When I learned here in California    that my dear friend and brother Pastor Hunsdale in Belfast, Northern Ireland went home    to be with the Lord it was with the characteristic sense if both joy and sadness I always sense when a brother or sister in faith goes home to await the rest of us with Jesus in glory.

Robert's long battle with cancer that caused his retirement from ministry as senior pastor  of Agape Fellowship in Belfast , an often ugly battle  that so anguished his wife Wendy and    their children ended    as such battles always end - in victory . It ended in victory  because of the victory of the One who conquered death, the Jesus whom Pastor Robert so loved and so trusted for salvation. Our temporary separation will cause me and so many others to miss Robert. He was a friend among friends. Like so many Northern Irish preachers, Robert had a shepherd's heart but something of  a theologian's  brain. It will be strange for me to go to Belfast and Robert be away with The Lord, now dead to the cruel disease  that plagued him but very much alive in  Christ.

I do not know whether I shall be here when Jesus comes for His true  church  or if Jesus will come for  me personally.  Either way, I know that Robert will be with Him when He comes (1 Timothy  4:14).