The Tablecloth
The brand new pastor and his wife, newly assigned to
their first ministry, to reopen a church in urban 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 sunk when he saw that the roof had leaked, causing
a large area of plaster about 6 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, hand-made, ivory colored, crochet
table cloth with exquisite work, fine colors and a cross
embroidered right in 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 fromthe 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 crochet 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 concentration camp. He never
saw his wife or his home again for 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- as told by Pastor Rob Reid