Scripture: 1 Kings 18, Matthew 26:56, Luke 9:51-56, John 6:1-15, 12:1-6, 18:1-11, 21:15-19.

Why would someone write a book about a horrific childhood and represent it as fact if it wasn’t true? That is what many readers of the alleged autobiography Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years by Belgium born Misha Defonscca are asking this week.

First published in 1997 the book became a best seller available in 18 different languages. The “true” story is about the experience of an eight-year-old Jewish girl who in 1941 flees from her guardians because she feels they are mistreating her. She travels on foot across Belgium, Germany and Poland in search of her parents with only a pack of wolves for company. She steals food and clothing to survive along the way.

Misha’s story is the subject of the French film Survivre avec les Loups (Surviving with Wolves) currently playing in Belgium and France and set to open this week in Germany.

In recent weeks pressure on the author has been mounting to defend the accuracy of her account. Among those asking for evidence is genealogical researcher Sharon Sergeant who found Defonscca’s Belgian baptismal certificate and school record along with information that showed her real name and the fact that her parents were members of the Belgian resistance.

This week the now 71-year old Defonsecca admitted that her real name is Monique De Wael, that she is not a Jew but Roman Catholic as her baptisimal certificate indicates. Her parents were arrested and killed by Nazis as Belgian resistance fighters when she was four.  She claims it is hard to differentiate between what was real and what was part of her imagination.

She believes that she was poorly treated by the Catholic family who adopted her because, according to them, she was the daughter of a traitor. Their treatment of her as a young child caused her to “feel” Jewish.

While fictitious, De Wael still claims the story is hers and is what has helped her to cope with her reality throughout these past seven decades.

Today Mrs. De Wael lives with her husband in Dudley, Massachusetts. ^{1, 2}

Pressure. We all feel it. Sometimes we call it stress. Sometimes we don’t even know what to call it or how to describe what we are feeling to someone else. Sometimes when under pressure we do things we otherwise would not do.

Jesus’ 12 main men walked beside Him for more than three years.  In our lesson this week we read Scripture passages that give us insight into the numerous ways pressure impacted Jesus’ disciples, how they handled their stressors and the resulting impact their outbursts and manipulative behaviors had on others.

Among the 12 were those seeking political power, two who wanted to murder whole multitudes of people, one who was rash but repented and yet another who was a religious fraud.

In his book Called to Discipleship, Author Bertram L. Melbourne notes that the proximity to religious things and/or teachers does not make one spiritual. He suggests that because people learn more from what they see than from what they hear modern day disciples need to ensure that their life reflects Christ so as to draw others to Him. ³

Discipleship trainers need to have an authentic, quality relationship with Jesus that others can see and model their life after. When under pressure the disciple maker’s reality needs to be Christ’s reality, not something fictitious based upon ones own imagination.   ~ck

1.  Information obtained from various news sources between February 29 and March 2.

2.  Note: you can compare contrasting reader reviews of the author’s book: Reviews

3.  Melbourne, Betram L. Called to Discipleship. (Idaho: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 2007) pp. 99-100.

 Creative Ministry Center.   www.creativeministry.org