Into the Heart of Darkness

On the men’s retreat that year, as Dan had his quite time, he heard clearly “I want you to go to Yakima to start a Calvary Chapel.”
This was not good news for us. In fact, Yakima was known as the arm pit of Washington and the drug capital of the state then. It was sort of “Can anything good come from Yakima?” This seemed a lot harder than coming from California. Maybe it was knowing we were in for a real fight.
We got to hear about a disastrous church plant some years before. It was complete with infidelity and the disappearance of funds. As we talked to the ex-pastors' wife, she told us of the heartache she and their children went though.
Dan got a word that things would happen that would be hard to bear. We were well warned though. And how could we not go?
I always comforted myself that our daughter would be safely in California, going to school at the Calvary Chapel College and maybe even meeting her Christian husband but she kept dragging her feet. So I finally asked what was up. Thinking that maybe she didn’t want to leave Mommy and Daddy or something.
She asked if I thought it was possible that God wanted her to go Yakima with us. I said absolutely no. But it turned out that God wanted her with us. And that was a huge blessing.
We started a Bible study in Yakima with a couple who had been involved with Calvary Chapel in another town. We met for 6 months at their home. It was a weekly round trip of 160 miles and as we became more and more familure with it we began to have a love and vision for the place.
We set things in motion. Dan went about ending his law enforcement career as he couldn’t pastor a church and do shift work. I sold my business and we listed the house. Even though it was sort of scary, everything came together at the last minute. Even to the buying of our new house with help from our realtors.
We were only 80 miles away from our son and family, our home church and pastor. And it was not as tramatic as our move from California but we committed to Yakima 100%. There was no going back.
Dan got a job at the RV company at minimum wage. It was amazing as word got around that he was a pastor, people started to ask questions. Then one day a man just came up to him and asked to accept Jesus. What a mission field.
So we opened our home for Sunday Church and Thursday Bible study. Our new believer brought other people and the news there was a Calvary Chapel starting got out.
We made a good beginning, I always thought.