A Lifetime of Service with Ged Youngman

Hello and welcome to this week's episode! Born during World War II in England, Ged Youngman tells the story of her life as a nurse attending both dying children and healthy babies as a midwife. Later in the United States, she spent much of her time helping her church and overseeing many ministries. She has attended my parish, St. Philip's Episcopal Church, for 35 years. For this reason, I have known her practically my whole life. Growing up, she was essential to my spiritual life because she was involved in everything, from Vacation Bible School to the Episcopal diocesan camp called Gordonwood, where I spent three happy summers in my youth.

Ged was recently diagnosed with interstitial pulmonary disease, her lungs only have a small portion of healthy tissue, so the noise in the background of this episode is her oxygen machine.

For more information about me and my work, please visit www.BrianneTurczynski.com or www.LovingTheImperfect.com

#podcast #spirituality #episcopal #history #prayer #love #ministry #interviews #christianity #contemplative #meditation #Bible #Bible reading #religion #Biblestudy #christianmystic #mysticism #nursing #England 

For more information about me and my work, please visit www.brianneturczynski.com or www.lovingtheimperfect.com

Transcript

 Welcome to Loving the Imperfect Podcast, a show for seekers of deeper contemplation. I'm Brianne Turczynski. For 10 years, I've been studying offerings from holy teachers and holy texts. I'm a journalist who has listened to the stories of many people throughout the years, and I continue to be captivated by the stories of how God nudges and directs us, either by closing doors or opening them. So, join me as we listen to these extraordinary stories and become witnesses to the truth of love.  

Hello, and welcome back to Loving the Imperfect. Born in England during World War II, Ged Youngman tells the story of her life as a nurse and midwife attending to dying children and healthy babies. Later, in the United States, she spent much of her time helping her church and overseeing ministries. 

She has attended my parish, St. Philip's Episcopal Church in Rochester for 35 years. For this reason, I have practically known her my whole life. Growing up, she was essential to my spiritual growth, because she was involved in everything from Vacation Bible School to the Episcopal Diocesan Camp called Gordonwood, where I spent three happy summers in my youth. 
 
 The noise in the background is her oxygen machine. She was recently diagnosed with interstitial pulmonary disease. Only a small portion of her lungs have healthy tissue.

So this interview is important for all of us, including you listening, because not only are all of our stories important, but, again, this is a practice in deep listening, listening with the ears of compassion. Thank you for tuning in.

I was born at the end of 1942, December, and at that time, the Blitz had just started.

My mother and three older siblings lived in a rural area east of London, very close to the Thames estuary where the River Thames meets the North Sea. When the Air raids started, the German army followed the River Thames to bomb London. One night they were doing that and a stray bomb hit our village. 

It smashed a school, and it made the light bulbs come down in our little house. It meant that my mum and my three siblings had to go rush down to the little shelter and stay there until the all clear. And my dad had built bunks in there and they tried to stay warm, but it was hard. My dad was in the RAF and he came home on leave. He was horrified to think how close they came to disaster. 

He was stationed in the Isle of Man, which is an island in the Irish Sea, to do his training to be sent to Germany as an ambulance driver. He knew it was safe because the government used the island to, bring internees who were mainly Italian. By this time Italy was on Germany's side. So anyone who was living in England at that time from a country that was against England was brought to live on that island.

And so obviously The Germans weren't going to bomb that, so it was safe. I always think of it as Mary and Joseph and the flight to Egypt. But it was my mum gathering up three kids, who were then six, eight, and nine, and traveling to London by train. They had no car.

 And then another train to the north of England, to Liverpool, where they had to get a ferry to go to this island. They were in a bed and breakfast for three weeks, and my mum had to go from house to house, asking people, can we come and live with you for the war? It's because we're now evacuees.

And after three weeks, a lady said yes. And she was an angel to our family. They all loved her. She loved them. And, of course, my dad was stationed on the island in a little town called Andreas. And because he was stationed there, guess what? My mum got pregnant with me. So, number four was coming.

I was born there. So, I was never actually in the Blitz. But the Blitz situation caused this all to happen. We had to stay there till the end of the war when I was three, and then we went back to the little house in Essex.

This little village of Bowers Gifford in Essex was very, very high church—Anglo-Catholic. And it was the whole center of the village. There was the church, the church school, and the village hall were all connected.

And I was there from seven years old till I left for nursing when I was 18. So that was my church background to start with. When I was a teenager, I've been confirmed, and really felt God's presence in my life very strongly. I had felt I had a vocation to become a nurse.  And I really felt drawn to children.  

So in England, you can become a registered pediatric nurse without doing general nursing. So when I was 18, I did training at Westminster Children's Hospital. It was a hospital similar to the University of Michigan, where you didn't just see tonsils and appendix, you saw children with cardiac problems and cancer—major issues.

 I felt a real strong, calling to help those families. It was really powerful. And so I just felt that I  had this chance to be God's hands. 

 My maiden name was Jack, J A C K. And I can remember the kids saying, No, I want Nurse Jack! Where's Nurse Jack? So, I felt a powerful, affirmation of my ministry then. I can remember the faces of so many little kids who ended up dying. 

At the end of the four-year training, I prayed about what was next for me and I thought, I've seen so many sick children. I think I want to do midwifery and see babies come out totally healthy.   So, I did the midwifery training.

My best friend from nursing did it too. We went to Sussex, I had a motor scooter and could ride the Sussex Downs. By this time I was 21. It was a really fun time after these hard years in London where very somber with children so sick.

At this particular time, God was on the back burner of my life. I was having lots of fun. We met some great guys and we went to the pub. We just had a lot of fun with them. 

Then we decided we would go to Oxford.

That was a town that intrigued me. I knew it was a college town and knew it would be a great place to do some training. So went to Oxford and it was there that we put on a nurse's dance and the rugby club gatecrashed and came. And guess who was one of the rugby clubs? Alan Young.  So that's how I met Alan.

We became very close, and then one day he said, “But I saw you've got a crucifix in your room, and you talk about church and God, and I've been divorced”.  And he told me the story of how he had only been married a couple of years when he was very young.

By this time he was 26, and he didn't think I would want to continue. That was when I had this strong, strong feeling that he and I were meant to be together and God totally approved of it.  

When I was going to get married, the Church of England didn't approve of second marriages. I just felt that God understood how we loved each other, and that God welcomes everyone.

I wasn't going to let that get in the way of marrying Alan, but it did mean we had to be married in a registry office. When we got to Canada, there was a church in the town of Hamilton called the Church of the Ascension. When we went there, the priest announced that Canada had now just come to, allow second marriages, which America had for a long time. We said our vows and had a little marriage ceremony in Canada. And then nine months later we came out to the States, and we joined St. Philip's, about 35 years ago. 

It was a good place for us to worship as a family, three of our four kids were married there, and it’s just been our spiritual home it's a wonderful congregation to be part of.

I couldn't imagine life without a spiritual home. That little village in my youth had this beautiful church called St. Margaret’s. I've always looked, whenever we've moved, I've looked for a new spiritual home for us. I have a strong faith and belief that there's a higher power and we're going to get to heaven one day. I am just comfortable with being part of a Christian community.

When I was at St. Philip's, I was very friendly with Beth LeClaire was her name and she and I did several things together. We did school and we wanted to stretch our ministry a little more. Beth had gone to some meetings where she had met Floyd Schaefer, who had books about being a Christian clown and doing skits to show kids and adults God's love in different ways. So we learned all his ideas about being a Christian clown and that became a ministry for us. On Cursillo, we would do a reconciliation service, which people found very moving, and it was the story of, the crucifixion and then the resurrection.

And it was all in mime, and there was music then at the Diocesan Camp, Gordonwood, which I  worked at for 18 years, with their Christian education program each year. I would do clowning there, so a lot of kids got to see it. 

I did a little bit in churches. Sometimes it was totally rejected, and other times people loved it. Beth and I felt that we grew spiritually through it. It was very powerful for us. Her clown name was Boom Boom, and my clown name was the Gedster.

Years went by and we outgrew it. Beth said, “It's time for Boom Boom to go in the closet. And I agreed with her that we were going to stop clowning. But it was a good experience while it lasted. She made up her own skit called The Missing Piece. The kids all got to put a jigsaw puzzle together, but there was a missing piece in the middle, and it was a heart.

And they'd find it and put it in there and realize it was God's love. She said she remembered a little boy coming to her afterward and said, “I feel different. That was so special to me. I now understand that God loves me very much”.

That was very affirming to both of us that this ministry would touch a few people.

I took it to nursing homes. Once, I was shooed out of an old lady's room with a broom when she didn't want me around. So you know, we had the full spectrum of people who benefited from it and others who thought this was pretty crazy. 

I love things that connect the Old Testament with the New. And I especially enjoy Isaiah. There's a passage where he makes a prophetic idea of what the Messiah is going to be like. And he says, Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God. And those words have, all this time, they're now in the orchestra of the Messiah. 

So every Christmas I'll hear that or we play that music ourselves. And I love the fact that that comes from Biblical roots, that through the Christian story, we are all connected right from the Old Testament through to nowadays. That speaks to me. 

And I love Jesus wanting the children near him saying, “Suffer the little children to come to me, because of such is the kingdom of heaven”. All affirming that God's love is there for everybody. 

Thank you for joining me today on Loving the Imperfect. Join me next time for a story from Dr. Rick Maibauer, an orthopedic surgeon who performed the very first total joint replacement in Ghana, Africa in 2001. So he's going to tell us a little bit about his time in Africa, and I hope you enjoy that episode.

I'll see you next time. Bye bye.