Dear Friend,
August 3, 1983, was a day I will never forget.
Forty-three years on, it remains etched indelibly in my memory. The previous evening had been spent with family and friends at my father’s home just outside Glasgow. I recall the laughter, the stories, and the sense of wishing to make the evening last, because when we said goodnight, we knew that the dawn would mean a parting, and “Parting is such sweet sorrow.” The following morning, Susan, I, and our three wee ones (ages four, two, and ten months) walked across the tarmac and boarded a Northwest Orient Airlines 747, which would take us to Boston to connect with a flight to Cleveland.
In writing about this now, I realize, to my shame, how little thought I gave to another parting eight years before, when, newly married, Susan and I sailed out of New York for London, leaving her family behind. She was only twenty! I don’t remember ever asking her just what that parting meant for her, her mum, and dad but simply swept her off to a new world and a new life! It surely didn’t help her father, as he filmed our departure, to see the hammer and sickle flying above the Russian ship that would be our passage to London. Before you enquire: It was the least expensive way to get ourselves and our few belongings to the UK. Incidentally, our ship, the Mikhail Lermontov, later sank off the coast of New Zealand in 1986.
The sadness of separation was softened by the sweet anticipation of what the new day would bring. Perhaps one day, if we have time and you are interested, we can have coffee, and I will tell you of the warm welcome we received from our new church family in Cleveland and of the beginnings of the great adventure which continues to this day.
The privileges and challenges of raising our children are behind us now, and, like so many of you, we have graduated to the noble, fascinating, enjoyable role of grandparenthood. We were young, and now we are old, able to tell our stories and share the hymns that helped establish our faith, hoping that our grandchildren will also be strengthened by them. We have a unique opportunity to field questions they might not care to ask their parents and to provide insights and guidance for them as we drive them to school or to sporting events. I don’t recall my grandparents ever “preaching” to me, and certainly not at me, but their down-to-earth godly goodness influences my life to this day.
Susan is much better than I am at being intentional about these matters. On a recent trip with two of our nine grandchildren, we used the occasion to reinforce the importance of personal faith and the blessings of family—and together had tons of fun!
A recent study shows that children and young people’s enjoyment of reading has risen for the first in recent years time since 2021. One of my grandmothers was a great reader, and she encouraged me to follow her example. Our book offers this month might help us to do the same. The Language of Rivers and Stars helps us to speak of the wonders of God in creation, and The Story of God and Us invites us to ponder God’s faithfulness from generation to generation.
Thank you always for your faithful partnership as we seek to fulfill our mission, not least of all in seeking to see our grandchildren become committed followers of the Lord Jesus.
With my love in the Lord Jesus,
Alistair
Psalm 71:17–18
