Old Tablecloth......
The
brand new pastor and his wife, newly assigned their first ministry,
to
reopen a church in suburban Brooklyn, arrived in
early
October excited about their opportunities.
When
they saw their church, it was very run down and
needed
much work. They set a goal to have
everything done in time to have their first service on Christmas
Eve.
They
worked hard, repairing pews, plastering
walls,
painting, etc., and on Dec. 18, were
ahead of
schedule
and just about finished. On Dec 19 a
terrible
tempest - a driving rainstorm hit the area
and
lasted for two days.
On the
21st, the pastor went over to the church. His heart
sank
when he saw that the roof had leaked, causing a large
area of
plaster about 20 feet by 8 feet to fall off the front
wall of
the sanctuary just behind the pulpit, beginning
about
head high. The pastor cleaned up the mess on the floor,
and not
knowing what else to do but postpone the
Christmas Eve service, headed home. On the way he
noticed
that a local business was having a flea market
type
sale for charity so he stopped in.
One of
the items was a beautiful, handmade, ivory
colored,
crocheted tablecloth with exquisite work, fine
colors
and a Cross embroidered right in the center.
It was
just the right size to cover up the hole in the front
wall. He bought it and
headed back to the church.
By this
time it had started to snow. An older
woman
running from the opposite direction was trying
to catch
the bus. She missed it. The pastor
invited her
to wait
in the warm church for the next bus 45 minutes later.
She sat
in a pew and paid no attention to the pastor
while he
got a ladder, hangers, etc., to put up the
tablecloth as a wall tapestry.
The pastor could
hardly
believe how beautiful it looked and it covered
up the
entire problem area.
Then he
noticed the woman walking down the center
aisle. Her face was like a
sheet. "Pastor," she asked,
"where did you get that tablecloth?"
The pastor explained.
The
woman asked him to check the lower right
corner
to see if the initials, EBG were crocheted into it there.
They
were. These were the initials of the
woman, and she
had made
this tablecloth 35 years before, in Austria.
The
woman could hardly believe it as the pastor
told how
he had just gotten the Tablecloth. The
woman
explained that before the war she and her husband
were
well-to-do people in Austria. When the
Nazis came,
she was
forced to leave. Her husband was going
to follow
her the
next week. She was captured, sent to
prison and
never
saw her husband or her home again.
The
pastor wanted to give her the tablecloth; but
she made
the pastor keep it for the church. The
pastor
insisted
on driving her home, that was the least he could do.
She
lived on the other side of Staten Island and was only in
Brooklyn
for the day for a housecleaning job.
What a
wonderful service they had on Christmas Eve.
The
church was almost full. The music and
the spirit
were
great. At the end of the service, the
pastor and
his wife
greeted everyone at the door and many said
that
they would return. One older man, whom
the pastor
recognized from the neighborhood, continued to sit in
one of
the pews and stare, and the pastor wondered why
he
wasn't leaving. The man asked him where
he got the
tablecloth on the front wall because it was identical to
one that
his wife had made years ago when they lived in
Austria
before the war and how could there be two
tablecloths so much alike?
He told
the pastor how the Nazis came, how he forced
his wife
to flee for her safety, and he was supposed
to
follow her, but he was arrested and put in a prison.
He never
saw his wife or his home again all the 35 years in between.
The
pastor asked him if he would allow him to take him
for a
little ride. They drove to Staten Island and to the
same
house where the pastor had taken the woman
three
days earlier. He helped the man climb
the three
flights
of stairs to the woman's apartment, knocked on the
door and
he saw the greatest Christmas reunion he could ever imagine.
