The Bible Compass

December, 2025

Well, Thanksgiving was lovely with some of our family, who came for ribs and stuffing, pumpkin pie, quiet conversations, and games. We did have a minor kerfuffle when Floyd missed our back porch step and fell onto the concrete, bonking the back of his head. Our military-trained grandsons sprang into action, and we were in the ER in 10 minutes. Aside from Floyd’s non-stop, insane chatter in the ER (adreleline?), he’s fine. Just a sore head and amused nurses and doctors. Erich and Deb had dinner ready when we returned home two hours later. Only two hours? Ah, the luxury of small-town hospitals!

Our Winter

The Bible Compass

Christmas Pyramid

Blessings, Christine

Christmas Pyramid Story

While Hungary was probably one of the least repressive communist countries, East Germany (DDR) was definitely one of the most repressive [in 1986]. I don’t know all the hoops people had to jump through for [the four of us] us to receive an invitation to come [speak at a week-long Christian conference]. We drove across the border with all the proper papers. Officially we were tourists in Zwickau, a small town in southern DDR. It probably had been cute once upon a time, but 25 years of totalitarianism had neglected it.

Our hosts were a family with a [10-year-old] daughter, Mary, who was a bit younger than Erich. The father, Dieter, was a preacher in their church, and he sometimes was allowed to travel into Western Europe for conferences. This permission was not granted to his family, but was a gesture by the government to demonstrate how “free” this communist state was. The family conference was to be in Brandenburg, outside of East Berlin. Dieter told us that officially we would never be in Brandenburg; therefore, we needed to see everything there was to see in Zwickau and the region, so that if we were questioned by border guards on exiting the country, we would know lots about Zwickau.

Dieter asked us what souvenirs we would like to buy. I knew that the region was particularly famous for their woodcarvings, and told him I would love to have a Christmas pyramid. A pyramid was a very fancy carved table decoration to celebrate lighting a candle on each of the four Advent Sundays before Christmas. The heat from the candles would turn a wheel that made the whole scene move in a circle.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “Those are carved here, but not sold here. They are all exported to the West. But I will take you to the wood carving museum.”

A group of school children were touring the museum that day. The carvings were, indeed, glorious. On one side of the museum was a huge carved panorama with little figures depicting the entire Life of Christ. This was surprising to us, because communism had tried to stamp out all Christianity, and many believers were persecuted. My sister and future brother-in-law were, at that time, serving on the team in Vienna that smuggled Bibles into East Germany and other communist countries.

Many of the little wooden figures moved, propelled by tiny streams of water. Dieter and Floyd looked at one another and walked to the beginning of the story. They pointed to a donkey sliding down a path with a pretty woman in blue riding her.

“Look,” said Floyd, “there’s Mary, Jesus’ mother. They had to go to Bethlehem because prophets had foretold that the Messiah, God’s Son, would be born in Bethlehem.” A few children gathered around, and Dieter continued the story, as they walked slowly past the table.

At one point, a little boy said to his friend, “See, I told you it was about Jesus!” While appearing to talk to just each other, the two men were able to “preach” the whole Gospel to anyone who wanted to listen!

. . . After three days with [Dieter and family in Zwickau], we hopped into our cars and drove to Brandenburg. We arrived at the conference center and drove our (to the East Germans) fancy, new Nissan into a garage. We never saw it the rest of the week. It would have attracted too much attention.

Some of the families who came to the conference were a bit scared to have American Christians in their building. If officials had known we were there, we would have been asked to leave, but the people would have been in trouble. Floyd had planned his messages, but changed when he realized that many were not yet believers.

. . . We really wanted to eat our meals with the families so we could have more time to chat informally, but we were always seated at a separate table in the dining room. About halfway through the week, we figured out that it was because we were getting the best and most food. At that point, Floyd and I began to look for unobtrusive ways to increase the quality of the meals. One time, Floyd simply took the platter of meat back to the kitchen and told the cooks that we didn’t need so much and to please give it to the children.

One day we went with the group on a bus to a disgustingly dirty swimming pool. I gulped and let our boys swim, trusting God to protect us. On the way back, about three blocks from the church, we saw a lone woman on the street corner, selling a big bowl of tomatoes. When we got back to the church, Floyd dashed into the kitchen, handed the cook some money, and sent her off to buy the whole bowl of tomatoes. That evening, everyone had a whole tomato to eat. . ..

So that everyone could sleep peacefully, it was arranged that we not sleep at the church. One of the ladies had a small garden plot with a little garden house on the outskirts of the city. After dark each night, we were driven to that house and let into the cellar. With a flashlight (there was no electricity), we climbed a ladder into the house, trying not to notice all the spider webs and big spiders living in that cellar. That week was exceptionally hot, and we wanted to sleep with the windows open, but there were no screens, and the mosquitoes were vicious.

On top of all this, part of the Russian army was in town for joint maneuvers with the East German army. They were practicing very near to where we were staying, and at night we could see the flashes and hear shooting, and large tanks rumbled by and helicopters roared overhead. It did cross our minds that if they accidentally bombed our location, no one would ever know what happened to us!

One night, Floyd woke me up, beating on his pillow. I calmed him down and asked what was wrong. “A spider! A helicopter! I dreamed I was shooting them down with a can of bug spray and a frying pan.” I looked at his pillow to see if there was a spider, but it was too dark to see. We were exhausted. We went back to sleep.

I wrote to Sue [a friend in the United States]: Thank you so much for the lily-of-the-valley body powder. I never told you, though what happened to it. While at the family conference in East Germany . . ., there was a dear old lady who allowed us to stay in her tiny summer house, so that we wouldn’t be making problems for the believers. We weren’t even registered in the city, so the lady could have gotten into trouble, but although she was a bit gruff, she was also very kind. At the end of the week, I realized that because we hadn’t known we would be staying there, I hadn’t a thing to give her as thanks. The city was large, but all of the money in the world is useless, if there is nothing nice to buy. So, I took inventory [of my suitcase], and I realized that she’d probably never had anything as nice as that fragrant lily-of-the-valley powder, so I gave it to her. I knew you wouldn’t mind, and she was very happy. So somewhere in East Germany, a little old lady is probably using – very sparingly – the powder you gave me. Thank you.

The Bible sessions were a huge success, and Floyd and Dieter had many good conversations about the Christian life with the people. It was sobering to see the price that believers would pay to stay true to their faith. Believing parents knew that their children would never be allowed to attend the university. Believing older children knew that their faith could destroy their parents’ business. Floyd reminded them often that the New Testament was written during a time of intense persecution of believers. God did understand.

On the final evening, they had a grill party. The cooks went into the city for ice cream and came back disappointed. The weather had been so hot that there was not an ice cream cone nor bottle of soda to be had in that whole city of 100,000 people! The party was still fun, and the Europeans are really good at grilling.

After the last meeting, they gave us thank-you gifts. Floyd’s was a can of bug spray and a frying pan! When I opened mine, it was a carved wooden pyramid. I looked at Dieter in surprise.

He shrugged good-naturedly. “It’s our daughter, Mary’s. We’ll find another one for her.” Even now, my eyes fill with tears as I bask in their love and sacrifice. I enjoy its beauty every Christmas and tell the story whenever I can.

We Never Saw It Coming

The Bible Compass