BORN IN A BARN: Reflections of a Light Keeper

Last time we saw A Grand View Ahead at the Grandview St. building which we rented in 1988. It was a small church in Gig Harbor near Highway 16. We had made landfall as sailors say and the Lord put our light literally on a hill near the center of the harbor. What a blessing?

But, in 1995 the Grandview St. building suddenly sold and we had nowhere to go. Our men immediately had a prayer meeting to seek the Lord. During the first time of prayer I recalled a letter I had received months earlier offering a free portable building; I hunted it down in my stack of forgotten mail. I actually found it and saw it was sent by Harbor Covenant Church. So I checked it out. The elder I met said they also had a complete site across the street with a building too that was being listed for sale. There was not even a sale sign on it yet. We checked it out, had our regional home mission leaders inspect it, and within a week Larry Ellsworth and I had signed purchase papers. This was on our church’s 15th anniversary. We were buying our current 3.5 acre site. We soon sold the smaller site we owned nearby on Wollochet Dr. to help pay for the new larger site. Fortunately that smaller site had gone up in value substantially which helped pay down the new site. God was blessing providentially. Now we owned a more central site complete with a large house and a cute red barn. Barn? Yes a real barn!

Let me interject that back in the day most lighthouse stations had a barn due to their remote location. My station did also since it was on an island. The barn was key to survival since it housed an essential boat for transportation to the mainland and a place to keep feed for animals that it housed to produce food for the keepers. With that in mind our new church location had a barn also that would be a place for the feeding of our God’s sheep.

People were excited as we met briefly in the Fireside Room for a week or two then in the old red barn which we later painted a cream color. It originally had a dirt floor and had been used for farm equipment. When Harbor Covenant bought it they poured a concrete floor and installed carpet and sheet rock. It had a high ceiling which kept it cooler in summer.

It held about sixty people if they were packed in. Soon we had two morning services with Sunday School in between. Visitors would ask “Where is the church?” I would point out the barn and say, “Jesus was born in a barn so we don’t mind worshiping in one.” Most chuckled and got the point. It was so crowded at times there was barely room for the pulpit and piano up front against the wall. Sometimes I had to sit on the floor since every seat was full with worshipers.

The growing number of babies required us to add a small cry room on the side of the barn. Since there was no running water in this building the nearest bathroom was across the parking lot and in the house. We eventually set up a video feed to an old TV in what was formerly a butcher shop. That served as an overflow area and is where our current foyer is.

The church office was in the adjacent large tri-level house of roughly 3,000 sq. ft. It was complete with six extra rooms, a large fireside room, kitchen, and a large basement storage area; plenty of small class rooms, offices and so on. A building inspector told us it was the best built house he had seen except for the shake roof which leaked some. The original owner had milled some of the wood for it to full dimensions and from the site.

VBS was easy here with the large grass area outside. Closing program’s were on the back deck pf the house with a popular free BBQ following. But Awana was hard to do in this configuration of buildings.

Meanwhile back at the newly painted barn things were bursting. Often some of our flock had to watch the service from the two small back windows. It was sort of like early Livestream. Due to rain we eventually replaced the roof and entry awning with a much larger one.

MIssions was on our mind then also. In 1995 we sent Mary Amesbury to eastern Russian as a full time missionary with Baptist Mid-Missions. It was exciting to see her as an outreach of Discovery to that part of the world that had recently opened up. Today she continues to be an outreach of DBC to a college campus in the Cleveland, OH thru Campus Bible Fellowship.

The idea for our first Living Nativity came in 1998 after seeing what one of my friends, Mike Jennings, did in Tacoma. We wanted to proclaim the birth of Christ in a realistic and historical way where Christmas has become so commercial and mythical.

Our forested church setting was suited for such an event, so Marty Simons, put together a simple manger scene along the brushy edge of our parking area. About 26 people put up a cave-like scene and acted as the holy couple, shepherds, and magi for the evening. About 58 cars drove through plus a few walkers for a total of 243 that first winter’s night. Over the years the event grew consistently more popular. The last time we did the event in 2017 about 5,600 people came to walk through Bethlehem’s dozen or so scenes staffed by over 220 characters all related to the event of Christ’s birth. It is perhaps the largest presentation of it’s kind in the area. And, like the gospel of Christ, it is all free. We hope to continue it after our building project is complete in 2021.

Our Living Nativity in 2017 with over 5,600 attending in one weekend in December.

During our barn years Discovery graduated from Northwest Baptist Home Mission mission status to a full-fledged “New Testament Church”. That means we were self-supporting, self-governing, and self-propagating. Generally speaking a group of believers meeting regularly is considered a bible study until those three qualifications are met. That was now true of Discovery. So you could say we were truly, “Born in a Barn.” I love it! Having been raised on a ranch with a big red barn for our livestock, hay and equipment I felt right at home as their under shepherd.

In 2000 we sent Tim & Martia Franklin to Brazil as full time missionaries with Association of Baptists for World Evangelism (ABWE). Tim had been one of our many Seminary Interns who lived in the basement, commuted to school in Tacoma at Northwest Baptist Seminary (NBS), and learned the practical aspects of ministry at Discovery.

The Lord continued to allow us to do ministry trips to Ukraine where my Suko side of the family had immigrated from nearly a century earlier. While there I had the opportunity to visit the village they had come from and see the house and even cemetery where other relatives were buried. If my grandparents would have stayed there they and many of their children would likely have perished during Stalin’s massive manufactured famine of the 1930’s.

On one trip my daughter Rachel came along and was so struck with the need for help teaching children about the Lord. After much prayer she felt she could no longer stay in America with such needs in Ukraine. So she made the decision resign her job as Spanish teacher at Lighthouse Christian School in Gig Harbor and began to prepare for a life of missionary service in Ukraine. Unknown to her she made that decision on the same day that her great grandparent (my grandparents) Ferdinand and Maria Suko had come to America exactly 100 years earlier in 1902. It was another providential point. Later on June 6, 2004 we sent Rachel to the field of Odessa, Ukraine as full time single missionary with ABWE. Amazingly on her first day in Ukraine the Lord providentially introduced her to the man God had lined up for her, another single ABWE missionary already working there. It soon was obvious there was love in the air.

Soon we realized we would need a more suitable auditorium for Discovery. So we began to make plans to build one and remodel the old butcher shop attached to the house into a proper foyer and entry area. That project we started in the spring of 2005. I’ll tell you about it next time and the amazing and unexpected first event we had in it. You will definitely not want to miss it.

-Pastor Mark

P.S. Let me know if you have questions or memories about that time.

PRAY FOR OUR BUILDING PROJECT THIS WEEK

We have finished our 9th week since breaking ground July 5th. Project completion expected to be 2/2021.

Praise the Lord the basement wall forms were removed and are free standing. The floors for the basement and auditorium extension were poured this week. The long wood support beam was place across the length of the basement to support the future classroom area above..

Praise the Lord our one year giving commitment card have committed gifts of $75,000 over what was expected. Thanks for your gifts.

Pray all goes well for the pouring the stairs and attaching special waterproof barriers for the exterior basement walls and back filling the walls.

HELP NEEDED IN REMOVING CARPET in removing carpet off platform risers so new carpet can be installed. If you can help let me (Pastor Mark) know by Friday noon Sept. 11th and I”ll let you know what times are available to do that work that will help keep our costs down.

HELP NEEDED IN REMOVING CEDAR SIDING off the auditorium for your personal use please let me how much (Pastor Mark) know by Friday noon Sept. 11th so we can schedule times when you can remove it. This would also help us keep costs down.

And….don’t forget our first ever unique and historic Redeployment Service Sunday the 13th and at 2:30 with a food fellowship on the Green following.

A GRAND VIEW AHEAD: Reflections of a Light Keeper

When a ship nears her destination they watch for landfall. That is when they first see land. It was a moment to celebrate for ancient mariners who often didn’t know with any accuracy where they were. Landfall could be a distant mountain, land of some kind, or a lighthouse that cast it’s beam far out to sea. Read Acts 27 for Paul’s gripping description of being lost at sea and running aground on Malta in the Mediterranean. It is the best example we have giving insight into how ancient mariners found their way before even the compass was invented. Recently I visited Malta and swam near the spot where the people on Paul’s ship all swam ashore. I didn’t swim in a storm but nice warm waters of summer.:-)

Our good ship Discovery made landfall at Gig Harbor in August of 1988. Our church had started eight years earlier in a rustic lodge near Arletta. There the Lord brought people into our “boat” as we grew spiritually and eventually even bought some land. But, we needed to find a more central location to dock for awhile until we could build our own building. It was discouraging since we had little funds.

Then Dennis Davenport came to me saying he had found a better rental facility. It was the old Assembly of God building on Grandview St. next to the freeway and in Gig Harbor. They had moved into a new building but were renting out the old church. It had a nice auditorium upstairs, and downstairs it had restrooms, a few class rooms, a kitchen, and a fellowship hall. We soon rented it and shared it with a resident day care again. We had made landfall in Gig Harbor on Grandview St.. It was clearly another providential God-send so we rejoiced and quickly moved in. The Lord had opened the door for us at just the right time. We were only feet from the freeway and a few blocks from downtown. Cars whizzed unnoticed except when a trucker’s CB transmissions overrode my preaching briefly with a “Breaker, breaker good buddy, this is…” etc. Perhaps our preaching service was breaking in on them with some Scripture and the Gospel.

Finding landfall reminds me of a fascinating story an elderly lighthouse keeper’s wife told me. One morning in 1923 she heard a knock at the door of their keepers quarters. Outside were several sailors who had stumbled up the beach to call for help and a cup of coffee. The problem was that seven U.S. Navy destroyers had been on maneuvers but had gotten off course and slammed into the rocky beach of Honda Point at 20 knots near Santa Barbara. This was prior to modern electronic navigation. It was the largest peace time loss of Navy ships killing 23 men and injuring 100 others. It was foggy that morning so they couldn’t see. There’s a monument with one of the ship’s propellers on a bluff overlooking the crash site.

My point is you have to see a lighthouse light or hear the fog horn to avoid the danger. Our church was now in Gig Harbor, but could people see our light or hear our message? Jesus said, "You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven. “ (Mat. 5:14-16). Therefore, we began to reach out with brochures about our church, a youth program, and even put a steeple on the building easily seen by the thousands of cars passing on highway 16. People could find us much easier since we were more visible to the community. For the next eight years we would be there and grow.

During that time another seminary family, Don & Katie Valen, also joined us. Ironically, they had come from Kodiak, where we had also come from. They were moving toward full time ministry and so started our youth ministry at Discovery.

Then in 1994 Caleb and I had an opportunity to help on a mission project in Ukraine following the fall of the Soviet Union. Ukraine had declared independence from Russia so the door was now open for mission work. We responded to a mission agency (A.B.W.E.) to erect a portion of a concrete wall around a future school for pastors near Odessa on the Black Sea. Pastors had little theological training and few bibles so they had asked for help from the West.

When we arrived we were shocked by the need of the church after seventy years of persecution and government sanctioned atheism. So we returned the following year to again help build on the school. During this time we had various opportunities to develop relationships in churches that we still pray for and assist to this day. We saw the plight of people who lived in culture with little of even the simple things we enjoy in America. But the greatest need was the Gospel of Jesus Christ which changes lives. This was where my grandparents came from a century earlier. We had the opportunity to visit villages and saw life that was at least a century behind what we knew. The cities were also run down by communism. People often didn’t have even basic medical care. At that point I committed myself to the Lord to do whatever I could do to help them the remainder of my life.

Building a wall around future training center for pastors.

Caleb, myself, our cook, and Curt Sager taking a break for lunch on building site in Odeassa.

Church building we helped construct in the farm village of Makarovo.

Eventually my daughter Rachel and my son Caleb felt the call to full time missions in Ukraine where they live today. Today Discovery supports a total of six full time ministry families there planting churches; four out of the six are nationals. I have returned there many times along with others from our church who have also come for short term ministry.

After eight years at Grandview St. we received news that the building was for sale. The Nazarene’s were interested in buying it. We considered it also since we didn’t have a place to go. So we both made offers and we lost. As the Nazarene church moved in we were asked to move out eventually. Where would we go? We had bought a small piece of ground on Wollochet Dr. but we were not ready to build.

So we called for a week of prayer to see what God wanted. We had to find another temporary location before we could build. But financially we were not ready to build. In my mind I felt that if we couldn’t find a location that we would close the church and I would seek full time ministry, with our family, in Ukraine. An invitation was also extended to me by one of the missionaries there.

So we had our first prayer meeting to seek God’s will. That morning I was meeting with group of our men to pray. In the first round of prayer I suddenly remembered a letter I had received months before. It was from Harbor Covenant Church offering a free portable building. Hummm? Could we move this to the small tract we had on Wollochet and meet there until we eventually built?

Immediately I went home and found the letter in a forgotten stack of mail. I called the number and a gentleman from the Harbor Covenant Church met me to show the double wide mobile building they had. Then he said, “We also are selling the house and barn on 3.5 acres across the street.” It didn’t have the for sale sign on it yet but he showed it to me. It was a perfect place for us to purchase. It was central in the area and a larger site to build on eventually. It seemed logical to sell the other smaller site which by now had appreciated significantly. I presented the plan to our board and to our regional fellowship leaders who all agreed this was a good site. Within a week we had sealed the deal. Larry Ellsworth, one of our men, signed the papers to close on September 7th, 1995 which was exactly fifteen years from the time we started.

But, we before we could occupy this wooded site by a stream, we had to decide where on the site our small group could meet. I’ll tell you more about that next time.

Pastor Mark

PRAY FOR OUR BUILDING PROJECT THIS WEEK: Our 8th week of building since breaking ground July 5th.

Pray for Dan as he leads the Mountain Construction crew ahead.

Praise that the stem walls of the basement and new auditorium were poured this week. See pics below.

Pray now for prepping of the basement and auditorium floor area with a 4” layer of recycled crushed concrete over the future floor area. You will notice five 4’x4’ shallow holes in the gravel base floor. These holes will have extra thick concrete for the base of the five posts upholding the class room floors above.

Continue to pray as they appeal to county to accept a standard asphalt parking lot vs pervious.

SUNDAY, AUG 30, 3:30 PM Brief Church Business Meeting to vote on moving forward with construction and increasing the loan as needed.

Pray for any late Commitment Cards for the 2020 DBC Building Fund Commitment which were due last Sunday.

MORNING BREAKS: Reflections of a Light Keeper

Morning light for a lighthouse keeper was good news. The mid-watch meant being up all night checking on the 500 watt quartz iodine main light and scanning for fog banks in case the fog horn compressor needed to be lit off. It was much more difficult for keepers before electricity having to fill and refill laps with oil during the night. As the night wore on I would sometimes read or study to pass the time. One night after reading Joshua I painted a verse from Joshua 24:15 on a piece of drift wood. It became my life verse and still hangs in our home.

“And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”

I must say not all nights on station were calm and a time for reflection. One night on the lightship we lost our anchor in a seething storm that ripped our anchor chain loose tearing a hole in the deck as it disappeared in the turbulent deep. It sounded like a freight train crossing our bow. Then silence as we were carried by the winds toward nearby rocks. We put out an SOS to Port Angeles and frantically tried starting the engine. I was new and assigned to the engine room. The main engine would not start so I said we need to pray; they paid no attention. I prayed and soon the chief engineer, Zorch, recalled securing the wrong fuel valve earlier. It started just in time to steam us away from the rocks in the darkness and back on station. Those kind of nights you learn to pray.

Coast Guard Umatilla Lightship on watch in the Pacific off the north Washington coast.

Morning meant the ship or station would come alive as men began their duties keeping things shipshape. On a land based light the flag would be raised, the watch changed, and work started, On land the duty keeper would prepare to give afternoon lighthouse tours. People came most afternoons wanting to know how things worked etc.. We explained with the key message being we were there to keep ships from disaster.

A church is like that. There is a lot of prep that no one sees before it goes into action. Jesus said, “I will build my church…” (Mat. 16:18). He starts in a man’s heart to call him out of the world and into ministry. That takes time and lots of it. It is that divine calling that you begin to sense and keeps coming back. Sometimes the quiet of the night helps you hear it like the quiet of a mid-watch with only the subdued lapping of water on the beach or on the hull of the lightship while only you are on duty. It is easy to hear the foot steps of God in the sea at those times.

My desire to serve the Master grew during those times as well as in the treacherous Bearing Sea winters. Eventually I answered the call to ministry; the dawn had broken. After seven years of active duty I said goodbye to my shipmates at Kodiak and headed to Western Baptist College (Corban University now) to finish college. Then it was off to Northwest Baptist Seminary in 1977 to do more in-depth study of theology and Scripture. I knew I needed to learn more but my GI Bill was running out. However, that year they extended it just in time for Seminary. Another one of those providential points.

In Tacoma a realtor helped us find a house. Nancy, myself, and my Aunt Bobbie planned for a week to find a house. The first day Nancy and I went early with the realtor while my Aunt had her hair done. Within an hour we found the house we wanted in Gig Harbor. So we signed papers, had lunch with the realtor and returned to auntie’s house. She was shocked when we told her. Our plans after seminary were to return to Alaska to plant churches. God had other plans. I know that because we still live in that house to this day. Unknown to us it was great place to plant a church in 1980 and a place for our missionary kids later to return to as home base. God’s providence is seen once again.

Seminary was a good idea since I had much to learn. We did have godly professors to learn from such as Dr. Charles Wagner who was a wonderful teacher of pastoral ministry. Prof. Glessner was a great encouragement in the early Greek studies and theology. Dr. Herman Austel was a godly example to us all as well as master of Hebrew. Dr. Phil WIlliams was also a godly example and teacher of advanced Greek along with many others. Seminary was far more difficult than college and brought desperately needed Scriptural light to this farm boy/sailor.

As the light dawned it became obvious starting a church here in Gig Harbor was needed. Several people encouraged me. I also learned another seminarian was considering starting a church too. We talked and he felt best for me to do it since I lived in Gig Harbor and he was on the other side of Tacoma. We were attending Nebraska St. Baptist in Port Orchard at the time and my pastor, Dan Wymer, helped me make contact with Pastors George Cox and Darrell Beddoe who were part of Northwest Baptist Home Mission (Now BNN). I was nervous but they evidently thought I was okay and approved me as a Home Missionary in the fall of 1980.

Over the summer I gather a small launch team of seminarians made up of Mark Langford, Jon Mitchell, David Brown, and Marshall Davis. We chose “Discovery” as a name with both spiritual and historical connotations since the HMS Discovery in 1792 discovered Puget Sound while looking for the legendary Northwest Passage. We prayed about a place to meet but there were few buildings available. It became obvious the old Arletta School was it. It was a two room rock and log building made in 1938 by the WPA. It looked more like a rustic lodge and only cost us $90 a month as I recall. A daycare met there during the week and we on weekends. Inside it still looked like a school with the original slate chalk boards, hardwood floor and expandable wood walls so we could easily have around a hundred people total.

The old Arletta School as it stands today. As you can see we have not changed. :-)

Our first service was scheduled for September the 7th 1980. Temple Baptist graciously gave us a list of their people who lived in the Harbor. I visited them and eventually Chuck and Pat Roark joined us with a desire to help. We printed invitation letters to pass out. Chuck became our first treasurer and sound man. Larry (a teacher at Tacoma Baptist Schools)and Judy Gilette also joined us. He acted as an elder and also counted the first offering. Everything we had done so far was out of my pocket. Larry talked with the others and they gave me $100 salary to start with.

Our first service we had about thirty-two present including relatives. I preached from James which emphasizes dealing with testing and the importance of faith and works which is the outworking of faith. The following Sunday we were had fourteen since many were there to wish us well.

Our first service September 7, 1980.

People started coming. Among them was the Davenports, Rolfs, Robinsons and many others who were interested and committed to help us.

At the Arletta building there was an old out-of-tune piano that Nancy played. We were having kids in those years so she played with one in the oven and little Caleb on the bench beside her. One Sunday she sensed labor pains starting. She played on with a towel nearby in case the water broke. I preached on and then took her to dinner at the Davis home in Tacoma. It was obvious we better skip dinner. So we headed to St. Joe’s hospital where at about 2 p.m. she delivered Ezra. It was Mothers Day 1981. What a day the Lord gave us. Later I preached the evening service and called it a “day.” Church growth was happening.

The church was officially organized Oct. 25 1981 with Nebraska Street Baptist being the commissioning church. Our Constitution, Statement of Faith and Covenant were all adopted. Then in 1983 we purchased 2.7 acres on Wollochet Dr. as a future building site. We dedicated it with high hopes. The small old house on the site served as an office/class room.

The ministry went well with as many as 90 at times so opened both folding doors to expand. We had Sunday School, worship and an evening service along with a Wednesday prayer meeting. But the building was old and the roof leaked causing us to have buckets in auditorium. Heavy rain meant flooding and frogs in the small basement where we had classes. It was a unique place but out of the way and far from the population.

Then just in time in the summer of 1988 the Lord directed us to an unexpected blessing which I will tell you about it in my next blog.

Pastor Mark

PRAY FOR BUILDING PROJECT THIS WEEK: Our 7th week of building.

1. Praise that concrete footings were poured and inspected and approved by special concrete tests.

2. Praise that basement forms are in place.

3. Pray for more pouring of concrete next week as most foundation work will be done.

4. Pray for Dan the building construction supervisor. He a believer and we enjoy working with him.

5. Continue to pray as they appeal to county to accept a standard asphalt parking lot vs pervious.

6. Praise that Dave and Linda Christensen got moved to Oregon safely,

7. Pray for the special Commitment Cards for the 2020 DBC Building Fund Commitment which are due to be turned in this Sunday. See link below for details and how to do that online.