What Do I Owe?
(by Janice Rehfeldt Sturgill)
On a warm, May, Sunday morning in 1953, four of the then eight Rehfeldt children walked the two blocks from their home down the hill to the newly established Baptist church. A young Moody student, Melvin Swanson, preached on that Sunday morning. Just a few weeks later, Juliet became Pastor Swanson’s first convert at the church. This was the beginning of the debt the Rehfeldt family would owe to this young preacher.
As the years came and went, and the Rehfeldt family grew from the eight children in 1953 to twelve by 1960, there would not be one of them that was not impacted in sundry ways by Pastor Melvin Swanson and the Berean Baptist Church.
Bible School of 1957 was when I was led to Christ by our pastor. I still can picture myself as a little girl standing in the basement speaking to the teacher and telling her that I wanted to be saved. She led me up the stairs and down the long narrow hall to the small office of Pastor Swanson. I vividly see him kneeling next to me by a chair and praying with me. This was the beginning of my new life in Christ.
Time nor attention permits even a few of the many blessed stories that could be told by each of the Rehfeldt children and their “many walks” down the hill to this “sanctuary”. It is impossible to know how many times each of us walked down that hill for church and various related activities: Sunday mornings, Sunday nights, Wednesday nights, special services, Vacation Bible School, or youth activities. There must be a path that is still beaten down from those walks.
How precious it was to have our own Mamma take those walks with us to church week after week where she too came to know Christ. Our dear daddy once walked those two blocks down the hill as well, at which time Pastor led him to faith in Christ.
And what is to be said of this young preacher whom we came to call “Pastor”? If he only had one beat on the drum, it would be “Live in the Book!” That beat throbs within my heart as well as the heart of my husband and now our children every day of our lives. We cannot and would not rid ourselves of this blessed truth. Oh, but so many other marvelous truths we received as Pastor poured into us the knowledge of God’s word that he received in his time alone with God and the Book.
Pastor Swanson, faithful servant of the Lord, we’ve seen you sacrifice yourself physically, financially, and emotionally into the Berean Baptist Church. It would be easy for us to say we owe our very lives to you, but you would not accept such a payment for you would tell us we owe our very lives to Christ, which is true. Yet, you pointed the way, and for this we owe you a debt of love of which we can never repay.
(by Janice Rehfeldt Sturgill)
On a warm, May, Sunday morning in 1953, four of the then eight Rehfeldt children walked the two blocks from their home down the hill to the newly established Baptist church. A young Moody student, Melvin Swanson, preached on that Sunday morning. Just a few weeks later, Juliet became Pastor Swanson’s first convert at the church. This was the beginning of the debt the Rehfeldt family would owe to this young preacher.
As the years came and went, and the Rehfeldt family grew from the eight children in 1953 to twelve by 1960, there would not be one of them that was not impacted in sundry ways by Pastor Melvin Swanson and the Berean Baptist Church.
Bible School of 1957 was when I was led to Christ by our pastor. I still can picture myself as a little girl standing in the basement speaking to the teacher and telling her that I wanted to be saved. She led me up the stairs and down the long narrow hall to the small office of Pastor Swanson. I vividly see him kneeling next to me by a chair and praying with me. This was the beginning of my new life in Christ.
Time nor attention permits even a few of the many blessed stories that could be told by each of the Rehfeldt children and their “many walks” down the hill to this “sanctuary”. It is impossible to know how many times each of us walked down that hill for church and various related activities: Sunday mornings, Sunday nights, Wednesday nights, special services, Vacation Bible School, or youth activities. There must be a path that is still beaten down from those walks.
How precious it was to have our own Mamma take those walks with us to church week after week where she too came to know Christ. Our dear daddy once walked those two blocks down the hill as well, at which time Pastor led him to faith in Christ.
And what is to be said of this young preacher whom we came to call “Pastor”? If he only had one beat on the drum, it would be “Live in the Book!” That beat throbs within my heart as well as the heart of my husband and now our children every day of our lives. We cannot and would not rid ourselves of this blessed truth. Oh, but so many other marvelous truths we received as Pastor poured into us the knowledge of God’s word that he received in his time alone with God and the Book.
Pastor Swanson, faithful servant of the Lord, we’ve seen you sacrifice yourself physically, financially, and emotionally into the Berean Baptist Church. It would be easy for us to say we owe our very lives to you, but you would not accept such a payment for you would tell us we owe our very lives to Christ, which is true. Yet, you pointed the way, and for this we owe you a debt of love of which we can never repay.
2 comments:
What a wonderful tribute; I so enjoyed reading this. My dad was led to the Lord too by a young Moody student who came to pastor the little (dead) Methodist church where his family attended.
You know...there's just something about those Moody alum! :-)
There was nothing faithful about someone who covered one sexual assault in their church after another
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