I never thought much about what it
might mean to live next door to the church other than “convenient.” It was all
that. Took less than a minute to get to work. It was easy to come home and have
lunch with my bride. I could run back to church to get something I forgot –
that happened often. No problem. That part was cool.
I was told I would need to help
some people get in the church once in a while. Okay! Most leaders had keys, but
there were plenty of other people wanting to get in “for just a few minutes.”
The janitor handled opening and
closing for all the regular hours Sunday and Tuesday to Friday 8:00-5:00. But
someone always seemed to need in between services on Sundays. Saturday entrance
need was off and on and the church was open Tuesday and Wednesday evening for
several programs. About the only night people did not seem to want in was
Mondays. If I kicked my shoes off, someone was sure to come asking for help.
I was not to give anyone a key.
That meant I went and unlocked the door and usually locked them in or returned
later to lock up if a group was coming. What fun! I was told I did not need to
be tied to the peoples desired to get in, but if we left and I later learned
someone wanted in, I felt guilty (I know,
my problem). I hated the question, “Where were you?” Well, I wasn’t sitting
around waiting for anyone to come.
We had been there a couple of
months when we began to get phone calls every Monday morning about 7:45 a.m.
The calls came from a board member and he always had a question or some piece
of information he seemed to need. There were times he just wanted to know my
plans for the day. He would say, “I just drive by and though I would check in
with you.” Monday was to be my day off. I told him. We were still young and
often up very alter On Sunday night.
We developed a habit of hanging
out with the Boldt’s after church. Usually we went to their home or to connect
with others. It took a while before we fully understood that Walter would
really only relax at his home. We tried having them at our place once in a
while, but he was always ready to go in about 30 minutes. At his place we would
hang out until about 11:00 p.m. Then we came home and were up another couple of
hours before giving up. We watched some very dumb movies on Sunday nights. The
lateness is why the morning calls were driving us both crazy.
 |
| There he is. Driving by again. |
We could not figure out why he was
doing this. One night we tried an experiment. We opened the living room
curtains and let the kitchen light on before going to bed. There was no call
the next morning. We did the same the next week and then to confirm our theory
we did not open them before going to bed and the phone call returned.
Confirming in our minds that he was driving by and calling just to get us up, we
never again went to bed Sunday night without making sure our living room curtains
were open and a light was on. We may have been sound asleep, but we were going
to look like we were up and ready for the day.
By the way, this was the same
board member who kept asking for Pastor Boldt’s resignation. Never liked him anyway. It became easy
to join my boss in prayer that God would remove this guy. He and his wife tried
to get close to us. It was obvious their main goal was to get us to pass on
some dirt about my boss. That was never going to happen. First, there was
nothing to pass on and second, I had no intention of telling him a single thing
and ruining the good thing we had in Saskatoon. That little trick shut our
mouths for good. No one every got us to say anything bad about our bosses again.
Wait! Hold on? I did try to get one of my bosses fired, but that is coming up.
I had plenty bad to say about him, but that’s a few years later in these
stories.
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