Pastor Bob, Hope Profession PhD

Our church will be celebrating Pastor Bob's life this Sunday, September 5th. You can tune in on our Youtube channel Crossroads Bible Church, 8 am in Spanish and 11 am in English. 

For the past 4 years of my life I've had the wonderful privilege of sitting on Pastor Bob's Sunday school. You know what this Sunday school has meant to me and what it has done for my faith, for I have written Pastor Bob's name on my blog several times as you can read here, here, here, and here. My dearest Pastor Bob went to his eternal home last Tuesday, August 24, 2021 the very day he was celebrating his 59th wedding anniversary with his much beloved Mary. 

Can a man depart from this earth having only positive things said about him from everyone that surrounded him? My Pastor Bob has proven you can. But what do these positive things being said about him do? Point to Jesus. 

If I had to use only two words to describe Pastor Bob, I would use the words DUTY and LOVE. 

Let's start with the first word, Duty. 

I met Pastor Bob during a time when I was heavily struggling with my physical health still recovering from the blast of chemo and radio and all the surgeries that stripped my body from normal function. But, I was very comfortable letting all that be "justification" for my lack of service or my lack of character. Who can blame me? Who can ask more of me after all I had suffered? At first, my heart was hardened by the "no one understands me" thought that also comfortably allowed me to be cynical with others. And then I met Pastor Bob. Pastor Bob not only could understand me; he could rebuke me. And rebuke me he did. He had been living with cancer for the past 9 years when I met him. He knew all about the pain of chemo (constant chemo in his case), the pain of neuropathy (which in his case was so severe compared to mine that he described the sensation in his feet as walking on stumps.). He understood alright! And that gave me an instant connection to him. In those first years, he and Mary would check up on me constantly which made me feel so absolutely loved. There was something about both of them that just drew you in, something in their smile, in the way they talked to you, in the way they looked at you. My mentor Diane said it perfectly on our remembrance meeting last Sunday. She said, "Bob had the special ability of making you feel like you were his favorite... And then you realized he made everyone feel that too." It was exactly like I would have described it. I felt his favorite. And then I learned others felt that too, which was kind of heartbreaking, hehe. Can you imagine having that ability of making those who surround you feel like you are their favorite person? It was Pastor Bob's super power. When I started at church, I signed up for a Sunday school class in Spanish that was taught in the main hall. I liked it, but it wasn't what I was looking for. There was this one time when I had just started serving in the music ministry that I was feeling very sleepy, and I wanted to take a nap between church meetings (which is when Sunday school takes place.) I found a dark corner in a room next to the main hall, and there I heard it for the first time: Pastor Bob's Sunday school.  My dear Diane, who I still didn't know closely, was attending it, which drew my attention further because I also wanted to find a way to get close to her. Everyone was participating and talking, which didn't happen in my other class. I knew in my heart that was the place for me to be. It had been a long time since I had desired Biblical instruction and had received it more in the obligated sense. I longed for my Sunday school classes where Pastor Bob would break down verse by verse of the book we were reading and sometimes only cover 5 verses per class. And there I learned about his duty, which he made it clear was my duty. Pastor Bob didn't believe in wasting your time, wasting your emotions, wasting your resources. "Your duty is to the Kingdom, to God, and the gospel," he would teach. He certainly had lived that way during his entire life as a missionary to various tribes in Panama and in his service as main pastor to our church. But his duty had not ended with cancer or a "more mature age". He kept on his work with "Juntos Podemos Curundu" which he presided over. He kept on his small group and his Sunday school. Very few understood what his health struggles were because he never once showed them, complained about them, or allowed that to stop him from his duty of living everyday for Christ. But I knew. I knew the chronic pain he must have endured for almost a decade. I knew the fatigue of chemo, the impotence of a body that you no longer count on or know, the stubbornness of wanting to be normal when your body is broken. Pastor Bob was nicknamed "Bob the builder" rightfully so, but his family would have wanted him to stop his building prowess for the sake of his body. Watching his unbreakable peace, undeniable joy, and his unrelenting trust in his Savior were a constant slap in my faith to "snap out of it." 

Hebrews 10:23 Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise.

Pastor Bob certainly lived this verse. My struggles were all that were before me back then. Pastor Bob would call me over and over again to put Jesus before me. And if I was complacent in my sin because "I'm in pain", Pastor Bob would not let that slide. He would call me to fulfill the duty I was called on to do: live as for the Lord. 

1 Corinthians 13 1If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. 3 If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it;[a] but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.

This chapter in the Word is very well-known. The love chapter. But I feel it perfectly described my dearest Pastor Bob too. Here are other things said about him during our remembrance meeting last Sunday: "Bob was a rescuer. He lived what he believed, and believed in what he lived. He loved to be a fisherman, but was also a fisher of man. A chocolate lover." That last one made me happy, because he once told me my chocolate cake was his favorite chocolate cake in the world. I'll be making that cake for my birthday celebration this weekend. Some tears will most certainly fall after making it, for I always sought to save a piece for my dear Pastor Bob. "My doctor says I shouldn't eat that, but your cake really tempts me," is what he said the last time I brought a piece to our Sunday school for him. I knew what that meant. This was pre-pandemic. Bob's love for people was very on the nose. He couldn't hide it. My dear Tia Mercedes would tell me stories of discussions she would have with Bob about Juntos Podemos. "He needs to be tougher," she would say, "but he loves too much." Tia Mercedes would never miss a day of Sunday school and would make me accountable if I missed it. The Lord certainly has surrounded me with the most amazing people that I needed to be surrounded by. I wish I would have taken up my tia´s invitation to go to Bob's small group. I missed the past two months of Bob's Sunday school because I had volunteered to serve in the kid's combined Sunday school for those months. I had felt in my heart my time was running out and asked Miss Zuly if I could miss my last day of combined Sunday school to be on Bob's class. That class was taught by Selwyn, Diane's husband. I had indeed missed my chance. I thought I had more time. I really did. Bob made you believe it. Even to the end, he wouldn't let out how bad it was and what it meant that he kept on teaching us. I take solace that the last months we had been recording the Sunday school, and I can still watch him. I wished I had had more years with him like most of our Sunday class did. I got four years. I could have had 30 years, and it would not have been enough. I love Pastor Bob and his wife Mary with all my heart. Please pray for Mary. I can't fathom what it's like to lose my life's partner of 59 years. Pray for her health that has also been in decline the past two years. I am overjoyed to know Bob is finally home pain-free, cancer-free, with his new body ready to build again. 

I titled this post: Pastor Bob, Hope Profession PhD because I think that is what Bob's profession was: hope. I had lived without hope after cancer for a long time. Bob showed me it was possible to live with cancer and have a PhD in hope. He lived what he believed indeed! Here are more verse that describe how Pastor Bob lived:

 Romans 5 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

Romans 15 13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Romans 8 24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? 25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

18 Proverbs 23 17 For surely there is a hereafter,
And your hope will not be cut off.

Romans 12 12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.

Pictures by @ruthysworld

Selwyn ended our meeting with this verse and I want to end on it too:

Revelations 1 1 The revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, 2 who testifies to everything he saw—that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. 3 Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near.