In my continuation of the review of our 40 years here at Palisades/LifeWay, each week I have taken some time to thank God and remember some very special people and very special organization. This week this is part 3!
I am thinking through the 1990’s and those very special years right after we had built the building where we now worship weekly. My wife and I had now been at this church for just about eight years and we were in need of some unique people who could give guidance in certain areas of our church. In today’s article I want to highlight three of those very special individuals
Tony Brown: Tony and his wife LeeAnn were brand new believers and had moved into our community from southern Idaho in the very late 80s. And it was in the very early part of the 1990’s that God was touching Tony’s heart in a very special way. He had various jobs as a profession that felt in his heart that God was calling him into some kind of a church leadership role. The first thing he did was he took over our kids ministry in leadership as well as filled other roles of course this was all volunteer and with no pay, that he was doing a noble job at that. He then felt like it was time for him to get a greater education and so he enrolled in seminary and over the course of about three years he graduated all the while raising a family of three kids carrying out the rest of life and serving with our church. Tony was in the technical sense our very first outgoing, sent missionary who became a church planter out of our church. He and his wife felt that God was moving them to Oregon and they did move there and begin a church in the Salem OR area many years ago. There’s a lot to the story of their work there. LeeAnn tragically and suddenly passed away while they were there and of course this brought great personal upheaval in his own life. But God was faithful to him and he continued to serve Christ and His church. Eventually he remarried to a lovely and godly woman named Tina. Today they serve in a church on the Oregon coast where Tony has been a pastor for many years now. Two different summers our church sent a youth team to help them with vacation Bible school. Currently Tony has discovered that he has a serious cancer that he is now battling and we need to remember Tony and Tina in prayer. But I am so honored that Tony was technically the first of what became many missionaries we have left out of this church over the years.
Stan Fletcher and Sean Smith: My remembrances are very special people would be incomplete if I did not remember my dear friends Stan and Sean. Again it was the early 1990s and we were in need of help and direction the leaders and God had sent Stan and Sean’s families into our congregation. I will never forget how my wife and I met Stan specifically. He was the manager at the Michaels store here in Federal Way and Patty and I were looking or something very simple to help with our church services in decoration and other things. As we were looking around the Michaels store my wife asked to speak to the manager to get a “better deal” on a couple of items. When Stan was brought into the conversation he asked what Church we went to. The next morning he and his wife were in attendance and that led to not only their active part of this congregation for more than a decade, but he was our worship leader for many years. In Sean’s case, he and Tami his wife came separately, but as a new believer God was doing something and in a short while Sean was our Youth leader for more than a decade as well. Sadly, my friend Sean passed away a few years ago from cancer, but God used him in a great way. It was during the 1990’s that the three of us… (Billy, Stan, and Sean) were the three amigos in ministry here. (Yes… one time at a party we performed as the Three Amigos just like the movie!) I am so grateful for them and their sweet families that have — and still do — mean so much to not only Patty and I, but this congregation.
More next week
