An earthquake? No, just the horses tied to the house posts, waking up in a playful mood. At a mid-morning rest stop we were served tea by a Chinese woman with pitifully small bound feet. Such a sight is common on Bhamo roads, for, as one author put it, we are living at China’s back door. The chief and his elders gave us a royal welcome. In every country (the United States included) there is ignorance, poverty, selfishness, and war. But slowly God’s love is bringing life and healing.
In letters home Martin tried to alternate the “heavy” news about poverty and the need of the Kachins with descriptions of the countryside:
Villagers are getting the dread disease of dysentery during the rainy season because so many of the wells are contaminated . . . We love to watch the people planting rice. It looks a bit like wheat, but greener. There is no greener green in the world.
The packets of letters that Mabel’s mother kept in her dresser drawer included many of the envelopes from afar. Early in 1935 the stamps were Indian, with a picture of England’s King George the Fifth. Printed on the bottom were the words noting that they were for use in Burma: “British India.”
To the families, Mabel tried to send descriptions of what it was like to celebrate Christmas far from home in a warm and tropical climate. After describing the special programs at school and church, she allowed herself a little reflection of Birmingham and of holidays the family was celebrating without her:
I am wondering how each of you spent Christmas Day. I tried not to think of you. But I want to be just where we are, doing the work we are trying to do. Martin made me a teakwood tray in the school carpenter shop, a complete surprise. I gave him a wristwatch and a sweater he has already worn after playing tennis. On Christmas Eve we read the Christmas story and listened to “Silent Night” on our Victrola [record player].
After the holidays Martin returned to supervising the teachers and headmasters in village elementary schools:
Just got back from a trip on foot so I still have a lot of kinks in my joints. It is almost mail time but I must tell you about my elephant. No, he really isn’t mine, because I forgot to take a cage to put him in that morning. Two of the Kachin young men with me were some distance ahead. As I came around the curve there they stood as if glued to the path. It did not take me long to figure out that something over in the jungle needed to be looked at. And there he was, a great big fellow; at least I think he was big, because I didn’t wait to measure him. One of the young men dropped his hat. I must have jumped around, or over him, as he bent down to pick it up. Ordinarily elephants in the jungle are not dangerous, and will run away from people, but when you see one close up you want to move out of their way.
Back in town, every week-day evening, Martin would meet with teachers from the nearby villages who would come to confer about their schools. And while he and Mabel had been late night stay-ups, they learned to go to bed early and awaken at 5:00 a.m. to help supervise the high school boarding students who worked for their tuition:
About a dozen boys work in the carpenter shop. Yesterday morning, while it was cool, a group of us planted grapefruit and orange trees. I’m trying to get a hive of bees for the orchard.
In 1935, as soon as her first weeks of pregnancy had safely passed, Mabel wrote to the families that she and Martin were expecting their first child in early October. She told how she would be driven to the hospital in Namkham (NAAM-KAAM), seventy miles from Bhamo, in plenty of time to await the birth. A second letter followed:
Now don’t think that anything has actually gone wrong. It’s just that I do not feel equal to the long trip because the rains have caused many mud slides. The doctor at the local clinic said that I was progressing normally but thought it unwise to make that trip. Please don’t worry.
By telegram Mabel’s parents learned that their first grandchild, a boy, was born on October 3, 1935, and that mother and baby were fine. It was years before they knew that the facilities at the Bhamo clinic had not been adequate for their daughter’s long and complicated labor.
For Christmas that year Mabel made a “tree” of branches from a bush and decorated it with small toys and a tiny stocking for their baby. They invited friends, also far from home, for a festive dinner:
We ate by candlelight and had English plum pudding for dessert. Afterwards we sat around the charcoal brazier (imagining it a fireplace) and sang carols in our native Swedish, Finnish, English and American accents. In spite of the foreign tongues, the evening seemed more like home than any since the Christmas of 1932 that I spent with all of you.
9
January was rice harvest time, and Mabel accompanied Martin to several village celebrations that reminded them of an American Thanksgiving. They were humbled by the gifts from church members, poor themselves, who gave offerings to support schools in even more remote areas.
The Bhamo school continued to expand. Early in 1936 Martin reported:
Twenty-two little ones in a revived kindergarten, 168 high-school students, the largest enrollment in the school’s history. Extra carpentry and singing classes added. The once-empty house next door is full; a clinic, sewing room, library, and teacher’s lounge. Even the porch is filled with a kindergarten class. Sweet potatoes and peas flourish in the school garden. And some of the lemon, grapefruit, and orange trees are thriving.
Martin enjoyed a challenge. When the Christian townspeople decided they wanted to build a church, the young man trained as a minister, not an architect, helped to design it:
River stones for the Roberts Memorial Church are being hauled into town and onto the school compound. A large number of villagers helped to pick up the stones before the beginning of rainy season.
Life for farmers, and indeed all residents of the district, revolved around the rainy season. Mabel told her family, “Just learned that Bhamo is no longer cut off from the rest of the world. This year the rains came early, washed out a section of railroad track, and delayed all mail delivery.”
Mabel and Martin had an old car, but it soon cost too much in repairs and petrol (gasoline) for upkeep. When he needed to visit village schools, Martin would ride the commercial truck, used for haling river stones for the church, as far as the end of the paved road at the edge of town. There he would get on a horse and travel to areas on both sides of the Burma-China border. Usually he was gone for a week. Mabel would spend her days caring for their young son, sending the reports that needed to go to Rangoon, and writing long letters to her family.
The “stone truck” makes about five trips a day, hauling river stones for the church you have heard so much about in our letters. The clunk of unloading, and the racing of the noisy old motor delights the baby.
Sometimes, when the temperature in Bhamo was over 100 degrees and the air sticky with humidity, the family would go up to the hills for a few days of vacation. For Mabel, these times away with her husband and son and few interruptions were a treat:
We walked three miles down, down, down to a beautiful waterfall. Amazed to find such a lovely place that near our cabin. A brilliant rainbow in the high spray. We picked some huge yellow raspberries on the way back to the picnic spot, then went wading. Kerplop! I took a half-way swim when I stepped on a slippery rock. It felt so good I was tempted to find another rock.
Love to all, and take care of your sweet selves.
Bhamo, June 27, 1936
Dear Ones,
How does it feel to be twenty-eight? Not a speck older, really. Monday the 22nd was happily
