The Unlikely Allies (2 page)

Joubert released her hand and stood quietly watching her. “I need to talk to you. Where can we go?”

“Let’s walk down by the river.”

“Good.”

As the two made their way toward the serpentine river that watered the compound’s fields and vegetable garden, Paul said, “I see most of your family is here.”

“Yes. It’s my going-away party.”

They reached the bend of the river and stood on the bank, neither of them speaking.

Paul broke the silence. “You know why I’ve come.”

Mallory faced him and noted, not for the first time, that he was about an inch shorter than she was. When it came to young men, it had always been that way. Those she had liked had been short and stocky, but this was not what troubled her most at the moment. She was about to hurt Paul, and she dreaded it, for she had become very fond of him.

“I can’t marry you, Paul.”

Paul came from a wealthy family of mine owners, and he had met Mallory in college. Those had been good days of close friendship, but after they had come back home, he’d begun to pressure her to marry him. He was a good Christian man, but Mallory sensed that he was far more attached to worldly things than she was. This would be natural, since his family had great possessions; nonetheless, it disturbed her.

“We must marry,” he insisted. “You know how much I love you, Mallory . . . and I think you love me too.”

With that he swept Mallory into his arms and kissed her. She did not resist, yet he sensed that her heart did not return his ardor. Releasing her, he stepped back and his lips grew thin. “What’s wrong? I thought we had an understanding.”

“I made a mistake, Paul. You know we can’t marry. I’m going to do missionary work in Norway. Your life is here.”

“I’ve never accepted that.”

“I know you haven’t, but you must.”

“Look, there’s another way. I’ve mentioned it before. I’ve been thinking about it a lot and have talked to my family.” Paul’s face grew animated. “The mines are doing very well. Why, Mallory, we could send and support five missionaries to Norway, if you like. Then you wouldn’t have to go.”

Mallory suddenly felt tempted. It would indeed be easy to marry Paul. Life would present no difficulties, and she would not have to leave her beloved Africa. But even as this thought came to her, she pushed it aside.

“God has called
me
to go—not to send others in my place.”

Paul continued to plead with her, but he finally saw that he was not going to change her mind. “So this is your final decision, Mallory?”

“Yes, it is. I’m sorry, Paul.”

Paul Joubert was a stubborn man, but also practical. When he saw that a cause was lost, which happened rarely in his life, he never wasted his strength on a useless battle. “Will you write to me? You’ll come back before too long and then we’ll see.”

“I’ll call you on the shortwave radio.”

Joubert shook his head glumly. “Well, I won’t stay for your party. I’ll say my good-bye here.”

Mallory put her arms around him and gave him a sisterly hug. She felt a sense of loss, but she had known this moment must come. “Good-bye, Paul. I wish you well.”

The two made their way back to the compound in silence, and Paul returned to his car. He started the engine and drove away, never looking back.

****

“I have a letter here for you to give to my sister Eva.”

Anna Jorgensen, a tall woman with fair hair and blue eyes, was sitting next to Mallory at one of the tables in the communal dining room of the compound. The room was crowded with well-wishers who had gathered to send one of their own to far-off Norway. Anna smiled at Mallory. “I think God must have a sense of humor.”

Mallory lifted an eyebrow. “What do you mean by that?”

“Well, He called a woman from the land of ice to come here to Africa under a blazing sun, and now He’s calling a woman from this place to go and freeze in order to present the Gospel to the Lapps. It would have been much more economical if He had called me to preach to the Lapps and you to preach to the Masai.”

Mallory laughed. “It is rather ironic. You know, Anna, I’ve
often thought of the verse in John that says, ‘He that believeth on me . . . out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.’ ”

“What about it?”

“I think most of us would rather dig a channel. If we wanted to get water from point A to point B, we would make that channel as straight as we could. But a river doesn’t go like that, does it?”

“No. It meanders and twists and turns. I see what you mean. God does things we can’t understand.” Anna reached over and put her hand on that of the younger woman. “I’m glad you’re going to the Lapps. They need Jesus desperately.”

“Doesn’t anyone witness to them—the native Norwegians?”

“Very little, I’m afraid. The church has grown cold in Norway. And from what Eva writes me, it hasn’t changed much. But God will allow you to witness to them.”

The two women had grown close over the past two years, ever since Mallory had announced that God was calling her to be a missionary to the Lapps in Norway. She knew this desire had been birthed, at least in the beginning, by Anna’s wistful comments that the Lapps were without God and no one seemed to care. This had created a desire in Mallory that she felt was of God, yet she had waited for months before telling anyone. The Winslows had a strong missionary heritage, and her decision had been respected by her parents and the other missionaries.

As Anna spoke quietly about life with the Lapps, Mallory’s eyes fell on her parents, and a warmth washed over her, for she loved them dearly.

Her mother, who had been Jeanine Quintana before she had married John, was a striking woman, still very attractive with her black hair and violet eyes. John was her second husband, her first husband having died, leaving her with a considerable inheritance.

Mallory spotted her two brothers toward the other end of the table, engaged in a lively argument. It seemed they were
always at odds with each other. Tyler was two years younger than Mallory and Chance three years younger. They both looked very much like their father, and people often mistook her brothers for twins.

At the end of the table sat Barney and Katie Winslow with their daughter, Erin, and their son-in-law, Quaid. Mallory’s father had once tried to explain how she was related to this arm of the Winslow family, but it was complicated, and she hadn’t tried to remember the details. She did know, however, that Erin, who was eleven years older than she was, had met Quaid Merritt in America. He was a pilot, and now the two of them used their planes for missionary work.

Barney’s brother and sister were both there also, along with their spouses. Andrew and his wife, Dorothy, sat across from Esther and her husband, Jan Kruger, the Krugers’ only son, Ross, was engrossed in an animated conversation with Quaid Merritt.

Mallory felt a glow of pride at being a part of the Winslow family, and when Barney stood up suddenly, she felt a rush of emotion. He had been the first of the Winslows to come to Africa, and now at age sixty-eight, with his hair gray and his figure somewhat stooped, he still seemed a strong man.

“All right. Let’s have a little quiet here. I’m going to make a speech.”

“Oh no!” Ross said. “Get your wallets out, everybody. He’s going to take up a collection!”

The laughter went around the table, and Barney could not help grinning. “I’ll skip the collection this time, but I do want us to join together in wishing well our latest missionary addition to the family.” Barney’s eyes turned to Mallory as he said, “
Sending
missionaries is new for us. We’re the ones who have always gone, and now a Winslow will be preaching the Gospel in Europe. I want you to know how very proud I am of you, Mallory.”

Mallory’s face grew warm as she listened to Barney’s words of love and affection. Then, to her surprise, he finished with, “Now, let’s have a sermon from the newest missionary in the Winslow family.”

Not expecting to be put on the spot like that, Mallory rose slowly to her feet and looked around at all the family and friends she knew would be praying for her. “I feel so incapable of doing this job,” she began. “But if you’ll all pray for me, as I’ll pray for you every day, I know I’ll have the victory.” The crowd broke into smiles and clapped, some voicing their agreement and praise to God at her declaration of faith. Then as they quieted, she spoke, more confidently now, about how God had blessed her with such a wonderful family.

“What are the Lapps like?” her brother Chance asked when she paused for a moment. “Tell us about them.”

“What I know about them I’ve mostly learned from Anna,” Mallory replied. “They are a small group, no more than twenty thousand, and they live in Lapland, which is the northern part of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia. I plan to work primarily with the Lapps who live in Norway, because I don’t know a word of the other languages. Nobody knows where these people came from, but it was probably Russia. They are short people with high cheekbones, dark hair, and olive skin. Their way of life is very simple. They’ve tamed huge herds of wild reindeer, and they follow these herds to use for their food and clothing.”

She ended by saying, “I don’t mind telling you I’m a little afraid of what life will be like for me there in such a cold, primitive place, but my heart is very joyful that I’ll be telling the Lapps about Jesus.”

“How will you approach them?” Chance questioned. “I know you’ve learned Norwegian, but I thought they spoke another language called Lapp.”

“That’s true, but most of them speak some Norwegian. And I’ll pick up some of their language after I get there. As for how I’ll approach them . . . why, it’ll be the same as it is here. I’ll try to hold up Jesus to them.”

John Winslow smiled. “That’s the only way, daughter. Your mother and I are very proud of you.”

“We’re all proud of Mallory,” Barney said. “And we’ll be expecting glorious victories for the kingdom of God.”

Mallory felt a lump in her throat. She was leaving all she’d ever known, and life in northern Norway would be very difficult. Here she had always been surrounded by loving, supportive family and friends. There she would be alone in a strange, alien world. But looking around in that dining hall at all the loving faces of these people she knew would be praying for her, she was filled with a new confidence that told her she could not fail.

CHAPTER TWO

A New World

Mallory’s stomach fluttered uneasily at her first sight of Norway. Standing on the deck of the ship that had brought her from Africa and gazing at the dark, forbidding wall of rock that rose out of the churning waters, her apprehension grew. The snow-covered peaks above were beautiful, but cold and remote. She could not say why, but they seemed very different from the warm majesty of Kilimanjaro and other African mountains.

The skies were blue and the clouds were white and fluffy on this beautiful April day, which somewhat mitigated her fear of the dangerous-looking fjords. As they approached Oslo, Mallory peered eagerly ahead at the crowded harbor, filled with shipping vessels of all kinds. The winters in Norway were so dismally long and the northern days so short that as soon as the spring sunshine arrived, people made the most of their daylight hours. Anna had told her that from November on, the country was dark and wet; then the frost and snow would come, transforming the Nordic gloom into brilliant white under a cloudless blue sky. While she was in Africa, Mallory had looked forward to the snow and learning how to ski, but now the thought of winter was far from her mind.

The ship pulled into the dock, and Mallory made her way down the gangplank with the other passengers, her eyes searching the crowd. She spotted a young woman about her own age with a young man standing beside her. The woman waved and called her name, and as Mallory stepped onto
Norwegian soil for the first time, a strange feeling enveloped her.
I’m here at last. I’m really here!

“Hello, Mallory. I’m Eva.”

The young blond woman with blue eyes came forward with a broad welcoming smile. She wore a simple blue dress that picked up the color of her eyes, and an energy flowed from her that Mallory sensed at once.

“This is my fiancé, Lars Klovstad,” she said in Norwegian.

“Welcome to Norway,” Lars said in his deep voice. He was a tall, powerfully built man with sandy hair and light blue eyes.

“I’m glad to meet you, Mr. Klovstad.”

“Just call me Lars. We’re not very formal here. Your Norwegian is good.”

“Anna and I have worked hard on it. I’m afraid my pronunciation may not be the best.”

“Much better than my English,” Eva said with a laugh, her lively eyes sparkling. “We’re going to take you to the house where you’ll be staying for a while. Then we’ll go out and eat.”

“The car is right over here,” Lars said. “Are you ready?”

****

Mallory was delighted with the trip through Oslo. It was not a large city, she observed, but seemed expansive with its buildings spaced far apart. The center of Oslo was as busy as any other capital, and Eva pointed out the streets with pride. “This is Karl Johans Gate. Gate means street, of course. Most of the city’s important buildings are here.”

They reached the end of the street where stood an impressive square white building, the Royal Palace. Masses of lilacs blossomed all around it, and their heady scent floated over the city.

They passed the Parliament Building, where, as Eva explained, Norway’s national assembly met. Across from there stood the University of Oslo and the National Theatre.

“I’ll be taking some classes there at the university this summer, if possible,” Mallory said.

“Oh yes. That’s all been arranged.”

“That’s the Oslo Cathedral over there,” Eva said, pointing, “and there’s the square with the fruit and flower market.”

“That church was built in 1699,” Lars said, “and has been restored several times since then. You’ll have to visit it.”

“Oh, what’s that?” Mallory asked as Lars expertly maneuvered the car down the busy street.

“That’s Frogner Park, one of Oslo’s showplaces,” Eva said. “It has an open-air swimming pool and a magnificent rose garden.”