Chapter 29 & 30 - Birthing Laughter

Dave and Tony stay a few weeks after we return from Explo ’72. They hang out with young people, invite them to church, do spiritual warfare…and on Sundays Ebro Community Church begins to get crowded! Experienced musicians join Zach on the worship team, and the quality and fervency increases.

I am due to deliver toward the end of July….Zachary is working hard to finish the parsonage. After Dave and Tony leave he calls Grandpa Hofer. “Can you come up and help me for a week or two, Grandpa? To finish the parsonage before the baby comes.”

“Sure--I’ll drive up next Monday.”

Grandpa is with us about a week. The evening of July 21 he goes to bed early after a hard day’s work. Zach and I serve coffee to a few Lamb family teenagers who drop in to chat. I begin to cramp, feel uncomfortable. After they leave Zachary drives me to Fosston Hospital around midnight.

Dr. George Sather is on call, and I am grateful. The nurses are my friends--we chat as they admit me. When stage three sets in and I’m pushing, they are all business! Around 5am Nicholas Lee is born…7 lbs, 2 oz., with healthy squalls.

“Call the dad in,” Dr. George orders. “You have a strong boy, Zachary!”

Zach’s blue eyes sparkle…he stands on one foot and laughs for joy as they hold Nick up, ruddy with wisps of blond hair. “What a great little man!”

I stay on the delivery table for quite a while, bleeding. The nurse keeps massaging my abdomen, often taking my blood pressure. Dr. George, his hand on my arm, frequently asks, “How do you feel?” Finally, I stabilize…later after three pints of blood am more alert.

When we hold Nick later in the hospital room, it is with wonder. How can a miniature human be formed so perfectly, with every part working! Grandpa Hofer sees his great-grandson, then drives home to St. Paul. We call Zach’s parents in Scottsdale, then telegram my parents, with a reference to Psalm 128 which ends with:

“May the Lord bless you from Zion all the days of your life; may you see the prosperity

of Jerusalem, and may you live to see your children’s children. Peace upon Israel!”

In a few days Zach brings me home to the trailer. He has been working on the parsonage, hasn’t set up the crib. “Why isn’t Nick’s crib ready?” I exclaim, exasperated.

“I just didn’t get to it. The Lamb boys borrowed the truck and will bring it back tomorrow—I left the crib hardware in it by mistake.”

“I can’t believe you forgot. A crib is kind of important.”

“Well, I’m sorry. I’ve been working on the parsonage, running back and forth.”

So the first night we sleep with Nick between us. He nurses every two hours…we are both exhausted. The second and third nights are improved, with the crib set up in the other bedroom. We try to form a schedule…this little bundle of joy takes enormous amounts of energy!

Zachary finishes the parsonage about three weeks later, and Leota and her daughters help us move. I am grateful, still somewhat weak—but our first night in the new home is special. “We’re here, we’re really in our new home!” I exclaim, hugging him. Nick’s crib is in a corner of our bedroom, with all the furniture in place on the main floor.

Unpacking a few boxes, we sit at the kitchen nook to eat a light supper. We look west toward the dark forest where the sun is setting behind thick pines. Long sunbeams slant into our gold kitchen, glinting off the glasses of milk, and Zach’s gold wedding band. Nick is sleeping peacefully. Zachary prays over the meal. “Thank you, Lord, for bringing us here, for taking care of us. Thank you for Nicky, for our new home…and for this food. Help us to fulfill Your will here.”

“Amen,” I agreed.

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Chapter 30 - Storm Warnings

Nearly a year of pastoring is behind us, and now Zachary and I have a new baby boy. I look forward to one more year of nurturing the church and our son…and then on to mission work somewhere overseas. Irian Jaya, I hope!

I try to manage my world with routine and order, expecting good results. At three months Nick is on schedule, everything unpacked. Mary Lamb, the pretty Ojibwe girl down the hill comes to babysit for me occasionally, and she is lavish with admiration. “The house is so pretty. You have a nice husband and a new baby, and the church is growing…you must be so happy!”

“Thank you, Mary. Yes, I should be happy and so grateful, but somehow I feel unsettled. I don’t know why.” I feel secure in home and calling, but in another way cannot rest. Perhaps it’s because Zach seems restless, unfocused, though he loves holding Nick.

What is wrong? Zachary keeps pastoring the church, but not with the same zeal. He seems distant, aloof, preoccupied. He isn’t as interested in reading the Bible, certainly doesn’t want to pray together. I notice he begins tuning in to secular music on the radio rather than Christian. He wants to take walks in the woods alone to think, but won’t talk about it later.

The more introspective he becomes, the more persistent and questioning I am…but he won’t share his heart with me. I begin to put Nick in the baby backpack and take walks to Bonnie’s house down the hill, past Myra’s house. Myra is at attractive Ojibwe woman in her early 20’s who has never married. She has three cute daughters, and Bonnie has recently led her to the Lord.

Buck and Bonnie are faithfully coming to church and inviting others. Her older kids watch Nicky while Bonnie and I walk the railroad tracks and pray. We intercede for the church, for Bonnie’s four other children that her ex-husband is raising, for finances, work for Buck, and for our marriages. This prayer with Bonnie (and with Leota when I see her in town) means a lot to me.

Eventually I return to my 3-11:30 pm nursing shift at Fosston Hospital. Zach is going to watch Nick the three evenings a week I am gone. But he becomes frustrated. “Sometimes I don’t know how to keep him from crying,” he explains. “And in the afternoons I have other work to do.”

“Well, I’ve heard Myra is open to babysitting some,” I respond. “Maybe you could pick him up after work, around dinnertime.”

And so it is arranged. Only sometimes Zachary gets home not long before I do, at midnight. He visits with Myra and her brother much of the evening, with Nick there.

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The church continues to slowly grow. Zach begins working on the upstairs of the parsonage during the day, and some evenings we have the Bible study in our new home.

One night over dinner he mentions, “This church in the Twin Cities wants to send a college work group up over Thanksgiving. They would help gut the upstairs, and it would speed up the renovation process. We could use the extra help.”

“Where would they stay?” I question.

“They can stay here, bring their sleeping bags. I’ll help with the Thanksgiving dinner.”

“I don’t know, Zachary. I’m barely managing with Nick, the church, and my work at the hospital…hosting a crew like that seems overwhelming!”

As Thanksgiving approaches I grow more nervous. “I just can’t do it, Zach. I’m overwhelmed. Maybe I should take Nick and visit Romaine in St. Paul over this holiday. You could host the group yourself.”

“Alright…I don’t mind.”

Bonnie offers to ride with me the 250 miles to the Twin Cities. She has pastor friends on the way in Elk River, and we stay with them one night. That evening I share my marriage concerns with the pastor and his wife, and the four of us pray.

Later the next day I find Romaine’s house in St. Paul. She’s rented the second floor of a steep roofed older home and decorated it charmingly. We have fun together, enjoying Nick, sharing stories, and have a potluck Thanksgiving with a few of her friends.

When I start the drive home Monday I am refreshed.