Honestly, I don’t know what is ahead for the Assam mission. The Swedes are practically all of the ultra fundamentalist group and some are so narrow and intolerant that it would be hard to put paper between their ears, as Wink would say. They are out after anyone that doesn’t believe and teach as they do, and some of them would stoop to almost anything to get rid of some out here.
The Swedish brethren have had it in for Fred ever since he came to the field because he studied at Yale. Another one of the Swedish men made the statement that he couldn’t agree with Fred’s beliefs, and when asked what they were he had to admit that he didn’t know, had never talked to him about them, for Pete’s sake.
From a letter we received the other day, I rather imagine that I am in for some of the same thing for having declared sides by throwing my lot in with a “heretic”, but it is a grand place to be, and I didn’t have to change any of my own ideas when I did it as I think we think pretty much alike.
Dorothy watched Fred wrestle with what she had just said.
“But there’s more to it,” he said. “The Swedes are...well, they’re telling the boys they’re going to build some new schools and that the boys don’t have to knuckle down on their studies until the new school is ready.”
“New sch—Fred, darling, I know I haven’t been up here long, but from what I see, the Swedes are very long on words and very short on action. You’ve taught your boys well. They’ll see just what I’ve seen. I’m sure they will.”
She rubbed his back, and felt him slowly straighten. And just when she thought he was ready to make one of his philosophical statements that she so admired, he laughed. A slow, easy, surprising kind of laugh that escalated until Fred was sprawled on the divan sputtering like his sides would split.
“Well, Mr. Chambers. I take back everything I said. If the boys saw you in this condition they’d make a bee-line for that new Swedish school. If I said something funny I surely don’t know what it—”
“No, no,” he grinned. “Not funny, just, remarkable. How you just open your mouth and logic spills out and all of the sudden God’s in His Heaven and all’s right with the world.” He caught his breath and stifled a last boyish giggle as his face calmed. “See, I’ve been so focused on the Swedes that I was losing sight of the boys. And...and I’m not here to be best friends with the Swedes. I’m here to teach the boys. The best way I know how.”
Fred bounded up from the divan and pulled Dorothy with him. They stood in the middle of their new home grinning hopelessly at one another.
“I knew you’d see it eventually, darling,” Dorothy smiled between slow kisses. “Those boys hang on your every word. I’ve watched it. They adore you.”
They swayed together, moving instinctively to some invisible strain.
“They do?”
“Mmm-hm. They do. So if you change even one tiny thing about the way you manage their schooling, well I’ll, I’ll just...”
Fred stopped her with a long, sweet kiss.
“You’ll what?” He kissed her forehead.
“I’ll just have to throttle you.”
“Mmm-hm. I guess you will.”
Words drifted into the night and red candle wax spilled over onto the mantel. And the dimming light from the nearly spent candles was replaced by a glimmer of understanding between two souls. There would never be anything but trust between them. There would never be anything but admiration, comfort and good humor between them. There would never be anything but love.
Because God was indeed in His Heaven.
And all was indeed right in their world.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
UNDER MY HEART
June 29, 1937
Tomorrow, Millie and Mrs. Kirby are having a tea supper to celebrate our wedding anniversary. It doesn’t seem possible that it will be a year, but time has gone quickly. We are thousands of times more in love than we were a year ago, and it looks as though it would keep on increasing. Wish you could all be here to help us celebrate.
The amiable chatter of the dozen friends gathered in Mrs. Kirby’s front room seemed to fade, muted by Dorothy’s attention to a strange and wonderful sensation. Her fingers had been idly tracing the edges of the handmade organdy flowers she’d pinned to the breast of her new dress when she first felt it.
She hadn’t truly planned to shape the flowers in any certain way, once she’d decided that a small posy was the perfect adornment for the new dress she’d finished just the night before this special occasion. But as she had let the fabric twine and turn of its own accord, her little bunch of flowers had begun to look very much like the Cecile Bruner rose blossoms from her wedding bouquet.
It was perfect, to wear such a vivid reminder of that beautiful day so near to her heart.
She looked across the room to find Fred where he cheerfully helped Millie serve the tea party guests. At the same moment he turned to find her watching him, and he smiled. That wide, lovely boyish grin of his.
Her hand slipped to the folds of fabric just below her waist. She wasn’t showing all that much yet, but unless she was mistaken, she’d just felt the lightest flutter like a tiny flotilla of bubbles trickling beneath her belly button. Fred had caught the movement of her hand, and something in it spoke to him. His eyebrows raised in the quizzical way she knew so well, the look that said, Something’s going on, dear wife. Are you alright?
She blinked and held back a small laugh. He knew her so thoroughly.
Oh yes, she was alright. She was more than alright. She drew her lips into the most casual smile she could summon. Their baby had just moved for the first time.
She would tell him tonight.
July 7, 1937
Wednesday was our first wedding anniversary and was a very very happy one. Millie asked us over for tea supper in the afternoon and had invited the other missionaries as well. During the day a wire came from the Hardings and Merrills in Tura with congratulations and best wishes, and that did warm the cockles of our hearts. Mrs. Kirby said that she and Millie had had a hard time deciding just what the first wedding anniversary was—wood, cotton, or what, and decided it was cotton. She gave us a dear little padded holder for the hot handle of a teapot made in the shape of a parrot, and two hot lid lifters. Millie gave us two lovely white tray cloths, and Victoria presented us with one dozen jharons (dish towels). Fred said the world began a year ago, and so Millie said that this was the beginning of the Year Two. I finished the dress (with Fred’s help as he pinned the hem for me and did a jolly good job of it) made from the material Mother sent last year, and it looks ever so nice. Wore it as a celebration of the day. Made a small bunch of organdy flowers for the front.
Later when they were alone, still smiling from the party held in their honor, Dorothy had to tease her husband for his impatience.
“Well, for heaven’s sake, Fred Chambers, I wouldn’t have told you if I’d known you were going to pitch a hissy fit.” Dorothy tried to chide Fred, but her own grin spoiled that idea in a hurry.
“It’s completely unfair, you know,” he whined dramatically. “He’s my child too, dearest selfish wife. You shouldn’t get to have all the fun.”
“What?!”
“I mean, I should get to feel him kick once in awhile now, shouldn’t I? Wouldn’t that be fair?”
Fred reclined on the davenport with Dorothy tucked into the crook of his arm. The position had quite naturally become their favorite. She was turned just enough that his hand rested on her belly, as it had for the last half hour while he’d been waiting to feel their child move.
“She will kick you when she’s good and ready and not a moment sooner, silly boy.”
“She? She? I thought we agreed she was a he.”
“Well of course, she is a he.” Dorothy turned to give him a peck on the cheek. “You always get your way, don’t you? So stop worrying. She will definitely be a—”
“Stop! Shush! Was that it?” Fred’s hand moved slightly high
er as the baby shifted. All she’d had to do was move and wake the little imp and her daddy got his first chance to feel his child’s delicate kick.
“Yes, my dearest husband.” She dropped her head to his chest. “That was it. I think she’s dancing.”
“Kicking a football, I think. Or maybe rugby.”
“Mmm. I don’t think girls play football.”
“You’re right, dearest. Rugby it is.”
Their voices drifted off as they sat together, both hands on her rounding belly, following the child’s dainty kicks across its mother’s abdomen. Marveling in wonder at the new dimension this tiny babe had brought into their lives. Knowing that now, at last, in God’s good time, they were a family.
July 27, 1937
The “wee walla” is beginning to show very unmistakable signs of being a very active little individual and we are both getting a big thrill out of it all.
November 22, 1937—handwritten letter from Dorothy while
confined in Gauhati hospital awaiting the birth of her first child
There isn’t any place I know of where I’d rather be than here, and if you all could drop in and see me it would be perfect.
There are times in every family when heaven and earth conspire to reward good and faithful servants with the desire of their hearts. In November of 1937, Fred and Dorothy greeted Carol Joy, who refused to enter the world by natural means and required the surgical assistance of Dorothy’s medical family in Gauhati.
There, in the place where Dorothy had set her lamp of ministry in the Satribari Compound, surrounded by those who held her in highest regard and tended with more loving care than any mother and newborn might ever hope to experience, Dorothy, Fred and baby Carol Joy began to shape their new family.
December 1, 1937
Gauhati. Handwritten letter from Dorothy
He is so wild over Carol (and so am I) and it gives me a thrill to see him with her. I think he could sit and hold her all day, and is so anxious to get us home so he can help care for her. Is crazy to learn to bathe her, etc. He’s a grand husband and is going to be just as fine a father, I know.
November 28, 1937 – Fred’s letter home
Dor and I have each waited longingly for a long time for a baby and we are making the most of it and I do get the biggest kick out of the little thing and an extra wallop when I see Dor with the baby. She certainly makes a lovely mother and I am sure no child will receive more intelligent care or have more love given to it than our baby. We wanted her long before we knew she was a possibility and now that she is really here we are happier than we even dreamed.
I have found a new glow under my heart that I never knew before and it never gets cool.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
WHITHER THOU GOEST
December 19, 1937 Back home in Jorhat
Fred’s letter home
Dor is at church. I went for the first half and she has just gone for the second half. The church building is just across the road from our bungalow, so it makes it possible for us to plan accordingly. We thought it best not to take the baby to church this first Sunday at home and have not made arrangements for anyone to stay with her. So, we decided to “half-it”. She has been a good baby and slept nearly all day, except for bath time and a short time this morning. Thus far we have not had occasion to complain for her actions and she has done very well in getting adjusted to her new home after the routine of the hospital and a long train trip from Gauhati here. Naturally we think she is the ideal child and are rather expecting the relatives to all feel the same way about her.
This is the happiest day Dor and I have had yet. The first Sunday in our own home with our new daughter.
First Sunday in our own home with our new daughter.
Life in Jorhat continued to be, for the most part, idyllic for Fred and Dorothy and Carol, measured in the length of each new phase their little daughter entered and conquered. Weeks passed with uncomplicated bliss. Dorothy and Fred cherished each other, adored their new baby, and were loved in return by the people they served.
In February of 1938, with little Carol Joy just three months old, Dorothy and Fred sent all their belongings to storage and departed India for a well-deserved furlough to the United States.
Dorothy’s reunion with her mother had the most marvelous new dimension of introducing her to her granddaughter, Carol Joy. Most days that followed found the baby in her grandmother’s arms, on her lap, or right next to where she was working. It became a daily experience for Dorothy and yet the mere sight never failed to tug at her heart.
The traditional six-month furlough somehow stretched into three more, and Dorothy and Fred experienced Carol Joy’s first birthday in her grandmother’s home.
November 16, 1939
Dorothy’s letter to her sister Carol
Dearest Carol:
Yesterday A.M. the postman brought a package which looked as though it had just come from a department store down town, but which was unfamiliar to us, and on looking more carefully we discovered that it had a San Francisco address. So, we concluded that you must have had something to do with it.
Carol simply went into spasms over the blue and white teddy bear, and “oooed” and “aaahhhed” and laughed, pointed, hugged, and admired it to the nth degree. She would love it, then hold it up to Mother and then to me to be loved. She was just as excited about it when she discovered it later on sitting on the mantel. This morning the thrills were all over again—I mean, she went thru the same performance, and when she balked at taking all of her milk, by giving some to the teddy on two or three occasions, she finished her bottle. She still has to have a bottle, as a cup is just the nicest place for blowing bubbles known to man.
We send “bohoot salaams” (many thanks). Nothing has pleased her quite as much in a long time.
The furlough extension turned into an opportune time for Fred to throw himself into his studies. But it meant leaving the idyllic conditions in her mother’s home and moving about the U.S., networking, cementing professional associations, and taking delight in their little family. Reunions with family and friends lifted their hearts as they adjusted to what they felt was a temporary time away from the people they served.
The months stretched to eighteen, and one fateful day they were offered a mission post in the Philippine Islands. Fred could take a leading role in the Theology Department of Central Philippine College in Iloilo, and Dorothy could decide if she wished to work in the medical community there. Everything they heard enticed them to take the post, to serve the beautiful Filipino people in their eagerness to grow academically and to better understand God’s Word.
So, with Carol Joy almost two years old and Dorothy about four months into her second pregnancy, they packed up the few belongings they’d brought with them to the States, sent word to Assam to ship their household goods to the Philippines, and once again said their goodbyes.
And sailed into a future neither could have fathomed.
A future they very nearly did not survive.
PART TWO
A SEASON IN THE SUN
ILOILO
PHILIPPINE ISLAND OF PANAY
SEPTEMBER 1939
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
BELLIGERENT’S BOAT
September 3, 1939, Dorothy (four months pregnant with Bobby), Fred, and 21-month-old Carol sailed on the Empress of Canada from Vancouver to Manila, with their two-door Chevrolet sedan safely stowed in the ship’s hold. While at sea, their ocean liner was transformed into a belligerent’s boat—one traversing waters patrolled by an enemy navy. For their protection the ship was painted battleship gray, so that it could run undetected in a U. S. naval convoy.
People were leaving the boat.
Just four days into their voyage Dorothy watched the porters carry steamer trunks down the long gangplanks and deposit them on the pier. They belonged to folks who’d changed their minds about going to the Philippines, once they’d heard the
news.
War had been declared in Europe.
The newspaper Dorothy held painted a dark picture of what was happening in the world, of the threat posed by both Germany and Japan.
She lifted her eyes from the newsprint. Honolulu stretched prettily before her, its palm trees lining manicured streets that beckoned her to enjoy the respite they offered.
But the clatter of the paint crew drew her eyes away from the idyllic view. They were painting the ship while it lay in the harbor. Not a typical maintenance bit of paint here and there. They were changing the ship’s color.
To battleship gray.
Fred’s memoir
Storm clouds of war were evident and war was declared the day we set sail. Many Americans aboard decided to leave the ship at Honolulu. We decided that regardless of requests to turn back, we would not. We had an uneventful voyage, filled with rumors galore. Our ship did not stop at Kobe, as scheduled, because the German Scharnhorst raider was lying in harbor there. At Shanghai, some Scotch Highlander soldiers came aboard to stand guard. A destroyer escort guarded our trip from Shanghai to Hong Kong. It was a relief to go ashore in Manila.
Once under way, the entire complexion of their journey changed. People moved about the ship in silent mode, influenced by the battle-ready demeanor of the crew. Every corner of the ship was shrouded in darkness at night, with nothing but the absolutely necessary lights allowed in the engine room.
Dorothy looked across the port side bow at the flotilla of warships that served as escort. They seemed to appear out of the gloom, then drift away toward the horizon, only keeping company with the passenger liner when they entered treacherous waters.
It was the kind of thing that should have unnerved her. It should have launched a shiver up her spine. But it didn’t. Her vision of their future in the Philippines was so vivid in her mind that she could not feel threatened by this perilous passage. They were going to arrive safely in Manila. She knew it in her bones. God had seated it in her soul.
If she’d been a coward, she never would have boarded a ship bound for the middle of the Pacific Ocean—four months pregnant with a two-year-old in tow. Especially if she’d known it would be turned into a
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