Continuing my childhood journey and how I was led, this section describes a turning point in my life as a young teenager. It is another part of an upcoming book or website section entitled Divinely Led.
Part 1: Growing up in a Communist Society
A Turning Point
The time was spring or early summer in 1965, when I was 13 years old. A registered letter came from Sweden offering my father a one-year Symphony Orchestra position in Gothenburg. There was a considerable background to this which at that time I was unaware of.
Since they got married, my parents had wanted to leave the then Communist country – it became Communist through a coup the year they got married, in 1948. They first tried to cross the border into Germany that year, but were unsuccessful. Since that time, they were under surveillance. No other opportunity presented itself until 1965 when my dad became aware of an orchestra position for oboe in Sweden and decided to apply.
My parents made the idea of him going palatable to me by appealing to receiving special material things and being able to travel. The flip side was that I would go to a boarding school in the country, away from Prague, but be able to visit Sweden during my school holidays. Foreign travel was attractive to me as a teenager, since this would have been a rare privilege under the Communist regime.
Dad left in July 1965. Even though he didn’t speak Swedish, God provided him with good friends who spoke German and were willing and able to help him adjust. Spying was also an issue, so great discretion was needed even in correspondence home.
I spent the summer holiday with my mother in a country location. Dad kept sending cards and letters and I got to know the mailman and sometimes pick them up from him before he would drop them off at our hotel.
After the holidays, I started the new school year – Year 8, which was the second last basic school year – in a boarding school in the village of Senozaty in central Bohemia. Living in the country was quite new to me. It was an interesting, but mixed experience as I didn’t totally fit in among the girls there but did OK in school. I had been told that the children there all had parents overseas, but it turned out that only one was in that situation, while the rest were from broken homes – a situation nowhere near as prevalent as it is nowadays. There were two girls’ bedrooms – one for the older girls and one for the younger ones. Age wise, I was right in the middle. I started with the older ones, but later asked to be transferred to the other bedroom.
Mum had trouble with getting her passport and visa to be able to join her husband. It became a months-long drawn out process. The uncertainty and the stress of it all drove her to smoking. Finally, in October, she left the country to join dad.
My parents applied for a visit permit for me for Christmas, which was denied. They tried again for the mid-year school holidays at the end of January. This time they applied to two ministries, and one permitted the visit, while the other denied it again. So it was indeed a miracle that I could come in that the approval letter preceded the denial letter, which didn’t come till after I had arrived in Sweden.
When I left Czechoslovakia, I wasn’t aware that this would be my last time at the home where I grew up and the last time to see my grandmother with whom I spent Christmas just a few weeks before.
Looking back, I can see God’s hand and unmistakable guidance in all these events and the family’s departure from Communist Czechoslovakia. My parents were not greatly spiritual or religious, though they must have had a measure of faith in God. (According to their birth certificates, they were both baptized in the Czechoslovakian Church, but under Communism, religious adherence and observance were strongly discouraged.)
There must have been great stress and fear on my mother’s part in coming back to Czechoslovakia to pick me up and not knowing if it would all work out till the train was totally out of the country, and even out of East Germany. Apparently, from what I gathered later, if anything were found not in order, we could have been turned back as long as we were within the Communist bloc. Even though my parents weren’t to all appearances believers – though they were born into the Czechoslovak Church and baptized as babies – and I was an atheist, God was certainly with us and actively working behind the scenes. All this was my understanding at the time, but it would change not many years hence. Years later, on various occasions, my father would openly acknowledge that it was God who brought me out of the country.
I can only now appreciate my parents’ love – when it would have been easy to leave me behind, they didn’t. Even though I felt insecure growing up and often doubted that I was wanted and loved, this turning-point event unequivocally proved that the answer was a resounding yes.
God had gone ahead – unbeknown to me at the time, but in another three years or so, He could call me to Himself when I would be ready to respond.
For other information on divine leading, see Spirit Helpers and Guides
Here is a short reflection on being divinely led.