This, really, is more a story of how absolutely amazing and persistent God is than anything really having to do with Ellie. But I find it noteworthy to look at how many times the Lord has brought this family across my path.
So...
In 1998, right after I graduated from high school, we had a family reunion at Lancaster Bible College in Lancaster, PA, just as we had every year since 1980. Since my uncle was on staff at the school, we were able to stay in one of the dorms and use the kitchen and cafeteria. In the dorm we stayed in, in the bathroom, on the door of the stall was a poster asking people to pray for three families. They were three American missionary families living abroad and the husbands had been kidnapped. Although that really all I remember from the poster, for the next few years, even when I wasn't walking with the Lord, I would remember the poster and those families and ask the Lord to comfort them wherever they were at the time.
In January of 2002, I was away at Word of Life and we were participating in the annual Missions Conference. A lady named Nancy Mankins shared her story. In 1989 (I think) she, her husband Dave, and their two kids Sarah and Chad, went to Pucuro, Panama as New Tribes Missionaries. There village was just 7 miles (I think) from the border with the always volatile Columbia. In 1993, Columbian guerillas came into the village and kidnapped Dave along with two other American men who were in the village with New Tribes. That was January 31, 1993...Nancy never saw her husband again. In October of 2001 New Tribes finally received credible information/evidence that men had been killed in 1996. The men had been dead for five years before their families knew.
In April of 2002, Word of Life held a women's conference and Nancy again came to speak. This time she had copies of her brand new book. That weekend was my 22nd birthday...my first birthday without my grandmother and the one year anniversary of the last time I had talked with her. I was dealing with some pretty serious hurt. I figured Nancy would be a good person to talk to about healing after losing someone you love. She invited me to come up to her room after dinner that night. To this day, I don't know what happened. I went up, knocked on the door...knocked some more. She was there the whole night...but nobody answered when I knocked. So, I left a note for her at the front desk with the extension to my room if she happened to be staying through the next day. The next morning, I was feeling pretty antisocial so I went to the early service at church and skipped Sunday school so I could get back to my dorm early and have some alone time. And Nancy called!!! I would have missed her call if I'd gone to Sunday school (which was a WOL requirement for students). We talked for over an hour.
Over the next year or so, Nancy and I emailed often. She really discipled me through a lot of the hard, hurt stuff and I appreciated her so much! My roommate had bought her book and since I knew the lady, I figured I'd read it. At that time, New Tribes wouldn't let Nancy go back to the village, even to visit. By the end of the book, I knew I HAD to go to Pucuro. I had to. It was a passion...I had to go to Panama with New Tribes. That was the very beginning of my heart for South America. I can't tell the story of my journey to Ecuador without including Nancy. But, as things happen, we lost touch. I haven't talked to her in years.
About a year ago Judy, one of the ladies at work, began telling me about this missionary couple she knew. Their 8-year-old grand-daughter had been diagnosed with a particularly bad form of cancer and had, literally overnight, lost the vision in one eye because of a mass behind her eye. The girl's mom had started a blog. Every once in a while, Judy will pull up the blog and read me something about her, keep me updated on her progress. Last weekend, these friends of Judy's were in town and stayed at her house for a couple days. Their grand-daughter is doing particularly poorly now...she may not even live until Christmas.
A couple days after the people left Judy's house, I thought about Nancy and her book and that I should try and get a copy before it goes out of print...but I couldn't remember what it was callled. So, I went to the New Tribes website and searched under her name. I ran across the web page of another New Tribes missionary who was asking for prayer for her friend Nancy (Mankins) Hamm...Nancy's grand-daughter was diagnosed last year with cancer, she wasn't doing well, and that her mother had started a blog...I clicked the link to the blog and it was the one Judy had shown me so many times!!!
For just a moment I couldn't breathe. How ridiculous would it be if Judy knew Nancy??? She doesn't. She actually knows the other grandparents.
It amazes me all the ways the Lord has tied these people into my life!!!
Keep praying for Ellie!!!
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