TRIBUTE : William Gordon Silk 29-June-1926 to 04-April-2016

FAITH without BORDERS

Gordon’s spiritual legacy was rooted in scripture :
Genesis (12:1) : The Lord said to Abram “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you”.
Hebrews (11:8-9) : By FAITH Abraham… obeyed and went, not knowing where he was going, he made his home in the Promised Land.

Gordon was a kind, honest, generous man, a man of very deep faith. Jane, Elizabeth and i, never had the privilege of being taught by Dad - as many of you have, because for most of my life i was too foolish to listen ( to LISTEN is to LIVE ), i was Baptised and then i started to get to know my father as a Christian.

Gordon had two wonderful Christian parents but also a wonderful Granny; Granny Tulloch (Elspet Jane Tulloch), “she had an unfailing generosity of spirit” she had “deep convictions that nothing could shake” but “underlying everything, and at the root, was her profound Christian FAITH and her love for her Lord”, similar to Gordon. Gordon’s father William Percy, was also kind, generous and relaxed with his family, his mother Mamie (Mary Ann Tulloch) taught him to pray. Like all parents they encouraged him to go to a strict Grammar school in Horsham and then onto to Cambridge, to get the best education he could.

Both brothers; Gordon and David; went to Christ’s Hospital near Horsham during the war years where discipline was strict - marching to meals and chapel and harsh punishments for being late or ‘insubordination’. Gordon seemed to thrive on it and as an “Old Blue” retained fond memories of “Housey” and the friends he made - Alan Quest, Sweaty Williams and Jim Longmate.

Mary, his little sister, Gordon was her whole world and during the holidays her play mate, doing such interesting things like gardening, building things, out on bikes and always bedtime stories. Away from home he wrote lovely letters to encourage her to improve her writing. Gordon had a way with words that we all admired.

On leaving school in 1944, Gordon was called up to serve as a trainee Aircraft Engineer in the Fleet Air Arm before going to Magdalene College in Cambridge where he a 2 year BA degree.

Easter 1947 vacation, Dad went to the IVF Conference in Swanwick, everything there went wrong but the Bible studies gripped him, one man testified that “the only thing God expects from you is failure”. For the first time he knew, he was thoroughly miserable, went into a nearby Chapel, knelt and surrendered his life to Jesus as HIS Saviour.

During term in Cambridge, Dad met a CMS missionary on leave from Kenya, by 1952 he was ready to offer to CMS, in 1953 CMS sent Dad to teach in a boarding school for 200 boys in Busoga College, Mwiri near Jinja near the source of the Nile in Uganda.

In 1955 he met his wonderful Mary (Mary Freda Robinson), she had been a Sister-Midwife for four years with the Rwanda Medical Mission. They married in Mwiri, three children were born there. We lived through the fast moving politics from Uganda’s independence in 1962, returning in 1973, after two years living under Idi Amin’s “reign of terror”.
Mum and Dad did return to Uganda in 1989 to work at Mengo Hospital for 3 years, and spent 18 months from 1994-6 at New Hope for orphans of the wars.

Dad’s life was lived across BORDERS, he took his incredible faith and knowledge in Africa, who today still respect and honour Dad for what he did and making them people-of-the-future.

Dad resolved to Trust and Obey, Abraham’s faith and obedience to God has lite his way across Borders.

I would like to pray for Dad :

Heavenly Father, please protect and keep Dad in your wonderful heaven and help us all to know from his death, new life will spring up across BORDERS.



Please Watch and Pray.
Keep your Eyes above the Waves...