Christmas Greetings,
This year it has been difficult to get merry and I tend to get teary when I’m trying to get cheery. With that having been said I think all is well at our house. It has been a year of first since the death of Bea in December of last year. We were just kids when we got married and there are very few things that I’ve done in my life that did not involve us doing together. So, it has been an adjustment year.
I want to start with a thank you to my son Robert and his wife Tera, Grandson Alex and wife Serra. They have made a special effort to be sure that I’ve been included in activities with them throughout the year and at all special days. She was a loss to them as well, but they have made sure that I’ve not been alone on special days. Thank you and I love you.
To my brother’s, sisters-in-law, nephews, and nieces and other family members, thank you for being there with your love and support. I love you.
And a special thank you to one of my nephews, Don Ray for helping me get this site up as a place to stay in touch. And post this letter. As I’m going through Bea’s files, I’m putting aside things that I hope to at some point scan in and make into a resource library for teachers and Adventurer directors. Also, the photo gallery is just up but will be added to. I welcome your thoughts and suggestions and as time permits, it will grow.
Then, I’ve an extended family that became a close part of our family by choice, either through pathfinders, school, mission trips, neighbors, or all of the above. If I start putting names on this line it will not only be a long list, I’m sure to leave someone out, think of later and will be continually updating this page. To prevent that, you know who you are and you are loved greatly and I thank you for your prayers, calls and support through this past year. You are a big reason for this site going up. Please, spend a little time with our past in reflection. And it will be added to. So return.
To those that we’ve had the privilege to work with either in pathfinders, youth ministry, It Is Written, Southern Adventist University transportation dept. and others who’s path we had crossed, thank you for your prayers and your continued support to me.
January started for me in Houston, TX at the GYC (Generation of Youth for Christ) convention with a bus load of youth/young adult at a very spiritual weekend. Some had asked if I was still going to make the trip. It was difficult, but I would have to reply, Bea would not want me to stop what was and had been a part of our ministry to our local youth that had grown up with us. It was a good place to start a new year. January ended with my annual teen caving weekend in Huntsville, AL. In between I managed to get in a few trucking trips.
As spring arrived, I interspersed my trucking trips with bus trips for SAU including our annual Collegedale Academy Sr class trip to NY City. It is a two-driver trip due to the distance and travel time and one which Bea and I had done for many years. I asked my brother Tony if he would accompany me on that trip. He did. It was a good trip, he enjoyed seeing the city sites and museums with the class while I was able to spend two days on Long Island with a close friend and former student of Beas. She lives there with her husband, two daughters and son. She and Bea had reconnected two years ago and last year we had spent two wonderful days getting reacquainted with her and getting to know her family. I am so thankful that had taken place. As a builder looks at his construction with pride, an artist his completed artwork, it is only natural for a teacher to delight in watching a student grow and follow them with pride through life. Her husband, an officer in the military. took off the two days I was there. We had an enjoyable time together.
April 13, would have been Bea’s and my 50th anniversary. I chose to go back to where I grew up, and visit my childhood church. Bea and I had gotten married in my parents’ home across the road from the church and school. My grandson Alex said, I’m going with you. Though it was a difficult day, I enjoyed showing Alex where I had started rock climbing, hiking out to one of the many waterfalls on the mountain, and just spending the day with him. He is big into climbing and goes regularly with friends. We looked at several new climbs along with a camping area which I’m sure he will return to. He had taken along his drone so we got to look at the cliffs from a perspective from which I’d never seen them. Kind of neat being able to look at the wall up close without being on it.
Summer passed quickly with August finding me in a bus on my way to Oshkosh, WI and the largest ever Pathfinder camporee. I think the total number in attendance was around 57,000. Bea and I had been to all the large camporees since 1985 except for one. This was another first for me on my own. It was without a doubt the best evening programing of any. And I heard that from many that had been to others. A very energetic, but very spiritual program. Another first was the flame and memory wall that was erected. I had not heard about it until a couple of days into the camporee when someone told me they had seen Beas name on the wall. I went over to where I was told it was located and found a nice fenced area complete with a flame, prayer garden and wall. Instructions stated if you had a leader that had meant a lot to you, and had died since the last camporee, place their name on the wall. It took me a while to find it as the board had become full. It simply said Bea Hill “Ms Bea” Gulf States Conference Area Coordinator. The person that put it there could have been anyone of several hundred in attendance that knew her. It hurt to be reminded that she was no longer there with me but at the same time it did me good to know that it represented someone else whose life she had touched and they missed her too. I took a photo of that section of the board.
Shortly after getting back from Oshkosh Robert called me and said, dad, “time to get the motorcycle out and let’s go for a ride”. I’ve had a motorcycle most of my adult life and it is one of those things that Bea and I had enjoyed doing together but is not much fun alone. Mine had been parked since before Beas death. Robert, who has had several through the years but had sold his last one and not replaced it, found one he liked, bought it, then called and informed me “he had a bike” lets go for a ride. We did. I kind of think he did that to get me back on mine, it worked. A few weeks later in September a small group of us met up in Chattanooga, went to church at Collegedale, had a great lunch at a friend’s home, then left on a scenic route through east TN, and NC up to Cherokee where we spent the night. Sunday morning, we rode the notorious “tail of the dragon” through Deals gap. 318 curves in 11 miles of beautiful Blue Ridge mountains. I had not been back to that ride since my grandsons 16th birthday when he and I had ridden it with Bea following us. It was a lot of fun. Robert and I are looking forward to getting some use out of the bikes come spring. Thank you Robert, Regina, Mel, JoAnn, and Jason for making it a enjoyable weekend.
Last weekend of October is our teen rock climbing weekend. This year it was a cold wet weekend so at the last it was deemed necessary to cancel for safety reasons. We usually have around 100 + show up for the weekend and that is way too many to try to keep active in a cold rain in tents. Besides, we go there to climb, not just to meet up with friends, though that is a big part of it.
November found me in on the west coast with It Is Written. Driving the audio, video, lighting, equipment truck for their Partnership weekends. It is something Bea and I have enjoyed doing together since they moved to Collegedale, TN from California four years ago. Again, a first for me alone as Bea and I had enjoyed the last three years together on these trips. The It Is Written teem had become a close family to us, and this year they were a big support. While on that trip I got a call from SAU transportation department to see if I would be back in time to, or would like to take the art class to NY City over Thanksgiving break. My son, grandson, their family’s and I were already planning to do our Thanksgiving dinner the following Sunday at Beas sisters house on Sand Mt. and I would be back in time for that. I spent Friday night and Sabbath at home after arriving from California, before leaving out Sabbath night for NY. That put me in NY from Sunday, over Thanksgiving, through the following Sabbath evening and arriving back to Collegedale Sunday morning in time for dinner. The subway is used for transportation by the group while there so I disappeared back out to Long Island. I had told my friends there that I might be back in the city for Thanksgiving and they said, come on. I’m enjoying being grandparent to the little family there. Just wish Bea could have watched them grow up. She was able to see our own son and grandson to adulthood, and for that I’m thankful. I am so looking forward to the following being fulfilled.
1 Thessalonians 4:15-17 For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so, shall we ever be with the Lord.
She will be looking for you on that day.
We live in a world where sickness and death are very much a part of life, or I should say the end of life. It was not supposed to be so, and there will come a time when it will no longer be that way.
It’s December and we are celebrating Christmas. In the Christian parts of the world we celebrate the birth of Christ, which marked the beginning of the end to Satan’s rule of hatred and death. Yes, I know we are still experiencing it 2,019 years later, but the birth, life, and death of Christ forever exposed Satan’s lies and hatred towards his own creator. The victory has been won; God has been vindicated and will be seen as just in the destruction of the evil one and those that choose to follow his leading. I miss my wife Bea, dearly and especially at Christmas for she loved the lights, the decorations, the festivities that surround it. It is impossible for me to feel very festive this year, but I take great comfort in the knowledge and assurance that Beatrice is sealed for eternity. No, she was not perfect, but she did have a perfect trust in her Creator, her Savior and God. Satan and his followers cannot touch her with the things they are going to bring upon the earth as he shows his true colors to the universe.
2020 is just around the corner and I will start it as I did last year by taking a bus load of youth to GYC. Ok, did I just put down 2020? Maybe this will be the year of good vision / insight. You know 20-20. And that brings this thought out. Even a world that wants to say there is no God or creation, uses the same calendar that has 7 days in a week with no explanation as to why 7, except God established it at creation. And the year 2020? Two thousand twenty years back to what? Christ birth even establishes our worlds secular calendar year.
Have a great year. And keep looking up. The night is the darkest just before dawn.
Thanks again to each one of you for your thoughtful calls and notes, prayers, and love through 2019.
After reading this over to Buddy (my cat) said he felt left out. Some have met him, some of you have not, but he is a very loyal, loving, 25 lb. bangle cat. He was Bea’s lap cat anytime she sat down to read. After about 2 months of mourning, (literally, he would pull her throw off the back of the chair and curl up, spending his day with it,) he has become my constant companion when I’m in the house. I sat down in front for the chair and took this photo this morning to get him into the letter.
Going to be spending time with my family over Christmas, so check back here for some current photos after the holidays if you like. I’ll attempt to be a little more selective with backdrop on the others. This was impromptu. 🙂
Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year.
With Love,
Bob Hill & Buddy
PS. We are planning to restart the Gulf States Teen Mission Trips This July. If you were a part of a previous trip, or want to be a part of the restart please let me know.