"I am so tired of the monogamy serial dating scene in San Diego," Emma had confided to me. "When it comes to marriage, everything here is non-committal, non-intentional and low effort. Everything just drifts. Maybe it's the heat or the barrenness of the desert, I don't know. I have girlfriends who have been dating the same dude for as long as five years! I mean, it's good not to rush into marriage but here in SD it's the diametric opposite of, say, the South where the girls marry before they're barely out of high school! And those not interested in marriage, well, you know what they want, California being California. They're just not interested in a deep relationship or life commitment. It's bad enough just walking down the street to work every day. You can feel yourself being sized up. I hate it! All I want to do now is find a godly family and get settled down as quickly as possible and get out of the city. I'm not getting any younger."

I was impressed by her transparency and directness. Emma was quite unlike any of the other seekers who had come knocking on our door in the past, most of whom were uncertain, hesitant, and non-committal. It wasn't, as Emma though, just a San Diegan phenomenon. She had little in the way of any "church" training and had the simplest of faiths in Christ. Though her professionalism belied the fact, she was in her soul the most straight-forward of persons to talk with and befriend, and one whom I thought would be a wonderful addition to the family. And I sincerely believed she would be ideal for Stan too, bringing for him, and us, an "uncomplicatedness" that none of the rest of us seemed to possess. She was a "go-doer" and a "get-doner", a "ride-or-die" person as the bikers of the 1950's used to describe their fellows, fiercely loyal whom you could be absolutely sure would stick by you through absolutely anything. Period. No time to waste, a "life-is-short so let's not waste any time playing around" kind of a woman. And we desperately wanted that sort of person, so you can understand why I was frustrated with Stan.

I loved everything about Emma from the first day we spoke in Kasia's chat room, and she me. We seemed to effortlessly dovetail. I was even more enthusiastic when we met face-to-face in Kadesh-Naphtali. We instantly knew that our lives were destined to be together without any words being spoken, the nearest thing that I had experienced to date of a "twinnie" that Sarah-Jane and I had come to call spiritual twins. Remember, I had already experienced some degree of "twinness" in the household with Sarah-Jane and Salme, and probably would have felt the same about Hanna had it not been for her earlier issue which had rightly so revolted me, but it had never been as deep and full as I experienced with Emma.

A "soul-sister" sums up best how I felt about her, and she, me, the next most profound human-to-human experience after the feeling of being a soulmate with my husband. It's hard to explain. I thought that Stan should become aware of these qualities and hopefully be impressed enough to start courting her, for my sake as much as his own, as I so much wanted intimate female companionship to complete what my husband had given me. For surely, I thought to myself, if Emma and I belonged to each other in some way as sister-soul mates, as I belonged to Stan, then it was only natural that Emma had to belong to Stan too, for without her belonging to him as one of his allegorical "ribs" we couldn't possibly belong to each other as twinnies in the plural marriage Order that God established in the very beginning. That was my presumption, in taking authority over a situation I had no business doing, imposing myself as the head when I should have been in submission to Stan, instead of letting God take charge. It was this that had offended and dishonoured my husband so deeply. I wished to obtain viâ the back door what only Yahweh could give me though my husband since we don't belong to ourselves. But I didn't understand this in my heart just yet. Up until now it had been all theoretical...and I didn't know what was shortly to come to all of us.

All of this was so new and unexpected to me. Who else could I relate to and consult with? All I had to go by was what Stan had already taught me, and what he taught me seemed to fit seamlessly with what I was now experiencing in my heart. He always said that it was his fondest desire that potential sister-wives not only have the time to get to know each other well before joining the family but that learning to love each other deeply through mutual submission - in our husband and all of us in Christ - was the supreme goal (Ephesians 5:21). This was the divine Order of Heaven and therefore the divine order of his household too, for each was, and is, a reflection of the other. Once he could see that genuine sisterly friendship and love had started between the current sister-wives and the potential sister-wife-to-be, then he would start courting her in earnest, but not before.

It hadn't always been like this, but as he came to know Heavenly Father's domestic order better and learned to yield His own passions and desires to it, just as Christ yielded His own will to the Father in order to serve the Messianic Bride - the Church - so he began to change his approach towards initiating a new courtship. This was in line with the divine pattern of Isaiah 4:1 which left the initiative in proposing marriage in a plural situation up to the woman, "let us be called by your name!" - in other words, "please marry us!" To Stan's way of thinking, this meant seriously considering his present wives' interests and needs for female companionship as part of the equalisation of the plural marriage equation.

I didn't know at the time - because this wasn't something generally known, or spoken of, in the household back then - that two heterosexual women could experience deep romantic-like love and profound emotional connectivity with each other of a special and unique kind within the parameters of a plural marriage...and only within such parameters. This was something far deeper than a deep Platonic relationship between monogamously-married women or single women. Stan had spoken little of such matters to any of us because there had never been a need to, as nothing like Emma and myself had ever happened spontaneously and naturally in our family before now. Étoile would come to help put meat on the bones for us with her deep insights by giving us the right way to speak of such thing so as not to be misunderstood. Because for every new principle that had to be revealed, a new language and vocabulary had to be developped for it too. You only have to consider what the word "salvation" meant back in Old Testament times to realise that it underwent a rapid evolution and development from "rescue from illness or a human adversay" to "rescue from sin and death" in the New Testament.

"Human emotions and connections are extremely complex," Stan had taught me. "The line between an incredibly close "best friendship" and romantic-like love between two or more women in a plural setting can easily become blurred and mistaken for the perverse variety. This echad female-to-female non-saphic love in godly heterosexual plural echad marriage, where sister-wives feel completely seen, heard and aligned with each other, is one of our our most cherished ideals. This is something that monogamy-only Western Christian women can never experience with someone of their own gender, nor would wish to, for fear of stepping over a forbidden line. What Hanna originally experienced with you, Hélène, was not of this kind, and you were rightly repelled by her, as was I. It was a lesson we all had to learn before we could explore female-female relationships deeper. We do not accept lesbianism which is to exchange or replace something natural for something unnatural (Romans 1:26-27). Period."

"Was that how David and Jonathan felt about each other too?" I had asked, rather alarmed, knowing how the gay community interpreted this relationship. "No, not at all, my love, godly heterosexual men never experience that kind of homosexual romantic closeness with each other. That's one of the principle differences between the genders. Remember I explained to you how men-to-men relationships are "side-to-side" unlike women who are "side-to-front" or "front-to-front?"" I remembered. "True marriage is only between covenanted men and women. Anything else is either adultery, fornication or vow-breaking. However, polygyny is rather unique, as you know. There is no polyandrous equivalent, and that's because men and women were made with different forces of attraction operating in them where no dysfunctionality or demonic oppression is involved. That's the key difference and it's a very important one to remember. When those relationship boundaries are crossed, it's then things start to become unholy and perverse."

I never forgot that lesson, so that when the "San Diego Anointing" happened, as we came to call it, I was one of the first to properly understand what was going on and was able to explain it clearly to the others.

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And now let me tell you about 20 year-old Shelly Martinez who had a completely different background to Emma. Brought up a Christian from when she was very young by her very conservative Presbyterian mother, she had a solid spiritual foundation which was unusual for someone her age. Even more unusual was her interest in, and determination to pursue, plural marriage as though it was something built into her from birth. Like Emma she was very open and honest about her beliefs, confessing quite openly to her parents that she intended to marry polygamously when she felt the right man and moment had come, but unlike her older fellow Californian sister in Christ, she was in no hurry. She meant to take her time. Her Mexican father, a lapsed Catholic, admired his daughter's forthrightness and though opposed to plural marriage himself, was liberal enough to tell her that he would respect whatever choices she made in life. Understandably, her Protestant mother was not so generously-minded and would have created a major fuss were it not for her easy-going husband who was defensive of his daughter's independent streak and had put his foot down, not giving his objecting traditionalist wife any room to pressurise their daughter one way or the other. Not that she didn't try obliquely.

We all agreed that in appearance Shelly looked a lot like Kryztina but had the moving spirit of a Kasia. And though Stan was impressed by her patience and single mindedness, he gave no hint of it, knowing that young women might easily be flattered. Taking advantage of a woman was not Stan's way - he wished anyone coming into the family to do so under their own steam following their own life-chart and spiritual compass. Steering or manipulating women into plural marriage, he said, only led to long-term trouble, something he had had to upbraid Władysław over because of his over-keenness to marry Märta. He was not above using his father's popularity and success in plural marriage to his advantage in courtship, but Stan had immediately spotted his son's tactic and had made sure he spoke to Märta in private to tell her to be objective and not to feel pressurised in any way. Władysław would have been furious if he had known what his father had done, "cramping his style," he would have called it, but Märta was appreciative.

Instinctively, Shelly headed for the youngest and newest of Stan's wives, Salme, for friendship and fellowship, realising that she would probably be able to identify with her the most closely. Hour after hour Shelly would probe away, punctuating their conversation with girlish giggles over some silly detail. When Stan would appear, her eyes were at once upon him, wondering. But Stan made no effort to get to know either Shelly or Emma which, contrary to his plan, actually worked against him! For instead of feeling side-stepped or rejected, the two women - and especially Shelly - grew all the more curious. For all of the male polygamists that she and Emma had talked to online were the very opposite, more like testosterone-overloaded bulls in the mating season, barely able to restrain themselves. Without knowing it, the otherwise open and transparent Stan had injected an aura of mystery into his distancing act that made him even more attractive to them.

"My father," Stan had once told me, "was not interested in children at all, though he was never mean to them. And as a result, they used to flock around him. The fact that he didn't bother or mollycoddle them seemed to pique their interest in him even more. Whenever small cousins or other family members used to come and visit us, my mother used to dote over them and repelled them, much to her distress. She had no idea that she was emotionally suffocating them, in spite of the fact that she was a very caring woman, much more so than my father. But she went too far. I learned from that the secret of attraction as against force. Yah'shua used to attract children to Himself to such an extent that the disciples tried to shoo them away for bothering Him. But the Master rebuked them and said that the Kingdom of Heaven was made for such spontaneous, open-hearted little ones (Matthew 19:13-15).

Still, I thought he was being unfair to Emma and Shelly. But the fact that the hoped-for response to his aloofness was the very opposite of what he had planned served him right, and I felt justified. Though Emma respectfully kept her distance, and became more and more electrified by Stan as a result, at times it seemed as though I should see sparks fly off her whenever Stan passed nearby, much like the energy that had drawn us women together, though much more powerful. But the Hispanic in Shelly was in no way reserved in any shape or size. Bursting with flamenco-like energy and smiles she would interpolate herself between Stan and wherever he was going and try to engage him in friendly conversation. Knowing that he could not simply walk away without compromising his own standards of decency, Stan was forced to to talk to her.

Anna would watch him at a distance, scowling, making sure that her husband would know that she was guarding her protégé and on the lookout for poor behaviour. If he dared to pull his speaking-in-Polish-act again, she was ready to pounce on him and put an end to his nonsense. She knew by now, though, that he could pull off a new trick at any moment and whilst such antics amused her under normal circumstances, she was now determined to protect this waif of a girl and also the honour of the family. But somehow I knew Stan would never go that far - he had had his naughty moment and would not repeat it again. He had his boundaries.

It did not take long for the persistent, strong-minded Shelly to open him up. For in spite of his aloof act, he was really a big softie at heart. The combination of her expressive intensity and goodness at length conquered him and rather than repell her was, after a few days, soon engaging her in active conversation himself. He called her his little "fuego" or "fire" after that. And seeing that Emma was a little hurt at being left out, felt guilty for apparently showing favouritism, turned his attention to Emma as well, and beckoned her over. That was the point at which he determined to start treating the guests right. When Anna saw this, she relaxed and went off to do other things, satisfied that her husband was now behaving. He later thanked her for her diligence.

The moment Stan allowed his eyes to meet Emma's and look deep within, he was immediately smitten as I had been, and became affability itself. So as to give him one-to-one time with her, I relieved him of Shelly and took her aside to the others and involved her in some group discussion.

At first Stan didn't know what was going on. Something incredibly deep and profound was stirring in him once their eyes met. Ever on the watch not to open himself to anything untoward spiritually, he was initially cautious. Emma was an unknown quantity to him, after all, and he knew little about her background. I had given him a short resumé but nothing more. There could have been all sorts of spirits present which he didn't want to become a conduit for and so hurt his wives. What baffled him was that immediately, and without hesitation, and in complete trust, and so atypically of women he had met for the first time, she let him into the depths of her heart because she knew who I was to her. What he saw there profoundly shocked him: he saw my face there too! First his jaw dropped, then came the sudden realisation of who she was. His eyes suddenly lit up like an incandescent lamp, and almost as quickly a flood of pure, unadulterated joy rolled through his entire being. He was looking at himself and she was looking at herself! They were one from long, long ago. And I knew that he knew and I was so unspeakably happy! In an instant he knew we were not only a threesome but that we had always been so.

Once assured that she was pure and genuine, he never took his eyes off Emma's for a moment. The love present was just too great, except to glance towards me now and then and give me a melting smile. He called me over knowing that this was something all three of us needed to share and become used to face-to-face. He had been waiting for such a moment for over 30 years and now it had arrived he couldn't quite believe it. Instant echad - oneness - the dream he had been nurturing for so long - it was all there. And for a split second he was frightened - frightened because he knew that nothing could ever be the same again in his family, frightened that he had no control over it whatsoever, frightened that the others might be left behind not understanding, and be hurt, and he absolutely did not want that. He silently prayed that all his family could know and be known this way.

Remembering his responsibility toward Shelly, he smiled at Emma, to assure her that he was not rejecting this deep and precious moment of communion between them but had to consider his other guest's needs too. Emma understood. No words were needed or indeed spoken. They would often look into one another's eyes and have wordless conversations in the Spirit. And the amazing thing was that I could "hear" them, and they me, and could enjoy their intimacy because I knew that I was so deeply connected to her too and that it was my intimacy too. The openness was so real and glorious that there was never any resentment or jealosy on either of our parts. How could there be? It was completely open, nothing hidden, nothing concealed - three soul-mates in heavenly bless. We had the agency to withdraw at any time but neither of us wanted that. It would have hurt too much. This was heavenly and utterly peaceful. And we knew that physical separation could never dampen it because it was all mediated by the Holy Spirit.

From that moment on, the two San Diegan visitors befriended each other, though it had taken several days, each being slightly nervous of the other knowing that both were about the same purpose and not knowing whether they might be rivals or allies. But now that Emma and Stan had "met", all fears evapourated from Emma's heart. Now the sky was potentially the limit. What was, was, and could never be denied or forgotten. That's not to say there would be no problems to solve - the flesh is always "around" waiting to throw spanners in the works, but so long as we were in Christ and remained there - submitted to Him, and Emma and I submitted to Stan, and we twins submitted to each other, all would be well and we would prosper. The Kingdom of Heaven had fully arrived for us three and now it could only spread.

It was then I suddenly understood the dual meaning of Christ's teaching on the Kingdom of Heaven and why translators were confused by it. "The Kingdom of God is within you," one group of translations would say, and others "the Kingdom of God is in your midst" (Luke 17:21). Stan had once explained it to me but I hadn't understood him at the time.

"It's both," he said. "You can't pick one or the other translation, they're both right. And that's why the Amplified Version is the only translation that gets it right:

"For behold, the Kingdom of God is within you (in your hearts) AND among you (surrounding you)."

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I learned from Sarah-Jane when I first entered the family that Stan had ambivalent feelings about America and Americans. On the one hand he loathed our collective go-get, sometimes greedy, arrogant and superficial ways, but on the other hand greatly admired our pluckiness, industriousness, generosity and cultural youthfulness. Understanding this inner conflict within him took a bit of getting used to at first since he was both repelled as well as attracted by our national values. He knew, of course, that Europeans had their own contrary values too, and was the first to point these out - what they had in terms of cultural and historical depth was often off-set by their snobbishness and silly mannerisms which he equally hated. And yet Europe of the 21st century had, like the rest of the world, come under the American shadow as the European youth of the previous half century progressively adopted many of the American mannerisms and behaviours. His hope in marrying Sarah-Jane and I had been to find the best of both the Old and New Worlds and marry them together in our home. How this would actually come about was quite remarkable.

The reasons behind his antics when Shelley and Emma arrived was not just just that we had dishonoured him but, before Stan and Emma's spirits met, turned out also to be fear. Poland was a very old country, founded in AD 966 when Duke Mieszko I united the West Slavic tribes and adopted Christianity. The United States, by contrast, was an extremely young and immature country by comparison, being founded in 1776 following an act of open rebellion that was openly celebrated and part of the national identity, a bit like modern republican France. There was a cultural 'age gap' of nearly a thousand years. He was therefore, I learned, afraid that American values would swamp the family's, because of the way it had done so in Europe, and redefine it away from the spiritual targets he had painstakingly been mapping out and was attempting to live. He also feared the aggressive feminism in American culture and did not relish the thought of having another family campaign to quash it to prevent it infecting his other wives.

And yet he secretly wanted that pleasing, magnetic and attractive je ne sais quoi American "spark" to liven us all up a bit for he felt that in recent months things had begun to drag somewhat. I assured him that if he could so completely change my American outlook on life in just a handfull of years that he would likely be able do the same should Shelly and Emma join the family. He seemed reassured by that. And I reminded him that the sheer spiritual-gravitational force from the mass of the existing family would, like the giant planet Jupiter holding over a hundred moons in orbit, in some respects relieve him of the burden of reforming new wives that had been so necessary to his personal operation at the beginning. Only now he knew, since the "Emma moment", it was the massive core that would need to change. But how??

The word "operation" was no over-statement - there was much that had to be changed in us before the family could provide a solid base for new incoming wives. Now, with so many well-trained wives, we were able to do much of the training for him ourselves which he came increasingly to rely on. Indeed, virtually all that Salme had learned had come through her sister-wives, and very little from Stan himself, if we discount his enormous website. Having "teacher co-wives" was now a well-established family practice. They became spiritual mothers to the newcomers. It would be up to the teacher-wives to guide them by word and example about submission, love-making, child management and the running of the by now very large family home that Stan wished. Often the teacher-pupils became twins, like Hanna and Salme, sometimes others did.

I guess that with increasing age Stan did not look forward to any more major struggles. The spirit was still strong but the physical body was showing signs of weakening. Now he just wanted to "settle down" and enjoy the last third of his life as we all matured towards the hoped-for goal of full sanctification in Christ. He was also thinking a lot about Isabel, and was more hurt over her estrangement than any of us had realised. She was never far from his thoughts. He had thought that the days of wives running off were well and truly over, the lessons hopefully learned and "writ large" on their hearts, and that he could now "grow old" with us and relax. But he was now pining for his estranged Polish wife and two sons, one of whom - Benoni - he hardly knew. That he managed to, on the one hand, mourn and, on the other, to joyfully court simultaneously - what he called "patriarchal multitasking" - was a mystery that I don't suppose any of us women will ever be able to understand. That's another one of our created gender differences. It was like, he said, men trying to understand what it was like for a woman to bear a child. These were just things we had to accept were beyond the our ken or experience. The genders were permanently set by Yahweh, and that was that.

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The visit by Shelly and Emma seemed to pass at lightening speed. Stan was by this time very involved with new congregations in Asia and because he hadn't made alternative arrangements during the San Diegans' stay, was obliged to be absent much of the time in order to keep his appointments and advise all the several pastors who had been patiently waiting for their meetings. Vistors from Norway came - a sub-apostle (as the 'pre-apostles' were now being called) and two pastors - to help Stan with the Asian challenge, knowing that out there, unlike the apathetic West, things tended to move faster. During the two weeks the Americans were with us, five more congregations had been raised by the dynamic and deeply committed evangelists in the field. Stan would have to make up for his earlier poor behaviour the next time the two women came.

Isabel had been an invaluable helper in the practical administrative side of missions but she had gone, leaving him feeling rather helpless. He knew that Jenny would have been an invaluable help too, for she was likewise passionate about this side of ministry. He pleaded much in prayer during those days, asking the Lord to free him from this mounting burden which he alone could not manage. The Norwegians were too busy with the start of a small revival in their own country to do very much, and Elisa was constantly needed on the Internet advising the new congregations in Estonia and making teaching materials for them in Estonian, often with the help of Salme and the other two Estonians. We were, if the truth be known, getting overworked - the ministry, the estate, and the children were slowly but surely wearing us down. Either we needed more families to move in to Kadesh-Naphtali to help or we had to expand our own family more with younger, fresher blood with more modern skill-sets because the world was changing at an ever accelerating pace.

Perhaps Stan's initial reluctance to have more visitors from America at this time had, in large part, been because of all the pressures on him. What he was not keen to have was more wives who would overload the rest of us.

"If we are to add new wives to the family," he told Elisa, Andreea and myself one evening after the guests had gone to bed, "we have to have women who are dynamic, motivated, hard-working and to some degree independent, like those described in Isaiah 4:1. The whole dynamic of the family has changed now. We aren't what we used to be, and we're going to continue to change."

And he was right. Size does change things, and it changes things dramatically. Though the analogy is limited, we had become more like a firm with departments and stricter divisions of labour now. This meant that those who held leadership positions in the "Family Firm" were absolutely crucial - if they "went down", the whole firm would feel it and increase the load on the others. So it was necessary to train others as backups.

Isabel's departure had most definitely affected us adversely. She was the family and community treasurer and knew all the in's and out's of Polish (and now, Swedish) tax rules and government red-tape about which the rest of us were still ignorant. Having the three Swedish families in the community definitely helped and they were quickly recruited to fill in the gap Isabel had left. It had fallen to Kryztina to take over economic management of the herrgård, which she hadn't liked, both because she hated money matters as well as the fact that she was by now already very engaged in family homeschooling, having the most experience of all of us. Though she had handled finances before, she had never enjoyed the job. Those who could understand Swedish to some degree or another also lent a hand as and when they could but for now we had to rely on Björn, Lars and Bengt to help us out. The chain-of-command had become more spread-out and therefore less efficient, with the result that more pressure fell on Stan.

"Oh, why can't Jenny see how much she's needed here," bemoaned Stan that evening. "I need her, we need her, and I truly believe she needs us. She could do so much good here. And she would enjoy it, I know it."

Nobody said anything. Nobody could. He might well have asked the same about Isabel or anyone else whom we knew Yahweh had called to be gathered with us there and then.

There was a knock on Stan's door and Salme came in. Stan looked up and smiled. She padded over to him for a kiss and sat by him on the arm of his chair.

"Shelly and Emma are going in two days, darling," she said, with a pleading look in her eyes. "What are you intending to do? Are you going to propose?"

He knew what she meant. From the comments he had heard all of his wives making in the past few weeks, there wasn't much doubt that we all wanted these two women in the family. And he knew that we expected him to take the "bull by the horns" and propose to them, as they seemed to be unwilling or afraid to do things the Isaiah 4:1 way. Perhaps it was our American cultural expectation that the man drop on one knee and propose with ring-in-hand, a tradition that Stan loathed for several reasons. The half-sad reaction on his face wasn't what she wanted to see. Was he starting to doubt now, even after all that he had experienced between Emma and himself? He looked up at each of us in turn, as though hoping for a solution to what we thought was no problem at all. Indeed, we had thought his mind was settled now. He started fishing for excuses, something we hadn't expected. Was this the Helsinki Blues all over again??

"Shelly is thirty years younger than me," he pleaded, as though we would suddenly be persuaded by that excuse. And when he saw that we wouldn't support him, he sighed. This was not like him at all, but we could see he was under strain. He had only just finished conducting a long interview with a Pastor from India and another from Uganda.

"Emma's invited you to go back to California with her but is too scared to ask," pleaded Salme hopefully, knowing that Stan needed a rest and change of scene. "Both she and Shelly want to give you a holiday."

Stan was conflicted and felt ashamed. Here he was, having at first kept them at arm's-length, and then having had to be forced to be more positive, then having an echad experience which catapulted his spirit over the moon, then starting to doubt, and was now being shown up once again. He knew he was wrong - again - and we could see from his countenance that he was admitting it.

"How can I go with so much happening in Asia and Africa? They want me to visit there too, and I think they have a prior right, don't you?"

We couldn't argue against the Kingdom-First Rule (Matthew 6:33). He had told us often enough that plural marriage existed to serve the Kingdom of God, and not be served by it.

"Why don't you fly to the USA viâ India?" suggested Andreea.

"The travel would kill him," I protested, knowing that what Stan needed above all now was plenty of rest. The others reluctantly agreed.

Hanna appeared, beaming as usual, and joined in the conversation.

"You're right, of course," admitted Stan, "I do have to do something about Emma and Shelly. We all know, I most of all, that they are called into this family, only as you know I hadn't ever wanted to take more than twelve wives, and at one time thought seven was as much as a man could reasonably manage. There are some patriarchs already accusing me of multiplying to excess."

I felt anger inside. There were always jealous, carnal polygamists, principally in the States, accusing Stan because they couldn't get past the "two wife barrier" as they had come to call their repeated failure to get a third wife. Envy is such an ugly thing. Stan should have ignored them, but there were times when he was over-sensitive and tended to over-think problems. He always took criticism seriously, even when it was so obviously wrong and ill-intended.

"What do Emma and Shelly feel about a commitment being made now?" quizzed Stan. "What have they told you about their desires about marrying me - I mean, what sort of timetable do they have in mind ... if they've even got that far in their thinking, or shared that much with you?"

"Salme ... Andeea?" I said, looking at them, as the visitors seemed to have now firmly attached themselves to these two

Andreea answered first:

"I know that Emma would marry you today, Stan, and not turn back. And I think you know that now after what the Spirit did in you two. She made up her mind the moment that happened. She's been very open with me, says she adores you, loves the family, and now knows absolutely this is where God wants her to be. And she's very attracted to you, dear. But you know that."

Stan's countenance didn't change. He was thinking hard.

"Shelly hasn't been that direct," added Salme. "She communicates more by facial expression than by words. I don't know. She loves the place and the people - I know she looks up to you, Stan, but I get the feeling she's reserving what she wants to say for the right moment. I'm not sure - she's really sweet and bubbly but doesn't seem to want to be rushed into anything. But I somehow doubt they're going to be doing the proposing because it's so contrary to Western Christian - and particularly American - tradition. It's just a feeling I have."

Stan continued staring ahead and then looked up at Salme, almost expressionless. He didn't like being rushed either. Though he didn't say a word, but was intensely, if silently, earnest. The silence lasted for nearly a minute as we waited for him to speak. Salme put her arms around his neck and kissed him.

"I'm sure you'll know what to do, darling," she said lovingly and confidently. But he didn't.

"Do you all agree that I should invite them both to be my wives before they leave?" he asked suddenly.

A chorus of "yes's" went up.

"What about the others? What do they say?"

We all glanced at one another.

"Kryztina and Kasia agree," said Hanna. "I was only talking to them about it yesterday."

"Sarah-Jane is enthusiastic," I said, "and I know Anna is dead keen."

"What about Suszana?" asked Stan.

No one seemed to know, except me.

Stan slowly got up, made for the door, and then stopped. He turned and addressed us:

"I can't in all good conscience go to America right now - it isn't the time...I'm not well enough either and I'm close to burn-out. "

My heart sank as I was sure he was about to give a negative answer to marrying the two women.

"I'll propose to Emma and Shelly tomorrow, after supper, after the children have all been put to bed. But not a word to them!"

I thought my heart would burst with ecstacy. It pounded away furiously like a homesick convict beating on his cell door to be let out to go home to his family. I would have had Stan propose long ago, of course. Salme had started shaking with joy after hearing Stan's decision. Smiles lit up the faces of everyone in the room. Hanna darted off to tell the others.

"I'll talk to Suszana myself," added Stan, restraining Anna by the arm on her way out as he was sure she would be going to tell all the Poles and Kasia. Anna gave a smile and half-nodded, put her arms around him, silently asked for a kiss as she gazed into his eyes with one leg cocked in the air, got what she desired, and then left. We all embraced and kissed him, forcing him to tarry a little while before he could slip away.

That was a very common sight in our family and very alien to northern Europeans like the Swedes. And although we didn't quite qualify for the Guiness Book of Records entry for olympian kissing - a Thai couple won that one in 2013 when they continuously kissed for nearly 58½ hours - but thanks to Stan's insistence we were definitely champion osculators having more in common with the French and other Mediterranean countries! I liked that.

------------

The day passed and Stan retired to his room alone for an hour, still deep in thought. The conversation at the dinner table the day before had been cheerful but with a trace of heaviness as the guests wondered what, if anything, would happen before they left. Emma, of course, had wanted to stay longer but hadn't dared to tell anyone whereas Shelly wanted to go home at once ... not now to get away from Kadesh-Naphtali or us, as you might be led to suppose, but because she was so sure that Stan would propose to her and wanted to break the news to her parents and friends immediately. The chemistry between them had taken a quantum leap upwards in their last conversation and Shelly, never the shy one, had taken Stan's hand uninvited and held it tightly, without protestation from the man she was by now in love with.

Stan had Emma and Shelly seated next to him at the head of the long oak dining table, a family inheritance from Kryztina's parents - Emma to his right and Shelly to his left. This time Stan went into Old Word charm mode, something the San Diegans hadn't seen until now. Noticing the change and visibly showing traces of emotion, both women concluded independenly that he might actually now propose to them. Shelly was more bubbly than usual, and not a little tipsy-sounding in her speech - you'd have though she was sitting on springs as she jerked everytime he spoke. Elisa looked on with delight, reminded of a similar moment of suspense and anticipation that she and Salme had experienced in Tartu. New wives seemed to be coming in pairs now, like the beloved companions Rea and Rua in our Abrahamic tradition.

Emma was quieter but still burning within. She could hear Stan and me speaking to her inside, declaring our love for her, and broke out with a sweet, self-assured smile every time which no one seemed to notice but me as we cast furtive glances at one another. A sudden warmth burst inside of me. For Emma, there was now this tingling sensation going around her whole body so that at odd moments her shoulders would twitch, much to her embarrassment, as this was her body trying to hold back the fire of desire that was filling up her being. I could feel it too and trembled. She had put her best dress on that evening, a smooth, lustrous cobalt-blue satin one she had bought especially for this occasion, and not something she had ever worn before. She had carefully picked it out in San Diego's Chateau Bel Age Boutique on West Louis Street, somehow knowing that it was the right thing to do but not knowing why. When she found herself placed on Stan's right, she shuddered with a mixture of apprehension and joy. Would this be the moment? Would he propose there and then? But the proposal didn't come and her heart sank after the meal concluded and nothing had been said. Yet she had noticed a sparkle in Stan's eyes when he looked at her, and heard his voice inside her saying, "Hush, my darling." And so she knew in her spirit.

How different Emma and Shelly were! Emma was the epitome of the "here and now" whereas Shelly, who was usually in wait-mode, was atypically already in tomorrow and beyond.

Stan rose, holding a wine glass filled with mustum, a homemade red grape juice. It wasn't often that he gave speeches like this but for some reason he felt that night he must to and make amends for his earlier inconsiderate behaviour. He took his time to silently look around and smile at us all individually, glass held high as though something solemn was about to happen, creating a tension you could almost cut with a knife.

"I feel a sudden surge of happiness," he said to our surprise, as we remembered his mildly melancholic mood an hour before. Shelly's eyes lit up in expectation. Emma looked dreamily at him, knowing what was coming. He looked intently at Shelly who looked as though she would spring out of her chair and land on the chandelier above them. And then Emma...Emma stared long and deep into his eyes, swallowed, and caught the beam of love she had so wanted to see on his physical countenance. Her heart now began to pound as though she hadn't known, she softened, melted, her lips parting as though needing an extra breath of air for the emotional gush she expected or for the inevitable kiss that she knew must surely follow. Maybe it was both. In spite of their new-found spiritual communion, there were, after all, still things she didn't know, especially on the outside.

"I have changed my mind," he said, and paused. Hearts suddenly sank, including Emma's! Horror filled my heart! I supposed he would be announcing he wouldn't be proposing to them after all. Everyone looked anxiously at one another in disbelief. The silence was killing. Yet there he was, standing like a tower of strength, wine glass still in his right hand, only now pressed close to his heart. He cupped it with his left and then laid it down gently on the enormous white-laced table cloth crocheted by Kryztina's mother, steadying it when he though it would tip over and risk staining so precious an heirloom.

"I can a bit of a fool at times," he said, with a slight quiver in his voice, and glanced down at the table in contrition, "and wish sometimes I could be more of a man for all of you lovely ladies."

Heads shook in protest.

"There have been quite a few upheavals in recent times, all of which I thought I would be able to take in my stride, like I always have done. But this time I couldn't. I've made mistakes and I apologise, especially to Emma and Shelly for being so withdrawn and rude when you first arrived." He looked at each of them in turn, unhurried, wanting them to know he was being sincere.

Shelly grew still, the smile replaced now by a more intent and serious look.

"You have all, as always," he said, looking back at the others, "been a wonderful support," as he continued, with a slightly plaintive look on his face, "and I don't know what I would have done without you. You are all so wonderful, and I love you all so deeply from the bottom of my heart," and added, looking skyward, "Thank you, Father!"

Anna started sniffling. All gazed up at the man Yahweh had given us and to whom we had pledged ourselves for eternity. Emma was now looking down at the table, realising that Stan was talking to his wives and not her, but still touched by the love she had felt emanate from his eyes when he had looked so intently at her a moment before.

"The Lord our God is always bringing surprises - sometimes wonderful, sometimes not so wonderful. Sometimes we are so blind to His grace, though, that we don't appreciate what's going on."

He paused again, took up his glass, sipped a little, and put it down again.

"I said a moment ago I had changed my mind. Well, I had intended to make an annoucement to you all tomorrow but I have decided to bring it forward and make it now instead ...."

Bodies stiffened in anticipation. My eyes widened and my heart leaped a beat...and I could feel Emma's doing the same.

"Emma," he said looking intently at her again, drawing her attention to look up at him as he extended his right hand to her left. She took it, and held it tightly. Then he did the same with his left hand, extending that to Shelly's right. "... Shelly...Emma... ..." He smiled warmly at them both, his eyes pooled with love, mouth slightly ajar, holding both their hands tenderly. They knew what was coming and bolted upright.

"I want to invite you two to become my wives and to join our family for all eternity."

There was a deathly silence, then a sudden shriek of joy from Anna, and then the whole room erupted in an explosive roar of happy shouting crying. Shelly was the first, her spring in full release, and she was on top of Stan in a bound, wrapping her arms around him like a lassoo, piercing the room with a scream of the Wild West all of her own, and then collapsing on his left shoulder from emotional exhaustion.

Emma's eyes were moist but she remained seated. "Come, my love," he said to her inside, and drew her gently up into his embrace. She began to slowly sob with relief and joy that her search was all over and the great moment had arrived. Neither said "yes" but everyone knew what was in their hearts. Emma was the first to reach up for her first deep kiss on the mouth, lips pressed and hearts overflowing. He held her there for a long time. Shelly followed suit immediately afterwards, sealing her lips to his for all she was worth, making little animal noises in her contentment. Both women then flung their arms around each other and kissed tenderly in sororal solidarity, while Stan held both firmly in a pair of one-handed dance grips, if you can even begin to picture that, a heavenly picture of lovers, three-in-one. In seconds everyone had gotten up and left their seats behind, some even knocking them over in the rush to be the first to congratulate the new sister-wives-to-be. Bodies pressed together in layers around the three until there was one seathing mass of bliss.

I had never seen such a spontaneous scene like this in the Królewiec household before, or indeed anywhere else, and as I watched and marvelled at this miracle, I suddenly realised that we Americans had made a dramatic change - a change which would mean that neither Stan nor the family as a whole would ever be the same again. Stan's speech and timing had been flawless, the perfect balance between suspense and release. That American "zing", as he called it, had indeed been born and infected us all, the passionate Anna being the first to catch it. Even Stan was overwhelmed by it, almost deliriously, and quite out of Masurian aristocratic character. We could all see his tears of joy.

After a few seconds of intense hugging, kissing, crying and congratulating, everyone started dancing. Kasia had rushed over to the Hi-Fi system and put on some celebratory Polish wedding music, and we danced, and danced, and danced with each other and with Stan, choreographed by the Holy Spirit which made it look as though we had been practicing for weeks. Like "dancing in tongues", Stan later called it. It was amazing to watch the wives weave so effortlessly inbetween each other and Stan, exchanging hands, stealing kisses, pirouetting, embracing, chaînésing, laughing, twirling, you name it, everyone dancing with everyone else, and we did it, and all, amazingly, without any collisions and with such a passionate joie de vivre that even Italians would have blushed. The last dance - Astara's Waltz - composed by the Founder for his eighth wife in anticipatation of such a time as this when they were still courting, and much beloved by all plural wives in our communities, played out as the momentum began to ebb. It was extraordinary! We must have waltzed a good half hour before collapsing onto the sofas and carpeted floor in each others' arms. Stan, Emma and Shelly smiled and laughed in tight embrace, now squeazed together without wriggle room on his two-seater love-seat forcing Shelly to sit on his lap.

What had happened to us?! Nothing like this had ever been experienced by the family before. I keep saying that, but it's true. The transformation was electric, quite unlike the mainly stoic atmosphere that had prevailed before. And suddenly, for the first time since moving to Europe, I felt at home - really at home. The American in me was suddenly released and I was whooping like most of the others. The laughter and happiness were infectious, the children swallowing it up too and running amok in the excitement of it all. Nobody cared, all formality having been driven to the four winds. Emma had gotten up to give Shelly some space on the love seat and ran up to me, grabbed me with one hand, hugging me for all she was worth, whilst trying to hug everyone else with her free arm as they all joined in. Shelly, meantime, had got up, was wrapped around Stan's neck and showed no signs of ever wanting to let go, looking adoringly up into his face, at first lost like a little child, and then smiling, and then laughing like the rest of us. And without anyone noticing it, except Stan, she lifted herself up on her toes and whispered into Stan's ear: "I adore you!". Stan looked as though he was in Eden. Shelly turned Emma, reaching out with her hand, and they returned to becoming a threesome.

Sarah-Jane and I were ecstatic. For the very first time we no longer felt like outsiders from "across the Pond", incompatible North Americans transplanted onto European soil. This was genuinely spiritual, mental and emotional cross-fertilisation. It was hard to describe but it felt like the Old and New worlds not only meeting but merging, with each discovering the another for the first time, like reunited long lost lovers! We had never seen anything like it. Yes, it was exactly like North America and Europe getting remarried after half a millennium of separation, divorce and rivalry! Wow! It was so unexpected, filling us with such hope and awe.

But that was not the end of it. Oh no! All inhibitions seemed to evapourate, all barriers between the wives just melted away. It was extraordinary. I could see the three Poles and the Finn - Suszana, Kryztina, Anna and Hanna - straining to make out whether Stan was aware of what was happening and looking for confirmation that this was all kosher and scriptural, because the Poles, with their Catholic cultural heritage, and Hanna with her problematic background, with victory over it won at such a cost, were wholly unprepared for the flood of tenderness and physical affection that the wives were showering on one another. I can only imagine what Isabel would have thought had she been present, and perhaps that's why Providence arranged for her not to be. Stan smiled back at the Poles and Finn and nodded his enthusiastic approval as his two new brides began spontaneously kissing each other whilst in his arms before returning what they had shared with each other back to Stan again in kind. Now everyone was doing it, some a little unsure at first, but then yielding to the anointing. For they had suddenlyly understood that what they had shared with each other did not in fact belong to them, nor could it ever be retained by them, but belonged only to their husband. It was not theirs to keep, and to have done so would have been to sin.

And so the rest of us made our way to Stan one by one in order to return to him what we had received and shared with each other too, until everything was ordered as it should be according to this facet of Father's Law which we were now being given to understand by the Spirit.

We were about to settle into the wonderful peace that we were all now feeling that had started filling us and then it happened.

A sudden burst of light filled the room - not from the electrical grid or from the chandeliers but from the heavenly realm. It was dazzlingly bright, half way between the floor and the ceiling, suspended in the air. The tape-recorded music Kasia had put on had just ended moments before with Astara's Waltz and everyone's wrapt attention was now directed towards the light. All eyes were upon it. Complete silence enveloped the room.

Then a Man dressed in pure white linen with a blue sashe around His waist stepped out of the light and walked slowly and silently towards us with a radiant smile on His face, stopping about 10 feet away. We all knew immediately who it was and threw ourselves prostrate on the floor before Him in worship, without hestitation, not daring to look up or move. Somehow, though nobody knows how, we found we had arranged ourselves behind Stan who was lying on the floor face down in the front. We were in two groups, and were each clutching eithe his left foot or leg, or his right with the spare hand while holding the hand of the sister-wife opposite us grasping the other foot or leg. I could see I was holding on to Emma's hand, and she, mine. The children who were present lined themselves up behind their respective mothers' feet and were looking up in awe at the shining figure before them, without the slightest trace fear. What a memory for them to take into adulthood!

"Look!" said the Voice.

As we raised our heads, filled with reverential joy, we saw that the Saviour had disappeared, apparently back into the Light, and in His place were several people from the biblical past. We knew who they were without a word being spoken, for the Spirit made these things plainly known to us. Abraham, with Sarah and Hagar, on either side, one arm each around their Master and and the other one holding each other's hand. They silently repeated what we had been doing with great alacrity. First Abraham kissed each wife in turn - Sarah first, and then Hagar. Then Sarah and Hagar kissed each other and then, each in their turn, they returned that kiss back to their Master Abraham, Sarah leading. And we understood with great clarity what this meant: that the love our Heavenly Father showers upon His children is to be shared both with one another in the ordinary affairs of daily life but had to be returned to the Heavenly Giver in praise and in Kingdom service to Him, just as He had served us by giving us His Son. We were being shown a divine, heavenly pattern for life and loving.

Such love and peace emanated from this patriarch and two matriarchs - the mothers of the Israelites and Arabs, respectively - that we were filled with wonder. There was no rivalry now between Sarah and Hagar! They were one or echad in the heavenly dimension that currently existed prior to the Resurrection! They seemed to float back into the Light from whence they had come, and were replaced by Jacob holding Leah and Rachel. The same happened, first with Leah and Rachel, and ending with their sister-wives Bilhah and Zilpah, each being paired with the other, so that there were many different huggings and kissings taking place, until the ten or so kisses had been returned that they had been given by Israel which they had then shared with each other. They too then disappeared back into the Light.

Finally, David appeared along with his seven wives Mikal, Achinoam, Abigail, Ma'akah, Haggith, Abital and Eglah. This action took some time as there were dozens of different couplings of sister-wives with David and each other, before they too returned into the Light, but we didn't mind as we were transfixed by the supreme beauty of it all. Time, in any case, felt as though it had been suspended.

"Arise!" said the Voice of the Saviour, who had returned visibly as David's family slipped back into the light, and we all obediently stood on our feet, trembling with joy. We all gazed in adoration at the Saviour who was smiling at us, not daring to say a word. "Thus shall you multiply the love which I have given unto you, going on to perfection, and be an example unto my Body". And then He disappeared and the room once again returned to its normal luminosity.

We stood there stunned and speechless for a while, our minds racing helter-skelter. Stan broke the silence:

"Sit down with me, my loves, for I have something important to share with you."

We crowded around Stan on one of the large sofa combinations.

"Do you understand what we have just been shown?"

We nodded vigorously, including now the Poles and Hanna, wide-eyed and beaming.

"Plural marriage has been given to us, as it was to the ancients, for the express purpose not just for raising a godly offspring but to multiply the Light of Christ. It is not for our own selfish purposes, but to spread love everywhere.

"From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded: and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked" (Luke 12:48, ESV).

No more was said. There was no more that needed to be said. We all fully understood and our bosoms were burning with gratitude and joy. Something amazing had happened. Kadesh-Napthali had not only received its "American baptism" but had received something infinitely greater and more precious: Heaven's approval and blessing in the form of a spiritual endowment. We were now officially sanctioned and "sent out" and nothing would be quite as it had been before. We had been "born again" collectively as a sacred family unit to reflect the Creator's glory on earth. HalleluYah!