Bøker av Hugh Steven

In 1942, twenty-three-year-old Julia Supple turned down a proposal of marriage and opted instead to do pioneer linguistic work among the pre-literate Tojolabal (toe-hoe-la-ball) people in the State of Chiapas in southern Mexico.In the forties and fifties, travel in remote parts of Chiapas was uncertain and hazardous. It often required long hours on horseback or sharing space on a second-class bus with chickens and squealing pigs. From the beginning of her association with Wycliffe Bible Translators, Julia understood the need for a mutually beneficial participation of friends who would support, pray and encourage her.Thus began a unique correspondence that usually began with "Dear Aaron and Hur." Julia chose these two faithful men who supported Moses during a strategic Old Testament battle (Exodus 17:12) as a significant metaphor for the success of her own work.Julia Supple embraced the notion that joy, laughter and good humor should mark one's spiritual life. From her diary she once wrote, "It can be most wearing to become wholly occupied with the terrible world-shaking events. This is why God gave us little enjoyments, like the smile of a baby, the delicacy of a violet and sun shining through a jar of plum jam." Throughout the many permutations of her life, Julia Supple reminded her friends, "No life is more satisfying than what God has given me to do," and was often heard to say, "I am not afraid of tomorrow for I have seen yesterday, and I love today."

Unlike the prophet Jeremiah, I did not have explicit orders to put my words in a book (Jeremiah 36:2, 4, 28.) However, I did have repeated enticements from family, especially my eldest daughter who kept saying things like, "Dad, you have experiences we should know about." Thus, not wanting to be like Job, who lamented, "Oh that my words could be recorded" (in a book- Job 19:23), I said OK - but on the condition you know that through all the repository of stories, God has been at the center of my life and the life of our family. This has been true in the good times and the bad, even when life didn't seem to make sense, and we wanted to ask why. This, then, is a gift of remembrance for our family and anyone else who wants to look inside and discover the God who stands in the Shadows waiting and wanting to be found.