Author's Note:
I recently came across this piece written years ago by my late brother Lynn, and decided to include it here becuase he gives additional details and insights to what I related in previous chapters.
It'll Never Happen!
The last year of our time in Don Bosco was just beginning. We were due to leave there in November or December of 1963, and we knew that Dad and Mother would be reassigned when they returned to Argentina.
For us kids, especially Rita and myself, it would be our last year in Argentina unless we chose to return on our own. Rita would go to college, and I would finish High School in the States and go on to college.
We had ministries in which we were involved, and the idea of leaving Argentina was a conflicting thought, in that we would leave behind two Good News Clubs which were just beginning to take on the characteristics of a prospective church. We would also be leaving behind all the dear friends we had made over the period of ten years, and for Rita and myself there were friends who were more than just friends.
Rita was very good friends with a young fellow about her age and it seemed like the end of the world to leave him behind. I, Lynn, had a crush on a girl named Dorita, and at fourteen that is a big deal. To top it all off I had discovered that she had a crush on me as well. But I was too shy to do anything about it.
In addition, we would be leaving just before camp time, and that was always an exciting time of the year, as we looked forward to going to Córdoba by bus or train (about 8 to 10 hours) and riding in the back of the truck for the bumpy ride to the camp. The wonderful thing about it was that during the two to four hours in the truck, we got to know people whom we had not seen in a whole year, or who were new to us altogether.
Coming to the U.S. had its appeal, though, in that we would see our cousins and uncles and aunts, whom we basically did not know. We would also get to see snow, the land where our parents were born, and the wonders of American living with all its advances.
We had what coud have been thought of as a "lame duck" year ahead, because the end was in sight. But true to their work ethic and their dedication to the ministry, Dad and Mother never let up, and since we considered ourselves a part of the team, it never occurred to us to let up either.
Sometime around the end of 1962, Mother was looking at the newspaper and her attention was drawn to a small item on a page hidden in the inner part of the paper. The title intimated that the city of Buenos Aires was looking to get rid of all the streetcars they had recently decommissioned, and that they would give them away to charitable enterprises which could use them. The only catch was that they would have to move them out of the storage lot within a short time (six weeks runs in my mind) of their being awarded.
Mother showed the article to Dad, and suggested that he send a letter requesting one of the units to be used for a meeting place at the location of one of our Good News Clubs. Dad thought it would be a waste of time, as anything that had any value at all was usually snapped up immediately by the Catholic diocese. Mother was not to be dissuaded, and as a concession to her insistence, Dad made up the letter and sent it in. His reasoning would normally have been right on the money but, for some reason, the Lord intervened, and some time in either January or February of 1963, a letter arrived stating that we had been awarded not one, but four streecars!
Since we had two Good News Clubs, we would have two streetcars for each place. Now we needed a place to put them. While neither of the lots where we had been meeting (with permission from the owner in each of the places) was for sale, the one in Quilmes Oeste would certainly be available for temporary placement. Dad went to the owner of the lot in Villa Domínico and offered to buy it. I am not sure how much it cost him, nor whether it was a hard sell, but the result was that we had two lots, four streetcars and about six weeks to bring both of them together.
The process of bringing the streetcars was an amazing one. Since all the electric supply wires at the time were above ground, they had to be lifted as the transporting vehicle came by. The truck would move up to the cables, and someone on top of the street car would lift the cable far enough for the unit to clear the space while the cable lifter walked along the top of the streecar until he could drop it at the other end. This had to be done on all the streets which had streetlights hanging in the middle of the block. On some blocks it had to be repeated two or three times in a block.
The streetcars in place, the serious labor began. We took one of the sides off of each car, and then moved them together, thus forming a meeting place about 16´x 35´with built-in seating for about 72 persons.
Although that would have made our life full enough, daily life went on. The young people and some of the adults in the church pitched in and enclosed the lots with chain link fence, a necessity on any lot where anything of value will be stored. Meanwhile, someone had to stand guard day and night so that the streetcars would not be vandalized. One of the young people stayed at one place, and I, Lynn, stayed at the other.
While this fencing was going on, life went on at home. Mother was pregnant with her fifth child, due any time. On March 7, 1963, her birth pains began. She brought me a lunch at about noon, and she and Dad traveled the ten or twelve miles over bumpy roads to the British Hospital in Buenos Aires.
As soon as they arrived, she was examined, and taken immediately to the labor room while Dad sat down to sign the admission papers. He was so exhausted that he fell asleep signing his name. When he woke up, he asked to be taken to the labor room to be with Mother. He was told he was too late, that our youngest sibling had just been born. His name is Norman Alan. The first name was in honor of our grandfather Hirschy, a man of faith who had an extremely tender heart for a lost world. We have always called him Alan as all the rest of us have four-letter names.
I have often wished that we could have stayed and continued the work started in those two places. It was not to be so. The last I checked, the streetcars-turned-chapels were both functioning as church buildings, though we no longer have contact with those congregations.
These reminders bring to mind at least two very important facts:
1. Never say it will never happen. If God chooses to make something happen, IT WILL!
2. If you think your plate is too full for another challenge, God will probably add another morsel of challenge on it to keep you dependent.
