“I want my family to know the kind of people they came from.”  That is how one ad for ancestry.com begins.  That is why I belong.  I want to know the stories of how and why my ancestors came to America and I want to share them with my nieces and nephews.  I am fascinated by my Puritan ancestors who came to New England in the seventeenth century.  What were they hoping for in this new world?  I think of my great-grandfather who came from western Ireland in the mid-nineteenth century escaping poverty and hunger to work in the copper mines of Houghton, Michigan.  He was only 16 and he never looked back.  He eventually bought a farm in central Illinois and raised a family, educating all his children (including five daughters).  WOW! What a story!  There are German, Scotch, and French ancestors as well.  All came hoping for a new and better life than the one they left.  

 

In an age where many seem to lose hope, I want my family to know how their ancestors dealt with the challenges of life.  You could be like your great-grandmother or your 5th or 6th great uncle (who just happened to be Daniel Boone.)  

I also want them to know about the faith of these people.  They were mostly common people who lived their faith in a simple but genuine way.  There were some who took in orphan children and raised them as their own.  There was one who hid runaway slaves headed to Canada.   There were priests and nuns and yes, protestant ministers.  They looked to God to provide for them the necessities of life. The stories of the saints are really just stories of men and women who happened to be in the right place at the right time and didn’t let fear hold them back.  

I think the more we know of the stories of our families, good and bad, the more we understand how we are rooted in the human family. This is the family where Jesus chose to live.   To know the stories of our families is to know the stories of love and sin and salvation.  Such stories will give us hope.  We all have fascinating family histories. Whether these ancestors succeeded or failed to overcome great odds, the common theme is the desire to give a better life to the next generation.  Our world offers us this same opportunity.  Will we have the faith and hope to grasp it with determination and desire?   Will we build the kingdom of God; that is, a future that will be better for all people?