Provenance iv

 

What follows is the rest of the Veldhuisen story, written and published more than forty years ago, a story all about what I thought to be a wonderful wilderness family, but also a story that documents a faith driven by confession and a fellowship created, at least in part, by wooden shoes and other ethnic affinities, a one/two punch, for better or worse, that likely no longer exists in the recognizable  quantity or quality. 

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(continued from yesterday's post)

And the Veldhuisens feel the conflicts in the church. The Young People have scheduled a dance for this spring retreat. They’ve asked for politely, the churches have been contacted, the consistories approved (some very reluctantly), and now the first Young Peoples dance will go on. Nick and Johanna wonder if their Mennonite neighbors and Baptist friends won’t be sure now that the Dutch Reformed are waning in righteousness. They wonder why it is that the children can't create their own entertainment, plays and skits--the way it was always done in the past. They wonder if some of the old ways aren't being sacrificed for something new, something with nothing of the old distinctiveness. And they wonder if the Lord really approves of the dance. It is not an easy issue in Emo; they don't need a synod to tell them that much.

Dance or no dance, the spring retreat goes on, and lohanna prays for clear, warm weather. Nick, knowing the land needs rain, teases her for her personal piety. Jo says she will pray for the needed rain again when the retreat has ended. Nick just shakes his head. It is an old argument. Husband and wife openly admit their differences. The battle will continue.

And then there's this business of evangelism. The Emo church has a considerable number of non-Dutch members who find it hard to understand the old concerns about Sabbath observance, about dancing, about the necessity of the second service, about so many things that the Veldhuisens, and so many of us, have accepted as part of the confessional heritage of the CRC. The Veldhuisens know Christ's mandate to go out and preach; they know that ethnicity has nothing to do with sanctification, but they feel reluctant to concede those old concerns, and who they are, who they always have been, and who they truly feel they should be, in a kind of accommodation to accept and minister to those who don't understand. It is, for the Veldhuisens, and many of us, a struggle.

One hundred chicks run freely over the yard, next season's source of eggs. Peter, the youngest boy, says they often get extra chicks because the dealer "can't count a hundred of the little squirts so close." Same thing happens with the turkeys, he says. Peter is thirteen, but when he looks up and says that an extra turkey is worth almost a week of meals to his family, his eyes light up with a mature sense of unmerited blessing far beyond his years. It's a gift from his par­ents, this familial love and joy. And it's born out of a closeness that seems almost tangible on this dairy in the bush. There are no quiz shows here, no "Sesame Street," not even "The Waltons"-there's no televi­sion. The rest of us must decide whether the Veld­huisen family warmth, generated in the coldest area of the North American continent, is a characteristic com­mon to or different from the typical CR family.

Breakfast ends with a reading from Today. Nick prays again--for rain, for blessings, for forgiveness of sins, for continued good health. The younger children, as is their custom, echo his amen.

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I was on leave back then, a graduate student in Wisconsin, teaching half-time, writing a novel, and trying to be a dad to two pre-school blondies. 

I don't remember when I sat down to write the Veldhuisen story, but it wasn't long after I returned from Emo. Sometime back then I decided I'd try to describe what I'd experienced at the Veldhuizen home because I was sure--where that compelling confidence came from, I don't know--that lots of people would like to Emo and the Veldhuisens. Send the story to The Banner, I told myself. Tell them you'll do more.

It's hard to believe I was that gutsy.

But I was so I did. I sent them a note saying what today seems to me to be wildly arrogant--how about I do a whole bunch of these stories, stories of men and women, of families of all kinds, all of them members of the denomination? How about this--you send me around the continent to find CRC folks and tell their stories?

The Banner staff bought the idea, and right there at the top of the page is Johanna on the cover, hanging out her dishtowels. The Veldhuisens, Emo, were the first in a series that would run for close to a year.

I don't remember going to Grand Rapids to talk about it, but I do remember talking through the idea with people at the denominational building.

"How about this?" Editor Andrew Kuyvenhoven said. "You do thirty stories or so, we'll run them in the Banner. We'll give you $6000 for expenses and tag on only two requirements--you must get a story our two from Rehoboth, New Mexico, and one or two more from Southern California."

I don't remember ever telling myself what they wanted from me was something I simply couldn't or wouldn't deliver. A bunch more Nick and Johanna stories would be too blame much fun. And they were.

But there's more to the story.