These
are the continuing adventures of a Swedish immigrant during her first
year as an American. She boldly went where she'd never gone
before...please come along on Adventures
in America.
In
Sweden we attended what was called a missionary church. It was
evangelical, and far removed from the Lutheran (mostly dead) state
churches. When we moved to Silver Spring, we had many denominations
to choose from. The Nutritionist had grown up in a Presbyterian
church, The Swede obviously in the missionary church, so what is a
blended (in so many ways) family to do?
We
picked the church closest to us. We chose First Baptist Church
because we could walk there. It was about 4 blocks away, and on the
street (big thoroughfare) that our house sat on the corner of. It
was a VERY Baptist Church. The pastor was named Mr. Windham. The
Swede was not fond of him or his preaching style, and many times
would just leave when it came time for the sermon.
He
used to joke that he was a blås-skinka, which is Swedish for
blow-ham. Windham. Get it? He really did blow...not a good
preacher, and the only thing that kept me awake is that Swissie and I
started a church tradition of giving each other hand massages to stay
awake. We got really good at it. If we got too fidgety, we had to
stop. If we sat still long enough, The Nutritionist might give us a
Tums. It's pretty pathetic when Tums are a treat, but we're talking
Nutritionist and they didn't have sugar-free mints yet...as far as I
recall.
The
church wasn't all bad. We got very involved. I “sang” in the
choir. I can't carry a tune if you strap it to my back. Every
Wednesday they served dinner for a ridiculously low price, and that
was after choir practice, so it was perfect. As a mom, wow, I would
have been all over that. I used to not enjoy it so much though
because a boy who had a crush on me would always sit with us and I
just wanted to get away from him.
How
did he get away with that? Well, they really did a good job
streamlining this whole process. Butcher paper on the tables. As
people arrived, they'd write their names on the paper reserving their
seats. We would reserve our seats before choir practice which gave
him plenty of time to find us and write HIS name down by ours. I
tried not having to sit next to him, after all, there were five of us
and surely someone else could be the victim. However, The
Nutritionist was into manners and made me sit by him.
Of
course, long after he was done with me, I got a crush on him...sigh.
Timing.
