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The Tablecloth
True Story
- submitted by Pastor Rob Reid
The brand
new pastor and his wife,
newly assigned to their
first
ministry, to reopen a church in
suburban Brooklyn,
arrived in
early October excited about
their
opportunities. When they saw their
church, it was
very run down and
needed much work. They set a
goal to
have everything done in time
to have their first service
on
Christmas Eve.
They worked hard, repairing
pews,
plastering walls, painting, etc.
and on Dec 18
were ahead of schedule
and just about finished. On Dec 19
a
terrible tempest - a driving
rainstorm - hit the area
and
lasted for two days.
On the 21st, the pastor
went over
to the church. His heart sank when he
saw that the
roof had leaked, causing
a large area of plaster about
20
feet by 8 feet to fall off the front wall
of the
sanctuary just behind the pulpit,
beginning about head
high.
The pastor cleaned up the mess on
the floor,
and not knowing what
else to do but postpone the Christmas
Eve
service, headed home.
On the way he noticed that a
local
business was having a flea market
type sale for
charity so he stopped in.
One of the items was a
beautiful,
handmade, ivory colored,
crocheted tablecloth
with exquisite
work, fine colors and a Cross
embroidered
right in the center. It
was just the right size to cover
up
the hole in the front wall. He bought
it and headed back to
the church.
By this time it had started to
snow. An
older woman running
from the opposite direction
was
trying to catch the bus. She missed
it. The pastor
invited her to wait in the
warm church for the next bus
45
minutes later. She sat in a pew and
paid no attention
to the pastor while
he got a ladder, hangers, etc.,
to
put up the tablecloth as a wall tapestry.
The
pastor could hardly believe how
beautiful it looked and it
covered up
the entire problem area.
Then he noticed
the woman walking
down the center aisle. Her face
was
like a sheet. "Pastor," she asked,
"where did you
get that tablecloth"
The pastor explained. The
woman
asked him to check the lower right
corner to see
if the initials, EBG were
crocheted into it there. They
were.
These were the initials of the woman,
and she had
made this tablecloth 35
years before, in
Austria.
The woman could hardly believe it as
the
pastor told how he had just gotten
the Tablecloth. The woman
explained
that before the war she and her
husband were
well-to-do people in
Austria. When the Nazis came,
she
was forced to leave. Her husband
was going to follow
her the next week.
She was captured, sent to prison
and
never saw her husband or her
home
again.
The pastor wanted to give her
the
tablecloth; but she made the pastor
keep it for the
church. The pastor
insisted on driving her home, that
was
the least he could do. She lived on
the other sideof
Staten Island and was
only in Brooklyn for the day for
a
housecleaning job.
What a wonderful service they
had on
Christmas Eve. The church was
almost full. The
music and the spirit
were great. At the end of the service,
the
pastor and his wife greeted everyone at
the door and
many said that they would
return. One older man, whom the
pastor
recognized from the neighborhood,
continued to
sit in one of the pews and
stare, and the pastor
wondered
why he wasn't leaving. The man
asked him where
he got the tablecloth
on the front wall because it
was
identical to one that his wife had
made years ago
when they lived in
Austria before the war and how
could
there be two tablecloths so much alike
He told the
pastor how the Nazis came,
how he forced his wife to flee for
her
safety, and he was supposed to follow
her, but he
was arrested and put in a
prison. He never saw his wife or
his
home again all the 35 years in between.
The
pastor asked him if he would allow
him to take him for a little
ride. They
drove to Staten Island and to the same
house
where the pastor had taken the
woman three days earlier. He
helped
the man climb the three flights of stairs
to the
woman's apartment, knocked on
the door and he saw the
greatest
Christmas reunion he could ever imagine.
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