It seems like only yesterday that we were in conversation around the table in Chikalda (India), discussing a missionary who had celebrated her 90-something birthday. You commented that you really hoped you wouldn’t have to live that long. To a child’s heart, that was a disconcerting concept—we wanted you to live forever!

How quickly the years have flown by…that conversation returned in a flash 3 ½ years ago as we received that unwelcome phone call telling us you had gone Home. Then we tried our best to say our earthly farewells to you on that Saskatchewan November day. It was cold and blustery, mirroring the feelings of loss and emptiness in our hearts.

How do we adequately celebrate the life of one who has lived such an exemplary, devoted, faithful, and fruitful life for his Creator and Redeemer? During the last years of your struggle with Parkinson’s, you experienced loss after loss of all that you once did so well. It broke our hearts to see and feel the losses with you, and we found it difficult to adequately express to you our unsettled feelings of love, gratitude, admiration, and sadness. Our attempts were also inadequate in celebrating you at the funeral service. We somehow got stuck on the brokenness of your temporal body, which took you from us quite suddenly at the end. While it was comforting to know that you were released to soar perfect and whole in God’s presence, we want you to know, Dad, that you and the life you lived deserved so much more recognition than we were able to give you at that event. We didn’t say good-bye, before or after, like we wanted to.

As we have reminisced together with Mom and treasured your pictures, letters, sermons, and writings, we have rediscovered much of who you were and all that you accomplished. Having found you again, we now miss you all the more! We continue to be inspired by your passion for God, your love and faithfulness to Him and to Mom, your depth of character and integrity, your outstanding leadership ability and work ethic, your giftedness and servanthood. How grateful we are for all that you were, for how well you managed what God provided for us, and for how you loved and taught us. You personally had a living Relationship with your Creator and Redeemer, and you are indeed living forever in God’s eternal Presence! You helped to show us the way to that living Relationship, and we anticipate joining you and Lorna in God’s Presence someday!

So here in this way, we hope to honor you and make meaning of what we’ve rediscovered about you, along with memories that others have shared with us. You were truly a missionary—you loved God and you loved people, and you spent your life being a bridge to bring them together.

Dearest Dad, with our words and thoughts on these pages, and by the way we live our lives, we hope you’ll know how proud and privileged we feel to be your children…