A New Decade
TWELVE YEARS HAD GONE by since the founding days. Unimaginably harsh years had passed. The settlers had endured years of hunger, cold and death. As he visited the churches he pastored, Pastor Hergert drew the balance for his parishioners to show the cost in lives extracted by this new land.
“I have before me an accounting of the people, young and old, who lost their lives taming the steppe,” he began his sermons.
“I have worked with the elders of each village on a census. We felt that we needed to know the growth or the loss of people in each village. We were shaken and humbled by what we found.”
As he perused his congregation he saw calm, serene faces; faces, of men and women who had lived with adversity since their birth; hardened faces, marked by fate’s hand in ways that humans living in more benign places could not fathom. They had seen their babies die of cold and starvation; had witnessed their young capitulate in the face of what they deemed insurmountable obstacles; had held the hands of their old ones who had perished, unable to fight anymore. Yet they were here in this church, looking at him stoically, determined, encouraged by their God.
“Of eight-thousand families that should have had long lives, we lost two-thousand-five-hundred lives to starvation, the cold, draught and disease. God used these souls to change the character of this grim land!” he called out.
The horrendous number of lost lives left the congregation looking at him expressionless. What did it matter? They had cried their tears, mourned their dead, given them to God to keep; what else could one do? After all, life and death were in God’s hands. No matter what man wished for, what man planned, or what man thought – it all amounted to nothing, if it was not in His plan.
Pastor Hergert understood his people. Reading their faces, he changed his sermon, turning to the future. There was no need to enumerate their losses, they had counted them, suffered them. They knew every ounce of blood, sweat and tears spilled upon the hard ground of the steppe. He did not need to recall or remind them – they knew. What they needed now was a vision for a future – brighter, more joyous than the gloom and horror they had lived.
“I know that all of you have lost someone in your immediate family. However, God is good and giving. Therefore all of you welcomed new life into this community. Never before have so many children been born into our villages. They are our treasure, our joy, and our hope for a blessed, prosperous future.”
Stately, the pastor walked to the front row where he halted his step before Karin who dandled a baby in baptismal dress on her knees.
“Please, Karin, hand me this child, this promise of a bright future, that I might present him to his community, that they might behold God’s promise for our future in this country.” Karin arose and carefully placed her babe in the pastor’s arms. Beside her stood Beate, Peter Brunn and his wife Hedi, to be counted as godfather and godmothers. Together they moved forward to the font.
“Let me baptize this new congregant with the name of Kurt.”
As the cold water from the baptismal font trickled over the baby’s forehead, the new Norka citizen screamed, emitting a healthy protest that promised future complaints about unpleasant conditions. People smiled. They felt for the mite, because the cold was their worst enemy.
“May you raise your voice in righteous protest whenever your people are threatened by tyranny and evil,” prayed Pastor Hergert, before giving Karin’s son back to his mother. Christoph silently had asked for the same blessing.
“Is it too much to ask for another like Paul?” he questioned his Maker. He imagined the silent figure of the Lord on the plain wooden cross before him, which only smiled a sweet, indulgent, suffering smile.