New Year's Surprise!

Big Surprise #1: There's a post HERE.

It's official, I was silent for 1 full calendar year...plus half of 2014. We were travelling in the US and returned to Madeira in September. Our final days in the US were spent emptying the basement of Abbie's parents' house, filling a 30-yard dumpster (5' deep x 8' wide x 20' long - approx. 1.5m x 2.5m x 6m) with 60 years of accumulated "stuff". But we couldn't finish cleaning out the house at the time, and on our way back to Madeira, we spent a couple of weeks on the south coast of England visiting friends.

Eiffel Tower from Arc du Triomphe
1 month before attacks in Paris

2015 was also a year of travel. My sister Jacque and husband Frank came to visit us for two months (May-June), during which time we spent 5 weeks travelling in Italy and Portugal with a 1-wk cruise through the Greek Isles in between. Memorable! And we travelled again for a month in September and October, and on the way back we stopped in Paris for three nights. I gave Abbie the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower for her birthday...fortunately she didn't try to bring them on the plane with her.

This trip to the US was an unplanned trip. While my sister was here in May and June, it seemed like Mom was not doing well and we felt we shouldn't wait until next year for her 100th birthday. We decided to see her while she was still up and around and mentally alert. Hence our "extra" trip. But it also meant we would go to Arkansas to see if we could make further progress on resolving the estate of Abbie's parents.




Bigger Surprise #2: We own a house THERE.

Making a rather long story not so long: from one moment to the next, I knew God was telling me we should buy Abbie's parents' house. The Lord put a stranger on the plane next to us from Denver to Tulsa to pass the news on to us. She didn't know it...she just told her story...they had bought and fixed up her husband's family house from his 4 siblings, and only a few miles from where we were going in Arkansas. I understood it was the only way to settle Abbie's family estate. The house and property were exactly as we had left it in September 2014 (except the yard was more overgrown than ever), unfit to put on the market to sell and divide the proceeds among the 5 heirs. In the blink of an eye, as it were, an agreement was reached among them and we bought their share of the estate and became property owners of 3 acres in the Ozark Mountains of northern Arkansas. [In practical terms it's been a very long blink. It's taken 3 months to get the survey of the property completed and a description written for the probate court. Only this week will the final papers go to the judge. Then there is still the process of getting the property registered in our name.]

Biggest Surprise #3: We will be leaving the Madeira mission field in 2016.

Abbie was more shocked than anyone when she heard me say we should buy the house there in Harrison. More shocked yet when I said this is not an investment move...fix up and flip it to make money...this is a permanent, physical move. For many years people have asked me about "retirement"...Madeira? US? ... When? All I ever said was, "I'll leave Madeira the same way we came: by the call of God. I just don't know if the call will be vertical or horizontal." Looks like it will be horizontal. Just as the Lord suddenly called us to leave Brazil in 1975 to come to Madeira, He has done it again. I knew I would know when the time came, and it has come.

Significant dates in 2016.

March 23 - Arrival in Brazil as missionaries - 44 years 
April 18 - Ordained to ministry -  50 years 
August 12 - Wedding anniversary - 50 years
August 17 - Mom's birthday - 100 years
December 3 - Arrival in Madeira as missionaries - 40 years
December 8 - My arrival in the world - 70 years

Projected plans for 2016.

Choir before this year's Christmas cantata

The house and property need extensive work, and April seems a good time to start, after the winter weather has passed. We will stay in Madeira until after Easter...one last cantata before we go. We plan to spend the summer working on the house and come back to Madeira in September to tie up loose ends. After 40 years there are a lot of ends to tie up----or untie. On the return we are praying about coming back via Scotland, which Abbie has visited but I never have.



Goals:

1. Sell our properties. Actually, the house we bought back in 1977 has been divided into 3 separate units, one of which--the middle one--we sold in 2003. That allowed us to complete the work on the bottom unit, which is a 1-bedroom apartment. We just finished completely remodelling the upper unit 2 years ago, and now God has asked us to leave it behind. That work gives us experience for what we face at Harrison, where.we would like to do another almost total makeover.
2. See the purchase of the house next to the church completed. No change in the last couple years here, either. The city government still has not passed the new zoning ordinance, which was supposed to have been completed by 2007. The new plan has been announced as a priority for 2016! We have asked our lawyer to contact the seller's lawyer and see what can be worked out under the circumstances. I would like to see this resolved before we leave the field.
3. Install the leadership of the work. At our next church business meeting scheduled for January 16, I will officially announce my resignation, effective in December, and ask the church to pray and choose pastors. I say "pastors" plural, because the church needs leadership in the two languages. We see God moving to provide men for both positions, but neither are bi-lingual. If the Lord confirms these men in the hearts and minds of the church, we will also be planning an ordination service when we return at the end of the summer. I can foresee officially turning over the work in December as part of symbolically celebrating our 40 years of work in Madeira. Lord willing, we will be in the US for Christmas next year.

And next?

Who knows? I plan, as long as the Lord gives me health and eyesight, to continue translating, not necessarily as intensely as up to now, however,  It not only provides us with resources, but Joy's collaboration is a help to her family. 

Travel and family. There are a lot of places and people we have not seen in the US. Unlike a lot of missionaries who are with mission boards or have the privilege of having colleagues on the field, we have had to limit our time in the US, both for lack of missionary co-workers as well as the need for "secular" work. It used to be called "tent making"...now missionaries are called "bi-vocational". My experience could be called "tri-vocational" or even "quadri-vocational"...having three or four activities going at the same time. Maybe it's better to classify ourselves as "try-vocational"...we were willing to try a bit of anything over the years to support ourselves and the work. I was calculating how much time we spent in the US vs. time on the field. Roughly speaking, between March 1972 to the present (almost 44 years) I figure we were in the US less than 4 years, and that includes 18 months between Brazil and Madeira. In the 39 years on Madeira (December 1976 to present) we have been in the US less than 2 and a half years. In other words, in either case, far less than 1 year for every 10 on the field. Our oldest grandchildren are already in university, our youngest is 5 and counting.

We might even get to travel more in Europe, By living on an island, although politically in Europe, we rarely had the opportunity to see Europe. Jacque and Frank are trying to seduce us into taking them on another trip in Europe, and we'll probably let them do it.

Writing. People keep asking me to write the story of what God has done here. I write thousands of words a week, but they are other people's ideas put into another language. Perhaps, in the quiet of the Arkansas woods, I'll get to to write of the God who is able to do exceedingly abundantly more than we could ever ask or imagine.

Church and preaching. No idea. The Lord will lead us through this in His way and time.

This will be a year of preparation, not only for a house to live in, but for us emotionally and spiritually, as we move into what will be something of a foreign culture for us. It will be a time of preparation for the church. When we first told the members of our decision, the reaction was one of shock. By giving a year's notice, they, too, will have time to adjust to the reality of a new phase of life.

When in 1975 I asked the Lord to send me to a pioneer mission field and He pointed us to Madeira, we had no clue of what was ahead of us. I had a "vision" of planting a church in every village, but it didn't take long on the field to see that I needed to adjust my vision. I then prayed, "Lord, allow me to plant at least one autonomous, self-supporting church, trusting wholly in the Lord, grounded in His Word, filled with brotherly love, and having a heart for missions - local and worldwide. If I see that come to pass, I can accept the fact I have done what You sent me to do."  And it has come to pass. I would like to see the property next to the church resolved while we are here, but maybe that is a challenge the church will have to take on without us.

It's like raising a son or daughter. After you have trained them, there comes a time they have to go out and face life with the lessons you have taught them. This time it's not the children leaving the nest...it's us.