Janette Oke - Danas valley

DANA'S VALLEY

JANETTE OKE

LAUREL LOGAN

BETHANY HOUSE

MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA

Dana's Valley

Copyright 2001

Janette Oke & Laurel Oke Logan

Cover design by Lookout Design Group, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwisewithout the prior written permission of the publisher and copyright owners.

Published by Bethany House Publishers A Ministry of Bethany Fellowship International II^OO Hampshire Avenue South Bloomington, Minnesota 5543^

www.bethanyhouse.com

Printed in the United States of America by

Bethany Press International, Bloomington, Minnesota 5543^

ISBN 0-7642-2451-4 (Paperback) ISBN 0-7642-2514-6 (Hard cover) ISBN 0-7642-2516-2 (Large Print) ISBN 0-7642-2515-4 (Audio Book)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Oke, Janette, 1935

Dana's valley / by Janette Oke & Laurel Oke Logan, p. cm.

ISBN 0-7642-2514-6 (alk. paper) ISBN 0-7642-2451-4 (pbk.) I. SickFamily relationshipsFiction. 2. Teenage girlsFiction. I. Logan, Laurel Oke. II. Title. PR9I99-3-38 036 2001 8i3'-43-dc2i 00-013253

Dedicated with love

To Edward and Marvin,

who have been both supportive and encouraging,

not only in regard to our writing

but in every area of our lives.

We love you both.

JANETTE JOKE was born in Champion, Alberta, during the depression years, to a Canadian prairie farmer and his wife. She is a graduate of Mountain View Bible College in Didsbury, Alberta, where she met her husband, Edward. They were married in May of 1957 and went on to pastor churches in Indiana as well as Calgary and Edmonton, Canada.

The Jokes have three sons and one daughter and are enjoying the addition of grandchildren to the family. Edward and Janette have both been active in their local church, serving in various capacities as Sunday school teachers and board members. They make their home near Calgary, Alberta.

LAUREL Oke LOGAN, daughter of Janette and Edward Oke, is the author of the best-selling Janette Oke : A Heart for the Prairie and In the Quiet of This Moment. Laurel, her husband, Marvin, and their four children live in Carmel, Indiana.

I SLIPPED THE BUTTERFLY B KM ARK between the pages of the journal and gazed out the window of my bedroom. I had been determined to keep any tears in check, but the familiar handwriting and the long-ago memories filled up my heart and tugged at my emotions, and I wiped at my damp cheek. It was more nostalgia than pain, though, that evoked my deep feelings. I guess I was rather surprised when I realized that fact. Then came sweet relief, and I felt myself smile as I picked up the book to continue my perusal.

But I didn't resume reading immediately. I sat staring at the small volume in my hands, musing silently. The journal's story was not minebut it was so intricately involved with my own personal journey that the words on the page seemed like my own.

Perhaps it is only when we are deemed adults that we really begin to understand, to appreciate, to evaluate our formative years. I think it has certainly been so for me.

Looking back, I feel I am beginning to put some events from those years into a broader context. I am discovering the roots of the values I hold dear. Those mental images of childhood I have now been able to frame and arrange in some kind of order so I can step back and look at how

I have been shaped into who I am. My understanding of life, of its joys and struggles, of family and of relationships, of how they mold and stretch us beyond who we might have been on our own, takes on new significance.

I know no family is perfect. But I also know that my average midwestern Christian family tackled the changes and trials we faced remarkably well, all things considered.

Our parents must have started us out with a pretty solid baseor our story might have had an entirely different ending. We are closer to one another now than we have ever been.

My understanding of my heavenly Fatherwho He is, how He loves ushas been changed as well. This fuller view of God can only happen when one has faced challenges and trials, when one has been stretched beyond what is secure and comfortable. God is now more real, more present, more involved, in every part of my life. As my grandmother shared recently with me over a cup of tea, that is indeed the goal of our journey here on earth.

But perhaps you will understand more fully what I am attempting to say if I tell our family's story. To do that, I must take you back some years....

BY OUTWARD APPEARANCE you could have

thought that the small stuccoed Cape Cod tucked in among the still-barren trees at 129

Maple Street was empty and silent. You would have been wrong. And only in the dusk of the early morning hours could such a mistaken impression have been possible. We were a family of six, with kids ranging in ages from four to fourteen, and our home was seldom quiet. Even this early, there had been stirrings for a couple of hoursmore or lessand my mother, who hummed as she moved about the kitchen preparing another in an endless procession of meals, was soon to make sure the activity would increase.

"Brett. Girls. Time to be up."

The call drifted up the stairs along with the aroma of freshly brewed coffee and frying bacon. Newly awakened from slumber, I sniffed to sort out the beckoning smells. Even coffee smelled good when it wafted in on the morning air. I'd tasted it once and found that the fragrance was deceiving. No wonder ten-year-olds were normally denied the privilege. To my thinking, it didn't taste nearly as good as it smelled. But baconthat was

something else. It also was an unexpected treat on a school morning.

"Dana and Erin." This time the volume was turned up a notch.

I opened an eye and sneaked a peek at my sister to see if she was stirring. Light was beginning to filter through the blinds, and I could just distinguish her face above the motionless lump of pink comforter on her bed. We had always engaged in a contest of wills to see who would move first.

Dana still had not opened her eyes, but she did mumble, "It's your turn to practice first."

"I practiced first last time," I argued. I was now awake and, with the vigor of the younger sister, ready to fight for my rights.

"No, you didn't."

"Did too."

"No, you didn'tjust ask Mom." Dana's eyes were open now. Wide open and looking directly at me.

Even though her expression held no malice, I knew she had no intention of backing down. She tossed back the faded Barbie quilt and reached her foot to the cranberry- and-mint rug beside her bed, feeling around for her slippers and catching the edge with her bare toes. We'd chosen the matching bedroom set three years back when Dana was eight and I was seven. Now we both looked forward to the promised decorating updates somewhere in the near future.

I was about to launch another objection when I remembered. Dana was right. She had taken her turn first at the family's secondhand upright piano the day before. I let the matter drop. There would be no point in asking

DANA'S Valley * n

Mom. She remembered such things only too well. She would side with Dana.

I tossed back my own Barbie quilt, jumped out, and spent a moment scrambling around under my bed for my own slippers. I still didn't want to admit that Dana had been right all alongbut I knew better than to continue an argument I could only lose.

The school bus would be coming in just over an hour and a half. Our morning chores and piano practice had to be done before bus time. If things ran a little behind for one reason or anotherthe second person to sit at the piano for a romp through the scales and exercises would be lucky enough to have a shortened practice time. We had made that discovery on our own during the first year we were both taking lessons, and each of us had tried to use it to her own advantage. But Mom hadn't missed our discovery either.