Tales of St. Petersburg and the Black Forest
How partial-support Wycliffe
missionaries John and Debbie Siegal
have spent the past five years.
Steve Dennie
October 1998
From the beginning of September to the end of June, about 300 kids in grades 7-12 attend Black Forest Academy in Kandern, Germany, a small town of about 4000-5000 people.
The parents are scattered across Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and the former Soviet Union. A number of students are the children of businesspersons, but the majority are missionary kids. Many of the parents minister in the countries of the former Soviet Union, particularly in Eastern Europe, where the focus of much missionary work has shifted.
This is where John and Debbie Siegel spent the past two years.
* * * *
John Siegel grew up in a Mennonite Church which later merged into what became Springfield United Brethren Church in Toledo, Ohio. "I became a United Brethren overnight," John says. He was always exposed to missionary stories. He read Jungle Doctor in elementary school and books about missionaries in the Amazon. An aunt and uncle served as missionaries in India for 50 years, beginning in 1938. In high school he went on a mission trip.
John attended Huntington College for a year, then switched to the University of Toledo, where he earned a degree in political science. He finally accepted Christ at age 24 in a service at Springfield UB. His brother-in-law, Jay Nickless, was preaching. "Your heart is like an onion," Jay said. "Every time you hear the Gospel and reject it, another layer comes over your heart, making it harder and harder."
John realized he had heard the message many, many times. Would he reach the point where the Gospel message couldn't penetrate the many layers of callus? So that night, he accepted Christ as Savior.
He went on to seminary, but also knew the Lord wanted him on the mission field.
* * * *
Black Forest Academy was started after World War II by Janz Team, a Canadian mission organization which began as a music ministry. In the 1970s, other mission organizations came aboard to help support and staff the school. The Siegels served on behalf of Wycliffe, and the children of Wycliffe missionaries got a tuition cut.
The school has a decentralized campus, with dorms spread out in different villages and towns in the surrounding area. Buses come in the morning to take kids to school.
The first year, they were parents to about 30 girls in a dorm about ten kilometers from the school, located at about 3000 feet in the Black Forest. "It was absolutely gorgeous," John says. The building was an old German guesthouse, half of it built in 1750 and the rest in the 1820s.
The second year, last year, they switched to a dorm with 25 boys. And this time, the dorm was located down in the valleyÑin farmland, rather than logging country. And whereas many of the girls were the children of businesspersons, and not necessarily Christians, all but two of the boys were missionary kids.
"The difference between the first year and the second year was like night and day," John says.
* * * *
Debbie was raised in the church of God (Anderson, Ind.), and accepted Christ at age 12 in a revival at her home church in the Toledo, Ohio, area. During her senior year at Anderson College, she spent a month with a program in Jamaica, getting her first taste of missions. She liked it. She decided that after she graduated and paid her school debts, she would go overseas with the Church of God.
"Then I met John and found out he was interested in missions, too." They were married in 1985. "And then we went through the process of deciding which mission to go with."
Wycliffe won.
* * * *
The typical day in the boys' dorm went something like this:
Wake up at 6:15.
Out in the hallway by 6:30 making sure breakfast is being prepared. Wake up the guys on breakfast duty, and maybe go back at 6:40 to wake them up a second time.
Wake up everyone else at 7:00 and get them headed down to eat breakfast and pack school lunches.
Get all 25 guys onto the bus when it arrives at 8:30.
Then do laundry or grocery shopping and await the boys' return at 3:45. At which point they go back on duty until 11:00 or so on weeknights, and maybe until 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning on weekends.
"Our hours were just the opposite of the teachers and other staff at Black Forest Academy," John says. "When everybody else goes to work at 9:00, I'm ready to take a break and have a cup of coffee. And when others come home from work at 4:00, it's time for me to get supper going and hit the ground. We couldn't get together with the teaching staff, because when they were working, we weren't, and vice versa. We were in our own self-contained little world."
At night, John would hound the kids to make sure they did their homework (8-10 p.m. each night was study time). He couldn't just ask a boy if he had done his homework, because he would reply, "Oh, sure." Rather, John had to get specific: "Did you do your English assignment? Did you do your math? May I see it? Did you study for that social studies test you're having tomorrow?" Over and over, 25 times.
"My job," says Debbie, "was to just be friends, to pray for the kids, to help them with whatever I could." Plus, she handled various administrative chores, like bookkeepingÉnot to mention a lot of cleaning and cooking.
"One of the things I thought I would be able to do is mold the guys' spiritual lives and teach them to think biblically," John notes with a degree of disappointment. "That happened in one or two guys; I was able to help them think more like Christ. But for the most part, I was busy being a DadÑtelling them, 'Clean up your room,' or 'Get your homework done,' or 'Time for bed, so turn off the computer.' I was hammering on the things that needed to get done for them to complete what they were there forÑgoing to schoolÑand there wasn't a lot of time to just kick back with the guys.
"However, I did get to know five or six of the guys real well, and I could tell by looking at them what they were thinking. I got a kick out of that, really liked being able to get that close to the guys."
* * * *
When they began their 18-month training with Wycliffe, John and Debbie figured on going into government relations or public relations work. Probably Africa. But about three-fourths of the way through, they learned about Wycliffe's new work in Russia and of the need for workers there. That, they realized, is where they belonged.
They went to St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1993 with the purpose of doing government relations type of work, but that never materialized. As one coworker who had been there for a while told John, "We don't have any idea who to talk to, and we don't really want anyone to know we're even here, that this big organization is coming into their country." So John ended up being the office manager for the next three years.
"It just about did me in," John says. "When you're the first ones, you do everything, because there's nobody else."
"We learned about missionary burnout," Debbie adds.
"I was a crispy-critter," John agrees.
Meanwhile Debbie, who holds a Master's in Special Education, worked with the International Christian School in St. Petersburg, where many Wycliffe people send their kids. But her role wasn't as big as originally planned. A few months after arriving, Debbie had her first child (in Finland). Consequently, she worked just one day a week at the schoolÑsubstitute teaching, supervising teachers, some coordinating by computer.
Her position took her to a big conference at Black Forest Academy in 1995, where she learned about the need for workers. Connections were made, approval given, and the next fall, they found themselves in KandernÑstill serving with Wycliffe, but assigned to Black Forest.
* * * *
Sports:
"Not one boy at Black Forest Academy during our two years there played American football or really had any interest in it. Basketball was big; a lot of them wanted to watch the NBA finals, and so we watched them live at 2:00 in the morning." And World Cup soccer was very popular.
John coached the track team. Of 200 kids in grades 9-12, 80 came out for the team. "There's the Saturday factor," John explains. "During the track season, the team leaves about 5:00 in the morning on Saturday and gets back about 10:00 at night. They play against the American military bases. Since Saturday was cleaning day, it was a big thing to get out of the dorms on that day."
And the team was good. This past year, they won the European championship, prevailing against teams from 35 or 40 American military schools across Europe (despite being one of the smaller schools).
Another big deal, John says, was the senior class trip. "The juniors vote on where to go for their senior trip. Their choices are places like Italy and Greece. Those weren't options for my senior trip in the States. But they just hop on a bus and live out of the bus for a week or so."
* * * *
"In Russia," John says, "much of my work was with RussiansÑdealing with landlords or publishers or my Russian friends. I learned to speak Russian. The Wycliffe members themselves came from many countriesÑFinland, Holland, Japan, Hong Kong, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Korea. It was very much a cross-cultural situation."
But in going to Germany, he realized he would be in terrain akin to Pennsylvania and all of the work would be in English, and primarily with kids from the United States. That bothered him a bit.
"I recall telling the director that one of the problems with going to Black Forest is that I wouldn't be in cross-cultural ministry anymore. That pushed a hot button. He said, 'The only reason the school is here is to provide a place for kids to come so their parents can do cross-cultural ministry.'"
The boys in their Black Forest dorm had parents working in 14 different countriesÑCzechoslovakia, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, Germany, Jordan, Chad.
"The ministry of Black Forest Academy is to provide a place for people to send their kids so they can stay on the field. One guy told me, 'If you want to damage missions in this part of the world, just close the school. So many parents have no other options. Without the Academy, they would go back to the States.'"
* * * *
John and Debbie concluded their ministry at Black Forest in May, and another couple filled their shoes in the boys' dorm.
What's next?
Perhaps Russia, again.
The Siegels are looking at returning to St. Petersburg and working in the International Christian School. The new director, who just moved from Black Forest Academy, invited them to accept a position at the school.
Says John, "We wouldn't be starting from scratch, because we already know the culture and language and have many friends there. But that's only one option."
"We're going to Dallas, which is where Wycliffe has one of their headquarters for children's education," Debbie explains. "They will give us the big picture about where the needs are. They don't mind if we go back to Russia, but there are other pressing needs elsewhere. We'll have to think things out and spend time in prayer to be sure about where God wants us."
Meanwhile, they look forward to being together as a familyÑjust their family.
"The boys haven't known a time when their dad had to leave for work. I might leave on a Saturday for a track meet, or I might go shopping for a few hours, or I might go lift weights or something like that. But I didn't get up every day, say 'see you later,' and go off to work. We've been together all of the time, with Dad always in the same building. That was one of the perks of working at Black Forest, though it didn't always seem like a perk.
"Right now," John continues, "it's afternoon and we haven't seen Curt since 8:00 this morning. That's a long time apart for us. When we get home, Curt will be so happy to see us, and will come running and jumping up and down. He's not used to having Mom and Dad gone. That'll change if we go to Russia."
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