she wore slippers for a year

Next week will mark my last week of classes here at Wesley Institute.

How did we get here already?

Just yesterday it seemed I was pulling off links on a paper chain to mark the start of this trip, and now I am anticipating its last days. Well, at some moments I am.

I am beginning to see time slowing down in front of me, as if I need to capture some last moments and memories for the sake of recollection in my homecoming. I thank God he is making (most of) these moments precious ones- I would like to share one with you.

During my time in Australia I have been volunteering at Saint Mary’s Parish at their nursing home. I lead my last exercise class there yesterday; I will miss teaching and telling stories and pretending to row a boat across the pacific…

After exercise yesterday, I was in charge of getting some information for records purposes from a resident by the name of Karla. Karla, like many of the residents from other countries, speaks very broken English. At first she didn’t seem comfortable telling me her family history, and when I asked her what her life was like in Slovenia she said, “the past is a horrible thing that I wish not to talk about”.

Eventually when we got on the subject of her only child, Steven, Karla began to let little bits of her story seep through her information giving. Karla escaped from Slovenia with her husband in 1951. She came here to Australia knowing no English, and she was given a job at a hotel where she was told to just remember two words: “coffee” and “tea”. Times were very difficult in her transition to a foreign land, she tells me there was no where to buy shoes and she resorted to wearing slippers for a year. She would often feel so overwhelmed by the disconnectedness that she would just break down in sobs while in public. “But the people here, they wanted to help me learn, and they were so patient,” she said.

You see although she felt completely alone in a country where she could not speak the language or afford to live really at all, she came from a place where warfare ran rampant. Slovenia borders Italy on the west, Croatia on the south, Hungary on the northeast, and Austria on the north. During WWII, Slovenaia was occupied and annexed by ALL of the bordering countries. Karla did not wish to speak of the hard times, but at one moment she looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, “We would run….we would have to … in order to hide in the forest to stay away from danger. Days would go by of hundreds of corpses just scattered on the streets.” More than 63,000 Slovenes we taken to Nazi concentration camps because German rule got the northern and eastern parts of Slovenia where Karla lived.

14,000 people were killed immediately at the end of the war.

Karla still faces many wars internally. She told me how much it pains her not to see her grandchildren, and pains her more that they don’t visit simply because they don’t care to. She told me how her son has taken advantage of her and she has only raised him on love and generosity- and now that he husband has died, she feels she is fighting alone. I asked her if she prayed for her son. “What does prayer do anymore? Nothing changes.” My heart broke for her. I told her about the importance of faith and I told her that God’s love is unending and he longs for us to talk to him. Even though she seemed to have lost her faith in God a long time ago, Karla broke down when I told her I am going to make it a priority to pray for her. I knew that she knew God was ultimately in loving control of her life. I reached for her hand and we just sat for a few silent moments crying together.

I am so thankful that I got the opportunity to listen to Karla yesterday, and although I may have brought up some painful things, I think it was a time of growth and encouragement for both of us.

I hate that loneliness has to penetrate lives, but I love that we are not alone in our loneliness and pain. Don’t lose the fight, the one who loves you most will sustain you.

I’ve always loved this song, and it is pretty relevant to this story… thank you Sarah Groves and good music for relating to us when we need it most :)

"What Do I Know?" (click title to listen)