For the last couple of weeks you’ve been biting your nails, wondering what brought Steve and Johanna together after Johanna turned him down like a bedspread. We will now put you out of your misery.
As we said last time, the idea was first mooted (in Steve’s mind) while we were both doing our training at the UK Wycliffe Centre. The courses ended, and we went our separate ways — Johanna to Bible college, Steve to Kenya and the Rendille translation project. (Aaah!)
But among the Rendille Steve found that, as a single man beyond the normal marrying age, he was, um, how shall we put it? Regarded with a certain amount of suspicion. Not enjoying this, he finally decided there was only one solution. So completely out of the blue he wrote to Johanna. (Yay!)
Meanwhile Johanna had enjoyed Bible college, but gradually realised that partnering with another single girl (fairly common at that time), was not for her. So she drew up a list of requirements for a husband: among other things — yes, you guessed! — ‘tall, dark and handsome’. (Aaah!)
The fateful letter!
But then God, with His wonderful sense of humour, turned her thoughts towards Steve. Even though he was short, furry and funny. She actually risked praying that he would write to her.
The fateful envelope arrived. A letter from Kenya! Who did she know in Kenya? Oh. … No. … It couldn’t be… She turned the envelope over and saw the address label. It was. (Yay!!)
Well, that led to our courtship by correspondence. Steve wrote carefully with a fountain pen (no computers then) about neutral things, like his Rendille experiences. Johanna noticed that the letters were perfect: no corrections or crossings-out. They had clearly gone through several drafts. Hmmm. Interesting.
Interesting, too, that Johanna’s best friends at Bible college were from northern Kenya, and actually spoke Rendille!
Anyway, Johanna replied, sympathising with Steve’s situation, and saying that he must find it difficult not being married [xxx]. The [xxx] was a small word, crossed out. Steve cunningly looked on the other side of the thin airmail paper, and discovered that the crossed-out word was ‘yet’!
Rendille bride
Anyway, to cut a long story short, Steve invited Johanna out to Kenya to help with food distribution among the drought-stricken Rendille. This was officially sanctioned by the local Wycliffe leadership, with a gleam in the eye and a tongue in the cheek. To everyone’s satisfaction (including our own) we got engaged on the slopes of Mount Kenya on the way back to Nairobi after a good stint of food distribution.
And we were married the next year (1985) in Colchester, UK. It was a multi-cultural wedding, with the Dutch bride wearing a Rendille bukhúrcha — a necklace of palm fibres decorated with red beads, the trademark of a married woman.
And the rest, as they say, is history (to be continued in our next instalment) …
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I remember it all quite well! Steve visited and stayed with us in Pretoria and shared the experience of being a single man in Rendille land (I still remember we were standing in our back courtyard) and the possibility (?) of Johanna. Well, well. What God has done!
Blessings from on high be upon you guys!
That takes me back! I remember how scary, and also exciting, the future looked then. THANK you for the way you and Di have been behind me, and then us, in prayer and fellowship all these years!
Steve & Johanna, you are having too much fun with your history. But tell us speakers of other dialects, Steve, why your history is “potted”. It’s not drunk, high, or confined to a gardening container. What’s potting with this vocabulary item?
Art
Is there such a thing as “too much fun”? Well, I suppose there is in a situation that’s meant to be serious. But this isn’t!
Anyway, “potted”: My online dictionary (OneLook) gives your meanings, then adds, ‘(British informal) summarized or abridged (“A potted version of a novel”)’. I guess it comes from the idea of potted meat (bully beef, spam, or whatever you call it in the States): not the real thing, just a boiled down, slightly superficial imitation. In my dialect it suggests aomething so condensed and sketchy that you have to laugh. Hence the humour (humor)!
Good to hear from you, by the way! Hope you and Lark are OK.
Yes Lark and I are very OK. After reading some of the Arthur Ransome stories featuring the Swallows and Amazons kids, my children needed to share some of their experiences, so we sought out and ate potted meat. Spam and corned beef had suitable flavor. We had something else that looked and tasted like well rinsed, diluted, mashed bologna. Thanks for sharing your source. After faffing around in OneLook, idly following links I came across Visualthesaurus http://www.visualthesaurus.com/ which looks really exciting to a word nut like me. Does with words something like the search engine Kart00, except Kartoo is free.
Hey this is getting very esoteric. It makes a wonderful, romantic story, and I well remember your wedding (nearly at the silver milestone now!). Yours is one of the few wedding presents I can still remember giving to a couple married during that era.
And on the potted side – how anglo you’ve become, Steve – even speaking as a vegetarian – I would have to recommend Shippam’s paste (probably the stuff that Art describes as well rinsed, diluted, mashed bologna). My mother was nanny to the Shippam’s children, during which time she met my father …
Erm… what was your present again? (I have the excuse of being officially ‘old’ and therefore getting free prescriptions in case I’ve forgotten my wallet.)
As someone once said, there are two main problems about getting old: one is that you tend to forget things; the other… has slipped my mind.
But I’m afraid I can’t claim that memory lapses are new to old age (tho’ they’re definitely more frequent!). What sticks in my mind about you and John at our wedding was that you had fairly recently got married, and I hadn’t cottoned on to your married name. So when we met after the ceremony you leaned forward and whispered “Robinson!”
I haven’t had Shippam’s paste. If it tastes the way Art describes it, I’m not too keen to try! Interesting how your parents met. Romances are always different!