May 10, 2010
Another chapter of Karen's writings
I'm sorry for the extra messages you received in my attempt to upload a chapter of Karen's writings about the things she placed into God's hands. This latest one is about her placing her flute on a shelf when it and her love of music threatened to become more important to her then her Lord. For your sake I have edited her 6 pages down to 3, most of it information overload.
Yesterday, Mother's Day, marked 17 months since Karen left for heaven, and today marks 5 years since we left the Philippines. God's grace has been a part of every day and has always sufficient.
Posted by David at 1:19 PM
Father I place my love of music in your hands
Father, I place into Your hands my love of music
While I was a student at All Nations Christian College in England I knew I had to place my flute ‘on the altar’ as Abraham had placed his son Isaac there. I can’t explain exactly how I knew that’s what God was asking me to do, but I guess I understood that I was in danger of letting music be an idol to me, a god rivaling my loyalty to the Lord Jesus. So I put my flute up in the top of my cupboard and only took it down if someone asked me to play for morning worship.
How had music come to have such a valued place in my life? I’d grown up with music being as much a part of life as breathing. My grandfather played the violin, my mother was a music teacher and played violin, viola, piano, trumpet, and taught vocal music as well. I was in the third grade when my grandmother arranged for me to start taking piano lessons. In fourth grade I tried playing the violin. And in fifth grade I started on the flute. My mother arranged for me to have lessons with professional musicians from my home town who worked with me on basics. From them I learned a lot about embouchure, diaphragm breathing, and how to produce a really good tone. One of these men was very overweight and his lips were so big that they covered the mouthpiece in a way mine never could, but I practiced hard to sound as much like him as possible. They also encouraged my mother to buy better a quality instrument than the old school flute I first had.
In high school I’d practice the flute for four hours a day. That was after my tutor showed us a beautiful new Haynes flute. I loved that instrument! I didn’t deserve to have such a good instrument, but my high school music teacher encouraged my mother to buy it for me if at all possible since he thought it was a really fine flute. It wasn’t at all like a school flute. It was a professional model, made of sterling silver. I loved the tone, the way it responded as I blew into it. I enjoyed being able to play such a beautiful instrument. Maybe that’s why it had to go on the altar.
I didn’t keep up with piano or violin, probably mostly because I was so stubborn and unwilling to learn from my mother. When I understood her to be “telling me what to do” on those instruments (which she played well) I didn’t want to listen. But soon I knew more about flute than she did. Then we got along fine! Going to the Summer Music Clinic at the University of Wisconsin at Madison helped me discover that I had lots more to learn! My first year there I was about 23rd chair! My second summer, I was second chair! There is a strong competitive streak in me and I needed to see that being first chair in our junior and senior high bands wasn’t that big an accomplishment. Challenging to be first chair at the Music Clinic, with good musicians from all over the state was the goal that kept me practicing.
The summer after my junior year in high school I auditioned for a music scholarship to the University of Wisconsin at Madison. I was so nervous when I did that audition. Even though I was one of the best flutists that summer, there were extremely talented musicians on a lot of other instruments, all competing for scholarships! I ended up being a runner up for a scholarship. Since I wasn’t sure that I wanted to go to such a huge university for my freshman and sophomore years, I was happy to be an alternate, thinking a scholarship might become available by my junior year.
I chose to go to Lawrence University, in Appleton, WI, mainly because they had a music conservatory and I knew I would be able to continue on in music. I was SO embarrassed when I got to the college and had to begin by taking a course called “Remedial Ear Training!” The name of the class made me feel like a fool needing remedial work. I knew that if I’d been more ready to learn from my mother, I could have started college knowing how to read and sing vocal music, sing intervals, etc. Looking back now, I realize that it was probably one of the most valuable music courses I had. I graduated with a degree in English Literature but had nearly as many credits in music as well.
When I moved to England in 1970 to work for Lawrence after graduating I spent nearly all my free time going to concerts, the opera and ballet. I also loved visiting churches when services were going on, so that I could hear the organ and choirs. I loved listening to music. My taste was very eclectic. I loved hearing a large orchestra, ensemble, opera, ballet, Gilbert and Sullivan, marching bands, even the Beatles! I also loved making music. I was able to take occasional flute lessons from one of the flutists in the London Philharmonic Orchestra and had my repertoire stretched through the variety of pieces and drills he had me work on. For a year or so I joined an evening class to play in a woodwind quintet which was good fun.
After coming into a personal faith relationship with the Lord during my third year in England, I gained a whole new perspective on music -that of worship. My first taste of combining my love of music, playing the flute, and worship was when I was able to play in the orchestra at All Souls Church in London. It was such a treat to play with that group. I found it hard to leave it when I moved away from London to study at All Nations Christian College! But there I began hearing and learning Scripture set to music.
The messages of many Bible passages are firmly embedded in my mind because I could sing them and memorize songs far more easily than passages of prose. It was a new and wonderful experience to link my longstanding love of music and playing the flute to Christian music, either accompanying worship or playing a descant.
But even with playing my flute in worship to the Lord, I knew that there was a danger of my love of music and my flute having a higher place in my life than my God. So I placed my flute on that top shelf on the back of my cupboard. I did not want anything to take priority over my devotion to Jesus. And there my flute stayed until the day I got the news that my father had died. In fact the day my brother phoned to tell me was the day of the funeral, so there was no way I could even consider going home for the funeral. That day I felt the Lord say to me that I could take out my flute, and play out my grief. I could express my feelings better with a flute in my hands than in any other way. And He gave me back the instrument to help me grieve and process the news. At no time since have I felt there was any question as to whether music mattered more to me than God. And as long as He is center stage in my life, music can continue to have a prominent place in my life. More and more the music I want to play is worship to Him.
It was only five months after my dad died that my mother passed away. I was able to return to Wisconsin to care for her in her last month here on earth. With her passing, the last link to my musical heritage passed away too. I remember how powerful and painful it was at a Christmas program at All Nations the first Christmas after my mother died. We had a Japanese student that year who was a gifted musician and well known singer in his own country. His English had a distinct Asian accent when he spoke, but when he sang he sounded just like Bing Crosby! He had a beautiful, deep, rich voice, but I sobbed all the way through his rendition of “The Holy City” because it brought back so many memories. My grandfather had the piece arranged for violin and Mom and I had played it as a duet. Hearing him sing brought to mind the two of us in front of the piano with Mom sitting on the piano bench and me standing to her right so that my flute wasn’t in her ear nor her bow in my eye! There he was singing, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem…” and tears were streaming down my cheeks at the flashback of beauty mixed with the pain of loss. And I was to speak later in the carol service! God collected those tears in a bottle. (Mine must hold gallons by now!)
Posted by David at 1:17 PM
February 24, 2010
Father, I place into Your hands… my singleness
Father, I place into Your hands… my singleness
“Now you tell me!” was my response to Martin Goldsmith’s comments to the coed group of students at the Christian Union meeting in Cambridge. Martin is tall, lean, very Jewish looking, and loves to say provocative things. He then watches; tongue very visibly in cheek, to see how his audience will respond. Well, my response was annoyance! He had just said that if a single girl committed her life to Christ, her chance of finding a suitable mate would drop considerably. He went on to say that if she then became a missionary, the likelihood of her remaining single doubled!
See how annoying he could be? Martin, one of my teachers at All Nations Christian College, had taken me along to that meeting, not because I had anything to contribute, but because he was aware of how little I knew as a Christian when I started out as a first year student at All Nations! I guess he decided to take advantage of the opportunity to see that I got a little extra teaching on the side in the context of that Christian Union meeting. I enrolled at All Nations the year after I asked Jesus to be my Lord and Savior. I hadn’t gone there to be a missionary, only to get to know God and His Word better. So it shouldn’t have mattered to me one way or another that my chances of marriage were decreasing. But I did feel as though God had tricked me into something I might come to regret.
Thirty years later I haven’t forgotten Martin’s comments, so they did niggle more than I wanted to admit at the time. But they didn’t quench my new and exciting faith. Life with Christ was better than anything I’d known previously in my life. I’d never felt so loved and accepted, so free to be the person He made me to be. I had a new identity and was hungry for Christian teaching, even though I struggled to put each thing I learned into practice as soon as I discovered it. I found myself gagging on some lessons as I tried to swallow them before I’d had time to chew and process them into bite sized pieces. All in all I was growing and learning to serve my Lord so not always thinking about marriage.
Yet it wasn’t fun to always be a spectator at friends’ weddings. I had been to a number of weddings in England and I’d missed those of many high school and college friends in the States during the three years I’d lived in London, England. I watched friends who were happily married and having children, and I did wish I could be in their shoes.
I chuckle as I remember the first time I was married. A group of neighborhood friends were playing and we decided to have a wedding! I wore a half slip with lots of layers of light green, yellow, and pink crinoline as a veil. I can’t remember what I had on for a dress or what Eric Lenser, the groom had for a suit. But Eric was the groom, I was the bride, and Wayne Wilson was the pastor who married us. I think we were in third grade at the time.
Dating became a more important part of my life through junior and senior high. Having a boyfriend seemed to be an important and necessary part of the package to be socially acceptable and not an outsider. I wanted to be in the ‘in’ group and was proud of having a boyfriend, even if he did prefer someone else during ice skating season each year. She was cute and a better skater!
Liking a boy from my hometown who went to Lawrence University was a big influence in my decision to attend the same college. Dean was a good friend and we dated most of the four years we were there together. He is a fine organist and I loved hearing him play—often sitting on a wooden pew in a drafty church listening to Widor or Bach toccatas and fugues. I remember asking Dean to promise that he would play the organ at my wedding. I was joking because at the time I hoped he’d be marrying me and thus in a different role at the wedding. Had that happened, my life would have followed a very different pattern.
There was definitely a strong attraction to the opposite sex. I’d have been delighted to have a number of different tall, dark, and handsome boys I knew pay attention to me, but whether I was too bossy or too opinionated or not pretty enough to get their attention, no serious relationships ever developed.
Let me bring my story back to England now and the autumn of 1971. I’d been living in London for just over a year and had a free weekend, so decided to cycle to the south coast from London. I didn’t have a map; just a Youth Hostel guide which I hoped would lead me to cheap accommodation. I hadn’t taken into account that the North and South Downs (which are actually rather steep hill ranges) lay between me and Brighton! I still can’t figure out why the British call ups ‘Downs.’ I found my way south through Wimbledon and eventually into slightly more open country. I stayed at a Youth Hostel near Holmbury St. Mary, in Surrey, northwest of Reigate. I asked the hostel warden about interesting places to visit in the area. He told me there was a village church, part Norman, part Saxon just a few miles away. The next day I went exploring (I’d given up on the idea of making it as far as the south coast!) and found the church. It was a lovely October day, with crisp, colorful leaves underfoot and still clinging to the trees. The sun was warm. In the States we’d have referred to the day as Indian Summer. I explored the tiny church, then settled down under a cherry tree to write letters. It seemed a wonderfully peaceful spot and I was basking in the warmth and quiet around me, such a contrast to the noise and bustle of London. I expected to be undisturbed for hours, but soon discovered that footpaths from neighboring farms crossed in the church yard. And though the building was centuries old, it wasn’t dead! One woman came to arrange flowers for Sunday. Another came by to check on the Scripture readings for the services the next day since he was to be reading them during the service. This “reader” stopped to chat and we found lots to talk about. Tim lived in a half-timbered farm house nearby and was planning to move to London. His father had recently died and he had been back at home to help his mother.
To shorten an otherwise long story, Tim and I got together quite often once he moved to the capital, and went to the ballet together. I was into brass rubbing (using heelball wax to rub an impression of a monumental brass on to a sheet of paper—much like covering a penny with a piece of paper and rubbing it was a pencil so that you than had a black and white impression of Abraham Lincoln or Queen Elizabeth on the paper, depending on which penny you used). Tim had a car and one weekend we went to the Cotswolds in the west of England, near Cheltenham where Tim had studied. Tim knew that many churches in the area had monumental brasses amidst the paving stones on their floors. Many were of wool merchants standing on their sacks of wool with a favorite dog at their side. What I remember best about that trip is what happened on the Monday night.
We had been staying in Youth Hostels, but all the hostels in the area were closed on a Monday night so that the wardens had a free evening. That meant we had no place to stay and neither of us could afford a hotel or even a bed and breakfast. Tim’s suggestion was that we go to a farm in Skipton where he knew the owners and ask to spend the night. He assured me they wouldn’t mind as they had a Bible study at their home on Monday evenings so would already have lots of company! I wasn’t too keen on a Bible study, but we needed somewhere to stay, so I agreed to go. I’m sure that by the time I’d opened my mouth twice in the Bible study it was clear to everyone in the room but me that I didn’t really know Jesus Christ in a personal way. Oh, I’d grown up going to church and even taken a lot of religion courses in college, but hadn’t ever studied the Bible, and didn’t actually realize that God could speak through His written Word to me personally. John’s Gospel, chapter two was the topic for discussion that evening. I can remember mouthing arguments I’d heard other people use to disagree with a literal interpretation of what was written. So I contributed to the discussion, but remained ignorant. Afterwards Tim asked our hosts if we could spend the night, and they kindly obliged. Another American girl was also staying with them. Elizabeth later contacted me in London and encouraged me to read the Bible and get a tiny book of daily readings called “Daily Light.”
My interest in Tim, more than in the Bible, drew me to the Bible study he soon started attending in London. It met in a large flat on Great Montague Street, across from the British Museum. The Bible study was on Thursday evenings and soon I was attending regularly, even going on my own if Tim couldn’t make it. January 20, 1972 was a Thursday, and after a meal as a group of more than thirty young people, we broke into three smaller groups for Bible study. Afterwards I got to talking to a fellow American with a most unusual name, Sparkle! She had come to use the phone to call her family in the States and wasn’t able to get the call through. Sparkle was a stranger to me, but she did have a familiar accent, and we got to talking. All sorts of jumbled thoughts and questions that had been churning in my brain came tumbling out. Sparkle listened, then pulled out a little booklet she had in her pocket, and began leafing through it, explaining the content as she went: “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life” she read. I found it a lot easier to believe that He loved other people than that He loved me, but I kept listening. When she got to the part about a chair and a throne it made sense to me that I’d been sitting on the throne of my life, not Jesus, and it was time to get up and let Him be Lord of my life. We prayed together and I asked Him to be my Lord and to forgive my sins. Life had been pretty good so far, but I was afraid my luck would run out and I was well aware that my life lacked purpose and direction. I knew than that I needed and wanted Jesus to take control of my life---and He did.
This may seem like a tangent from discussing my ‘love life’ but actually, getting to know Jesus was getting to learn the true meaning of love. Though there were warm and exciting feelings in my friendships with men, I came to realize just how selfish and self-centered my feelings had been. The concept of love giving and of caring more for the person loved than for myself and my own interests, was an entirely new concept.
On the way home from the Bible study that wintry evening, I remember stopping under a lamp post and telling Tim I had asked Jesus to be my Lord and Savior. I didn’t feel any different, but I’d done it, and somehow telling someone else made it more real than just praying with Sparkle. I don’t think I ever saw her again. God brought us both in out of the cold to connect for a significant moment, then took us on separate paths. Mine led to a deep desire to know God better and to become familiar with His Word. That got me to All Nations in September of 1973.
There is no need to go into others who did show an interest in me but for whom I felt no reciprocal feelings. It seemed that the tall, dark, handsome ones were always interested in someone else! I was glad to have them as friends, not boyfriends. But there were times when the longing for the partnership and security of marriage tugged at my emotions. Yet I had misgivings about marriage. I think a part of me had always been afraid of being married. My mother’s marriage only lasted a little over three years, and I was only two when dad walked out, so had no idea what a ‘normal’ home with two parents was really like. I didn’t want to be divorced, so maybe it was safer not to marry.
Despite Martin Goldsmith’s warning I did become a missionary and went to the Philippines as he predicted, a single woman. On one home assignment I met someone I really liked and wondered if he could be Mr. Right. I was visiting my good friend Linda in Texas when I decided I just had to know whether I’d find a husband. My plan was to fast and pray until the Lord gave me an answer! I can’t remember how long I spent on my knees beside the bed—at least four or five hours—when God spoke to me. His voice was clearer and more distinct than I’d ever heard it before and I still remember what He said.
“Trust me, my child. If I tell you now that you will be married, you’ll want it right away. If I tell you that you won’t marry, you aren’t yet ready to receive that answer. Trust me.”
I didn’t get the answer I wanted. Instead I was deeply reassured that God knew me inside out and knew what was best for me. I was satisfied, and ready to eat!
A few months later I was back in England and on my way to a CWR Counseling course. I had booked the course months in advance, but as it came time to go, I was dragging my feet. I’d been traveling all over the United States. I counted 50 different beds I’d slept in over the six months I was there and I was tired of changing beds. I was also tired of having no fixed address, apart from heaven, and I didn’t know the zip code there. So when the course started only a week after I arrived in England I simply didn’t want to pack a suitcase and travel to yet another different bed. But I did go, and during the week there the Lord met with me in a new and deeper way.
Selwyn Hughes, the main speaker on the course, explained that we all had a deep need for significance and security and a sense of self worth. When our efforts to meet those needs were thwarted, it could lead to frustration, anger, resentment, etc. And if we looked in the wrong direction to have the needs met, we could get what we wanted, and find our hearts and lives still empty and longing. I began to realize that a record playing in my head, at an unconscious level, for many years had repeated, “When you are married and have a family, then you will feel secure.” I have believed that, and thus was convinced that I couldn’t know security apart from marriage! But if, as Selwyn taught, our deepest needs for significance and security can only be met in our relationship to Jesus Christ, then I didn’t need a husband and children to be secure! That took some processing, and I began to realize that God had protected me from a premature marriage to someone who I expected to meet my needs in a way that only God can. I thought about others I knew who married for the wrong reasons and now felt trapped in a relationship that hadn’t turned out as they expected. I began to thank God for protecting me from being in those same shoes myself.
At one point during the course, we were asked to write down the most painful experience we’d ever had. I didn’t know how to answer that question, so asked God to show me. He reminded me of something that happened when I was about ten and spending the day with my father, older half sister, and younger brother. I remembered the event, but had completely buried the pain I felt that day as my father took us to meet his drinking buddies and introduced his oldest and youngest children. I was just one of the insignificant ones in the middle, unnoticed. Feelings of the pain of rejection were buried in my heart that day, buried so deeply that God had to bring them to the surface when He was ready to bring healing. I shared the incident with a small group during an evening session and they prayed for me. One of the ladies saw me as that skinny ten year old, tearful and alone, and saw Jesus standing near me beckoning to me to come to Him, to receive his attention, His love, and acceptance. Through my tears I too could see Jesus reaching out in love to me, and gladly ran into His arms.
When I went to bed that night, two thoughts were spinning in my head. The first was the words of a chorus I must have learned in Sunday school many years before,
“Now I belong to Jesus, Jesus belongs to me,
Not for the years of time alone, but for eternity.”
The sense of belonging was WODERFUL!! The other thought was, if I were to marry, the invitation would read:
The Lord Jesus Christ
Gives His daughter Karen
To be married to
___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Suddenly it didn’t matter whether the blank at the bottom of the invitation was ever filled in or not. What mattered was that I knew who my real father, my heavenly father was, and that was enough.
A few months later I was on my way back to the Philippines for another four year term. I’d already been there for ten years and assumed that, just as Martin Goldsmith had predicted, I would remain single for however much longer He wanted me serving Him there. There was a lightness in my heart and spirit as I left friends in England. I was more at peace with singleness than I’d ever been before, and looked forward to pouring the energy that had previously gone into longing for a husband, into my Father’s service.
That could have been the end of this chapter, except that God had other plans. When I returned to our mission language center in Batangas City to do a language refresher course, I discovered that there were quite a number of new students, including five single fellows! When I started ten years earlier there were only five in our group, a couple, another single girl, a single fellow, and myself. The other singles were both from England and Michael decided when we were still on the Candidate Course in England that he was interested in Dawn. It took about a year for her to be sure that marriage to Him was what God had for her, but about a year after we started our training in Singapore, Michael and Dawn were married and I was their bridesmaid. During my early years in the Philippines, there just weren’t many single men around. So here I was, meeting three from other missions, and two who were also with OMF.
I arranged to arrive in Batangas on a Thursday because I knew there would be a Bible study that evening, and it would be a good way to meet other students. Most of our classes were individual ones with our Tagalog teachers, so we didn’t always see much of other students. There was a ‘brown out’ (power outage) that evening, a very frequent occurrence in those days, especially in the province. So Phil, who was leading the study, had a Coleman lamp in front of him so that he could read his notes and see his Bible, but the rest of us were sitting in the dark! That led to interesting discussion! Never at a loss for words, I made numerous comments during the study, and at the end asked any who cared to join me to plan on a beach outing on the Saturday. I loved to swim, and knew that it was culturally inappropriate for me to head for a beach alone. I didn’t really care who came along, as long as there were others so that I could get into the sea again.
I had suggested a meeting place for Saturday morning, near the jeepney stop where we could get a ride to Anilao beach. Two couples, one with young children, and one of the single fellows took me up on the swimming outing. As soon as we got to the beach, I headed for the water and kept swimming for several hours! The salt water is buoyant and it was easy to float when I got tired. I thought that Dave, the single fellow in the group, liked swimming as much as I did since he stayed out in the water with me when the others tired of swimming and went back to shore. After a while, he climbed up on a sail board anchored off shore (probably a resting spot for snorklers since there was lovely coral in the area). I kept swimming around him like a shark (!) and we asked the sort of questions you do when getting to know a stranger. I was surprised to learn that he was also from the Midwest, had become a Christian while in the Navy, and been at a Bible school in Oregon the same years I’d been at All Nations. When I got home that afternoon I had quite a lot to write in my journal, much of it about that young man!
My plan was only to spend two weeks in Batangas doing the refresher course, and the weekend in the middle I went across to the island of Mindoro to see friends there. I’d been reading through the Bible that year, and my readings on the ferry crossing were in the Song of Solomon! It seemed particularly inappropriate as I kept thinking about Dave. After returning from Mindoro I felt I needed to talk to him. Several things he had done during that first week, perfectly innocent in themselves, seemed rather out of place in the Philippines context and I felt I needed to tell him, as kindly as possible, that he was sending signals I was sure he didn’t mean to send.
The day I returned from Mindoro I received a letter from an acquaintance in Belgium. I had met him and his family years before hitchhiking on the Continent and kept in touch. By this time his wife had become a Christian, but he was still sitting on the fence. I heard from him occasionally and this particular letter had many religious questions. I wasn’t sure how to answer the letter, so asked Dave’s advice. I thought that after discussing Andre’s letter, I might be able to give him a bit of sisterly advice. We had a good Bible study together, looking for Scriptures to share with Andre. Then I blurted out a question that was on my mind. “Dave, why are you still single?” By that time I’d learned that he was about a year and a half older than me, had never been married, and I couldn’t figure out why! Usually I could figure out pretty quickly why older men were still single, but he was an enigma.
Later I learned that he had a pat answer ready for that question, one he had learned from another bachelor some years before. That answer was, “I haven’t yet met the girl who deserves to be as happy as I can make her!” If Dave had given me that answer, this would probably be the end of my chapter. But instead, he told me how he had grown up on a farm, been in a small country school in a class of all boys until he went to the big high school in town in ninth grade. He was shy, and didn’t date at all in high school. While in Bible school he was interested in a girl, and when she ended that relationship, he was crushed. He had been reading Elizabeth Elliott’s book “Through Gates of Splendor” about the life of her husband Jim Elliott. And when he read about Jim asking God to put his emotions to sleep (as He had put Adam to sleep in order to form Eve from Adam’s rib) until he met the woman he was to marry, Dave had prayed the same prayer. Dave told me all of this and ended his story by saying, “And that’s what God did… until I met you.”
I was speechless. I felt like a bowl of jelly gradually sliding out of the bowl, down the chair, onto the floor, and through the cracks in the floor. I never did get to telling him that offering me flowers (that he’d been given on his birthday) and staying behind at the end of a Bible study were sending the wrong signals. I guess they were the signals he meant to send! If Dave hadn’t declared an interest before I returned to Manila, we probably wouldn’t have seen each other until we were both at a mission conference. But having said he wanted to get to know me, we did a lot of letter writing over the coming weeks and months.
Our beach outing was on June 4th, and on July 4th Dave and other Americans at the language center came to Manila, to the house where I was staying to celebrate that American occasion! That weekend Dave spoke to Gus Noble, our OMF director, about me. Gus warned him not to hurt me. If he wasn’t interested in pursuing the relationship, he needed to let me know soon. On the other hand, Gus pointed out that Dave needed to get off the roundabout sometime, and maybe this was the time!
I didn’t know the gist of their conversation at the time, and was surprised that Dave seemed so agitated that afternoon. He and the others from Batangas drove back south and we continued to write fairly regularly.
He and other language students came up a month later for a field trip, to visit different Manila based ministries. It was arranged that Dave would visit our church planting team and during that weekend he asked me to be his wife! Again I was speechless, but managed to nod in the affirmative.
We were married six months later, on January 9th, 1988. Denny and Patty Merritt, team mates of mine in Tanauan, Batangas wrote and sang a ballad at our wedding. We had tears in our eyes and huge grins on our faces as we listened to what they sang:
WAITING FOR THE KING
(for Dave and Karen Lampinen:
01/09/1988)
Would you like to hear a pretty story
It may sound familiar, but it's true
All about a prince in Royal Service
And how he finally found his princess true
Once upon a time there was a Kingdom
And in that country lived a princess fair
The King Himself decided to adopt her
She grew to love and serve Him everywhere
She would freely move about the palace
Singing praises daily at the throne
Then her king sent Karen on a journey
She went at once to call His children Home
Other girls her age had early married
And full of love and life she would have too
But only if her King would grant His blessing
She came to see that nothing less would do
(CHORUS)
Waiting for the King
Trust in him and sing
All that he knows best for you
will come . . .
. . . in time
Go in his strong hand
Fit within his plan
Royal blessing you will surely find
In another province of the Kingdom
A prince grew up to be a gentle man
Once a rebel, now a loyal soldier
He marched off to fulfill his Master's plan
David too had vowed his sole allegiance
To only marry one his King would choose
When he met that lady, he was certain
It was ordained, PROCLAIM THE JOYOUS NEWS!
(musical fanfare)
David and his princess want to tell you
Karen and her prince want this made clear
To wait upon the King for Royal timing
Is not an easy thing--the cost was dear
But in the trusting came a new dimension
A laying down of all at Jesus' feet
To know the Father's love and full acceptance
Is all we need to make our lives complete
(CHORUS)
Waiting for the King
Trust in him and sing
All that he knows best for you
will come . . .
. . . in time
Go in his strong hand
Fit within his plan
Royal blessing you will surely find
[written and sung by Denny and Patty Merritt in Tanauan, Batangas, Philippines, on the occasion of the wedding of David Lampinen to Karen Druliner 01/09/88]
Posted by David at 4:25 PM
May 20, 2009
Lessons learned in my Garden
Lessons learned in my Garden by Karen Lampinen
Grandma loved the garden—flowers, vegetables, shrubs and trees. Her home was on a double lot, so one had the house and the other the garden. And when there wasn’t room to plant more in that garden, she started planting on the ‘side hill,’ land beyond the neighbor’s house and on the way down hill to the village park. Strawberries grew in abundance on the side hill and Bill and I always ate more than we carried back to the house. There were ground cherries too, a fruit I’ve never seen elsewhere. Grandma was proud to be a member of the Garden Club. As a child, I knew it only as a meeting she regularly attended, but I’m sure they discussed how and where different plants grew best and shared cuttings and bulbs with one another. Inside Grandma’s house was a Christmas cactus and African violets, in a south exposure bay window where they had sun in the winter. The huge elm trees outside shaded that window in the summer.
Mother’s gardening was more pragmatic. As a teacher, she was off duty during the summer months and reckoned if she could grow enough fruit and vegetables to feed us through the winter, it was a good investment of her time. Here I learned that gardening is hard work. We would rent a roto-tiller in the spring to break up the ground, then rake and shake out clumps of weeds in preparation for planting. Our back yard went up to the fence along the railway tracks and asparagus grew wild along the fence. We had a strawberry bed and raspberry patch at opposite ends of the garden and in between were beans, beets, broccoli, chives, carrots, corn, eggplant, onions, peppers, rhubarb, and squash of various kinds. Bill and I had to help with the raking, planting, and cultivating. I helped more with weeding, picking, cooking and freezing. But the only vegetables I would east were fresh carrots and boiled corn! I look back on those years now and wonder how I could possibly have been so stubborn and stupid. There I was, surrounded by fresh, organic, home-grown produce—and I refused to eat most of it! I guess helping in the garden was my summer job. My brother had a paper route and mowed lawns, but apart from babysitting when I was old enough to do so, my work experience came from the garden for more than ten years.
During my years in England I never had space to garden and most of my attempts to grow things in the Philippines ended in failure. I knew how to garden in Wisconsin, but not in Batangas City or Manila. One year all the papaya seeds we planted grew into male plants which don’t produce fruit. Then they rotted at root level when rainy season started. I tried to grow zinnias, collecting the seeds from a neighbor in Fairview who had a lot of them growing in her yard, but mine were pathetic.
The one house I lived in, right across the street from Tanauan Bible Church, was the exception to the rule. That land had been a corn field until Pastor Maling built his house there and in that soil roses and aloe vera and some other interesting plants grew well. Out back we had a harvest of root ginger the first year we were married. By then I’d learned to watch when and where and how Filipinos planted things, and to follow their example. Later we needed to learn what to do with our crop of ginger. Our neighbors grew peppercorn, and as they were along our fence, I picked some big green berries and dried them to use in our pepper mill, only to find you aren’t to pick the berries until they turn red. All I had were the empty husks of peppercorns with none of the white powder, the part that provides seasoning.
Also in Tanauan I had a harvest of watermelon that I’d never planted. Mrs. Gonzales had shown me how to make candied watermelon out of the white part of the plant, between the red center and dark green skin of the fruit. I’d thrown the seeds out back before I went to England for a visit—taking the watermelon candy with me to give as gifts—and when I got back there were vines and small fruit all over my tiny back garden.
The first house Dave and I lived in in Manila had a large number of fruit trees at the back. The yard was only about 16’x 40’, but in that space the owner had planted three mango trees, one chico, one rambutan, one chesa, and one jackfruit tree. The trees kept the yard cooler, but the canopy they formed meant light didn’t reach the ground enough for grass to grow. Along the fence at the front of the house we had beautiful bouganvillea and outside the gate were four coconut palms, a good source of fresh coconut meat and milk, plus leaves for brooms and husks for skating (polishing) floors.
On home assignments we were never in one place long enough or at the right time of year to plant anything outside. But when Ben was ill, and we stayed in several different houses, we planted a few vegetables and were able to eat lettuce and a few home-grown green beans. Over the years my tastes had changed, and there was nothing I liked better than home-grown vegetables, with the exception of asparagus.
When I needed medical treatment, we returned in May and stayed in a delightful little house with some lovely flowers. Sheri who owned the house brought over three tomato plants and we watched those grow, but moved out of the house before the fruit was ripe. It was August when we moved to Wiese Road, too late for planting and with inside work on the house taking priority over gardening.
The following spring was our first opportunity to plant a garden. On April 3 I started seeds in trays and put them in the bedroom window facing east to get the morning sun. It seemed the rain would never let up enough to get started, especially since step one had to be preparing the soil and planting grass seed for a lawn behind the house. We borrowed a tractor with tiller and when it was dry enough in mid April, Dave went over the ground about four times. Then we marked out a path and flower beds and started putting in the flowering plants we had even before sowing grass seed. Next came bark chips for a path and wooden frames for raised vegetable beds.
A week after the grass seed went in we began to see a faint shimmer of green on the dark soil, and a week later there were fine blades of grass growing. I started pouring over gardening books and questioning friends and neighbors on what to grow when and where. Wil’s class had a plant sale to raise money for their trip to Washington, D.C., so as well as my little seedlings, a variety of healthy flowers and vegetables arrived at the end of May. Not knowing most of the names of the flowers on the order form, I chose assortments of perennials and annuals that liked the sun. Apart from the poppy and petunias, I didn’t know what my new plants would look like, but week by week as they bud and flower I’m discovering the intricate beauty of delphinium, larkspur, nicotiana, gazania, static, cornflowers, etc. I’m still waiting to see what eupatorium and sedum look like in bloom.
As my friend Nancy and I walked around our neighborhood, we saw other flowers that reminded me of my grandmother like peonies, bleeding heart, and spirea. Others reminded me of Mom and our home in La Crosse. We had a mallow (hibiscus) next to our back door which grew into a very large plant each summer, with huge orangy-pink blossoms, and a wigelia at the front corner of the garage. I remember that bush being covered in red trumpets all summer. So when I saw plants at nurseries or nearby stores, I gravitated to those. Both Mom and Grandma had glads, so again in went the bulbs in hope of late summer color. Then I spotted freesia bulbs. I knew fresias as delightful scented cut flowers in England. Would they grow here? I had to try! Less than half came up, and only one had a flower.
It amazes me that some varieties of hibiscus can withstand the heat of Manila and others the cold winters of Wisconsin, and others the wet spring in Oregon. But I like the idea that this plant can live in so many of the places God put me to live. Perhaps the most important lesson God has taught me through flowers is best summarized by a poster I had in my early years in the Philippines. It said, “Blossom where you are planted.” The person who modeled that most clearly to me was Erika Hanser. Erika is from Germany, and she loved flowers. I think she brought seeds with her and also found flower seeds around her, but wherever the seeds came from, she was always planting them or tending the growing plants. Missionary life is often transient and on a number of occasions Erika had to move before her flowers bloomed. It may have been hard for her to leave them, and start planting again without having enjoyed the fruit of her labor, but it didn’t stop her from planting again in her new location. I learned from Erika partly because I got to see those flowers bloom. My heart was lifted many times as I enjoyed her flowers and was able to pick them and arrange them inside. I began to see that we don’t just plant for our own enjoyment, but to give pleasure to others who will follow our path. Dave and I have sought to leave rented homes in better condition than when we moved in, another way of testifying silently to landlords that Christians can be trusted not only to pay the rent, but to be good stewards of their property.
For me, “bloom where you’re planted’ has had lots of implications and applications. It means to make the best of our circumstances and do what we can to improve them. It means to invest in the future, knowing others can benefit from our actions. And it means living for today and not just dwelling on the past. Given a choice, I would be in hot, humid, polluted Manila right now, where I struggled to keep plants alive. But God has put me in lush, green, fertile Oregon where almost everything we’ve planted has sprouted, and most have grown well.
I’m officially on “study leave” from our mission this year, and I’ve learned more from our garden than in any other way. These are some of the lessons learned:
Lessons learned in my Garden
GOD IS IN CONTROL. I can’t cause a seed to germinate, to put out roots or a stem and leaves. I can’t control the sun and rain. I can water my seed trays but I can’t control the temperature. As Paul said, we can plant and water, but it is God who gives the increase.
FOLLOW DIRECTIONS. I’ve learned and will remember more from what hasn’t done well than from what has! So far my worst failure has been trying to start impatiens from seed. I put potting soil into egg cartons with one seed per hole, and I started early, planting those seeds on April 3rd. But the directions said the seeds had to be kept at 75 degrees F. while germinating and we only set our thermostat at 65 degrees! I thought if all the other conditions were right, it wouldn’t matter if one was a bit off. From a whole packet of seed I got one plant that survived, and at the end of July it still hadn’t flowered. I have been very impatient with my impatiens—but I didn’t follow the expert’s directions. And the same lack of good results follows every time I fail to follow my Maker’s directions, so clearly laid out for me in His guidelines for living, the Bible.
I’M IN A BATTLE. Weeds need no help to grow and they are happy to steal as much goodness as they can from the soil where I want something else to grow. They pop up quickly and aren’t too hard to remove when they’re small or the ground is soft, but once their root system is well established and the ground is dry I can’t pull them out. Sin in my life grows in much the same way. If I acknowledge my sin as soon as I’m aware of it, God can pull it out roots and all and it’s gone. If I let it grow it becomes more invasive and more drastic measures are needed to remove it. Its roots become more entangled with me as a plant and they want to choke the life out of me.
The battle isn’t only with weeds but with bugs and fungi. Insects land on leaves and start eating. They lay eggs which hatch and the larvae eat too. Slugs and snails love mums and lilies and petunias, primroses and marigolds. In fact there doesn’t seem to be much they won’t devour. Constant surveillance is needed to keep ahead of the enemy who uses such a variety of means to accomplish his ends: to kill and destroy. I need the equivalent of slug bait in my life to fight my enemy—and God has provided that in the armor and weapons needed (Ephesians 6). But having that armor doesn’t do any good unless I put it on and use it daily. Satan is more crafty than slugs and earwigs and if I forget I’m in a battle and need to be ready to fight, he will quickly take advantage of my forgetfulness and laziness. And he will bide his time. After months of drought with no sign of slugs we had one night of rain, and suddenly the slugs were back! Big, fat, healthy slugs. How had they survived during the dry months? I don’t know, but I do know this showed me once again the need for vigilance. Cabbage moths which are prolific at laying eggs in every crevice of the Brussels’ sprout leaves have reminded me that letting even one of those eggs hatch leads to disaster. We’ve sprayed those plants more than anything else in the garden, but we’re still losing the battle.
ESTABLISH DEEP ROOTS. I bought four tiny clematis plants and kept them in the greenhouse until each had a long vine I could tie to a trellis. But they didn’t flourish when transplanted. First I learned their roots needed to be in the shade even though the blooms could handle direct sun. A friend gave me a lovely mix of ground cover plants to protect the roots. But still the clematis were disappointing. Then a nurseryman’s comment to a friend showed me what was wrong. Robin was buying fuschia ‘starts’—little plants in 2” pots. We looked through all the pots to find ones that already had buds or flowers, thinking those were the choice specimens. But as we were paying for our selections, we were told, “Be sure to cut off the buds when you plant these starts. The plants need to establish their root system before they start flowering.” Later in the summer I cut back my largest, most scraggly clematis and three weeks later I had beautiful new healthy growth on that plant. The better established the root system, the more growth will take place. There are many times I’ve neglected my own root system, and been less fruitful as a result (Psalm 1 and 40). And not only did new growth appear, that clematis climbed the trellis, putting out new leaves and flower buds as it went, and when cool weather meant most things in the garden were looking haggard, that clematis had five cheery blossoms into November when heavy rain and wind ended its flowering for the season. Every time I walk near that trellis God reminds me of His lesson on letting my roots go deep.
GROWTH TAKES TIME. We can extend the planting season somewhat by starting seeds or nurturing young plants in a green house, but they will do best and grow best when conditions are just right. I planted lettuce seeds on April 3rd and put the plants out about a month later. But the seed that went straight into the ground at that time grew faster and did just as well. The same was true with my cucumbers. Later, direct planting into warm soil yielded better results.
We all look at people around us whom we admire and long to be like them. Unfortunately if we have opportunity to get to know them, we learn that they became gracious and wise and gentle through suffering. There isn’t a quick and easy path to Christian maturity. Plants and trees are strengthened through having to fight adverse conditions, and so are we. I remember reading a book called, “Rees Howells: Intercessor” about thirty years ago. My response then was ‘Please don’t ask me to be like him Lord.’ The price to maturity and powerful prayer looked way too high.
Annuals are cheery colorful plants that only last a season. Perennials like hollyhocks and lupines won’t bloom the year they are planted. It takes time for the plant to establish deep roots and strong branches so that the following year they can put their energy into flowering. Plants can’t change their nature, but I think I’ve changed from being happy to be an annual to wanting to be a perennial—deeply rooted in God’s word and giving glory to Him through flowering for a long time.
GARDENS ARE TIMELESS. Even though the miracle of growth is repeated every time a seed sprouts or a new leaf appears on a woody stem that looks dead, there is a sense of continuity in a garden. I’m finding that growing flowers that my mother and grandmother grew is bringing more and more memories of them. Just as what makes a gift special is the giver, so the mental associations we have with certain trees and shrubs and plants draw us closer to those with whom they are linked in our minds—and at the same time closer to the One who created all colors, textures, shapes, and sizes: the author of all beauty.
WE ARE STEWARDS. That word isn’t used much anymore, but the concept it represents goes back to Genesis 2. God put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden to cultivate and care for His garden. That responsibility to take care of our surroundings was given before man sinned. And the only way our responsibility to be good stewards was altered was that as a result of sin, the job was made more difficult because we now to contend with weeds and thistles.
THE IMPORTANCE OF FERTILIZER. Raspberries, strawberries, gladiolas, clematis all suffered this year because I didn’t know when or how, or even that I needed to give them added nutrients to grow. I thought water was enough. The results: fewer berries, few or no flowers, unhealthy plants. I think for me the spiritual equivalent is reading stimulating, thought-provoking books which stretch my mind and help me to grow spiritually. For another person it might be attending a conference where the extra dose of fellowship or stimulating talks gives you a boost.
One type of fertilizer is manure. Plants that have been eaten by animals or birds, digested, and excreted…is this like learning from the experience of others? We can’t imagine going through the pain and suffering they have, but we can benefit as they share their digested experiences and what God taught them through each.
Compost is another good fertilizer, but I’m learning that not everything makes good compost. We’ve been throwing all of our table scraps—apart from meat and bones—into the compost bin, then covering it with grass clippings. A few months later we have very black, healthy-looking soil in the bottom which we scoop out and use as fertilizer. The results? I planted iris along one fence, and first worked three pails of compost into the soil. I also scattered wild flower seeds hoping they would give us color during the summer. Consequently I didn’t pull out the little plants that started growing around the iris. I still haven’t pulled them out, and now have a row of little tomato plants and a couple of squash vines in the iris bed. Last week I was talking to Clinton, my very analytical systematic gardener neighbor, who periodically checks the Ph of his soil and has a water meter to tell him when he needs to water his plants. He has a new compost bin, on a stand like a spit, which he rotates regularly. He only puts in grass clippings, saw dust, and special nutrients and water. And he gets high quality, nitrogen rich soil out of his compost in two to three weeks! No unwanted seeds are going to contaminate his soil! He won’t get the surprises that I do in his gardening, but you should see his beautiful dahlia bed and the 100 foot row of glads—all flowering right now. Makes me think about what I take in. Is my diet healthy in the right nutrients?-- Am I spending my time reading and watching things that draw me closer to the Lord? – or do tomatoes spring up where I’ve planted iris because I haven’t been careful in making good compost, or have let anything on TV or in movies or novels influence my thinking?
I’m not as methodical and disciplined a person as Clinton, but I can learn a lot from him. When I first met Clinton and admired his garden, he told me I needed a meter to test the soil, so I bought one. It’s still sitting in the laundry room cupboard because using it seemed so complicated and slow that I never did the mixing of soil and water necessary to use it! Good equipment doesn’t help us a bit if we don’t use it. That’s an unfortunate reminder that the stabilizer ball in my closet (not even inflated right now) isn’t doing me much good either.
While fertilizing is systematic and only needed occasionally, watering has to be done regularly. For the fuchsias to not be watered even for just one hot summer day can spell disaster. My largest pot often needs watering twice a day in really hot weather and when we were gone for a few days I think it didn’t get quite enough TLC. We found it with dry, paper-thin petals on most of the blossoms. They were so dry on the outside that the petals couldn’t open, so I removed them all. A week later after lots of water, the plant was covered with more blossoms than I’d ever seen on one plant.
I think the parallel is to how critically important it is to be in touch with God through prayer and reading His word. Without that vital communication we quickly become parched, dry and brittle, edgy and unsympathetic to those around us. Like very unattractive plants. No wonder Christ talks about offering us living water which we need to be taking in on a daily basis.
IT IS OK TO TRANSPLANT. When we moved into the house on Wiese Road there were rhododendrons at the front, west side of the house, azaleas on the north and east, a lovely dogwood, and a hydrangea, also on the east. The hydrangea hadn’t been pruned and heavy blossoms weighed down branches. We used bungee cords to try to hold it together. So in the fall we cut it back—too much. It only had two flowers the next year. But the bush looked lots better except that the leaves were scorched by the sun. It made me sad to see each healthy new leaf open and then get burned at the edges. We couldn’t figure out a way to shade the hydrangea and I noticed that the healthy ones I saw were all on the north sides of houses. So I got Dave and Wil to dig up and move our plant. We must have done the move at exactly the right time because the leaves didn’t even wither. It was at the beginning of rainy season and cooler weather, and now, a month after the transplant, it looks as though it had always been there.
We just dug up the geraniums from around the garden and put them all in pots in the greenhouse to see if they make it through the winter. My bright red fuchsia is looking happier in the greenhouse than it has on the deck all summer. My conclusion: transplanting needs to be done at the right time. With most plants that means before or after warm weather when all the plant’s energy will go into growth mode and when there is an abundant water supply, and with an eye towards improving drainage, light, etc.—whatever conditions were lacking before.
I see how God transplanted me from Wisconsin to London to Manila to Portland. Each move was to help me grow in a new area of my life. When I drank deeply from His life-giving water supply, I could blossom wherever I was planted.
Posted by David at 3:29 PM