2 Min Read “Angels descending, bring from above // echoes of mercy, whispers of love.” In 1873 Fanny J. Crosby penned the words to “Blessed Assurance,” a beautiful hymn that was sung with gusto by my beloved grandfather, holding the hymnal in his work-worn hands, stained with the years of working in the garden as head of grounds at the Adventist hospital in Sydney, Australia. A convert to Adventism in his twenties with only an eighth-grade education, my grandfather knew the Bible back to front. He gave Bible studies in his home-grown style and gave a box of organic vegetables to everyone from widows to business owners to doctors to the local gas station clerk.