Remembering Adolf

He was born on September 26, 1910. He was raised with eight siblings in a small house in Stavanger, Norway—located on the southwest coast of Norway next to the North Sea. It is a beautiful city. The Dømkirke sits at the center of the city. From 1100 to 1125, the hardworking people of this fishing village built one of the most magnificent and elegant cathedrals God has ever seen. The fjords surrounding the city are as peaceful as they are stunning.

During an economic depression between the two world wars, the nineteen-year old boy said goodbye to his family, boarded a boat, and travelled to New York. The words written by Emma Lazarus inscribed at the base of the Statue of Liberty applied to him: Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me.

He arrived in the United States the same time the Great Depression started. He eventually settled in northwest Iowa where he worked odd jobs and long hours to survive. When World War II started, he volunteered to serve his new country. He was a soldier in the European Theatre from 1941 to 1945. The first thirty-five years of his life were tough.

He married a young American woman. They had two boys. He became a painter and then a builder. Churches and schools scattered throughout northwest Iowa have his fingerprint on them. He enjoyed the simple things in life: gardening and fishing. He was loved by his community for his generosity and because he talked funny.

His wife died too young after a long battle with breast cancer. He kept loving, laughing, giving, and living as long as he could. I visited him on October 22, 2001. Before I left, I held his hand and prayed with him. As I concluded, he asked if I would pray the Lord’s Prayer. I prayed it as slow as I could so that the breathing-impaired man could keep up with me. He died the next morning. Three days later, I drove to his church. I put on my robe and spoke the only words that really matter—words of grace. I usually call the deceased by their first name. But in this case Adolf seemed too formal. I called him the same thing I called him for thirty years: grandpa, or as they say in Norway, bestefar.

It’s been ten years now. I no longer think of him and get sad. I’m only grateful. Grateful for the kind, forgiving, and loving person who invested so much of his life in my life.

Be an example to all believers in what you say, in the way you live, in your love, your faith, and your purity. -1 Timothy 4:12

The best is yet to come…

Craig