Tuesday’s door

It was a long time before I noticed the closed door in the church basement.

I had not grown up in the Coaldale MB Church, so had not played the games of hide-and-seek and chasing friends through hallways and basement corridors that children do (while parents visit in the foyer), thereby acquainting themselves with every nook and cranny of a building.

I did eventually notice that this door remained closed during the busyness of Sunday mornings. No Sunday school classes were held there. And, it was too big for storage.

“Blankets,” someone said. “They store blankets in there.” If I came on a Tuesday morning, they told me, the door would be open.

Tying a quilt at West Portal Church’s Vacation Bible school are (l–r) Bertha Froese, Fred Enns, and Kimberly Wells.

I could hear the laughter and chattering long before I got to that room one Tuesday morning. English mixed with German and the sounds of sewing machines. The door stood ajar, and inside were cutters, and sorters, and piecers, and sewers, and those who tied.

There was a very specific way to tie, I discovered, once I joined the ranks. First loop goes over, the next one under. It keeps the knot together longer.

I also discovered they quilted many other days of the week. Tuesday, however, was the day they gathered to quilt together.

As I paged through the manual of our 2006 VBS program, four years after leaving Coaldale, I saw a mission project called “Blanket Your World.” It reminded me of the blankets that went out year after year after year from Tuesday’s door.

This, however, was not Coaldale, Alta. This was West Portal Church in Saskatoon. Could I find quilters who would be brave enough to bring their craft into a children’s ministry?

The search revealed treasure. I learned that until he passed away last year at age 97, Frank Froese had been regularly on his knees, cutting between 300 and 400 pieces of fabric a week for his wife Bertha to sew together. Harold Tieszen has taken up the job since Mr. Froese’s death, adding the 400 Froese pieces to the 400 pieces he cuts for his own wife Miriam every week.

These people formed the core of a team of quilters who agreed to teach crafts at our VBS this summer. They made an indelible mark on an unpredictable and occasionally wild group of children, who loved the opportunity to use their hands to make something for others who had nothing.

The next Sunday morning, those seniors were bending to visit with little people who ran up to newly familiar faces to say “Hi!” Thank you Harold and Miriam Tieszen, Tina Dyck, Charity Zwarich, Bertha Froese, Margaret Schroeder, Linda Neudorf, Shirley McKeller, Lisa Hale, and Adam Klassen for opening this door to the children. Thank you to those who worked behind the scenes to help the children complete 16 blankets in one week.

Thank you too to the Coaldale quilters behind Tuesday’s door, for an idea and for what you taught me about remembering God’s faithfulness.

Darlene Klassen is children’s pastor at West Portal Church in Saskatoon.