Papa and Grandma

The past two Decembers have brought on the passing of both of my parents. On December 11th of last year my mother passed away and on December 11th of this year my father went into the hospital in critical condition. He passed away on Saturday.

Leaving family and friends is one of the toughest decisions that missionaries have. Not only the leaving but also the distance apart that sometimes makes it difficult to come back home during times of illness. We faced that decision with my dad last week. We found out on Monday that he had been admitted back into the hospital and that the prognosis was not good. On Tuesday Dana and I discussed what we should do. The decision was do we try and go now and see PaPa while he is alive or go back for the funeral. After thinking and praying about it we decided that me and the three older kids would go back. Two hours later we were boarding a plane for NC. God really honored that decision, because on Wednesday they were able to take the breathing tube out and by Wednesday evening Dad was coherent and alert enough to recognize us and talk with us for a couple of hours. What a blessing that was. On Thursday he started getting worse again and eventually he did pass away on Saturday night. Unfortunately we were not able to stay for the funeral because in order to change the tickets it would have been over $2000 and we would not have been able to return back to Honduras until December 28th. It was certainly hard to leave my sisters there to take care of the arrangements and I would have liked to have been there for the funeral. But when we step out on faith to follow God and we face heart wretching decisions like leaving family and friends, the faith that we have in God is rewarded. God proved that to us on Wednesday when the older kids had one last time to talk with PaPa and I had one last time to tell Dad that I loved him.

Thank you Lord for blessing me and my family through the lives of Mary and Alvin Sims. And thank you Lord for honoring Your Word and giving us the strength to serve You.


---Alan