We have been called to Algoma, Wisconsin.
Many people know of our fledgling work in Algoma but not many know how it
began. Coming from rural northwest Missouri, some seem puzzled about why we are so intent on ministering
here. A few close
friends know various bits and pieces of the story of how we came to this point in life.
Few, if any, know all the details. I thought it might be beneficial to put the full story
in print to bring clarity to those who are wondering how all this came about. I also
wanted to create a written history, for ourselves, of our first few steps in the great
adventure of faith we have embarked on. The following chronicles our call to Algoma.
July 9, 1995 - Sara and I piled in the car for a whirlwind weekend of travel from rural Fillmore, Missouri to Algoma, Wisconsin. Algoma is a quiet harbor community on Lake Michigan’s shore (population - somewhere between 3 and 4 thousand). During my high school years I lived on a farm north of town. Sara and I had no idea this quick trip would be the beginning of a life’s calling. Even though it began that weekend, we would not realize the true significance until some time later.
We had made plans for
this trip earlier in the year and had looked forward to a get-away. It would be the first
time away (just the two of us) since our honeymoon, a little more than a year before. As
the day of departure approached, however, it looked as though we might have to cancel. The
reason was a lack of money. (Don’t you
hate that?) I had been working as a
representative for a telecommunications company that began to ignore their promises to the
customers and me. It became obvious that I would have to find another job. I had been
looking for months but had found nothing. I was still, technically, employed but because I
felt I could no longer, in good conscience, sell the products, and since I was paid on a
straight commission, my income had dropped to nothing. Considering our circumstances, it
just didn’t make sense to take a trip. We would be spending money we didn’t have
and didn’t have any prospect of having soon without gainful employment.
The impetus for making this trip was my 20-year High School reunion. I had graduated from Algoma High School in 1975. Right after graduation I moved to Wausau, Wisconsin where I attended Trans-American School of Broadcasting. I had been back to Algoma many times that first year to visit my high school girlfriend. But that relationship ended and I moved out of state by 1977; pursuing my broadcast career. From that point on, my contact with Algoma was rare. I had been back to Algoma two or three times before 1980. I don’t recall even being in the state during the ¢80’s. I had made a couple of very short, "just passing through," visits in the early ¢90’s around visits to my mother who lived in another part of the state. Sara had never been to Wisconsin.
At the last moment (after we had already resigned our hope of making the class reunion) we received a dose of God’s impeccable timing…a solid job offer. Just a few days before the reunion I accepted a very good job offer. The financial barrier was broken. We got our house in order, packed our bags, dropped the dog off at the boarding kennel and headed for Wisconsin.
We still didn’t have much money to work with so it would be a whirlwind trip. We would leave late Friday afternoon, drive all through the night (sleeping at rest areas when needed) and arrive in Algoma sometime late Saturday morning. The actual reunion would be Saturday evening. We would begin home Sunday, stopping to spend a day with my little sister in Illinois.
The Class of ’75 reunion went about as well as could be expected. I was surprised that even after not seeing people for 20 years they still recognized me, and I them. Everyone there, I thought, looked remarkably well. We enjoyed the dinner and stayed for the "class" pictures and spent a little time talking to a few people. We left the festivities relatively early, because, as you would expect, most folks were drinking and that’s not our kind of scene.
I woke up early the next morning and found the sun rising over the lake; a light haze of fog lingering from the night before. I slipped on my jacket and, while Sara slept-in, I took my Bible for a walk. The motel we were staying at was by the harbor and I strolled the shore and walked out on the breakwater. I had my morning devotions out on that breakwater. As I prayed, I sensed God saying someday He was going to send me back to Algoma for ministry. Whoa! Now that was something new!
I immediately began to wonder if it was really God or if it was just me. I realized I could be caught up in, what I call, a case of the "warm fuzzies." You know, that feeling when you are emotionally stirred and everything is going so well, that even your own thoughts seem like God’s voice. Was this just the warm fuzzies? Was it the lake’s early morning beauty? Was it being in my old stomping grounds again? Was it seeing a lot of friends I had not seen for quite some time? Was it a combination of all the above? Even though the prospect of returning back to Algoma had never entered my mind, (and maybe more so because it hadn’t) this new revelation seemed worthy of skepticism.
I remember every detail about that moment. I know exactly where on the breakwater I was standing. I know the direction I was facing. I remember several fisherman on the breakwater across the harbor. I remember exactly how I prayed… "Lord, I sense you calling me back to Algoma for ministry. If this is really You, then You tell Sara."
When Sara and I began to contemplate the idea of marriage, I made it very clear that I knew God had a call on my life. We had discussed the joys of a life in ministry. I was also very thorough in discussing the hardships and sacrifices of ministry. I was strong enough in painting the hardship picture, many women would have backed out. But Sara understood it (as best one can without having actually gone through it) and was willing to accept the difficulties as well as the good times in our future together. Even though I had prepared her for the possibility of "living in a mud hut in Africa - if that’s where God called us," I still didn’t want to have to talk her into moving to Wisconsin.
We were still basically newlyweds and Sara had never lived beyond a few miles of where we resided in Missouri. All her family was close by. Although Sara has always been supportive of anything I’ve wanted to do, she is not the kind of person who readily jumps at the opportunity for change. So I prayed again "If it’s really You - You tell Sara."
Shortly after I finished my time of prayer I went back to our room and woke Sara up to begin our day. I told her I was out praying but never said a word about the details. We got ourselves together, checked out and had breakfast with a friend. We drove around a little, looking at more of the area and stopped to collect a rock or two from the lake shore before heading for Illinois.
For the August 95 edition of the Victory Banner! (a newsletter we used to publish) I wrote a paragraph about our experience: "We had the best time walking along the shore of Lake Michigan. The breeze off the lake is always cool. A glance out our motel window provided a peaceful view of the Algoma harbor with the picturesque lighthouse at the end of the breakwater. Sara fell in love with the area. I’ve never seen her so enthralled with a place before. Something about the call of the gulls, the evening fog
(complete with fog horn), the lake shore, the lighthouses, has notched a permanent home in her heart. She was all excited about going back with the boys for our next vacation."I had thought about my morning on the breakwater many times during our travel home but stored it away in some secluded corner of my brain; not giving it much thought after that…that is, until the summer of 1997. During that summer our pastor had been preaching several sermons about divine destiny. One particular sermon, "Living the Dream", had Sara thinking. The sermon stressed knowing God’s purpose for your life and then dreaming a big dream to see it fulfilled. Sara talked to me on the way home from church that day and said… "You know, I don’t think I have a dream." She vowed to begin praying about what God’s purpose was for her life. She was content to be the housewife and mother she was…if that was what God’s plan was. Since she had never really sought God’s mind on the matter, she wanted to be sure she wasn’t missing something.
During this time, we happened to visit with some friends who were entertaining out of town guests. The guests were in the area to attend Revival ’97 at Word of Life Church
(our home church). These visiting guests had hinted at the possibility of re-locating to the St. Joseph area. Our friends spoke to them a word of encouragement spoken many times by our pastor - "Destiny has a geography."The basic concept is, that in the purpose and plan that God has designed for your life, there are places of destiny; actual physical locations, where the promises of God will be fulfilled for you. The Israelites had their "promised land" where they would receive the promises God had made to them. While they were in the wilderness they saw many miracles, they were clearly the blessed people of God, but they would not fully receive all of God’s best for their lives until they were in their "land of promise." They could not receive God’s promise - "a land flowing with milk and honey" - while they were in the wilderness. Even though wandering through the wilderness was infinitely better than the cruel bondage of Egypt, and though there were mighty miracles of protection and provision in the wilderness, God had something even better planned for their lives. However, to experience God’s better plan, the destiny God had ordained for them, they had to get to the destination God had appointed for them. The generation God delivered from bondage never achieved their true, God-given destiny because they stopped at the border.
When Sara heard that statement
("destiny has a geography") she thought to herself… "Yes, destiny has a geography, but this may not be their geography. I don’t even think this is our 'geography.'" Have you ever said something that surprised yourself and wondered "Where did that come from?" That’s how Sara reacted to her own thought. And then she started to wonder "If this isn’t our ‘geography’ where is?" She began to pray about where God would have us be.The answer to her prayer would come sooner than she expected. At one of those Revival ’97 meetings our pastor
(in a sermon) reminded the church of a prophecy that was given concerning our church a couple of years earlier by a visiting minister named Dick Mills. Dick Mills moves strongly in the gift of Prophecy and had spoken some things that weekend that had already come to pass. Part of Dick Mills’ prophecy stated that Word of Life Church (our home church) would have a strong impact on five states surrounding Missouri, and, to a lesser degree, Minnesota and Wisconsin.When Sara heard the word "Wisconsin", she says, it was like fireworks exploded in her spirit. Wisconsin was our "geography!" She continued to pray about it, not wanting to say anything to me until she felt sure. She wanted to be as sure as possible because she thought "Bill’s gonna think this is crazy." We had never even drifted close to the idea of moving anywhere. We didn’t have any natural reason to move to Wisconsin like good employment prospects or family there. She wondered how I would take an "out-of-the-blue" suggestion that our destiny was in Wisconsin.
The subject finally came up about a month later. We were on our way home from church one Sunday afternoon
(about a half-hour drive from our house). We were discussing the morning’s sermon in which the subject of divine destiny was brought up again. Sara eventually mustered up enough courage to throw me a hint about her feelings concerning our future being in some other location. I nonchalantly said "Oh really…where do you think our future is?" She hesitated a bit, nervously hemmed and hawed, and eventually got the word "Wisconsin" out of her mouth.Let me tell you, that one word created no small stir in that car. Fireworks were now exploding in my spirit! I related the word God had spoken to me on the breakwater in Algoma two years earlier and my prayer for God to reveal it to her. We marveled at how God had brought both of us to the same understanding without any interaction about the matter between us. Sara was all the more excited to know I didn’t think the idea was crazy. And of course, we were elated to know that we were at the threshold of our divine destiny. From that day on, our thoughts have been directed toward one tiny dot on the map; Algoma, Wisconsin.
After a week of prayer we went to dinner at an oriental restaurant to discuss what steps we should take next. We knew, at that time, for us to drop everything, pack up and head to Wisconsin was not a wise idea. It would have to be done in God’s timing. But we did decide to try to find a Spirit-filled Christian realtor in the area. We knew someday we would move and we wanted to have, in place, someone who could understand and appreciate our unique position. Someone who would be praying on that end as we prayed on this end. We didn’t know of any Spirit-filled people in the Algoma area so I decided to write a former classmate; Denis Schinderle. Denis and I weren’t close friends in high school but we had hit it off at the class reunion because we discovered that both had become Christians
(of the Spirit-filled variety) since our last encounter with each other 20 years earlier. Denis lives in the Indianapolis, IN area but visited and vacationed often in Algoma. We figured he might know of a Spirit-filled realtor and, if not, he might know of someone in Algoma who would.I received an e-mail message in response to my letter in a few days. Denis said my timing was perfect.
(Of course, it was God’s timing.) His wife and children were on vacation, staying with his parents in Algoma, and he was leaving to join them the next day. He didn’t know of any realtors he could recommend but thought his parents (Spirit-filled believers and long time Algoma residents) might know of one. He got back to us telling us that his parents didn’t know of any realtors. He did say his parents would be interested in visiting with us whenever we might be close by.We had the opportunity to go to the wedding of an Algoma friend in late October. And of course, we jumped at it. It was our first visit to the area since the class reunion two years and a few months prior. While we were in the area we spent an evening meeting and visiting with Bill and Jan; Denis’ parents. They told us about a praise gathering scheduled for the next night. It was a meeting held once a month in the area by the local Promise Keepers group. We saw it as another example of God’s perfect timing…that we would be in town on the same weekend this gathering was slated for. Bill and Jan thought it would be a good opportunity for us to meet several other Spirit-filled believers from the area. We knew we couldn’t pass up an opportunity to meet some Spirit-filled folks and learn more about the community of believers in the area. After the actual meeting, many folks went to a frozen custard shop for a snack and fellowship. It provided the perfect chance to get to know a few people and get their perspective about the spiritual condition of the area.
We came away from that weekend with a good general understanding of the area. Most of the people we talked with said they were expecting God to do something big in the Algoma area…but they didn’t know what or when. They were praying and waiting. Everyone seemed to know the great need. No one seemed ready to take the lead. The number one phrase we heard that weekend was…"We’re just waiting to see what God is going to do."
Back at our motel room that night we were charged with excitement. Discussing who we met and what we learned. After settling the kids into bed, I went for a late walk along the breakwater for a short time of prayer. Back in our motel room, Sara jotted down some notes, not wanting to forget some of the details of the evening. We made up our minds, that night, that we would hold some meetings in Algoma at the end of November…about a month away. Our plan was to have a meeting on Friday and Saturday evening and host a time of fellowship on Saturday afternoon. The evening meetings would be for worship, the preaching of God’s word and personal prayer ministry. Saturday afternoon would be a time to get to know people and give them a chance to know us.
Back home we made preparations for our first ministry meetings in Algoma. We gathered a small list of Spirit-filled people in the Algoma area and sent letters looking for those who might be interested in this "new work." Finding a location for a our meeting was no small task. Finally, with the help of friends, we secured the Knights of Columbus Hall.
We received a number of letters responding to our first mailing. The responses were an enormous blessing. Several included suggested additions to our mailing list; names of others they thought might be interested in our activities. Some included offers to help; even the use of a building to meet in. Every response contained some element of encouragement.
I prayed long and hard about what to preach for those first meetings. Friday night’s message would be "Prepare for Greatness"; from 1 Samuel 17, using David as an example of what to do in preparation for the day you will battle with a "giant." Saturday’s message would be entitled: "God Has a Plan for Algoma." I was most excited about Saturday’s message, because it would be the "launch pad" for Victorious Faith Ministries in the Algoma area. It would define much of who we were and the great "vision" God had given us for the Algoma area. In a phrase…God was going to "Establish a Strategic Stronghold of Faith in Algoma."
It is not a small thing that would happen someday. It is a BIG thing that is
happening now! Those first few meetings were attended by just a handful of people.
And from that small, hardly noticeable event, God began a mighty work. Though it was
hardly noticeable in the natural, you can be sure it created a great deal of excitement in
the spiritual realm. We are laying the foundation for what God has called us to do. We are
inspired, we are confident, we are continually encouraged in the faith and totally
dependant on the Spirit to fulfill God’s plan for Algoma. It is not
our plan. It is God’s plan. And we are humbled that He has
chosen us to play a part. And not just us. God is gathering a wonderful team of co-laborers
in this church.
We've purchased a 3,000+ sq. ft. building at the corner of 3rd and State Streets in downtown Algoma. It is located on its own small triangle-shaped block...we call it the Miracle Triangle. VFM is incorporated in the State of Wisconsin and we have received our 501 (c) 3 designation from the IRS; making all gifts tax deductible. Regular services are held on Friday nights and Sunday mornings. We also have a variety of special meetings and studies. (see our Calendar of Events ). We are blessed with committed and giving members who have a real heart for the salvation of others. God is Establishing a Strategic Stronghold of Faith!
I know the words expressed here fall woefully short of imparting the excitement, wonder, awesome glory and destiny we feel for North East Wisconsin. We know a great deal of what God desires to do in the area. God has given us a great vision. We don’t, however, know every step of the way to achieving it. We try not to speculate.
(Boy, is that hard.) Instead, we continually seek God’s direction and press on with what we know to do now. And in the process, we are having the time of our lives. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, to compare with the sense of purpose you get when fulfilling divine destiny.This is the Great Adventure!
Victorious Faith
Ministries
219 State Street, Algoma, WI 54201
Phone: 920-487-5775
©2000 Victorious Faith Ministries