Against the Wind: Eberhard Arnold and the Bruderhof - Plough

Against the WindJena and then, following 1897, in Halle. Spiritual matters had fascinated her eversince a friend had introduced her to the family of Pastor Meinhof, a minister inHalle. As a teenager she had taken great interest in the history of the MoravianBrethren and their founder, Zinzendorf. She became absorbed in studying old andnew hymns and spiritual songs, and read with enthusiasm Thomas à Kempis’sImitation of Christ. A parallel experience?At seventeen Emmy enrolled as a student nurse at the deaconesses’ institutein Halle. At nineteen she worked for a time as a nanny for Pastor Freybe and hisfamily, friends in Stappenbeck near Salzwedel (about seventy miles southeast ofHamburg). She spent 1905 working as an intern at the deaconesses’ center, butgave it up by the end of the year because of poor health and emotional burnout.Pastor Freybe arranged for her to begin work in February of 1906 at the hospitalof the Order of St. John in Salzwedel. Emmy worked gladly and dedicatedly asa nurse, but the suffering and death that so often confronted her – both in thehospital and, from an early age, within her own family – made her think about thesometimes mysterious will of God, about his compassion, and about the brevityof life. “What troubled me was that I felt something divided me from God,” shelater said about this period. “I could not understand how God, who is pure andholy, had chosen such unholy people for his own, and I found no real answer tothis question…”In this inner state and lured by a certain curiosity, Emmy von Hollander madeher way to Frau Baehr’s drawing room. Upon arrival in Halle for a month’s holidaywith her parents, she had found her siblings full of enthusiasm over Ludwig vonGerdtell’s lectures. At afternoon coffee and other social occasions she had heardpeople openly discussing “whether the atonement of Christ still has power andsignificance today.” The whole city seemed to breathe a different spirit. “How Ilonged that I, too, would be gripped by this spirit.”After the evening at Frau Baehr’s, Emmy did not see Eberhard for a while. Hehad gone to the Harz Mountains for a few days to become clear about his ownfeelings toward this young woman and about God’s will concerning her. Stilldeeply stirred by his talk, Emmy went several days later, on March 15, to visitFrau Baehr and find out from her the way to “peace in God and in Christ.” And shecontinued to attend the meetings.22