Hello Dad

Well dad,

It is time to catch you up on things. I can't believe it has been nine years since you have left. Things are so different now. First I want you to know that I am very different. I have really found my place in the presence of God. I am getting to know Him better and better...maybe not as good as you....hahaha....but I am on my way. I am really learning prayer. I believe that is the key to everything. I am learning to pray and to believe God more. So I am doing okay.

Steve is doing the same thing believe it or not...I guess you can add AAU basketball coaching in there. He wasn't doing that nine years ago. I think you would really enjoy that level of play. I think about you most when I watch Kristin play. She is doing so well this year. You wouldn't believe....I can't begin to tell you all the records she is breaking and the points she is scoring....we didn't expect the scoring. She has become a real leader. And she is really growing up. She has a boyfriend now. Wow! Didn't see that one coming either and it has been a challenge in more ways than one. The other day we drove by Deep Creek and they tore down the 7-11. Kristin was very upset when she saw that. She had really good memories of walking there with you to get a paper and gum. It really effected her. By the way, she wears your number in basketball. So does Judson.

Korie is doing well in school and she is as happy as ever. I know the two of you would be good friends. She is happy to sit and talk and spend time with people. She is patient and kind and loving. She would really have enjoyed being with you.

You used to like something about DBC and it was the fact that we really loved each other. I would just have you know that we still do and it is really wonderful. I love my new pastor. We all look out for each other and I have some really wonderful friends there that mean the world to me. I don't know what I would do without them.

Mom had surgery on her knee...yeah, the same one that she limped around on nine years ago! Can you believe it? She is a little stubborn. I am not sure how it is going...I get conflicting reports. She misses you but she is doing okay. She has a cat that looks just like Baby. It is just WEIRD...it is like GHOST CAT or something only THIS one likes me and not TOM so it must really be a different cat or came from a reverse universe or something.

Grandma is weak...you should be seeing her soon. She gets things mixed up. She sent Kristin a birthday card but in it, wrote that she hoped she was enjoying college...so I think she got her mixed up with Lacey....she does things like that a lot now.

Aunt Carol spends Februarys in Florida now! Isn't that weird? She is the same. She is a sweet person. She is going to Bible Baptist and from what I hear she is more involved and goes to church hour there, too. I still don't get why she likes it there. Doesn't seem like a fit to me. They got a new pastor, too. I don't know his name but I am glad. I guess things are better there now. You don't even want me to get into all that. I don't know half of it and what I do know isn't good. I have no idea what you would have said to all that mess....I know what I would have said and I guess that is why it is good that I live in Virigina.

Steve had FIVE girls...yes, five. One in college and one in first grade. He lives in a nice home in the middle of nowhere but they love it. You would like it, too. And Tom is doing really well in business and with his family. You would just be really proud of all your grandkids and hopefully your kids. We all have times when we need you and would like to talk to you. I still don't understand why God took you from us when we still needed you. But I guess God has a time appointed for everyone and nothing we can do can change it. We just have to trust and accept.

You don't know how many times I have wondered if you can ever see us and know what is going on here. It just wouldn't seem right if you didn't but we have such a limited view on life and what is really important. I just wish I knew.

I haven't visited your grave site the past few times I have been in Ohio. We always seem to have such limited time and mostly mom isn't interested so that makes it hard. I like to go there...it makes me feel closer to you. You wouldn't believe what happened last time I was there!!! It is too funny to believe. Your sister was going to meet us there with Kristin and when we got there, they were both on their hands in knees...OVER YOUR GRAVE SITE....looking for Aunt Carol's bridge that had come out. It was so funny I could hardly keep from laughing as we all got down on our hands and knees to look. Aunt Carol was praying TO YOU to help her find it. She is so funny. I prayed to God instead, and believe it or not....we found it. I just laugh thinking about that day and what we were doing there. But we found her two teeth! HAHAHA

Anyhow, not much else to say...just that Ohio State Football was good this year and the basketball team is decent..for them and they are suppose to be better next year (although that is what they always say). The Steelers won the Super Bowl. The Olympics are on and both the girls are loving it. Kristin has two more regular games and then the tournament and she is a shoo in for the METRO all-star team. I know you would be here.

I just know you would want to know what is going on here in 2006. I know I rambled but there was so much to say. Next year it will be ten years....hard to believe. It is strange to think of you, the same as you were here, but in another place and what you must be seeing and experiencing. I know you still love us but I wonder if it seems you just saw us or if you can tell nine years has passed by? Do you see how the kids have grown? Do you know we live in a different house? It can drive me crazy thinking about it too much. People write books about it and I have read them but all they are really doing is guessing. So that is what I do sometimes, just guess. I will talk to you again next year....unless I see you face to face first. Then we will have lots of time to catch up.
Boy, I am having a hard time saying good bye......I help lead the worship service on Sunday mornings and I need to get some sleep...by the way, I LOVE that, too. That is new. I know God gave it to me as one of the desires of my heart. I love it.

Okay, this is really good bye.....I miss you.

Donna

End of the Spear

I just saw the movie End of the Spear. I can't stop thinking about it. I came away with several things from the movie...one was knowledge. I had some inkling of what the movie would be about from Elisabeth Elliott's point of view. I have heard her talk in person although I don't ever remember reading Through the Gates of Splendor which is Elisabeth's account of it.

This movie was from Steve Saints point of view. Steve was 5 when he told his father goodbye. His father, and 4 other missionary men where going to make contact with the Waodani. The Waodani were very violent, so much so that they were killing each other off. This was why Nate Saint felt such an urgent need to meet them and tell them of God. All seemed to be going well when a miscommunication caused the tribe members to come back and spear the men and all were killed.

What amazes me is that at least two of the women stayed...maybe more, but two were in the story. I would have taken my children and gone home. Elisabeth Elliott goes with her daughter and Rachel Saint, Steve Saint's sister and LIVES WITH the men who killed their family. Then the Saint family comes and stays awhile. There were times when their lives were in danger but they stayed. I can hardly think of it.

The tribe eventually accepts Christ and Rachel continues to live with them until her death in 1994. Steve Saint returns to bury his aunt with the Waodani people and they ask HIM to stay with them. Also, Mincaye, the very one who killed Nate Saint, takes Steve to the very place where the murders occur and Mincaye, now a Christian, gives Steve the chance to take revenge for his father's death, for Mincaye cannot live with the guilt. Steve and Mincaye both end up crying on the ground for the pain in their hearts. Mincaye tells Steve that his father, Nate, was a special man. He says he saw the moment Nate.."jumped the Great Boa" or went to heaven. He tells of how he saw the angels come for the men.

Mincaye and Steve end up being friends and actually travel together and tell how the Lord worked in both their lives to bring them to this place. The part of the movie that touched me the most was when Steve Saint said this:

"No, my father did not live to see his children or his grand children grow up. But Mincaye was the first of the Waodani to live long enough to see his grandchildren....." That statement really took root in my heart because we each see things from our own point of view....why did THIS happen to me or why did God allow THAT in my life. We...and I will personalize it....I often don't take into account that God is at work everywhere and His picture of things entails more of what I am going through. His plan is greater, wider, and has more impact on the world than my own little part of the world.

Nate Saint, Jim Elliott, Roger Youderian, Pete Fleming, and Ed McCully had no idea that their deaths would play into a whole tribe coming to know Christ, of strength given to the women they left behind, of Life Magazine bringing their story to the world and then, a movie being made of their lives that would touch thousands, maybe millions of life. We just don't think that big...we have no concept of what God has in mind for our lives.

But we know that those angels took those men to God and God allowed the story of EXACTLY what happened that day to be preserved to show us what He did for them and what He continues to do with their story.

What a movie! What a story! What a God!