The Waiting: The True Story of a Lost Child, a Lifetime of Longing, and a Miracle for a Mother Who Never Gave Up

by Cathy LaGrow, Cindy Coloma Narrated by Pamela Klein

Overview

It's never too late for a miracle.

When an old woman begs God to let her see the daughter who had been taken from her arms almost eighty years before - could her impossible prayer come true?

In the summer of 1928, sixteen-year-old Minka was looking forward to a sewing class picnic. This would be a rare chance to put aside farm chores, don a pretty dress, and enjoy an outing with other girls. It would be a day to remember.

And it was . . . but not in the way Minka had dreamed. Cornered by a stranger in the woods, the young girl was assaulted. Minka still believed that the stork brought babies; she would not discover for months that she was pregnant.

The story that follows has been almost a hundred years in the making. What happens when a new mother must make a heartbreaking sacrifice to give her baby daughter the life she deserves? Can her cherished memories carry her through decades of turmoil, during a rapidly changing time in American history? And in the end, can she trust God for a miracle? The Waiting is an unforgettable true story of faith that triumphs, forgiveness that sets us free, and love that never forgets.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

04/14/2014
When author LaGrow heard her grandmother Minka’s story of her first daughter, conceived as a result of rape nearly 80 years earlier, when her grandmother was 16; born in secret; and then placed for adoption, she could hardly imagine that it was all true. Yet the adoption file contained indisputable evidence: decades worth of Minka’s letters asking for news of this baby she had named Betty Jane. Unbelievably, that same baby, now also a grandmother and named Ruth, was seeking her biological mother and had obtained the previously sealed adoption record. Through many cross-country meeting between the women and their families, LaGrow came to know the stories of both women’s lives through the decades during which they had been separated and their ultimate and utter joy when reunited. While the presence of some historical details distracts from the rhythm of the story, LaGrow tells Minka’s story with candor that makes the characters come alive. It is a stunning story of forgiveness, faithfulness, and persistent hope. (May)

From the Publisher

It’s never too late for a miracle.
When an old woman begs God to let her see the daughter who had been taken from her arms almost eighty years before—could her impossible prayer come true?

In the summer of 1928, sixteen-year-old Minka was looking forward to a sewing class picnic. This would be a rare chance to put aside farm chores, don a pretty dress, and enjoy an outing with other girls. It would be a day to remember.

And it was . . . but not in the way Minka had dreamed. Cornered by a stranger in the woods, the young girl was assaulted. Minka still believed that the stork brought babies; she would not discover for months that she was pregnant.

The story that follows has been almost a hundred years in the making. What happens when a new mother must make a heartbreaking sacrifice to give her baby daughter the life she deserves? Can her cherished memories carry her through decades of turmoil, during a rapidly changing time in American history? And in the end, can she trust God for a miracle? The Waiting is an unforgettable true story of faith that triumphs, forgiveness that sets us free, and love that never forgets.

Decades of secret letters from a mother longing for her daughter . . .
1929: I sure hated to give her up. But I know it was for the best. I miss her so every night . . .
1933: I would like to know how my big baby girl is getting along. . . . Sometimes the hills are hard to climb, and if I could only hear of her once in awhile it means so much.
1939: Bless her little heart, I hope she shall be happy always. . . . I would so appreciate just a line or two about her.
1944: I’m wondering how my little Betty is. I know I should be very proud of her now. She must be a young lady, nearly sixteen. I think of her so often. . . .
1945: Betty Jane will be seventeen yrs old . . . it hardly seems possible . . . please write me if you’ve any news . . . she is at such a tender age now.
1947: Please write me if you have word . . . will make my Xmas happier just to know she is fine and happy. . . .

Midwest Book Review

The Waiting offers up the poignant and true story of a lost child and a mother who never gave up searching for her, and gathers decades of secret letters from a mother reflecting her perpetual agony wondering how her daughter is doing in life. As her reflection turns to an all-out search, readers follow her progress, begun when she was raped by a stranger in the woods and following her search for God’s insights along the way. The result is a title that blends biography with spiritual reflection and a vivid, true search that readers will find engrossing.

Midwest Book Review Tyndale House Publishers

The Waiting offers up the poignant and true story of a lost child and a mother who never gave up searching for her, and gathers decades of secret letters from a mother reflecting her perpetual agony wondering how her daughter is doing in life. As her reflection turns to an all-out search, readers follow her progress, begun when she was raped by a stranger in the woods and following her search for God’s insights along the way. The result is a title that blends biography with spiritual reflection and a vivid, true search that readers will find engrossing.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940172158179
Publisher:	Oasis Audio
Publication date:	05/06/2014
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

the waiting

The true story of a lost child, a lifetime of longing, and a miracle for a mother who never gave up

---

By CATHY LaGROW, Cindy Coloma

Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

Copyright © 2014 Cathy LaGrow
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4143-9190-8

---

CHAPTER 1

AUGUST 1928

Four and a half hours before her life would change forever, Minka stood in a dusty parking lot, twisting her handkerchief as she willed her family to hurry up. If they took much longer, she might just pick up her ankle-length skirts and run all the way home.

Her stepfather, Honus, leaned against the black side of the family's milk truck, blocking out the white D in Sunnyside Dairy, his hands jammed into the pockets of his summer suit. It was not yet noon, but the air was already thick and hot. Around them, engines loosely clattered as men cranked up Model Ts. Women called out good-byes to one another and gathered children before climbing inside their cars.

Minka's sister, Jane, and their mother were still on the circular brick steps of Zion Lutheran Church, visiting with friends. On any other Sunday Minka might have lingered too, joining in conversations if she felt bold enough, speaking whichever language was being used—English, German, or Dutch. The church community, largely made up of immigrants, had finally voted ten months earlier to conduct all services and business meetings in English, but once they were outside, people's native tongues were loosed.

Today, Minka had fidgeted through the entire service. She couldn't wait to get back home.

Minka DeYoung was sixteen years old, taller than average and as thin and straight as a stalk of wheat. Her fine brown hair was cut in a loose bob and pinned back on one side with a frilly ribbon. Her gaze was lively and intelligent, though she often ducked her head bashfully and, like other people who fought shyness, had a habit of holding herself very still in public. Minka knew her nose and ears were too large for her face; she didn't realize her delicate cheekbones were beautiful. She was always careful not to draw attention to her hands, which had been damaged long ago.

Honus removed his fedora, but rather than fan his face with it, he held it in both hands and squinted at the pale sky, watching a thrush flap its way to the top of the church's steeple.

Minka glanced toward the church. Her mother had moved to the bottom of the steps, but Jane was still deep in conversation, leaning close to her friend Jette and smiling about something. Minka wished they'd hurry.

This afternoon was the event she'd been waiting for and thinking about for weeks: her sewing class picnic at Scatterwood Lake. Back home, a new dress waited on a hanger, freshly pressed. She would put on just the right jewelry and redo her hair, and then, for a few hours at least, she'd be like a normal teenaged girl, not a full-time worker who split her time between the family dairy and a meatpacking plant.

But Minka couldn't do a thing until her mother and Jane hurried up.

One row over, a car rolled by, carrying a banker from First National. Its paint was an exquisite dark blue, shiny enough to reflect trees. Minka's eyes followed it. She loved beautiful things, even if they weren't hers.

Honus nodded to the banker behind the wheel. The man returned the gesture.

"Dat is one of de new Fords, called Model A," Honus said to Minka.

"Are they better? Than the tin lizzies?" Minka asked. She usually managed to contain all the questions that popped into her head when adults were talking—she'd been raised with perfect manners, after all—but excitement about the picnic loosened her propriety with her stepfather.

"Dey are supposed to haf a ride ... not so bumpy. Dey are fast. But also duur ... expensive, I think." Think came out sounding like sink. Like Minka's mother, Jennie, who'd sailed to America just months before Minka was born, Honus had emigrated from Holland. He would speak with a thick Dutch accent all his life.

They watched the car turn onto Jay Street and disappear. So many things had changed in the decade since the Great War ended. There was still a hitching post on the other side of the church building, and some farmers came to church by horse and buggy. Minka remembered when that was the only transportation anyone had.

A few years back, she and her siblings had gone to a picture show for the first time. As they'd watched people and scenery move silently across the white cloth screen, her mouth had dropped open and stayed that way until her tongue dried out and she'd had to swallow painfully. Jane and John, always quick to tease their sister, hadn't so much as nudged her. They too had been staring, goggle-eyed.

Every month seemed to bring a new innovation. Most homes in Aberdeen, South Dakota, now boasted electric lights indoors, and a few had a newfangled mechanical box for cold food storage, an improvement over root cellars, so long as the toxic chemicals used for cooling didn't spill onto human skin. There were radios in living rooms, and skirt hems that ended more than twelve daring inches above the ground.

Honus's house had an indoor bathroom, a luxury to which Minka and her family had quickly—and gratefully—grown accustomed. Before moving in with him, they'd lived for twelve years at Uncle's farm on the prairie, where Jennie worked as housekeeper and conditions were more primitive. Three years ago when Uncle retired, Honus Vander Zee came calling, and shortly thereafter, with no announcement or fanfare, Jennie had gotten married.

The marriage gave Jennie's children a permanent home, but it upended the only life they'd known. Honus was starting up a new dairy and needed strong workers, and he believed that high school was "for city kids who haf nothing else to do." When each DeYoung child reached the age of fourteen, he or she was put to work milking cows full-time. Minka's older brother, John, soon escaped to the navy.

In the parking lot, Honus cleared his throat.

"It will be a hot day." He looked at his hat, eased it through his hands. "Hotter den yesterday, maybe."

"Yes, sir." Minka lifted her arms away from her body. She didn't want to start sweating in her church dress. During the sermon the sanctuary had rippled with a sea of paper fans, and Minka had kept shifting on the hard wooden bench, thinking of her new dress, the waiting lake, the hours of freedom in front of her. She couldn't resist bringing it up. "Maybe it'll be cooler by the lake this afternoon. At the picnic."

"Ja, maybe."

Minka didn't know that her mother had convinced him to let her go. Honus hadn't married until he was nearly thirty-five years old, and young women were a mystery to him. Raised in Europe, he had absorbed the austere attitudes of a different century regarding children, work, and rewards. From his perspective, duty trumped pleasure—and there was plenty to be done at the farm every single day. Any time away created more work that needed making up.

Sometimes on warm Saturday evenings after milking chores, Honus would lean through the kitchen doorway and say in his quiet way, "Come go for a drive." Since bedtime came early at the dairy, there wasn't time to freshen up or change out of work overalls. Minka and Jane climbed into the stuffy back of the milk truck, and Honus drove them and Jennie to the ice cream shop in town. After buying one malted shake in a tin canister and requesting four paper straws, Honus brought it to the truck and passed the shake around. When they'd each had an equal number of sips and the last bit of ice cream was gone, Honus returned the canister and drove home. To him, such an impractical treat—likely more than he'd gotten as a boy—was enough.

As clusters of the congregation moved toward vehicles, Minka spotted girls from her sewing group. She watched the friends wave to one another before climbing into their cars.

Across the parking lot, Minka overheard a girl named Dorothy call out to a friend, Clara. "We will get you in an hour!" Dorothy slammed the door to the already-rumbling Model T.

Minka clenched her fists and blew air into her cheeks. Her eyes jumped to Mom and Jane, who had yet to move, and then up to Honus, still leaning contentedly against the side of the milk truck. He usually didn't allow dawdling; despite Reverend Kraushaar's sermons about the Sabbath, there was work to do every day of the week. But Honus merely glanced at Minka, deflating the hope that he'd wave her mother and sister away from the church steps.

Though every day of her life was consumed with heavy labor, work had never bothered Minka. Her bony frame masked a surprising stamina. Often, the longer she worked, the more invigorated she felt. She knew that her natural gifts were physical, and she was proud of them. Maybe she couldn't light up a room just by walking into it, like Jane, but she could work as long and accomplish as much as anyone she knew, including adults.

It was the loss of her education that scraped at Minka's spirit. She'd been raised poor but with self-respect. Even as a child, running barefoot in the summer dirt at a farm that wasn't her family's own, she'd carried herself with a sense of dignity, had felt as worthy and capable as any other girl. Now, at sixteen, Minka felt ashamed. What if milking cows was all she was good for—what if an uneducated milkmaid was all people would ever see when they looked at her?

This afternoon's picnic would allow her to once again feel "as good as." Her heart pounded, partly from nerves, partly from excitement. Perhaps if her mother and Honus saw that today's outing didn't affect her work, she'd occasionally be allowed to go on future adventures.

Finally, here came Jane across the field. Her arm was linked through her mother's, and she leaned against her, giggling about something. Jennie was smiling. In this pressing heat, they moved slowly. Minka wanted to drag them forward. She turned and opened the truck's back door. Its metal handle was hot to the touch, and the hinges squealed. As she climbed up, she banged her knee on the wooden crates that served as seats, and her handkerchief fluttered onto the metal floor. She'd been twisting the cloth so anxiously that it looked like a wrung-out chicken's neck.

* * *

Minka stood at the mirror in her mother's bedroom, trying on strands of necklaces. Despite growing up on a hardscrabble farm, she'd always loved pretty jewelry. Jennie had brought some simple accessories from Holland many years ago, and Minka had often capered around Uncle's house wearing every strand she could find, all draped together around her neck. Jane and John had nicknamed her "Gypsy."

Jane wasn't calling her sister names today. Minka's younger sibling had been trying not to sulk ever since they'd arrived home from church. With excitement such a rare commodity in their lives, the sisters nearly always shared it; the night before, Jane had volunteered to help Minka bake cookies for the big event.

But Jane was the charming "baby" of the family, unaccustomed to standing in the shadows, and now the sharing of joy stretched taut. Minka's new dress was the best item in their shared closet. Only Minka would be going on the picnic. Jane's steps had been heavy and a pout had crimped her pretty lips as she changed into work clothes for her usual afternoon of chores.

The summer sewing class was made up of girls from Zion Lutheran. Although store windows now overflowed with finished goods, from ready-made clothes to canned food to toiletry items, sewing was still an expected skill for a future housewife. Like most farmers, the Vander Zees took care of their own animals, grew and preserved their own food, performed their own mechanical repairs, made their own soap and clothes.

Jennie sewed skillfully and would have made a fine teacher if she'd had time, but she was too busy with chores. So Minka went off to sewing class, where she demonstrated an innate creativity and quick skill that surprised and pleased her. She produced the most immaculate stitches in the group—she'd heard her teacher praising her work to Jennie. Minka loved the feel of new fabric in her hands. Sometimes, while doing chores or riding in the car, she daydreamed of expensive silk in bright colors, falling like water over her shoulders and resting perfectly against her thin hips.

For this first dress Minka had chosen a modern shift pattern with a dropped waist in a fetching green-and-white cotton. She couldn't resist adding a decoration: an apple-and-leaf appliqué, cut from a contrasting fabric and stitched below her left shoulder. Compared to this fresh style, even her best church dress seemed dowdy.

As Minka fastened a strand of beads behind her neck, Jennie came through the doorway. She covered her mouth when she saw her daughter, her quietest and most diligent child. The mirror reflected the woman Minka would soon become.

"Je ziet er mooi uit," she murmured. You look so pretty. Then, louder: "You are a fine seamstress, Minnie."

Minka savored the compliments. Since babyhood, her pretty sister had always been the center of attention. Minka was happiest out of the spotlight, but sometimes when she watched Jane fling herself into their mother's lap, she longed to do the same. In a household marked by Dutch reserve, compliments were few and physical touch came only to those who demanded it. Minka was too shy—and too stubborn, really—to demand anything.

"Dey are picking you up here?" Jennie asked, crossing the room to lift Minka's overalls from the bedstead.

"Yes, Mom." Minka pushed at the bottom of her hair. She'd dampened it in the bathroom and attempted to make some finger waves, but it had dried too quickly in this heat and now looked straggly. She supposed the other girls would have the same problem today.

"And you be back in time for de milking, ja?" That chore commenced at five o'clock at both ends of the day, and the cows' full udders wouldn't wait, picnic or no.

"Yes, Mom, that's what they said."

Jennie bent and wiped the tops of Minka's shoes, then set them where Minka could slip into them. The clunky leather shoes would make her feet sweat, but they would have to do. Mary Janes did not come in a large-enough size for Minka. Jennie's children had inherited a scattering of oversized genes from some unknown branch of the family tree—John would eventually stand well over six feet, much taller than his father had been. And at a time when most girls' feet were a dainty size 4 or 4.5, Minka's were twice that big.

Minka's hands were large too, although that was not the reason she made a concerted effort to hide them. She was most bothered by their disfigurement. Daily hours of milking had taken a toll, but the real damage had been done when she was a small girl. At Uncle's, out of necessity, children had been put to work as soon as they could walk in a straight line. John helped with the horses and out in the fields, while Jane loved to hang close to her mother's skirt, doing chores underfoot. As the oldest and strongest girl, Minka took on the most arduous household work. She toted buckets of water, hauled pails of animal feed, and lifted bulky sheaves of wheat at threshing time. Minka volunteered for these tasks, relishing the nod or smile from Jennie as she did so. It made her happy to help her busy mother. But by the time she was thirteen, Minka's fingers were permanently deformed, the bones bent inward at the ends where her tiny joints had grasped and lifted a thousand heavy handles.

Through the open window a noisy engine signaled the arrival of Minka's ride. She glanced in the mirror once more, automatically pushing her hands into her sides so the folds of fabric obscured them. She was giddy enough to let a vain thought cross her mind: She had never looked better. She spun and hurried toward the kitchen, where her dinner basket waited.

"Don't forget these," Jane called after her. She held out the cookie tin. After the whole batch had cooled last night, Jane had chosen the twenty most perfect cookies, enough to share with all the girls and chaperones. Minka had stacked and restacked them onto two big cloth napkins, which she neatly tied up and placed in the tin.

"Danke." Minka had nearly rushed out without the treats.

"Tell them I helped," Jane said, looking wistfully at the package. And Minka—even though this was her special day, and even though she'd spent her whole life on the sidelines watching Jane accept easier chores and more praise—felt sorry that her little sister couldn't come along.

* * *

On the road to Scatterwood Lake, large plumes of airborne dirt billowed behind the caravan of vehicles. The cars trailed one another at quarter-mile distances to avoid being completely engulfed in dust.

(Continues...)

---

Excerpted from the waiting by CATHY LaGROW, Cindy Coloma. Copyright © 2014 Cathy LaGrow. Excerpted by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---

Videos