Laugh and Sing

As I’ve thought about this blog, I feel a bit like I do on Thanksgiving when we go around the table to say what we are thankful for … Usually, I mutter something about health, and family.  You can hear (and it is just audio, even though it is a video) a sermon I preached once talking about this ritual here.

I don’t suppose I have anything much more original to say today.  It is always those intangibles that really make us happy and satisfied in life.  So to divert from the obvious, let me offer a few things that might bring a little variety to this topic.

Laughter – yes, laughter makes me happy.  I went through a period where I realized I hardly ever laughed.  I have found that over the years, because of circumstances and all the stuff life throws at you, that I had forgotten how to laugh.  Laughter is a gift.  It releases all sorts of happy stuff through your body.  Recently, on my trips back “home” to Brooklyn I have found myself and found my laugh. 

Singing – I love to sing.  I don’t have a bad voice but living in Music City I tend not to offer it as much as I did when I lived in the Northeast where not everyone was a would-be country star.  Singing makes me happy.  Singing lightens my seriousness.  Like laughter, I used to sing a lot. And like laughter, I sort of “lost” this along the way.  Singing also reminds me of my dad who would often break into song and sing about Jesus in our house.  Anything that reminds me of my dad makes me happy too.  

Brooklyn makes me happy.  Okay, so I have already mentioned Brooklyn.  Tt brings things out of me that I thought were lost.  Seriously, there is no place that makes me happier than Brooklyn.  Some internal switch comes on when I am there and I’m alive again!  And while we are talking about Brooklyn, everything about NYC makes me happy, riding the subway, walking through the crowds, street vendors, and don’t forget a Nathan’s Hot Dog bought at Coney Island!

Last but not least, being Norwegian makes me happy.  I just love to embrace my Norwegian heritage.  I love everything about being Norwegian.  Funny, all these go together – while the Norwegians are known for being “jovial”, they do have a strong wit about them, and do like to have a good time with laughter.  And sing? Oh yes, they love to sing!  I remember watching the Olympics when they were in Norway in the 90’s – every time you turned around some group of Norwegians were singing something.  And of course, for me, Brooklyn and Norwegian go together.  You can see a little clip of my recent trip to Brooklyn to celebrate the Syttende Mai (Norwegian constitution day) here.

Okay, maybe these seem trite and they are compared to my husband, kids, faith, health, etc.  But, if you want to see me really happy – come with me to Brooklyn and we’ll laugh and sing.

Preparation for Joy

I’m experiencing life in a more liturgical church.  It’s been an interesting journey, one that I have written about a few times.  Last year I experienced my first Maundy Thursday service.  You can read about the experience here.

Growing up in a classic Pentecostal home, the anticipation of Holy Week was keen but different.  Being a “Norwegian” Pentecostal meant certain differences.  This oxymoronic coupling of culture and faith continues to shape and define my life.

There were no Palms distributed in our congregation.  I was jealous of my friends with their Palm branches twisted into crosses.  My mother would shake her head and say, “Oh, we don’t do that.”  Nevertheless, there was a joyous anticipation in church that was palpable. 

My Easter outfit was usually finished.  My mother’s sewing expertise would create beautiful garments for me to wear.  Matching shoes and purse completed an outfit that rivaled (and exceeded) any designer’s wear.  I remember vividly being in the 4^th grade and begging my mother to let this be the first year I could wear “nylons” (aka hose or stockings).  She relented and much to the dismay of older friends who had not yet been allowed to wear this sign of mature (and torture).  I learned how to handle garters and a garter belt for Easter. 

 

Preparations for Easter included the joint Passion Week service with the “released time” programs on 4^th Avenue.   (As a kid, every Wednesday we were released from school an hour early to attend religious instruction – thus the name “released time”).  For several weeks, my mother had met with local pastors to plan the Holy Week program.  I marvel now as I think back of this woman with a 10^th grade education sitting with pastors with Master of Divinity degrees from the Lutheran churches, the Methodist churches, etc. to plan observances that were more liturgical in nature. 

As was typical, I usually had a long narration or selection to memorize for this event.  I remember the power of reciting the Passion narrative from the Gospels in front of children and leaders from those various churches.  Perhaps that was a forerunner for my journey to liturgy – the cross so prominent, the words so powerful, the beautiful of the sanctuary, all formed lasting impressions about Jesus and sacrifice.

Most powerful of my recollections was the hours between 12 and 3 on Good Friday.  As Good Friday approached, you could feel the tension in the air.  If I were Jewish, I might have asked – why is this day unlike any other day?  It would have been an appropriate question.  As noon approached, everything halted.  The stores normally bustling with business would lock their doors.  The busy sidewalks were empty.  It seemed nothing moved.  

The tension was so deep that I expected the ground to shake, or lightening to appear.  I also thought that maybe Jesus would return sometime that weekend.  In my childish mind, Easter or Good Friday seemed good candidates for this.  The thought was sometimes greeted with fear, other times with joy. 

It was as if the whole world was stopping as a remembrance of Jesus breathing His last.  I would recite in my mind the words I’d memorized for the program on Wednesday.  I would hear Eloi, Eloi, Lama Sabachthani in my heart. During the silence of those three hours, I would ponder what it meant for Jesus to die.  I would wonder, even though a small child, would I be like Peter and deny Christ.  Could I be the one who like Judas would betray Him?  These questions are still appropriate for all of us this week.

As the clock struck 3 p.m., the stores opened again.  The world seemed to go one with the frenzied last minute preparations for the celebration of Easter.  Eggs would be colored on Saturday.  Candy would be hidden from view until Easter morning.  I hoped for the big chocolate bunny that was SOLID… I didn’t want a hollow bunny.  I wanted to gorge myself in chocolate and jelly beans.  Sometimes I would have a live baby duck, or chick included in my “basket.”  One year my basket included two live white bunny rabbits to live in hutches in my backyard in Brooklyn.

This year, I’ll go to Maundy Thursday service.  I’ll go to Good Friday services. I’ll reflect on the Passion of Christ with prayer and reflection.  With anticipation, I’ll pause to remember that without the cross there is no hope.  Without the cross, there is no resurrection.  Without the cross, without “waiting with the Lord in the agony of Gethsemane” the joy of Easter is less meaningful.  I will pause between 12 and 3 and remember the agony on the cross so that as I sing ‘UP FROM THE GRAVE HE AROSE” on Sunday, my joy will be full.

Remember White Gloves and White Mary Jane's?

I wrote a rather deep thought-provoking blog on Holy Week yesterday on my Sounds of Hope blog.  You can read it here.  I thought about continuing on that theme.  I have a lot of those thoughts right now.  Seems Holy Week brings them out of me.  As we remember Christ’s passion I think it should bring a lot of deep, reflective thoughts.  However, I think I’d rather take a little bit lighter approach today.

I was not raised in a liturgical church.  Back then, we called them “mainline” churches with a bit of a distain in our voices.  We spurned all things ritualistic as it did not allow the spirit to move.  While I fully understood the message of Holy Week and Easter, our “holy week” was spent focusing on what to wear on Easter.  My mother usually made my clothes for such momentous occasions.  New white gloves were bought and ruffled white socks were bleached to perfection.  This would be the first time I wore my "spring coat."  I remember clearly some of my Easter dresses, and of course the necessary Easter bonnet.

There would also be talk of Easter baskets but never a lot of talk about the bunny that is supposed to bring them.  Perhaps that was too secular.  My mother was a flurry of activity during Holy Week for in addition to my clothes, she needed a dress for herself, and a meal to plan and prepare.  Usually a ham would grace our Easter table complete with brown sugar, pineapple rings, and those little black studs, cloves.

One element of liturgy always crept into to Holy Week.  It was the only time I heard the term Holy Week, as to us it was the “week before Easter.”  My mother was in charge of “released time.”  New York City schools allowed for a weekly one hour release from school for religious instruction at the church or synagogue of your choice.  Each year as Easter approached, she would be notified by the Pastors of the 4^th Avenue churches that it was time to plan the joint Holy Week released time services. 

I think my mother was intimidated by these “mainline” pastors.  Most were Lutheran and seminary trained and here she was this woman with a 10^th grade education.  Her only qualification was she loved Jesus and she loved children.  I remember the year she came home upset because they made jokes about hymns and ruined the song “In the Garden” for her.  She said they called it the Andy song – Andy walks with me Andy talks with me. 

But it was part of her duties to share in this one ecumenical event.  The Norwegian children of Salem had never been exposed to the “state church.”  We were dissenters.  We were purer.  We were holier. But we went.  Into those mysterious Lutheran churches we would see our friends from school and celebrate Holy Week.  One year, my mother volunteered me for a long narration of the Passion scriptures.  I remember saying with all seriousness: “My betrayer draweth near”  and foolishly wondered if Lutheran's could be "saved."

Soon it would be Good Friday, or Long Friday as my father would insist it should be called.  He would say every year, why do you call it Good?  Somehow long suited his translation from Norwegian to English much better than good.  Our hustle to get ready for the big day stopped for a few hours on Friday.  Every shop was closed for the hours that Jesus hung on the cross.  The neighborhood became somber for those hours. 

My childhood thoughts turned from my new dress and patent leather shiny Mary Jane shoes to a cross.  Sometimes a cloud would come during that time and I’d remember my Sunday School lesson.  I’d remember that the sky turned dark and the veil was torn in the Temple as He hung there for me. 

I won’t get new clothes this Easter.  I haven’t played dress up for a long time.  I’d like to.  I will think of the cross.  I will think of Christ’s Passion.  I will think of those days before His Passion as He spent His last moments with His disciples, including Judas who would betray Him.  I wonder if He prayed for Judas?  I will remember those hours in the Garden as He sweat drops of blood in agony. 

I will be participating in some of that liturgy my parent’s distained.  I know the Spirit moves in ritual as well as freedom.  It will help me with my remembrance.  

How will you remember?

Call Me Jo-Jo

Sin, huh?  That subject can go a lot of different places.  When I was a kid David Wilkerson and his Teen Challenge Ministry were just getting notoriety in Brooklyn.  For a short while, some of the staff and recovering addicts came to the Norwegian Pentecostal church where I grew up.  I suppose the calmness of Pentecostal worship or the feeling that perhaps only Norwegians were truly welcome there led them to go elsewhere.

When I was just shy of a teenager we went to another more lively church, Calvary Tabernacle pastored by Dr. Benjamin Crandall who is now on staff at Times Square Church with the famous David Wilkerson.  I loved seeing more lively worship.  It seems the Teen Challenge staff and recovering addicts were now sitting in the pews of this church.

It was there that sin became very attractive to me.  Oh I dabbled in smoking and learned to swear – these were big sins in the Pentecostal church.  I also wore make-up another major sin.  Movies were added but that didn’t seem as “sin-like” since it was something my parents added as well.  Cards were still frowned upon but we played gin with Rook cards so as not to sin.

No those weren’t the sins that attracted me.  You see, in those days, recovery addicts were glorified.  Yes, hallelujah, I really mean that, no sarcasm – hallelujah they were set free.  However, for a good little church girl whose biggest sin was swearing and trying to smoke it seemed if you were good, no one cared.  Even so, I carried a lot of guilt.

But the need for attention overrode the guilt.  Lying began to be an option.  Fortunately fear and God kept me from doing the things I claimed I did.  A game of “stump the youth pastor” became the main vehicle for attention. 

Calvary had a youth pastor.  It wasn’t as common in those days for a Pentecostal church to have one – oh maybe a youth leader would occasionally emerge, but a youth “PASTOR” was rare.  A young couple became the youth pastors of our new church.  The wife’s sister had been engaged to my brother at one time.  She now was married to someone else and on staff at Teen Challenge.  The two sisters were part of a well-known musical ministry family from Massachusetts.

The youth pastor and his wife seemed very genuine.  Ahhh, they were the perfect prospects for the “stump the youth pastor.”  A friend and I would conspire and make up stories to tell our respective youth pastors.  We would tell them of our sins.  Most were made up.  I asked people to call me Jo-Jo as it sounded Brooklyn like, better than Joyce.

Drugs, sex, alcohol, all manner of evils were conjured up for a form of confession.  I remember one time the wife of my youth pastor crying over me as I had told her a salacious story of my sins – all untrue.

I still feel bad about “stumping the youth pastors.”  They were good people.  What I did was sin.  That sin led to my parents believing these lies as well.  It led to being moved to Missouri.  My life was forever changed and altered as we moved away from Brooklyn.

The truth of the matter was that I loved God through all of this.  I just wanted to be like those people who had a “testimony.”  Now my testimony is that yes, while I have always been pretty much of a goodie-two-shoes on the outside, on the inside I cried for attention through sinning.  My testimony is that God loves me and has forgiven me.  My testimony is that through all the twists and turns of my life, through an abusive marriage, poverty, abandonment, and such, all things have worked together for good.  

No Room for a Christmas Child

I am reposting this from last year.  It's been translated into Norwegian and is supposed to appear on a website in Norway this Christmas as well.  If you are interested in this theme, of Norwegian Christmases in Brooklyn, you can find more at Sounds of Hope.  Hope you enjoy!


I have many Christmas stories. I imagine everyone over the age of ten has at least a few Christmas stories. I always thought of myself as a bit of Christmas child. No my birthday isn’t in December or near Christmas. My birthday comes in early November. So why am I a Christmas child? Well I suppose everyone who knows Jesus is a Christmas child. So how is my story different? I think that my life in Christ started at Christmas.

My parents were born-again, spirit-filled people. My spiritual heritage runs very deep.  From what I understand, I was “unexpected.”  My father was already in his 50’s and my mother, 19 years younger than my dad was in her early 30’s. They had decided ten years before that their family was complete.

God evidently had something else in mind.  I came along. 

Our family traditions were all Norwegian. Christmas Eve was the start of Christmas in our Norwegian neighborhood in Brooklyn. We put up our tree and had our presents all on Christmas Eve.  We were still singing around a Christmas tree well into January.

Christmas day was for church.  We’d dress up in the morning and walk to church. It was just like Sunday minus Sunday School. Sometimes we would crunch in the snow or put on galoshes for the slush of a melting snow. There was a holy hush on Christmas morning.

Of course, I remember nothing of my first Christmas. I was seven weeks old. I would beg my mother to tell me the story though; I loved to hear it.  That first Christmas my parents walked to church on Christmas morning with me.  It was the first time I was carried to church. I imagine I was wrapped up in many blankets.

That Sunday morning, a white haired tall Norwegian Pastor with a strong accent asked the Yohannesen’s (Johannesen) to come to the front.  Something very special was going to happen that morning. The new baby girl in the Yohannesen family, Yoyce Ann Yohannesen was going to be dedicated to the Lord.

That morning, my parents passed their unexpected infant daughter over to Pastor Dahl. He prayed. I wonder if he had any prophetic sense when he prayed over me. In recent years, I’ve had a sense that my dad had some prophecies concerning me. Did any of them know or sense anything then?

It all started there… it all started in a little Norwegian Pentecostal church where everyone had an accent and sang about the Vonderful Grase of Ye-sus.  My life was given over to the Lord.  No, it didn’t assure my salvation, but it did start something.

Every Christmas as the annual church Christmas program would near, I would have to learn a long “piece.” A “piece” is your part of the Christmas program. It starts when you are barely old enough to talk and you get up and say “Welcome baby Jesus” and sing Away in a Manager complete with motions. The parents beam and pray you don’t cry or do something inappropriate like pick your nose,  wet your pants or worse.

 We had an old upright piano. My mother didn’t play well but she would look for a song for me to sing. A solo! In addition to the LONGEST piece or narration in the program.  Early in my life, she found a song for me. The words of the chorus have stayed with me all these years:

"No room for the Baby in Bethlehem's inn,

Only a cattle shed!

No room on this earth for the dear Son of God,

Nowhere to lay His head!

Only a cross did they give to my Lord,

Only a borrowed tomb!

Today He is seeking a place in your heart,

Will you still say to Him - no room?"

Year after year after year, I would stand with a new outfit on, in front of the congregation, and sing this song.  I always thought someone would come to the Lord, every time I sang that song.

My father was a janitor at a bank, my mother a homemaker. My father never went to High School and my mother didn’t finish it. They lived in a two-bedroom first floor railroad flat apartment. Times were hard for them. They had no room for the new baby that God gave them. Nevertheless, they made room for me.  And then, they dedicated me to the Lord.

Jesus came to earth as an unexpected child. There was no room for Him that night in Bethlehem.  That seems tragic. There is a greater tragedy. It is that we make so little room for Him in our hearts.

Today I ask you that question that I sang for many years. 
Today He IS seeking a PLACE in YOUR heart! 

Will you still say to Him - no room?

Back to school again.

As I was reading David's blog yesterday and thinking about my own, I thought, wow - God really likes to mixes us up, doesn't He? He certainly doesn't deal with all His children alike - I guess there is no cookie cutter mold for Christians, is there?

Like David, I played a lot of Scrabble with my mother. I remember sitting on the floor, her on the tangerine sectional couch with the plastic slipcovers - I kid you not, we really had those - she had this rounded end triangular coffee table too. That couch and her coffee table were her pride and joy. I think it was the only new furniture she ever had in her life. Almost every evening I would get the brown Scrabble box, turn the letters over on the box lid and we'd play Scrabble. She was good at it, soon I got better than her at it. It was a big moment in my life to routinely beat (legitimately too) my mother at Scrabble. I still love the game.

However, unlike David, my mother was a high school dropout. She had finished the 10th grade and quit school. She never had a job other than a few jobs doing domestic work. My father had little formal education as well. He worked as a janitor at a large bank in Manhattan. Every night, while we were playing Scrabble, my father was getting his last little bit of sleep. As we were folding the Scrabble board, he'd be getting up. He'd have a bit of coffee and a snack. He'd leave to board the subway to clean the floors and toilets at the bank. When I was asked in school, where does your father work? I would say he is a banker. It was an honest answer from me. I didn't know any better. My father worked at a bank. That made him a banker, right?

I too quit school. Education was important in our family. Both my brothers had managed to go to college. The one had even been a high school drop out, like me. But it was different for me. I married young. I had three small children. I had been beaten and abused. I was pretty much a loser by all standards except God's. God some how or other reached inside of me and gave me the courage to go back to school. You can read a bit about it here. The story of that journey starts here.

I have wondered how I really felt that first day on the University of Missouri campus. I had an infant at a day care a few blocks away. I would go in between classes and nurse her. I had two boys elsewhere. One was in Head Start learning his A, B, C's. The other was in grade school. Driving to class in a 69 Volkswagen bug, running to feed children macaroni and cheese and hot dogs or whatever was in the pantry, it was certainly not your average back-to-school experience. Unlike my walk to PS 94 to start Kindergarten, I didn't have my mother's hand to hold to help me feel brave.

I got through it. I got a degree. I was married again to my husband of now 32 years. I was pregnant with our first child. But I had done it. God had taken that spark in that hospital room at the pit of my despair. Took a young woman who everyone labeled a loser and helped her get a degree in 3 1/2 years with 3 children.

Children, husband's degree, more children and bills kept me from pursuing any more degrees until a few years ago. I went back to school again and now I have a Master's degree. That degree actually took me more years than the Bachelors did, but I did it. Now I am in school for a doctoral degree. I'll do that in three years. I have no choice, that's the way the program works.

God had a different path for me. One that seemed impossible. But that's sort of how God works. He loves enabling us to do the impossible.

RECESS IS OVER!

I was reading a blog about school and teachers.  It was pretty good, you might like it. You can find it here.  It got me to thinking about school. I am way too old by most everyone’s standards to be in school. I’ve blogged a lot about it and told everyone that I had been accepted to another academic program. If you haven’t seen that blog, you can find it here.

I’ve discovered in recent years that I am a nerd. I like school. I like books. I like learning. I have an incredible curiosity. I once said I was a bit like Johnny Five from the movie Short Circuit – need input, need input. 

You'll be sorry if you don't watch the video.

I don’t remember being driven for grades or learning when I was child. I was okay in school; didn’t win any honors though.  In High School, I was told I wouldn’t make good material for college. In college they suggested I go to beauty school because I was creative.  I have cut my husband’s hair for the last 25 years or more, so maybe they were right about that.

My worst teacher was a Miss O’Rourke at PS 105 in Brooklyn. She was mean. She was the personification of mean. Her goal was to make every child in her 6^th grade class cry in front of the class at least once. She succeeded. She told us we were stupid. She told us we thought we were smart but we weren’t. She never touched us physically, but her “tongue lashings” were brutal. I think I still have some scars from my lashings.

The two best teachers I had were in Sunday School. Both were untrained teachers as far as academics. Both were young.  One was single. One married with children for whom I babysat.

Fran was from the south. I don’t know how she ever ended up in Brooklyn, but there she was, young, single, attractive. She had a bit of a southern accent as I recall. We didn’t have Sunday School in the summer and when spring would be in full bloom, the Sunday School class was usually empty. Most of the families had summer places in Long Island. We didn’t. All my life, Sunday after Sunday I would be alone in Sunday School class as my peers went to the Island for sun and fun. Most of the teachers would combine their class with someone else if there was only one person.

I don’t know why she did differently. It was both awkward and wonderful. Fran would sit next to me on the pew – we didn’t have separate rooms for Sunday School we simply spread out over the sanctuary. She taught only me, just me alone on that pew. What I remember most about Fran was her devotion to one child, me. She also made us memorize New Testament passages to tell people about salvation. To this day, most of the passages I have memorized in the NT are because of her.

The other one, the married one, was my Sunday School teacher when I was in the 6^th grade. The same year I had Miss O’Rourke. Helen was evidently on some sort of deeper spiritual quest. She did odd things like go to Full Gospel Businessmen’s Breakfasts. She was neither a businessperson nor a man. She was just hungry for more of God. She really wasn’t full gospel either, she had been Lutheran.

Her zeal was contagious. She took a couple of 6^th grade girls with her on the subway to a Full Gospel Businessmen’s breakfast. I think back now and I think – how strange? Something happened at the meeting. She led me into a fuller expression of the Holy Spirit for the first time. 

What’s the point?

A walk down memory lane with Joyce?

That’s nice for me, and maybe interesting for you but what’s the point?

The point is that we are all teachers. We all impact someone else. We all have the potential to teach someone else something that can change his or her life. I heard someone say a while back that we should all begin to look at our spheres – you know those circles we travel in, the people we know… for the purpose of teaching or mentoring.
 

What do you do well that you can teach someone else? 

What do you have to offer that can change a child’s life? or an adults? 

or an older person? we are never too old to learn!

Someone taught you -- Who can you teach about Jesus?

Eating Ladoos to the Beat of a Tabla: Lifting Up Jesus

Sharing my faith in the typical ways is not easy for me anymore. Once upon a long time ago I was involved in a “Summer of Witnessing” as a teen in NYC. Teens from mostly the Midwest came to Brooklyn to use the Roman Road and tell people about Jesus. I liked the silent prayer partner role the best. However, I would also take my turn, going through down the Roman Road and hope for a prayer. We reported every day of our numbers and have services every night. I don’t remember every seeing any one we witnessed to during the day show up at that meetings.

I remember street meetings in Brooklyn that I have already mentioned in this blog. In one of them, with a group from Nyack College, I remember leading someone to the Lord. I never knew what happened to him. I got involved with a group that had a plan for winning Brooklyn for Jesus. We took blocks and targeted them with prayer and door knocking, all very strategic.  All of this was before I finished the tenth grade. To say I was a bit zealous is an understatement.

However, over the years my personal experience is that I have rarely seen this method of evangelism have long-term results. I have found that simple living the life is probably the most effect. Just hanging out as David said in his blog yesterday.

The most unusual time I shared my faith was in Pakistan. No, I wasn’t on a mission trip to Pakistan, I was on a family trip. It was 22 years ago last week. My husband’s brother was getting married. My husband, four of our children and I flew from NYC to Kuwait and on to Pakistan.

When we landed in Kuwait, I knew everything was different. At that time, you never saw police armed with machine guns in the US. In Kuwait, they walked around the airport, scanning all of us. I had a headscarf ready and hid under it. It was not because of modesty or religious conviction. I wanted to hide my light skin and light hair. I also insisted on wearing my cross. I wanted it clear, no matter what, I am a Christian and not ashamed.

I used the public toilet only to find it didn’t have a toilet. There was a hole in the floor to squat over. I was not that coordinated. We boarded the next plane to Karachi, Pakistan.

We arrived in the wee hours of the morning. As we went through customs, my fear increased. There was an old high desk in the middle of the room. The man sitting on the stool was quite intimidating. When he approved someone to go further, the sound of his stamp on the paper reverberated throughout the room. 

As the days went on, I slept a lot trying to adjust to the time change. I had never met my husband’s family other than one of his brother. There were so many people, most spoke no English. I had no idea of Pakistani wedding customs.  The woman would gather for hours and hours with a tabla, a drum and sing traditional wedding songs. The most popular one was about a mother singing to her son about how he was as beautiful as a peacock.

There were days and days of singing.  Three preliminary ceremonies leading up to the actually wedding.  I put mehndi (henna) on the bride-to-be’s hands and fed her ladoos to help with her fertility. It evidently worked she has five children.

One day I was sitting with the woman, all related, only one spoke any English. They were singing and beating the tabla. I was attempting to clap my hands with them. However, I am Norwegian. Norwegian usually have a serious lack of rhythm. Usually I have to watch careful in order to clap hands to music. This beat was different; it was odd. I was lost.

The sister-in-law who knew English looked at me and said, “You sing?” Sing? Me? I don’t know any Pakistani songs.  They all got excited as she translated that she was asking me to sing a song. They said you sing English – you sing one of your songs.

I probably know 100’s of songs. Nevertheless, at that moment, I couldn’t think of one I knew. I looked at our daughters. I asked them if they wanted to sing. They were young and of course, they thought this was a great idea!  So I asked them, “what do you want to sing?”

They looked at me with a big smile and said, “How about Jesus Loves Me?”  We were in a Muslim country and the only Christians in the house. I thought, dare I? I sent the children into the room with the men to ask their dad what he thought.  They came back and said, “Dad said sure, why not? They won’t understand it anyway.”

We started to sing:

Jesus loves me this I know,

For the Bible tells me so

Little ones to Him belong,

They are weak but He is strong

                Yes, Jesus loves me, Yes, Jesus loves me

                Yes, Jesus loves me, The Bible tells me so

They played the tabla and clapped to their beat. It wasn’t the beat of the song, it just have sounded terrible. We sang. They smiled. We smiled. 

Ok, now maybe this isn’t what you had in mind for sharing my faith. I’d love to tell you that all these woman received Christ. They didn’t. However, I believe the scripture:

But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself." John 12:32