On Aug. 10, 1985, members of Salem Mennonite Church near Freeman, S.D., watched their church building burn. Their pain intensified when soon afterward two young community residents, 17 and 18 years old, were charged with setting the fire. They were convicted and sentenced, the older of the two to the state penitentiary in Sioux Falls, the younger to the juvenile system.

The two apologized for their actions, and the congregation went about the task of rebuilding. Within two years, a new church building stood on the site of the fire. Life went on for the 500 members of Salem, and the congregation settled into the routine of this rural farming community.

Time seemed to have provided healing.

But Salem members felt unsettled when they opened the Oct. 12, 1998 issue of their local weekly newspaper, The Freeman Courier. In a letter to the editor, David P. Hansen, the older of the two responsible for the crime, asked for forgiveness for his role in the vandalism and fire 13 years earlier. "It is long overdue," he wrote. "I apologize to the Freeman community and the Salem Mennonite Church. I am guilty to the charges of third-degree advising another to commit arson, first-degree intentional damage and third-degree burglary. I hope someday you can forgive me."

This public request took the members of Salem aback. Many were perplexed because both offenders had sent letters to the congregation apologizing for their actions shortly after the fire. The pastor had read the letters on a Sunday morning and invited people to stand as a symbol of their forgiveness. Most did.

"Many thought we'd already forgiven him," says Don R. Waltner, chair of Salem's board of deacons at the time of the letter. But as it turned out, the process of forgiveness had only begun.

The deacons discussed David's letter at their next meeting. "It was something we couldn't ignore," Don says. "I felt it was something we needed to address."

The matter was added to the congregation's annual business meeting agenda several weeks later. The consensus was that "David was asking for forgiveness, and we needed to find a way to respond to him."

Resources within:
Salem had several resources within its own ranks. The board formed a four-member mediation team, which asked Lois Janzen-Preheim, a member of Salem and director of VORP (Victim-Offender Reconciliation Program) in Sioux Falls, S.D., to help facilitate a meeting with Hansen.

Another resource was Salem's strong tradition of involvement with the M-2 prison ministry program. Members Roland and Arlene Preheim had reached out to David in the early 1990s while he was serving time for his role in the church fire.

They visited regularly—"friend to friend," Roland says. "We just visited; we didn't get into the factual things."

David served nine years, six months and 11 days of his 12-year sentence. Upon his release in the summer of 1995, he got a telemarketing job, but alcohol, hanging with the wrong crowd and what he calls "poor judgment" led Hansen back to prison in April 1998 for burglary.

While in prison for the second time, David's life took a dramatic turn when he picked up some Bible tracts made available to prisoners. "They were on a desk, and I grabbed a few and just started reading them," he says. "And I started reading the Bible."

The more David read the Bible, the more he gained a deeper understanding of his life and of God. Although he had been baptized and confirmed in his family's rural Freeman Lutheran congregation, David says, "I don't think I was ever a part of church."

"I felt I don't need God … I don't need anybody," he says. And for most of his life, David says, he blamed God for all that had gone wrong. "As I matured, I came to realize that it wasn't [God's] doing."

As he studied the Bible, David says, he came to "believe in God, a forgiving God who will help if you ask." He also realized he had to ask for something else. Thus, in the fall of 1998, David wrote his letter to the editor.

"I had this feeling I had to do this," he says. "I had always had guilt. It was my responsibility to make the effort."

Many Salem members, Lois says, felt they didn't need to think about this anymore. "But it was still open for David," she says. When David decided to write his letter to the editor, it challenged the members of Salem to face the issue as well.

With the congregation's affirmation, the deacons held several small-group listening sessions. It wasn't easy. "There was a spectrum of feelings," Don says. While some were ready to forgive immediately, others wanted no part of it. The most common response was a genuine desire to forgive but uncertainty over trust: If you forgive, do you have to trust? The mediation team suggested the congregation separate the two issues to make it easier to move forward together.

From those meetings, the mediation team drew together the various feelings from the small-group discussions so they could represent the full congregation in the meeting with David.

On July 9, 1999, they met with David face-to-face at the penitentiary in Sioux Falls. The meeting was remarkably free of tension. David began by sharing his story and what had brought him to this point.

"I am responsible for the fire," David said. "I believe that if it wasn't for me it wouldn't have happened. It had a profound impact on my life. It's a chapter in my book of life that hasn't closed."

The four members of the mediation team shared their memories of that day as well: hurt, pain and anger. And they raised the question: Why bring this up again?

David said he wrote the first letter of apology shortly after the fire, because it was expected. "I did wrong; OK, I'll write a letter of apology," he said. "This one's more sincere. I was convicted to do it from inside."

"I think the response of the congregation was probably a little bit the same feeling: 'He asked for an apology, we should forgive him. … It's the Christian thing to forgive,'" one of the mediators told David.

Another team member, shared a comment she received from a Salem member: "The first time, I stood up because everyone [else] stood up and it was expected of me; I didn't really forgive. But this time, I can."

David was released from prison in December, 1999. Upon his release, the outreach committee from Salem collected money and sent it to David for clothing and his first month's rent.

This meant a great deal to David. But what matters even more, he says, are the cards and letters he's received from the members of Salem, from people of all ages. "They are like pure gold to me," he says. "I feel forgiven."

The process took time and effort. The July mediation meeting was videotaped, and several weeks later 120 members of the congregation gathered to watch it. Reaction to the reconciliation that has taken place has been positive.

"Forgiveness is not something you put in a package and give to someone," Don says. "The biblical evidence is so strong for forgiveness and restoration. It is so clear-cut and at the core of Christianity."

The reconciliation between David Hansen and the people of Salem reveals what is possible if people are open to their true feelings and the redemptive nature of God.

This story is one "of the quantity and the quality of forgiveness," says Roland.

"And," Arlene adds, "this story is not finished."

Edited from article written by Tim Waltner, editor of the Freeman Courier, Freeman, S.D. for The Mennonite, June 13, 2000. Used by permission.