It was our first year of marriage and we were at the Horn family farm in Cambridge. Alma, who was in her early 80s, stood among the flurry of family and beamed up at us.
We were young and naïve. We were also eager and hopeful and confident in our call (which often comes with being young and naïve). The combination of being fledgling adults with such a clear yet highly unusual trajectory in life certainly made some people pause and question what we were thinking. Other people didn't believe that we'd follow through with it. Still others thought we were simply insane.
But that day at the farm, Alma looked at us as if we were more sane than insane. She looked at us with joy and pride. She knew of our plans - to go to Cameroon, then return to the States for medical school and residency, and finally go back to Africa for long-term missionary service - and she believed in us.
Her reassuring opinion of us newlyweds bolstered us because Alma and her husband Dale had done the same thing half a century before. When they were young and naïve (and eager and hopeful and confident in their calling), they went to Asia and served as missionaries.
Alma saw a bit of herself in us. We triggered memories and she told us of taking a boat to China and about their later transition from there to Japan. She didn't give a sermon or a soliloquy (although her years of living overseas could certainly warrant such), but instead she spoke simple words of encouragement that made a forever impression on our hearts. She encouraged us to stay the course of pursuing missions, even though it would take us years to get there. She blessed the path before us and promised to pray for us. That day, Alma created a milestone marker in our missions journey because her encouragement came from genuine excitement as well as first-hand experience.
Alma and Dale before sailing to China
Alma was Eli's great-aunt and she passed away this month at the age of 99. Her husband, Dale, was Eli's Grandma Horn's brother, and although I never had the privilege of meeting Dale, we've been encouraged by him also. A scrapbook we discovered at the farm during our first Home Ministry Assignment told a bit of his story of being called to ministry. When one of his high school teachers asked why he was choosing to pursue ministry after graduation, Dale responded, "This is not my choice. If it were simply a matter of choice, I would be choosing more scientific pursuits. This is God's choice for me and I am just making His choice mine."
Alma clearly did the same, and together they obeyed God's choice for them by going overseas and eventually coming back to America when the Lord called them to return.
During our first year of marriage, when we were raising funds and putting things in order to go to Cameroon, we didn't even know what questions to ask Alma that day. We couldn't possibly understand what moving overseas and ministering cross-culturally truly meant. We thought it would stretch and grow us, but we didn't know how. We imagined it would be a complicated mixture of joy and struggle, but we couldn't understand what that would look like day to day. We had vague ideas but no concrete perception of how being a missionary would impact our hearts and minds.
But Alma knew. And even though she didn't regale us with scads of stories of the triumphs and tribulations of life and ministry overseas, we knew that she understood what we would understand for ourselves someday. She knew the delicate balance between ministry and family as well as the guilt when the balance fails, she knew the pressures of being responsible to supporters, she knew the depths of joy of cross-cultural friendships, she knew the satisfaction of toiling for something for years and finally seeing the goal realized, she knew the sensation of loving and loathing different cultural values, she knew the loneliness of not being able to articulate all the thoughts and feelings of missionary life in a meaningful way to anyone else but Jesus. She knew things we were years away from beginning to comprehend.
That day at the farm was over 16 years ago, and although we've only been living overseas for 7 years now, we've come to understand some of what must have been in Alma's heart that day as she looked at two newlyweds wanting to embark on a similar path that she and her husband had taken. And we appreciate her encouragement all the more now. We understand the gratification of staying the course and actually moving overseas and raising a family here. We are continually experiencing how the Lord transforms our worldview and increases our understanding of His ways - how He works in individuals and communities and cultures. We know how blessedly diverse and beautiful the Church is. We've seen that God's kingdom is built more with small bricks over time than giant blocks in a hurry.
But we understood none of this that day at the farm. We couldn't have understood. We were too young and naïve. Thankfully, Alma saw people with potential, and she poured encouragement onto that potential and covered it with prayer.
Of all the legacies this 99-year old woman is leaving behind, that is the legacy she's left for us. We can only hope that one day the Lord will put some young and naïve people in our path that we can encourage on their journey toward missions. Because being encouraged by someone who's gone before you on such a unique and often questioned course can make an indelibly positive impact.
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