Re: Fw: THE TABLECLOTH(truestory)

["Barbara H-B" <bahoba@sprint.ca>]

WOW!!
Being an incurable romantic, that brought tears to MY eyes!
B

Barbara Holmes-Balmer
Secretary Treasurer, ERABC http://www.img.net/erabc/
Ride Manager, Ride Over the Rainbow
Kelowna, B.C.

----------
From: Whitney Bass <bass@bigsky.net>
To: ridecamp <ridecamp@endurance.net>
Subject: RC:  Fw: THE TABLECLOTH(truestory)
Date: August 16, 2000 11:13 AM

>
Date: Wednesday, August 02, 2000 7:29 AM
Subject: THE TABLECLOTH


THE TABLECLOTH
The brand new pastor and his wife, newly assigned to their first ministry,
to reopen a church in suburban Brooklyn, arrived in early October excited
about their opportunities. When they
saw their church, it was very run down and needed much work. They set a
goal to have everything done in time to have their first service on
Christmas Eve.  They worked hard, repairing pews, plastering walls,
painting, etc. and on Dec 18 were ahead of schedule and just about
finished.  On Dec 19 a terrible tempest - a driving rainstorm - hit the
area and lasted for two days.
On the 21st, the pastor went over to the church. His heart sank
when he saw that the roof had leaked, causing a large area of plaster about
20 feet by 8 feet to fall off the front wall of the sanctuary just behind
the pulpit, beginning about head high. The pastor cleaned up the mess on
the floor, and not knowing what else to do but postpone the Christmas Eve
service, headed home.
On the way he noticed that a local business was having a flea
market type sale for charity so he stopped in.  One of the items was a
beautiful, handmade, ivory colored, crocheted tablecloth with exquisite
work, fine colors and a Cross embroidered right the center. It was just the
right size to cover up the hole in the front wall. He bought it and headed
back to the church.  By this time it had started to snow. An older woman 
running from the opposite direction was trying to catch the bus.  She
missed it.  The pastor
invited her to wait in the warm church for the next bus 45 minutes
later.
She sat in a pew and paid no attention to the pastor while he got a ladder,
hangers, etc., to put up the tablecloth as a wall tapestry.  The pastor
could hardly believe how beautiful it looked and it
covered up the entire problem area.  Then he noticed the woman walking down
the center aisle.  Her face was like a sheet. "Pastor," she asked, "where
did you get that tablecloth?"  The pastor explained. The woman asked him to
check the lower right
corner to see if the initials, EBG were crocheted into it there. They
were.  These were the initials of the woman, and she had made this
tablecloth 35 years before, in Austria.  The woman could hardly believe it
as the pastor told how he had just gotten the Tablecloth. The woman
explained that before the war she and her husband were well-to-do people in
Austria.  When the Nazis came, she was forced to leave. Her husband was
going to follow
her the next week.  She was captured, sent to prison and never saw her
husband or her home again.  The pastor wanted to give her the tablecloth;
but she made the pastor keep it for the church. The pastor insisted on
driving her home, that was the least he could do. She lived on the other
side of Staten Island and was only in Brooklyn for the day for a
housecleaning job.
What a wonderful service they had on Christmas Eve.  The church was almost
full. The music and the spirit were great. At
the end of the service, the pastor and his wife greeted everyone at the
door and many said that they would return. One older man, whom the pastor
recognized from the neighborhood, continued to sit in one of the pews and
stare, and the pastor wondered why he wasn't leaving. The man asked him
where he got the tablecloth on the front wall because it was identical to
one that his wife had made years ago when they lived in Austria before the
war and how could there be two tablecloths so much alike?  He told the
pastor how the Nazis came, how he forced his wife to flee for her safety,
and he was supposed to follow her, but he was arrested and put in a prison.
He never saw his wife or his home again all the 35 years in between. The
pastor asked him if he would allow him to take him for a little ride. They
drove to Staten Island and to the same house where the pastor had taken the
woman three days earlier.  He helped the man climb the three flights of
stairs to the woman's apartment, knocked on the door and he saw the
greatest Christmas reunion he could ever imagine.

> > > True Story - submitted by Pastor Rob Reid
>