Chapter 42 - The Anderson Ethos

The house Larry builds is set among scattered cedar trees in a sprawling subdivision between the towns of Elk River, Big Lake, and Monticello. I enjoy watching the progress: digging the hole, pouring the basement, framing, roofing, sheet rock and taping, electrical, plumbing. The contractor supplies materials quickly, so between Larry and the other subs the house is complete in six weeks. I am ecstatic to think that this split-level on two and a half acres is ours!

Our friends in the single parent community are moving also--Souls Harbor is selling the four houses where we live. We continue to meet Friday nights in cell groups and in our large Sunday school class. But eventually we meet with Rev. Peterson and discuss the possibility of handing the ministry over to Chuck and Lucy Melena.

We have thoughts of church planting in Elk River. Ken and Debbie Peterson are going to lead a downtown mission, and Ken and Patty Freeman are being called to pastor a church in Limon, Colorado. The prophetic word from July 7, 1977 is coming to pass—we are being sent out two by two!

After transferring the single parent ministry to Chuck and Lucy our lives slow down. I am so grateful! When Nick boards the yellow bus for school in Elk River and Jared is busy with toys, I sit at the sliding glass door sipping coffee, and gaze over fields and houses to the horizon beyond. After five years of ministering almost daily to single parents, I feel drained. The field of my life needs to lie fallow and rejuvenate.

I watch Jared building with blocks and remember what a tiny bundle of energy he was. I had unwrapped him in the hospital, held him up to admire his dark hair, blue eyes winking at me. This kid will have a great sense of humor, I decided. Now he’s busy, creative, and I have time for him!

Once a week Larry’s sister Helen and I meet for coffee at a bakery in Monticello. It’s a privilege to be planted more deeply into the Anderson clan. Larry is the youngest of nine children, and several siblings live nearby, as do many nieces and nephews. Helen is quiet like her mother-- pleasant, with a gift of hospitality. During the many gatherings she and her husband Glenn host I observe the Anderson ethos. There is an unspoken drive, a silent determination to lead clean, wholesome lives, to serve God faithfully with your gifts. It is a long-term marathon mentality of sowing good seed that will eventually yield harvests. Quiet, loving. What astonishes me is how nice they are to each other!

Unlike many families, they avoid volatile discussions over theology or politics. When I raise a contentious subject trying to generate lively discussion, I have no takers. No one wants to argue, to ruffle each other’s feathers. Is this the Scandinavian way?

But the Anderson ancestors were pioneers, arriving from Norway and Sweden. Where is the old trail blazing spirit? Are there no vehement opinions? It seems that most of them are now persevering settlers, maintaining their lot in life here on the plains of Minnesota.

During our five years in Elk River, I do mostly fit in. I love being settled in our own home a few miles from the farmhouse in Big Lake where Larry was born. I love the family and security this clan gives me. But—I become restless. I know the Lord has plans for us. When will we move out to take the land that God is giving us overseas? Where is my tribe?

Over a period of years, I have come to understand that as a missionary kid (MK) I am also what sociologists call a third culture kid (TCK). My first culture is the American one I was born into. My second culture is the Moni, Dani, or boarding school culture I am living in during childhood, and the third is an interstitial or “gap” culture that fits in somewhere between the other two. It is the one shared by other MK’s or global nomads where we relate best to those who have grown up in many different settings. I read that a TCK will tend to have “superior diplomacy, flexibility, linguistic ability, patience and sophistication. On the down side there’s insecurity in relationships, unresolved grief stemming from constantly leaving friends throughout childhood, and rootlessness.” (Notes from a Traveling Childhood, p. 57) No wonder I feel rather different.

During nurses training I mostly stopped discussing my childhood and background with friends. In northern Minnesota while pastoring with Zach I was working with American Indians who were like a second culture to me. Even the single parent group was a subculture unto itself that I could relate to as a TCK. But now in Elk River I observe the monochromatic Minnesotan lifestyle and miss my roots, the exciting tribal, traveling life I once had.

No one in Elk River besides my husband seems to truly understand who I am, and I can’t seem to fully submerge my life into Midwestern rural culture. It seems strange, so illogical, since I have adapted many times before. But now in Elk River, from 1980-1985 when I try to relax and fit in, it never fully works. My head keeps popping up above the waterline of Minnesotan settler gentility.

For a few months Larry and I have church in our home with some single parents and new neighbors, then attend a growing charismatic church in Elk River. Eventually we drive the 45 minutes back to Souls Harbor every Sunday, and worship with old friends. When Chuck and Lucy move on to other ministry, Larry and I begin to lead the single parent Sunday school class once again.

Through these years I work in nursing, Larry builds houses, and we pray for the nations in our family devotions. Nick chooses China as his country, Jared chooses Afghanistan.

“I keep asking God, “When will we go overseas?”

“Be patient,” the Lord tells me. “Be patient.”

Hard as it is to wait, I can see God is building up our family life. Nick and Jared thrive on country living. We cut and haul wood to burn in our lower level fireplace. I read “The Long Winter” by Laura Ingalls Wilder by firelight when snow is falling and the temperature plunges below zero. The boys sled and we throw snowballs.

During summers we hoe our big garden, then pick beans, tomatoes, young potatoes. We canoe down the Elk River, swatting mosquitoes! After picking strawberries under hot sun at a farm, we pile them onto huge scoops of ice cream for dessert that night. Nick gets a small motorcycle and gives Jared rides. We are rich in God, good work, and family.

And I am gaining deeper perspective on life. When I nurse in St. Cloud delivering babies, and then at a small hospital in Buffalo in the maternity unit, the newborns amaze me. What will each tiny life bring forth? Each small bundle has an eternal soul that can affect their world for good or evil. One child’s dynamic impact is infinite! Mother Teresa was once a baby, as was Hudson Taylor. As was Hitler…and Stalin.

Pastor Peterson dies suddenly of a heart attack, and his home going is momentous. Six hundred cars drive to the cemetery and we meditate on the influence of one life at his graveside. After Gordon Peterson passes, his son takes over the leadership of Souls Harbor. Larry and I later talk to him and his wife Nancy about becoming mission workers.

One night we attend a “Night of Missions” that Youth with a Mission sponsors. One of the speakers Jeff Littleton prays with us afterwards about taking a Crossroads Discipleship Training School and then joining the mission. This time when we ask the Lord about the opportunity, God answers “Yes.” I am overjoyed!

We put our house on the market, and eventually it sells. But oddly, during the process I have second thoughts. “It’s not easy to let go of this pumpkin colored home, Larry. I love the weeping willow we planted and the chokecherry tree by the swing, and the way the drive curves up to the house. Is there any way we could keep this home, rent it out? Nick is 14 now, Jared 7…we have roots here.”

“I understand. But we need most of the profit to take the training school. The support we raise we’ll be living on as we do missions. However, we could save three thousand for a deposit on another house someday.”

“That would be encouraging,” I respond thoughtfully.

“I’m ready to go wherever God sends us overseas. You know though, I’m concerned about my mom,” Larry says slowly. “Dad is now gone, and it will be hard for her to say goodbye to us. She’s so frail at 89…she’ll be afraid she won’t see us again. I’m going to pray the Lord takes her before we go if her work is done.

And so it happens. Mom Anderson passes quietly away on a Saturday, sitting in her chair at Helen and Glenn’s home. The funeral is Tuesday, and after farewells we fly west to Kona, Hawaii for our Youth with a Mission Crossroads training.

Larry is 46 years old, and I am 39. Finally, we are launching our journey into missions.