Going to Rutland was an interesting experience. Dad had chosen the city of Rutland as a good place to plant an Alliance church in Vermont. He made a trip up there while we were still in school and looked out the site, found a house. And eventually bought that house. The house was a sturdy house but needed to be painted and papered, floors sanded, etc., etc............. all of which he did. The thing that interested him most about the house was that next to it stood an empty lot which was included in the price of the house and here is where he envisioned a church to be built eventually. Dad has always been a visionary and can see down the road ahead, and before we left Rutland two years later, we did have a building on that vacant lot!
The day Dad moved Cheryl and me and Donna and all of our paraphenalia up to Vermont, we started off in the morning and were there in good time. Cheryl was eleven days old and when we arrived in Rutland, I took her upstairs to the bedroom and lay on the bed with her to nurse her and rest a bit. Dad was finishing up some work in the house and was working in the hall outside our bedroom. The neighborhood kids had started to collect at our new house and I heard Dad talking to a young fellow who lived up the street from us. "Where do you go to Church?" he asked and the answer was "First Methodist". "Have you been born again?" Dad then asked, and after a long pause the boy said, "I don't think they've gotten to that part yet!" And thus was my introduction to Rutland! A city full of churches and at that time nary an evangelical church among them!
Our house was Open House all the time! Especially for the young people of the neighborhood. David and Donna were also a big drawing card and when Fall came attended the local High School. When High School began in the Fall, I substituted for the local French teacher. It was soon known that I was Dave and Donna's sister. And since the students called Uncle Dave "Bongo" (after the song "Bongo, bongo, bongo, I don't want to leave the Congo" which was popular at that time) the students called me "Bongo's sister! Aunt Donna was editor of the yearbook at the high school and Uncle Dave played on the football team. The four of us were the church planting team.
We quickly attracted teenagers from the neighborhood and our house was Open House at all times! A pastor's wife who used to visit us in those days says that the way she remembers me is standing at the kitchen stove stirring a big pot of food, interacting with all the teenagers who were there and sitting on every available chair!
To add to the family, we also had a couple from Nyack College living with us for several weeks - they were slated to go to New Hampshire and pastor an Alliance Church also. He was Canadian and did not have the proper papers and so until he got those, this couple lived with us and travelled to NH on the weekends. She was pregnant also. She was a good enough friend that when our third baby was born (in Africa), we named her Elin Mae after our friend who stayed with us.
Our mission was to start a church there in this city, in need of the Gospel. We had two years to accomplish this sincce wwe were missionary candidates and would leave for African in two years. How were we going to do that? And therein lies another episode................
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