The Unlikely Allies (7 page)

Finally she felt a sense of despair. She had difficulty choosing her words, and she could not tell whether she was making any impression. She ended by saying, “Jesus is the Savior of the world, and He loves every one of you.” She focused on each individual face. “He loves everyone in the whole world.” She said a silent prayer as they looked blankly at her. “Do you have any questions?”

No one spoke for a time; then one woman turned and walked away, and the others quickly followed.

That night after supper, Lorge said, “That was good. I like to hear about Jesus.”

This was the only encouraging word Mallory had heard. She put her hand on the young boy’s shoulder and mustered a smile. “Thank you, Lorge. That’s kind of you.”

“They listened, and they will come back if you have another service, and maybe others will come with them. And you can tell us more about Jesus.”

“Do you think you might like to have Him as your friend?”

“Tell me some more about Him. Read to me again how He fed five thousand people with just a little bread and a couple of fish.”

“All right, Lorge. Come along.” She got her Norwegian Bible and read to him.

He followed her finger as she moved it along the printed page. “I wish I had a Bible,” he said when she came to the end of the story.

“You can have this one. I have another one.”

Lorge looked at her, startled. “Really?”

“Yes.”

He took the Bible and thumbed through it. He looked up with a thoughtful expression in his eyes. “Thank you. I call you the Jesus woman. That’s what the others call you too.”

Mallory smiled warmly. “I can’t think of anything I’d rather be called than the Jesus woman.”

****

More than once in the weeks that followed, Orva told Mallory she was doing no good there. And, indeed, it seemed that Orva was right. She held service after service, and although the crowd grew slightly larger, even Jagg coming from time to time, there seemed to be little response. Occasionally someone would ask her a question, which pleased her greatly.

But it was discouraging work, and late one day she walked alone over the frozen ground in what seemed to be a lifeless world. The reindeer milled around, and, from time to time, one would come up and nuzzle her. They were strange creatures, half tame and half wild, and ordinarily she liked their attention, but now she paid them no heed.

Maybe I am wasting my time,
she thought.
I haven’t seen one person saved.

Feeling discouraged, she headed back to the camp. When she got halfway there, she found Lorge standing in her path. “Hello, Lorge,” she said.

“I want to know this Jesus you talk about. How do I do that?”

Mallory’s heart leaped. “He’s waiting for you to ask Him into your heart,” she said, her eyes brimming with tears. “Will you do that?”

“If you will help me.”

There under the thin light of the northernmost part of the world, Mallory Winslow led Lorge to the Savior. He was ready and willing, and when she told him to simply pray and ask Jesus to forgive his sins and come into his heart, she saw the tears in his eyes.

When he was finished, he looked up at her with joy lighting his face. “Am I a Jesus boy now?”

“Yes, Lorge. That’s exactly what you are.” Mallory reached out and put her arms around him, and in her heart she was saying,
Oh, dear God, if no more Lapps are saved while I am here, you have this one!

CHAPTER FIVE

The Church

Mallory wrote the date firmly at the top left-hand corner of the paper—
March 20, 1939.
She stopped for a moment, then looked around, noting the busy activities of the Lapps. The beginnings of spring had come, and although there were still patches of snow, the reindeer were nibbling at the emerald blades that were pushing up through the soil that had been as hard as brick all winter. Dogs were barking, children were playing, and now a breeze that had a taste of warmth and the summer to come touched Mallory’s face. She was sitting outside her tent writing on a board and felt a sense of contentment.

The winter had been hard for her, but she had endured. The bitterly cold weather had been hard enough, but the constant darkness had been a challenge also. Now that they had plenty of daylight each day, she was feeling better. She hummed under her breath as she wrote firmly on the paper:

The noise of children laughing caught Mallory’s attention, and she stopped writing and looked up to see Lorge roughhousing with three small children. They were rolling on the ground, and all of them were full of giggles. A warm feeling came to Mallory as she watched the teenager. He was such a fine young man! He had developed into an outstanding Christian. It was only because he would be able to keep the young church going that Mallory dared to leave even for a time.

Even as she wrote these words, she heard her name being called and saw Lorge coming toward her. He was wearing a
kofte,
a blue woolen tunic that the Lapps wore in warmer weather. He also wore the unusual four-pointed cap stuffed with eiderdown that she had grown accustomed to seeing. Like all of the others, he was wearing colored ribbons and rosettes, and today, for the occasion of her last service, he was wearing a red silk scarf.

“It’s time for the service,” he said with a broad smile.

“I’m ready.” Mallory hastily rose, stuffed her writing material into the canvas bag she kept some of her possessions in, and tossed it into the tent. As they advanced toward the group that had gathered, she asked, “Are you nervous about keeping the flock together while I’m gone?”

“Yes, I am.”

She put her hand on the young man’s shoulder. “You are a man now, Lorge. A man of God. I have never been so proud of anyone in my whole life! God speaks to you, and all you have to do is listen and then share what you hear with the little flock.”

“I will do my best, sister, but come back as soon as you can.”

“I will return next fall. And I’ll have a special surprise for you then.”

“What is that?”

“I’m going to bring a shortwave radio, and during the winter months, when we’re cut off from towns, we’ll be able to pick up stations from all over the world. We should even be able to get sermons, I hope, from everywhere.”

“Oh, I can’t wait for that!” Lorge beamed. “What else will you bring?”

“Some books for you to study, and perhaps some goodies for you to eat. You and the others.” As the two reached the group, Mallory received a chorus of greetings. “Good morning. Let’s all sing, shall we? Mayda, I’ll let you choose the first song.”

“ ‘Jesus Loves Me,’ ” Lorge’s sister replied shyly.

“Good. You all know that one. Now let’s sing to the Lord.”

Mallory lifted her voice in song and encouraged everyone to join in. She saw that Orva had joined the group, but she was not singing. She was staring at Mallory defiantly, yet Mallory knew it was a victory for her even to be there. She had often begged Orva to come, but this was the first service she had ever attended.

The strains of the old song that had been a favorite in China for many years broke the silence, and it was a miracle to Mallory to hear the same song that had been sung around the world now being lifted to God here in the Arctic.

Everyone had a favorite song, and as always, Mallory let them choose them. Finally, when the singing was over, she opened her Bible. “This morning I’m going to ask you a question,” she started. “And the question is, ‘How much are you worth?’ ”

She saw a look of surprise wash across everyone’s faces, including Orva’s. “By the time I finish my sermon, I hope you’ll be able to answer that.” She opened her Bible and said, “This is in John 3:16. It says, ‘For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’ ” She looked up and felt the spirit of the Lord rising within her, as she often did. There were times when preaching was hard, but sometimes God simply gave her words, and all she had to do was speak them. It was like that now as she said, “You all know how much some things are worth. You know how much a reindeer is worth. You know how much your tent is worth or your boots. But what are
you
worth? How many reindeer are you worth?” She turned to a young woman and smiled. “Ormu, what would you take for your baby?”

“Nothing! She’s mine.”

“Yes, that baby is the most precious thing you have. What’s the most valued thing you have, Gar?”

A young man whipped out a gleaming steel knife and waved it in the air. The sunlight caught the blade and caused it to flash brightly. “My knife!”

“Right. And what about you, Damar?”

An old woman whose face was seamed with many creases from long years thought for a moment and then said, “My black fur coat.”

“You know how much that is worth, don’t you?”

As Mallory continued to talk about the value of their most precious belongings, she noticed that Orva was listening carefully.

“What would you think, then, is the most precious thing that God has?”

A silence fell across the congregation, but finally Lorge spoke up. “Why, He owns everything.”

“That’s right, Lorge. He owns all the reindeer in the world. All of the animals. All of the trees. The gold and the silver—everything. But He values one thing more than anything else. I read it to you a moment ago. ‘God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son.’ God’s Son was the most precious thing to Him, and He gave that Son so that we might live.”

Mallory helped the people to compare their own love for their children to God’s love for His Son and tried to help them understand the magnitude of His sacrifice. She had their full attention. “Now I want to read you a story that I’ve read to you before. It’s the story of the death of the Lord Jesus.” She began to read the story of the Crucifixion, and when she had finished, she looked up and said, “That’s how much you’re worth. God says you’re worth so much that He gave His Son that you might live.

“When I was thirteen years old, I was all alone out in the bush in Africa. It’s so very hot there—hotter than you can imagine—and the sun was blazing down, and I was drenched with sweat. I had been listening to my father preach for weeks about Jesus, and that day as I walked along, I suddenly knew that I had to have Him in my heart. There was nobody else there—no singing, no sermon—but I just knelt down on the path and said something like, ‘Jesus, I’ve been bad, but I want you to come into my heart. God, forgive me for my sins.’ ”

Tears came to Mallory’s eyes as she said huskily, “Something happened when I prayed that prayer. I was just a young girl, but I knew something was different. The difference was that I wasn’t alone anymore. I had Jesus living within me. Most of us live alone. We have people outside of us, but oh, how different it is to have Jesus on the inside!”

She told them with great fervor and warmth how wonderful it was not to be alone and to know that God was not separated from her anymore. She paused and looked over the gathering of eager faces waiting for her to continue. She thought of Jesus’ words to His disciples,
“Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
She sensed it was time to draw in the net.

“Most of you have already asked Jesus into your heart, and I am so thankful to God for that. But there are some here who are lonely and some who are afraid. I’m going to pray in a moment, and when I do, will you pray with me? Just imagine you are in a tent and you hear a voice saying, ‘May I come in?’ All you would have to do is say, ‘Yes, come in,’ and that friend would come into the tent. It’s that way with our hearts. The Bible says that Jesus stands outside and says to us, ‘May I come in?’ And He’s waiting for you to say yes. You don’t have to be wise or clever or super intelligent. Even a child can do it, as I did. So as I pray, I wish you would call upon Jesus and ask Him into the tent of your heart. Let’s pray now.”

Mallory prayed fervently and much longer than usual, but when she finally looked up, she saw that Lorge had gone to his sister Orva, who was weeping. At once Mallory went to them. She saw that Orva was standing stiffly, a tortured expression on her face.

“Orva, will you open your heart to God and ask Jesus to come in?”

“I’m . . . I’m too bad,” she choked.

“We’re all bad, Orva. But Jesus can make us so pure it’s as if we had never done anything wrong.”

As Mallory pleaded with Orva, she saw a desperate longing in the woman’s dark eyes. But then suddenly Orva pulled away from Lorge and gasped, “I can’t do it! I’m too bad!” She whirled and hurried away, her head down.

Tears were running down Lorge’s cheeks as his sister left. Mallory put her arms around him and whispered, “Don’t worry, Lorge. God is after her. Jesus will find her, and she will find Him. In the meantime, you will have to be faithful to keep the flock together.”