Chapter 2 the harvey family
CHAPTER 20 - SAME CHURCH, SECOND TIME!
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- CREAKING FLOOR
- HEATING WITH COAL
- INSTALLATION SERVICE
- DISCIPLESHIP
- UNRULY CHILDREN
- PROPER ADORNMENT
- MOST IMPORTANT ASPECT OF THE CHURCH
CHAPTER 20 - SAME CHURCH, SECOND TIME!On October 15, 1978, we traveled to Ampflwang for our regular monthly Sunday services. They always had a fellowship dinner when we came, and after we ate, the church begged us a third time to reconsider our decision not to return. We told the church that we had prayed much about the matter and were certainly willing to follow the Lord’s leading, but could not conceive of returning to Ampflwang under the present circumstances and conditions. One person asked what would need to happen or change in order for us to reconsider. I had carefully and prayerfully considered their previous requests and the reasons for declining were still fresh on my mind. Very little had changed since we were "thrown out" on Christmas Eve, 1968. The Miners’ Mission still owned the church and had the same President with the same attitude towards "their" mission station. Returning to that messy situation would violate every rule of mission strategy! The printing ministry had grown and with all the materials we were producing for Eastern Europe, it was a full-time job in itself. But building the Lord's church was our primary passion. Some might have shown reluctance to leave such a nice home, neighbors and surroundings, which we certainly enjoyed. But we loved the church in Ampflwang and swapping present luxuries for the problem-plagued apartment would not have held us back. I promised to give them the conditions in writing and also promised that we would pray earnestly for God's solution. We were convinced that it was definitely not God's will for us to move back to Ampflwang! In early November, I gave them five conditions for accepting a call: The church must be unanimously in favor of our coming. Those members who were no longer attending would also be asked. The church must unanimously decide to become independent of foreign support as soon as possible, and be fully committed to work toward this goal. The first step would be purchasing the present building or some other facility. As soon as that was accomplished, the church should prayerfully seek, call and support their own pastor. The believers must agree to a program of personal discipleship. Each and every member of the church must be willing to serve according to his or her gifts and abilities. I would only be able to give about half my time to the church because we were not prepared to give up the print shop. The fifth and final condition was the real clincher. The Miners' Mission must agree to our coming and all the above named conditions. I was convinced without a doubt that those conditions could never be met, especially the last one. The faithful believers in Ampflwang discussed our conditions at length and spent much time in prayer about God’s will. They then contacted those who were no longer attending, asking them to attend a special meeting about the future of the church. After much discussion and prayer, they met on November 19, voting unanimously to accept all four conditions which pertained to themselves. They also committed to fast and pray that the mission leadership in England would also accept them, thus fulfilling the fifth condition! The church heard nothing from the mission for three months but continued to plead with the Lord. To our amazement, the mission in England accepted all our conditions on February 21, 1979! The mission was in desperate need of funds for other projects and saw the sale of property in Ampflwang as a viable way to cover those needs. Mission leaders also realized that they could not send anyone to care for the church in the foreseeable future. Most importantly, the mission had recently appointed a new General Secretary who had a burning desire to see mission stations become indigenous churches. We had not expected this reaction and now began to doubt our own commitment! As we prayed, it occurred to us that two of our children would be changing schools in the Fall anyway. Richard would finish elementary school and begin the “Hauptschule” (equivalent to Junior High), and Ralph was finishing Hauptschule and would begin High School in the Black Forest Academy. Becky would have to change schools, but she had not been through that ordeal as often as the boys. Moving would not be such a big deal for them after all! We discussed the situation with our children and Becky was at first quite hesitant. After some deep contemplation, however, she decided she would like to live in Ampflwang. She said, "They have so many horses!" We broke the news to the church in Steyr and the mother church in Linz. The pastor in Linz seemed unperturbed, but the believers in Steyr were heart broken. They fully understood our decision after all the disappointments trying to help them get adequate facilities, but they found it difficult to believe that we were actually leaving. After serving 11 years in Linz, with it’s 250,000 people, and Steyr, with 40,000, moving back to the relatively small town of Ampflwang (5,000) should have been less stressful. But work in Ampflwang was definitely not easier! The print shop had become a full-time job and mentoring church members to serve the church was more difficult than doing it myself. R & RThis acronym normally stands for "rest and relaxation," but in this case it means "repairs and renovations." We had been spoiled for three years in our lovely home and the thought of moving back into the apartment in Ampflwang gave us nightmares. The mission had purchased the building with only the walls and roof construction complete. A few coal miners and Graham Lange did most of the work on the house with whatever materials they could find cheap or free. Little had been upgraded in the church's 20-year history and after years of neglect, many repairs were necessary. I decided to do renovations before we moved, so we wouldn't have to live in the dirt and dust of a construction site. The kitchen was of primary importance for Verna's sake. The first week of July, I worked on the apartment 18 hours a day and made my own meals. One day, I only had breakfast cereal in the morning and worked straight through until well after dark. I was really hungry and decided to eat in a nearby restaurant. I ordered a "healthy goulash" because it was cheap, but the cook added hot spices. On my empty stomach, that did not sit well! I spent half the night bending over the toilet. The following morning, I was really hungry, but had learned my lesson. I made oatmeal for breakfast! PLUMBINGThe plumbing was a catastrophe! As in most Austrian homes, there were separate rooms for the toilet and bath, but instead of placing them next to each other, they were located in opposite corners of the house. The kitchen was in a third corner and the main water supply entered the house in the fourth corner. This meant a lot of clumsy and unnecessary plumbing. When we lived in the apartment ten years earlier, we had problems with a constantly stopped up drain pipe in the kitchen sink. Upon questioning, church members said that the situation had not changed. I decided to tackle the drain problem first, but didn't know what I was getting myself in for! A lead drain pipe led from the kitchen sink diagonally through two bedroom floors to the bathroom, where it was connected to a downpipe in the outside wall. Large two-inch holes had been drilled on an angle through about 20 floor joists. Threading 26 feet of lead pipe through those holes must have been quite a task! There was virtually no pitch whatsoever and I wondered how water had passed through that "roller coaster" drain pipe! The smallest kitchen scraps or even coffee grounds would plug the pipe until nothing passed through. The only way to clear the drain was to shove a garden hose into the sink drain as far as it would go and turn the water on full force. This usually worked, but the kitchen got flooded in the process. I pinched both ends of the lead pipe to assure that no unpleasant odors could escape and left it in the floor. I carefully chiseled a slot half way through a 4" brick partition and cemented a 1-1/4" PVC drain pipe into the slot. Thankfully, the wall didn't collapse, but whenever anyone used water in the kitchen, you could hear it rushing through the wall in our bedroom. That solved the drainage problem in the kitchen, but many other problems cropped up after we moved in. Ampflwang lies about 2000 feet above sea level and winters can be long and frigid. I believe it was in 1981 that the main drain pipe from the bathroom froze up. The drain pipe was imbedded in the cement block outside wall. Someone had left the faucet dripping over night and sub zero temperatures froze the pipe solid. I tried to thaw the pipe by aiming an electric heater at the wall. When that failed to get results, I tried a propane torch. Because the toilet room was so far removed from the bathroom, the builders had made a separate drain for it, which led directly to the septic system. I warned everyone not to use water in the kitchen or bathroom, but said that it would be all right to use the toilet. Verna wanted to do some washing, so I connected a long hose to the washing machine so it would empty into the toilet. I then returned to the task of thawing out the bathroom drain. Fifteen minutes later, I smelled a putrid stench and soon discovered the source. The floor of the church sanctuary was literally covered with the liquid and solid contents of our septic tank! The lower end of the toilet drainpipe must have frozen. Hot water from the washing machine filled the four inch drain pipe and when it thawed, a sudden burst of water emptied into the septic tank, pushing the contents of the tank through the downstairs toilet and overflowing onto the floor of the church. I spent the next few hours cleaning up the mess and sterilizing everything with Lysol disinfectant. When people arrived for the Bible Study that evening, I was poorly prepared. When the wife of one of the elders complained about the strong Lysol smell, I reminded her that it was her turn to clean the church that week. I told the people what had happened and she nearly fainted! CREAKING FLOORThe floor in the kitchen made loud creaking noises with every step, and when you walked past the gas stove, it wobbled so much, that anything cooking on it spilled over. I ripped out the old flooring and discovered that the floor joists were at least three feet apart! Workers used secondhand lumber and apparently didn't have enough, so they simply laid the joists farther apart. Not willing to tear out the entire floor and install more joists, I found two U-shaped iron rails that had once been the base of an offset press and imbedded them crossways on the joists. When I was finished, there was no more spilled soup, but the floor continued to creak. HEATING WITH COALWhen I was growing up in America we had a coal furnace. I was fascinated when the coal was delivered by a dump truck with a scissors-type lift. The driver would raise it to its highest point, fasten a metal chute to an opening in the tailgate or side panel, and tilt the dump body. The coal would rush through a cellar window into the coal bin, creating a cloud of dust and making a deafening roar. The process took only a few minutes and except for the dust, it was an effortless task. For most of our time in Austria, we heated with coal. In many homes there was a small coal heater in each room and it kept us busy feeding fires and emptying ashes. Even when we had central heating, it was normally fired by coal. Coal deliveries in Austria were much different. A truck dumped the coal in the driveway or on the lawn. If that was inconvenient, it was simply dumped in the street. It was the home owner’s duty to warn motorists and remove the traffic hazard as quickly as possible. In order to get a discount, we always ordered our coal in the summer, and it always seemed to arrive on the hottest day of the year. Austrians in smaller towns or in the country kept the coal in their cellars, but in the cities, many were forced to purchase coal in smaller quantities and store it in their living quarters near the stove. The coal could be delivered in burlap bags or in plastic drums. Some preferred coke from the steel mill, while others bought bricks made of pressed coal dust which were transported in bundles. Because there were normally shops on the street level, apartments were above these. The coal had to be carried up several flights of stairs! No matter what form it took, the coal was usually handled several times from the time it arrived until it was carried out in the form of ashes. The central heating furnace of the parsonage in Ampflwang was located in the kitchen and coal was stored in the garage, a total distance of about 120 feet through six doors, two hallways and up a flight of stairs. Having it in the kitchen was sometimes handy for cooking or boiling water, but we still needed a cookstove for when it was not in use. The heater also created much dust. Because Ampflwang had brown coal, we needed about ten buckets a day in cold weather. We liked to keep our car in the garage in winter and garages in Austria are rarely built much wider than the vehicle. The coal bin was just to the left of our Volkswagen van and I had to be very careful not to scratch the car when lugging two heavy buckets of coal past it. Ampflwang coal was of poor quality and three buckets of coal made one bucket of ashes. The layout of the heating pipes was unique. Hot water from the kitchen furnace first ascended into the attic, where it heated a tank of water. Some of the water in the tank was piped across the attic floor to the outside walls and back downstairs to feed radiators. Because the builders saved money on insulation, the water was usually lukewarm by the time it reached the nearest radiators. Those farthest from the tank stayed cold. The tank also provided hot water for the bathroom and kitchen (if you recall, these were located on opposite ends of the house), so we had our choice of lukewarm rooms and cold baths, or vice versa. ELECTRICThe electrical wiring was equally chaotic. No receptacles were grounded and wires originating in the central electric box often took long detours to remote parts of the house before leading to lights and receptacles. I once attempted to draw a wiring plan, but finally conceded in defeat. After the church called a national pastor in 1985, they tore out and replaced all the wiring and much of the plumbing. One New Years Eve, I wanted to show a 16 mm film as part of the program. When I switched off the lights and turned on the projector, everything went dark. Supposing that a fuse had blown, I headed for the fuse box to replace it. Before I had gone three steps, someone tried the light switch and the lights came on. They were dimmer than normal, but nevertheless on! While I examined the fuses, someone turned on the hall light and the lights got brighter! I could find no blown fuses. Curious, we began turning on all the lights in the house. The more lights were turned on, the brighter they all became. In fact, they were much brighter than they should have been! As we turned lights off, the remaining lights would get dimmer. One church member was an electrician and had a voltage meter in his car. He stuck the probes into a receptacle and measured about 250 volts (Europe has 220 volt service) when all the lights were on and only a few volts when they were all turned off. To make things even more confusing, he noticed that no matter how much electricity we were using, the electric meter was not registering any usage whatsoever! We got through the evening with enough lights turned on to equal the normal European 220 volts, but I didn't try the projector again, for fear of ruining it. The following day, a man from the electric company came to check our house. He discovered that a fuse on the main line coming into the house had blown, but the manner in which the house had been wired enabled us to somehow get electric feedback through the ground wire! He also said that a section of the main feed line was thin wire like that used in light fixtures. On New Years Eve, it was cold outside and hot inside. Windows were dripping with condensation from all the people packed into a small area. Perhaps that played a part in the mystery. I don't understand much about electricity, but if someone reading this can explain what happened, I would be interested to hear from you. Perhaps we can reconstruct the situation and get free electricity! MOVING DAYWe moved to Ampflwang on July 10, 1979. Members of the church came to help carry our belongings into the house. One of the deacons carried a heavy wooden box into the garage. It was filled with parts of printing presses, cars, household appliances and other gadgets. I seldom threw anything away. If I did, I first removed screws and other usable parts. The deacon complained that I had brought a lot of junk to Ampflwang. Two days later, the same deacon came to our door and said that their washing machine had broken down. He remembered seeing a washing machine pump like the one he needed in that heavy box! I made him apologize for calling it junk before I gave it to him! The believers in Ampflwang were easy to love and we enjoyed great fellowship. The next five years were filled with blessing, much different from the past few years! After all the church had been through, the people were eager to get involved in ministry. They gave generously and helped wherever they could. INSTALLATION SERVICEThe church insisted on throwing a big party for our installation service which was set for September 9, 1979. Many pastors, churches and friends were invited. The mission also sent a representative. Visitors were invited to give greetings and I still have cassette tapes of the two-hour service. A pastor from Vienna said he didn't know what Bible verse to give us until that very morning. There was a stranger from Communist Hungary in the morning church service who said that the Lord had burdened him to share a message with that small church. He then read several verses from the prophet Haggai. Two other persons had chosen those exact same Bible verses, and I could hardly consider that a coincidence. I decided to preach from that text the following Sunday. Haggai 2:18-19: Consider now from this day and upward, from the four and twentieth day of the ninth month, even from the day that the foundation of the LORD’S temple was laid, consider it. Is the seed yet in the barn? yea, as yet the vine, and the fig tree, and the pomegranate, and the olive tree, hath not brought forth: from this day will I bless you. During preparation, I became curious about the exact dates given in Haggai's prophecies. I did some research and was confounded at what I discovered! The first prophecy is dated the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month. According to historians, Darius reigned from 522 to 485 BC, so the second year of the reign of Darius would be 520 BC. Add 1979 years to this and you get 2,499 years. When the present dating system was invented by Dionysius Exiguus in the 6th century, they used Roman numerals which did not have a zero. Therefore 1 BC is the year before AD 1, with no intervening year "zero." The date in Haggai corresponds to autumn on our calendar. If my calculations are correct, this means our installation service on September 9, 1979 took place exactly 2500 years after rebuilding of the temple commenced! And that is not all. In the Old Testament, every seventh day was a Sabbath Day and every seventh year a Sabbath Year. The year following the seventh Sabbath Year (50th year) was declared a “Year of Jubilee” and also celebrated as a Sabbath Year. Both the 49th and 50th year would have been considered Sabbath Years. Although there is no inference whatsoever to further celebrations based on this numbering, it would make sense to me to think that the culmination of seven Jubilee years (350 years) would also be worth celebrating, and 50 times 50 (2500 years) would be very special! Perhaps Jesus was referring to just such a celebration in Luke 4:19-21. I could get carried away with this numbers game, but it was encouraging to know that the Lord had something special planned for us in Ampflwang and he certainly did! Three years later, the church purchased the mission property and on October 5, 1984, the Austrian Bible Institute opened next door to the church in the building that Graham Lange and we had prayed for over a period of 17 years! HOMECOMING!We expected that our most difficult job would be to regain a measure of respect in the community after all the bad relationships that had been made by the last pastor. We were pleasantly surprised, however. Nearly everyone seemed to be genuinely friendly toward us, treating our return to Ampflwang as a sort of "Homecoming." Businessmen said that they were very impressed with the church, which had paid most of the debts incurred by their pastor. Neighbors told us how happy they were that we had returned to the town and church. A complete stranger stopped me one day, as I was walking through town. He gave me a warm welcome and was full of praise for the leaders of the church. He declared that the local priest was more of a scoundrel than our predecessor, but there was nothing they could do about it. Two of the elders of our church were elected to the City Council and one of them was also selected to serve on the Board of a local bank which was closely connected to the opposing party! Nothing like that had ever happened in the town. DISCIPLESHIPThe church kept its part of the agreement and soon several men were helping with the preaching, while others led the services. Every member was given a specific job or responsibility. These included tending the church literature table, cleaning the church, keeping up bulletin boards and the church showcase, visitation, picking up people for meetings, teaching Sunday School, helping with youth and children's meetings, and much more. I insisted that one of the men preach at least once a month. I never once had to lead a church service or weeknight service unless the person in charge had suddenly become ill. UNRULY CHILDRENSeveral members agreed to teach Sunday School classes, but before long, the lady who taught the pre-teen class complained that the kids were unmanageable. She was moved to a younger group and a man took the pre-teens class. There were only four boys and a couple of girls in the class, but he too came begging to be relieved of his duties. I said that I would try my hand for a while. On the first Sunday, it was obvious that several boys had agreed to make life miserable for me. I stopped in the middle of my lesson and asked if they wanted out early to play games. They quickly agreed. I then laid down the rules. My lesson would only last ten minutes, but for every minute I had to pause because they were being unruly, the lesson would be extended two minutes. That helped for two weeks, but then the boys began hitting each other and causing disturbances again. I threatened to bring boxing gloves and make them fight according to official rules. They just laughed and said, "That will be the day!" Someone else had to teach the following two Sundays because I flew to Kansas City for a Field Director Conference. While there, I asked the mission CFO if I could write off boxing gloves as a ministry expense. He looked at me as if I was nuts and said, "No way!" I went out and bought two pair of kid's boxing gloves to take to Austria, and just for the fun of it, I included the purchase on our next ministry expense report. Sure enough, the treasurer noticed it! Incidentally, in 2013, the CFO was named Mission President and he never forgot that incident. I had my teaching job back the following Sunday, and it wasn't long before two boys were at each other's throats and other parts of the anatomy. I stopped and said, "Didn't I warn you about that?" One of the boys replied, "Yeah but I don't see any boxing gloves." I reached behind a door and pulled out a bag with the gloves. In the next five minutes, I read them the basic rules. I then led them outdoors and told them to put on their gloves. The rest of the class watched with great interest as the match began. I had to break them up a couple of times to reinforce rules, but they were soon boxing like little pros. After ten minutes or so, I let the class declare a winner and we went back inside to finish the lesson. The kids actually cooperated and paid attention after that. When class was over, other boys wanted to try the gloves. I said, "Next week!" From that time on the boys behaved. Those kids are all grown and married now, but they still talk about that class. Two of the boys are youth leaders in their churches! PROPER ADORNMENTAnother experience with the youth is worth sharing here. Several teenagers sat in the back row of church causing disturbances. Two guys had their ears pierced and a deacon approached me and said that I should preach a sermon about guys wearing jewelry. I replied, "Did you know that the children of Israel wore earrings -- including men?" I opened my Bible and read from Exodus 35:22: And they came, both men and women, as many as were willing hearted, and brought bracelets, and earrings, and rings, and tablets, all jewels of gold: and every man that offered an offering of gold unto the LORD. Speaking of Israel, God says in Ezekiel 16:11: I decked thee also with ornaments, and I put bracelets upon thy hands, and a chain on thy neck. And I put a jewel on thy forehead, and earrings in thine ears, and a beautiful crown upon thine head. In the German Bible, it says "put a ring in thy nose" instead of "jewel on thy forehead." I'll let the Hebrew scholars determine which translation is correct. Not long after that, I did bring up the subject in a sermon. I said, "I am wearing a necktie for the same reason those youth seated in the rear are wearing earrings. I got the reaction that I was expecting. Everyone was listening intently. I then explained that I didn't wear a necktie because it made me comfortable, and guys don't have their ears pierced because it feels good; the Bible neither commands nor forbids these fashons. It is all a matter of peer pressure. Both young and old were suddenly paying no attention to the sermon! MOST IMPORTANT ASPECT OF THE CHURCHI was once preaching on the subject of fellowship. I opened the sermon with a question. "What is the most important aspect of a church service?“ I explained that the main purpose of the church was missions, but what aspect of our church service was most important? Answers came from all over the congregation. "The sermon," "prayer," "singing" "scripture reading." I asked why no one said, "offering"? Then I gave my opinion and explained why I felt that it was of highest importance. "My answer would be "fellowship," I said. "God's Word is very important, but we can read or study it at home, or listen to sermons on tapes. We don't have to go to church for that. The same is true of prayer and music. But fellowship is different. One can only have fellowship in a group. That is one thing we can't do at home alone." I used the example of family mealtimes to make my point, "People can eat and keep healthy eating alone. The real value of family meal times is the fellowship." It was our monthly Fellowship Sunday, when everyone was invited to stay for a hot meal and fellowship. In fact, that is why I preached on the subject. After church the ladies set the tables and soon everyone was called for dinner. As Pastor, I was given a seat at the head of the main table. I thanked God for the food and the ladies began serving everyone a large plate of delicious food. After all others were served, the women sat down at their places. I had silverware, an empty glass and a plate but no food. Puzzled, I asked where my food was. The ladies were waiting for that question and answered in chorus, "But you said in your sermon that the important thing about mealtime is the fellowship. You get what's important and we get the trivialities." Directory: documents documents -> Concept stage documents -> Concept stage documents -> The great global switch-off documents -> Nonprofit grant application documents -> The Truth about the Rwandan Genocide documents -> Annual InStructional unit plan documents -> Chaos equipment included Download 2.2 Mb. Share with your friends:
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