Do not wait; the time will never be “just right.”
Start where you stand,
and work with whatever tools you may have at your command,
and better tools will be found as you go along.

George Herbert

Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace.

God is awake.

Victor Hugo

God protected my parents. He protected Dad in Basic Training. He protected Mom in her rocky start — even in the womb. And that protection has only persisted.

Mom believes that she accepted Christ at age twelve. She was walking home from the candy store with a new comic book she had purchased — a Bible comic book. And she was captivated by all the stories — which all pointed to the Grand Story of Christ. When the book talked about how Jesus had died for the sins of the world, she remembers feeling sadness for her sin and asking God to forgive her in Jesus’ name.

Dad attended a Presbyterian church in college — not because he believed as much as it was respectable. He had fully digested the argumentative, contrarian JW stance as his own. And he liked discussion especially about the Scriptures because he knew it was God’s Word.

Mom and Dad never really saw eye-to-eye on religion and never really had a need to. Until . . . my brother was born. They knew that they had to go somewhere to church for his sake. And Mom wouldn’t set foot in a Kingdom Hall. And Dad certainly wouldn’t be caught dead in a Catholic Mass.

So, whatcha gonna do? They compromised . . . Protestant! And all Protestant churches are alike, right? Dad would interject here, “Now, no self-respecting Pollack would be caught dead in a BAPTIST church! Never!!” Then he laughs wistfully and scratches his head and finger combs his hair.

God had moved my family away from Detroit to a rather lonely place for them — South Bend, Indiana. Mom had never set foot outside of Michigan except for her honeymoon, and she was so sentimental about leaving her home that she would still do her grocery shopping in nearby Niles, Michigan.

They picked a respectable downtown church — mainline Presbyterian. And my dear dad, loving to start a rousing discussion, would stir the pot in Sunday School as much as possible. Here’s how he tells it:

“Well, one morning we were discussing something-er-other. And so I said, ‘Why don’t we find out what the BIBLE says?’ And a lady responded — pillar of the church, mind you — ‘Henry! Don’t be silly!! The Bible is for CHILDREN!’ Can you believe that? . . . Pillar of the church!”

Around the same time, some neighbors invited my brother to Vacation Bible School at a nearby fundamentalist Baptist church. The first day he returned to tell Mom, “Hey Mom! I asked Jesus in my heart today!!” “Oh!” my mom cooed and thought, “What a cute way to put it!!”

Steve loved it all — the competition, the memory work, everything. And he got an award at the end of the week for his memory work. So my parents broke all convention and set foot in a Baptist church (of all places) for the first time in their lives.

It didn’t end there. The same neighbors started an Indian Guides group which they soon after abandoned for a new-fangled thing their Baptist church was starting — Awana.

Steve thrived. And because he wanted to get all the awards he could, he begged to attend Sunday morning church. Mom and Dad didn’t like the idea of him going alone with the neighbors, so they switched off. One week Mom would go with him and the next Dad would go.

“Now when Steve would come back from Sunday School at the Presbyterian church,” Dad remembers, “he would always mumble ‘murmurmur.’ But when he came back from the Baptist church, he was so excited! He wouldn’t stop talking about it! So, of course, we went with him to see what he was so happy about.”

I’m forever thankful for those dear friends at Community Baptist Church in South Bend. Pastor Vaughn Sprunger was not intimidated by my dad’s larger-than-life personality and argumentative questions. He seemed to welcome them. The ladies, too, were receptive to my mom and welcomed her to the ladies’ Bible study.

I was born a month premature (40 years ago next month!), and my mom couldn’t leave the house with me. So she offered to open our home to the Bible study. The women were tentative at first, Mom sensed, but they agreed. Because this group was meeting on Mom’s turf, she felt more comfortable to speak up and ask for explanations when she didn’t understand. And there in her own living room, my mom realized her salvation in Christ at 39 years of age.

A brief time later during a Monroe Parker revival service, my dad accepted Christ as His Savior.

Not long after all that, at age four, I was listening to Little Marcie sing “Jesus Knocks, Knocks, Knocks,” and I asked my mom what that meant. She explained that song’s metaphor (as out-of-context from Revelation 3 as it might be) that Jesus wants me to invite Him into my life as He knocks, knocks, knocks at my heart’s door. I remember kneeling by the couch and asking Jesus to be my Savior. That couch is still in the family too, except now it’s in my brother’s living room. In many ways really, I never remember a time that I didn’t know Jesus.

We Kaminskis have continued living our happy lives in Christ for these 39 years. My parents have raised two children who love the Lord and who have spouses who love the Lord too. Their grandchildren are all growing up in Christ as well. My parents have amassed enough commentaries to rival any pastoral library. They have been CEF teachers and board members, Awana commanders, and Camp Good News directors. They’ve taught Sunday School for years.

One of my favorite stories about my parents’ ministry began shortly after they were saved. Dad helped and taught in the Junior High Boys’ Sunday School. I always heard him talk about it: “You just love ‘em. That’s all they need. Somebody to care.” And he did. I know he did. Dad does everything with his whole heart. He is nothing if not earnest. One young boy was from a broken home and especially needed a reliable father-figure to lean on.

Years and years later when I was grown and married, Mom and Dad were attending a Sunday School convention in Detroit. Mom was with some ladies visiting a presentation about the life-long influence of Sunday School teachers. The speaker finished his talk by saying, “I have to tell you about a Sunday School teacher that meant a great deal to me. My parents had divorced, and I had no stable male influence in my life. But my Sunday School teacher cared. I knew that much. And I’m eternally grateful for Mr. Kaminski and how God used him in my life.”

My Mom’s mouth dropped to the floor. The ladies with her gaped and grinned. That meeting led to a happy reunion among old friends in Christ, and everyone left with a vivid object lesson about how God loves His own and how He is best glorified when we love and serve each other.

We Kaminskis all have grown in Christ together, and we all again stand on the threshold of something new but still familiar since God is at the helm.

All this because some neighbors invited a little boy to Vacation Bible School. All this because God continues to gently lead us along.

He will tend his flock like a shepherd;
he will gather the lambs in his arms;
he will carry them in his bosom,
and gently lead those that are with young.

Isaiah 40:11

One of my favorite family stories is how Mom and Dad met and fell in love.

When Mom was nineteen, Grandma sent her to the Polish Young People’s club to find a husband. She did not want to go. She grumbled to herself the whole way on the streetcar.

The entire experience was overwhelming to Mom: “All those people there were first generation Polish immigrants. They spoke Polish so fast. I couldn’t keep up!”

There was one man there, however, who was a second-generation Polish-American — Dad! Dad knew (somehow!) that Mom’s dad was a Russellite too, and he asked to walk her home. She agreed. But when the evening was over, she took one look at that very tall actor (!!) with a red mustache and ran away.

Dad was not discouraged that easily. And they began their courtship.

They dated eight years and were engaged for the last five. Mom was always afraid to tell her mom that she was actually marrying a non-Catholic: “I thought it would kill her!” So she was waiting for her mom to die before she got married.

Now if you were to hear Dad telling this story, at this point he’d pause the story and say to my mom, “Then you walked up the hill with Chester!” I still don’t entirely understand what that means. It’s not a euphemism for anything — I know that much. It’s a private joke between them. So then Mom rolls her eyes and shakes her head and sighs and laughs. I always thought I’d understand this better as I grew up. But I still don’t get it.

Dad was the Master of Ceremonies for every event, the life of every party. And my mom was the opposite. Look at that picture! There are so many questions that this nerdy daughter has for her even-more-nerdy (or so I thought) parents when I see that snapshot, but I usually just settle for, “Dad! Why aren’t you sitting next to MOM?” Mom always shrugs along with a “Who can know?”

She remembers going to a New Year’s Eve party where Dad was the MC. “There I sat in the audience ALONE! The only one! On NEW YEARS’ EVE!”

When they clearly had fallen in love, Mom was relieved to finally have a permanent dance partner that she enjoyed being near. She told Dad, “I’ve always wanted a man I could look up to.” And Dad quipped in a somewhat thespian but perfectly romantic way, “‘Twere better if we could see eye-to-eye!”

Mom describes Dad arriving for a date wearing his “Henry-Come-A-Courtin’” sweater (That alone is a story. Grandma knitted her son a dozen of these really awful looking vests. They were just plain ribbing from top to bottom. Awful. Scratchy wool. Dad STILL HAS TWO OF THEM! They are over 70 years old! One in Cass Tech colors, one in a wholly practical grey.) covered in cement. He had been helping his dad lay a foundation all day, and he arrived for a night on the town in all his construction glory!

Finally, after five years of engagement, Dad said, “That’s it! We need to get married! July 13. Or else!” Mom bit the bullet and told her mother. Grandma said, “Wait a week and we’ll throw you a shower.”

So on July 20, 1957 Mom the unconfirmed Catholic and Dad the argumentative Russellite married at the Justice of the Peace. My cousin Laurie was the only attendant, and they returned to Grandma’s house on Lyford to have a white sheet cake, boiled ham, rye bread, swiss cheese, a jar of pickles, and a jar of mustard.

And this is the time in the story-telling when Mom ends with, “See? I didn’t have a big and fancy wedding. But you know, I’m still as married as anybody else!”

Mom was the fifth child of Adam and Stefania, born on November 28, 1928. She was much, much younger than all her older siblings. So, according to Mom, that gave her a lot of freedom to “get away with stuff.” Stefania was pretty busy with tending to her grown family, so Mom kind of happily skipped along: “I never buttoned my coat or anything.”

She, like my dad, spoke no English when she started school. But she never officially graduated from high school because she couldn’t stomach the gym requirement. No kidding!

She was always a working girl — a secretary for Crowley’s and for R. C. Mahon. And she took care of her mother most of her adult life.

Mom is a quiet, behind-the-scenes sort of person. She’s the epitome of an INFP — quietly observing, feeling, empathizing, and processing. While my Dad seems bigger than life, my mom seems very much part of the woodwork, but looks are deceiving. Mom’s the glue that holds everything together. She is strong — emotionally and physically. She’s the exact opposite of a diva, but not in the home-spun, let’s-make-a-quilt-out-of-these-old-blue-jeans kind of way. She’s practical. She’s funny. She loves very deeply.

Mom’s the kind of woman who really would rather have a new shrub planted in the front instead of bouquet of long-stem roses. She loves blue, and I think I’m drawn to that color in my kitchen because it reminds me of her. She is always looking for a new kitchen gadget. She picks up Chinese take-out for a Baptist pot luck instead of slaving over another pan among dozens of muscacholi. And when she’s asked for the recipe, she giggles and says, “I’ll draw you a map.” She thinks picnics are silly: “Let’s just eat at home and then go to the park.” And my husband still thinks she makes the best coffee!

Her words still ring in my head:

• “Never work at a restaurant. You don’t want to always be around food.”
• “Honey, you’re tired. That’s why this is so frustrating. Put the sewing away until tomorrow.”
• “Don’t bother trying to be a professional actor. Too much disappointment. That’s no kind of life.”
• “Look at your Dad’s hands. See how hard-working they are? You want a man with calloused hands, honey.”
• “You highlighted your hair, didn’t you? Yeah. . . . mine always turned that same color green when I did that too.”
• “I never understood my mother-in-law, dear, until I had you.”
• “Oh, they are painting the lines for the cross walks. School will begin again. The leaves will turn colors soon. ::sigh::”
• “I think God gave us dogs and cats so we know what unconditional love looks like. It’s like a little slice of heaven.”
• “Always eat a little protein, dear. You’ll feel better.”
• “Don’t try to clean your plate.”
• “Boys have feelings too, you know.”
• “I always enjoyed you kids. I was always disappointed when school started up again. You were such fun!”
• “Meat’s easy to cook. It’s the easiest thing! So’s rice. Don’t buy Minute Rice. Just make it the regular way.
• “No cat is worth all that trouble.”
• “I learn so much from you kids.”

That’s my Mom!!

So after Wladyslava and Konstanty lost their first born in the flu epidemic, they had a girl, Irene, in 1922. Wlady and Kon were very Old World about it, and they really wanted a son. Badly. And my dad still believes that hurt his sister very deeply. My Dad was born just before midnight on May 13, 1923. It could have been on the 14th, it was that close. But JWs don’t do birthdays anyway. ;)

They don’t smile for pictures either. Well, at least Wlady’s brood doesn’t. She insisted. If you find a Kaminski photo with grins, it must have been a candid! So here is this very serious-looking family in 1932 at Belle Isle.

Dad’s birth was a traumatic one. He was breech, and they had to use forceps which hurt Dad’s right arm permanently. So he had to learn to be left-handed. But . . . that loss of dexterity kept him out of battle in WW2 because he couldn’t hold up a rifle while lying on the ground. So he was part of the home front. He did go to Basic Training, however (that’s how they discovered that he couldn’t prop up the gun correctly). He remembers traveling on the train on the way to Basic “with all manner of filth being discussed around me, and I sat there with my New Testament and my copy of The Merchant of Venice and immersed myself in those.”

Dad’s hard to describe. He’s bigger than life. One of those personalities that demands superlative descriptions. Smartest man I know. A complete extrovert. He was the tallest in his family — 6′3″ — and he grew that tall in 7th grade. We still frequently trip over those size thirteens too.

He spoke no English when he started Kindergarten in Detroit. He and his sister would do their homework listening to Tom Mix et al every night while Dad finished the whole apple pie that his mom made him every day. He always told me, “Camillia, the secret to doing well in school is sitting right up front next to the teacher. Don’t get distracted.”

He went to Cass Tech (college prep), U of Michigan (B.S. in Mechanical Engineering), and Michigan State (M.B.A.). He also completed one year of law school and was a professional actor back in the day. Not bad for the son of 3rd-grade-graduates!

He brought home every paycheck to his mom. In college, he did splurge every Friday night and buy himself one stick of gum and a Life magazine. He’d chew half the stick on Friday night and save the other half for Saturday. . . . We Kaminskis really know how to party, don’t we?

Dad always says, “If you don’t know how to do something, go to the library and get a book.” That’s how he and his mom learned lots of things and probably why I can’t resist leaving the library without a big stack of inspiration.

He built two houses for his parents — one right next to the other — on a farm out in the country at the intersection of 13-mile and Hoover. Grandma designed that little brick house herself (all that library reading paid off!). Grandma’s cow always got loose and wandered down to 14-mile and Hayes. Look at that street today compared to back then!!

When he and my mom first moved down here to Greenville, Dad went to the Polish church, the Spanish church, the French church, and, of course, regular church (all Baptist). If he could find German and Russian service, he’d go there to! He’s the kind of person who can talk to anyone and genuinely thinks the best of every person he meets. To Dad there are no strangers, and he’ll accost you with a deliberate and formal “Good Morning!” whether you’re ready for it or not! And flash you a big smile too (Wlady’s not around with a camera now)!!

That’s my dad!

While the Kaminski side of the family gave me a sort of a loud and tenacious championing for the underdog, the Chciuk side gave me something equally stubborn but a lot more quiet. Thanks, in large part, to this lady right here.

Stefania Bielatowicz was born April 15, 1893 in Galitzia, Poland. My mom’s not sure when she came to this country exactly, but we do know that she and Adam were the first couple to be married in the then-brand-new St. Stanislaus.

Grandma had five children: Steven (a very popular family name if you know any Chciuks), Edward, Harry, Stella, and, my mom, Lorraine. My mom was born 8 years after Stella and was a bit of a surprise. Grandma, so overwhelmed with life and the burden of being married to an alcoholic, actually considered ending that pregnancy. God obviously intervened!

I know Grandma always worked outside the home. Nothing glamorous, of course. My aunt Stella remembers Grandma wrapping her feet in waxed paper to prevent the acid that would fall on her shoes at her factory job from burning through to her skin.

I know how Grandma made chicken soup. And I have some of her crocheted tablecloths too. I know that she would often say to my mom, “Your husband’s wife is gonna be crazy.” and “Some day you’ll wish you can hear my voice!!”

Clockwise from Back: Lorraine, Stefania, Wanda, Christine, Diane, Geri

There’s Stefania with my mom on her right, my Aunt Wanda (Uncle Steve’s wife) on her left, and Wanda’s girls at Diane’s confirmation.

When my parents got married, they moved in with Stefania. Grandma was skeptical about this non-Catholic boy my mom was marrying. “Are you going to put a man before God, Laurie?” she said to my mom. My mom thought, “I’m not putting a man before God, Ma. I’m putting a man before a church.” But in the six-and-a-half years they all lived together, Stefania came to appreciate her youngest son-in-law. On her death bed, she called my mom over and said, “And Laurie, take care of Henry.”

My Mom remembers his funeral vividly. Someone bought her a Snow White coloring book (the movie had just been released), and all her family and friends were at the house visiting. It just made her happy to have all those people there! She really didn’t understand the reason for their gathering.

Her other memories of him are few. She remembers him coming home one Christmas Eve and, in a drunken stupor, knocking over the Christmas tree. She remembers at age four being sent to the neighbor’s basement window, tapping on the window and saying, “I want some hooch!” — not knowing if “hooch” was an English or Polish word.

I believe his early and difficult death cast a pall over the Chciuk family. You could feel it. They were steely but always very quiet people. Here is a picture of Adam’s living descendants in 1982 — at least those who lived near Detroit at the time. Look at how similar we all look with our high Polish cheekbones and our fair coloring.

So the draft dodger and the runaway met up in Detroit. Because Wladyslava was still married to that old man in Poland, she couldn’t officially marry Konstanty. So they had a common-law marriage. Today we’d call it “shacking up.”

Their first child was Henry Leonard born in 1913. Now my grandparents were only nominal Catholics at the time. Being Polish meant by definition that you were Roman Catholic. And they weren’t even legally married, of course, and certainly not married in the Church’s eyes. So my Uncle Hank was not baptized either.

And when my Uncle Hank was only five, he died in the Flu Epidemic of 1918. I know my grandparents were devastated. Their son, their hope for a good life in the New World, was gone. And I have to imagine that they blamed themselves for the tragedy. My heart still aches when I think about all that — especially how my Grandma must have felt.

They needed hope. They needed to know that they’d see my Uncle Hank again. So they left the Roman Catholic Church officially and became “Bible Students” of Charles Taze Russell because that sect offered hope of the resurrection that the Roman Catholic Church didn’t.

Russell’s ideas eventually developed into what Joseph “Judge” Rutherford, his successor, would call “Jehovah’s Witnesses.” Russell is not orthodox. At all. He didn’t believe in Hell, the Trinity, or Christ’s deity. His ideas came out of Adventism and Christadelphianism. He thought World War I was the beginning of Armageddon. He was one of the first “Christian Zionists.” He supposedly predicted global warming.

If you google “Bible Students” and Russell, you find a significant proportion of his followers still in Eastern Europe most likely due to the Layman’s Home Missionary Movement. My dad remembers singing out of a Polish Russellite hymnal, probably “Songs to Jehovah’s Praise.”

Studying Russell’s ideas have been humbling to me. So much of it sounds . . . familiar. Look at his chart concerning the “times” of human history:

::ahem:: Boy — does that look familiar? I’ve grown up on a chart like that. R. Laurence Moore describes JWs’ evangelism as not so much trying to be effective but to be self-gratifying. They go door-to-door not to win souls but to tick off enough people proving to themselves how right they are. They are separatists through and through. They read the Bible poorly but avidly. They refuse to pledge allegiance, celebrate birthdays or Christmas, take blood transfusions, or join the military.

And like dispensationalists, Russellites were trying to control history. In the anxiety of World War I, they felt like history was spinning out of their reach. Knowing the future (via a set of cryptic charts and obscure metaphors) and that they ended up the “winners” was comforting.

When Mom had her valve replacement and triple bypass last Spring and Dad stayed with us during her recovery, he and I talked about all this. How familiar it all sounded. Dad said flat-out, however, despite Russell’s ideas, that his mom, “confessed the Lord Jesus as her Savior.”

I hope I see her in Heaven. If God alone saves, then I believe it’s possible. But it’s striking to me how much bad religion can get in the way of someone seeing Christ. God can still use us, I know. He can still speak and move in spite of us.