MY MOTHER'S NOTE BOOK: #1 GEMS FROM THE PAST

My most recent discovery, finding the Bible that my mother took over from a gift that we kids had presented to my parents as a token of their love for each other on their 25th wedding anniversary, June 1972.

This bible is worn, a little tattered, and kind of falling apart and was well marked.  The blank pages in the very back were filled with many meaningful poems and quotes, all written in my mothers handwriting.

 

Poem," I Will Go" Written In My Mother's own handwriting.

What makes this poem so special is that it was written by Doris Puckett and author of the book "IN THE HOLLOW OF HIS HAND".  The Pucketts were fellow missionaries along with my parents and Dad went on many village visits with her husband Larry.  After reading that book, I felt that we did not live as primitive as they had.  Our family is referred to in that book as part of their missionary adventures.

"Doris (Kinzie) Puckett grew up in the small coal region town of Ashland, Pennsylvania. She felt God's call upon her life at the age of 16 when she gave her heart to the Lord. After high school, she enrolled in the Philadelphia Bible Institute where she met and fell in love with Larry Puckett, a young man from Tennessee who shared her deep devotion to Christ. At the Bible Institute, both Doris and Larry felt God's call to the remote Sierra Madre mountains of Mexico to take the gospel to the Totonac Indians who had lived for centuries in superstitious fear, under the bondage of witchcraft and poverty. This is Doris' account of their amazing years in the protective hollow of God's hand. It is a remarkable story of more than forty years spent on the mission field, enduring incredible hardships, overcoming impossible obstacles, witnessing astonishing miracles and experiencing God's faithful protection and peace in the dangerous difficult place they came to love as home" 

(I believe this review was written by Rene Zapata, an evangelist we knew in Mexico.)

They lived in a very remote village that later they were encouraged to learn to fly and eventually obtained a small plane, they called "The Sparrow"

Dad on right with Uncle Larry with the Sparrow

When I was young, I thought she was one of the most awesome of women around and so beautiful.  All of us girls wanted to look and be like her.  One year the Pucketts got to be the house parents of the boarding school that we attended.

Just a little side story off of this from some of Dad's accounts, I was around five yrs old.  This missionary adventure happened before the Pucketts came to Mexico but to the village that they would be assigned to.

Several villages had carved airstrips on the side of the mountains to facilitate the transport of coffee by plane from the isolated villages.

On this visit to Mecatlan,  

Dad and Mother took us three children at the time and a months worth of supplies.  The airstrip was located in the valley and required an hours trek up the mountain to get to that village.

We stayed in a home opened up to us.  According to Dad it was only a shack of tied together board walls and dirt floor.  News papers lined the walls to cover the cracks to keep out the wind and cold.

My mother had taken her accordion and they had services at night and Bible and literacy classes.

When it was time to leave that village we trekked  one hour down that mountain to the airstrip to wait for one of the planes, however, we waited all day and no plane came.  Evidently air conditions were not favorable so no plane came.  It was decided to camp out on the airstrip till morning and build a fire to keep the mosquitos at bay.

We all survived the mosquitos except my sister who was a baby at the time.  The next morning her little face was a solid mass of bites and she got very sick.

Following is the poem I found in the back of Mother's Bible:

 I WILL GO ~ by Mrs. Doris Puckett

As I knelt in His presence and heard His call,
He summoned me to give Him my all
To the regions beyond-or wherever may be,
I knew that God had a place for me.
The promise was made many years ago,
“I’ll go, dear Lord, where you want me to go.” 

“To the land of Mexico”--the Savior replied,
“You’ll go in My stead to tell them I died.
There are souls that perish who have never heard.
So you take to them My precious Word.
I heard Him call to the Indians--strong and clear
And I answered, “Oh,yes, I’ll go, my Savior dear.

Easy to say “yes”, but the test was to follow.
The cost is great!  Pride I must swallow.
The mountains!  They’re rugged and oh, so steep!
Live there among sickness and filth so deep?
To raise my children in a heathen place???
Should I really go to a people so base???

With eyes off the Lord and in temporal things,
I felt Satan’s darts with burning stings,
Endure such hardships and suffer cruel pain.
While wicked men will only scoff at His Name???
Too dangerous!!  Out there I am told that murders abound.
“I can’t go.”, my heart cried as fears did surround.

Then softly, He spoke as I knelt in prayer,
“My child, these are souls I love out there,
Their hearts are empty for want of My love.
In distress they cry out for help from Above.
Who’ll take to them the story of grace.
That one day “redeemed” they may look in My face?”

He spoke and assured me of His strength divine.
He spoke and in weakness, His strength was mine.
Firmly and sweetly I felt upon my life, His touch!
Oh, compassionate Savior, you have taught me so much.
Those Indians, waiting~the peace of Jesus to know.
“Dear Lord, in me fulfill this burning desire to GO!”

I went, yes, I went to that forsaken land,
Not once did my Savior withdraw His hand.
Oh, what glory and joy did His blessing unfold!
The half of His goodness could never be told.
What treasures, what triumphs could have been lost,
Had I said to the Master, “Too great the cost!”

I am inclined to think that my mother may have felt the same way and was witness to many of the treasures and triumphs that would have been lost had she and dad not followed the call.  Because of them many Indians and their families were won.