Even If

Are you the type of person who chooses a theme word or phrase for the year? Something you can use to anchor yourself, to aim for, to help find meaning in life’s ups and downs? I’ve tried this a few times but by spring, I’ve usually forgotten it. This year, when I wasn’t particularly looking for one, a phrase chose me. It grabbed at my heartstrings when a certain song came on CHVN radio one day.

For this to make sense to you, I need to back up a bit.

I’m currently writing a two-book fiction series called the “Even If” series (although each book would stand alone).

Book One, Even If We Cry, will release this November from Mountain Brook Ink. It’s about the British children who evacuated to Canada during World War II and some of the things they, their parents in England, and their host families here went through. I’m currently working on edits.

Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14805503

Book Two, Even If I Perish, releases in the fall of 2025. I’m about one-third through the first draft and up to my eyeballs in research. It’s based on the true story of a little-known heroine, Mary Cornish. Mary was one of the few survivors of the ship, The City of Benares, sunk by a German torpedo while carrying 90 children on one of these evacuation voyages. Mary survived eight days as the only female in a lifeboat meant for 24 people but packed with 46. Six of those people were young boys whom Mary was determined to keep alive at any cost.

My publishing contract includes the possibility of two more books in the series. You can see why the words, “even if,” have been jumping out every time I hear or see them.

Like you, I’ve known my share of faith-shaking hard times. Maybe I’m simply forgetful, but it truly seems as though 90 percent of those faith shakers have occurred in the last five years. You too? Some family stuff, some career stuff, some world-at-large stuff.

So I shouldn’t have been surprised when, driving down the street one day, the words of this song from Rend Collective caught my attention:

“I’ll find a way to praise You from the bottom of my broken heart
’Cause I think I’d rather strike a match than curse the dark…”

Can you relate? The singer goes on to say he’d rather take a chance on hope than fall apart. Is falling apart the only alternative? Surrendering to the dark? He decides no. That’s when the resounding chorus breaks in, with the repeating phrase which so perfectly applies to drifters in a lifeboat on a cold and raging sea in the middle of the night … and which nailed it for me:
“Even if my daylight never dawns
Even if my breakthrough never comes
Even if I’ll fight to bring You praise
Even if my dreams fall to the ground
Even if I’m lost, I know I’m found
… my heart will somehow say, ‘Hallelujah’ anyway.”

Faith does frequently feel like a big gamble, doesn’t it? Some people wonder why, if it’s really true, do we believers need to constantly convince and remind each other and ourselves, even if current evidence isn’t supporting our beliefs.

It’s a valid question. The only answer I can offer is the Bible’s definition of faith: the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen. (See Hebrews 11.)

Many thanks to songwriters Chris Llewellyn, Matt Maher, and Gareth Gilkeson for giving us this wonderfully personal song, and giving me my phrase for the year. You can hear the whole song HERE.

A Valentine to My Eight-Year-Old Self

I was in love by Grade Two. Having decided which of my classmates I would marry, I prepared a marriage license for us which my big brother discovered in my room and found useful for endless harassment and blackmail. I dreaded the day my intended groom learned of its existence, but I don’t recall having to endure that humiliation. Maybe my brother was more merciful than I thought.

Valentines Day would not expose my secret since Mom insisted I give a valentine to every person in my class, regardless of my feelings. The only thing under my control was deciding who received which one. I’d agonize over who got my invitation to “Be Mine” and who received the skunk picture declaring, “I’m scent-imental over you!”

I loved those press-out valentines. I loved a little less the envelopes that had to be folded and then glued together with flour and water paste—a method you’ll remember if your parents survived the Great Depression.

In the lead-up to the big day, we decorated our classroom with pink and red streamers and paper hearts. Our teacher brought in a large box and cut a slot in the top. We covered The Box with crepe paper and more hearts and cupids. On the morning of February 14, we diligently hid our valentines until our turn came to insert them into The Box. Little was learned during our morning lessons as we stared at The Box, envisioning all the valentines inside.

When we returned after lunch, cookies and cupcakes in hand, it was party time. Games were played, treats were shared. Finally, the big culmination: the opening of The Box and the distribution of the valentines within.

At home, I’d review them over and over, hunting for clues to a secret love the sender may have hidden between the lines, hope and heartache racing side by side through my little core.

Fifty-six Valentines Days later, I decided to write a valentine to the little girl I was then. Since I don’t have a time machine so I can drop it through a slot in The Box, I’ll share it here.

Sweetheart,

I know you’re dying to know whom you’ll one day marry. I’m not going to tell you, except to say it’s neither of the boys you take turns having a crush on these days, so maybe hold off on writing marriage licenses. You will marry a good man, but he won’t be perfect. Neither will you. Together you’ll have some wonderful, imperfect children. They’ll bring you joy, laughter, and love. This may come as a shock, but they’ll also hurt your feelings sometimes. You’ll disappoint them, and yourself. There will be days you’ll feel unloved and forgotten, betrayed and alone.

Here’s another shocker: your parents don’t have everything figured out. They’re doing their best to love and care for you, given the tools they’ve been given. They’ll fall short sometimes, too. Even when you’re grown, they’ll second-guess the choices they made for you. If you can understand that, it’ll be easier both to forgive their mistakes and to forgive yourself when your own kids are adults.

What I need you to know more than anything is that you are loved, perfectly and just the way you are, by the One who created you. The more you practice running to Him with your hurts and allowing His love to comfort you, the greater will be your ability to love the people He brings into your life—even when they don’t return your affection. You have a long life ahead, with countless people who will move in and out of it. Only One will be constant. You won’t regret pouring every effort into getting to know Him—Jesus, the Lover of your soul.

Yours truly,

Your 64-year-old self.

Do You Remember "Front Page Challenge?"

I remember my parents devotedly tuning in to CBC television on Monday nights to see who that week’s mystery challengers might be on Front Page Challenge and whether the panel would guess before their timer went off. Would Betty Kennedy be the successful panelist with the correct answer, as she often was? Would moderator Fred Davis need to intercept or intervene? Would Pierre Berton deviate from his bow tie? Would Gordon Sinclair say something crude and offensive like he almost always did? (My dad couldn’t stand the guy and, judging by the mail received by the show’s producers, Dad wasn’t alone. Sinclair’s insensitive antics were all part of the charm that kept viewers tuning in.)

Front Page Challenge premiered in 1957 and ran for 38 years, despite many predictions to the contrary. It began as a six-week summer fill-in show, created by John Aylesworth. The game’s premise was brilliant. Producers chose national or international stories that had appeared on the front page of a major newspaper. A panel of Canadian journalists (three regulars and one guest) would have a limited time to identify the story by asking yes-or-no questions of a mystery guest. When they succeeded, or when the timer buzzed, they had an additional amount of time to interview the guest, asking questions they hoped viewers would want to ask. Each show covered at least two stories unless the guest was famous enough to be deemed deserving of a whole show.

In its early days, when CBC still enjoyed an impressive budget, famous challengers were flown in from all over the world, including Eleanor Roosevelt, Indira Gandhi, Harold Wilson, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Martin Luther King Jr., and Menachem Begin. Canadian headliners who came on as challengers included all the living prime ministers during those years, sports stars like Gordie Howe, and entertainment icons like Anne Murray and Gordon Lightfoot. In those early black-and-white videos, the panelists and guests are often seen with a cigarette in hand or smoke rising from the ashtrays on their desk. How sophisticated.

Why on earth am I researching this obsolete program? Well, the novel I’m currently writing, Even If I Perish, is about the sinking of the SS City of Benares—one of the ships that transported British children to Canada during World War II. In addition to its paying passengers and crew, the City of Benares carried 90 children, along with their escorts. On September 17, 1940, the ship was struck by a  German torpedo. Only 13 children survived. I’m certain the story made the front pages.

I’m creating a fictional story involving one or more of the survivors. I’ve found no evidence that Front Page Challenge covered this story (even though they did sometimes choose headlines going further into the past), but it certainly would have been a good one—particularly if they brought one of the survivors onto the show as their challenger. If I decide to make this happen in my novel, the challenger will be Mary Cornish, the woman who survived eight days as the only female in Lifeboat Number 12, caring for six boys in a boat packed with more than twice the people it was built for. I can already imagine ol’ Gordon Sinclair asking Mary how much she got paid for escorting the children. In real life, Mary never made it to Canada. She did, however, receive the Medal of the Order of the British Empire and she appeared on a British television program in 1956. So it’s not that big of a stretch to think she might have been recruited for our Canadian show. If only they’d thought of it.

You can watch clips from Front Page Challenge on YouTube, including the time Stompin’ Tom Connors stumped the panel, and one from 1984 featuring Mary Simon, decades before she became Canada’s Governor General.

Do you recall a favorite Front Page Challenge story?

Pierre Burton, Fred Davis, Betty Kennedy, Gordon Sinclair (photo from Facebook)

But I Played One on TV

I’m not a Mennonite, but I once played one on television.

You may recall my two-part series of last April when I wrote about my experience as an extra (along with friends Nettie and Sara) in Episode 4 of the new TV series, Maria and the Mennos. That show is now available to the world.

Maria and the Mennos premiered on YES-TV on January 3. You can live-stream the show for free by going HERE on Wednesdays at 9:30 PM Central and choosing the Ontario channel. Use your computer, though. My fellow extras and I have not succeeded on our phones, smart TVs, or other devices. The show will also be part of the Real to Reel Winnipeg Film Festival February 20-25. The whole season will be available on demand after all episodes have premiered.

Maria, a young Filipino-Canadian woman tries to maintain her own identity as she gets a crash course in pierogies, platz, and prairie living. Set and shot completely here in Manitoba with Manitoba cast and crew, the show stars Victoria Exconde as Maria, Kenton Dyck as her husband Nate, and Erna Peters and Chuck Fefchak as her parents-in-law, Sarah and Hank.

 

Although the house you’ll see (interior and exterior) is actually in Winnipeg, Maria and the Mennos takes place in Winkler. It’s here where Maria finds herself after moving in with her in-laws so that she and Nate can save for a place of their own. She’s a fun-loving, independent woman who likes to take risks and think outside the box. So let’s just say this new life in a conservative Mennonite household is going to take a little getting used to. Crokinole tournaments, Borscht cook-offs, and Karaoke Hymn Sing-offs all provide a steep learning curve for Maria as she tries to adjust to this new life with her old-fashioned family.

 

Given the low budget for this production, I suspected early on that Maria and the Mennos probably wasn’t going to become my all-time favorite show—an inkling confirmed when I finally succeeded in tuning in for Episode 2. My advice? You’ll enjoy the show more if you approach it, not as the next Kim’s Convenience, but the same way you would a community theatrical production where you want to cheer on your co-workers, neighbors, and relatives who have courageously taken to the stage. Apparently, it also really helps if you’re Mennonite and can identify with that brand of humor. 

 

Even so, I’ll probably watch all the episodes. I want to see Maria’s Filipino family, who will no doubt have their own brand of inside jokes. “Our” episode aired on January 24 and I spotted myself a couple of times. Ten hours of my life for five seconds of fame. Seems about right.

 

Meanwhile, maybe I’ll dig out my Mennonite Treasury of Recipes, copyright 1962, and make some tasty treat submitted by Mrs. Jake Wiebe of Steinbach or Mrs. Abe Klassen of Morden, like zwieback or obstkuchen, to snack on during future episodes. Hey, here’s an idea. Maybe the producers of Maria and the Mennos can do a spin-off cooking show called Maria and the Menus.

 

I’ll leave you with a Low-German phrase we can all appreciate. I found it posted on the internet by Benjamin Vogt, so don’t blame me if it’s not your version of the language: “Aules haft en Enj, Bloss ne Worscht nijch. Dee haft twee Enja.” 

 

Translation: “Everything has an end except a sausage. It has two ends.”

 

Why You Should Never Road-Trip with a Writer

If you’ve been reading my blog any length of time, you already know that road trips never go smoothly for me. It’s always something. When I do make my destination without incident, something’s sure to go wrong on the way home.

In the spirit of lemons-to-lemonade, I tend to use these incidents as “blog fodder” for at least three reasons. One, it’s tough to think up something new to write about every week. Two, I know how readers love to revel in my calamities. Three, there’s always a lesson to learn and share if one digs deep enough.

It’s my innocent fellow travelers (usually Hubby) who must suffer the consequences even though they never volunteered to have their every move documented and published for whichever readers are heartless enough to enjoy others’ misfortunes.

Our last trip was no exception, to our daughter’s Calgary home for Christmas. You need to know that I’m not a fan of driving, especially since my collision last spring. I’m generally willing to drive only if there’s no snow, rain, ice, or fog. And no darkness. No curves or hills. No one passing me. Oh, and no other vehicles on the road.

This is rather limiting.

But with Hubby fighting a cold, I was determined to drive as much as possible, both to give him a break and to lose some of my anxiety around driving. I took over the wheel as soon as the sun rose, at Brandon. Despite some fog, I managed to continue into Saskatchewan, becoming more relaxed as the fog lifted. I was gaining confidence and felt pretty proud of myself as we approached Swift Current around 3:30 p.m. I looked forward to stopping for a bathroom break and having Hubby take over the wheel for the remaining five hours.

Suddenly, we heard THWACK-THWACK-THWACK! 

In my rearview mirror, I saw a strip of rubber flapping around the rear wheel. I immediately thought of those “road alligators” sometimes left behind by semi-trucks. I pulled over and Hubby got out to inspect. Turned out I’d run over a tarp strap. The strap’s hook had punctured our tire, and the tire was quickly going flat.

Then we discovered our spare was impossible to remove from its rusted and corroded rack under the car. I tried calling CAA. No cell service.

Finally, a text went through. While we waited for a tow truck, Hubby began calling tire shops only to learn they were all closing (it was Saturday) and would not reopen until Wednesday, after Boxing Day.

I began to pray as I envisioned spending Christmas in a Swift Current hotel room. Either that, or our kids would need to make two ten-hour round trips to get us and take us back. (They later assured us they would have, although that could be because we were bringing a week’s worth of meals with us.)

When our tow truck driver arrived and I climbed into his cab, it was hard to ignore the whiff of alcohol or his constant use of a hand-held cell phone while driving. However, the guy had connections we did not. He knew the personal phone number of a repairman willing to come open his shop after hours even though he lived out of town. Yes, we needed to pay after-hour rates, but this is why God invented credit cards. Ninety minutes later, our tire was fixed and we were once more on the move—in the dark, with Hubby at the wheel.

You could say that sketchy tow truck guy saved our Christmas, all because of who he knew. Then again, it’s entirely possible the one I knew and prayed to had dispatched the best person for us. So much to consider. And to remember.

Like checking the accessibility of a spare tire before leaving home. Or not taking road-trips with a writer.

 

Read With Me

Do you keep track of the books you’ve read? How about the movies you watch? At my age, it’s getting harder to remember and I sure hate to waste my time only to realize half-way through that I’ve seen or read something before.

My 2023 record shows that I read 31 books last year. Of those, eight were research for the novel I’m currently writing. Three were nonfiction, falling into the category of self-help and all by the same author, Jennie Allen (Anything, Everything, and Nothing to Prove). One was a riveting memoir, Educated by Tara Westover. The remainder were fiction and mostly historical, my favorite both to read and write. I’m going to attempt to choose three favorites to tell you about, in no particular order.

 

The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill. I was thrilled to find this 486-page book at our local MCC thrift shop for only 85 cents. I was especially intrigued by the portion of this story that takes place near Shelbourne, Nova Scotia, where we have family friends.

 

Abducted as an 11-year-old child from her village in West Africa and forced to walk for months to the sea in a string of slaves, Aminata Diallo is sent to live as a slave in South Carolina. Years later, she forges her way to freedom, serving the British in the Revolutionary War and registering her name in the historic Book of Negroes. This book, an actual document, provides a short but immensely revealing record of freed loyalist slaves who requested permission to leave the United States for resettlement in Nova Scotia, only to find that the haven they sought was steeped in an oppression all its own. Tears welled when I read the reactions of people who had never before seen their name written down anywhere.

 

Aminata’s eventual return to Sierra Leone—passing ships carrying thousands of slaves bound for America—is an engrossing account of an obscure but important chapter in history that saw 1,200 former slaves embark on a harrowing back-to-Africa odyssey.

 

A Child for the Reich by Andie Newton. After her husband, Josef, joins the Czech resistance, Anna Dankova does everything possible to keep her daughter, Ema, safe. But when blonde haired, blue-eyed Ema is ripped from her arms in the local marketplace by nurses dedicated to Hitler’s cause, Anna is forced to go to new extremes to take back what the Nazis stole from her.

 

A former actress, Anna goes undercover as a devoted German subject eager to prove her worth to the Reich. But getting close to Ema is one thing. Convincing her that the Germans are lying when they claim Anna stole her from her true parents is another.

 

The Extraordinary Deaths of Mrs. Kip by Sara Brunsvold. Talented and ambitious, cub reporter Aidyn Kelley is ready for a more serious assignment than the fluff pieces she’s been assigned. In her eagerness, she pushes too hard, earning herself the menial task of writing an obituary for an unremarkable woman who’s just entered hospice care.

But there’s more to Clara Kip than meets the eye. The spirited septuagenarian may be dying, but she’s not quite ready to cash it in yet. Never one to shy away from an assignment herself, she can see that God brought the young reporter into her life for a reason. And if it’s a story Aidyn Kelley wants, that’s just what Mrs. Kip will give her—but she’s going to have to work for it.

 

I highly recommend all three of these books and look forward to all the great ones I hope to read in 2024. What are you reading?

 

 

Ode to a Garbage Can

I apologize if this is too much information, but nearly every day of my adult life, I have hoisted one foot up onto my bathroom vanity in order to apply body lotion to that leg. Then I repeat with the other leg. In recent years, I have sometimes wondered, “How old will I be when I can no longer hike my foot up there?”

Then it happened.

It didn’t play out like expected. Hoisting my foot up onto the vanity is not the issue. It’s putting all my weight on the other ankle that suddenly became a problem. My ankle rebelled, like it’s been doing on the stairs off and on lately. Thankfully, I didn’t collapse. But I gained new insight, something along the lines of, “Oh. So THIS is how the cookie crumbles.” It reminds me of what they say about the elderly and broken hips, how most of the time it’s not that a person falls and breaks a hip. It’s that their hip breaks and they fall.

Now bear with me while I make an extremely self-deprecating comparison.

How many years would you expect to get out of a standard garbage can? As I carried ours from the curb back to the box where it hangs out between its weekly outings, it occurred to me that this olive-green, metal can is getting up there in years. I don’t know how many, exactly. But I know we bought it new when we lived in Texas, so probably around 1978.

Forty-five years later, we’re still using that can. Sure, the handle came off once and Hubby wired it back on. That wire, though somewhat rusted, has held. For several years when we lived in the country and burned our trash, the can got used instead to hold dog food, a slightly loftier purpose.

The can has a few dents and dings, a few spots without paint and yes, some rust. But it’s doing its job just fine. Never asks for glory or gratitude. Never complains about smells, cold, or heat. Never made a fuss that summer I threw out a raw turkey liver and later found the can crawling with maggots that had to be bleached out of its interior. (Speaking of too much information.)

Back to my weak ankle. Like our trash can, my body is aging and breaking down. Dings and dents. Lumps and bumps.

Unlike our trash can, my body lets me know when it’s not happy and I, in turn, pass that information along to hubby because I know how he appreciates my whining.

Don’t get me wrong. My body is immeasurably more valuable than my trash can. Irreplaceable, even, at least for now. And although that old can could easily outlive me, eventually it will be nothing but crumbs of rust blown around by the wind. By that time, I’ll have received a brand-new body that my Bible tells me will never deteriorate, weaken, or die (check out I Corinthians 15:35-58).

While I wait for that day, it wouldn’t hurt to become more like my trash can. How great would it be to adopt the mindset that I’m here to play my assigned part with endurance and consistency, without expecting glory or gratitude, without complaint, and without envying someone else’s more important role? While I’m at it, how much healthier would it be to choose contentment when my body can’t do everything it used to do or no longer looks as fine as it once did? That is, after all, the natural order of everything.

In the grand scheme, “She did her job just fine” might not be such a bad epitaph.

(Not my trash can. Ours, at 45 years, is actually in much better shape.)