Faith of our Fathers

It was 80 years ago when my dad, 25, and his eighteen year old brother left Holland and arrived in Alberta on a cold, snowy spring day. Their expected work did not transpire but Dad was able to secure work at another farm within a couple of weeks. He worked on that farm for five years until he and his brother were able to purchase their own land.

This summer our families joined together to celebrate these two events -- their arrival and the purchase of the farm. My brother resides on the original farm so we were able to celebrate there, and a celebration it was.

Although I had known the facts of their immigration, the loss of my uncle's hands and the subsequent events, the impact hit me this summer. Imagine a young man in the prime of life having only stumps where his arms once were. Imagine these stumps not being long enough even to maintain basic bodily cleanliness. Imagine being faced with deportation and loosing a dream of a new life in a new land. And also imagine the responsibility of the older brother who had already lost four other siblings as children and only had this brother and his handicapped sister left. He had promised that he would take care of this brother and he took this very seriously until the day he died.

But what remains is the heritage of faith and loyalty. Our Sunday worship centered on Joshua 4 and family members laid a stone on a pile, illustrating the faith of our fathers. What a witness to these two men and to our God.

We have chosen to move to Bolivia and we experience many of the same problems, the same challenges, that they did but how much easier we have it. We went for different reasons. They saw a land of opportunity in which they could provide for their families. We left for a calmer lifestyle and an opportunity to bring a world and life view to people in Bolivia that centers on God, his world and our place in it. We have age and experience. We left our children, not our parents. We have enough finances to purchase the things we need and many of the wants. We have instant communication while they wondered if their wartime letters reached their aging parents.

And yet one thing remains constant. We all know and experience the constant presence of our Lord through the Holy Spirit. We are confident that God guides our lives, that he turns our mistakes,our sins, our errors for good. We have confidence in his promises that he will never leave us or forsake us, that he will be with us always. That is the reason we can live where we live and do what we can do.

We become frustrated. We wonder what we are doing. We question how our actions affect the community. People ask how it is going and how long we will stay. We don't always know how to answer. But we do know that God is control and that he has brought us to this place. We can only trust that he will also guide our blundering actions to show his love and his kingdom. I think it was Henri Nouwen who, when talking about the work of missionaries, said that we must always remember that God was here before us and I also know that he will be here after we leave. We thank him for the opportunity to show a small part of his love and his grace to this little part of the world.