The train weaved it's way through the Swedish countryside. This was a part of Sweden that Stanisław, Jr. had never really studied before. Even though it was still dark, he wanted to know all about the cities they were passing through - Malmö, Lund, Nässjö, Örebro - but Isabel was too tired take notice and wanted to get some more sleep. She still hadn't figured out how she would complete the last stage of their journey, the money for which she had given to the train conductor in Germany to get to Frankfurt. She would sort that out when she had rested. There was nothing more to do now than wait until they had arrived at Borlänge and taken the train to Leksand, where her ticket ran out, and some 40 km from Kadesh-Naphtali. Leksand was, in a way, another Frankfurt, and Kadesh-Naphtali a second Rzepin, though in this case Kadesh-Naphtali was definitely the "end-of-the-line".
Emma and Shelly had been together for many days helping one another pack. All their furniture had been sold and they were now camping on the floor of Emma's apartment in La Mesa in sleeping bags loaned by Shelly's parents. The telephone line was still up for daily communication with Stan and the family. Both Emma and Shelly had sold their computers and each invested in a good-quality laptop to take with them to Sweden, transferring all their files and using them to maintain an email and IM link with Kadesh-Naphtali and their friends.
"Cool!" said Shelly. "Stan'll really like that!"
"You think so, Shell?" asked Emma, who had undergone a revolutionary change in clothing habits because of the dress standards which Stan expected. She did a twirl in front of her human mirror.
"Yeah, go for it, honey - he'll love it!" Shelly assured her. "Really he will!"
The girls giggled and discussed the full marriage ceremony which had been scheduled for a few days after their arrival, and wondered how they'd look in their wedding dresses. A happy and light-hearted atmosphere filled the by now empty apartment. The boxes had all gone and were already on their way to Europe, leaving just a few basics borrowed from Shelly's family. It reminded me of how Raj had been when Stan left. History was, in a way, coming full circle.
The door bell rang and Shelly's parents arrived to take the women to the airport.
"Hi, honey. Y'all ready?"
They were. They tramped to the elevator with their few bags and were soon speeding along the highway to Lindbergh Field, San Diego's International Airport. Two hours' later they were airborn. The Vallecito Mountains passed beneath as the sparkling waters of the Salton Sea loomed as they headed north-east to New York.
It never ceased to amaze me how quickly some of the conversions and romances took place latterly. For those of us who had struggled for weeks, months, and even years, the ease at which the last women came into our family just seemed too good to be true. How could human nature be any different? Surely the same struggles face all women and at all times?
"I don't think so, sweetheart," said Andreea, reminding me of Stan's sermon about Abigail. "Sometimes women are more prepared than others. Do you remember what Stan was sharing with us the other evening about the eunuchs?"
"Yes, you remember, Matthew 19 - the corrupted version in the Greek texts?" added Hanna.
I remembered vaguely but had forgotten - Stan had started talking about the Hebrew version of Matthew but I had been distracted by something and had not picked it all up.
"Matthew was originally written in Hebrew," Stan had said. "The Greek translators took the Aramaic word for "faithful ones" or "believers" and rendered it "eunuchs" because of the aescetic, anti-marriage spirit that was then prevalent in the post-apostolic church which crystalised out into Roman Catholic dogma. The original passage reads:
"What this means is that some men and women were born believers - literally - implying, to my way of thinking, that they had a pre-mortal spiritual existence in which they chose to believe beforehand, since had God forced us to believe that would have been to deny our free agency.
"Others become believers "of men" - by their preaching and witness - and yet others become believers without the aid of teachers or evangelists, but find the truth of the Gospel out for themselves.
"I believe that is also true of marriage," said Stan, who was deep in thought. "It means, in my view, that many enter mortality having a deep sense of who they are to marry, so that when these soul-mates meet, it is instant affinity. The second category of person needs the guidance of others, to remove the scales of darkness from their eyes caused by sin, tradition, willful ignorance, or whatever. They rely on parents, ministers and friends to guide them to marriage companions much as Abraham brought Isaac and Rebekah together using Eliezer. And finally, there is the third category of persons who through using shere intelligence, common sense, intuition and experience are able to calculate for themselves who is best suited for them and who not.
Stan's word stimulated and excited and intense discussion as we reviewed the ways in which we had found Stan, and he us. It was obvious, for example, that Andreea had found Stan in this way, and vice versa. But where it had become complicated was when a couple had come by using different methods. When Stan met Jenny, he had known she was a soul-mate from the very beginning, but this has not been Jenny's experience. Instead, she had, for reasons which weren't entirely clear, sought the second and third methods.
I know I had experienced a mixture of the first and third methods, and been temporarily blinded by the second. I knew from the moment I arrived at Raj the first time that Stan was right - it was just in-built ... it was just there ... but I let go of it and decided to listen to the voices of others, to my defiled conscience, and to my own rationalisations.
"I've noticed that when it comes to selecting companions," Stan continued, "that we often vacillate. We're tossed to and fro by these three different streams. What's interesting about them is that they are not equally inspired. Though all three can bring us to the same conclusion, they employ different methods, and have different success and failure rates.
"It's like each has a prophetic lens of different focal length. One enables us to see near, the other medium-distance, and the other far. The failure rate increases as you move from the first to the third, primarily because other forces come into play which distort the picture given by the first lens. We get sidetracked by the wrong considerations, putting the wrong emphasis on various factors in the marriage equation. We may have all the right factors there but are simply giving a wrong weighting."
I thought about Jenny. The weighting she was giving was on personality and religion. Jenny's great problem was faith in the truth, because the truth challenged her comfortable way of life - a life which was, in reality, imprisoning her on a single spiritual plane - a plane where she could still be useful to the Lord and find a measure of contentment, but which was in reality denying her the realisation of her full potential.
But how do you tell someone these things without offending them? We are all too easily offended by the truth. If we worried about whether we offended people or not in telling them the truth, how would they ever come to the truth?
All of us were, at some point, deeply offended by plural marriage. But we confronted that prejudice, faced it, acknowledged what God said about it, believed Him, and embraced it. The eventual result: joy.
I often think back on the women who said "no" to Stan even before he had even got around to propose to them. I wonder why they did it? I know some were offended. Some were offended by the implications of the plural, patriarchal way of life - the sacrifices, the new way of being, and so on. Some were offended by his doctrines but never tried to refute him from the Scriptures - they loved their traditions more than the truth. Others were offended because he gave no quarter to carnal nature when they wanted to be sustained in their sinful ways of being. We are all offended.
I don't know if I shall ever be able to understand how Stan can hold all of us so intensely and deeply in his heart, considering how different we all are. Yet I know he can. It is our wonder and our blessing.
And so the two Californians, Shelly and Emma, headed for John F. Kennedy Airport, New York,
Isabel suddenly woke up. The train was stationary in Näsby station and she remembered she had to change trains or they would vere eastwards in the wrong direction to Stockholm. Another mad scramble for baggage followed in the rush for the platform.
"Keep an eye on Benoni," she shouted to Stanisław, Jr. who was standing next to his little brother in the stroller. Not that Benoni was about to run off but Isabel was always a worrier. He was too busy watching all the passengers embarking and disembarking, his eye picking up the different coloured suitcases. A punk walked past with a blaring soundblaster and Stanisław cringed. He had forgotten how blonde the Swedes were after the months in Slavic Poland where dark hair predominates. Everything seemed so much more casual here.
Isabel was next to them and with a triumphant grin at having beaten the train, which left 30 seconds later. She pulled out her train timetable and began mentally calculating. Isabel was an organiser to the bone and knew what to do now that she was on schedule.
"Right," she said confidently like an army NCO, "Platform 3! We've got 20 minutes before the next train comes."
Half an hour later they were on the move again on the penultimate stage of their journey. Stanisław was, as ever, looking through the train coach window. There would be many stops along this line as they headed up into the mountains towards Borlänge. Lindesberg, Gusselby, and then the sparkling waters of Lake Råsvalen before stopping again at Kopparberg, famous for its mines.
"Look, mother!" cried Stanisław as he pointed to a building with a large symbol over the main entrance, consisting of a circle with a cross under it. "Isn't that the symbol for a woman?
Isabel looked. Stanisław was right.
"And, look, there are 1, 2, 3 .... 11 other symbols underneath. What do they all mean?" asked the inquisitive boy.
Some of them looked like the signs of the planets but others were completely unknown to her. She wished that Stan had been there to explain it all to their knowledge-thirsty son. Some years later they would visit the actual mines and Stan would explain that these were symbols of the elements.
The local train was slow and the day dragged on. There were so many stations. Grängesberg. Stanisław wanted to know how much longer.
"Not long, not long," replied his mother who was by now getting very tired again.
Ludvika station and another beautiful lake called Väsman. Isabel's heart nearly missed a beat as she realised that there were only about another 30 km to Borlänge and they would have to change trains again. She mustn't doze off or they'd end up in Gävle and have to go knocking on Władisław's door ... but at least that would be better than being marooned in Stockholm.
With Benoni napping and Stanisław glued to the countryside Isabel began to daydream. She was back in Poland again, remembering the time she and Stan had first met. She had been, oh, so very, very shy in those days. Because Stan was already married to Suszana and plural marriage was not known in the Królewiec house, the couple had become no more than the best of friends. She had got to know Stan through Suszana and had liked him a lot but had not found it easy understanding him.
When the topic of plural marriage had been raised she had rushed to one of her Jehovah's Witness publications to "check it up" to see what the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society had to say on the matter:
"Concubinage and polygamy no doubt enabled the Israelites to increase at a much faster rate, and, therefore, while God did not establish them but only allowed and regulated them, they served some purpose at the time (Ex.1:7). Even Jacob, who was tricked into polygamy by his father-in-law, was blessed by having twelve sons and some daughters from his two wives and their handmaidens who became concubines to Jacob. - Gen.29:23-39; 46:7-25 (Aid to Bible Understanding, WBTS, 1971, p.1116)
That had settled the matter for her ... or so she had thought, until Stan had exposed the fallacious reasoning behind it. She smiled gently as she reviewed the ways in which her Watchower indoctrination had been patiently dismantled brick by brick by Stan until they had come to the plural marriage issue. Then Suszana had frozen and had agreed with the Watch Tower rationale. Not until later, as Suszana was departing for her adulterous relationship, was the subject of plural marriage broached again and Stan showed her the Watchtower's exegetical errors. And yet they had sounded so reasonable ... so convincing, especially the argument about plural marriage being tolerated along with the more lax divorce laws. Then Stan had shown her the example of New Testament plural marriage in the Christian congregation at Corinth and the whole JW argumentation had gone up in smoke.
And not so long after that, God had spoken to her whilst she was driving home in her car:
"You will marry Stan," had come the clear and powerful voice within her.
She had nearly swerved off the road when she heard it and was in deep thought all the way back home. And though she might have been shocked, it all seemed so "natural" and "right".
"Women are more naturally open to the Ruach haQodesh," Stan has often taught us, "and when Yahweh speaks to them, they tend to exercise greater faith, because they are better tuned to His heart. Men tend to rationalise with their brains which, whilst necessary in so many things, often inhibits the Spirit, which is female. There is a gender identity between the sisters and the Ruach, and not until the man has learned to listen like a woman can he understand how She works."
It had been Suszana who had suggested that Isabel marry Stan but hadn't realised that for Suszana the proposal was being made as a means of self-justification for the polyamorous evil she intended to pursue elsewhere. Perhaps that is what had given Isabel so many difficulties in the early days ... knowing that she wasn't being invited to be a sister-wife but a 'replacement' of sorts. And that had hurt. It hurt because Suszana had been her best friend, and someone she had looked up to as being almost perfect. The shattering of that illusion had created much distrust in her and inevitably had left an unpleasant mark on her subsequent marriage to Stan. Perhaps that was why she had gravitated towards the monogamy-only mindframe to "get away" from that unpleasant memory, even though in her mind she knew plural marriage was right. It had made her feel cheap - a kind of justification for Suszana's adultery. And it had taken a long, long time for her to be reconciled to that part of her history. Perhaps there was a tinge of resentment because all the other wives had started on a foundation where they had been accepted as genuine sister-wives and weren't being used as Isabel felt she had been by Suszana. Perhaps ... perhaps ... perhaps there were many reasons why things had gone wrong so many times.
------------
The busy, well-ordered life of Jenny had been suddenly disturbed. The little spiritual capsule no longer seemed safe any more.
At first she had found a rôle for herself as a kind of pro-polygamy women's security officer and positioned herself as a look-out for men prowlers on the Internet and prided herself in exposing not a few fakes. And she made it known publicly who she was and what she intended to do, and was proud of what she believed her new "calling" was. But things went disastrously wrong when she mistakenly accused a man for something he hadn't done. Too proud to repent, she had lost credibility amongst almost everyone in a particular polygamy internet community who had previously respected her, save for her mentor who, because of her previous record, gave her the benefit of the doubt. And then, suddenly and unexpectedly, her mentor decided to pull out of the plural marriage ministry and devote his energies to his family and regular evangelism. Little did she realise that her mentor had himself fallen into serious sin by throwing out one of his wives without any biblical grounds for doing so. A little stung and brusied, her involvement with the plural marriage movement declined thereafter.
But her retreat into the Lutheran world was short-lived. Fundamentalist Muslim terrorists struck around the world suicide bombing Western targets, and nobody living in cities felt particularly safe anymore. A terrorist training camp was discovered not one hundred miles from where she lived. Then they struck with biological and chemical weapons and what had once seemed a secure urban world suddenly became one of rampant fear of the unknown. In a day, when the terrorists first struck, the world was changed forever.
And though this was an eventuality Stan and other patriarchs of our Order had foreseen and prepared for, it had caught those not operating in the same prophetic vision by surprise and left them feeling vulnerable and afraid. The old assumptions about the world were crumpled up and discarded, and suddenly life and its purpose needed a radical redefinition.
Sitting alone in her apartment with her cat Fritz on her lap, Jenny once again wondered. Her life now consisted entirely of gruelling work and the occasional contact with a few friends and intermittent surfing on the net. What was she doing? What was it all for? And was she really in God's will?
Every now and then she would sneak onto Stan's website to read what he had been writing. And Stan, knowing that she would, had carefully "dropped" in articles specifically aimed at her. Somehow she sensed this - Stan was not one to give up on anything easily, if not at all. She found his subtle persistence both irritating and admirable, challenging as it did her own will to be self-sufficient as well as reminding her that as a woman her true place was under a husband's protective covering and not as an urban nun.
She had felt comfortable, more or less, after refusing Stan's proposal of marriage, but as the days wore on, and following her humiliation and débâcle on the Internet, the worsening international scene, and the sense that about all was left for her was her secular work, which was now consuming most of her life, she had begun to wonder if maybe ... just maybe, she had made a wrong turning somewhere along the line. Her pride was strong, but heaven would not leave her to self-destruct in stages.
"Noooooooo!" she cried in unrestrained grief as she read, hands trembling, the letter which had just come through the post. "It can't be! It can't be!"
Jenny let the letter drop to the floor and buried her head in her hands. She had been made redundant, one of several thousand layoffs by the company for which she worked, to streamline the workforce and make it more cost-effective. And just as Stan had prophesied to her. Though she had survived the two earlier rounds of cuts, it had been at a terrible cost, for she had found herself doing the work of two instead of one. That had increasingly meant longer hours, overtime, and working at weekends. And though she was a hard worker who loved work and gave her all to it, now her life was becoming totally consumed by her career to the virtual exclusion of all else. The nobility of her work ethic was being repaid by slavery to the world.
There were, of course, wealthy relatives she could ask for economic help from, but pride effectively forbade that. She could go to the labour exchange and register as unemployed, but that ruffled her aristocratic dignity. Bills were not fully settled and there was a mortgage to be paid for. And following the terrorist attacks, insurance rates everywhere - and especially in the cities - had hit the roof. She felt trapped and defenceless.
"Oh God, what do I do - what do I do?" she quietly wailed within.
She gently displaced Fritz and retired to her bedroom. Lying on her bed in the dark, she looked up at the ceiling and at the beam of light resting there from the partially-opened door into the living room. She prayed.
"Lord, what do I do now?" she asked, again and again, knowing that she had never heard the Lord speak directly to her before, but somehow expecting that now He should, in view of the calamity that now faced her. But there was nothing.
She reached for the bed lamp, pulled the cord, and blinked momentarily in the light. As she opened her Bible and began to thumb through it, looking for comfort and direction, her eyes alighted upon the following verse:
"For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. For when they say, "Peace and safety!" then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labour pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape." (1 Thessalonians 5:2-3, NKJV).
She gulped. There were many voices now saying that a third world war would begin following the terrorist outrages, or that world anarchy would result, dictatorship, and many other nightmarish scenarios.
Jenny did not sleep easily that night. She dreamed of nuclear war and a world of darkness, of her childhood, of many things all jumbled together. She dreamed she was in her local Lutheran Church but it was empty and asked herself, "Where is everyone?" And then from behind the purple altar cloth she saw a sight that nearly made her heart stop - the crucifix fell down and there stood the Grim Reaper, scythe in one hand, and an hour glass in the other. And he opened his mouth, and said:
"For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God? Now "If the righteous one is scarcely saved, Where will the ungodly and the sinner appear?"" (1 Peter 4:17-18, NKJV)
Jenny awoke suddenly and bolted upright in her bed, her forehead covered in cold sweat.
"It's too much, it's too much, I can't cope with this! Lord, deliver me from this nightmare!"
She picked up her Bible to read it again but was too weary and sank back into sleep again with the bed light still on.
She dreamed she was in a roastingly hot desert, roaming alone amongst the sand dunes. As she approached each sand dune in expectation of finding water on the other side, all she found each time was her boss thrusting more work into her hand. As each sand dune was traversed, the pile of paper grew bigger and bigger until the load became unbearable. Finally, in desperation, she threw the papers down onto the sand, crying: "No more! I won't do this anymore!"
A wind suddenly blew up and in seconds she found herself in the midst of a blinding sandstorm. There was nothing to do but to sit down and bury her head between her legs, eyes closed, until the storm passed. She felt the sand clogging her ears for there was nothing to cover or protect her head with. She prayed fervently: "Lord, deliver me from this storm!"
And then an echoing voice, whether within or from the desert she could not tell, came booming forth, saying: "You have no covering!"
Jenny tried to look up to discern the origin of the voice, but the wind and the sand caused her to retreat between her legs again. "What covering, Lord?!" she cried.
"Your crown is your covering," boomed the voice again.
"My crown??" she cried, confused.
At once the storm subsided and there was an eerie silence. Standing to shake the dust out of her clothing which seemed to have penetrated every nook and cranny, she looked around, half expecting to see Christ standing in front of her. But again there were only the endless sand dunes.
"What did He mean by my 'crown'?" she wondered, as her mind raced through all the scriptures she could remember on crowns. "There is a crown of righteouess but that comes at the end of this life," (2 Timothy 4:8) she recalled. "There's a crown of life, but that comes in heaven too." (James 1:12) She racked her brain for scriptures, and then found a small New Testament secreted in her dress pocket, dropping it on the ground as she tried to shake the sand out of it. It had opened in the Book of Revelation as it lay there in th sand, and she picked it up and read:
"Behold, I am coming quickly! Hold fast what you have, that no one may take your crown. He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go out no more. And I will write on him the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God. And I will write on him My new name" (Revelation 3:10-13, NKJV).
And as she read the passage and came to the phrase, "He who overcomes ..." she noticed that the word "He" was written in gold. Staring at the golden letters in fascination, she seemed drawn into the little Bible itself and found herself standing in a white room, far from the blistering heat of the desert. The walls, ceiling and floor were all plain white, as though she were standing in a perfect cube with no doors, windows or decorations of any kind.
There was a sudden humming sound behind her, and as she turned to locate its source, saw a large stylus appear in the air and begin engraving as upon gold in enormous letters:
"An excellent wife is the crown of her husband"
and immediately knew this was a citation from the Scriptures (Proverbs 12:4a, NKJV). She froze in surprise at the sudden realisation that she had no crown! Then she understood! It is the husband who wears the crown because the husband is the woman's covering! And there she was, her head uncovered. She was husbandless!
"But I have no husband!" she cried out in protest. "I need a husband!"
And then, from behind her, came the same booming voice as she had heard in the desert, but this time she sensed the presence overflowing love, and it said:
"You have a husband. Go to him!"
Jenny woke up peacefully this time with a warm glow in her bosom. For she knew, in the depths of her soul, that she had a husband, but that she had turned him away. As she lay in her bed she understood how foolish she had been.
There was now not a moment to lose. Jenny hurriedly packed a bag and though it was only 5 a.m, bundled Fritz into his travelling carrier basket and was on the street within 20 minutes and making her way down to the railway station. Within half and hour she was on a train to Stockholm.
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Emma and Shelly arrived in New York and boarded a flight to London together. Time on the American Airlines trans-Atlantic Airbus flight seemed to evapourate as the two betrothed sister-wives, soon to be fully married, talked incessently and with great excitement at what had happened and what the future held for them. Emma and Shelly reflected on Kadesh-Naphtali and Stan's wives in great detail and were highly excitable; and though tired, were unable to rest or sleep.
American Airlines Flight 401 touched down on time at London-Heathrow Airport and the two women transfered to an SAS flight to Stockholm the next morning having spent a sleepless night at an airport hôtel. Emma, ever the diligent evangelist, had to be dragged by Shelly to catch the hôtel coach as she insisted on handing out all her Christian tracts to the teaming masses in the arrival lounge.
"Well, I can't give them out in Stockholm, can I?" she insisted.
"Why ever not?" said Shelly.
She laughed: "They're in English and in Stockholm they speak Swedish!" said Emma, laughing.
The two women giggled.
"Well, help me then," scolded Emma, "because I'm not leaving until they've all been given out. They ain't gonna be no use to me in Sweden, are they?"
The two women eventually slept on the flight to Bromma Airport in Stockholm, worn out by hours of sisterly fellowship and were awakened only by the captain announcing their arrival in Sweden.
"C'mon, Emma," said Shelly, and vigorously shook her travelling companion into wakefulness. "We've arrived!"
Leaning over another passenger's shoulders, they strained to see the Swedish capital below through the cabin window. Though this was their second view of the country, they were absorbed by the excitement of it all, and behaved as though it was their first trip. Emma wondered what life would be like living permanently in a foreign country, even though as a young girl she had briefly lived in Belgium with her family. But that had been a very long time ago.
Stockholm
Asking their way, the two women eventually managed to haul their luggage onto a taxi and make their way to Järfälla railway station.
"There's the train!" shouted Shelly, as they clambered into a carriage and slumped into their seats laughing. Though still tired, the spirit of adventure had gripped them - an adventure they fully intended to enjoy to the full. It didn't take them long to realise that the more placid European Swedes were not accustomed to the noisy American banter as sometimes amused, and sometimes less amused, faces turned to meet the noise pouring out of their corner.
"Shhhh!" said Emma. "We mustn't be so noisy!" and giggled even more.
"Hey, don't forget we have to change trains at some place called Tillberga!" reminded Shelly, and once again the two scurried to the door, and almost fell off the train in their excitement.
"Where next?" Emma asked Shelly who had assumed a kind of mother-hen rôle?
"Borlänge!" she paused. "Where the heck is that?"
Emma burst out laughing and even though she couldn't pronounce Swedish herself, nevertheless thought that Shelly was game for a dig in the ribs.
A blonde, blue-eyed Swede sat opposite them and was not amused, clearly annoyed at the disturbance the Americans were making. Emma, ever the social one, smiled at her but was ignored.
"Not very friendly here," she thought to herself, and her buoyancy subsided briefly. Shelly paid no attention, taking the opportunity to bite into a sandwich. But for some reason she felt drawn to this unsociable woman, and being the curious type, tried to see what she was reading. While the woman's eyes were hidden by the book, she nosily leaned forward, read the title, and missed a heart-beat:
"PATRIARCHAL DESTINY"
by Stanisław Królewiec.
An invisible force seemed to send Shelly flying back into her seat causing her to let out a small cry. Emma looked startled and the woman lowered her book to see what the commotion was about. The shocked look on Shelly's face made the Swede jolt as well - everyone eyed each other, wondering what on earth was going on. Shelly was breathing heavily.
"You OK, honey?" asked a concerned Emma.
"No, I'm not," gasped Shelly, never one to mince words, "definitely not!"
There was an embarrassed silence for about 5 seconds.
"Excuse me," Shelly asked the Swede without thinking, "but may I ask where you got that book?"
The Swede was by now startled, and beginning to wonder if she was being accused of theft. A meowing sound came from a covered basket next to her. She lifted the lid to comfort the animal:
"It's alright, Fritz, it's alright," she said soothingly.
Emma's head began to spin. Hadn't she heard that name mentioned somewhere before? She looked anxiously at Shelly who seemed to know more than she did.
"I've got that book!" blurted Shelly, not knowing quite what else to say to the atonished woman.
"You have?" replied Jenny, astonished, as Shelly reached up to the overhead luggage store and pulled down her suitcase, dropped it on the table between them, flung open the lid and after a brief rummage, pulled out a book triumphantly.
"There!" she cried, and while the Swede's mind raced in a momentary state of confusion, Shelly's was in full steam down the railroad of declaration.
"Hi, my name's Shelly, from San Diego, California, and I'm on my way to visit the author - oh, and this is Emma," she said pointing at them, "also from California, on the same mission."
The woman's jaw dropped at the amazing 'coincidence' of it all.
"Well, hello, my name is Jenny, and I am on my way to the author too," she said as she raised herself slightly off her seat to offer her hand. They were all looking at each other, trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together as they shook hands and introduced themselves to one another. None dared venture any questions about marriage though everyone was thinking it.
"Do you know Stan well?" asked Shelly cautiously.
"Yes, quite well," came the even more cautious reply from Jenny.
Shelly picked up her copy of Patriarchal Destiny and opened it randomly without looking at it.
"So do you believe everything in this book?" asked Shelly quizzically, holding it up like a teacher in a classroom, still not sure how far to go. And the truth of the matter was that neither of them wanted to ask the "golden" question for fear that the other wasn't supposed to know about plural marriage and so compromise Stan's family.
"I cannot fault it," said Jenny deciding that maybe she should be the one to initiate, though carefully eyeing the two Americans to make sure she wasn't confiding in the wrong kind of people.
Shelly couldn't wait any longer, and sensing that perhaps Jenny was travelling to Kadesh-Naphtali for the same reason as herself, blurted out as diplomatically as her Californian sensibility would allow:
"We've travelled from America to join Stan's family!"
And Jenny, almost relieved that the cat was out of the bag, suddenly lit up like a small child being offered candy, and exlaimed:
"So am I, so am I ...!" and after a five second hesitation, her countenance dropped, and she added, " ... if he'll still have me."
The conversation up to Borlänge was charged with excitement as the three women shared their stories with one another. This had been a gathering together they had not expected but which had had the positive effect of bonding them in a spiritual sorority even before they reached their destination. The Americans listened in wonderment as Jenny related the circumstances in which she had met Stan and also of the strange dreams she and Märta had had, and how she had refused Stan's proposal of marriage.
"You said no?!" exlaimed Emma. "You must be crazy!"
Jenny blushed.
"Yes, I was. But at least I am here now. And I don't believe this meeting was an accident."
"Me neither," said Shelly. "The Lord is good and I'm so glad we met this way - it's just another confirmation to me that what we're all doing is right."
They all nodded at one another, smiled, and then giggled.
"You wouldn't have any Christian tracts in Swedish would you by any chance, Jenny?" asked Shelly, a twinkle in her eye.
Jenny was surprised.
"Well, as a matter of fact ....." she began, but was interrupted by the conductor making an annoucement on the intercom:
"Borlänge, Borlänge ... första station, Borlänge!"
"We have to change here, sisters," said Jenny, tucking the single tract she was about to give to Shelly back into her bag.
The girls reached for their suitcases and bags and once again were scrambling off the train and onto the platform of the little provincial station at Borlänge.
"Ooooh, it's cold," complained Shelly, clapping her hands together and shocked by the huge cloud of condensed vapour coming out her mouth as she opened it. "Brrrrr, can't we go inside somewhere?", she asked, as Jenny cast her eyes around for a place of warmth.
Borlänge Station
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Isabel, Stanisław and Benoni sat huddled in the corner of the waiting room at Borlänge Station. They had been there two hours already and still had a long wait for the local train that would take them to Leksand and the end of the line. Isabel still had no idea what she would do when she got there as she didn't even have money to make a 'phone call to the herrgård, even assuming that her pride would allow her to take that step. But it was cold and dark, and a snow storm was building up. The road to Kadesh-Naphtali, if she dared take it, wasn't like the road between Frankfurt and Rzepin where it had been both light, flat and tolerably warm by comparison. This was a mountainous country road in winter where the traffic would be next to zero after the nearby villages of Västanvik and Siljansnäs. Thereafter it would be a 20 km wilderness walk in pitch black with no street lights at all in winter weather.
"Mother, I'm hungry," said Stanisław, Jr., who had eaten the last of the biscuits two or three hours before. Isabel began to cry a little but did her best to conceal it from the boys.
"We'll soon be home and then you can eat as much as you want, Stanisław," but wondered if they would really get back at all. They still had to get to Leksand. She would focus on that and let the Lord take care of the rest.
The Americans and Jenny came into the waiting room. Isabel wiped her eyes and looked up, thinking it strange that tourists should be in this part of the world in the middle of nowhere and in the heart of winter, but thought nothing more about it. Though the little room was warm, it was still freezing cold compared to San Diego. Tiredness had caught up with them and no-one much wanted to say anything. Some locals came in and positioned themselves between so they couldn't see one another. The light was dim and cast a dreary atmosphere in the place in spite of the brighter lights outside.
Shelly shivvered in her new winter coat while Jenny set off in search of a warm drink.
"Everything's closed," she said dolefully. "Sorry," and sat down next to Emma.
An hour passed in almost total silence save for the chatter of the locals which was, to the Americans, another world. "Noodle talk," Shelly called this new language, perhaps remembering a comment made by Sarah-Jane who was struggling with Swedish. It was all very alien, and in odd moments after her mind drifted a while, Jenny found herself back in reality, and suddenly felt out of place and alone. But the presence of her two new sister-wives-to-be quickly comforted and assured her that she was, in truth, home with family.
When the announcement for the local train to Djurås, Gagnet and Leksand was made, everyone was half asleep making the embarkation more like a sleep walk. They made for the train and collaped onto their seats. Isabel and the two children were at the opposite end of the little one-carriage electric train and did not see Jenny's party.
The travellers settled again into a half-sleep for the remaining 30 km journey. It was an old, clattery train, and rather hot and stuffy, and hardly the romantic picture Shelly and Emma had previously conjured up in their minds for the last part of their journey. Somehow they had imagined that all trains would be modern and comfortable in this part Europe. Shelly was aching all over from the cold and could only think of flinging herself down onto a soft, warm bed when she came to journey's end. She peered out into the inky blackness occasionally broken by the dim light of a farmhouse but mostly all she could see was the snow racing past the train in streaks of white. At least the train was warm.
Nobody spoke on the train, not even the locals, save the conductor who walked up and down the aisle each time people boarded and asked to see their tickets.
Jenny nudged Emma.
"We'll be in Leksand in two minutes," she said, and Emma told Shelly.
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The snowstorm had subsided but it had been sufficiently heavy to leave about six inches of snow on the platform at Leksand. Isabel disembarked, saw that the storm was over and that there was a full moon, and made the decision to press on on foot. She was already out of the station and heading towards Yttermo at the southern end of Österviken lake. Stanisław protested, wanting only to sleep, as it was by now almost midnight, but his mother's mind was made up. Benoni was fast sleep in his pram, exhaused from the long day.
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Stan and Kryztina arrived two minutes after Isabel left Leksand. When three women appeared on the platform instead of the expected two, Stan was bewildered.
"Jenny ... ?!" he exclaimed incredulously, but before he could collect himself, she had fallen into his arms and was hugging him tightly.
"Emma! ... Shelly!" cried Kryztina and welcomed the two betrothed sister-wives. Though she had been as surprised as Stan to see Jenny, she could see that Stan was momentarily occupied and didn't want the others to feel left out.
"Hi Kryztina!" shouted Shelly, as the three women all embraced and kissed each other, and then made their way to Stan.
"Welcome, my loves," said Stan to the two Americans, and hugged and kissed each of them in turn.
"Come on, let's get into the minibus," said Stan shivvering. "It's perishing out here!"
With their luggage safely stowed aboard, the happy crowd sallied forth into the mountains. There was no sign of Isabel and the boys, nor were they looking for them, for none of them even knew they were in Sweden. The minibus was filled with excited chatter, giggling, and laughing as the Americans and Jenny retold their stories. Stan was quiet, concentrating on the driving on the slippery wintery road, but aglow and happy within.
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Isabel had gotten no farther than crossing the Österdalälven, the river linking Österviken with Borlänge to the south-east, when a couple in a van on their way to Mångberg - a mere 5 km from Kadesh-biyqah - had stopped and asked her if she wanted a lift. She praised God, not expecting to get further than Siljansnäs, and gratefully accepted. Though the couple asked her if she wanted to be taken anywhere special, she had told them that Mångberg would be just fine, as she did not have to go much further. But they were persistant and expected to drive her to the doorstep of her home. They didn't ask her what she was doing walking all the way from Leksand - the locals in this part of Sweden are not nosey or inquisitive in the least.
Isabel sat quiety and just praised Yahweh within her heart for this blessing, taking it as yet one more confirmation that He wanted her home, and this time for good. She remembered how Hagar had run away from home and how the angel had told her to return and subject herself to her mistress. For Isabel this was a final explusion of the ghosts of the past - a time to really put her roots down for good and to stop running. She wasn't afraid now as she had been before but was actually looking forward to seeing the surprise on her husband's face. She imagined him being overjoyed and crying to see her back again - yes, she hoped it would be a real drama. She wanted to feel really special this time.
She glanced down at her two boys ... they were fast asleep. What a long and exhausting journey this had been for them. Never, she vowed, would she rip them away from their father and the rest of the family again.
While she daydreamed, Stan and the three new wives, about whom she knew absolutely nothing, had arrived at the herrgård and were being serenaded by the others who had stayed up late waiting in eagre anticipation. Everyone was as overjoyed about Jenny's arrival as Stan and Kryztina had been when they bumped into her at Leksand railway station. Who would have thought that their joy would be made yet fuller still?
No one saw or heard the little white van deposit Isabel, Stanisław and Benoni in the crisp white snow outside the front door of the herrgård. The outside lights had been turned off in anticipation of the night's sleep so that the only illumination was from the the full moon above. None of the lights were on in the front of the house either for everyone was at the back in the main living room. For all she knew the household was fast asleep.
Her heart pounded as she pulled the pram with Benoni in it up the stairs to the huge oak front door. She hesitated to press the bell, half terrified all of a sudden, and half overwhelmed by the joy of anticipated reunion. But, suddenly feeling the cold, she overcame her hesitation then pressed the doorbell.
Not a stir in the house. Half a minute, a minute - nothing. She rang the bell again. Still nothing. By now becoming a little worried, she pressed and held the bell as though needing to wake the dead, for her whole heart was by now ready to explode with all the wound up tension and anticipation of days of longing for home.
The light in the hallway went on and the door suddenly swung open revealing her husband. Stan froze, too shocked to speak, his eyes and mouth wide open in momentary disbelief. She struggled to smile but couldn't, bursting out in tears from the emotional relief of seeing the object of her goal. She impulsively pulled the pram and Stanisław, Jr. in out of the freezing cold and closed the door.
Stan was still standing in shock. Stanisław, Jr, broke the impasse and rushed up to his father's arms, crying: "Oh Pappa, Pappa!" Isabel was still crying, but now for the joy of seeing father and son reunited. Her own carefully planned drama seemed to have fallen by the wayside and she was just moving in the reality of the moment.
Stan, still holding his son, looked up at his wife. A fresh smile broke over his face. She saw the moisture in his eyes - it was all she was looking for ... to know that she was really wanted and loved. Inhibitions were banished and Stanisław's mother joined him in the fervent embrace.
Was this how prisoners of the Soviet Gulag felt after they had been released from concentration camps, never having seen their family for years? The seconds marched into minutes as the three just stood silently in the warmth of love. Behind them the rest of the family began appearing, wondering who had been ringing on the door so late at night. And when they saw, they shouted, and cried, and embraced, and kissed.
Isabel and the two boys were home for ever and the family was one.
This page was first created in 2002
Last updated on 16 June 2026
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