The Early Years

Author’s Note…one thing about blogging versus writing a book is that I get to be a bit more personal and include my notes and addendums. This particular blog posting will be a bit longer than normal as I have an upcoming commitment next week which will not give me the time for writing and editing. I do hope you will enjoy our story and will stay tuned as we go deeper into Jim’s life.

Jim was born in Sydney, Australia, shortly after his parents’ arrival and the first of the family born in their new home country. It was a time of new beginnings and adventures. They settled amongst other family members and Russians Pentecostals, who had also journeyed over from China. Establishing a Slavic Pentecostal church was paramount, as this was the primary bond holding them together as a community. There are many ethnic communities scattered around Sydney; Greek, Russian, Italian, Chinese, Asian, African, and Middle Eastern all makeup Sydney as the largest international city in Australia. Today, one-third of its population is foreign-born. Jim's family found themselves in a community within a much larger community.

Learning English was necessary to begin this new strange life these Slavic families had chosen. It was especially difficult for the older grandfathers and grandmothers. Still, somehow they pulled together and managed to get by in those early years. The church thrived with all the new arrivals of emigrants. People found jobs and eventually purchased homes, and children went to school.  During their time in Sydney, Jim's family grew to six children, and Alex, his father, decided to move three hours west of Sydney to a small town in New South Wales called Orange.  He proceeded to found a sister-church and became pastor of the Orange Slavic Pentecostal church. 

Along with Jim’s four brothers and one sister, they attended the local Australian public school. However, on Saturdays, they were required to participate in Russian school, where they learned to read and write the Russian language. Church and family life revolved around this language, so it was imperative it not die out with the younger generation. It was the language spoken in each home, understandably as many of the older generation did not speak English.

Every Saturday morning for first grade through sixth (which lasted for six years growing up), children would participate in the lessons. For a young boy such as Jim, it was agonizing sitting in classes on a day off, knowing Australian children were outside playing cricket or rugby and having fun. Jim wanted to fit in with his classmates, but this Saturday activity was the norm for Russian children. His childhood was busy with English homework from public school and Russian homework, music lessons (accordion or piano) once a week, and daily practice. Music was necessary for participation in church services. On top of this, they memorized Scripture and poems in Russian to recite at the various holiday celebrations. All of this held deep meaning for the Slavic community.

Jim doesn’t remember having many childhood memories of just having fun, as most children do. Being a student was not his favorite thing, but he had to go to school. On Saturdays, after the Russian school, he and his siblings were also kept busy with household duties. It took a lot of work to manage a household of two adults and six children. They helped clean pots and pans, dusting, and buffing floors. He remembers many times dragging one younger brother across the floor, sitting on a buffing towel. It was rather enjoyable and became quite wild as can be imagined—energetic boys making a job fun rather than work.  It is easy to understand why he remembers a few holes ending up in the walls.

Christmas was celebrated wholly within the church context bringing deep spiritual meaning. In Jim's family growing up, there was no tree nor decorations; neither were gifts exchanged. Typically, on Sundays, there would be two services, one in the morning and another in the evening. During holidays, especially Christmas and Easter, there would be a service twice a day for three days. Services would encompass preaching (often three different men), a children's program, musical, and choir programs. Easter always included a sunrise service and an evening service. For children, this was a lot of sitting still and listening.  Australian holidays were recognized, but that only meant time off from school or work.

However, there were other happy memories for Jim. Many trips to parks outside of their small town where families would gather for picnics, barbeques, and volleyball games. Russians love their shashlik (shishkabob in English)—kabobs of lamb marinated with onions, garlic, and spices. To a Russian or Ukrainian, a picnic is not a picnic without shashlik.  Each family has its own set of 30-inch-long skewers and a unique barbeque grill constructed just for shashlik. 

When relatives or friends visit from another city, out come all the necessary grilling utensils, giant bowls of marinated lamb, and everyone helps with the skewering.  Soon all are gathered around the grill inhaling the roasting meat and waiting expectantly.  Men are often sampling the finished product before it ever makes it to the table. Long tables are laden with vegetable and noodle salads, fruit tarts, and the ever-popular Napoleon cake— a many-layered crepe cake, between each layer filled with cream. It takes hours to make and put it all together.  In Jim's childhood, it was usual for the mothers and grandmothers to spend hours cooking and baking the foods which were such a part of their culture.  Antonida, Jim's mother, was considered one of the best, if not the best, cook in the church.  He was immensely proud of his mum's cooking.

In his own words...I grew up having no television or telephone in our home. If we needed to make a call, we used the neighbor's phone. We had friends from school, but I don't remember ever having an Australian friend over to our home. Our ethnic culture and language seemed so different. As a teenager, it was easier to meet friends away from home.

For me, it was a balancing act trying to fit in with the local school scene as an adolescent anyway, but doing so as an obvious outsider gave us our own set of obstacles to overcome. I remember the teasing for not being Australian, as were many of my Russian friends. We were trying to be part of two worlds. Once I walked out of the front door, I decided to be Australian and spoke English, but upon returning home, everything became Russian once again. However, as children, we needed English for school. It was usual for us to speak English to one another and Russian to our parents. My father learned English quickly and always knew what we kids would be saying to each other. However, raising and tending to six children and being the pastor’s wife consumed my mother's time, so there was very little activity for her outside the home or church life to learn English. My mother had a much harder time and, to this day, speaks very little English.

There were advantages to growing up in an ethnic community. The tantalizing smells of home-cooked meals and six hungry kids were commonplace. We had endless meals around the table eating borscht (beet soup), piroshki (small meat or vegetable pies), pelmeni, vareniki (meat and potato dumplings, and blini.) Blini are hand-made crepes we would spread with jam and sour cream.  My mother would make dozens, and it would take us minutes to make them disappear.  Incorporated into this wide variety of Russian cuisine were many Central Asian and Chinese dishes our parents brought with them when crossing the eastern republics of Russia and China.  Rice pilaf, manti (pumpkin-filled dumplings), and hand-made noodle dishes, like Lagman, were also standard food fare in our home. I love this food, but as a child I sometimes wished we could eat typical Australian food my friends had in their homes.  Again, it was all about trying to fit in.

The Russian Pentecostal church is the wheel hub out of which stems every other spoke of life.  It formed the very fabric of who we were and who we would become.  You were expected to attend only the Russian church and marry within that ethnic group. Anything outside was looked down upon. In all fairness, a culture and language were trying to be preserved. As I grew older, I began to understand this, but it was stifling as an adolescent and teenager.

The pastor of our Slavic church is chosen and voted on by the congregation. He did not attend a Bible college—but was one of the men deemed responsible for teaching and leading. Often on Sundays, he would preach the sermon, but also two or three other men would have a turn to preach.  The sermons would center around Scripture and our culture's interpretation of it. Considering there was no Bible training or education, this could come across as one's own opinion, cultural, and moral understanding. There was a standard of behavior anticipated and particular sins not tolerated.  A typical Sunday service would take several hours to conclude once you added the choir music, testimonies, and prayer.

“My father was my world.”

As the pastor, everyone looked up to my dad..  Within our family, he was strict but also loving. I respected him and looked to him as my example of authority and fatherhood. I knew nothing else.

When his inappropriate relationship with a woman in the church came to light, it shattered our world. To this day, I do not know the extent of the inappropriateness, but it was adultery in the eyes of our church.  In their view, his sin was unforgivable, banishing him from the community, which had been his entire life. The shame and embarrassment he experienced drove a wedge between our family and members within the church.     

My parents did not have a perfect marriage. They married quite young in China and were very different. My father was reasonably intelligent, working, and speaking several languages while taking care of his new family in those early years. My mother had no education, spoke only Russian, and bound by the cultural tradition of staying at home and raising her six children. Her only social circle was the church. Their differences, his unfaithfulness, and subsequent banishment from the church compounded his decision to abandon his wife and family and move far away to Canada, where he eventually remarried. 

At this point, my life took on a whole different direction, which I felt would inevitably be exciting and new, but as I would soon learn, it would not be for the best.