A Glance at the Past - August 2020

Continued:   A number of years ago when I decided to go back 75 years and just go along, month after month, I was not sure how long I would continue to write that history.  When I hit my birthdate in March of 1938 back in 2013, I decided that I would continue through the end of WWII.  Well, here we are.
It has been a fascinating experience.  Looking back, I realize that I have been most impressed by the difference in how we view time.  When I was writing about the experiences of our church’s early missionaries to China, letters took over a month to reach their families here in Girard.  Even in WWII, almost half a century later, a three-week lag between casualty and reception of the report to the family in Girard was typical.

Now, cell phones have made the daily news truly accounts of things that actually happened that very day.  We go about our daily lives knowing that at any time, someone with a phone could capture our actions.  Our lives have changed in so many ways from the lives of our early church families.  And, yet, our faith remains the constant.  When we look back at their lives, we can see how similar their values were to ours. 
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 This is my last Glance At The Past.  If someone wants to volunteer to take the story through the late forties, the amazing fifties, the turbulent sixties, the long- haired seventies, the eighties, the nineties, the millenium, and on to ???   I will be happy to give guidance on where to find our archives.  I could probably help to organize them.  Someone else is just going to have to do the writing.  I have really enjoyed my years as your historian.  Thank you all!