My Story 18.1

Just before I left for Canada in 1956, I made my mom and dad a promise that, after a while was impossible to keep. I promised that I would write every week!

In the beginning, in Winnipeg, I pretty well kept that promise. There were so many things that were totally different here in Canada, and I had enough material to report weekly. One of the things I remember was that when winter came they sanded the streets , which resulted in mud on the windows of your car. I had to take the bus in the beginning and I could not tell where I was because of the dirty windows. Quite a contrast with Holland, where they kept all vehicles squeaky clean. And Potholes in the spring. I had not seen it that bad in Holland anywhere.

But sooner or later you run out of things to report. My letters became shorter until I literally sent a letter: " Dear mom and dad, .....nothing to report, ..... Love Theo." I could not write interesting letters each week anymore. Later on when small reel-to-reel tape recorders came on the market, and I tried communicating with that. Until I found out that they usually put it aside and did not listen to it. Mainly because they had to borrow a tape recorder from somebody first!

I always looked forward to hearing from Holland. I have six brothers and two sisters, I wrote them all, none of them wrote back, and I began to realize that I had left that scene, and started this new life without help from anybody. Eventually, you develop a new circle of friends, mainly through work, and church.

At first, when staying with he Young's I attended the First Baptist Church, but that was boring. Then I looked around for something more "alive". In spite of the serious warning from the Youngs I checked out Calvary Temple, the main Pentecostal church in town. Mrs Young had warned me to avoid what she called " the Holy Rollers". You know me, I had to see this. The minute I walked in I sensed an atmosphere, well, the Holy Spirit in that meeting. At the end of the service people went forward and knelt down to pray. OK. Then some went weird. I stay after sitting in the pew to see how this would end. After about ten minutes Pastor Barber spotted me and came over to talk. I said I enjoyed everything, except the emotional display after the service. He said: "Please don't judge us by that, unfortunately there is always a few people like that around." I suppose then, I could call myself a moderate Pentecostal.