No Distance Too Far (5 page)

“Good. You need some coffee to warm you up?”

“As if I’d ever turn down coffee.” He snitched a cookie. “You burnt them.”

“I did not. They are nicely browned and a bit on the crisp side. That’s all. You don’t have to eat them, you know.” She poured his coffee, filled her own cup, and fixed Inga’s before taking the letter to the table. Slitting the envelope, she pulled out the single sheet of paper.

February 29, 1904
Dear Mor,
   The adventure continues, but this is a hard letter to write. I would have written days ago, but I just made the decision. I am going—I’m actually on the train right now—to Athens, Georgia, to a missionary school at Cardin College. I have talked with them on the telephone, and they assured me they have a two-year program that I could sign up for. I don’t think I would have even considered it could they not let me go for a short time. I cannot contemplate spending my life as a missionary, no matter how desperate the need. Does that show a lack of faith or trust? I don’t know. I am just trying to do what is right.

Ingeborg dropped her hands to her lap. “Oh no.” Tears stung her nose and made her blink.

“What?” Thorliff stared at her. “She’s going to missionary school.”

She nodded. “She’s not even coming home first.”

“Well, that’s a wise thing to do.” Sarcasm crackled his voice.

Ingeborg wiped her eyes and picked up the letter, reading aloud from the beginning.

“I have had a terrible struggle with this decision, as you well know. Finally it hung on what you say so often about God guiding us step by step. I am taking this step with my teeth gritted, but you know that I want to be obedient to what God is calling me to do.”

“Elizabeth is going to be terribly disappointed.” Thorliff rubbed the side of his nose.

Ingeborg nodded and returned to reading aloud.

“I know this is not easy for any of us, but I figure two years is what I would have been going away to school for or on an internship, which Elizabeth has suggested I might do. Well, perhaps my internship is going to be in Africa. If only the entire thing did not terrify me so much. But I can do this one step at a time, and I ask that you pray for me, Mor, more than you ever have before. I am writing to Elizabeth too and to Pastor Solberg.

“Dr. Morganstein will be in contact soon regarding the new hospital. She and members of her board are planning a trip west as soon as spring comes. They do not want to brave the North Dakota winter.

“I will send you my new address as soon as I know it. Please don’t be angry with me, and if you say I must come home, you know that I will. I love you and want so badly to see all your dear faces and be home again.

“Your loving daughter,
“Dr. Astrid Bjorklund

“P.S. I do love signing my name this way. I now have a paper to prove me legal. A.”

This time Ingeborg used her apron to wipe away the tears.

“Gamma, why are you crying?” Inga leaned against her grandmother’s knee.

“She’s crying because your Tante Astrid is going to another school before she comes home. This is a sad letter for her—and for us.”

The jingle of a harness caught Inga’s attention. “Emmy is home.” She ran to the door, tears forgotten.

Thorliff reached across the table and clasped his mother’s hand. “I am so sorry.”

Ingeborg sniffed and tried to smile. “We shouldn’t be sorry that our girl is doing what she feels the Lord is calling her to do.”

“Maybe not. But this is a shock, no matter how much we know she’s been struggling with it.” He shook his head slowly. “I guess I really didn’t think she would go.”

“I wish she had telephoned first.”

“I think she couldn’t, because it might have made her change her mind.”

“I think you are right.” Ingeborg looked back at the beginning of the letter to the date. “February 29 she wrote this. She is already at the school.” She heaved a sigh, wiped her eyes again. Speaking softly, she continued, “But is this the right decision given the conflict she is in? Give us your peace. Dear God, please protect my daughter. To Africa. Oh, Lord, so far away.”

4

T
o Africa?” Joshua Landsverk stared at Thorliff. “What do you mean she is going to Africa?”

“Astrid wrote that she was on her way south to missionary school and then will spend two years as a medical missionary in Africa. She believes God is calling her to do this.”

“Why didn’t she write to me, let me know?” Joshua stared up at the steeple on the Blessing Lutheran Church. The church service had been such an uplifting time, but now this.

“She said she made the decision to take one step at a time. And this seemed the next right step.”

“Two years.” At the moment two years yawned like an impossible canyon with no bridges in sight.
Go get her. Go tell her how you feel.
Two voices shouting in his head nearly drowned out what Thorliff said next. “Pardon me?”

“I said Elizabeth is terribly disappointed too. She was counting on Astrid’s help here.”

“It was that pastor who visited. If only he hadn’t come here.” Joshua’s fists clenched in his black wool jacket pockets.

“That’s what I said too, until Mor reminded me that if God were indeed calling Astrid to this mission, He would have found another way to let her know about it.”

“But what if this isn’t God calling her? What if she is making a mistake?”

“Then we need to be praying that God will make it clear to her, again my mother talking.”

“I thought she was excited about building the hospital here.”

“Me too.” Thorliff raised a hand to acknowledge he heard someone call his name. “I need to go, but why don’t you come out to the house for dinner today?”

“I have to give Johnny his guitar lesson first.”

“Good. Then we’ll see you as soon as you’re finished.” He strode off, leaving Joshua with a plethora of unanswered questions.

Nothing was going the way he’d thought it would after dreaming of Astrid for so long. The dream and the reality seemed to move further apart. Was it supposed to be this hard? Maybe this was God’s way of making sure any relationship would be based on truth and not false perceptions. And he thought the trip to see his family had been hard enough.

“Mr. Landsverk, are you ready?”

He looked down to see Johnny Solberg, guitar in hand, shifting from one foot to the other. How easy it would be to say no, but he nodded instead. “Let’s go inside. You been practicing?”

“Every day. Well, almost every day.” The boy held up his left hand. “See my calluses?”

“Good for you. That will make holding down the strings much easier.” Together they mounted the steps to the church and went inside. The smell of smoke from the extinguished candles still hung on the air. Their booted feet sounded loud on the wooden floor. “You been working on tuning your guitar?”

“I have, but when I think it is right, Ma says I’m off key. How come she can hear it better than me?” Johnny sat down on one of the chairs in the front row and held his guitar on his lap. He plucked the low E string, tilting his head to listen better.

“We’ll tune it to the piano, like I do mine.” Joshua struck the key, and Johnny thumbed his string. Hit the key, thumb the string, hit the key, thumb the string. “Are they the same?”

“Seems so to me.”

“This is something we’ll keep working on. Let me tune it for you today.” Joshua took the guitar, adjusted the pegs, and plucked each string, turning pegs as needed and then stroking across all the strings. He handed the guitar back. “There you go. You were really close.” He picked up his own guitar, checked the tuning, adjusted one peg, and then strummed all six strings. “Okay, let’s start with ‘She’ll be Coming ’Round the Mountain.’ Do you have that memorized by now?”

“Pretty much.” The two played through the tune once, then again with Joshua picking up the beat.

“Okay, now you play the straight chords like that again, and I’m going to pick the melody. Ready? If you miss one, just keep on going. Don’t stop and start again. Guitar players miss chords all the time.” Joshua tapped out one, two, three, and away they went. When they finished on the last chord together, Johnny’s smile rivaled the sun beaming in through the side windows.

“You did that real well. See? All your practicing is paying off. Let’s try ‘Red Red Robin.’ ”

“I need the music for that.”

They played through five or six review songs before Joshua said, “Okay, time for something new.” He pulled a sheet of paper with the words to a familiar song and the chords printed under the words. “You need to learn to play by ear too, so we’ll sing this one. Here are two new chords. C major and C augmented.” He showed him the fingering and played them a few times, fingers moving back and forth on the strings against the neck of the guitar.

Johnny got one but kept missing on the other. “I know this is a harder one. You have to reach with that little finger and then make sure you push it tight against the strings.” He helped place Johnny’s fingers at the correct frets. “Now pick them up and do it again—and again—and again. There you go. Good job. Now you know the other chords, so we’ll play it through slow, and I’ll call the chords.” They played slowly, pausing long enough for Johnny to get his fingers in place with each change before continuing.

“If you don’t look out, you’re going to chew a hole in your lip.” One side of Joshua’s mouth was turned upward.

“But I want to get it right.”

“What? Chewing your lip? You got that down pat.”

Johnny grinned at him. “No, the chords.” He tongued his lower lip.

“Raw, huh?”

“Sorta.”

By the end of the lesson, Johnny had a list of exercises to play through and two more tunes with chords. He folded his papers and stuffed them into his coat pocket. “Thank you. When you are building your house, I could help you. Sorta pay you back, you know.” He studied his boot and then looked at Joshua out of the corner of his eye.

“I will really appreciate that. I know what a good worker you are.” The grin Johnny sent him was all the reward Joshua needed. They walked out together, guitars slung on their backs with their straps. Johnny made sure the door was closed behind them.

“See you next week,” Joshua said with a wave. He headed down the plowed road, snowbanks on each side, to the Bjorklunds. His step would have been lighter had he been able to look forward to seeing Astrid there.

The family was about ready to sit down to eat when he knocked on the door and obeyed the “Come on in” call. He hung his coat on the tree with the others and made sure all the snow was off his boots before he left the rug. Propping his guitar against the corner of the wall, Joshua crossed to the chair left for him.

“We about figured you forgot,” Thorliff said.

“No, but we got to playing and kind of lost track of time. Johnny’s going to be a right good guitar player.”

“According to him, it sounds like you are a right good teacher,” Dr. Elizabeth said, leaning around her husband. “Will he be ready to play with us pretty soon?” Besides being a physician, Elizabeth was an excellent piano player, now joined by Joshua on the guitar in church on Sunday mornings.

“At the rate he’s going, he will be. His ma says he’s practicing all the time. She has to drag him away for his chores and lessons. He’d take it to school, but his pa won’t let him.”

“Let’s say grace before the food gets cold,” Haakan said from the end of the table. As they all bowed their heads, he paused. Then with a sigh began, “Heavenly Father, we thank you this day for the food you have provided for us and for those hands that have prepared it. Thank you that we can be gathered together, a family, both ours and yours. I ask your special blessing today and every day upon our Astrid. Lord God, if she is indeed obeying your call to the mission field, we ask that you give her strength and courage, that you give us accepting hearts so we can support her. We all want to be your obedient servants, but so often we are just not sure how. What we do know is that you cover and surround us with your mighty love and with the assurance that you have a plan for each of us, which is always for our good. In Jesus’ precious name, amen.”

Joshua felt his throat closing. Haakan talked to God like they were the best of friends. He knew God in a deeper way than he’d heard before.
Lord, I want that closeness with you. I want that sureness. Show
me. Teach me.
He passed the bowl of potatoes with those thoughts still in his mind and settling into his heart. As the food went around the table, the conversations picked up.

He thought to the table that had been at his father’s house. In spite of his visit, which had brought a return of communication, he could no longer call it home. Silence reigned there but for the clink of utensils on the dishes. His mother had served them and waited to eat until they all left the table. If there was anything left. His father gave the instructions for the day’s work, and they left to do his bidding. Joshua looked up with a sense someone had said something to him.

“Pardon me. I guess I was woolgathering.”

“Gamma, what wool is he talking about?” Inga sat between her mother and father.

“It’s just a figure of speech.”