Tambourine to Tears
Matt and I have really relaxed standards when it comes to finding a church to settle into. We have been to Four Square, Assembly of God, Baptist, Church of God, Non-denominational, Calvary Chapel, Vineyard, Gospel, and German evangelical. We've been to churches where people dance and shout with streamers, we've been to churches that have a full band, those that have taped background music, organs, choirs, choirs that do the back up "amens" during the sermon, and German translated. As long as they are preaching and teaching the Bible, we can look beyond a lot of the things that are different about each church but there is one thing we just cannot get past and that is tambourines.
Today at the chapel someone smuggled in a tambourine and used it during at least one worship song. I was contemplating leaving, really. I feel that strongly about the tambourine. As far as I am concerned the tambourine and the triangle only have a place in a Kindergarten music room.
I resisted the urge to leave due to the chaos caused by the clanging cymbals and was rewarded greatly by the message from a guest speaker. It was not a biblical teaching per se, but a woman's testimony of God's providence and words of encouragement for American service members.
Hansi Hirschmann was a 12 year old girl living in poverty in Czechoslovakia when Nazi Germans brought food, hope and work to her community in 1938. Hansi was sent to a German leadership camp where she bought into Nazi ideals and became fully committed to Hitler and his ideology. When the war was over, Germany lost, and Hitler died, Hansi was angry and frustrated that her god, Hitler, had failed. For her roles as a Nazi in the war, Hansi was sentenced to a communist labor camp under Russian leadership. One day, she had enough and decided to make a run for it. She escaped the camp and then made her way into the American sector of German. She and a friend who escaped with her travelled through fields until they came upon what they thought was a German farmhouse. Desperate for help, she banged on the door and none other than American soldiers were on the other side. Her enemy. She was taught to hate the allies and here she found herself at their mercy. She was helped by those soldiers and her path changed trajectory. In that moment, she realized that if the things Hitler said about Americans was not true there was a possibility that he lied about other things too. Today, as a Christian and American citizen she believes that God allowed her to live through her escape and live to be 84 years old so that she can be an "eye witness to a time that you only read about in history".
As I sat listening to Hansi's story, I felt tears rolling down my cheeks. Her gratitude for her freedom and American military members who are defenders of freedom was overwhelming. She served as a reminder to me, and I'm sure many others, that the fighting is not in vain. Lives are changed by the sacrifices that soldiers are making in order to bring at least some freedoms to others around the world.
When Hansi came to America and for the first time was living a life of freedom, she struggled to understand what freedom meant. She would ask neighbors about this thing called freedom and "they got it, used it, and took it for granted, but they could not explain it". When you don't really know tyranny, it is harder to appreciate freedom but Hansi knew tyranny and now, by God's grace she knows freedom.
Hansi's story is an amazing account of how God can turn a devout Nazi into a passionate follower of Christ, an angry, confused young woman into an compassionate minister of the Gospel, and how He paid the ransom for all sinners so that each of us can be truly free.
Today at the chapel someone smuggled in a tambourine and used it during at least one worship song. I was contemplating leaving, really. I feel that strongly about the tambourine. As far as I am concerned the tambourine and the triangle only have a place in a Kindergarten music room.
I resisted the urge to leave due to the chaos caused by the clanging cymbals and was rewarded greatly by the message from a guest speaker. It was not a biblical teaching per se, but a woman's testimony of God's providence and words of encouragement for American service members.
Hansi Hirschmann was a 12 year old girl living in poverty in Czechoslovakia when Nazi Germans brought food, hope and work to her community in 1938. Hansi was sent to a German leadership camp where she bought into Nazi ideals and became fully committed to Hitler and his ideology. When the war was over, Germany lost, and Hitler died, Hansi was angry and frustrated that her god, Hitler, had failed. For her roles as a Nazi in the war, Hansi was sentenced to a communist labor camp under Russian leadership. One day, she had enough and decided to make a run for it. She escaped the camp and then made her way into the American sector of German. She and a friend who escaped with her travelled through fields until they came upon what they thought was a German farmhouse. Desperate for help, she banged on the door and none other than American soldiers were on the other side. Her enemy. She was taught to hate the allies and here she found herself at their mercy. She was helped by those soldiers and her path changed trajectory. In that moment, she realized that if the things Hitler said about Americans was not true there was a possibility that he lied about other things too. Today, as a Christian and American citizen she believes that God allowed her to live through her escape and live to be 84 years old so that she can be an "eye witness to a time that you only read about in history".
As I sat listening to Hansi's story, I felt tears rolling down my cheeks. Her gratitude for her freedom and American military members who are defenders of freedom was overwhelming. She served as a reminder to me, and I'm sure many others, that the fighting is not in vain. Lives are changed by the sacrifices that soldiers are making in order to bring at least some freedoms to others around the world.
When Hansi came to America and for the first time was living a life of freedom, she struggled to understand what freedom meant. She would ask neighbors about this thing called freedom and "they got it, used it, and took it for granted, but they could not explain it". When you don't really know tyranny, it is harder to appreciate freedom but Hansi knew tyranny and now, by God's grace she knows freedom.
Hansi's story is an amazing account of how God can turn a devout Nazi into a passionate follower of Christ, an angry, confused young woman into an compassionate minister of the Gospel, and how He paid the ransom for all sinners so that each of us can be truly free.
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