THE MOSTELLER STORY
INSTALMENT #12
Dear LINKS Family across the Canada Central District:
As Gladys and I approach our 74th wedding anniversary in a few days, we have been given proof once again of how beautifully you personify the wonderful LINKS spirit described in chapter 11 of one of this year's missionary books, Bob and Bessie Black's Once upon an Island. Your thoughtful expressions of love, not only for this occasion in our life, but throughout the past year, have blessed and overwhelmed us, and you truly are Loving, Interested Nazarenes Knowing & Sharing--precious gems in His kingdom and treasured family to us! Thank you SO much.
Well, to share another slice of life during our years in the Cape Verde Islands:
I spent my first 18 years on a South Dakota farm some 18 miles northeast of the state capital, Pierre. It was out where we enjoyed Canadian cold in the winter after Canada didn't have use for it any longer!
My dad, after homesteading 80 acres, worked like a Trojan and wound up owning and/or renting two sections of land. He grew all there was to grow of grains, fruits, vegetables, and livestock. He was strong, but needed others to help him with that size of an operation.
One July day in 1953 he went to the town of Blunt, seven or eight miles northeast of his farm and hired a man at 7:00 AM. He put the man in the car and started back to the farm. Dad, distracted, pulled out on to the highway (probably telling the man what he was wanting him to do) and was hit by a Canadian driver.
The man who had been hired 15 minutes earlier was killed immediately. Dad jumped out and tried to help the man. The Canadian driver said to Dad, "You take it easy; you are also hurt." Indeed he was. He went to the hospital in Pierre. Even with several severe back injuries, Dad was assured by the doctor, "You'll make it, Earl. You should have died several times before." (One time a gas tank had exploded, throwing him into the water that kept ice melted so that the livestock could drink. Another time he was thought to be overcome and dead in a cesspool, but showed signs of life when water was squirted on him to remove cesspool filth. And then there was the time that a hay loader/bucker's teeth fell and just missed driving him into the ground, gliding instead over his shoulder.)
As Dad lay in the hospital bed a nurse asked my mother to leave the room. The nurse rolled him over, and Dad let out a scream and shortly thereafter died from a loss of blood and other complications.
Dad found the Lord late in his life, and at age 63 made his exit. I had just finished pouring cement for a tennis court on the mission property in Mindelo when a postal official, dressed up with a black band around his arm, delivered a cablegram informing us of Dad's departure. Of course, in those days it was impossible to travel back home for such events.
In Christ's love,
Earl E. Mosteller
As Gladys and I approach our 74th wedding anniversary in a few days, we have been given proof once again of how beautifully you personify the wonderful LINKS spirit described in chapter 11 of one of this year's missionary books, Bob and Bessie Black's Once upon an Island. Your thoughtful expressions of love, not only for this occasion in our life, but throughout the past year, have blessed and overwhelmed us, and you truly are Loving, Interested Nazarenes Knowing & Sharing--precious gems in His kingdom and treasured family to us! Thank you SO much.
Well, to share another slice of life during our years in the Cape Verde Islands:
I spent my first 18 years on a South Dakota farm some 18 miles northeast of the state capital, Pierre. It was out where we enjoyed Canadian cold in the winter after Canada didn't have use for it any longer!
My dad, after homesteading 80 acres, worked like a Trojan and wound up owning and/or renting two sections of land. He grew all there was to grow of grains, fruits, vegetables, and livestock. He was strong, but needed others to help him with that size of an operation.
One July day in 1953 he went to the town of Blunt, seven or eight miles northeast of his farm and hired a man at 7:00 AM. He put the man in the car and started back to the farm. Dad, distracted, pulled out on to the highway (probably telling the man what he was wanting him to do) and was hit by a Canadian driver.
The man who had been hired 15 minutes earlier was killed immediately. Dad jumped out and tried to help the man. The Canadian driver said to Dad, "You take it easy; you are also hurt." Indeed he was. He went to the hospital in Pierre. Even with several severe back injuries, Dad was assured by the doctor, "You'll make it, Earl. You should have died several times before." (One time a gas tank had exploded, throwing him into the water that kept ice melted so that the livestock could drink. Another time he was thought to be overcome and dead in a cesspool, but showed signs of life when water was squirted on him to remove cesspool filth. And then there was the time that a hay loader/bucker's teeth fell and just missed driving him into the ground, gliding instead over his shoulder.)
As Dad lay in the hospital bed a nurse asked my mother to leave the room. The nurse rolled him over, and Dad let out a scream and shortly thereafter died from a loss of blood and other complications.
Dad found the Lord late in his life, and at age 63 made his exit. I had just finished pouring cement for a tennis court on the mission property in Mindelo when a postal official, dressed up with a black band around his arm, delivered a cablegram informing us of Dad's departure. Of course, in those days it was impossible to travel back home for such events.
In Christ's love,
Earl E. Mosteller
P.S. From daughter Ginny:
Praise the Lord for answered prayer! Dad/Earl was able to return home to Callahan Village on May 19.
He is in a wheelchair receiving continued home health physical and occupational therapy, but is working on strengthening muscles for walking around his apartment--and with his determination, perhaps he will be walking longer distances soon.
Mom/Gladys was so happy to have him back home from the hospital, and although because she sleeps much of the time and doesn't get as much communication time with him as before, she has a sense of satisfaction knowing that he is there close by--where he belongs.
Praise the Lord for answered prayer! Dad/Earl was able to return home to Callahan Village on May 19.
He is in a wheelchair receiving continued home health physical and occupational therapy, but is working on strengthening muscles for walking around his apartment--and with his determination, perhaps he will be walking longer distances soon.
Mom/Gladys was so happy to have him back home from the hospital, and although because she sleeps much of the time and doesn't get as much communication time with him as before, she has a sense of satisfaction knowing that he is there close by--where he belongs.
