A 43 year friendship

by Carol Hosler

I'll never forget the day I met Ruth. I waited eagerly in the Seattle airport for her arrival. What would it be like to have a Congolese roommate at college? Would Ruth's English be good enough? Would my French be of any use at all?  All these things were running through my head. And there she was, looking a little shy but amazingly confident in the taking of this daring step in her life. It was 1965.

We had been corresponding for a year or so. She had been taken under the wing of Doris Wiseman, an American Baptist missionary in Congo. In the meantime, whenever Doris was on furlough and back in her home state of Idaho, she had come to Cathedral Pines, a church camp there. I was enthralled by her stories of Africa and yearned from about the age of 10 to go there some day.  Doris was a graduate of Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon, and also of Eastern Baptist Seminary in Philadelphia. She had known my own parents there, where my father studied for his ordination as an American Baptist pastor.

Just before my Junior year in high school we had moved to Pullman, Washington, where I quickly became involved in the State Baptist Youth Fellowship. Allan Anderson, who had also been a long-time friend of my family and of Doris, was on the staff of the American Baptist Churches of the Pacific Northwest with responsibilities for youth work. Much to my delight, conversations emerged amongst us all about the possibility of Ruth coming to the United States to study at Linfield. And she would be my roommate! The American Baptist Youth of Washington and Northern Idaho committed to raise the funds necessary to pay for Ruth's education at Linfield. Allan must have gone into high gear because by the time I was ready to begin my Sophomore year at Linfield, sufficient funds had been raised and Ruth was finally on her way.

I quickly learned that Ruth's English would do us in good stead. After all, she had been studying at the American High School in Kinshasa for the last year. She came home with me to Wenatchee, Washington, for a week or so before we went to Linfield. Once in McMinnville, we settled into our room on the second floor of Campbell Hall. One evening as we walked to dinner I saw the first star. I said, "Do you know what we say when we see the evening star? We say, 'Star light, star bright, first star I've seen tonight: I wish I may and I wish I might have the wish I wish tonight.'"

"What did you wish?" she asked.  I told her I had wished that one day I would be in Africa with her, wishing on the evening star.

One of my favorite memories was the first fall frost. Ruth and I came out of the dorm to walk to breakfast and Ruth saw the ice on the grass. Her eyes got huge and she said, "It's as cold as my ice box!"  When it snowed for the first time she skipped lunch. I found her back at the dorm helping to build a snowman. "We got in a snow ball fight," she said, "You know what? Snow balls can hurt!" 

And so we enjoyed our three years together at Linfield. The second year we moved to the third floor of Campbell Hall and enjoyed a triple room with Barbara Molletti, the other of Ruth's roommates. In my senior year we moved to Whitman Hall, nearly brand new. Barbara and Ruth roomed across the hall from me. On the day of my college graduation I kissed Ruth goodbye and didn't see her again for 39 years.

We kept in touch, of course. But my letter writing wasn't all that hot and after Ruth finished her Masters at Loma Linda and married Rapheal they returned to Africa. Then mail was notoriously slow. But she was aware of my marriage, and then the birth of my first son. A year later she had her first son. Later she would remind me that I had mailed her some of my son's clothes for Ipita. Then I had another son and she had twin daughters -- and later a third daughter. Once when she was in the U.S. she visited my mother in Seattle and we talked on the phone, catching up a bit more on each other's lives. "What about this microwave invention," she asked. "Do you have one?" I was living in Michigan then and couldn't afford to see her. When Ruth got a computer and email we corresponded much more often.

Then, in the spring of 2007, I got an email from Ruth saying she had been asked to give the commencement address at our college. That January, 15 nursing students from Linfield had worked with her in her NGO. When they returned to the college they said, "THIS is who we want to give our commencement address!"  So Ruth accepted the invitation and I promised to be there.

My husband and I flew to Portland a day early and then, with David Groff representing Linfield, we met Ruth at the airport. Here I was again, 39 years later, waiting for Ruth at an airport! It was funny. When she finally came down the concourse from the plane I was looking the other way, talking to David. So David saw her first. She embraced him and said, "Where's Carol?" That's when she saw me. She laughed in the delightful way she always did, dropped her bags, and we hugged and hugged. All the years in between instantly vanished. My hair may be gray and she may have aged a little -- far less than I -- but we were finally with each other again.

During those several days at Linfield I was treated like royalty just because I had been her roommate. It was an honor to stand in her shadow! Her commencement address was magnificent -- resulting in a standing ovation. Allan Anderson was there too, and several other of our friends from Linfield days. That's when we put our heads together and vowed to get Ruth the 4 X 4 pickup that WEH needs to do its work to the fullest. During that week I got to meet her son, now living in Portland, and my husband and I even had time to run Ruth up to Seattle to meet my first son and for her to see my siblings again. 

Ruth had not forgotten that night we wished on a star so many years ago. I renewed my plans to get there -- somehow.

In the meantime, a nurse practitioner friend said she wanted to go to. We will be leaving on December 26, 2008, joining the second group of Linfield's nursing students in their immersion experience in 3rd world medicine. Barbara will help supervise the students and I will be orphan hugger, chaplain, and researcher of future grants for WEH. 

That's the story. In January, 2009, Ruth and I will wish upon a star, together in Africa.