“Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.”
~ Genesis 8:21
Hi James and Ellen,
Have you ever gone on a boat ride? Your grandmaa and grandpaa have gone on a lot of boats. Even though your grandpaa does not know how to swim, your grandpaa is not scared to be in a boat on open water. Even though your grandmaa knows how to swim, your grandmaa does not like to be in a boat when there is rough water and/or she cannot see land. Your grandmaa and grandpaa went last month in about a twenty-five foot fiberglass boat from Livingston, Guatemala to Punta Gorda, Belize – where they stayed one night. The three couples who went with your grandmaa and grandpaa to Guatemala on a short term dental/medical/ministry team trip and the three guys and gal who joined with the short term dental/medical/ministry team when it arrived in Guatemala went in the boat with your grandmaa and grandpaa to Punta Gorda. Your grandmaa had thought that the boat – as it went from Livingston to Punta Gorda, would follow the shoreline but . . . when the boat took a line that had it going further and further out into open water, your grandmaa began to wonder where the boat was headed. Because the Gulf of Honduras – which is the name of the gulf that is between Guatemala and Belize, was almost glassy smooth and because the shoreline could still be vaguely seen, your grandmaa enjoyed the forty-five minute boat trip from Livingston to Punta Gorda. The Gulf of Honduras was still almost glassy smooth the next morning when your grandmaa, grandpaa and the guys and gals who were with them returned to Livingston from Punto Gorda. To go on two consecutive boat trips out on the Bay of Honduras with the water being almost mirror like smooth is quite unusual. Your grandpaa knows that God – as God the Father, listens to your grandmaa’s prayers. Your grandmaa has gone in a boat a number of times across a Guatemala lake that is called Lake Atitlan when Lake Atitlan has gotten really rough. Your grandmaa for eight years translated for medical guys and gals who flew to Guatemala as members of short term ministry/medical teams from Wooddale Church. The first time that your grandmaa crossed Lake Atitlan in a boat, your grandma was apprehensive. Your grandmaa is no longer uneasy about crossing Lake Atitlan in a boat– even when Lake Atitlan has gotten really rough. Lake Atitlan is the mouth of an extinct, super volcano. Lake Atitlan is about six miles long, about four miles wide and almost 1000 feet deep at its deepest spot. To make the trip overland to the rural resident leadership training/Bible education center that your grandmaa and grandpaa jumpstarted in January of 1962 in Concepción, Ñuflo de Chávez – in Bolivia, your grandmaa and grandpaa would have to cross over a river – called the Rio Grande, in a barge. Some of the barges that your grandpaa had to drive his C-10 Chevrolet pickup into to get across the Rio Grande were barely wide and long enough for the pickup. If your grandmaa and grandpaa had to cross the Rio Grande during the rainy season, the Rio Grande could be over an eighth of a mile wide with the water in the river moving really fast. If your grandmaa and grandpaa had to cross the Rio Grande during the dry season, the Rio Grande could be low enough for the guys who pulled the small barges across the Rio Grande to be able to almost walk across through the Rio Grande without having to do any swimming. Your grandmaa was never anxious while she was crossing the Rio Grande on a barge. Your grandpaa thinks that your grandmaa and grandpaa crossed at least thirty times the Rio Grande in barges over the twelve years that they were living in Bolivia as missionaries.
Would you like to live on a boat for over a year without ever getting off the boat. Would you like to live on a boat that is a soccer field and a half long, way less than half a soccer field wide, more than four stories high, is enclosed and is full of animals and birds. Noah did. Noah – along with his wife and their three kids – each with their wife, spent over a year floating around on a completely water covered planet Earth. The account of Noah’s time on his massive boat – which has come to be called an ark, is found in Genesis 8. What your grandpaa finds intriguing about the sudden, catastrophic flood which drowned every guy, gal and kid who was living on planet Earth – except for the eight guys and gals who blindly built by faith a massive wood boat because God told them to do so, was that their boat/ark drifted northward and seemingly upstream from the Mesopotamia region – which was where Noah and his family built the mammoth boat/ark, towards the Ararat Mountain region – where it may have finally become grounded in southern Urartu. Even though before the cataclysmic flood there were rivers in the land that was being settled by a growing population of guys, gals and kids, rain was a weather phenomenon that no guy, gal or kid had ever experienced before the skies suddenly opened up and began dumping ‘buckets’ of water which with the help of planet Earth opening its’ well reservoirs, temporarily purged planet Earth of the horrible black ugliness of sin and evil that had pervaded almost all the guys, gals and kids who were living on planet Earth.
You do not ever have to worry about another flood covering all of planet Earth. Verse 21 has Moses scribing that after Noah had built God an altar, “The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “‘Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.” Every promise that God has ever made, He has kept or will keep. Pulling a Noah faith move and praying like your grandmaa prays will always keep you safe from the dangers that are always surrounding you and are trying to drown you. Your grandpaa knows that the only reason that he is alive today is because God has intervened over and over again in the untenable, life threatening moments when . . .
Genesis 8 (679)