Harold Popovich, member of the Grand Rapids Heritage Netherlands Reformed Church, died at the age of 86 on April 27, 2014. Harold and his surviving wife, Dr. Fran Popovich, spent 40 years of their 57 years of marriage on the mission field in Brazil serving Wycliffe Bible Translators in the translation of the Bible into the Maxakali language.
Harold Popovich grew up in Chicago in a Reformed church under the ministry of Dr. Hagar, a son of the Rev. Hagar who served the Netherlands Reformed Church (NRC). He came under severe conviction of sin when he was 13 years old and was brought into gospel liberty when he was 14. After he died, his wife found this note (just a few days ago) written by him among his papers:
At age 13 I suddenly became aware that I was not born again. Somehow I knew that God contributes all and that we contribute nothing. Furthermore, what we brag about, God considers filthy rags. This hit me hard. How could something so enjoyable be so bad? There must be a mistake. In my anger I entered a year of vicious battle with God. On the last day of the year, I finally surrendered and God filled me with His overwhelming presence. I was crucified with Christ and He lived in me.
Harold was teaching in a Chicago high school when he met Fran, who was in nurses’ training. One of the things that drew him to her, he later told her, was that she grew up in the NRC! They discovered that they were both called to serve the Lord on the mission field. They were married in June, 1956 and began training in linguistics under Wycliffe. Harold wrote later: “God called me to foreign missionary work. In the following years, He kept me from being tied up in other things until we went to Brazil and the Maxakali Indians.”
In forty years on the mission field, the Popovich’s raised four children, did nearly everything from scratch in every area of life (since they lived in primitive conditions), and with a linguist-colleague they analyzed Maxakali speech sounds (they determined that the language had five oral vowels, five nasal vowels, and fifteen consonants), and jointly translated the entire New Testament as well as parts of Genesis. (After they retired, they continued to help develop translation helps and finished the Maxakali-Portuguese and the Maxakali-English dictionaries.)
Fran testified to me of her husband, “For 57 years God allowed me to be married to a humble, kind man, with a generous servant heart, who loved the Lord and hated sin. From the time I first met him, he always had what I call ‘monovision’—that is, he wanted to live entirely for Christ, and the Indians in Brazil were at the heart of that vision. They absolutely loved my husband. By God’s grace, he always walked with integrity in my presence and in theirs. What a blessing to have had such a husband!”
Harold Popovich was always expecting Christ to return on the clouds. But now he has returned to His Savior who has called him home to the church triumphant, saying through his death, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.”
At his memorial service, I preached on Philippians 1:21, “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” That text just seemed like a fitting summary of this dear brother’s simple, humble, “monovisionistic” life. We sang that beautiful Psalter 31:3,4,7 and that amazing hymn (Harold’s favorite), “The Sands of Time Are Sinking.” May God make us jealous of those who have gone before us to be with Christ forever.
What about you, dear friend? Is your life a monovision of “Christ alone”?
