We had been sent to Rutland in order to plant an Alliance church in an area of Vermont where, at that time, there was very little gospel. We had our house and moved in and fixed it up quickly - you know how I hate to be unsettled and so we fixed up the whole house down to the last curtain very quickly. We had our two teenagers plus a baby and the neighborhood kids who loved to hang out with us at our house, so that was a nucleus for our new church!
We checked to see if there was an evangelical church in the area and did find a Baptist church about ten miles outside of Rutland in a small town, Wallingford. We had prayer meetings in our home each week, And on Sundays we went to Wallingford Baptist until we could start our own services. This was a small, loving congregation and they took us right in until we could find a place to meet and start our own church. This was a warm Christian group who continued to work together with us as they could throughout our two years in Rutland where we were planting an Alliance church in the city. When we left for Africa. this group of friends had a special farewell party for us, complete with special speeches and a gift.
Dad wanted to become known in the city as a new pastor and decided one way to do this was through a weekly radio broadcast. He paid for a program each Sunday afternoon on the local radio station, called Songtime. He had cards printed with his picture and an invitation to listen to his weekly program of Christian music, interspersed with poetry and Scripture. Many people listed to this program and it gave us a few contacts.
One day Dad came in all excited - he had found the perfect place for us to start our church - in a building in the center of the city. The place had pews and a piano and pulpit of sorts, plus a kitchen. It was a lodge, called The Odd Fellows! They did not use the place on Sundays and were glad for us to pay rent for a few hours each week. My first reaction was that I wished we could have found a place with a different name!! Our printed card read something like Meet with us each Sunday (at such and such a time) at the Odd Fellows Hall. But that building served us well for over a year. We went in and cleaned the place - Dave and Donna and the two of us. We had to air out the place each week when we cleaned as regular Odd Fellows were heavy smokers, by the smell. But it did give us a meeting place and we put up our own painted sign on Sundays: The Alliance Church of Rutland!
We also had our church planting team: Dad as pastor and leader of the service; Uncle Dave as usher; I the pianist and special music each week; (Dad would lead singing while I played and then he would play for me for the special music) and Aunt Donna was chief babysitter for Cheryl!
The first Sunday we had had the services announced in the paper and on the radio and we were all dressed in our Sunday best, waiting for our crowd. At ten to eleven an old Model T Ford drove up and parked across the street - we were all peeking out the windows. At eleven juste an elderly old Vermont couple crawled out of the car - they were dressed in their Sunday black - and headed for our church! Uncle Dave did his ushing and led them to one of the pews and we began the service. After the meeting was over we were talking to the people and the old man went on and on about how he couldn't stand young preachers! When they left, we all agreed that we would never see them again! But they remained faithful, never missed a Sunday until their death some years later!!
Through a contact, we heard of an elderly lady who had been saved under Dr. Simpson in New York years before. She had prayed for years that the Lord would send the Alliance to Rutland. She too started coming, along with a friend of hers and they too remained faithful members of that church. And so we grew slowly. We had a large gang of teenagers plus the two old ladies and the old couple and our family, and that was the nucleus of what became the Alliance Church of Rutland!
Cheryl, you were a church baby from the time you were eleven days old, as you attended every meeting along with me. You had lots of attention from Uncle Dave and Aunt Donna and your parents, plus all the teenagers who adored you. On your first birthday you had a special gift - a baby sister, Deborah Lee! One more member for our church too!
But before Debbi was born, the Alliance asked us to come to New York by train from Vermont and have our final interview to go to the field. That was the year the Alliance had determined to send out 102 new missionaries and they were scraping the barrel for those who were ready and decided to ask us to leave early! So we bundled you, Cheryl, in the warmest clothes and blankets you had, drove over to Whitehall, NY, and took the train down to NYC where we were to be interviewed by the Alliance foreign board.
It was a bitter cold week and we finally made our way down to Times Square, where the Alliance then had their international office and got there in time for our intereview. We were ushered into a formal office and Dad went in to meet with the Board first while the baby and I waited downstairs. When Dad was finished he came down and took the baby (Cheryl) and I went up for my interview. They started in on the interview and the one thing I can remember is their asking what kind of a preacher Dad was! Dr. Smalley was head of the Board and sort of a formal person but we knew him well. When the men started my interview, George Constance got up and said that they all knew his vote already - he wanted to go down and see that baby! And Dr. Smalley said very calmly, "George, sit down we all want to see that baby and we shall when this interview is finished." So George sat and it didn't last long. (Dr. Smalley had dedicated Aunt Donna and Uncle Dave to the Lord when they were babies so knew our family well.) We all agreed that it would be foolish to take us out of a new Vermont church plant in less than a year, much as we were anxious to go to the field. So they approved our candidacy for the summer of 1958. Everyone passed Cheryl around and hugged her and we headed back to our frozen Rutland to continue our church planting there!
They never did ask us in for another interview - I suppose we could have messed up badly during that year and a half of ministry. But they had passed us and when the two years were up we got our official appointment without another interview.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Saturday, February 26, 2011
And the saga goes on...
Going to Rutland was an interesting experience. Dad had chosen the city of Rutland as a good place to plant an Alliance church in Vermont. He made a trip up there while we were still in school and looked out the site, found a house. And eventually bought that house. The house was a sturdy house but needed to be painted and papered, floors sanded, etc., etc............. all of which he did. The thing that interested him most about the house was that next to it stood an empty lot which was included in the price of the house and here is where he envisioned a church to be built eventually. Dad has always been a visionary and can see down the road ahead, and before we left Rutland two years later, we did have a building on that vacant lot!
The day Dad moved Cheryl and me and Donna and all of our paraphenalia up to Vermont, we started off in the morning and were there in good time. Cheryl was eleven days old and when we arrived in Rutland, I took her upstairs to the bedroom and lay on the bed with her to nurse her and rest a bit. Dad was finishing up some work in the house and was working in the hall outside our bedroom. The neighborhood kids had started to collect at our new house and I heard Dad talking to a young fellow who lived up the street from us. "Where do you go to Church?" he asked and the answer was "First Methodist". "Have you been born again?" Dad then asked, and after a long pause the boy said, "I don't think they've gotten to that part yet!" And thus was my introduction to Rutland! A city full of churches and at that time nary an evangelical church among them!
Our house was Open House all the time! Especially for the young people of the neighborhood. David and Donna were also a big drawing card and when Fall came attended the local High School. When High School began in the Fall, I substituted for the local French teacher. It was soon known that I was Dave and Donna's sister. And since the students called Uncle Dave "Bongo" (after the song "Bongo, bongo, bongo, I don't want to leave the Congo" which was popular at that time) the students called me "Bongo's sister! Aunt Donna was editor of the yearbook at the high school and Uncle Dave played on the football team. The four of us were the church planting team.
We quickly attracted teenagers from the neighborhood and our house was Open House at all times! A pastor's wife who used to visit us in those days says that the way she remembers me is standing at the kitchen stove stirring a big pot of food, interacting with all the teenagers who were there and sitting on every available chair!
To add to the family, we also had a couple from Nyack College living with us for several weeks - they were slated to go to New Hampshire and pastor an Alliance Church also. He was Canadian and did not have the proper papers and so until he got those, this couple lived with us and travelled to NH on the weekends. She was pregnant also. She was a good enough friend that when our third baby was born (in Africa), we named her Elin Mae after our friend who stayed with us.
Our mission was to start a church there in this city, in need of the Gospel. We had two years to accomplish this sincce wwe were missionary candidates and would leave for African in two years. How were we going to do that? And therein lies another episode................
The day Dad moved Cheryl and me and Donna and all of our paraphenalia up to Vermont, we started off in the morning and were there in good time. Cheryl was eleven days old and when we arrived in Rutland, I took her upstairs to the bedroom and lay on the bed with her to nurse her and rest a bit. Dad was finishing up some work in the house and was working in the hall outside our bedroom. The neighborhood kids had started to collect at our new house and I heard Dad talking to a young fellow who lived up the street from us. "Where do you go to Church?" he asked and the answer was "First Methodist". "Have you been born again?" Dad then asked, and after a long pause the boy said, "I don't think they've gotten to that part yet!" And thus was my introduction to Rutland! A city full of churches and at that time nary an evangelical church among them!
Our house was Open House all the time! Especially for the young people of the neighborhood. David and Donna were also a big drawing card and when Fall came attended the local High School. When High School began in the Fall, I substituted for the local French teacher. It was soon known that I was Dave and Donna's sister. And since the students called Uncle Dave "Bongo" (after the song "Bongo, bongo, bongo, I don't want to leave the Congo" which was popular at that time) the students called me "Bongo's sister! Aunt Donna was editor of the yearbook at the high school and Uncle Dave played on the football team. The four of us were the church planting team.
We quickly attracted teenagers from the neighborhood and our house was Open House at all times! A pastor's wife who used to visit us in those days says that the way she remembers me is standing at the kitchen stove stirring a big pot of food, interacting with all the teenagers who were there and sitting on every available chair!
To add to the family, we also had a couple from Nyack College living with us for several weeks - they were slated to go to New Hampshire and pastor an Alliance Church also. He was Canadian and did not have the proper papers and so until he got those, this couple lived with us and travelled to NH on the weekends. She was pregnant also. She was a good enough friend that when our third baby was born (in Africa), we named her Elin Mae after our friend who stayed with us.
Our mission was to start a church there in this city, in need of the Gospel. We had two years to accomplish this sincce wwe were missionary candidates and would leave for African in two years. How were we going to do that? And therein lies another episode................
Friday, February 25, 2011
The continuing saga of the Milton Pierce tribe
Milt (Dad) and I were married in PA in my home church. The morning we had become engaged while at Nyack, Dad had taken me to "Inspiration Point" and there asked me to marry him and gave me my beautiful diamond. At the same time he proposed not only marriage but a wonderful honeymoon. We were to travel with a tour group and visit twelve or more countires of Europe, the Middle East and Egypt. So that is how we started our life together. The tour was the greatest - all first class hotels, arranged tours or free time as each person wished. We travelled through Europe and the Middle East, a wonderful expeience!
This lasted six weeks and we got back in time to settle into our tiny apartment - two small rooms, a very small kitchen and a smaller bathroom. But we did not want to live in the Nyack College married student dorms, and this was a great choice for us. Milt's dad had provided financially for his education and so we did not have to work, but enjoyed a great year at Nyack, where Dad graduated the next summer.
Dad had bought me a sewing machine and the first thing I ever made (and maybe the last!) was a maternity outfit which I wore the day Dad was one of the student speakers at the annual missions day at Carnegie Hall in New York City. I was very pregnant with our first child and we were looking forward to her birth in mid-June (we thought). We entertained a lot that year in our tiny apartment, it was a fun year. And Dad got his degree from Nyack in June.
Uncle Dave and Aunt Donna were living with some very elderly people in Pennsylvania for their High School years. When my parents went back to the field, the twins had finished their Sophomore year in Pa, living with these people. These well meaning folks - who had never had children of their own - decided that two high school children were just too much for them. So when they arrived at Nyack for Dad's graduation, they brought along the twins plus all their belongings and said they thought we were better suited to care for them than they were! So we had a ready made family after being married one year and expecting our first child.
It was a gift from God, actually, as we had felt God leading us to start a new Alliance church in Vermont, and they would be workers in that church along with us! In the meantime, I was very pregnant and we headed for Connecticut to await the birth of our baby. Aunt Donna was with us and Uncle Dave was working at a camp. While we stayed with Grandma Pierce in CT, Dad made frequent trips to spy out the land fpr a church possibility in Rutland, Vermont. He bought a house there, and then we gathered furniture from Grandma P and elsewhere and he took a truckload up to the home he had just purchased for us in Vermont, sight unseen to me!
Cheryl's birth was overdue by at least two weeks the day he left for Rutland. And in the meantime back in CT, I was busy going into labor! I did not want to tell my mother-in-law because I wanted my husband to be the one to take me to the hospital so Donna and I hung out and walked and waited. When Dad drove in about nine that evening, we could not wait to tell him we would be going to the hospital! So off we went again for a twenty minute drive to the Putnam hospital.
It was a long labor for me - all night long - and finally she was born the next morning, a beautiful baby girl, Cheryl Lynn. How we loved her and how proud we were to be parents. That was my first taste of what it means to be a mother. She weighed ten pounds, one ounce at birth, so she was easy to take care of - it was like dressing a big doll! When she was eleven days old we travelled bags and baggage to Vermont and began life in our ne home then.
This lasted six weeks and we got back in time to settle into our tiny apartment - two small rooms, a very small kitchen and a smaller bathroom. But we did not want to live in the Nyack College married student dorms, and this was a great choice for us. Milt's dad had provided financially for his education and so we did not have to work, but enjoyed a great year at Nyack, where Dad graduated the next summer.
Dad had bought me a sewing machine and the first thing I ever made (and maybe the last!) was a maternity outfit which I wore the day Dad was one of the student speakers at the annual missions day at Carnegie Hall in New York City. I was very pregnant with our first child and we were looking forward to her birth in mid-June (we thought). We entertained a lot that year in our tiny apartment, it was a fun year. And Dad got his degree from Nyack in June.
Uncle Dave and Aunt Donna were living with some very elderly people in Pennsylvania for their High School years. When my parents went back to the field, the twins had finished their Sophomore year in Pa, living with these people. These well meaning folks - who had never had children of their own - decided that two high school children were just too much for them. So when they arrived at Nyack for Dad's graduation, they brought along the twins plus all their belongings and said they thought we were better suited to care for them than they were! So we had a ready made family after being married one year and expecting our first child.
It was a gift from God, actually, as we had felt God leading us to start a new Alliance church in Vermont, and they would be workers in that church along with us! In the meantime, I was very pregnant and we headed for Connecticut to await the birth of our baby. Aunt Donna was with us and Uncle Dave was working at a camp. While we stayed with Grandma Pierce in CT, Dad made frequent trips to spy out the land fpr a church possibility in Rutland, Vermont. He bought a house there, and then we gathered furniture from Grandma P and elsewhere and he took a truckload up to the home he had just purchased for us in Vermont, sight unseen to me!
Cheryl's birth was overdue by at least two weeks the day he left for Rutland. And in the meantime back in CT, I was busy going into labor! I did not want to tell my mother-in-law because I wanted my husband to be the one to take me to the hospital so Donna and I hung out and walked and waited. When Dad drove in about nine that evening, we could not wait to tell him we would be going to the hospital! So off we went again for a twenty minute drive to the Putnam hospital.
It was a long labor for me - all night long - and finally she was born the next morning, a beautiful baby girl, Cheryl Lynn. How we loved her and how proud we were to be parents. That was my first taste of what it means to be a mother. She weighed ten pounds, one ounce at birth, so she was easy to take care of - it was like dressing a big doll! When she was eleven days old we travelled bags and baggage to Vermont and began life in our ne home then.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
How it all began...................
Once upon a time there was a girl named Nancy. She was raised in a cross cultural situation - partly in North American and partly in West Africa. This influenced her personality and way of looking at life. Her life was also filled with languages other than English - she spoke three languages by the time she entered first grade. When time for college came, she went to Houghton College, in New York state. Her parents left her in the States just before her Freshman year at College and never saw her again until the week she graduated four years later. This did not have any particular effect on her except to make her very independant. After being graduated from College, she went on to get missions and Bible training to prepare her for being a single lady international worker in Africa! But God had a surprise waiting for her when she got to Nyack College, in the person of Milt Pierce. They met the first week of November, were engaged the 22nd of February, married the 4th of June that year - and the rest is history!
We were cross-cultural workers in West Africa for forty three years, and lived a long and rich life. God gave us a wonderul big family - a special gift from Him. We had three girls first and then two sons. Each of the children grew up and brought a spouse into our lives - we love them all, wonderful men and women who added so much to our family! Then along came the granchildren - thirteen in all. Our beautiful Jennie had cancer when she was in her thirties and she went to be with the Lord. John married again - a lovely lady, who had also lost her husband and who brought into our family another child from her marriage, so that made fourteen grandchildren. Now the grandchildren have begun to get married and reproduce and we have a lovely one year old great grandbaby, Levi, now! How blessed we are! I love being a daughter, wife, mother, mother-in-law, grandmother and great granmother!
I have been involved in many things in my life - besides being a wife and mother and grandmother.... With my husband, we were cross cultural workers for forty three years in West Africa. I was a teacher, a Bible School professor, a Bible translator, a writer, but what I enjoyed through all of this was being a mother and a grandmother. I still love that aspect of my life. I also miss my writing career since we are now retired, and so I decided, why not a blog?? I can communicate with my family in this way while I am fulfilling my creative instincts. So here goes a new journey for me - Musings of a Mother.
We were cross-cultural workers in West Africa for forty three years, and lived a long and rich life. God gave us a wonderul big family - a special gift from Him. We had three girls first and then two sons. Each of the children grew up and brought a spouse into our lives - we love them all, wonderful men and women who added so much to our family! Then along came the granchildren - thirteen in all. Our beautiful Jennie had cancer when she was in her thirties and she went to be with the Lord. John married again - a lovely lady, who had also lost her husband and who brought into our family another child from her marriage, so that made fourteen grandchildren. Now the grandchildren have begun to get married and reproduce and we have a lovely one year old great grandbaby, Levi, now! How blessed we are! I love being a daughter, wife, mother, mother-in-law, grandmother and great granmother!
I have been involved in many things in my life - besides being a wife and mother and grandmother.... With my husband, we were cross cultural workers for forty three years in West Africa. I was a teacher, a Bible School professor, a Bible translator, a writer, but what I enjoyed through all of this was being a mother and a grandmother. I still love that aspect of my life. I also miss my writing career since we are now retired, and so I decided, why not a blog?? I can communicate with my family in this way while I am fulfilling my creative instincts. So here goes a new journey for me - Musings of a Mother.
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