Lisa Barry: I wonder how many of you mothers listening today would allow your 10-year-old son to travel on a slow boat across the Atlantic alone. No parent. No grandparent. No sibling or guardian. Pretty scary thought, isn't it? But that's exactly what happened to Elisabeth Elliot's husband, Lars Gren, when he was young. He's been sharing that story all week on Gateway To Joy. We're going to pick up the story where we left off, as Lars becomes more accustomed to his new surroundings and he tries to rebuild his world. That's what's coming up on this Thursday edition of Gateway To Joy. Here's Elisabeth to get us started.

Elisabeth Elliot: "You are loved with an everlasting love." That's what the Bible says. "And underneath are the everlasting arms." This is your friend Elisabeth Elliot, conversing with my husband, Lars Gren.

He has been telling us this week about his childhood in Norway-ten years living with very godly grandparents, while his parents and his brother and sister were in New York. He had just landed in New York, meeting these four people that he had never met before-his brother and his sister and his father and his mother. He went into public school, not knowing one single word of English. But you must have been a very smart little boy, because you learned English within about three months.

People are going to say, "Well, you lived in Norway and you lived in Long Island. But how in the world did you ever get that southern accent?"

Lars Gren: I don't believe that there's going to be a very heavy accent over the radio, and I think having lived now in Massachusetts for about 25 years, my speech is ruined. But if I have any accent at all from the South, it is because we only stayed on Long Island for about two years.

Then we left the Island and moved to Catahoula, Mississippi, which is about 14-well, on the new road now, it's more like ten miles out of Picayune. Picayune is close to Slidell or Bay St. Louis, Gulfport, Mississippi. Most everybody knows where Picayune is.

Elisabeth Elliot: I was going to say, "May I see the hands of those of you who know exactly where Catahoula, Mississippi is?" I don't really believe there will be many people, even in Mississippi, who would know where Catahoula was.

Lars Gren: Well, it's a well-known name because of the Catahoula hound dog.

Elisabeth Elliot: Oh. I didn't know about the Catahoula hound dog.

Lars Gren: Well, anyway, that's where we went. We wound up down there on a farm, and then later on moved into Picayune. So I guess during those years I might have picked up a little bit of a twang.

Elisabeth Elliot: And what kind of a school did you go to?

Lars Gren: We had three rooms and a double outhouse, one for males and one for females, out in the back. Dirt basketball court with an iron hoop. The schoolhouse itself, one room was the cafeteria and then the other room had primary grades. The other room had the higher educated, up until you got into high school.

You would sit in a row, beginning on the right-hand side of the room, and as you progressed, you'd move towards the left, one row, as you graduated into the next grade. Then the teacher would take turns teaching each class. When he was teaching the sixth, seventh and eighth, or the seventh and eighth and you were in sixth, why, you were supposed to study. Or else if you were on the basketball team, you could go out and try to practice up a little bit.

Elisabeth Elliot: What did you call the teacher?

Lars Gren: His name was Orrin Seal. He was Uncle Orrin. Everybody in that little area was related to each other. It was just no outsiders. It was sort of a real old country area.

Elisabeth Elliot: But you were an outsider.

Lars Gren: Yes. But once we got involved, and of course being young, you adapt very easily to it. So everyone became uncle and aunt to me, also. In fact, I was just down there now for the 40^th reunion of the high school class down there and went out to the old farm. I went visiting one of the fellows who used to work for us, J. C. Seal. He worked on the farm while we were there. I went by to see him. We reminisced about Uncle Orrin.

Elisabeth Elliot: Your parents had gone down there in order to have a tung nut plantation, right? Tung nut was a tree that produced oil for paint.

Lars Gren: Paint. And then of course the oil paints went out and latex came in, and so the need for the tung oil was greatly diminished.

Elisabeth Elliot: Now back to the school again. I heard somewhere that in a certain city, which shall be nameless, nowadays in public schools, the teachers spend 80% of the time saying, "Sit down" and "Shut up." Did that ever happen in that little schoolhouse?

Lars Gren: Never happened in that schoolhouse or the next one I went to, because they had a very good method. If it was a woman teacher, generally she had a little ruler. If it was a man, they had a piece of wood that was shaped like a shoe. If you cut up in the class, they would just say, "Excuse me, but come on up here for a minute and just bend over a little bit." And they would give you a swat and send you back to your desk. There was never any problem.

Elisabeth Elliot: It worked.

Lars Gren: Oh, it worked wonderfully well. And of course, there was not a problem with anyone being permanently injured or hurt or anything like that. And we didn't worry about self-image and all the psychological junk that they think about now.

Elisabeth Elliot: So you were happy to be down there with a horse. Did you have cattle?

Lars Gren: Yes. Well, I had-we didn't-that's where my father really wanted to turn it into a cattle farm. He had a partner that didn't want to. He wanted to get out of it. So when the tung business went down, that was why we left that farm. Had my dad gotten his way and got a cattle business going there, I'd probably still be down there. But we did have-we ran some-what they called feeder cattle, beef and steer. Then of course we had our own dairy cow. I used to be the one who would milk that. I named that cow "Pat." The reason I did that was because I was sweet on a girl named Pat, when I was very shy and embarrassed. So the best I could do was to name my cow after her. Years later, I told her that I had named my cow after her, and she was not very impressed.

Elisabeth Elliot: So were you actually aiming to be a farmer or a cattle hand or something?

Lars Gren: Yes. I had a place all picked out. It belonged to a man from Denmark, Ed Mόller, whom we knew. Later on, after I got through schooling and Navy and all, I had intended to go back down to Mississippi and see Ed Mόller and see if I could take over his place. In the meantime though, he got sick and had to sell the place. He moved back to Denmark, where he died. So in the providence of God, I didn't go back to Mississippi.

Elisabeth Elliot: So where did you go?

Lars Gren: We were in New York for a few more years, and then I lived Atlanta, Georgia and then came up to up to Massachusetts. I actually have been in Massachusetts now longer than any other place in my life.

Elisabeth Elliot: Well, let's hear a little bit about what you were doing when you lived in Atlanta.

Lars Gren: That was one of the things-one of many differences, I suppose, in my life, as opposed to other people. You know, you have some people-they get a job and they go 25, 30, 40 years and retire in the same position. I didn't. I suppose the one that I would have loved to have stayed in, had anyone encouraged me to-I would have retired out of the U.S. Navy, but I didn't. I got out of that. Once I got out of the Navy, I did different things for a few years, always thinking sooner or later there might be some Christian work that I would do. From early on, I thought about that.

So in Atlanta, I tried to sell real estate, but didn't do any good at that. I was trying to sell residential real estate, and there were an awful lot of women in that business whom I didn't particularly enjoy working with. So I got out of that.

Then odds and ends. Painting and sort of a handyman. Then I had a job with a man in the clothing business, and that was the last thing I was doing before I came to Massachusetts to go into seminary. That clothing business was very interesting. I enjoyed it. I traveled fourteen states in the South, from Virginia to Texas, and up to Louisville, Kentucky. The most enjoyable part of it was eating in restaurants and living in hotels and not having a very easy-going life.

Elisabeth Elliot: I'm glad you no longer describe that particular job in the terms that you used to describe it. When people would ask you what you did, you had sometimes said, "Well, I used to travel in ladies' clothing." I said to you, "Well, Darling, I really do think that there is a better way to describe that particular job."

Lars Gren: Well, back then, they used to call it "Better Ladies' Ready-to-Wear."

Elisabeth Elliot: Better Ladies' Ready-to-Wear. Does anybody know what that means nowadays?

Lars Gren: Not a one. I don't think anyone knows what that is. But I used to call on specialty shops. They'd come into the hotel and you'd show them the line and sell that.

Elisabeth Elliot: This was kind of high-priced stuff, in other words, when it says "Better Ladies' Ready-to-Wear."

Lars Gren: Right. I did not sell to the department stores or anything. It was specialty shops in large cities, the main cities. And then of course, from smaller ones you would see in the regional markets or in New York City.

Elisabeth Elliot: And among those trips that you made, you made a stop one time to see a friend of yours in North Carolina. A whole lot of things changed from that point on. So the next time we have a chance to talk, which will be tomorrow, we'll hear about how you got from Mississippi and Atlanta to Massachusetts. I've been talking with my husband, Lars Gren. I hope he'll tell us some more about his life tomorrow.

Lisa Barry: Well, I hope you've enjoyed today's look back in time. Are you able to track where God has taken you through life? It's a great encouragement, especially when difficult times surface in your life. You can remember the faithfulness of God and His divine providence for you.

Another way you can be encouraged is by knowing you're leaving a legacy of love for your grandchildren. The best way I know of to do that is through a video tape entitled FORGET ME NOT: A GRANDMOTHER'S INFLUENCE. You'll find a lot of practical ideas that you can put into practice today.

The cost of the video is $24. You can send that, along with your request, to Gateway To Joy, Box 82500, Lincoln, Nebraska, 68501. Or call toll-free: 1-800-759-4JOY. That's 1-800-759-4569. Our Internet ministry address is gatewaytojoy.org. Gateway To Joy has been a production of Back to the Bible.

We'll conclude our talks with Lars Gren tomorrow, so make it a point to join us then for the next Gateway To Joy.