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