Family

Toxaemia is a potentially very serious condition - much more serious than I think either Susan or I realised at the time.  There is a great danger of losing the baby - or the child's being born with severe disorders including brain damage.  It is a name for a syndrome of symptoms rather than the name of a disease.  The symptoms include, especially, high blood pressure.  This threatens the baby's supply of oxygen and nutrients.  Toxaemia may become eclampsia, with maternal convulsions and the danger of death for both mother and child.

Dr Conyngham (properly called "Mr Conyngham" because he was a surgeon, not just a plain-or-garden doctor) put Susan immediately onto anti-hypertensive (anti-high-blood pressure) medication.  She quit her job at World Vision - fortunately she had done a good job of preparing Pat, her successor, to take over - and, in good Victorian fashion, went straight to bed and stayed there.  Her due date was 12 July.  Each week her regular doctor, Dr Blaiklock, whom we had known from Hillsborough Baptist, saw her and monitored her condition.

On Thursday 10 July Dr Conyngham said that Susan must go into hospital to be induced.  Her health was becoming worse and worse.  In the normal course of things, Sue would have gone into "National Women's" - connected with Greenlane Hospital - but Dr Conyngham insisted she must go into "The Mater" - Mater Misericordiae Hospital, now called Mercy Hospital.  This was a little shocking to me.  The Mater was, of course, Catholic.  Dr Conyngham said that that hospital was superior for what he wanted.  We were told by those who knew him that the real reason was because he lived across the street from it - his convenience was what was driving the decision :-)  Well, at least it meant that when he was needed for Susan, there wouldn't be a half-hour drive!

In she went, on Thursday the 10th.  They began injections that morning.  By evening, nothing much had happened.  Friday was when things began to get sticky.  Susan had not really started labour, so they put her on an intravenous drip of some sort - and she spent all day in this situation.

And all night.  The nurses told Susan, after all was over, that she ought to have had a Caeserean section on Friday - but that Dr Conyngham was tied up, giving a party at his house.  Whether this is so or not, it is certainly the case that Sue spent all that time in labour, but without giving birth.  She endured, during most of the Friday (when I was not at the University) my reading aloud to her from a book - one of James Herriot's delightful books about his time as a veterinary surgeon.  I say 'endured' - it is even possible that she enjoyed the reading, as much as was possible under the circumstances.  I think if the roles had been reversed, I would have wanted to kill the reader.  Susan is more patient.

On Saturday morning, the 12th July, Dr Conyngham came in - and immediately told Susan that her baby would be born in an hour and a half.  She did not understand immediately that he intended to deliver the child by Caeserean.
Delivered he was - and none too soon.  He was seriously oxygen-starved.  The nurses had to use oxygen and do other things to keep him breathing for something like 15-20 minutes after delivery, before he could breathe by himself.  Poor Johnny had a hard time coming into the world.

Susan herself was pretty knocked by the experience as well.  A week or two after Johnny was born, she was sent, by Dr Blaiklock, to spend a week at the Auckland Karitane Hospital.  She found that demanding as well.  It was very cold, and the nurses there seemed, she thought, not to think that she really needed to be there.  But at least it gave her a much-needed rest.

It was only some twenty years later that Susan told me about the real strength that bore her up through her ordeal at The Mater.  Perhaps she hadn't liked to mention anything so Catholic to me before, but she says that in fact she fairly quickly forgot about it.

On the Friday morning, when she had already been there for 24 hours, she thought that she was going to die.  So she prayed.  She asked Jesus to take care of her.

He did.  All that day, she tells me, and perhaps all Friday night as well, she saw Him standing in the corner of the room.  The image she had of Him was one with the Lord wearing something on His head, rather like this:

His head was covered, she said He told her, so that only she could see Him.

She asked Him what was going to happen to her.  "You are going to be all right" He said.  I have questioned her moderately closely about this.  It appears that the vision was the sort known as an imaginative vision - not meaning 'not real' but rather 'involving images' - but images in the mind, not ones that independent observers can see, but by contrast with intellectual visions - a certain knowledge of the presence of something.

Susan was never surprised at this happening to her.  She had asked Jesus to help her and he had.  What was there to be surprised at?

The Pace Quickens

My lecturing contract was for three years, beginning from 1 February, 1973.  When you start a three-year contract - and particularly when you are only 30 - the end does seem very far away. Now in 1975 I was in my last year of it. I was already beginning to think about the future.

During those first two years of my contract I had been working on finishing the two Yapese books.  I did not know what would happen at the end of 1975, but I knew that I might not have a job, so I had to finish these books.  Intense work was necessary now.  (Lucky all of you moderns with word-processors - in 1975 it was type and carbon copy and retype - very laborious). 

The first few months of 1975 were straightforward in other respects, I suppose.  We were now in our new church.  I was learning more and more of my Reformed faith.  I was, by now, heavily involved in reading the writings of what I think of as the Tyler Group - writers on economics (Gary North), and theology (Jim Jordan, R. J. Rushdoony).  Gary and Jim lived in Tyler, Texas.  Rushdoony did not, but Gary was married to his daughter - and they were writing on much of the same themes: Reformed theology, Reconstructionism, Theonomy, and political conservatism.  And Susan - willy-nilly - was having all these things explained to her in sometimes painful detail by me.

Susan's principle task, however, was different.  She had a deadline as well.  Our first child was due in mid-July.  Susan had never had a child.  I was Kathleen's father, but was not much use in that respect - nor, I'm afraid, had I been to Edna.  Sue went to pre-natal classes; went to La Leche League meetings; bought things.  Our friend from Hillsborough Baptist, Dr Blaiklock, had recommended an obstetrician, Dr Bruce Conyngham - a bit extravagant for us to go to a specialist, but it seemed a good idea - and as things turned out, it definitely was.

Sue was preparing to hand over her job at World Vision as Sponsorship Manager to her successor.  This was a major task as the organisation in New Zealand had grown from barely started in 1973 to a large and flourishing operation now with, I suppose, some thousands of sponsors throughout the country.

Liz would have to move.  And was it during this time that we painted - I think! - the bedroom that would be the nursery.  It may have been.

On 20th May - our third wedding anniversary - we took Liz to what I think must be one of Auckland's very best restaurants (Antoine's - we almost went this year for our fortieth, but timing didn't work out), and had a wonderful time.

Within a very short time - perhaps a couple of weeks - Susan was quite ill with toxaemia.

Nature

I do not think that we had thought, really, about having children.  I suppose we assumed it would happen - happen! - one day but, showing how modern we were, it would be 'when we were ready.'

Nature, however, has a way of taking its course.  Perhaps it was sometime in November, 1974, when we discovered that Susan was pregnant.

I remember very little about our experience - and particularly about Susan's experience - during those first six months of her pregnancy.  I just talked with Susan, because, I said, I assumed my own lack of recollection was simply typical male self-centredness - and that she would be able to give me a detailed rundown of what it was like for her - morning sickness?  swelling of ankles?

She says she remembers little about it herself.

She does recall that she spoke to her boss at World Vision about it - and that he was very positive.  This encouraged her greatly.

Sue's pregnancy pushed forward the religious question: were we Baptists - and thus did not believe in infant baptism - or were we Reformed - and did?

The ferment that all of this produced is something I recall without much emotion - by great contrast with my initial conversion to Christ and my becoming a Catholic.  Yet I know that at the time I was in considerable distress over the matter.

By now - the end of 1974 - I had been a Christian for five years.  I have a considerable tendency - as those who know me can testify - to leap into things very rapidly - at times too rapidly.  So by this time I had digested a great many books about Christianity - including having read the Bible several times, and by now quite comfortable with the Greek New Testament.  I had started where I was - in a Baptist church.  Thus I read Baptists and those sympathetic with them, the dispensationalists in particular.  There was a system implicit - and often explicit - with these writers.  I had at one point in this been sure that I now understood all the outline of Christianity.

But my reading did not stop with them.  My reading branched out.  It branched out, as I have said, to Reformed writers - to writers of what is sometimes called the magisterial Reformed churches (basically Lutheran and paedo-baptist churches of the Calvinist flavour).  And I was seeing that the Reformed viewpoint did, indeed, embrace all that I was certain was good and true in the Baptist - but that it was fuller.  In particular, the dispensationalist view specifically made much of the Gospels and much of the Old Testament to be irrelevant - or only tangentially relevant - to our lives in what was called the Church Age.  I think, also, there was an attraction in the Reformed spiritual genealogy, as it were, being longer than that of the Baptists - and particularly of the dispensationalists, which stems from the early Nineteenth Century.

The Reformed writers believed in baptising infants.  Here was an example of viewing the New Testament and the Church not as radical changes from the Old, but as its completion.  They pointed out that male infants were marked with the sign of the Covenant in the Old Testament - on the eighth day of life.  They reminded me that St Paul calls the Church the 'Israel of God' (Galatians 6:16).

And Sue and I had a child coming.  A decision would be forced on us, positively or negatively.

Making the change to being Reformed was painful.  We felt disloyal to our friends at Hillsborough Baptist.  Especially upset was my dear friend Ross Jackson (now Reformed himself, however!), who was very unhappy with our changing views.

Change we did, however.  At some point - perhaps January or February of 1975 - we asked to be made members of Avondale Reformed Church.  Seeing the photo on that page is nostalgic for me.  The members of that church were very close and dear to us.  It was our church home not only in 1975, but officially - and in a very practical way, as will appear - during our eight years in Yap, 1976-84.  Our membership in a church of the Reformed Churches of New Zealand governed our lives from that time, the beginning of 1975, until the time, both painful and yet intensely joyful, at the beginning of 1995, when we left the Reformed Churches of New Zealand for the Church in which subsists the fulness of Christ: the Catholic Church.

Growth

John Henry Newman famously said, in his Apologia, that 'growth is the only evidence of life.'

Whether the religious changes in my life from my first conversion at the end of 1969 through to my entry into the Catholic Church at the end of 1995 constitute growth or corruption will be decided variously by adherents to various Christian persuasions.

My own understanding of things religious was definitely not acquired in the usual way.  Susan had been brought up an Anglican.  She understood the basics of the Christian faith, and something of the pattern of denominations.  She knew the Bible tolerably well.  I had had none of these things.

So when I became a Christian, I started from scratch.  It is the firm teaching of Protestantism that, given the Bible, two unbiased persons will come to agree on all the essential matters.  With all due respect to my Protestant brethren, I fear that I do not think this is so.  Indeed, the question of just what matters are essential is, itself, one of the things that agreement may fail to be reached regarding.  The multitude of Protestant sects seems to me to testify to the failure of this project - to the lack of what is called the perspicuity of Scripture.

I did, indeed, begin strictly with the Bible - with the Bible and with a certain amount of cultural Christian knowledge - people who are Christians believe in Jesus, go to church, have an idea of sin - little more.

I began reading.  I read voraciously.  By the time we had lived in Auckland for a year, I had been reading for four years.  As I explained in an earlier post, we had been helped by Campus Crusade for Christ - and Campus Crusade was de facto Baptist or evangelical Presbyterian in orientation, although it has no official denominational outlook.  It was for this reason - the support of persons who loved us and cared for us - that we were now members of Hillsborough Baptist Church.

But by now I had read a lot of Baptist writers, from the Calvinist 'right' to the evangelical 'left' (if such terms are at all applicable). I had begun reading Church history - including Philip Schaff's History of the Christian Church.  I had been especially devoted to C. S. Lewis's writings.  I was increasingly of the opinion that Baptist Christianity, excellent start though it had given me, was not enough.

Precisely how we became aware of the Reformed Churches of New Zealand, I don't know, but we did.  Sometime during 1974, whilst continuing to be members of Hillsborough Baptist, Susan and I began exploring - and began to attend services at the Reformed Church of Bucklands Beach.  Initially I think this was just to find out what the church was like.  It was not long before we were no longer attending Baptist services.  We had not yet become members of any other church, but we were clearly on our way to becoming Reformed.

Sometime during that winter we acquired a boarder.  Liz Moltzen had moved up to Auckland from her home in Tauranga and was working at World Vision.  She was living with an old woman who was a friend of her family's - and finding it ... perhaps 'oppressive' is too strong a word; nevertheless, she wanted to live with younger persons.  Liz came and lived in our second bedroom in Mt Eden.

Neither Sue nor I can remember exactly when in 1974 Liz came there, but sometime in the middle of October a change came, although it was some weeks before we knew about it.  Susan was pregnant.

Endings and beginnings

It was only in September, 1983 that I knew for certain that Susan and I were committed to New Zealand for life.

It was in September of that year that I had confirmed from Ross Jackson in New Zealand that the company he worked for, called Interactive Applications Ltd (IAL), was prepared definitely to offer me a job - with practically an open-ended start date.  I talked with Sue at the time, and asked her what she thought we should do.  I said - what seemed obvious to me - that she understood, I trusted, that this would be a one-way move.  I was forty-one years old at the time.  We had four children.  I was making a major career change (from linguist to computer programmer).

Sue burst into tears.  I was upset by that - but surprised.  I had not thought there could be any doubt about it.

By the end of 1973 it was beginning already to be clear in fact that this would be the case, although I do not think I did any conscious thinking at the time about the matter.

We were now members of Hillsborough Baptist Church.  I don't suppose it had even occurred to us that in any sense we would retain our membership at International Baptist in Honolulu.

Had we friends in Hawai'i?  Well, I suppose we may have done, but I don't recall our having continued much of a relationship with them.  It is true that Shelly Harrison remained a friend with whom we communicated by mail, but at some point - I don't recall when - he had moved to Perth.  Our friendship was with him, not with "friends in Hawai'i."

Edna had remarried.  When did this happen?  I don't know for certain - it may even have been before we left Honolulu, but I rather think not.  She did, indeed, marry - and her husband Tony said that he wanted to adopt our daughter Kathleen.

I said 'yes' to the request and signed the requisite forms.

It would be unfair to suppose that I had no fatherly feelings towards Kathleen, nor to say that this action cost me nothing emotionally.  What I think was the case was that I was already beginning mentally to think of myself as a New Zealander.  Kathleen was far away.  I was not able to be involved with her life.  She was, I thought, better off treating her mother's husband as her father.  Kathleen reads this blog; perhaps she can tell me what of truth and what of error there was in this attitude.

15 April, 1973 had come and gone and I had filed a US income tax return.  The US tax law seemed to say that I was obliged to file a return each year, though I had no US income, and would have no tax to pay.  I did continue to do this, and when we lived in Yap, our income was taxable.  Within a year or two of our return to New Zealand, in 1984 (28 years ago as I write today, 20 May, 2012) I stopped doing even that.  The US Internal Revenue Service has never come after me for those years.

Auckland was now completely our home.  All our real friends were here.  Our working life was here.  Our religious life was here.  In 1975, we voted in the national election.  Our food and drink were what other New Zealanders ate and drank.  We have known Americans who have lived for a few years in Auckland, and who, it seemed clear to me, would eventually move back to the United States.  They were clearly foreigners living abroad.

By the end of 1973, it was clear that we were no longer that.

There were changes in the offing, however.  Sometime during 1974 we ceased to be Baptists.

We interrupt this programme...

... to bring you this bulletin - I am frantic :-)  Concert on the 19th, rehearsals today and tomorrow, next week Thursday, Friday, and the Saturday before the concert.  I hope to put something up next week Sunday.  In the meantime ... do not adjust your sets.

Normal life

We were fortunate that our landlord was a doctor.

Susan began going to work at World Vision (riding our 90cc Honda up and down Symonds Street amidst the Trolley 'buses).  She came home each evening and made dinner for us, got up each morning and went to work.

And was increasingly exhausted.  One morning she felt she simply could not go to work.  She must, she thought, be sick.  Well, Dr Grigor had his surgery upstairs in the building our flat was in.  She made an appointment.

She received exceptional treatment from Dr Grigor.  Doctors in New Zealand are partly funded by the State - in 1973 the funding was considerably more than it is now - and are under pressure to move patients through quickly.  15 minutes per patient was the standard.  Dr Grigor spent something like half an hour with Susan - and charged her only the standard $2 for the visit

Sue had (somehow - there was no fashion for this sort of thing at the time) been on what would now be called a low-carbohydrate diet.  She had eaten this way since before I knew her.  Dr Grigor asked her what she ate - and was horrified.  No fruit.  Little grains.  Protein and fat, basically.  He lectured her sternly and prescribed a balanced diet for her.  It was not long before she was in much better shape.

Looking back on 1973, I realise how much has changed in New Zealand in nearly 40 years.  Milk was not homogenised - and was delivered in pint bottles - at 4 cents/pint - it is now homogenised and $2.50/$3.00 for a 2-litre (roughly three and a half pints) plastic bottle - at the supermarket.  A telephone call at a 'phone booth was 2 cents.  Now there are still 'phone booths, though I am not sure how much they get used.  Who doesn't have a cellphone?  The 'Family Benefit' was still around, though only $6/week - but we got that when Johnny was born in 1975, and it was not insignificant.  Shops were open five days a week, with the exception of fruiterers and greengrocers (Saturday morning), and 'dairies' ('convenience stores') - all day Saturday.  Things are rather different in 2012!

By the end of 1973:

• our home church was Hillsborough Baptist Church
• we had made many wonderful friends - Geoff and Julie Renner (Geoff was Sue's boss at World Vision), George and Coral Curle and their children, especially David, Maria Subritzky (who married David!)
• we had acknowledged the inadequacy of the '90 and replaced it with a fantastic motorbike - two cylinders, 175cc, electric start! (another Honda :-))

I was working intensely that year on finishing the Yapese Reference Grammar and the Yapese-English Dictionary that I had contracted with the University of Hawai'i Press to write.  Pugram had been flown (at whose cost??) to Auckland and spent a couple of weeks in May - beginning to be very cold - helping me with them.  I think that my part of the production of those two books continued into 1976, when we were already living in Yap.

And I was deepening my knowledge of Calvinism.  When Sue and I were first married and living in Honolulu I had already begun a practice which I continue to this day, that of inflicting on her (and on our children when they were home) reading from whatever books seem to me suitable and interesting and likely to be helpful.  During our children's years at home these were sometimes rather more digestible things, such as Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.  When Susan and I first lived in Mt Eden, I read aloud such page-turners as Cornelius Van Til's Syllabus: Introduction to Systematic Theology.  We were not to be Baptists much longer.

Our first Christmas in New Zealand we spent with the Browns in Howick.  It was high summer - and it rained.  "I thought it was supposed to be summer!" Sue said to our hostess.  "It always rains on Christmas!"  Not quite true, but not far off.