Evidence of New Life

 

Photograph of Landon Stokes and Landun
This story is from Mike and Libby Wild, missionaries to the Wano people in Papua Indonesia. It is especially dear to our hearts. In the summer of 2009, our son Landon visited the Wild family for a month. During this time, Landon met Landun, of which this story is about. At the time, Landun was not a believer in Yahweh.
Libby relates in her story:
A month ago one of the believers named Landun went to a far off hamlet to attend a feast. While he was there he became very sick with malaria and was not able to get back here for medicine. For over a week his already feeble body became weaker and weaker. When Mike finally got word of his sickness, he sent medicine off for him. He made it back to my house the other day, looking like a walking skeleton, but alive. In our front lawn as we were talking, he gave this testimony:
"I became so sick and I could not get up to walk back here for help. The people over there wanted to seek the evil spirits help, but I told them with a strong voice, "NO! Don't call on the spirits for me!" I told them that and I continually prayed to my father Yahweh to help me. I prayed to Him and He gave me the strength to get back to here. He is the one who has helped me and kept me alive."
Landon and Landun share the same name and the same father Yahweh. We rejoice to know Landun made it home to the loving care of Mike and Libby. Please keep his family and his ministry to the Wano people in your prayers.

End of the Line

 

We had journeyed long. The prospect of untold riches kept us on the path. Arriving to the end of line, we found not the fool's gold of men, but the riches of the gold purified in the fire. The fire from the giver of the gold that commands a price beyond measure. We left new prospectors, not miners of earthly treasure, but diggers of celestial golden light.
All we could do was drop our shovels and freely recieve the gold poured forth.

Rapid Ascent

 

Your life a sweet savor. Your life a sacrifice of praise. In every leap of joy, leap unto the Lord. In every fall to earth, fall into the arms of the Lord.

Pouring Forth Gold

 

Looking upstream, the golden evening light was illuminating the trees of Little Shoals. Knowing the light was rapidly fading, I grabbed the equipment and ran for the light. There was just enough time to mine a few nuggets before the
gold disappeared into the gloam.

Hidden Treasures

 

In the Thai language, Suwannee means good gold. Walking upon the limestone boulders in search of this gold, ahead, a vein appeared. Casting all care aside, I rushed upstream to grasp this elusive wealth. There, in the deepest shallows, the rich golden vein. I planted the flag and staked my claim. That night I basked in the thought of being a rich man.

Tho He Slay Me

 

And Tho He Slay Me
Yet Shall Praise Thee
And Tho I Die
Yet Shall I Rise
Unless He Draw Me
I live Darkly
Illumine Me Dead
To Thee Wed
In My Decay
I Pray
Yahweh!

Morning Journey

 

A wind swept silence broken by the call of the Sandhills rising from the mists, to journey on from their nightly rest.
The plantiff call of the Crane calls all who would journey to rise and come. And the earthbound traveler looks to the
grey heaven and yearns for the soul of the Crane, to travel beyond these morning chills to the warmth of migration end.

Memory of Cline

 

In promise of spring

 

The Flight of the Five

 

Turkey in the Y

 

Upon coming to the scene, the wide angle attached, I composed then looked. In the background, just over the ridge, a flock of turkeys with necks craned high, watching me. Running back to the car to retrieve the telephoto, by the time I had returned, the turkeys were at the bottom of the hill.

In Praise of Hay

 

First Steps

 

The early morning mists were too enticing to sit and watch it lift. In haste, I took the coffee and camera and set forth. Where to venture? Kayak? Suwannee? Knowing time was of essence, I decided to stay nearby. First stop was the Octagonal Church converted into a hay barn. As I was leaving, curious goats arrived. I started to stay and compose them in the scene, but hurried on. I wanted to make it to Cline Feagle Road. Arriving at the Tabor Cemetery, the fog was still shrouding the landscape, though lifting. I walked up the pine lined road of Cline Feagle, then got in the car and rode up about a quarter mile. I took the wide angle lens, leaving the telephoto in the car. Composing the fence line, I noticed in the background, about six turkeys with necks craned high. First thought, dang, telephoto in car. Do I stay or do I return to car and get lens? I ran for the car. By the time I returned, the turkey were high tailing at the bottom of the hill, gone. Lesson learned. Take all your lenses with you. Or...purchase that do it all 18-200.
I made a stop at Cline Feagle's burnt home where he perished last year. The only remnant the brick chimney. Sad.
Heading back for home, I stopped at the top the hill on Price Creek to photograph the Angus cattle. In the corner of the fence was a newborn calf, with the mother snorting my presence. The little calf,sensing mothers concern, wobbled to its feet for the first time and ran up the hill with her to the herd. First steps, first run and I was there to see it.
The joys of morning. The turkeys that got away. The calf that rose for the first time this wonderful day January day.

Preachers Place

 
 

Preachers Place

 
 

:Preachers Place

 
 
 
 

Preacher's Place

 
 
 
 
This past Christmas Eve I finally visited my father in Williston. About noon on Christmas day, I went out to his place to invite him to Gerald and Billie Earls for Christmas dinner. He said he was out of gas and had no money, I told him I would bring him in. We sat in the family room awhile and talked before leaving. While he was getting ready, I walked about the back yard and took a few quick photographs.
I did it in a sort of detatched manner, though the memories of Thanksgiving Cane grindings were fresh. All now around the syrup barn is dusty and in disrepair. The lack of use and the toll of time are taking over. I thought back to ole Homewood, his place in Crawfordville, and where most of this stuff was there, and grew sad. Though the things were moved here, it was like taking living things and setting them out here, but without soil. Now they are withered and dead.
In my imagination, I can see every plant and tree and building at Crawfordville, though they have been bulldozed over.
They continue to cry out to me. I realize that with me, and after me, the memory will grow dimmer still. My sons were little when my father sold Mrs Towles place and moved to Williston. The place of trees, buildings will be fuzzy.
If in some way, I can recreate the memory, somehow, then I will have done a small part in restoring home. A home place is something we never really knew, as with my father being a Methodist minister, we moved about. When he purchased the fifteen acre property in the sixties, it was the closest thing to home we knew. With the selling, we again, had no place to call home.
The move to Williston, though on a very nice piece of property with stately old oaks, has never felt like a homeplace.
Though we lived in Williston ten years, it just did not feel like Crawfordville ever did. Perhaps it had to do with my father divorcing my mother, his reclusion in Williston, or we were grown and unable to visit.
And even now, we stand to even lose this link to the past. My father went and did one of those reverse mortgage on the property, making it all but impossible for us to afford it once he is gone. At one point he willed the left half to me,the right half to my brother and the middle with the house to my sister. Then he went and sold several acres on the left side. Then he refused to make out a will. And thus we search for a home. And thus we come to the conclusion that upon this earth we shall never have a home. Thus, we are enjoined to seek a heavenly home,an inheritance that fadeth not away.