The Wall

I’m a day late in posting this.  I was having trouble with my Blogger yesterday, so I didn’t get this out.

But, in case they forgot to mention it in American news media (which I doubt was the case), yesterday marked the 20^th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, which was the catalyst to the upheaval of the Socialist regime.

I was eight years old.

[It’s crazy to think that I’m now at the age where I can say, “I remember 20 years ago when _______ happened.”]

I don’t remember much, but I do remember watching the news with my mom.  And she was glued to the TV.  She kept saying over and over how important that event was, how amazing it was and how it was going to change the world.

As a child, I don’t think I could have truly appreciated what she was saying.

But little did I know how much that event would impact my own life--in a very personal way.

Fast forward 13 years and three weeks, and I was a young woman in a strange new country, having just been released from the hospital and trying for the life of me to decipher that strange linguistic garble that someone in Provo had told me I’d understand.

I was a missionary in the Czech Republic—the one of the countries to be overtaken by the Nazis, and then later by the USSR.

It was rough. 

It was rough for me and it was rough for the people I taught.  They had been overtaken and abused by so many governments and “religious” organizations, that there was no hope and no faith in their eyes.  To this day, I have never seen such a collectively sad people.  It gave me a unique perspective to the scripture, “If in this life only we have faith in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.”

Of course they didn’t trust us; we had to work for every single contact we got.  But, once we got past the rigid facades, we found a people with hearts of gold.

I love Czech people.  I have never prayed so hard in my life to love people who would not be loved.  And I was blessed with that ability to love.  The relationships that I formed there are some of my most prized friendships.

I love the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  I have seen first-hand how the Atonement of Christ heals people, changes people, and gives them reasons to rejoice when they feel that there is none.  I have seen what once were dull, depressed faces be filled with a light that has brought me to tears, with gratitude for the gift God has given us in His Son.  No matter the government, no matter the infraction, no matter the life we’ve been called to live, there is hope smiling brightly before us in our Savior Jesus Christ.

Today, I am grateful for November 9, 1989.  For it was a day that opened a door to me for an opportunity which has blessed my life more deeply that I ever thought imaginable.