My mother and father made sure that we went to church every Sunday and my brother Carl and I participated in the youth group, ushered, help serve food, in general the life of the congregation. My father sang in the choir and was a handyman around the church. My mother was part of the women's organization and a faithful member of the Mary/Martha circle that did bible study and service projects. It was a part of our life, like going to school everyday was. There were many a soccer game that I did not get to until after half time because worship on Sunday came first. Practicing the faith was important.My mother was visited by a pair of Jehovah Witness evangelists. This was about around 5th or 6th grade for me. I would come home after school and there they would be with bibles open studying scripture. I wondered what my mom was doing? She was a good Lutheran Christian, why would she entertain these evangelists? Did she love bible study that much? Could she be thinking about converting?
The Jehovah Witness' would start teaching something important to them and use a specific scripture verse to back it up. Then I would hear my mother exclaim with her Norwegian accent, "That is my one of my favorite verses! Could we read the whole chapter?" This would happen several times during the bible study. I would try to listen in to see what the excitement was about. What I discovered would be one of the best lessons in how to study scripture I would ever learn.
The two ladies would be expounding about some tenant of their faith and go to a verse in scripture to highlight their point. It would be at that point that my mother would insist to read the whole section or chapter, which of course would show that that particular verse did not mean what they were trying to say it meant. "That is one of my favorite verses! Could we read the whole chapter," became a joke for my mother I would find out later. She was teasing these earnest women with the truth of scripture in the hopes they might learn that our God is quite an amazing God.
Soon, those ladies stopped coming and I asked my mother why? She said, "Well, they realized I was evangelizing them."
I have told this story often, and I may remember it more romantically then it probably was. But, it shows the core of who my mother was - she showed hospitality to strangers, listened to them, found humor in the situation, shared her own story and tried to share her faith with others. Probably a good example for all of us.
