Through Fire and Through Water.

CHAPTER XV
A POSTSCRIPT

Less than a month after I reached home from the Philippines we were informed by the Red Gross that Jimmy, Jackie and Sally Bateman would be arriving at Los Angeles harbor on a transport loaded with former internees from the Philippine Islands. The newspapers were full of stories about this ship, and I was there to meet them when they arrived. I expected them all to return to Concord with me, however Jimmy, who was now 18 years old, had been persuaded by friends to stay in Los Angeles and get work there, for there were plenty of opportunities at that time. We told him goodby, and Jack and Sally returned with me to my fathers home.

Thirty-five years have now passed by since the spring of 1945, and Ill try in a few words to tell what has happened to Jim, Jack and Sally Bateman, who came out of China with me and went through three long years of internment.

Jimmy, the oldest, soon had a good job in Los Angeles where he worked steadily, and in about a year he had married a girl whom he had met in internment camp. I didn't know it at the time, but this was probably the reason he wanted to stay in Los Angeles. Jimmy and his wife had three children, two boys and a girl, who are all grown. He has now had sorrow come into his life, for his dear wife passed away after a very serious illness. He has always kept his home in the Los Angeles area and he now lives in Downey, California.

After arriving at Concord, Jack, the second boy, found a place to stay with Bro. and Sister Inman while he attended high school and also worked part time. That summer at a Youth Rally in Antioch, California, both Jack and Sally made professions of salvation, and Jack became a leader of the young people. At the California State Association at Taft, in the spring of 1946 Jack met Dr. G. D. Keller, who persuaded him to enter Jacksonville Baptist College. Jacksonville, Texas, in the fall of that year.

Jack had barely been in school three months when it was discovered that he had active tuberculosis, and he had to enter a sanitarium in San Antonio, Texas, where he remained flat on his back most of the time for 18 long months. He was back in school again in 1948, and in 1950 he married Miss LaTrell Johnson, a fellow student from Lubbock, Texas, who had graduated that spring. LaTrell worked and helped Jack to complete another year, following which he went two years to Wayland Baptist College in Plainview, Texas, graduating there in 1953 with a B. A. degree.

In 1953 Jack and LaTrell Bateman with their first child, John, went out to Taiwan as missionaries of an association now known as The Baptist Missionary Association of America, and except for furloughs they have been there ever since. God greatly blessed them in their work, for Jack had perfect Chinese pronunciation and also a wife thoroughly dedicated to the work. God also blessed them in the home, giving then four more children, Paul, Mark, Ann and Bruce. Their children are now all grown and after the last furlough Jack and LaTrell went back to Taiwan alone.

Sally Bateman, the youngest, at first stayed with my father and mother in Concord and went to school. Later she stayed with my sister, Ruby and her husband, helping to take care of their two little boys while she continued in school. The winter of 1946-47 Sally came to Portland and stayed with Mary and me at the home of Eld. and Mrs. O. N. Opsund, and there she continued in high school through the following spring. She then worked in Portland until winter, when she went to stay with her brother, Jimmy, and his wife, in Los Angeles. While at Jimmys home she met a sailor boy, William Morgan, from Missouri, and they were soon married. When he got out of the service he took her to his home in Missouri where she found in his kind parents a father and mother who loved her like a daughter.

Bill and Sally settled in Kansas City where he had a job connected with the automobile business. They prospered and were able to buy a nice home, while God gave them three lovely daughters, Clydie, Debbie and Marsha, and one son, Bill, named after his dad. Sallys husband was saved under Jacks preaching while he was home on furlough, then their children were all saved also, and the whole family became active in Missionary Baptist church work. The children are now all grown, two are married and there are several grandchildren. Bill Morgans company moved him to Houston, Texas, a few years ago, and now all the family lives in Texas.

About the time that Jack Bateman went out to Taiwan he was able to contact his mother again, and he found that she was married to a German businessman. To escape the Communists they moved to Hong Kong, and there Jack often visited her and her husband and little daughter, his half sister. in 1970 Sallys church friends helped raise the money for her to fly to China and spend several days with her mother. She found it hard to talk to her, her mother knowing little English and Sally having forgotten all her Chinese, nevertheless it was a joyful reunion for both of them. A couple of years ago their mother and her husband, Mr. Erich Benda, retired to Loorach. Germany, where their daughter had been studying in school.

This year a joyful event occurred at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport on February 17th, when Mr. and Mrs. Erich Benda arrived there by plane from Germany, Mrs. Benda to see again all her children, most of the grandchildren and many of her great-grandchildren. Earlier in the winter Jack and LaTrell Bateman bad been called home from Taiwan because of the death of LaTrells father, and Jack had used the opportunity to make the arrangements for this family reunion. Jimmy flew in from Los Angeles, and Bill and Sally Morgan drove up from Houston, so that all were able to be together for several days in Arlington, Texas. This was Jimmys first time to see his mother in 39 years. You may be sure there was a joyous celebration before the Bendas flew back to Germany a few days later.

Looking back, I remember so well the first time I ever saw Jimmy and Jackie. Jimmy was playing table tennis with some students at the Methodist Mission School in Taian, while other students were standing about looking on. One boy exclaimed, "The foreign devil doesn't play bad, does he" These two boys with their long Chinese gowns looked little different from the other students, however they were set apart and would always be "foreign devils."

Some friends advised me not to become involved with these children, however from the day I first came to know Jim, Jack and Sally Bateman I have found them to be the most independent, self reliant and dependable of young folk, moreover their personalities have been such as to endear them to all who have met them. I was young and single and far from qualified to be a guardian for them, but God has had a hand in their lives, and He has made me to rejoice and to thank Him for them.

I could go on and tell of my own experiences since 1945, of meeting Mary in Kentucky and of our marriage in Ohio, of our three boys and of the years spent in the land of Japan preaching the gospel, the wonderful good news of Christ, to those people, and of many other experiences since then. But that is another story.

THE END.

Except for some revision and the addition of the "INTRODUCTION" and "A POSTSCRIPT," this account is the same as was published in installments in "The Forerunner," edited by Eld. W. A. Reese, Science Hill, Kentucky, in 1946, and in the "Orthodox Baptist, edited by Eld. J. Cullis Smith, Ardmore, Oklahoma, in 1953. John R. Blalock