“Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.”
~ Genesis 28:14
Hi James and Ellen,
You grandpaa started out around mid-March of 1963 on the 1200 or so mile drive from Volga, South Dakota to Wilmington, Delaware. It took your grandpaa three days to drive from the farm where he grew up to where a very attractive young lady lived who your grandpaa had met a year and a half earlier when his sis Cate invited her to her home over a teachers break at Dordt College in Sioux Center, Iowa. Your grandpaa, Cate and the young lady – who was one of Cate’s roommates, were students at Dordt College. Your grandpaa for the first two or three hours had to drive on slippery, snow packed highways. By the time that your grandpaa finally made it to where the service station is located where his Uncle Bert worked at or owned in Oak Lawn, Illinois, there was some serious tapping going on under your grandpaa’s Ford Fairlane’s hood. After your grandpaa’s Uncle Bert reset the lifters in your grandpaa’s Ford Fairlane’s motor, your grandpaa continued his long easterly trek. Sometime before daybreak someplace in the Pennsylvania Appalachians, the brakes on your grandpaa’s Ford Fairlane took to scratching ominously. After your grandpaa found a place which would change the Ford Fairlane’s worn out brake pads, your grandpaa finally arrived in Wilmington. Instead of calling the very personable, fun-loving young lady who would marry your grandpaa about eleven months later and who is your grandmaa today, to tell her that he is in Wilmington, your grandpaa went to a motel and crashed. The first month or so after your grandpaa arrived in Wilmington, he stayed in a rooming house. A friend of your grandmaa’s dad – Archie Marconi, told your grandpaa about a place that manufactured wire rolls that was looking for guys who needed a job. After about a month or so of staying in the quaint rooming house, your grandpaa, your dad’s Uncle Drew and Phil Kelleher – who was a good friend of your dad’s Uncle Drew, decided to share an apartment in a house that is on north Market Street in Wilmington. After your dad’s Uncle Drew married your dad’s Aunt Betsy, your grandpaa and Phil moved into the house where Phil’s grandma lived.
Jacob started out around 4000 years ago on the 500 or so mile long hike from the town of Beersheba to the town of Paddan Aram – a town that is near where Jacob’s grandfather and grandmother – Abraham and Sarah, left to resettle in the land of Canaan. Jacob’s Uncle Laban lived in the town of Paddan Aram. Jacob’s dad – Isaac, told his kid to make the long hike to his uncle’s place in the town of Paddan Aram and to marry one of his uncle’s daughters. The first night that Jacob spent on the trail after he left his dad’s place, Jacob had a dream. As Jacob was sleeping on the ground – using a rock for a pillow, Jacob saw in a dream a stairway or ziggurat that went heavenward – with angels of God walking up and down the steps of the stairway or ziggurat. Jacob also saw in his dream God standing above the stairway or ziggurat. Jacob heard in his dream God giving him a promise. Verse 14 is God’s promise to Jacob, “Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.” God also promised Jacob in the dream that he was having that He would always be there alongside him, that He would always be watching over him wherever he went and that He would bring him back to the land where he had grown up as a kid. When Jacob woke up the next morning, Jacob used his pillow stone as a pillar on which he poured oil in thanks to God for the promise that God had given him in his dream. Jacob named his ‘dream’ place Bethel.
Can you say today that God is always there for you, that you know that God is always watching over you and that God already knows where you are going to call home when you get big? When your grandpaa made the drive to Delaware from South Dakota in March of 1963, your grandpaa was not thinking ahead much further than just being with the beautiful young lady again who had communicated to your grandpaa that she was attracted to him. Your grandpaa grew up in a Dutch community where it was almost assumed that Dutch guys would marry Dutch gals. Jacob’s dad sent his kid to his brother-in-law’s place so that his kid would end up marrying in the family versus Jacob ending up marrying a Canaanite people group gal. During a weekly meeting one day with OC International’s Equipo SEPAL field missionary team in Guatemala City, a visitor from England sat in on the meeting. The visitor was a representative of a mission agency that ministers in Europe that had a couple of units through MIES – an Equipo SEPAL ministry, who were ministering with his mission agency as missionaries. Because these missionary units who were in Europe – through Equipo SEPAL, were having effective ministries working with marginalized people – such as with Gypsies, in Romania and in Spain, the visitor was hoping that Equipo SEPAL would recruit more Guatemala units for his European based mission agency. Your grandmaa could not be in the meeting because she was recouping from hepatitis. When the visitor mentioned at some point in the meeting that his wife’s heritage was Scotch-Irish and that his heritage was Dutch, your grandpaa told the visitor in front of the dozen or so guys and gals who were in the weekly office meeting that he wished that the visitor could meet your grandmaa – that your grandmaa’s heritage was mostly Scotch-Irish and that his heritage was all Dutch. The guy – without any hesitation, told your grandpaa that it is good to have a good fight once in a while. Because your grandmaa and grandpaa have together put their trust in God, they know that they have been divinely blessed just as God divinely blessed Jacob.
Genesis 28 (917)