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In the afternoon, Linda Bellow relaxes with her dog in her RV in Monroe Bay Campground. Wives of Laborers for Christ set up residence there while the husbands help build Peace Lutheran Church on State Route 3 in King George County.
The wives wave goodbye as their husbands leave for the King George work site after early morning prayers at the Colonial Beach camp.
Renee Naumann, wife of Peace Lutheran pastor Terry Naumann, chats with Judy Botzenhart at Olive Garden during a dinner in Fredericksburg with members of the King George County congregation.
Carol Bouvin (left), Liz Munderloh and Marian Meyer go for a walk at Monroe Bay Campground in Colonial Beach, where the group stays while work goes 'I've been putting these on so I can keep up during Bible study,' says Laborers wife Marian Meyers as she applies a quick-reference tag. |
The eight retired couples, members of a national church-building group called Laborers for Christ, pray about the recent bomb threat in Culpeper and for the families of the slain Amish girls. They pray that they do not become proud and presumptuous, that they forever walk in the footsteps of the Lord.
Finally, they lift their heads, and the darkness lifts, too. "Rejoice!" they say, releasing one another's clasped hands. The wives say their goodbyes. The husbands, bound for the Laborers' half-finished church in King George County, honk as their van dusts off.
Another day has begun in the lives of the wives left behind at Monroe Bay Campground, where, in that moment, only the whistles of blue jays ruffle the morning stillness.
Laborers for ChristThis marks the 26th year that retirement-age Laborers for Christ have fanned across the country to help build schools and churches for the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. The Laborers, hailing from all over the country, do their Lord's work as couples traveling in RVs. Though both women and men may obtain the denomination's blessing for the construction jobs, few women are in the work crews.
Two women are certified in this group, but only men are building Peace Lutheran Church's new sanctuary on State Route 3 because of the difficulty of the labor.
The women here say their role instead is supporting their husbands--packing their lunches, cooking their meals, brewing their coffee, cleaning the RV, offering encouragement.
They represent the other half of the Laborers, perhaps invisible to the drivers ghosting by the work site near Hopyard Farm.
Yet they are vital to those in Peace Lutheran's congregation, and to their spouses. Together, the women bond during the long days their husbands devote to construction, about 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Here, their situation is unusual, the wives say. Most projects allow the Laborers to park their RVs on the building site, but the lack of utilities there has driven them half an hour away to Colonial Beach.
On this day, as is their daily routine, the wives josh around with one another after the men have left, and discuss plans for the day and the week before taking a walk around the campground.
Lucy Busse and her husband Dale's goodbye kiss attracted the apparent envy of Linda Bellow, who cracks after the men leave, "Some days Harold [her husband] kisses me."
Dale's beard had scratched Lucy's face. "These men are too busy to even shave," she says.
Intrusion of the outside worldThe women spend most of their days either in the campground or amid members of the Peace Lutheran congregation. Despite their seeming isolation from the vicissitudes of the world, the women know it's inescapable.
On this morning, Linda Bellow retreats to her RV in the period between the wives' early walk and their weekly Bible study at Peace Lutheran. CNN is on, showing malnourished infants in Africa.
"It's amazing how so many people have nothing, like in Africa," Bellow says as she drinks coffee out of a mug that reads "May your cup be filled with God's love."
"We're so blessed." Being a member of the Laborers, she says, is "such a wonderful thing." The couple is from Kerrville, Texas; this is their fourth project.
The women soon board a van to go to their Bible study in Peace Lutheran's current building, where they will discuss the importance of forgiveness and the shame of pride.
News of the slain Pennsylvanian Amish girls has just roiled the nation. During their Bible study led by the Rev. Terry Naumann, pastor of Peace Lutheran, the women try to comprehend it.
They are impressed with the Amish people's ability to forgive.
Bellow says to the group, "Our goal is to be with Him. I'm not saying it don't hurt. But those families have girls with the Lord."
Later, they turn to the Bible passage in the book of Luke on the Good Samaritan. How do you help someone, they wonder, when doing so can be dangerous?
Naumann leads them in a prayer asking God to help them "not just to put up a building, but witness your love in our community."
After Bible study, Nancy Miller, 65, says, "I just don't know what I'd be like if that happened," referring to the Amish slayings. Then again, she said, "if you don't forget and you carry around hate all the time, that's not good either."
Offers Bellow: "You pray a lot."
Soon enough, they revert to their usual razzing and talking of the husbands and grandchildren. As they drive back a smidge before noon, they pass the sunny soybean fields by Monroe Bay Campground, and pull into their familiar place.
'This is our ministry'Thursdays, the women have the Bible study, and Tuesdays some visit the nursing home in King George. There are the occasional trips to the library for Internet, or to Fredericksburg for shopping or tourist attractions. Generally, though, weekday afternoons are long with knitting, reading, watching TV, cleaning and resting.
"We kind of go crazy out here, by ourselves," says Meyers, who passes the time reading Amish novels.
"It's nice," Miller says. "You can do whatever you want while [the men] are gone."
"It's a transition period for me, to go from being so busy all day long not to be," says Sarah Wydeck, who was a medical records transcriptionist in Illinois. Wydeck is certified to do construction, but there was no opening for her on this project, hers and husband Lyle's first.
Today, the wives lunch together at a picnic table. Talk shoots to their youth. They ask one another, who used to make feed-sack dresses? Who made the hollyhock dolls and had their feet X-rayed at the shoe store? Differences in region, class and age emerge.
Wydeck, 63, shakes her head "no" to most of this reminiscing. She is the youngest in a circle with many septuagenarians, and then the eldest at 82, Lucy Busse.
They talk of their hometowns, their husbands, their children and their grandchildren.
Most wives say that Laborers for Christ has not changed them. They have always been Christians and members of a church, and many planned on spending their retirement in some volunteer capacity. About half the couples in this group have sold their houses and live full-time in their RVs.
Miller said a trip last winter to Hurricane Katrina-devastated Slidell, La., "made me realize a lot of material things we place a value on don't mean anything, and I've never really minded living in this little space."
"It's not work for us; this is our ministry," says Judy Botzenhart, whose husband, Fred, is the project manager. This is the North Carolina couple's seventh project.
Photos of Botzenhart's children and grandchildren adorn her RV. She talks about how the work crew led the Peace Lutheran preschoolers through the half-finished church because they are the heart of the project's purpose.
"We look at it as a building so that children can go to school and learn about Jesus," Botzenhart says.
For Lucy Busse, who has been a part of Laborers for 10 years, this is merely an extension of her life's work for God. She taught at a mission school in Nigeria in western Africa during the 1950s before marrying Dale. The couple went to what was then New Guinea to teach, staying until 1990.
Her reserved nature belies a spirit and life so adventurous that her companions often urge her to write a book. Now, the woman whom the others look up to as a mother spends her days knitting sweaters for an organization that sends them to children in war-afflicted countries. She also does cross-stitch for her grandchildren.
On the Busses' wall is a hanging given to Lucy and Dale by a friend. Along with a passage for her it reads: Dale: One of serenity. I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Psalm 116:8.
"He's quiet and unassuming, very much following the Lord's principles of helping people," his wife says. " As soon as I met Dale, God spoke to my heart. I just love him."
Close to each other and God"Hi ho, hi ho, the seven dwarves are home," Judy calls as the men spill out of the van in the early evening; her husband will come separately. Dale walks by, tall and lean and quiet.
Twilight has arrived; husband and wife reunite. People hustle to get ready for his 75th birthday celebration at Applebee's in Fredericksburg.
Mark Munderloh comes home to change his pants for the dinner. He skips his usual routine of drinking a gin and tonic outside the RV with their dog, Gilly.
Laborers for Christ has brought him and his wife, Liz, closer to each other and God, Mark said. "We spend more time in prayer and devotion than we used to."
Theirs is a humble faith. "We Christians are no different from anyone else," says Mark. "That's why we pray and ask God to forgive our sins."
The new Peace Lutheran Church is on its way to completion, with most of the exterior up. Visitors have stopped by the site to write Bible passages on the interior wall studs.
The Laborers will leave at the end of the month, many on to their next project. They are going on the faith of the Psalm they heard earlier in the day: Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
To reach MAYA RAO:
Email: mrao@freelancestar.com
