Core of Conviction : My Story (9781101563571) (8 page)

So while the Israel of the ancient world gave us the living foundation of the Christian faith, the Israel of today is a valued and valuable ally to the United States. And for me, many decades later, it is a privilege to show my support in Congress for a strong and sovereign Israel.

Several years ago, I was happily reminded of my time in Israel. One of the girls whom I had befriended, Ziva Yellin, had saved a little card with a heart on it that I had written to her at the time. It was later published in the Israeli newspaper
Haaretz
: “This is especially for Ziva who has such a pretty smile. You and Hagar can speak English so well. I feel stupid next to both of you. Thank you so much for your friendship, I will remember and think about you always. Your friend, Michele from Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States.” Now
that
brought back memories for me!

But I am getting ahead of myself.

In 1975 I arrived at Winona State University, about a hundred miles southeast of Minneapolis. The campus was all new to me; I had heard only the geology professor I met in Alaska describe it and had seen just a few photos in the catalog. My mother and stepdad helped me move into my new dorm room, putting sheets on the bed and clothes in the closet, and then she had to head back home.

So now it was just me. I was out of the nest.

Yet I had no time for homesickness or self-pity. Not only did I have school, but I also had to get a job. So while I enjoyed my classes, growing increasingly interested in law and political science, I have to make a further point: Frankly, my most profound memory of the 1975–76 school year was not academic.

CHAPTER FOUR

Marcus

IN my second semester at Winona, I got a job as a lunchroom and playground supervisor at nearby Lincoln Elementary School. It seemed like a great job; it was just a short walk to campus, and I loved working with children. But I had no idea how great it would really be.

On my first day on the job, in late March 1976, I saw a tall, handsome man at the same school—but he seemed too young to be a teacher. It turned out that he was a fellow Winona student and that we shared the same job assignment: to watch over the kids so that the teachers could take a break. The young man walked up to me with an expression of kindness and the sweetest smile and extended his hand: “I'm Marcus Bachmann.” That was Marcus. Always nice, always straightforward.

“I'm Michele Amble,” I replied.

That was it. That's when and how I first met my husband. I had blue jeans on, maybe a gray sweater, and my hair was long—down below my waist in those days. He had on a down jacket, sweater, and slacks. We chatted only briefly, because the kids were always running around and our job was to watch them, not each other. But as our shift ended in the early afternoon, we found ourselves walking back to the Winona campus together, along the little path that connected the elementary school and the college.

And as we walked back to campus that day—the day we had first met—the kids in the playground started humming a familiar tune: the famous bridal chorus from composer Richard Wagner. You know, “dum-dum-de-dum”; it's the tune that everybody plays at weddings as the bride comes down the aisle. And I must say, even now, it all seems strange. Marcus and I knew the kids were just teasing, yet we were both embarrassed, which, of course, is what the kids intended! But later we were reminded that sometimes, out of the mouths of babes comes great wisdom.

In other words, those kids, in their own juvenile way, knew that something magical was happening long before Marcus or I did. Yet one thing we both knew immediately was that we could be friends. We could chat easily, we had similar interests—notably, children and how to raise them—and we both shared a living faith. He was more fun loving than I was; to this day, he is more outgoing and jovial at parties. So we would often meet on campus simply to banter back and forth; I guess, looking back, our times together were semidates, but I don't think either of us thought of them as such. In our minds, neither of us was there yet.

Marcus had an interesting background. His parents were born in Switzerland, not coming to the United States until after World War II. His father, Paul, hailed from a long line of farmers while his mother, Elma, grew up in a business family that at one point during the war had assisted in the resettling of Jewish refugees in neutral Switzerland, helping to offer them safe haven from a genocidal madman. During the war, my future father-in-law had served in the Swiss army, guarding Switzerland's border with Nazi Germany; he often heard the Wehrmacht soldiers taunting the Swiss soldiers: “We will come and get you next.” Of course, the Nazis never attacked Switzerland, mostly because the Swiss were strong in their determination to defend themselves. Strong defense. That's what we always need in the face of evil.

Paul and Elma married in 1950. They journeyed to America shortly thereafter, sailing on the
Queen Mary.
While still living in Switzerland, they bought a dairy farm in Independence, Wisconsin, not far from the Minnesota border, that they had seen in an advertisement. Farms were much bigger in America, compared with the twenty to forty acres that were common for a farm in Switzerland. At home, Marcus's family spoke in the mixed languages of Switzerland—German, French, Italian. Marcus and his two older brothers, Peter and Reinhard, went off to school; the boys helped their parents learn English, although that Wisconsin household was always a jumble of languages and accents.

Paul Bachmann's real passion was work, and he instilled that passion in his three sons. Marcus, born on April 10, 1956, four days after me—he likes to joke that he married an older woman—would wake up, start milking the cows at 5:30
A.M
., take a few minutes for breakfast, go to school, come home, change clothes, and then get back to milking the cows. At 9:00
P.M
., he finally had time for homework, albeit knowing that he would have to be up again early the next morning to start all over again with the cows.

Marcus wasn't a big complainer; he was fun-loving and sweet tempered and good natured—when he wanted to be! Yet at the same time, he felt a spiritual hunger in his life. One evening in 1972, he came in from the barn and saw Billy Graham preaching on TV. As Marcus later told me, “It was as if Billy was speaking directly to me. I asked Christ to come into my life that night, and He has been with me ever since.” Little did Marcus know, of course, that in that same year, also at the age of sixteen, a hundred or so miles to the west, I was coming to my own salvation experience.

Marcus chose to attend Winona State because it was inexpensive and close to home. He knew he wanted to work with young people, bringing his Christian perspective to the challenges of adolescent development. But because Winona didn't offer a psychology major, he settled on the next-closest topic, sociology.

And of course, Marcus continued to work. In addition to his job alongside me at Lincoln Elementary, he put in hours as a tour guide for the Winona State admissions office. And every weekend, he drove the thirty-two miles back home to help with the cows and the farm. That was our college life. Because we were each responsible for our college bills, we held various jobs. But working was good for both of us. Our parents had strong work ethics, and we had worked when we were younger, so it was perfectly normal for us to work multiple jobs and attend class.

Through it all, Marcus kept not only his sense of purpose but also his good humor. He has always been the hardest-working man I have ever met, as well as the nicest.

And so, of course, while we were “just friends” for a year and a half, it was only a matter of time before I fell in love with him.

Near the beginning of 1977, I knew, quietly, that he was the man for me. I think it was a little bit later that Marcus came to see me as a future life partner as well. Having lived and worked—mostly worked—on the farm all his life, he had never really had the chance to go anywhere; he once told me that his original plan had been to see the world while in his early twenties, then get married when he was twenty-seven or so. But as they say, men make their plans and God laughs.

But the bond between us was strong and growing stronger. Always a perfect gentleman, Marcus told me over ice cream, “I have enjoyed our friendship together.”

Then he paused, regarding me thoughtfully. My mind raced as I absorbed his words. I knew something more was coming—I just didn't know for sure what. Marcus, having studied people for so long, has always been better at reading me than I've been at reading him. Trying to stay cool, I said to myself,
Michele, he is about to tell you that he wants to stay “just friends,” or else that he wants to get more serious.
But which was it? I knew what I wanted, and I thought maybe I knew what he wanted—yet I wasn't quite sure. So what was the answer? As we all know, in pressure situations, a million thoughts can race though our heads in the time between two words, in the time between two heartbeats. And my heart was beating fast.

Then he continued, “Would you . . . be interested in a . . . more romantic relationship?” He looked right into my eyes. Not accusing, just wondering—hoping.

Once again, my mind was off to the races.
Think hard, Michele. This could be big. Really big.
My fingers tensed; my teeth clenched just a little. Not out of fear—I had felt completely safe around Marcus from the moment I met him—but rather out of nervousness. Or maybe I just wanted to feel something so I'd know I wasn't dreaming. In other words, there were lots of thoughts and emotions inside, even as I struggled to keep my composure. For a moment, I couldn't say a thing. No sound would come out.

And then that peace that passes understanding descended on me; calm came over me, and it was settled. Now I could speak. And I did. Like water from a spring brook, simple but sincere words poured out of me: “I would be open to that.” Shakespeare could rest easy; I was no threat to the Bard in wordsmithing. And yet my response to Marcus was heartfelt, because my heart was entirely his.

Marcus later told me that he had been nervous too, that he had practiced his words for days before. That's how Marcus does things; he thinks things through, then acts with both care and precision. He's like a Swiss watch. And making a Swiss watch takes a lot of know-how, but once it's made, it always ticks true. Inspired by his example, I have tried to be the same way—that is, careful and precise. Although I'll admit, not always—I think again of that one April Fools' Day, decades in the future, when I suddenly found myself plunged into politics. That's why, when I say something wrong, I'm hard on myself, because I'm trying to communicate information accurately. I've learned the hard way at the national level that any erroneous statement will very quickly be magnified. So, as someone who talks for a living, I've learned to check, double-check, and triple-check my sources. And yet still I make a mistake or two!

Meanwhile, Marcus and I, up to that point, hadn't even held hands. But now everything was different; the arcs of our lives were converging. Not long afterward, we rode together on a church-group hayride; it was a Minnesota winter, and we were both bundled up—and Marcus reached out his hand, clasping mine. I didn't do a thing. Contact! From that moment on, I didn't remember a thing about the evening other than that he was holding my hand. That sounds innocent, considering some of today's dating standards, but it was our true story. We both knew that this was what we wanted—to be clasped together for life, under the watchful eye of a loving God.

And believe it or not, it was politics—Democratic politics—that accelerated our romance. In 1976 the Democratic presidential nominee was Jimmy Carter, who had introduced himself to the nation as a commonsensical Democrat, as well as a born-again Christian and a good family man. All that sounded promising to Marcus and me, and when Carter picked Minnesota native son Walter Mondale as his vice-presidential running mate, the two men seemed like a perfect national ticket. And speaking of Mondale, Mom pointed out to me, “He's Norwegian, you know.”

In college, Marcus and I had become familiar with the work of Dr. Francis Schaeffer, author of a seminal book of Christian apologetics,
How Should We Then Live?
The book also served as the basis of a widely watched ten-part movie. In his work, Dr. Schaeffer points out that God is not just the God of theology, not just the God of the Bible, but also the creator God, creator of everything. He is the father of biology, sociology, political science, all human inquiry and creative endeavor. Dr. Schaeffer transformed our way of thinking; now we understood more fully that God's plan included all aspects of our existence, even our careers. Dr. Schaeffer further declared that life itself is the watershed issue of our time and that how we view the sanctity of human life informs all other issues. Each life is absolutely precious, we realized, from conception to natural death.

So Marcus and I decided we didn't want to be pro-life in name only. We wanted to live our lives and our careers being fully and actively pro-life. So we began counseling single mothers, praying with them and helping them in any way we could. We volunteered to drive these expectant moms to crisis-pregnancy centers, where they could be offered a safe and saving alternative to abortion. I'll add too that I never condemn any woman who has had an abortion or who has participated in one, because I know that God is always there, offering grace and mercy in such tragic situations. Yet I felt called now to do everything I could for these women in difficult situations and their babies.

At that time, I was still a Democrat. The Democratic Party, while it was then edging toward an abortion-on-demand stance, still allowed room in its ranks for pro-life leaders. Carter himself proved to be a clever waffler on the abortion issue, suggesting that he was pro-life to the pro-lifers and prochoice to the prochoicers—and yet the media, always Carter friendly, never nailed him on his hypocrisy. So in our naïveté, we failed to realize that Carter was playing a duplicitous double game. And the Republican Party, meanwhile, still seemed at that time to be dominated by defenders of the proabortion stance. But today, thanks to the tireless efforts of conservative leaders such as Phyllis Schlafly, Father Frank Pavone, the late Henry Hyde, and, of course, Ronald Reagan, the Republican Party has rediscovered its moral origins as a champion of human liberty and human life. Today, we have witnessed, in the party platforms, which one of the two parties stands up for life and which one doesn't.

Yet back in the seventies, the parties had not yet sorted themselves out on the vital issue of abortion. So in 1976, many pro-life and socially conservative Americans could be found conscientiously voting for the Carter-Mondale ticket, thinking they were voting pro-life. And Marcus and I did more than that; we helped on his campaign, handing out fliers and making phone calls.

And of course, the Carter-Mondale ticket won the general election that November. A few weeks later, Marcus and I both received an invitation to attend the presidential inauguration in the coming January—at our own expense, of course. Marcus found me on campus one day and said he'd figured out how we could travel to D.C. and back for just a hundred dollars. Neither of us had ever been to Washington, and I wanted to go, to be a part of history. But still, mindful of the cost, I hesitated. A hundred dollars? To this working-her-way-through-college student, that was real money.

But Marcus was persuasive. So eventually, eight politically involved Minnesotans clambered into an RV, having packed in plenty of food, and took off from Winona to Washington. It was like a scene from
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles,
in which a group of strangers from the provinces heads off to see the bright lights of the big city. We didn't have money for hotels along the way, so we took turns driving, making it straight through to Washington in twenty-four hours. This was no raunchy road trip; one of the passengers was a nun, and the rest of us were starry-eyed idealists. We sang sing-alongs, talked about current events, and dreamed about how America would be a better place thanks to the Carter-Mondale administration.