The History VCY Forgot...but God Hasn't!

It has been about a year since VCY America released its colorful magazine-style book,

God's Continuing Miracle: The VCY Story. After reflecting on the contents for this last year, I feel that it is time to respond. The history of VCY America, shown through 160 pages of photos as well as the narrative of staff members and assorted others involved with the ministry, was shockingly incomplete. It was an injustice to someone who is very precious to me: my mother, the wife of Vic Eliason, the founder of the ministry. Her story, her

memories, her tireless labors in the ministry were completely left out. There are no two-page spreads, no photo pages of her work, no acknowledgement of her key role in helping the ministry to exist and grow to what it is today. Nobody at VCY requested her experiences or her reflections on the sixty years she spent there. Mom is now 88 years old. We often reminisce with her over those sixty years and all that transpired.

The VCY history magazine was thrust at me coming through the door of a local church

one Sunday. The former staff member was clearly excited that he had been featured in the book and was showing it around to his friends at church. He had a two-page spread with photos of him at work through the years. He was looking for some kind of reaction from me. So I smiled and remarked, "You do know they left someone out, don't you?" He

looked a bit puzzled. Yes, indeed. Someone was left out.

My dad, Vic Eliason, asked me more than once over the years to write the VCY story. I

was in a good position to do it, having slept on the floors late at night as a child in the

ministry's early days; traveled thousands of miles with his singing group; attended VCY's

Christian school for six years and worked there for a total of 24 years, as did my husband;

havine scheduled, often scripted, and co-hosted his Crosstalk programs for those 24 years; yes, I was in a good position to write the story. Why didn't I? Because no matter how gifted, driven and ambitious a ministry-builder is, they don't build in isolation. Their family members who know only that ministry, who serve with that ministry their entire lives, who eat, drink and live that ministry – it is dishonest and unjust to leave out their part in it. I would not leave that part out, and that's why I declined to write it. In the end, the final history of VCY left all but Vic out anyway.

Over the last year since the book was published, I have thought a great deal about my

mother's life and contributions. The following is a small tribute. Few will likely read it

or care. I am putting it down anyway.

Mom came to the cold city of Milwaukee for the second time in 1959. She had previously

been in Milwaukee for a short time, when her husband was hired as an organist and choir

director at a church with a pastor named Valdez. After barely a year, that situation ended

and Mom and Dad returned to Des Moines, Iowa. Only a short time later, Dad got the call

to head up the Milwaukee Youth for Christ chapter that was run out of a storefront at

27th and State in Milwaukee. Mom went to work at a bank downtown to help pay bills.

Mom had no car, so she took a bus from the far northwest side of Milwaukee all the way

downtown each day. She recalls not having boots and having to walk in a blizzard from

downtown Milwaukee to the YFC office, barely catching her husband as he was driving

out. For a gal from the Ozarks, cold and snowy Milwaukee was a big adjustment.

Mom eventually came to work at the YFC office. She remembers washing the floor one

night on her hands and knees and looking up to see a drunk watching her through the

glass. She got quite a shock. Mom did whatever wasn't getting done, a pattern that

continued for the rest of her working days at VCY America. She processed income and

did bookkeeping, cleaned toilets, just about everything. When I was still in a playpen, she

ran the YFC bookstore facing on 27th Street, around the corner from the storefront that

housed Youth for Christ and the new radio station, WBON-FM. She accompanied Vic on

youth events and retreats sponsored by the ministry, which included crossing Lake

Michigan on the Milwaukee Clipper multiple times; stayed up till the wee hours helping

with printing jobs for brochures and materials; planned banquets and dinners; and was on

call for whatever was needed at any time or any hour.

Eyewitnesses to any history are the most important. Here are just some of the things we

saw Mom do over the years at the ministry.

Mom cooked for Lifeline Camp for many years. We kids were her assistants. Lifeline

was an outreach to kids from Milwaukee’s central city, as well as those boys on the brink

of release from what was then called Wales School for Boys, later Ethan Allen School for

Boys. The camp took place at Devil's Lake State Park in Baraboo, Wisconsin. Mom

cooked in an old converted school bus that had three burners and a large cooler with ice.

Daily runs into Baraboo for groceries and ice meant lots of lifting. Many meals were

cooked on grills on the ground. Everything from baked potatoes wrapped in foil to

hamburgers, steaks and chicken were put on these low grills or in the coals. Mom has

numerous burn scars on her hands to this day from those backbreaking grills. Later on,

they switched to Weber Kettle grills, which was an improvement. This camp went on for

two weeks each year in August with a short break at the weekend. Four groups of boys were brought up during the two weeks. Late one Sunday night, I remember a pouring rainstorm coincided with a batch of boys arriving for dinner. My mom and sister, Lisa, turned hamburgers under an inadequate canopy with garbage bags over their heads. The boys would be hungry, and so they worked in the pouring rain as best they could. The camp gave Milwaukee kids a chance to get out of the city, go swimming and hiking, and most importantly, hear about the love of Christ. The boys would hang out by the kitchen bus and talk to Mom, who always had time for them.

Mom also cooked for VCY's Wilderness Camp. We kids went along to the far north

woods, 40 miles from Canada, to camp on Hinsdale Island for two weeks. The first week

was preparation for the campers who arrived for a week by boat. Mom cooked with no

shelter, in the open air, three meals a day for about 35 kids and staff, plus a nighttime snack. She slept in a tent, on a sleeping bag stretched over a folded-down lawn chair. There were no showers – bathing was in the lake. A bear showed up once at dinnertime, sniffing her cooking from miles away, no doubt. Through it all, Mom was cheerful and well-loved by the campers. She never complained. Every single drop of water as well as every bag of groceries for the campers had to be brought by boat. We accompanied Mom in the van as she drove over gravel roads on the mainland into the small town nearby, bought food at three separate stores each day, and brought it all back to the island by boat. It was an exhausting job. I don't know how she did it.

For many years, Mom was in charge of the Ladies' Auxiliary. This was a group of

women supporters who met once a month during the school year for a luncheon with a

speaker of some kind, and then a presentation of a need at the ministry that they could get behind financially. Through the years, this Ladies' Auxiliary raised funds for numerous

needs, including the beautiful drapes on the stage of that auditorium at 27th and Vliet, the former bank building the ministry had purchased (later converted to a TV studio). More than 150 women would come to eat a delicious meal that Mom had made, as there was no caterer for these events but Mom. We kids would accompany her to Roundy's, the wholesale grocery warehouse that was near State Fair Park. We liked to ride on the giant carts. She would plan the amount needed for women registered for the meal, plan the menu and then buy it all. She then would go to the kitchen in the basement at 27th and Vliet and make it all, often with the help of only one assistant and us kids. My sister and I helped set up the numerous tables covered with white paper coverings with salt and pepper shakers. Coffee was made in big urns. Mom also made the table centerpieces. One year, we helped Mom make dozens and dozens of Christmas angels for the center of the tables, spray-painting them with gold paint in the basement. They were really pretty!

Having done the planning, shopping, and decorating, Mom would then get up to speak to

the assembled ladies and introduce the latest project and the speaker. I remember being

very proud of her as a girl. It seemed like there was nothing she could not do.

Mom sewed all of my sister's and my outfits for the New Life Singers, and often helped

some of the other girls as well who could not sew. I can still see her cutting out the

material with the patterns for that year's dresses on the dining-room table. Mom was an

excellent seamstress and could not stand a crooked hem. She once ripped out one of the singers’ dresses and hand-sewed it before a concert! It had to be straight! 

As the years went by, Mom took on many different roles for the ministry. She did the

ministry’s bookkeeping at times, handled hundreds and hundreds of letters on our dining

room table for each Letter Month, processed the income as needed, stuffed envelopes for donors, and even served as a taxi driver when VCY ran a school for 12 years. When I was in high school, I remember her exhaustion as she shuttled us teenagers to the gymnasium that VCY rented for gym classes. My heart went out to her. 

Mom sometimes took my sister and I to visit elderly friends of the ministry. One blind

lady we visited lived in a high-rise, low-income apartment on Layton Boulevard in

Milwaukee. I remember the lady asking my sister and me if we could go get her some

coffee at the grocery across the street, as she didn't like to use her cane after dark with the heavy traffic. I was nearly in tears, seeing this sweet lady and seeing my mom;s kindness and interest in her. Mom told us the lady's story later, and how her sons had abandoned her. Mom's compassion for this lady was just one of the many, many times I was influenced to see people through the lens of kindness and interest in other people and their needs.

There isn't enough space or time to record the totality of what Freda Eliason did for the Lord first and for ministry of VCY America and for our family. She shuttled all three of us kids to music lessons, doctor’s appointments, dentists, everything that being a parent entails. Through it all, she was the comfort, the love and security we enjoyed as children. She read many books aloud to us and gave all of us a great love for reading. She is the reason my home has always been full of books. One of my most precious memories is of my mother reading the entire Bible storybook to us, introducing us to the Exodus, the parting of the Red Sea, the Patriarchs, the Lord Jesus and all the great characters of history and their role in our faith. She had us memorize the Scriptures, verses that I can say today because of her. She sent us off in the mornings with a breakfast, a bag lunch and a Bible verse from a little box she had on the table.

My tribute is pitifully inadequate, it isn't full of photos or other people's great accolades for her. Few photos of her work exist other than those that show her great love and influence on her children and grandchildren and now, great-grandchildren. She had no professional photos taken, and never, ever put herself forward to self-promote. But God remembers what she has done. He hears her ceaseless prayers. Her children remember all that she has done. We were witnesses. I am confident that some day, when all sorrow, all grief, all tears are wiped away forever, that my precious mother will know how much her labors meant for eternity in the lives and souls that she touched by her faithfulness. Thank you, Mom. We love you.