John and Sandra
our spiritual journey
My first thoughts about God were formed while looking at paintings of Jesus and His disciples on the walls of a Greek Orthodox church. As a family, we rarely attended church and did not talk much about God, but our occasional visit to this traditional church formed my initial spiritual experiences, complete with icons and incense.
I was raised in a military family, the son of an Air Force Academy graduate. Discipline, excellence and academic achievement were high values in my home, and these were rewarded with approval and affirmation. When I was 9 years old, my parents were separated for a year and planned to divorce. While driving to their appointment with a divorce lawyer, they decided to reconcile, and their subsequent conversion to Christianity was part of their effort to rebuild their lives and marriage.
During a kids’ program at a base chapel in Korea, I was first introduced to the idea of heaven and hell, and because I didn’t want to go to hell, I “asked Jesus into my heart.” In the years that followed we attended a broad range of churches including Pentecostal, Charismatic, Covenant, “Protestant Chapel” and non-denominational.
Although I grew in my knowledge of the Bible through church, youth group and the influence of spiritual mentors, in high school I went through a period of rebellion. By God’s grace, I realized the emptiness and futility of living for my own selfish interests, and at 18, I made the decision to rededicate my life to following Christ. My faith grew from just “accepting Jesus as my Savior,” to following and serving Him as Lord. My desire to grow in my walk and serve God led me to take full-time work at a Christian Camp (SAMBICA) and then enter Multnomah Bible College in 1991.
While at Multnomah, I met Sandra, who would become my wife in November of 1992. She was not raised in a Christian home but was introduced to the Gospel through a friend in her early teens. She was a member of Lents Baptist Church in Southeast Portland, which was the only church she had ever known. We attended and served together at Lents in the years that followed, and our experiences there formed the foundation of our ministry as a couple.
Sandra graduated from Multnomah in 1995, and in that year, our first daughter, Rebekah, was born. Having Sandra at home with our children was a high value to us, so to facilitate this, she opened a home daycare business. I worked nights at UPS and attended school during the day. I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Biblical Education in 1996, and then entered the Master of Divinity program. In 1997 our second daughter, Megan, arrived.
Through the years of Bible college and seminary, we served in a variety of ministries at our church. These were challenging, exciting and formative years for our family. In 2000, I graduated from seminary and accepted a position as Associate Pastor at Christ Community Baptist Church in Puyallup, and we served there for just over 19 years.
In 2001, we were asked by a family in our church to take in their 14-year-old granddaughter. For the next year, Chelsea lived with us as our daughter, and thus began a journey of opening our home, and our hearts, to kids in need. Over the next 10 years, we would care for 100 foster kids, from drug-affected infants, to emotionally challenged school-agers, to heartbroken and hurting teens. There is no way to explain the way God used these experiences to open our eyes and transform our hearts. Through these years, we came to understand, in a more significant way, what it means to be children of God. And in addition to viewing Him as “Savior and Lord,” we have come to experience Him as a tender, gracious Father, who is filled with compassion and love for us. One that didn’t require me to earn His affirmation or affection.
God has given us a deeper experience of Himself as a Father who gently nurtures us with His never-ending, always-accepting, deeply transforming, unconditional love. Through the trials, victories and challenges of ministry as a couple, raising a family, facing our brokenness, and coming to terms with our identity in Christ, God continues to show us what it means to receive Life from Him, and to live and flourish from the fullness of being rooted in His incredible grace.
go and learn
The religious leaders asked the disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” But when Jesus heard it, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
what this means
Jesus said, “If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent.’
thirsty?
On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.