Give or Receive, Part 2

How did my grandmother manage when the war reached its height of deprivation?

     When the war was almost over, in the winter of 1945, things got much worse.  They had six children now, and six of my grandmother’s adult relatives moved in with them too.  Slowly her store of food began to shrink with more mouths to feed, and people continued to knock on the door as well.  Her husband had a business where he would often be able to swap goods and add to the food supply, but that last winter he was too ill to work.  So the food stocks could not be built up again.

     Yet the Lord always provided.   There was a kind of soup kitchen set up at the butcher shop, and each family could get cabbage soup from there according to the size of your family.  There was also an underground movement where they secretly slaughtered cows and then cooked them into a nourishing soup for the school children.  Twice a week her children were allowed to go there for a hot meal.  Her eldest son also helped a dairy farmer after school, and that farmer allowed him to pour a bit of milk into the lid of the milk can for him to drink.  In these ways they made it through that difficult winter before the liberation.

     Even in difficult times there were blessings we could give thanks for.  In her life she tried to live generously even if she didn't have much and was never put to shame.  Jesus words were real to her!