Shaping of a Servant

Carl E. Hansen

Description

God uses ordinary circumstances, events, people, and especially family to shape a growing child into an adult equipped to fill a unique role in later life.

In his The Odyssey of a Family series, the author reflects on the mystery of how God plans far ahead, arranging details and events that blend to create, shape, prepare, call, empower, and guide very ordinary human beings for his unique purposes.



In his first book, Pilgrims Searching for a Home, the author recounts the impressive story of his grandparents, Jacob, and Justina Friesen, who with their family escaped the horrors of revolution and civil war in Russia to settle in western Canada, where they raised their fourteen children through the trauma of the Great Depression and the war that followed.



In this second book, Shaping of a Servant, the author tells his own story. He begins biographically describing the story of his parents and the mystery of how God brought them together from two distinctly different countries and cultures. He marvels how they found romance in their courtship and marriage under severely stringent conditions. He chronicles their struggles in establishing a loving home into which he was born. From there, the author transitions into an autobiographical mode reviewing his growing years, highlighting the unique circumstances and adventures that shaped him.



This is the story of a young man growing in self-awareness, struggling with a sense of divine call. It leads to a romance in which he finds his significant other. Together they form a team, finding direction and committing themselves to lives of service in God’s kingdom.

Sujets

• Religion
• Christianisme
• Christian Living
• Personal Growth
• Philosophie et théologie

Informations

• Publié par: WestBow Press
• Date de parution: 06 janvier 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781664283978
• Langue: English

Extrait

SHAPING OF A SERVANT


The Odyssey of a Family







CARL E. HANSEN









Copyright © 2023 Carl E. Hansen.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.



WestBow Press
A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan
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Bloomington, IN 47403
www.westbowpress.com
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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Cover designed by Destiny Joy Gomez-Kreider of “Destiny Designs,” a granddaughter of the author, using a photo of the Hansen brothers standing in front of their much-loved Jeep

Scripture quotations marked (JB) are taken from the JERUSALEM BIBLE Copyright© 1966, 1967, 1968 by Darton, Longmand & Todd LTD and Doubleday and Co. Inc. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www. zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.®

Scripture marked (KJV) taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

ISBN: 978-1-6642-8396-1 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6642-8398-5 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-6642-8397-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022921338



WestBow Press rev. date: 01/06/2023









To God, the Architect and Builder:
It was you who created my inmost self,
and put me together in my mother’s womb;
for all these mysteries I thank you:
for the wonder of myself, for the wonder of your works.
You know me through and through,
from having watched my bones take shape
when I was being formed in secret,
knitted together in the limbo of the womb.
You had scrutinized my every action
All were recorded in your book,
my days listed and determined,
even before the first of them occurred.
God, how hard it is to grasp your thoughts!
How impossible to count them!
I could no more count them than I could the sand,
And suppose I could, you would still be with me.
-- Psalms 139:13-18 The Jerusalem Bible



DEDICATION
I dedicate this book to the memory of my mother and father, Elizabeth Winnifred (Friesen) and Jens Peter Hansen, who brought me into this world and taught me the most important essential, the key to life: “In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” (Proverbs 3:6 – NIV). They modeled for me and taught me the importance of aligning my spiritual life and what we can know about God, with the physical realities, including the value of hard work, of honesty and integrity, of stewardship and bearing responsibility, of being dependable and trustworthy, of being co-creators with God in caring for his “garden” planet Earth, and of being generous and self-giving for the good of others – all of these, the key to a life well-lived.
Since my youth, O God, you have taught me,
and to this day I declare your marvelous deeds.
Even when I am old and grey, do not forsake me, O God,
till I declare your power to the next generation,
your might to all who come.
-- Psalms 71:17, 18 NIV



CONTENTS
Preface
Acknowledgments
Acronyms

Chapter 1 “The Dane”: Searching For A Home
Chapter 2 The Dutch Mennonite Maiden
Chapter 3 Pushing The Boundaries In Romance
Chapter 4 Joining On The Journey
Chapter 5 Growing A Family In Ontario
Chapter 6 Re-Planting In Alberta
Chapter 7 Reaching For Manhood
Chapter 8 Searching For Direction
Chapter 9 Equipping For Service
Chapter 10 Domestication Of A Non-Conformist
Chapter 11 Finding Direction



PREFACE
Since I was a youth in high school, I had a desire to write a book about our growing years as a family. Although I recognized that we were just ordinary people, I also realized that every family has a unique story. A life worth living should be worth reading about. I knew my father’s story and my mother’s story were interesting, and I believed the story of growing up with my four brothers and two sisters was interesting enough to warrant a book.
My resolve was rekindled while taking a course in 1985 called Leadership Perspectives ML 530 under Professor J. Robert Clinton at the School of World Missions, Fuller Theological Seminary. One of our assignments was to write a “Personal Leadership Selection Process Paper” in which we were to reflect upon our whole life, and even that of our progenitors, those who have gone before us, to see how God used so many different people, influences, circumstances, and events, both good and seemingly bad, to mold and shape us into the kinds of persons we are today.
It was exciting and sobering to see how God, the expert craftsman, builds people who will later fill the roles of service for which they have been uniquely fitted. The work accomplished on my paper gave me courage and confidence that my story would be worth writing.
Today, reflecting again on this assignment from the perspective of thirty-seven years later, I can see so much clearer how this life process has worked out in my life. In the words of Ulysses as quoted by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “ I am a part of all I have met!” All of those seemingly unrelated events, influences, experiences, and circumstances that I faced since my birth, and even those of my forebearers, have shaped and equipped me and have come into convergence in my later years, enabling me to undertake and accomplish the more difficult and profound level of service that I would not have been able to succeed in doing, even in my mid years. Each of these process items has worked together to make me the kind of person I have become and enabled me to undertake the kinds of challenges that I have now completed.
During one of our furlough years, those precious times when we could reconnect with family and friends and supporters, our sponsoring mission asked me to spend time with a counselor. One thing I took away was the counselor’s question: “What is driving you?” I do not think he ever got to an answer, and I did not either, but the question did make me think. Am I a “driven person”?
I reflected for a long time and finally admitted to myself that I am a driven person. Throughout my adult life, I have been approaching whatever I do with determination and tenacity and a sense of purpose. But what is that purpose that has been driving me? Is it comfort, security, money, possessions, success, popularity, fame, power and respect, or leisure and enjoyment? What is driving me?
The question is too introspective, too shallow. Should we not also take into consideration an often-overlooked dimension, the role of our Creator and Sustainer, the one so intimately connected in our lives, the One by whom “we live and move and have our being?” When we ask, “What is driving me?” should we not also ask, “Who is driving me?” Recently, I came across a quotation that reminded me again of this synergistic relationship we humans can have with the Almighty:
It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be ground down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improve yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.
-- Karol Wojtyla (who became Pope John Paul II)
Looking back from the perspective of advancing age, I think the answer may be that from my youth on, I have been driven to make my life count, in some way, to make the world a better place for my having been here, to leave a legacy of having made a difference, of contributing some good that would be of benefit to others and all future generations. It is that purpose that now drives me to devote many days and months of my declining years to reflect upon my life and write my memoirs so future generations, and particularly my descendants, can get a glimpse of lessons I have learned. This exercise is taking the form of a series of books on different phases of my life. Together, this series expresses The Odyssey of a Family .
In 1991, at the age of fifty, I began to write a rough draft of my story. It began with a review of all the information I could collect about my paternal and maternal ancestors. It continued with the years from earliest family memories up to September 28, 1967, the day my wife and daughter and I boarded a plane on our way to begin a term of missionary service in Ethiopia.
From the first part of this material, I developed the book, Jacob and Justina: Pilgrims, The Odyssey of a Family that was printed by Masthof Press in 1998 and reprinted as Pilgrims Searching for a Home: The Odyssey of a Family, by Westbow Press in 2022. This is the story of my maternal grandparents who grew up in Russia and immigrated to western Canada in 1924 and raised