Spending Time with Dad
My father died seven years ago. We're coming up on the second anniversay of my mother's death and I'm finally delving into the memorabilia that ended up in my basement when we moved her to assisted living. I'm scanning in as much as possible, in hopes that afterward I can box everything up in a more organized fashion and not ever have to go back through the originals. Among some of the letters that my father sent to my mother while he was in Europe was a report on the summer of 1948, which he spent mainly at workcamps in Germany and France, with some travel in between, as a break from his student ministry in Manchester, UK.
If you'd like to read it, the scans are availble here. If you open the first page you should be able to click from page to page after that. It's long and sometimes a bit dry, but there are some amazing passages.
The first part of the summer--and the bulk of the report--was spent with a group of German, American, and Dutch men and women in Munster. They worked to clear rubble from the university, but also to build an intentional Christian community together, despite their national differences. This was obviously a foundational experience for my father, one that honed his faith, his commitment to building and leading community, and his enduring interest in forging and maintaining international ties.
I found it fascinating. I heard many bits and pieces of the story throughout my childhood. Many of the names are familiar from anecdotes and memories not included here, and I met a few of the people mentioned when we visited England and travelled in Europe when I was a child. But I've never heard the whole story in detail. Reading it was like spending an evening listening to my dad lay it all out for me and it was a joy to hear it in his voice.
But beyond the personal, I think it is an amazing snapshot of post-war Europe, the difficulties of a peace that we take for granted today, the spiritual effects of living amid destruction, and the triumph of finding connections across barriers of language and experience.
This entry was originally posted at https://lillibet.dreamwidth.org/1302712.html. You can comment either place! There are
comments over there now.
If you'd like to read it, the scans are availble here. If you open the first page you should be able to click from page to page after that. It's long and sometimes a bit dry, but there are some amazing passages.
The first part of the summer--and the bulk of the report--was spent with a group of German, American, and Dutch men and women in Munster. They worked to clear rubble from the university, but also to build an intentional Christian community together, despite their national differences. This was obviously a foundational experience for my father, one that honed his faith, his commitment to building and leading community, and his enduring interest in forging and maintaining international ties.
I found it fascinating. I heard many bits and pieces of the story throughout my childhood. Many of the names are familiar from anecdotes and memories not included here, and I met a few of the people mentioned when we visited England and travelled in Europe when I was a child. But I've never heard the whole story in detail. Reading it was like spending an evening listening to my dad lay it all out for me and it was a joy to hear it in his voice.
But beyond the personal, I think it is an amazing snapshot of post-war Europe, the difficulties of a peace that we take for granted today, the spiritual effects of living amid destruction, and the triumph of finding connections across barriers of language and experience.
This entry was originally posted at https://lillibet.dreamwidth.org/1302712.html. You can comment either place! There are
comments over there now.