turning the steering wheel up the hill toward the church instead of going straight on to the nursing home. Mary parked the car inside the gate of the churchyard and made her way slowly up the hill, not sure why she had come, but feeling that it was something she had to do. Maybe being there would help her figure out what to give her father.
When she opened the door Mary was greeted by a musty odor and strings of cobwebs that half-filled the small entry way. She pushed her way through and opened the inner door into the sanctuary. It looked smaller than she remembered less than a dozen pews on each side. The piano was gone but the altar and pulpit were still on the platform and the picture of Jesus as the Good Shepherd still hung in the same place on the wall. She went automatically to the pew where her family always sat, three rows from the back on the left side, and took her place between her father's spot on the end and her mother's on the window side.
Mary had a feeling of coming home, a kind of warmth that flowed in under her arms and sent a tingle up her spine. She closed her eyes to pray and when she looked up she saw the church just as it had been on Christmas Eves past, filled with the familiar faces of family and friends and faintly glowing from the light of the candles on the Christmas tree in the corner. She could hear the sounds of "Silent Night" and her father's sweet tenor voice leading out over all the rest. Time seemed to stop. Mary felt like she had slipped into a different dimension. She thought, "This can't be real," and then she heard something like words in her head: "Give him this."
Mary knew then what she needed to do. She made her way quickly to the car and drove as fast as the law allowed down to the variety store in the center of town. She knew they were open until five and she could just make it before they closed. Herman and Eileen, their long-time family friends, would be there behind the counter and she knew they would help with what she needed.
In less than a half-hour Mary was following Herman and Eileen's old pick-up truck up the hill toward the church. They helped her carry the tree and the stand up the steps and down the aisle. The eight-foot balsam fir filled the space between the end of the pews and the communion rail in front of the window. Herman and Eileen were placing the last of the candles near the top of the tree when Mary left to go to the nursing home.
Willard was sitting up in bed when Mary walked into his room. "Merry Christmas, Dad!" she said when he put his arms around her and squeezed her tight, as he had always done since she was a little girl. "Oh, Mary," he said, "I thought you would never get here."
"I made a stop along the way," Mary said. "I have a surprise for you. Let me help you over to the window and I'll show you."
When Willard looked out over the snow and up toward the church on the hill he saw the light of the Christmas tree glowing in the window. He stood there hanging onto Mary's arm for the longest time, and then, as he released a long sigh, and with his voice breaking, he said, "Mary, there is life in the church!"
John Sumwalt is the pastor of Our Lord's United Methodist Church in New Berlin, Wisconsin, and a noted storyteller in the Milwaukee area. He is the author of nine books, including the acclaimed Vision Stories series and How to Preach the Miracles: Why People Don't Believe Them and What You Can Do About It. John and his wife Jo Perry-Sumwalt served for three years as the co-editors of StoryShare. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary (UDTS), Sumwalt received the Herbert Manning Jr. award for parish ministry from UDTS in 1997.
She Wouldn't Hear "No"
by Frank Ramirez
Luke 1:26-38; Luke 1:46b-55
My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed….
-- Luke 1:46-48
An ordinary American dairy farmer, who'd fled Russia as a child because of religious persecution, magnified the Lord through her dedication to the gospel of peace and helped plant seeds of reconciliation in a nation torn apart by war.
Following World War II much bitterness was aimed against German children, who had done nothing wrong. In Austria, for instance, children labeled as German in ancestry were refused entry into hospitals, denied housing, and forbidden food.
Helena Kruger (1902-1978) had been born in Siberia. When she was a teenager her family had to flee from Russia after the Communists took over. She knew what it was like to be a refugee and need help. She and her family had settled in Annville, Pennsylvania, with the help of other Christians. Over time she married and with her two sons ran a dairy farm.
Helena Kruger had a reputation for getting things done. More important, she could speak English, German, Russian, Polish, and Dutch. So in 1946 she was sent to Austria. At first she was reluctant to go because of the hardship it would cause her family on the dairy farm, but her husband Peter insisted that since churches had taken care of the family, it was time for the family to help the church.
So off she went. She was not afraid of asking for things. And if she did not get the things she asked for, she would keep on asking, until she got her way. Sometimes she would go ahead and use the things she needed even before she had permission.
Because she knew so many languages she could speak to everyone. Soon everyone knew her. Everyone trusted her. When she would ride up in her car to a gate the people would say, "Here comes the church!" and let her pass through.
As a mom, she knew how to get things done.
Everywhere she saw signs of the terrible war. Buildings lay in ruins. There was great difficulty. People were wandering around with nowhere to go. Tuberculosis, a terrible disease of the lungs, was spreading everywhere, especially among the children. Many had no homes and no hope.
Helena Kruger helped to supervise the task of providing food and shelter. She bothered officials and would not leave them alone. Whenever she saw extra material lying around, she requisitioned it. Sometimes she would not wait for an answer but took the material and started using it before she got an answer.
There were many armies in Austria, as well as all over Europe. Some of these soldiers were American. Some were Russian. Some were British. Some were French. There were soldiers everywhere. They all soon learned that Helena Kruger did not know the meaning of the word "no."
She went wherever she wanted to in order to get the things she needed. And she worked fast. One American officer said he could have been put on trial for giving supplies to help Helena Kruger, but it wasn't possible to tell her no!
Helena Kruger knew that children come first and that children need hope. She knew the German children needed a school. If they did not go to school they would not have any hope. They would grow up full of hatred. There might be another war as terrible as the one that had just ended.
She started by building a kindergarten. First she found an old building that was blackened from smoke damage. She found windows. No one was sure where, but soon the windows were in place, keeping away the wind. She got the building cleaned up. If she needed help, Helena Kruger asked some of the German parents, because she knew they wanted a school for their children. She found extra wood in warehouses so they could make repairs. She found equipment. She found teachers. Soon the school was underway.
Helena Kruger knew the children needed a hospital. German children were not allowed to go to the Austrian hospitals. So once again she found a place for a hospital and began to ask for supplies and sometimes she would just take them. She found beds, tables, mattresses, blankets, sheets, and pillow cases. She found clothes for the nurses. She found extra food. And she found gasoline, which was very scarce, so the hospital could have an ambulance.
She found paint, thermometers, and wash basins. She found everything needed for a hospital. Soon it was open.
These German people had no homes. Helena Kruger did not know how to get them housing until one day she was driving by an old railroad yard. The bombs had hit in that area, and there were many burned and wrecked railroad cars. But some still had their walls and some had a roof. If nothing was done to them, these would soon turn to rust.
Helena Kruger had an idea. Why not turn these railroad cars into houses? People could still live in them. But these were very big items. She could not just take them. She would have to get permission.
So first Helena Kruger asked someone from the American army. That man said it was up to the local mayor.
So she asked the mayor if they could use the railroad cards to make houses. The mayor said that it was up to the man who ran the railroad yards.
So she asked the man who ran the railroad yards. He said it was up to the American Army.
By now Helena Kruger could tell that none of these people wanted to make a decision. They didn't care. They didn't want to bother. They wanted her to go away. They would try to hide if they knew she was coming.
So Helena Kruger went out and found the mayor and the man who ran the railroad yards, and she took them to the man who ran the American Army. She made them talk about turning the railroad cars into houses, and she did not leave until they gave her permission.
Soon they took 26 of the railroad cars and turned them into homes. The German people were glad to help. They worked hard. They worked so hard that the Austrian people hired them to work for the railroad company. Before that they were saying that the Germans were no good. Now they wanted to work with them!
When government food supplies were slow in coming, Helena Kruger simply wrote to her church back home. They sent 1,440 eggs that were about to hatch. They added 65 sacks of feed for the chickens.
Helena Kruger was not afraid of anybody. Not even the Russians. It was said that she'd often drive to the Russian side of occupied territory, and on the way back chat with the stern Soviet guards, giving them chocolate bars, asking about their children, looking at their family photographs, without them ever being aware she was smuggling people across the lines to reunite family members.
God's light was magnified by the tireless work of people like Helena Kruger, who work for peace in the name of Jesus Christ.
Frank Ramirez has served as a pastor for nearly 30 years in Church of the Brethren congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. A graduate of LaVerne College and Bethany Theological Seminary, Ramirez is the author of numerous books, articles, and short stories. His CSS titles include Partners in Healing, He Took a Towel, The Bee Attitudes, and three volumes of Lectionary Worship Aids.
*****************************************
StoryShare, December 18, 2011, issue.
Copyright 2011 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
"A Church for Christmas" by John Sumwalt
"She Wouldn't Hear 'No' " by Frank Ramirez
* * * * * * * *
A Church for Christmas
by John Sumwalt
2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16
… the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house.
-- 2 Samuel 7:11b
Mary didn't know what she would get her father for Christmas. She knew what he wanted but what he wanted was not something she could give him. When she asked him on the phone the week before, he had launched into a long, angry rant about their old church up on the hill. Her father could see the small clapboard building, with peeling paint and reeling steeple, from his nursing home window. The whole structure looked like it could fall down at any moment. "Old Willard," as he was known to everyone in Centerville, was obsessed with idea of restoring the building to its "former glory," as he put it.
It was the church where Mary grew up and where her family had attended for three generations. Most of the congregation was long gone, moved to the city to be near children and grandchildren, or crossed over to the other side. The last service had been held and the congregation formally disbanded after Mary went away to college, and not long after her mother passed, more than thirty years before. Willard had spent the next 25 years, before he broke his hip, trying to organize a new church. He had succeeded for a while, with the help of a retired Pentecostal pastor and a few sympathetic neighbors, but in time everyone drifted away until most Sundays it was just Willard and the preacher.
Mary mulled over all of this while she drove the two-and-a-half hours from her apartment in Milwaukee that December 24, as she had done most every weekend since her father had gone to live at Centerville Manor. She didn't know what she was going to say to him. He had insisted that she do something about the church. "I want to see some life in it before I die," Willard had pleaded with her. They had had the same conversation over and over but this time was different. There was an urgency in his voice that Mary had not heard before. The social worker told her that her dad was depressed, something that was common among people his age, she said.
The sun was fast disappearing and it was beginning to snow as Mary pulled into town. Without thinking, she found herself turning the steering wheel up the hill toward the church instead of going straight on to the nursing home. Mary parked the car inside the gate of the churchyard and made her way slowly up the hill, not sure why she had come, but feeling that it was something she had to do. Maybe being there would help her figure out what to give her father.
When she opened the door Mary was greeted by a musty odor and strings of cobwebs that half-filled the small entry way. She pushed her way through and opened the inner door into the sanctuary. It looked smaller than she remembered less than a dozen pews on each side. The piano was gone but the altar and pulpit were still on the platform and the picture of Jesus as the Good Shepherd still hung in the same place on the wall. She went automatically to the pew where her family always sat, three rows from the back on the left side, and took her place between her father's spot on the end and her mother's on the window side.
Mary had a feeling of coming home, a kind of warmth that flowed in under her arms and sent a tingle up her spine. She closed her eyes to pray and when she looked up she saw the church just as it had been on Christmas Eves past, filled with the familiar faces of family and friends and faintly glowing from the light of the candles on the Christmas tree in the corner. She could hear the sounds of "Silent Night" and her father's sweet tenor voice leading out over all the rest. Time seemed to stop. Mary felt like she had slipped into a different dimension. She thought, "This can't be real," and then she heard something like words in her head: "Give him this."
Mary knew then what she needed to do. She made her way quickly to the car and drove as fast as the law allowed down to the variety store in the center of town. She knew they were open until five and she could just make it before they closed. Herman and Eileen, their long-time family friends, would be there behind the counter and she knew they would help with what she needed.
In less than a half-hour Mary was following Herman and Eileen's old pick-up truck up the hill toward the church. They helped her carry the tree and the stand up the steps and down the aisle. The eight-foot balsam fir filled the space between the end of the pews and the communion rail in front of the window. Herman and Eileen were placing the last of the candles near the top of the tree when Mary left to go to the nursing home.
Willard was sitting up in bed when Mary walked into his room. "Merry Christmas, Dad!" she said when he put his arms around her and squeezed her tight, as he had always done since she was a little girl. "Oh, Mary," he said, "I thought you would never get here."
"I made a stop along the way," Mary said. "I have a surprise for you. Let me help you over to the window and I'll show you."
When Willard looked out over the snow and up toward the church on the hill he saw the light of the Christmas tree glowing in the window. He stood there hanging onto Mary's arm for the longest time, and then, as he released a long sigh, and with his voice breaking, he said, "Mary, there is life in the church!"
John Sumwalt is the pastor of Our Lord's United Methodist Church in New Berlin, Wisconsin, and a noted storyteller in the Milwaukee area. He is the author of nine books, including the acclaimed Vision Stories series and How to Preach the Miracles: Why People Don't Believe Them and What You Can Do About It. John and his wife Jo Perry-Sumwalt served for three years as the co-editors of StoryShare. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary (UDTS), Sumwalt received the Herbert Manning Jr. award for parish ministry from UDTS in 1997.
She Wouldn't Hear "No"
by Frank Ramirez
Luke 1:26-38; Luke 1:46b-55
My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed….
-- Luke 1:46-48
An ordinary American dairy farmer, who'd fled Russia as a child because of religious persecution, magnified the Lord through her dedication to the gospel of peace and helped plant seeds of reconciliation in a nation torn apart by war.
Following World War II much bitterness was aimed against German children, who had done nothing wrong. In Austria, for instance, children labeled as German in ancestry were refused entry into hospitals, denied housing, and forbidden food.
Helena Kruger (1902-1978) had been born in Siberia. When she was a teenager her family had to flee from Russia after the Communists took over. She knew what it was like to be a refugee and need help. She and her family had settled in Annville, Pennsylvania, with the help of other Christians. Over time she married and with her two sons ran a dairy farm.
Helena Kruger had a reputation for getting things done. More important, she could speak English, German, Russian, Polish, and Dutch. So in 1946 she was sent to Austria. At first she was reluctant to go because of the hardship it would cause her family on the dairy farm, but her husband Peter insisted that since churches had taken care of the family, it was time for the family to help the church.
So off she went. She was not afraid of asking for things. And if she did not get the things she asked for, she would keep on asking, until she got her way. Sometimes she would go ahead and use the things she needed even before she had permission.
Because she knew so many languages she could speak to everyone. Soon everyone knew her. Everyone trusted her. When she would ride up in her car to a gate the people would say, "Here comes the church!" and let her pass through.
As a mom, she knew how to get things done.
Everywhere she saw signs of the terrible war. Buildings lay in ruins. There was great difficulty. People were wandering around with nowhere to go. Tuberculosis, a terrible disease of the lungs, was spreading everywhere, especially among the children. Many had no homes and no hope.
Helena Kruger helped to supervise the task of providing food and shelter. She bothered officials and would not leave them alone. Whenever she saw extra material lying around, she requisitioned it. Sometimes she would not wait for an answer but took the material and started using it before she got an answer.
There were many armies in Austria, as well as all over Europe. Some of these soldiers were American. Some were Russian. Some were British. Some were French. There were soldiers everywhere. They all soon learned that Helena Kruger did not know the meaning of the word "no."
She went wherever she wanted to in order to get the things she needed. And she worked fast. One American officer said he could have been put on trial for giving supplies to help Helena Kruger, but it wasn't possible to tell her no!
Helena Kruger knew that children come first and that children need hope. She knew the German children needed a school. If they did not go to school they would not have any hope. They would grow up full of hatred. There might be another war as terrible as the one that had just ended.
She started by building a kindergarten. First she found an old building that was blackened from smoke damage. She found windows. No one was sure where, but soon the windows were in place, keeping away the wind. She got the building cleaned up. If she needed help, Helena Kruger asked some of the German parents, because she knew they wanted a school for their children. She found extra wood in warehouses so they could make repairs. She found equipment. She found teachers. Soon the school was underway.
Helena Kruger knew the children needed a hospital. German children were not allowed to go to the Austrian hospitals. So once again she found a place for a hospital and began to ask for supplies and sometimes she would just take them. She found beds, tables, mattresses, blankets, sheets, and pillow cases. She found clothes for the nurses. She found extra food. And she found gasoline, which was very scarce, so the hospital could have an ambulance.
She found paint, thermometers, and wash basins. She found everything needed for a hospital. Soon it was open.
These German people had no homes. Helena Kruger did not know how to get them housing until one day she was driving by an old railroad yard. The bombs had hit in that area, and there were many burned and wrecked railroad cars. But some still had their walls and some had a roof. If nothing was done to them, these would soon turn to rust.
Helena Kruger had an idea. Why not turn these railroad cars into houses? People could still live in them. But these were very big items. She could not just take them. She would have to get permission.
So first Helena Kruger asked someone from the American army. That man said it was up to the local mayor.
So she asked the mayor if they could use the railroad cards to make houses. The mayor said that it was up to the man who ran the railroad yards.
So she asked the man who ran the railroad yards. He said it was up to the American Army.
By now Helena Kruger could tell that none of these people wanted to make a decision. They didn't care. They didn't want to bother. They wanted her to go away. They would try to hide if they knew she was coming.
So Helena Kruger went out and found the mayor and the man who ran the railroad yards, and she took them to the man who ran the American Army. She made them talk about turning the railroad cars into houses, and she did not leave until they gave her permission.
Soon they took 26 of the railroad cars and turned them into homes. The German people were glad to help. They worked hard. They worked so hard that the Austrian people hired them to work for the railroad company. Before that they were saying that the Germans were no good. Now they wanted to work with them!
When government food supplies were slow in coming, Helena Kruger simply wrote to her church back home. They sent 1,440 eggs that were about to hatch. They added 65 sacks of feed for the chickens.
Helena Kruger was not afraid of anybody. Not even the Russians. It was said that she'd often drive to the Russian side of occupied territory, and on the way back chat with the stern Soviet guards, giving them chocolate bars, asking about their children, looking at their family photographs, without them ever being aware she was smuggling people across the lines to reunite family members.
God's light was magnified by the tireless work of people like Helena Kruger, who work for peace in the name of Jesus Christ.
Frank Ramirez has served as a pastor for nearly 30 years in Church of the Brethren congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. A graduate of LaVerne College and Bethany Theological Seminary, Ramirez is the author of numerous books, articles, and short stories. His CSS titles include Partners in Healing, He Took a Towel, The Bee Attitudes, and three volumes of Lectionary Worship Aids.
*****************************************
StoryShare, December 18, 2011, issue.
Copyright 2011 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
