Hello Reader,

These emails are about keeping you posted regarding the progress of Maplewood Books. Right now we are at the largest clean book festival in the US: Novel Latte at the Denny Sanford Center in Sioux Falls.

But today a different experience is driving this message. My little brother was promoted to glory three weeks ago. His passing gives me opportunity to share with you an inside look at my life.

My history with Mark goes back to our childhood days in the inner city of Dallas to the tiny burgh of Lipscomb, Texas, then Butte, Nebraska, and finally Missouri where we finished high school and parted ways.

In those early years we were best buddies. Rode our bikes all over town. Hunted birds with BB guns. And as near as I can remember, only one bird died at our hands. It was an early Saturday morning, we decided to sneak out before the family was up. He went through the window first and got away before Mom detected our subterfuge, caught me in the act, and ordered me back to bed. Mark was safely away, but he felt sorry for me and after some time returned to the window proudly holding the first, and maybe only winged creature ever to fall prey to our BB hunting adventures.

That little scene is a picture of Mark’s tender heart: he had escaped, but didn’t forget his brother who had not. Sixty-five years later I can still see him standing outside the window holding up his trophy with a look that said, “I’m sorry you aren’t with me but look what I shot!”

Of course we had great family times over the years, including the campout during which we had a Brumbelow watermelon-seed spitting contest. I think our big sister Linda won.

Like many brothers, we were opposite in lots of ways. He was neat; I was not. He was very careful with his possessions; I assumed they were to be used up. Weeks after Christmas you could still find brand new socks and briefs in his drawer. We had an electric race track and received new cars one Christmas. Mine was scarred and battered within a couple of weeks; he took his out of the box only to race and then carefully put it back so that it remained in pristine condition for a long, long time.

It was Mark who had the temperament to fly airplanes, and did it well, earning one certificate after another and logging thousands of hours, beginning in the states and then especially in Africa. But the day came when he chose to lay down that ministry, went back to seminary to earn an advanced degree, and he spent his final years in two other African nations training Christian leaders and evangelizing among an unreached tribe. It was in that season, during the brief times we saw them on furlough, that Mark reached what I believed to be his ultimate season of impact. His stories of serving these folks, the conversations he had with them, the way he interacted with them, the words God gave him to speak truth and share the gospel—I listened with growing wonder. I was a missionary myself, but his account touched me deeply and when he finished, I said “I wish I could come and be on your team.”

That never happened. We parted ways again, until they retired and returned to the states. We watched his fading memory with grief, but there was never any question about his heart, his robust relationship with the One who had called him to saving faith as a child, and sent him to Africa for a career of service; the One who seemed now to be beckoning him, “Come home, Mark.” And after his verbal ability had virtually disappeared, he could still say one word: “Jesus.”

Mark has preceded us to glory; God has favored him with the preferred alternative: “to depart and be with Christ is better by far,” Paul wrote. And so he has. And I will see him again. And I wonder what that reunion will look like? What will it be like to greet my “little brother” in that place where all sorrow and regret has vanished, where pure joy awaits? Maybe he will take my hand and guide me to discover the delights found only in the presence of Jesus Christ.

That would be good. That would be okay with me.

See you down the trail! 🤠

Gary Brumbelow

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