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Rosa
Hiya, Folks! Have a good Easter weekend, I presume?
I just started my coffee. Put the fresh ground coffee in the French Press and poured in the boiling hot water. Now I’m waiting for it to steep for four or five minutes before I pour my cup.
A few days ago, when things were a bit quieter than they’ve been the last few days, I made mention of making Belgian Waffles, and how the district manager for the Anchorage Daily News got me started making them.
During the 1990’s, when Della and I were doing a lot of traveling – especially in Canada – and meeting with folks for spontaneous worship gatherings, people would come from miles around and camp out at the different gathering places. You have to understand that for the most part, except for the ranch house at Trails’ End in Idaho, the homes we stayed in and had our gatherings in were pretty large homes that sat on a lot of acreage. The homes were on the order of 5,000 – 6,000 square feet, and even more, so there was a lot of room for people to get together.
Breakfast kind of turned into a ritual. Everyone expected me to make Belgian Waffles for the gathering, so it allowed me plenty of opportunity to do some experimenting. Over time, my waffle recipe changed pretty dramatically. Being exposed to folks like Eileen and Berle, who were really into the “natural foods” and elimination of as much processed food as possible, I started grinding my own wheat and using the fresh-ground wheat for the waffles. Being at Mary Ellen’s place where they had chickens even got us to freshly-laid eggs.
Then somebody brought us a bottle of just-processed Maple syrup from New Hampshire. Add to that some fresh-picked Alaskan blueberries and cranberries, and you see where this is going. Yummm……….. Is your mouth watering, yet? Absolutely nothing like it in the world, even if I do say so myself! Hehehehehe………
When we came to south Texas, and I was at KTLM-TV, I started making Belgian Waffles for the staff every year around Christmastime. Got to be a regular thing. Folks wanted to know from year to year when I was going to do waffles again.
Hang on for a second. OK. Just poured my coffee. Now we can get started. Grab your cup.
What I’m about to share with you is a story I’ve repeated throughout the years. This is the tale of a young teenage girl whose grit and determination to serve the Lord preached such a loud message, it resulted in many folks’ salvation. Watching Rosa Frankson’s experiences and seeing her love for the Lord impacted my life as well as the lives of my parents – and ultimately, many hundreds of other folks.
Point Hope, Alaska -- in the 1950's and early 1960's -- was still pretty much an Eskimo village cut off from the rest of the world. At that time, it was a community of perhaps 250 people. Situated on the northwest tip of Alaska about 150 miles NW of Kotzebue, we were lucky to get one mail plane – bush planes only, if you please – per week, and in wintertime we could frequently go for three weeks without mail. The pilots landed on the beach, or a small strip of land that had been cleared, provided it was free of snow drifts.
It is important to understand that the Point Hope of 1961 was still steeped in old traditions, superstitions, shamanism and witchcraft. Although an Episcopal church had existed there for some 50 years, the local priest admitted that they were not getting the job done in evangelizing the community.
When we arrived in Point Hope in the fall of 1961 to build an Assemblies of God church, opposition within the community began immediately. We were not wanted. The local shaman began walking circles around the church we were building and pronouncing curses on us. Of course we were a threat to his spiritual dominion in the community -- and up to that time, his spiritual control over the villagers was very strong.
In the months following our construction of the new church, my mother began a club called "Esthers" in order to reach out to the young girls in the community. It was a means to teach manners and etiquette, good grooming and appearance, and apply teaching from the book of Esther in order to bring the Gospel to them in a practical sense.
The group quickly caught on, and before long, she had between a dozen and two dozen girls ranging from 10 to 16 years of age. One of those girls was 13-year old Rosa Frankson, the daughter of the local postmaster.
Rosa quickly accepted Jesus Christ as her personal Lord and Saviour and began to become an outspoken voice for the gospel in her peer group. Word of her conversion and increasing influence among the young people spread to the local shaman. Incensed that someone was encroaching on “his territory,” he went to certain households where he knew his authority was unquestioned and encouraged the teenage boys to "keep her from going over to the Capeners."
On the day of the next "Esthers" meeting, Rosa set out to our place as usual. This time, three teenage boys were waiting for her. They roughed her up and told her that she was not to come to our place any longer. She lay on the ground until they left, and then continued to our house as usual. Although her appearance was a bit disheveled when she arrived at our house, she said nothing.
The following week, as she headed to the club meeting, the same boys were waiting for her. This time they beat and kicked her. She was in pain, but she came to the meeting anyway.
This time, she could not avoid telling my folks what had happened. Dad went to a meeting of the city elders and expressed his strong displeasure. He ordered the leaders to appropriately discipline the boys who were mistreating Rosa, and made clear that he would not put up with this kind of abuse of a teenage girl. In the meantime, Rosa was all the more outspoken about her relationship with the Lord.
It made no difference. The shaman threatened the parents of the boys with curses if the boys did not carry out his directives.
To most of us who have grown up in traditional American society, the idea of a shaman is totally foreign. The idea that a shaman actually has any real power and/or the ability to actually bring curses upon someone that results in disaster or tragedy is just so much bunk! Or so most folks think. Hollywood’s movies often portray shamans as relatively harmless Indian witch doctors who do their thing with herbs, do a few incantations, scatter strange mixtures in the fire, and have visions.
What gets left out of these portrayals is the fact that the overwhelming majority of shamans exercise demonic power. There is nothing benign about it. They do have power, and they do exercise it in order to subjugate people and keep them living in fear.
This shaman was no different. The lack of true spiritual authority being taught and exercised by the local priest and those who professed Christianity only emboldened Point Hope’s shaman. The thought that someone might actually thumb their nose at his authority – and especially a teenage girl – was intolerable!
When Rosa continued to come to our home and participate in the Esthers group, the boys who had assaulted her backed off for a week or so, actually impressed by her boldness. One of the old Eskimo traditions was the trying of a person’s grit just to see what they were made of.
When we first moved to Barrow in the mid-1950’s, I was targeted by some young men for this “trial” and attacked regularly – particularly on my way home from school. I’d always been taught not to fight, and despite the fact that a couple of older guys – often in their early-to-mid-twenties – would follow me, kicking me in the rear, spitting on me, and calling me names, I tried to ignore them.
One day, it just got to me. I’d never hit anyone with my fist in my entire life. This fellow was doing the usual, kicking me in the rear, cursing me, spitting on me, calling me names, and something inside me just exploded. I speeded up by a few steps, then paused, spun on my heel and planted a haymaker right square on his jaw. At fourteen years of age, I was already near six feet tall and weighed 215 pounds. The guy following me was probably five-seven and weighed maybe 150 pounds soaking wet. The combination of surprise and the power behind my size literally picked him up off his feet and hurled him on his back.
I was so shocked; I turned and ran for home as hard as I could run. It was the end of the “trial.” Word spread quickly and the taunting ended. Strangely enough, that young man became my friend in the weeks and months that followed, and before it was over, he had accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.
Rosa’s grit and determination to pursue the Lord in the face of her attackers had somewhat the same result – at least momentarily. They backed off for a week or so.
The shaman wasn’t going to stand still, however.
The next week, he ordered the boys to "make sure" that Rosa did not come over to our place. Strong threats were levied against them and their parents.
The next time Rosa headed towards our place for the weekly Esthers meeting, they stoned her, kicked her, and beat her unmercifully. She was a bloodied mess, but she came anyway. When she walked in our door, she was bent over in excruciating pain. Dad took one look at her and knew that she was severely injured. He contacted her parents, and then the hospital in Kotzebue. They immediately sent a doctor and a
Med-Evac plane to pick her up.
For several days, Rosa hung between life and death in the hospital. The internal injuries to her were extreme, and although the doctors did emergency surgery to repair broken bones and punctured organs, they advised the Frankson family that her condition was grave.
Most of the time, Rosa was alert and conscious, and she took every opportunity to talk to the doctors and the nurses about "how wonderful it is to know Jesus." When questioned about the boys that beat her, she simply said, "They just don't know Jesus. Once they do, they won't try to beat people up anymore."
Her forgiving attitude took the doctors and nurses by surprise. Even her parents didn’t know what to make of it.
After three or four days of hanging between life and death, and fading in and out of consciousness, she was awake and talking to the attending nurse. "You need to know Jesus like I do," she said. The nurse teared up, and not knowing what else to do or say, reached over and patted Rosa on the head. "You're going to be OK, Rosa."
Rosa nodded her head and said, "Oh, yes! I know I'm going to be OK. I'm going home to Jesus!"
The nurse ran out and called for the doctor. Her parents had just come into the hospital and they followed the nurse and doctor into the hospital room in time to see Rosa raising her hands toward the ceiling.
"Jesus! Jesus! I see you."
A smile lit up her face, her hands sagged back to the bed, and she was gone.
In the days that followed, the nurse and the doctor both accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour. Rosa's parents likewise accepted the Lord. Dad preached the funeral back in Point Hope a week later. The boys who had beaten her wept and cried, repenting before the community, and asking Jesus to come into their hearts.
It was the end of the shaman's exercise of authority in Point Hope. He shortly thereafter was diagnosed with cancer and died a few months later.
Rosa's testimony and dogged determination to serve the Lord at the cost of her life had both an immediate and long-term impact on Point Hope. It broke the spell of witchcraft that had held the community in bondage for hundreds of years, and it pointed a path to freedom for her family and many young people who have since gone on in their walk with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Rosa Frankson proved to everyone through her life and her death that there was something far more powerful than witchcraft: it was the love of the Lord Jesus Christ, operating in her and through her.
Enjoy your week, folks. Finish your cup of coffee, and we’ll talk some more tomorrow.
Blessings on you.
--Regner
Regner A. Capener
EKKLESIA HOUSE
RR-15, Box 6180
Mission, TX 78574-9589
(956) 583-5355
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This article may be reprinted, reposted, copied and re-used – in whole or in part – with proper attribution.
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