Anderson University - Echoes Yearbook (Anderson, IN)

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After comparing faces with the medie¬ val gargoles in Copenhagen, we boarded a ferry for the northern coast of East Ger¬ many. Upon arrival we were prevented from boarding the sealed” train that was supposed to take us directly to West Berlin. The customs officer spoke no Eng¬ lish, and while we fumbled with our Ger¬ man, the train pulled away. When the customs people understood our plight, they agreed to put us on that night ' s eleven o’clock train. The pro¬ spect of killing ten hours in the border compound obviously didn ' t excite us, and so the guards agreed to let us spend the time in the town of Warnemunde while they held our bikes. We boarded the night train with only minor problems with a pedantic conduc¬ tor. Another conductor, a small, French- speaking man, befriended us. He helped with the bikes and made meticulous entries on our tickets. Still it was a sleepless ride. The train stopped at every station along the way and we wanted to ; be sure not to miss West Berlin. At three o ' clock in the morning, the dusty green train squeaked to a stop under a white neon sign that read OST BERLINHOF (the East Berlin train station). We felt relieved. One more stop and we would be finished with the hassles. Then our con¬ ductor friend appeared, full of smiles. Time to get off, boys, he said in Ger¬ man. We had been ushered into the hall by the time we could protest, NEIN, NEIN, WESTER BERLIN. The conductor just kept pushing, smiling and saying JA. In his haste, Larry left his passport in our compartment, and only a last min¬ ute retrieval prevented the loss that is punished by a mandatory two year prison term. Before we knew it, we were stand¬ ing on the platform among our luggage, watching the train pull back into the East German night. Dazed, we decided to delay our plans for jumping the Wall Steve McQueen style until morning. We wandered through the catacombs that housed the workings of the station, knowing only that we had vio¬ lated all the regulations fellow travelers had warned us about. In spite of our attempt to appear nonchalant by whis¬ tling The Volga Boatmen, the police approached us and requested our papers. They were quite suspicious until they dis¬ covered the note the conductor had writ¬ ten on our tickets. We passed over the Wall at four o ' clock in the morning. After a few hours of sleep in the front yard of one of West Berlin’s youth hostels, the group toured the city. In addition to seeing the 1936 Olympic Stadium and other monuments Hitler had erected to himself, we examined the barb wire and concrete of the Wall. The East German guards watched the Wall watchers, who blew kisses. But the graves by the Wall revealed the cruel reality. Two men were shot by border guards during our time in Berlin. We trained uneventfully back through East Germany into West Germany. While enjoying the warm welcome and clean sheets at Fritzlar Bible Institute, Mrs. Willie Krenz told us that her husband, who was touring with Tri-S Germany as translator, would be in Hambourne the next day. Since we were headed toward the Rhine anyway, we decided to take a train across the country in order to sur¬ prise Norm Beard’s crew. Five minutes before the choir came in we slipped into the front row of the sanctuary. One by one they noticed us, smothered a smile and continued singing. In was great to see familiar faces again. The steep green bluffs along the Rhine perched a castle on their shoulders at every bend in order to keep an eye on the bikers down by the river. A bike path ran the length of the river ' s bank. One eve¬ ning we rode into Bacharach, a sixteenth century town full of half-timbered build¬ ings. There, Doug bought a harmonica and kept the group entertained for the rest of the trip with 263 renditions of Oh Suzanna. We noticed a storybook castle on a hill and joked that we should try to get a room there that night. What a sur¬ prise to discover that it was our youth hostel. From Mainz on the Rhine we trained to Munich. A short bike ride brought us to Dachau, a reconstructed Nazi concentra¬ tion camp. Again we saw the cruelty of barb wire. The museum of photographs burned with the miseries of experiment victims. After living among the mementos of brutality for an afternoon we could only echo the theme of the camp, Never Again. On the way to Innsbruck, Austria we discovered the sport of Alpine bicycling. Once the long, steep uphills were con¬ quered - a task eased by ten speeds - downhill riding speeds rose so much that we could easily pass the aggressive Euro¬ pean drivers. A tunnel would shear away all wind resistance, and our speed would approach 50 m.p.h. The Alps rose straight up on both sides of our path, changing from green velvet pasture land to forest, to bare ston£, and finally to snow as the altitude increased. One night a wrinkled Austrian farmer showed us a good place to camp in his forest. The moon barely climbed above the surrounding mountains that night, but the stars provided enough light to see by. We enjoyed the hospitality of Rev. and Mrs. Helmut Krenz ' at our church in Zurich, but were disappointed to awake to the sound of rain the next morning. So we followed the old bicyclist ' s maxim: When it rains take a train to Italy. Believe us, the rain in Italy is very similar to that of Switzerland. A wet day’s cycling ended in front of a closed youth hostel. On our way to find a hotel we met a stranger of our age who invited us to stay at his family ' s house that night. Not only did Alberto give us a dry place to stay but gave us a tour of the city as well. After sampling as many kinds of pizza as we could get our hands on, we boarded a night train to Paris. Our bikes haphaz¬ ardly wobbled the last ten miles to LeBourget Airport. The boxes and our friends were waiting as we had left them. Once back in Anderson we found it dif¬ ficult to express the ways we had grown during the trip. The five of us had become like brothers. Dr. Linamen even ! tried to claim us all as deductions on his income tax. Outside of our own group we had encountered the warmth of everyone along the road and developed some last¬ ing friendships in Aarhus. The most important revelation, however, came through seeing the people of God at work all over Europe. Not only did God have us in His protective hand, but He also was telling us how much He loved us through those that served Him. We were grateful that we had an opportunity to serve, too, through the work of Tri-S. - Doug Hall

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Group Makes Denmark Focus of European Bike Trip The Tri-S Denmark mission started long before the DC-10 rose out of Ken¬ nedy International Airport and involved many more than the five who pedaled 1700 miles through Europe. Support came from every sector of the campus. The 24 hour, 500 mile bike marathon found many friends counting laps through the night as well as contributing funds. Because of your role in Tri-S Denmark, we appreciate the chance to share this account. The five of us - P. G. Rigel, Doug Hall, John Zerkle, Larry Linamen and Chris Linamen - left New York on the 24th of June arriving in Paris early the next day. After hastily assembling our bikes in the airport parking lot, we faced our first obstacle: finding a place to store five bulky bike boxes that were required for the flight home. We had exhausted all possibilities and were ready to junk the cardboard monstrosities and take our chances when a young Parisian asked us what we were doing. We learned that he was a successful bicycle racer. Excited by our project, he offered to cram our boxes into his apartment with his new bride. Prayer was answered. Following his instructions we were soon out of Paris and into the grain fields of northern France. The drought that plagued Europe was good fortune for us. No rain fell the whole way to Denmark, but ninety degree temperatures forced frequent stops for water. Quickly dried out by the multitude of small hills and dusty villages, the bicyclists became merciless in their raids for water. We hit gas stations, cafes, homes and public restrooms. At one gas station near Le Cafeau an elderly woman presented a rare gift: ice. Through Chris’s French and the group’s toothy smiles, our requests were usually granted. By the time we made ourselves understood, we had most often made a friend. After winding through the ancient, gray villages of rural France, Tri-S Denmark rolled across urbanized Belgium. Here we discovered our first windmills and bike trails. We also discovered how dangerous and impersonal the cities could be, but helpful Belgians were not a rare breed. One scrufty, gray-headed cyclist led us across Antwerp to a youth hostel everyone else had said was closed. Our next nation was Holland, one of our favorite countries. A look at a typical Dutch road revealed that bicycles were as much a part of life as cars. Bike paths paralleled nearly every road, even in large cities. Along with such a network came bike stop lights and fines for traffic violations. Manicured to perfection, the Dutch countryside contrasted sharply to the five disheveled bikers. Most nights the group stayed at youth hostels, more commonly called JUGEN- DHERBERGENS. For $1.50 to $3 a night, we had a clean place to sleep and a meal. Fellow hostelers came from as far away as Japan. At the Deinekampf hos¬ tel, a 300-year old mansion surrounded by a moat, we met several girls who were involved in the Dutch branch of Youth for Christ. School children on holiday also frequented the Herbergen along our route, and we often found ourselves entertaining them. John was particularly adept at a magic trick. We celebrated the fourth of July bicen¬ tennial bash as we wound through the moors of northern West Germany. Once past the Greater Scandinavian Sex Ship and other such wonders on the border, we found Denmark to be a beautiful country of pine forests and vast rolling fields of flowers. Both relief and apprehension filled this part of the trip. Our goal was not far. We stopped at a park just outside of Aarhus, the city where our church was located, and prayed for help and thanked God for His protection so far. Tri-S Den¬ mark entered Aarhus a few hours later. The congregation at the One Way House proved itself to be full of love and humor. It took us a while to understand their peculiar brand of the latter: it was simple insanity. But the most dynamic element of the church was the spirit that filled Rev. Klaus Kroger, Niels Norholm and the rest of the believers. The people from the One Way House worked harder than any congregation we’d ever seen. Their primary purpose was to reach out to the 90 °]o of the population that was unchurched or churched in name alone. We came to Aarhus with the willingness to serve without knowing what we would do. When Klaus first told us our assign¬ ment, we thought he was merely exercis¬ ing his sense of humor. For two and a half weeks we merged our voices in the streets of the 200,000 person community while church members talked with and passed out literature to the crowds that gathe red. Few Danes had ever heard a banjo, and fewer still had ever heard anyone like us sing Church of God camp songs. Our listeners were always fascinated and some even tried to pay us. But times weren’t always good. Third Story apartment dwellers found amuse¬ ment in throwing fruit at us after they had heard I Saw the Light eight or nine times. Motorcycle gangs shredded our papers on one occasion. The city’s drunks quickly adopted us and took pleasure in dancing to our music. At times our inability to speak Danish made us feel useless and we questioned the effectiveness of our work. Always enthusiastic, Klaus would say, You boys just plant the seeds. God will do the rest.’ ' We participated in the services of this vibrant congregation through music and testimony. The Wednesday night prayer meeting was suspended twice while we were there so that the believers could go door to door and witness. Friday nights were coffee house nights. Interested pass¬ ers-by would be invited to learn more about what Christ could do for them dur¬ ing this time. It was not easy to break the family-like bonds when the time came to sail out of Aarhus Harbor. The size of the send off made the rest of the passengers on the ferry think we were celebrities. Our friends traded songs with us until we were out of earshot.

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A. Expressions of ecstasy light the faces of Mark Fletcher and Bob Hooker after a fulfilling evening at Pharrells. B. Life¬ long friendships are often made during Freshman orientation. Oscar Escobedo, Kim Emerick, Randy Conners, Carol Neff, and Kelly Linton enjoy fun and fel¬ lowship at the Freshman reception. C. Scott Warner and friend” take advantage of a pleasant autumn after¬ noon. D. With overcrowding apparent everywhere, chapel attendees Kristie Stevens, Bob Tippin, Tim Turner, and Tam Tran make the best of an uncom¬ fortable arrangement. E. Kim Lockhart ponders the challenge and responsibility that will be hers as an R. A.