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the Iron Curtain was still a menacing reality. Likewise, our maternal grandparents took early retirement and set off as associate missionaries to Zambia, Africa. We regularly received “aerogram” letters from our grandparents and marvelled at how a retired couple could make such a drastic change to follow God’s will for their lives.
    There were the inevitable squabbles between us kids as the four boys shared bedrooms in our cramped little bungalow. Our mother attempted on many occasions to have regular family devotions with us, but with such crazy schedules, dad’s travelling, and his multitudinous responsibilities with the church and its missions, we were doomed to failure. Our father used to explain that it was more important to live out his faith for his family than to merely talk about faith from a book. He believed more lessons could be learned by implementing Deuteronomy 6:4–9:
    Listen, Israel: The L ord our God, the L ord is One. Love the L ord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. These words that I am giving you today are to be in your heart. Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them be a symbol on your forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. ( hcsb )
    While having regular family devotions or making use of devotional books is a fantastic thing to do, our parents believed the most important thing they could do for their children was to daily live out their faith before us. While we doubted at times that our parent’s methods of discipline were always fair (the older children received far more discipline than the younger ones, despite the fact they were much better behaved), and though our father could definitely have been home more, and though there were various parental practices that could have been improved upon, there was never any question that our parents truly loved God with all of their heart and would do whatever He told them. That left a lasting impression on us all.
    Following in Big Shoes
    Growing up, we never had the nicest house on the block (we weren’t even in the top 100), nor did we sport designer fashions. All the same, we children sensed there was something special about our family. It wasn’t that our father was a famous author, because that wouldn’t come for many more years. It was that God was real in our home. We had front-row seats to observe God answer our family’s prayers. We witnessed lives being changed because of what God was doing through us. We experienced broken people arriving on our doorstep and leaving changed. You would have thought we were the wealthiest people in town by the confidence we had for the future. And though we have been deeply appreciative of the way our father’s book Experiencing God has impacted people around the globe, we can’t really say we were surprised. The book simply summarized the lessons God taught our parents while we were growing up in their home. We had watched those truths changing lives for years, and we knew that once those same truths spread beyond our family and church, countless other people would feel the impact as well.
    Our father missed more than one of our ball games and band concerts over the years, but he had an uncanny way of showing up when God was about to doing something powerful in the life of one of his children. He was present when each of his five children gave their lives to Christ. He baptized each of them and performed their wedding ceremonies. He was present as we each surrendered to God’s call into ministry and as we walked across the stage for each of our graduation ceremonies.
    Our father, now in his late seventies, deals with a variety of physical challenges and does not have the energy or stamina he once had. His voice has lost its thunder, his body is no longer a slave to his will, and