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Religion in NE
They Pass in Review
Looking
back over a span of thirty years, many "Guests" have come and
gone, many have stayed a long time, others only a short time. Many
of them have made Bethphage their home, suffered and lingered on
until they have been called to the Great Beyond.
What Bethphage has meant to them,
eternity alone will reveal. Many of them loved Jesus and Bethphage
served Him in caring for them until they had been released from
their bonds and had entered the heavenly mansions of glory. The
aim of all Christian work is to win souls for Christ, but it is
also important to care for those who are His own, even those who
are mentally sick and suffering.
But now we would like to let a
few of those women who have made their home at Bethphage twenty,
twenty-five, or nearly thirty years, pass in review. The one who
comes first as to the number of years spent at Bethphage is
Charlotte. She is eighth in lives until the eighteenth of
November, she can count her stay at Bethphage thirty years.
According to her own statement, she has never regretted coming to
Bethphage. The many who have visited Bethphage will remember
Charlotte, crippled with arthritis, yet always busy in her corner
doing fancy-work for the Art Shop, painting cards, writing
letters, making or mending her clothes; all with crippled hands.
Charlotte is a real business woman, selling cards and plaques for
the benefit of the Mission, helping other "Guests" in supplying
them with cards and stamps. "I need a stamp." "Go to Charlotte,
she will see that you get one." "I need a card." "Go to
Charlotte." "I need a string or some glue." "I think that
Charlotte has some." "I want to mail a letter." "Charlotte has a
mailbox in her room and that is easily taken care of."
Charlotte has been of service to
many, but, many of the "Guests" have also served Charlotte in
waiting on her and helping her. Charlotte also tries to help the
other "Guests" with some of the many problems that trouble them,
so her motto is "Serving Christ in others."
Charlotte is nearly eighty years
old and is at present convalescing from her fourth siege of
pneumonia within the last few years.
Little Emma came to Bethphage
twenty-eight years ago. She too could serve as well as being
served for many years. Now for a number of years she has been
unable to care for herself at all and Bethphage has been a much
needed refuge for her.
Ella
was brought to the Mission twenty-seven years ago, helpless and
inert, but after a while she began to improve mentally so that she
could care for herself. Now for many years she has been able to be
of some assistance in the kitchen and dining room of Tabor. Ella
has a very inventive mind and likes to create many little
novelties which she gives as gifts to the Sisters and workers
especially at Christmas. Ella still needs the care that Bethphage
is giving her. Johanna is an old schoolteacher from Sweden. She
did not have any home, so she became a resident of Bethphage about
twenty-five years ago. Johanna is very pietistic and loves to read
the old Swedish devotional books. Her chief work at present is to
sew tatting on handkerchiefs and this she does very nicely.
Johanna often likes to visit the other homes and especially on
days when there is a possibility of coffee being served. Johanna
is appreciative of the home that she has found at Bethphage and
especially now when the infirmities of old age are beginning to
lay their hands upon her.
Ina came as a "Guest" of
Bethphage twenty-seven years ago. She had been an epileptic since
early childhood, but sixteen years ago after a prolonged period of
seizures they stopped entirely. I asked Ina how she got rid of her
epilepsy. She' answered, "It was only through the grace of God and
in answer to prayer. I prayed and others too, prayed and I was
healed."
Ina is in fairly good health and
is able to assist in the work at the Laundry almost every
forenoon. In the afternoons she tries to be of some assistance to
those who cannot help themselves, or she is busy doing some
embroidery for the Art Shop.
Mrs. Lloyd came to Bethphage
about twenty-two years ago, crippled with arthritis. She was able
to get around on crutches for many years, but due to several
attacks of influenza, she has gradually become worse so that she
has to sit helplessly in a chair all day long.
For many years she has, with her
crippled hands, been doing the most beautiful embroidery for the
Art Shop, pillow-cases being her specialty. Mrs. Lloyd loves to go
to church and she is taken over in her
wheel chair whenever her condition and the weather permit. She
loves to gather some of the "Guests" around her and sing some of
the precious Gospel hymns. She has also served by keeping an eye
on the many invalids who have come and gone and shared the room
with her while yet in this world. She served them and us too, by
calling the Sister or attendant when they needed help and were
unable to call themselves.
Tuesday afternoons many of the
older women and a few of the younger ones gather in Mrs. Lloyd's
room which is also shared with two other invalids, Agnes and
Helen, and also with Alta who is not an invalid. Pastor Peterson
conducts a Swedish Bible Class. Many of the old Hemlands
Sânger are sung and all enjoy these Bible studies and songs
very much.
What the growth of all the Word
sown at the Bible Classes, devotions, at the bedsides, and at the
Sunday Services will be, we do not know. We do know that, "The
Word shall not return void but it shall accomplish that which I
please and it shall prosper in the thing whereunto I sent it."
(Isa. 55:11)
--Sister Emma
February, 1944.
Mary Elizabeth
Among the guests at
Bethphage are to he found a variety of afflictions. There is a
group that has come to be known as the spastics. They are often
blessed with an average intelligence but lack coordination between
the mind and the muscular activity of the body. They have not lost
motion as in the case of the paralytic, but have it to an
exaggerated degree. In reaching for an object they may over-reach
the thing to be grasped; they walk with an unsteady gait; they
talk with an exaggerated intonation and hence are difficult to
understand.
There are several of these
unfortunates at Bethphage. Each case is just a little different.
There are Betty and Cordice, who are affected to the degree that
they are bedridden. The same is true of Dickie, who is scarcely
able to lift his helpless limbs and is not able to speak. There is
a new arrival, Kenneth, who walks and talks but did not respond to
educational training at a school for defectives in one of our
large cities. Probably the most characteristic of these cases are
Jeannie and Mary Elizabeth, who have been with us for over ten
years.
It will be my purpose to tell the
story of Mary in this short sketch. Here has been a case where
Bethphage has served to show that the Psalmist was right when he
wrote: "When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord
will take me up." (Ps. 27:10.) For she was forsaken by her father
by his own willful choice and by her mother through a tragic
death.
After the birth of Mary, her
mother was faced with a sad situation. She was the mother of two
children, a son and then the daughter who was handicapped with a
spastic body. The bread winner of the family had deserted her. It
was under such circumstances that her pastor offered the
suggestion that she might find employment at the Bethphage
Mission and that her unfortunate daughter might also be
accepted as a guest. That was quite easily arranged.
It
was not very long until the mother was faced with another
difficulty. She had a normal son and he should be given
opportunity to develop in normal surroundings. It was with this in
mind that she left the Bethphage Mission and became the
housekeeper for a farmer near Saronville, Nebraska. There she had
hoped to give her children the advantages of a home.
Then occurred a tragedy that was
to change these well laid plans. It was the Sunday before
Christmas in 1936, the mother with her children and their employer
had been in attendance at their local Lutheran Church. Before
returning home they were going to the village post office to mail
some Christmas cards. It was just across the railroad tracks. Then
happened what will never be explained in a satisfactory manner.
The little group in their automobile did not see the oncoming
train and it threw the car and all its passengers into the air.
The farmer was killed instantly, the mother breathed her last an
hour later, Mary received only a few minor bruises, and the
brother was left with a very severe concussion of the brain.
Little hope was given the brother and at best he was expected to
be left with a defective mind. But God was good to him and
directed the surgeon's skillful bands, so that a head operation
was successful and when this is written he may be flying in the
skies over Berlin, for he is a member of the United States Army
Air Corps.
After this tragedy Mary returned
to Bethphage. The Lord through this group of friends "took her
up." Seven years have passed by rapidly. In spite of the fact that
there is no regular course of instruction at Bethphage, she has
learned to read and just recently has been able to pick out words
on a typewriter and thus corresponds with her friends. Although
she has not been able to master some of the subjects that belong
to a general education, she has learned one great lesson that is a
prized possession. She can say with the Apostle Paul: "I have
learned in whatsoever state I am, therein to be content." (Phil.
4:11.)
In preparing this sketch I
arranged for an interview with Mary. We had talked about her past
life and had come to about this point in her story. Then I asked
her, "What do you consider some of the happiest days in your stay
at Bethphage?"
Mary became somewhat excited and
it was with difficulty that I was able to grasp all that she had
to say. I did however discover that there were several pages in
her book of memories that had filled her heart with joy.
There was the day when she with
Jeannie and Cordice were present in the chapel and before the
congregation confessed their faith in their Lord and made their
vows to be faithful to Him even unto death, and received the
Lord's Supper for the first time.
There was the day when she with
her sister in affliction, Jeannie, had been remembered by the
Y.W.M.S. of the Zion Lutheran Church of Newman Grove, Nebraska.
These young women had sent them a set of dresser scarfs, curtains,
bed spreads, etc., all to match. How happy these girls were to
know that they had unknown friends who were thinking of them.
There was the day when she had
finished her first rag-carpet rug. It may not have been the most
beautiful rug that has been made in our occupational therapy
department, but it was without a doubt one of the most belabored
that has been made. It was a great accomplishment. Here was a girl
who was not going to be doomed to a life of idleness because of a
physical handicap. When she had finished that rug she had won a
glorious victory. Yes, it was a happy day for Mary when her
teacher said, "Now, your rug is ready."
The above were some of the happy
days which were mentioned by Mary, and others could well have been
added. But there was one other suggestion which she gave me that
touched my heart, for it gives an insight into the life of one
that I feel has caught the spirit that God wants us to have at
Bethphage. She said, "I believe that I am happiest when I can take
the smaller children out of doors, and when I can help the
Sisters." At first, I did not think so much of that answer but
after some deliberation I realized that back of that modest
statement was a most beautiful Christian grace. Paul must have had
that in mind when he exhorted: "Bear ye one another's burdens, and
so fulfill the law of Christ."
We had come to the end of our
interview. During the course of our conversation she discovered
that probably her story would be told to the friends of Bethphage,
and as sort of an expression of gratitude to all of you she
exclaimed, "I'm hoping that I can stay here all the days of my
life."
Out of the Depths
Human derelicts - human
wreckage - human flotsam and jetsam are salvaged along the
friendly shores of Bethphage. This is a cry from out of the
depths, the cry of the helpless and often the homeless and even
the hopeless. This is the cry of those whose mental wagons run on
five wheels instead of four and more often on three wheels and
some seem to run on hut a single wheel. Outwardly they seem mere
human vegetables but inwardly they are precious souls in the sight
of God.
There are one hundred and
sixty-five of us at Bethphage and yet there are applications from
as many more, who would enter if they only could. Who will deny
that the Church has done too little for the insane, the
epileptics, and other mental unfortunates? The Church ought to
take care of the insane. After living eleven months at one of the
largest insane hospitals in the country, an asylum with all of
four thousand on its roster, I can testify that only about one
fourth of them ever get out alive, the rest are doomed to die
within veritable prison walls, many of them in utter and stark
despair. I could hear their loud cries in the night - the lament
of despair - of utter and dire despair. All night and all day
reeked with their lamentations.
Then how different is Bethphage
from the state hospital! Here they try to get people to live;
there it seemed they hastened death. Here you have a Christian
atmosphere; there was a pagan intolerance. Here you have
blessings; there you heard curses. Here the attendants serve the
patients; there patients serve the attendants. Here the patients
are treated as guests; there they are treated as prisoners. There
was tyranny; here is liberty. There should be a hundred Bethphages
to take care of society's unfortunates, to care for those in
bonds. Bethphage needs right now a new building for men and
another for women.
But it is not buildings only that
make Bethphage - it is the character and quality of the
consecrated Sisters and Brothers and other attendants. It is their
fine spirit, their marked devotion to the services of the helpless
that makes Bethphage unique among the institutions that minister
to those in bonds.
Bethphage is a child of your
prayers. it is the fruit of your sacrifices, it is a creation of
prayer. It breathes the love of Christ. And may its lower lights
ever burn in the night of human despair. The roots of Bethphage
are in the dark, dark earth, but its treasured flowers are in
heaven.
- One of Them
© 2002 for the NEGenWeb Project by Pam Reitsch, Ted &
Carole Miller.
