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CURRENTLY IN BOOKS
Christian virtues presented through a variety of characters and settings

Elma Martens Schemenauer

God’s Orchard: Fruit of the Spirit in Action Helen Lepp Friesen. Winnipeg, Man.: Kindred Productions, 2001. 125 pp. $10.99.

The breadth of Helen Lepp Friesen’s experience and international outlook are evident in God’s Orchard. Born in Rivers, Manitoba, Lepp Friesen has lived in Paraguay, Kansas, Michigan and New Mexico. These 19 stories, all based on true events, present Christian virtues through a variety of characters and settings.

For example, there is Elsie, a craftswoman on a Navajo reservation, who finds joy as the Lord leads her from a job which she dislikes to a business that fulfills her true potential. Then there’s Robert, an inmate of a Kansas reformatory, who through God’s grace and a visitor’s generosity is paroled and goes on to study to be prison chaplain.

The stories are grouped under nine headings: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Generosity, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self-control. They are written in an accessible style suitable not only for the general reader, but also for people whose first language is not English. Stories especially appropriate for teens include “Meeting God on the Mountain”, “The Drama of Giving and Taking” and “God is Watching”.

In “God is Watching”, teens Hannah and John are helping their parents in an eye clinic in Pakistan. When the two young people go for a walk, two men start following them. It soon becomes clear that the men have evil on their minds. As one of them is about to throw a rock at John, Hannah cries out in Urdu, “Khuda dekne ap!” (God is watching). The invocation of God’s name seems to break the evil spell over the men, and they quietly leave without harming the teens.

In an equally powerful story, “Tending the Flowers”, the author tells of Margaret who has faithfully been caring for her ailing husband for 20 years. Lepp Friesen writes: “Her faded rose had long ago lost its freshness. Its petals drooped, its leaves colorless. . . . There must be a reward waiting for Margaret in the world to come . . . One day when God is walking through His garden, looking for an example to demonstrate faithfulness He will point to her and say, ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant.’”

Despite the strength of many of the stories, I found Lepp Friesen’s writing somewhat uneven in quality. I sometimes wished she would let me draw my own conclusions, rather than explain so much. I also was not fond of the drawings inside the book or the stylized wooden apple on the cover. Moreover, I question the subtitle Fruit of the Spirit in Action, since I don’t think fruit can be “in action”. Otherwise, I thought the book was great.

Elma Martens Schemenauer is a Toronto-based author.

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Last modified November 21, 2002.

© 2002 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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