Faithful Is He Who Calls You

Grampie and I are Christians. We aren't perfect by any means, but our God is. Your grandfather loves the Lord and loves the Bible. He loves the Church. And so do I. This picture is of Holmes Bay Baptist Church where Grampie was a pastor for almost 20 years. This is a little bit about the story of how he became a pastor.

Both of us came from Christian homes and going to Church every week was part of our lives. I wish I could say we have been in Church at least once every week all of our lives unless we were sick or away. Sadly, I cannot.

When we were first married, we moved away from family to Pennsylvania where Grampie had already found a job. We enjoyed our new adventure in life and often stayed up too late watching television or reading on Saturday nights. It just became way too easy to sleep in and skip Church. We were very happy in those days, but something important was missing in our lives. We were not in worship and fellowship with other Christians. And all because we were just too willing to sleep in and then spend a leisurely Sunday. We didn't skip worship services ALL the time, but we skipped too often. We were living too much for ourselves and not enough for God.

When we were married about a year and a half, Aunt Valerie (Mom) was born and we wanted to leave Pennsylvania and move to Maine. We prayed about it and God very graciously led us to a new hospital in Machias. The hospital opened its doors in December of 1962 and Grampie started working there on May 10, 1963.

When we moved to this new community with our new baby, we wanted to raise our little girl right. We wanted her to know Jesus as her Lord. And we wanted to be in Church ourselves. The Lord led us to Machias Valley Baptist Church and within a short time Pastor George Henderson began asking Gramp to be involved in various ministries. Over the years he served in many ministries such as choir member, deacon, youth leader, Sunday School teacher, & Christian school board member. One Sunday Pastor became ill last minute with some kind of flu or bug and just couldn't do the sermon. Grampie was not even 30 years old, he'd never preached a sermon before, and the service was being BROADCAST LIVE! Grampie said it was a very short sermon and that John Sprague had to fill in with more congregational singing than usual. This led to Pastor Henderson sending Grampie out to do pulpit supply at various Churches around Washington County. If a pastor was sick or resigned, Grampie often would be asked to fill in.

Grampie was a very quiet and rather shy man in public. But when he stood up and opened the Word of God, he was different. He was in his element. He was exercising His GIFT of the Spirit. People have made remarks to me over the years, "Wow! He's so quiet. I didn't know he could speak like that!" But Grampie knows there is nothing special about him. He knows that it is all from GOD, who made the choice to give the gift of teaching and preaching to Grampie.

If you are a Christian, God has given gifts to you. When somebody gets a gift, they normally don't choose it. It is chosen and given. That is the way God gives the gifts of the Spirit to people. You may have a gift of teaching like Grampie. Or maybe you will have the gift of hospitality or for helping or for mercy. There are lots of gifts and they are to be used to give GOD glory and honor.

Over the years, Grampie studied the Bible faithfully and had more and more opportunities to preach. Eventually the Holmes Bay Baptist Church asked him to be their pastor. Grampie and I knew that he couldn't do this without God's help. But God made him think about a verse that became very precious to us: "Faithful is He that calleth you who also will do it. . ." Remembering that verse helped us to remember that being a pastor and wife was not something that we had to do alone. The power and ability to do this had to come from God. And HE is faithful. So after inner struggles and many prayers, he understood that was what God wanted him to do. We kept our hospital jobs because this Church was too small to support its own pastor.

After a few years the Church decided they wanted Grampie to be ordained. They called a counsel of men from various Churches. They examined Grampie's beliefs and his life and the counsel agreed that GOD wanted Grampie to be a pastor.

The ordination was on October 23, 1993. Speakers at the service were Rev. Dr. James Kurtz, a dear friend in the community, and Rev. Herb McLean, a special friend and a missionary to the Chinese. The laying on of hands for the prayer of dedication was by Jim Kurtz; Herb McLean; Paul Rasmussen, a long-time friend and missionary to Colombia with New Tribes Missions; Deacons Mark Verburgt & Gary Look, and Trustee Auldin Foss. Herb and Pam Dowling prepared a turkey dinner for our celebration.

We were very happy at the Holmes Bay Church. We met people who we will always love and we look forward to seeing some in Heaven because they went there ahead of us. It wasn't always easy to hold full time jobs and be in ministry in the Church, but God DID IT, just like He promised. We saw people come to know Jesus and we saw people restored to a right relationship with the Lord.

Thank YOU, Lord Jesus for giving us the opportunity to serve YOU and Your people.