HUMILITY

Dear Children,

 Do you remember Mr. Farquhar? 

Norman Farquhar entered my life in September 1979 when he attended our morning church service at Littleton Baptist Church in Littleton, New Hampshire.  I was glad to have an older man in the service and in the months to come he became a regular attender. I soon realized he was a believer who loved the Lord. He was retired and I asked him if he would join me during the week at a noonday prayer time. That continued for years.  We often discussed theology before or after we prayed. Norman was of a Plymouth Brethren background. We differed in how many pastor/elders should lead the church and in our views on the rapture and Lord’s return, but we enjoyed fellowship as brothers in Christ. When I started our Christian school, he backed me up and would help when we needed some teaching on different subjects.

In January 1986, we moved to Alaska and lost track of each other. When he died and I read his obituary,  I was absolutely shocked to find that he was a graduate of MIT and had taken part in the atomic bomb Manhattan Project during WWII! All those years I had been praying and fellowshipping with this man and had no idea who he was! Truly Norman followed Colossians 3:12, 13: "Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye."

Here is an excerpt from his obituary:

"When Norman was twelve years old he made the important decision to follow Jesus Christ, around whom the rest of his life revolved. He was an elder, Sunday school superintendent, teacher, Bible study leader and mentor in many churches in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Vermont. He loved people and loved encouraging them to study God's word and to follow Him. Prior to his death he was attending the Union Baptist Church. 

"In 1944, he married the love of his life, Esther Grace Briggs. They met in NYC during the war where she was stationed at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and he was working on the Manhattan Project. Even just months before his death he would look at a picture of his wife in her Navy uniform and say, "I love that girl." He loved his family and spent his retirement years visiting their children and grandchildren. 

"Norman worked for National Aniline and Chemical Company in Buffalo and later at McGraw Hill in NYC, N.Y., during the war and was involved in the development of the nuclear bomb in the Manhattan Project stationed at Columbia University, N.Y., the Chrysler plant in Detroit and later in Oak Ridge, Tenn. He went on to work for Plymouth Cordage in Plymouth, Mass., Air Reduction Corporation in Stanford, Conn., Foster Wheeler in NYC and finally working in cryogenic systems for Westinghouse Electric including design for a nuclear rocket, design vehicles to travel on the surface of the moon and various systems for nuclear reactors."

Note: Others in our ministry there have told us in response to this that they also were unaware of Norman’s background. One response came back, "I, like you, did not realize his background, which, in retrospect, makes him all the more special.  Truly a man after God's heart and he and his wife both lived it every hour of every day."