Dear Friends in Christ,

I send you greetings from Berlin, where I am awaiting healing in the bones?! An unfortunate fall and broken leg on Maundy Thursday in Klaipeda necessitated an "evacuation" to Berlin on Good Friday and surgery on Easter Sunday at 11! After two weeks in the hospital, I moved to my first temporary home and am now settled into my second—both of my gracious and generous hosts are friends from the years I lived here. God has made good on this untimely and unpleasant accident! The care received both in the hospital and "at home" has been wonderful and certainly speeded along my recovery. The doctor now says three more weeks of crutches and non-weight bearing and then we’ll see!

To fill in a few gaps since the last epistle—upon my return to Klaipeda in January, I moved into a new apartment, got unpacked in stages, began the semester and was getting ready for finals and the last two weeks of school when I "missed a step" in the music theater where Lithuanian Christian College was holding a talent show. After one night and one day in a local hospital, a "medivac" plane flew me from Palanga (a smaller airport north of Klaipeda) to Berlin. Kind colleagues at LCC finished the semester for me, and though I wasn’t present to administer the final exams, I did get to grade both exams and final papers for "Introduction to New Testament." Thanks to electronic mail and another friend with a computer, grades were sent back to Klaipeda a few weeks ago!

Students and faculty have kept in touch, mostly via e-mail, making it both easier and harder to be so far away from where my heart remains. In several letters from students, words of encouragement have been a great reminder of how God is at work in and in spite of my efforts. I pray regularly for one woman student who is not a Christian and who openly holds faith at arm’s distance. She recently wrote me a long and very sad letter about the hard times of her 20 years, not complaining but rather unloading. Her family situation is hard, and she, like many of our students, bears much of the burden financially and emotionally. However, she closed her letter, "Thank you so much for listening to me and encouraging me. I always say that I’m unlucky, but the truth is that I’m the luckiest person to have people like you in my life. Thank you." I can only continue to pray that someday my stumbling attempts at faithfulness in a ministry of teaching and presence will lead her and others to recognize and embrace the incarnation of God’s love in the person of the resurrected Lord, Jesus Christ.

Gladly, these days of waiting are passing relatively quickly. Two weekends have been spent at conferences in the area, one focused on Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the second dedicated to a celebration of the 325th death day of the well-known 17th century pastor and hymn writer, Paul Gerhardt. This second conference closed with a worship service in one of the oldest churches in Berlin. The theme hymn for the service was "Befiehl Du Deine Wege" (cf. Psalm 37:5). This phenomenal hymn has 12 verses and is quite well-known here in Germany. Though the following translation of verse 1, taken from an old Lutheran hymnal, isn’t quite accurate to the German, it comes close:

Commit whatever grieves thee into the gracious hands
Of Him who never leaves thee, who heaven and earth commands,
Who points the clouds their courses, whom winds and waves obey,
He will direct thy footsteps and find for thee a way.

These words and the 11 verses which follow have become my daily prayer. I like the last line the best, since I am only at present making slow "footsteps" with my good leg and two crutches! The first line more closely reads, "commit your ways and whatever makes your heart grieve to the best of all caregivers." Though my "way" is not so sure at present, I have committed it into God’s care and am trusting him to direct my hesitating and yet uncertain footsteps. Prayers are of course needed for continued healing, for progress with therapy, which will intensify with weight-bearing, and for wisdom about deciding when to return to Klaipeda, the classroom, and teaching. I shall come to the United States at some point, with hopes of time in Colorado as well as California.

I close with yet another verse from the hymn, thanking you for your support and friendship and especially for your prayers!

Thy hand is never shortened, all things must serve Thy might;
Thine every act is blessing, Thy path is purest light.
Thy work no one can hinder, Thy purpose none can stay,
Since Thou to bless Thy children will always find a way.

Grace and peace in Christ,

Jane Holslag

The 2001 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p.88