一对年轻牧师夫妇被派到纽约布鲁克林区为一间老旧教堂重新开幕。 那老教堂的确很破落需要大力整修。 他们订下一个计画时间表，每天做一点整修，准备圣诞夜举行重新开幕的礼拜。 圣诞节前一星期，所有的工作几乎都照着进度差不多完成了。 但是突来连续两天暴风雨。 圣诞夜的前三天，牧师去到教堂时，看见屋顶裂了一个缝，祭坛后的墙壁油漆剥落了一 大片，大概有二十呎长八呎宽。 牧师心冷了半截，把掉落地上的油漆扫干净，心里盘算著该怎么办。 「是不是必须把圣诞夜的礼拜取消？把重新开幕的时间延后呢？」他想。 在他回家的路上，刚好碰到当地一些企业联合摆摊子举办的一场像跳蚤市场一样的义卖 会。他信步走进去瞧瞧。他注意到一张很漂亮的桌巾，象牙色的，桌巾中间绣著一个 大大的十字架。桌巾的大小刚好可以盖住教堂墙上那片油漆剥落处。 他把桌巾买了下来，折回教堂去。 天空下起雪来。 一位老太太从对街跑来要搭巴士，但没赶上。下一班巴士要再等四十五分钟才来。牧师 请老太太到教堂里等，避避风雪，也可温暖一点。 牧师开始去搬梯子，把那张刚买的大桌巾挂到墙壁上，刚好盖住剥落的地方。 「感谢主！简直太完美了！」牧师看着挂好的桌巾，满意极了！突然，他注意到老太太 走到前面来，盯着桌巾，脸色发白。 「牧师，你哪来的这张桌巾？」老太太问。 牧师把前因后果解释给她听。 「你可不可以看看桌巾右下角是不是绣有EBG字样？」老太太声音颤抖地问。这正是这 位老太太名字的缩写。牧师检查了桌巾的右下角，果然有这几个字样。 桌巾正是三十五年前老太太在奥地利时亲手绣出来的。 老太太跟牧师说：「三十五年前，我跟我先生住在奥地利，家境富有。纳粹来了以后， 我们被迫离开。我先走，我先生隔一个星期走。」 「后来我被送到集中营，再也没看到过我先生，也从此没再回家过。」她说。 牧师听了，要把桌巾还给老太太，但老太太却要牧师留着给教堂用。牧师于是坚持开车 送老太太回家。她住在史塔登岛，只有每星期到布鲁克林区做清洁工。 几天之后，教堂顺利地在圣诞夜重新开幕。整间教堂几乎全部满座。音乐及气氛都很 好，很多人都说下星期天会再来聚会。 礼拜结束了。有一个邻居的老先生坐着还不离开。牧师认得他。 「牧师，你这张桌巾哪里来的？」老先生问，「我战争前住在奥地利的时候，我太太绣 了一张这样的桌巾。世界上居然有两张这么相像的桌巾！」 他告诉牧师，三十五年前他跟太太是因为纳粹入侵奥地利而分散的。他要太太先离开， 他随后就走。没想到后来他就被抓入牢里去了。从此没回家，也没再见到太太。 牧师愣住了。 「您能让我开车载您去兜兜风吗？」牧师问老先生。 「好啊！跟你聊聊我的故事，如果你有兴趣的话。」老先生答。 牧师把车子开到史塔登岛一间公寓前，三天前他才送老太太回来的地方。他扶著老先生 爬了三层楼的阶梯，在老太太的门上按了门铃。 牧师亲眼目睹了一场感人的圣诞团圆。 朋友！这是一位美国牧师叙述的真实故事。 上帝让人团圆的方式实在大奇妙了！人海茫茫，寻寻觅觅，唯有上帝知道在哪里。 人唯一能做的只有祷告，其余的就是上帝的工作了。
Inspriration from all walks of life
THE TABLECLOTH
The brand new pastor and his wife, newly assigned to their first ministry, to reopen a church in suburban Brooklyn, arrived in early October excited about their opportunities.
When they saw their church, it was very run down and needed much work. They set a goal to have everything done in time to have their first service on Christmas Eve. They worked hard, repairing pews, plastering walls, painting, etc. and on Dec 18 were ahead of schedule and just about finished. On Dec 19 a terrible tempest - a driving rainstorm - hit the area and lasted for two days. On the 21st, the pastor went over to the church. His heart sank when he saw that the roof had leaked, causing a large area of plaster about 20 feet by 8 feet to fall off the front wall of the sanctuary just behind the pulpit, beginning about head high. The pastor cleaned up the mess on the floor, and not knowing what else to do but postpone the Christmas Eve service, headed home.
On the way he noticed that a local business was having a flea market type sale for charity so he stopped in. One of the items was a beautiful, handmade, ivory colored, crocheted tablecloth with exquisite work, fine colors and a Cross embroidered right in the center. It was just the right size to cover up the hole in the front wall. He bought it and headed back to the church. By this time it had started to snow. An older woman running from the opposite direction was trying to catch the bus. She missed it. The pastor invited her to wait in the warm church for the next bus 45 minutes later. She sat in a pew and paid no attention to the pastor while he got a ladder, hangers, etc., to put up the tablecloth as a wall tapestry.
The pastor could hardly believe how beautiful it looked and it covered up the entire problem area. Then he noticed the woman walking down the center aisle. Her face was like a sheet. "Pastor," she asked, "where did you get that tablecloth?" The pastor explained. The woman asked him to check the lower right corner to see if the initials, EBG were crocheted into it there. They were. These were the initials of the woman, and she had made this tablecloth 35 years before, in Austria. The woman could hardly believe it as the pastor told how he had just gotten the Tablecloth. The woman explained that before the war she and her husband were well-to-do people in Austria. When the Nazis came, she was forced to leave. Her husband was going to follow her the next week. She was captured, sent to prison and never saw her husband or her home again. The pastor wanted to give her the tablecloth; but she made the pastor keep it for the church.
The pastor insisted on driving her home, that was the least he could do. She lived on the other side of Staten Island and was only in Brooklyn for the day for a housecleaning job. What a wonderful service they had on Christmas Eve. The church was almost full. The music and the spirit were great. At the end of the service, the pastor and his wife greeted everyone
at the door and many said that they would return. One older man, whom the pastor recognized from the neighborhood, continued to sit in one of the pews and stare, and the pastor wondered why he wasn’t leaving. The man asked him where he got the tablecloth on the front wall because it was identical to one that his wife had made years ago when they lived in Austria before the war and how could there be two tablecloths so much alike? He told the pastor how the Nazis came, how he forced his wife to flee for her safety, and he was supposed to follow her, but he was arrested and put in a prison. He never saw his wife or his home again all the 35
years in between. The pastor asked him if he would allow him to take him for a little ride. They drove to Staten Island and to the same house where the pastor had taken the woman three days earlier. He helped the man climb the three flights of stairs to the woman’s apartment, knocked on the door and he saw the greatest Christmas reunion he could ever imagine.