Journey
Inspirational Stories from People You Know
Sam & Eric: Community Building As A Way Of Life
Neville & Trimella Chaney: Great Is Thy Faithfulness
Ken Isaacs: Helping In Jesus’ Name
Tammie Brettschneider The Transforming Power of Truth
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Accounts
This magazine is intended to present people’s stories about their personal relationships with God from their point of view. We endeavor to have a diversity of perspectives in the testimonies we share from people who identify themselves as followers of Christ. Furthermore, we carefully and prayerfully consider the content of the stories we tell, as well as the character of those who tell them. People who share their testimonies with us have experienced God’s love in real ways, and our encouragement for you, is that you also can experience His love wherever your journey takes you.
“We love serving our mountain community together. We’re excited about our expansion onto the university campus. And we look forward to serving our guests in both locations for many years to come.”
Scott and Terese Fogleman.
Contributing Writers Ben Cox | Tammie Brettschneider | Terry Henry | Paula Willison | Nathan Brown
Cover photo by
Chick-fil-A of Boone located at 2082 Blowing Rock Road
Chick-fil-A of Appalachian State University located in Central Dining Hall on the ASU campus
INTRODUCTORY WRITINGS FOR THE MAGAZINE YOU ARE HOLDING IN YOUR HANDS
Written by Ben Cox
Introductory Writings for Magazine You’re Holding in Your Hands
Wow! That’s the first word that popped into my mind as I sat down to write this introduction! We’re one year, and approximately eleven days removed from Hurricane Helene! Its staggering impact on our region and beyond still boggles my mind and brings me to tears if I think about it too long.
But now, through God’s amazing grace, we will be sending our final proof to our publishing company soon! We believe that if we do that, we can make our Thanksgiving week deadline for having these magazines distributed throughout Watauga, Ashe, Avery and Wilkes Counties!
It was hard to decide whose picture we would put on our cover, so we decided to feature pictures from all four stories!!! And here’s some more information you may appreciate, by way of introduction:
Tammie’s testimony is a follow up to what she shared in our Magazine from 12 years ago when she lived in Boone and attended Mount Vernon Baptist Church. It was there where she also was a trained counselor, specializing in helping people recover from drug and alcohol addictions. I asked her to share this follow up story because we recently reprinted it on our weekly blogpost at our journeync. com website. Now, 31.5 years removed from her own battles with addiction, she reveals deep truths from The Bible that will enable anyone to overcome any “besetting sin” that we cannot conquer through our own will power.
Neville and Trimella Chaney are well known people who have been living in Boone since 1975 when
they moved here. They came here from their hometown of Winston Salem, NC where they were high school sweethearts. Both Chaneys are known far and wide for the impact they have made through Neville’s WJ office supply store and Trimella’s teaching career. You are going to love both of their testimonies that they shared with Terry Henry who co-wrote their story with them.
Terry Henry’s great interview with a young couple named Sam and Eric who are raising four children here in Boone will inspire you also as you learn of how God brought them together from similar missionary backgrounds to continue to carry that missional community mindset wherever God leads them to go!
Finally, it was a joy for me to interview and write Ken Isaacs’ testimony. I first got to know Ken 24 years ago when we worked together in New York City after the terrorist bombings in 2001. I hope you enjoy Ken’s testimony in our magazine, but I also want to encourage you to purchase the book he just finished. It’s called “Running to the Fire Helping in Jesus’ Name.” If you read the book, it will help you appreciate, on a whole new level, what Samaritan’s Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association has done and is continuing to do to introduce people to Jesus. Jesus alone can bring us into a personal relationship with the LORD God Almighty who created heaven and earth. You can purchase the book by shopping local at Cornerstone Christian Bookstore in Boone, or order it through Amazon.
Isaiah 33
Distress and Help
A Word of Encouragement from God’s Word ??With personal commentary by Ben Cox with Connie Cox’s and Terry Henry’s editorial assistance??
Thursday, Oct 29, 2025 is the day I received this from the Lord in my daily quiet time. And I decided it fits perfectly with the other content that we are getting together for the magazine that you are currently holding in your hand or reading online.
So, here’s the Word of the Lord for the people of God and the “not yet” people of God!
Isaiah 33:2
“LORD, be gracious to us; we long for you. Be our strength every morning, our salvation in times of distress.”
Isaiah 33:5-6 “The LORD is exalted, for He dwells on high; He will fill Zion with His justice and righteousness. He will be the sure foundation for your times, a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge; the fear of the LORD is the key to this treasure.”
The LORD inspired the prophet Isaiah to write these words in the midst of extremely perilous times in his nation. The very interesting thing about his times is that there were many who claimed a devotion to God, yet it was not a pure devotion!!
In fact, they came up with their own version of God that simply was not anywhere close to The Lord God Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. Therefore they were worldly, indulgent, hedonistic hypocrites who professed an allegiance to God when their hearts were far from Him!
So Isaiah, an imperfect man with a pure devotion to the LORD, was suffering the consequences of God’s judgement on the nation where he lived because of His chosen people’s continual disobedience to Him.
Yet, he faithfully proclaimed God’s truth so well and so courageously, the powerful people who did not really care about the real truth, eventually had
him killed for standing against their evil insistence to do things their own way.
When Jesus came on the scene approximately 700 years later, He spoke truth to power and it got Him crucified as a part of our LORD’s wonderful, mind-boggling, counter-intuitive plan to overcome darkness and evil by the power of the Cross, Jesus’ bodily resurrection from the dead and then His outpoured Holy Spirit on receptive humans who humbled themselves to acknowledge their need for God!!
You see, God loves humanity in spite of our propensity to lean to our own understanding and do whatever it is we want to do in our own strength.
So, in our days, despite the peril that almost everyone is aware of, we need to turn to God daily where we can find stability statements like the one I just cited in Isaiah 33:2 & 5-6 to encourage our own souls like my soul was encouraged today.
In the midst of perilous times, like Isaiah saw in his day, where religious people were confused and did not know who or what to believe, we see that same type of confusion among the religions of the world and even among Christians who profess to know Jesus. Therefore, those of us who claim to be followers of Jesus have an obligation to stay close to Him.
Here’s 3 simple ways that God’s Holy Word prescribes to make that a reality in our lives.
Study God’s Word daily, not solely as a spiritual discipline, but as a way to connect with God daily as the Holy Spirit helps us in our studies.
Be aware of Jesus’ desire that those of us who claim to know Him are an active participant in the Body Of Christ that needs to show His Love to a suffering world.
Be aware of the fact that showing His love means we love each other “deeply from the heart” and EVERYONE with the same powerful love He has given to imperfect, human wretches like you and me who remain desperately needful of His Love and Grace on a continual basis.
Concluding statement??????
THE TRANSFORMING POWER OF TRUTH IS A JOURNEY OF SANCTIFICATION
by Tammie Brettschneider
Editor’s Note: In the following story, Tammie recalls an encounter at a second-hand store with a young man who insisted that Jesus alone—without recovery work—was enough to keep him sober. Drawing from 31.5 years of her own sobriety, Tammie reflects on the necessity of daily responsibility, humility, and action in both faith and recovery. She connects this with Jesus’ command in John 5 to “pick up your mat and walk,” emphasizing that faith requires action and accountability, not avoidance.
Years ago, when making a purchase at a second-hand store, I engaged with the young man who was operating the cash register. He had just shared with the customer ahead of me that he was clean and sober boasting that Jesus had saved him. When I approached the cash register, I asked how long he’d been clean and sober. I honestly don’t remember his reply, but I will never forget the following conversation he and I had. I told him I was 25 years clean and sober and that Jesus had saved me as well. I then mentioned how important my recovery was to me because without it, I would not be able to claim my current victory. He said, “I don’t need recovery. I have Jesus and that’s all I need”. The store was busy, and he seemed to be ready to end the conversation, however,
I continued my explanation of how I had to work on my recovery every day. He abruptly ended the conversation with, “we’ll just have to agree to disagree on that one!”
As a recently retired mental health therapist and a recovering drug and alcohol abuser (31.5 years clean!), I have never forgotten that young man nor have I stopped praying for him. I grieve for him as I believe his ability to stay “clean” in his own might was a temporary state of sobriety. John 5:1-15 describes a man who had been an invalid of thirty-eight years. As Jesus approaches the man, he asks him to decide, to accept responsibility, to act, “Do you want to get well?” How did the man respond to Jesus? He made excuses; he was immersed in self-pity and learned helplessness; as if saying, “it’s not my fault!” I remember early in my recovery, I felt the need to disclose my abusive and neglectful family of origin, in effect saying, it’s not my fault!”
In my walk of sanctification (which will last till the day I stop breathing), God has shown me how in all those years of abusing drugs and alcohol, I had other choices. However, those other choices, if healthy, would have required daily - honesty, humility, submis-
Tammie & Bill at Blarney Castle
sion, repentance, in a few words– responsibility for my actions! Jesus doesn’t say, pick up your mat and lay it over there. He commands action. He tells us in Luke 9:23, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.” Can you imagine how heavy the cross was? Does it sound like an easy thing that Jesus asks us to do daily?
“The hallmark of addictions is avoidance of responsibility. Jesus commands us in Scripture to walk, pick up, carry, confess, go, tell, and so on. Our faith is a gospel of action.”
The hallmark of addictions is avoidance of responsibility. Jesus commands us in Scripture to walk, pick up, carry, confess, go, tell, and so on. Our faith is a gospel of action. In the counseling room, I would often stand up and spread my arms and fingers out as if in a wide stretch. I would tell the client with whom I was working, “my relapse is at the end of my fingertips.” I would then demonstrate what would happen if I lost my balance. Staying clean and sober from anything that has control over us, requires balance, physical and emotional health, in other words, a solid foundation. I’ve never forgotten what the leader of a Christian-based 12 step group I attended said, “We have to learn to live life on life’s terms.”
What are life’s terms? Heartache, sadness, illness, death, destruction, loss, struggle, injustice, malice, crime, natural disasters, etc. If I am laying by the pool at Bethesda as in John chapter 5, waiting to get into the healing waters, what am I going to do when life hits me with its terms?
I’ve had the unfortunate opportunity to experience this twice in the past 31.5 years where I felt emotional pain so deeply and viciously, I didn’t want to “feel”. I
did not believe I could withstand the pain. I thought the pain was going to swallow me and destroy me. I can only describe the overwhelmingness of it by saying I wanted to run away, escape, and not be. The most recent experience of this unbearable pain was March of 2023 when we learned that our oldest daughter who had been in treatment for just about a year for breast cancer was in the hospital in DC with life threatening organ failures. Leslie, my daughter whom I met at age 6 and became her mom #2 when she was 8 was big sister to both my biological children and our family memories were sewn and woven over a 28-year history.
Leslie had followed (somewhat) in my footsteps in a mental health career. She was a licensed professional in DC and worked with women, children and families in her beloved community. She had risen to the ranks of director within her organization and had just a few months of fulfilling a dream to teach in the University of Maryland Social Work Program. After chemo, surgery and radiation she was given a “cancer free” diagnosis and the five of us celebrated Christmas of 2022 with great jubilee. On March 10th, 2023, she was admitted to George Washington Hospital and 5 days later March 15th she passed on to be with her Lord and Savior. Leslie’s memorial service welcomed over 250 guests. We had the joy of worshipping with current friends, family and community as well as her middle school youth pastors and team members attended. Leslie lived the abundant life despite carrying many health “crosses” including
Olivia, Bill, me and Josh (Lahinch, IE 08/25)
alopecia universalis and other autoimmune disorders, all diagnosed before age 6. Yet, she lived free, bald and full of life, carrying her cross daily.
The past 20 months or so have been filled with grief, confusion, tears as well as thankfulness for having her in our lives for almost 3 decades.
When life happens on life’s terms and it will, you need the strength of character to say, “yes” when Jesus says, “Do you want to get well?” You need the experience of success riding the waves of temptations and urges. “Pick up your mat… and walk.” Research tells us that the urge to “escape” or in more common language, to “use” drugs or alcohol is a 120 second intense wave. This phenomenon has been termed Urge Surfing. Learning to successfully ride out the wave and refrain from giving into temptation builds new neural pathways, it builds confidence and leads to greater, longer periods of health and a history and future that begins to reflect a journey of sanctification.
As Jesus describes it, “…be transformed by the renewal of your mind.”
When life happens on life’s terms and it will, you need the strength of character to say, “yes” when Jesus says, “Do you want to get well?”
Every person, including every client, I ever met taught me a lot about faith, Scripture and this journey of sanctification; the challenges of blending a family, raising 3 children, pursuing my NC licensure as a professional licensed clinical mental health counselor and supervisor, were all experiences that stretched me, turned my perspective inside out and pushed me to study, grow and mature in my faith walk.
As I stated in my Winter 2012 article of the Journey, “There is nothing new under the sun.” Psychology or mental health isn’t offering the antithesis of Scripture, instead it offers a deeper and spiritually mature understanding of Scripture. The shame and connotation that mental health counseling is anti-faith, anti-Scripture, anti-God originates in fear. Fear that learning about your emotions will somehow threaten your faith? Fear that you will abandon your faith? Fear that you won’t listen to your pastor or congregation or family? Fear that you will somehow indulge in an evil activity? There are lots of things to be fearful of, but our God designed and created emotional well-being is not one of them.
Postscript:
The further I walk on this journey the bigger God is to me. I don’t have to fear the things that threaten my understanding of Him or Scripture. I have learned to lean into God and trust that He has allowed me to walk through something because His ways are not my ways and every time I have ever gone through one of life’s terms, for which there have been many, He brings someone, just like you, into my life and He whispers, “that’s why.”
Tammie and her husband Bill will celebrate 30 years of marriage in 2025 (a second marriage at that!). Both are retired and reside in Eastern North Carolina with their two miniature dachshunds, Oliver and Maisy.
Tammie originally shared her journey from addiction to sobriety in the winter 2012 issue of the Journey magazine. This powerful testimony can be found on pages 27 & 28 at:
https://www.journeync.com/winter-2012
Me (West Kerry Sheep Farm, Kerry IE 08/25)
GREAT IS THY FAITHFULNESS
An Interview with Neville and Trimella Chaney
By Terry Henry
Terry: You have had a long and successful journey with the Lord in your life which has, in one sense, led us to sit at this table together today. So, with that in mind why don’t you start at the beginning?
Neville: Growing up we both went to different churches and the Moravian Church that I went to had a very strong early childhood program. If you could recite the Lord’s prayer, they would have a little Pearl of Wisdom that would go up on a ribbon on a wall with your name on it. Well, I was a competitive little boy, and in no time, I had my 12 Pearls of Wisdom on the wall. Our family went to church every Sunday, and we were fortunate that we lived across the woods from the church so in good weather we could walk to the church. I grew up in the church from an early age and enjoyed many church-centered activities including choir, Boy Scouts and youth group.
Terry: Did the Moravian Church emphasize a personal relationship with God?
Neville: Yes. The church had a strong Vacation Bible School program for children. The Moravian Love Feast service is a music ministry that is on Christmas Eve. It is a very moving service that has been a part of the church calendar at First Presbyterian Church for probably 50 years now.
A recent photo of Neville and Trimella Chaney
Trimella: An early church experience I can remember is having a spiritual awakening about the 6th grade. I can remember exactly where I was when I had this spiritual feeling. I spoke to my mother about it, and she talked to the pastor. They had a confirmation class that spring and that is when I joined the church. In junior high school, I started going to a youth group and my mother sang in the choir. That was my early experience. Both Neville and I have grown up in the church.
“I
grew up in the church from an early age and enjoyed many church-centered activities including choir, boy scouts and youth group.” Neville
Terry: So, you’ve got the church in your lives, and there’s the personal relationship with the Lord where you feel like you’re being led or guided by Him. How did you guys meet?
Trimella: Our mothers met first, which was interesting, because his elementary school and my elementary school consolidated into a junior high school. Our mothers were in the PTA when they met. I love to tell this story because my mother comes home and says, “Honey, have you met that little Chaney boy yet? His mother was so nice.” I was a cheerleader, and he was a football player on this newly formed school team. We knew who each other were but really didn’t know each other. Then his mother and his sister planned a surprise birthday party for Neville: and that is where we really had a chance to meet. The rest is history.
Terry: So, you’ve got Christ in the church. You’ve got Christ in your relationship. Then you later have Christ as a business partner. I mean, how does that fit together? And how were you led to Boone?
Neville: After my party, we became closer and shortly after the first of the year, we became a couple. We were in the eighth grade.
“We were a couple all through high school. as we were evaluating colleges, trimella knew that she wanted to be a teacher. and she knew that she couldn’t get a better education to prepare her for teaching than appalachianstate.” Neville
my first choice, and I was fortunate that the coach that was assigned to recruit me was a member of my church. However, my three years in high school was tough. Our high school was new, and we had roughly half of the student body that the other schools in our conference had. We lost a lot of games, but I had a good year with some post season honors, and I was hoping to get an offer from Wake. However, at the end of the season the whole Wake Forest football staff got fired.
I was heartbroken because they hired a coach from Michigan State. He filled his staff with coaches from all over the country, but none of them knew me or had seen me play.
Front
We were a couple all through high school. As we were evaluating colleges, Trimella knew that she wanted to be a teacher. And she knew that she couldn’t get a better education to prepare her for teaching than Appalachian State.
I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do when I got out of college, but I did want to play football. Wake Forest was
Terry: So, your first choice had all new coaches that had not seen you play. How did you end up with a football scholarship to attend Wake Forest?
Neville: This is where I feel that God stepped in because there were a lot of prayers headed His way. Cal Stoll, the new head coach happened to ask Mary Garber, a local sportswriter who covered high school sports in Winston-Salem and the surrounding area, if there was anybody that she felt that he might want to get film on. She mentioned my name. About the same time Coach Stoll got a telephone call from a coach that I had competed against for the past three years. He recommended me to Coach Stoll. What are the chances of that! Anyway, Tom Moore (the offensive coordinator who would eventually become Peyton Manning’s offensive coordi-
Back row: Jacob Chaney, Neville Chaney, Nathan Chaney
Middle row: Holli Sink Chaney, Trimella, Sara Gold Chaney
row: Landon, Hampton, Samuel
nator in Indianapolis) came to my high school to meet me and see some film. We apparently showed him the right reel of film because the next day Coach Moore was in my living room with a full scholarship offer to my first choice of schools. This was definitely “God led.”
Trimella:: Neville: was really dedicated to football. During Winter practice, his sophomore year, he was so intense and was totally immersed in learning all the new plays, formations, and things as simple as the snap count. When he came home one night at supper, the family bowed their heads for reciting the Moravian grace together, Neville: said “DOWN SET.” As you can probably guess, Mary Garber found out about it and printed it in the Journal.
Terry: So, Trimella, you were at Appalachian. Neville: was at Wake Forest. Did you continue being a couple all the way through college? That’s a pretty hard thing to do, right?
Trimella: You’re right, Terry. When I left for college, we decided to “break up” and date other people because we wanted to see if our relationship was the “real thing.” We didn’t want to go through college, marry, and then at 35 realized that we had never dated anybody else.
Neville: And I was tied up with football. Trimella was a freshman cheerleader and was immersed in new friends and new relationships.
Trimella: But by Christmas break we realized that we wanted to be together again, so our long-distance relationship grew over the next three years.
Neville: Yes, at spring break of our senior year in college we got married so that a lot of our college friends could attend.
Trimella:: We got married in the Moravian Church that Neville: grew up attending.
Terry: It’s interesting the juxtaposition between growing up in the church and then becoming a follower of Christ. I shared with Neville: a story about how I once got a job because I told the guy interviewing me that I believed that God had led me to this place. With that in mind, can you explain to us how you believe that God led you into WJ office and the successful business that it’s been.
Neville: God never promised us that life would be easy. He promised us that he would be with us all the way. Trimella and I have a covenantal relationship in our marriage, and we have a covenantal relationship with God. By covenantal I mean that a binding promise of total, unconditional commitment. It is a promise to love, serve, and remain faithful regardless of circumstances.
For my first job we moved to Fayetteville, NC where I began my career in a management training program in a 2 million square foot tire plant where I trained to become a production supervisor. I worked two months on each shift six days a week. Trimella was loving her job teaching 6th grade at the Pope Air Force Base. I was extremely unhappy in my job, but I knew that she needed to get through her first year of teaching without being interrupted and I needed to realize that it would negatively affect my employment record if I couldn’t make it through my first year in the workforce.
Terry: So how did you get to Boone?
Trimella: By the way of one of my connections and through Winston-Salem first. My roommate’s husband had a brother who worked for Carolina Business Machines. Ned liked his job and had progressed quickly because the company was growing. We found out that they were hiring salespeople and one person was to be based in Winston-Salem.
Neville: Yes, it was Winter, and I had some vacation time, so I got an interview and with Ned’s endorsement, I got the job. I worked out a notice and we moved to Winston-Salem.
Terry: What about you, Trimella? Were you sad about leaving Fayetteville?
Trimella: Although I loved my job at Pope, I never felt safe in Fayetteville. I knew that Neville: was miserable, and I’ve always loved Winston. But when we realized that we were going to move the Winter was almost over. I found out that our former principal at West Forsyth was the assistant superintendent for Forsyth County Schools. I let him know that we were moving back to Winston. Ten days later I had a job!
Neville: I was happy with my new sales role with Carolina Business Machines. They were pleased because they had zero business in the territory that I was covering. It worked out for me because my dad was the
mailman in part of the downtown that I covered, and I had decent name recognition from some of the publicity from my high school sports career.
Terry: So, you’re in Winston-Salem, your hometown. Neville: no longer hates his job …. Trimella is teaching. And somehow you end up in Boone.
Trimella: They told Neville: that he’d probably be in Winston for a year or more and then he might have an opportunity to manage one of their smaller stores (which would mean a move), but something was happening in their Boone store, and they wanted him to replace a person up there.
Neville: Yes, and as you may know, back then you moved when the company wanted you to move if you wanted to progress and grow with the company. We found a rental house in Foscoe.
Trimella: After the move, it took a while for me to find a teaching position. But God had this laid out for me. I went to all the elementary schools and introduced myself. A former friend was teaching at Green Valley told me, “I’ll remember you if anything turns up.” I decided to start grad school at ASU and in the October/ November time frame a position opened at Hardin Park. My friend called and asked me if I would be interested in teaching eighth grade. I was at Hardin Park for 13 years before moving to Watauga High School.
Trimella: Well, not so much at that moment. I think as you age, your spiritual maturity kicks in because you start to think back in time and realize that God had a plan for me. I’m not speaking for Neville:. He’s always had a very deep faith, and I do as well. But I’m a worrier.
Terry: So here we are now in Boone. Carolina Business is on the corner, right across from the bagel place. I have been in that store many times. It was hard just trying to find paper clips.
Neville: They called me a manager, but I really didn’t manage anybody. I was really a commercial outside sales rep. We sold office machines, furniture, and office supplies to local businesses. They asked me to come to Boone because the commercial sales were inadequate. We moved to Boone in March 1975, and we surprised the owner because we exceeded quota for the last three month of the fiscal year.
Terry: So, in retrospect, you can see that God had a plan for you. Did it feel like that when it was happening?
Trimella was happy at Hardin Park. I was happy at my work too. We started getting involved in the community. I joined the Boone Jaycees. We joined Deerfield Methodist Church. We decided that this is where we wanted to settle. Never mind future promotion opportunities. We bought a used fourwheel drive and started looking at houses. We found one and put a significant amount of money down to reserve it. Construction got behind and before the house was finished we had to be out of our rental. The contractor allowed us to move in even though it wasn’t finished. That day will always be memorable because the owner of Carolina Business Machines met with me and said “I’m sorry. I’m going to
Neville in his footbal uniform
“Our faith in God had brought us this far in our lives, through disappointments, tough times, and fortunate times. We felt that we’d land on our feet (with the help of God) and things will get better. We didn’t know what He had in store for us, but we turned it over to Him.” Trimellla
have to lay you off.” Looking back, that was one of two times in my life that I could hear my heartbeat.
Trimella: I was teaching my class, and I looked up and see Neville: at my door. I asked him “What are you doing here?” He said, “I need the car keys. I’ve lost my job. I need to get home.” It was very traumatic. We didn’t know what God had in store for us.
Neville: And not only that, but we had committed to buying a house that we would lose a substantial down payment if we didn’t close the loan. We also had prepaid plane fare for a trip to England. My mother was English. My dad had been an American soldier in World War II, and we were leaving in two weeks for a three-week vacation to visit our relatives there.
Trimella: And because I had FINISHED the year teaching and had not been hired at the beginning of the school year, I was told that I would have to interview again for my position at Hardin Park.
Terry: So, at this moment, neither of you had a job, you’re living in a house that you’ve placed a substantial down payment on that you cannot afford to lose, you’re not sure how the fact that neither of you are employed will affect your approval for your loan, and you’re leaving for a three week vacation.
Neville: You got it!
Terry: How could you enjoy your vacation with all those unknowns at that point in your life?
Trimella: Our faith in God had brought us this far in our lives, through disappointments, tough times, and fortunate times. We felt that we’d land on our feet (with the help of God) and things will get better. We didn’t know what He had in store for us, but we turned it over to Him.
Neville: When we returned from England, Trimella interviewed for her present position and received word
that she would be back at Hardin Park. I interviewed in a few places and finally landed a job as a sales rep traveling parts of three states selling promotional products to financial institutions and college bookstores with their logo on them. It was a straight commission job with no reimbursement for expenses. The first week I spent three nights on the road in motels, obviously had meal expenses and gas expenses, and I made $33 in commissions.
Trimella: And traveling in a car without air conditioning in August.
Terry: That must have been frustrating. And brutal. Were you looking for different job during this time?
Neville: Yes, I sure did. One was a position that I really wanted. I was contacted by a large regional company about a role as a community liaison/public relations role. I felt that I had the personality and the skills to do this role. During this time, I took him a resume and as I was listing my references, I put the name of the person who had called me about the sales job that I was currently in. He had been in his role for eleven years, was a friend of mine, and was highly respected in the community. When I returned to Boone from traveling all week, I checked my answering machine and did not have any messages from the person that I interviewed with for the community relations position, so I called him to check on the position. He replied that no, he had not tried to get in touch with me. They had decided to hire my friend (who I listed as a reference).
I was crushed. Not only did I not like traveling and spending the night away from home, but the company that I was working for at that time was not stable. I was paid once a month, and I was dealing with my pay checks bouncing.
Trimella: We didn’t know it then, but God had other plans for us.
Neville: Yes. He sure did. A month or so later, I received a call from a friend of mine (Roby Triplett). Our
wives taught at Hardin Park together, Roby was one of my customers with the specialty products that I was selling, and he asked me if I’d ever heard of West Jefferson Office Equipment. I replied that I hadn’t. He said that the owner and his son would not leave him alone. They wanted Roby to buy their business. Mr. Lyle (the owner) wanted to retire, and his son Preston wanted to continue to work as the equipment technician. Roby asked me if I would be interested. Being pragmatic, I told Roby that I did not have any money AND I didn’t think that this company could compete with Carolina Business Machines. Roby convinced me to go with him to talk with Mr. Lyle and if I didn’t want to be part of ownership, that Roby might buy it and he might hire me to run it. He indicated that it would be an investment for him, and he had no intention of working in the business or leaving the university.
Terry: So that’s how you got started.
Neville: Roby and I went to West Jefferson to see the store. Mr. and Mrs. Lyle lived in an apartment upstairs. It wasn’t much of a business, but the good news was that the didn’t want very much for it. He wanted someone to “take care of his customers” and operate it in a fashion that was honest and forthright. Apparently, I passed his “test” and Roby was able to get us a loan for the down payment with a local banking connection that he had. Since I was going to be the partner doing all the work, I took 2/3 of the business and Roby 1/3. Roby was a great resource for me and trusted me far more than I would have trusted anybody – but Trimella.
Terry: How many employees did you have?
Trimella: Just Neville:, a bookkeeper, and Mr. Lyle’s son (the technician). Neville: drove a van and sold the equipment, furniture, and office supplies and delivered them the next time he was in that area.
Terry: What geography did you cover?
Neville: We covered Ashe, Wilkes, and Watauga counties. We operated out of the West Jefferson store for 18 months and then moved the entire business to Boone in June of 1978. We were located where the Black Cat restaurant is now and operated there for 23 years. We shortened the name to WJ Office Equipment.
Terry: Did Carolina Business go out of business at that time?
Neville: No. They were an established competitor and we worked hard to compete with them. However, the first two winters that we were in business was a crucial time for our company. I had a four-wheel drive that I delivered supplies to end users daily. They had a van that (by necessity) stayed parked in their parking lot because of the snow and ice. If customers wanted products at Carolina Business Machines, they had to drive downtown and pick them up.
Terry: So, after 23 years you moved out of the downtown area.
Neville: Yes, we outgrew the Depot Street location well before we could find another home. Brendle’s (on Greenway Road) closed, and the developer created a 12,000 square foot facility for us. It gave us parking that we didn’t have downtown, a much larger retail space, and a dock for the warehouse to receive trucks. But we outgrew that warehouse over the next 8 years and began to look for land to build a building that would fit our current commercial (business to business) nonretail business model. This, along with adding an office furniture sales office in Winston-Salem, adding top copier and printer product lines, developing a tenured team of people who are all on the same page and “rowing in the same direction.” Plus, operationally, we have strategically used outstanding contractors to help with office furniture installation when it made sense to do so.
Trimella: I must put this in here, and I know that Neville: feels the same way as I do. The people in Boone and the surrounding area are the very best. As we look back over the last 49 years, there are so many friends and families that have figured into our success. You have such joy when you feel that you are fulfilling God’s purpose in your life.
Terry: At this point, feel free to share with us any other significant “come to Jesus” moments you’ve had along the way.
Neville: We haven’t mentioned our boys. WJ Office started in December 1976. We moved the business to Boone in June 1978, and Nate was born in November 1978. In the September/October time frame we real-
“The people in Boone and the surrounding area are the very best. As we look back over the last 49 years, there are so many friends and families that have figured into our success.” Trimella
ized that even though we’d signed up for family health insurance at Trimella’s school, there was a snafu, and we only had health insurance for Trimella! We immediately changed that, but the C-Section that Trimella had was not covered. Fortunately, Nate was covered AFTER the birth, but his birth was not covered. I’ve teased him as he became an adult that he wasn’t paid for until he reached his third birthday!
Trimella: Then, at about six weeks old, he was congested one night. Neville: thought he had a cold. I just didn’t feel right about that. We were up with him all night and I called the pediatricians the next morning. Dr. Bill Horn said to bring him in. After a brief exam, Bill decided that he wanted him tested at the hospital for meningitis. While they were running the test, we were on our knees in the hospital chapel. Bill found us there. Nate tested positive for bacterial meningitis (the worst kind), but Bill caught it extremely quickly. He said that the bacterial kind normally responded well to penicillin. So, for the next 8 days we were in quarantine
at the hospital caring for our son taking shifts round the clock holding his little hands from reaching up and pulling out the i.v. that was plugged in to the top of his head. He couldn’t eat so they brought us jelly that we would put on to a pacifier so that he thought he was eating. Meningitis can produce all sorts of issues, and we are blessed that we left the hospital with a healthy child who is now a 46-year-old healthy man with no side effects from that early scare. Thanks be to God!
Terry: So, it sounds like your faith has been tested in a lot of different ways over the course of your lives. And one of his greatest gifts is that you are still successfully married.
Trimella: Yes. We feel very blessed, but we have been on our knees many times over the years, and we are extremely grateful. We’ve already picked out the tombstone for our grave as we plan to be buried side by side. Engraved on the tombstone is “Great is Thy Faithfulness.”
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COMMUNITY BUILDING AS A WAY OF LIFE
An Interview with Sam & Eric
By Terry Henry
Terry: I’m sitting around a large dinner table with Sam and Eric.
Sam and Eric are a couple that I met two years ago at Mountainside Community Church in Boone, North Carolina. And I must add, it’s interesting to interview couples, because we are going to hear two different stories, which will include the beginnings of their faith in Christ, hopefully merge at their marriage, and then lead us into where they are today and where they are headed tomorrow. Ladies first. Sam, I know you’ve had an interesting life because of some of the talks that we’ve had previously. So, this is your story. Okay?
whole family
Sam: Well, I grew up in the church. My dad was a youth pastor in the Assemblies of God denomination. As it has been told to me, the first time that I prayed the prayer, so to speak, I was two years old, so I have zero recollection of that, but for my entire memory of my childhood, the church and my faith in Jesus were just the water that I was in. I didn’t necessarily have any strong periods of rebellion or anything like that. There
were certain times where I felt a stronger presence that I think held me. One of the things about being in a charismatic environment is that interesting stuff happens, right? And I saw enough movements of God that I never came to a place where I didn’t believe that God was real. Growing up in church with my parents as pastors, it was always hard for me to know, had I made enough of a connection with God on my own for it to be real? And I think when that question first got answered I had a specific day where I remember having a very intense spiritual experience that felt like the closest that I’d ever experienced to what we call a Born-Again moment. Because I had grown up in the church, I didn’t have this come to Christ moment, where now I’m in Christ, and everything has changed. I grew up in a family that was very protected and very safe, and so I didn’t have to experience the world like I saw some of my friends experiencing it, but it also meant that it was hard for me to be sure of where I stood with God.
Terry: So, were there any early prayers you prayed, that were answered, or were you afraid of that interaction?
The
in Boone. Left to right: Ellie, Cole, Ivy, Mattias, Sam & Eric
Sam: I don’t know. That’s interesting. I was a fearful child, and so I prayed a lot as a little kid, especially at night, because I did not like nighttime. I never questioned whether my prayers were answered or not. I had this innate sense that God was listening when I was praying. Occasionally I would wake up from a scary dream, and I would sit and just say the name of Jesus over and over and over again, because I had this thought in my head that if I said the name of Jesus, then, if there’s any anything going on that’s uncomfortable, Jesus’s name was going to make it go away. I’m sure I learned that from like, VeggieTales or something,
Terry: So, we are heading up to your YWAM experience that’s probably after marriage, right?
Sam: No, it was before we were married. That’s how we met when I was 18. For me, going through that program was a big deal. I didn’t grow up with a lot of theology, so there were a lot of feelings and experiences that I didn’t understand, like who God is, or what the church has historically thought about who God is, and how we understand that, and how it affects our faith. I lived in a Christian kind of bubble which, looking back, I would describe as low-key fundamentalist, because we did have that us versus them kind of thinking. However, because it’s an Assemblies of God church, women are allowed to be in ministry, and there wasn’t the fundamentalist thinking of you must dress this way or do this thing. We had our own legalism, but it was a very, emotive, very feelings-based environment.
Terry: So YWAM happened at 18 years of age.
Sam: It was right after high school. I was deciding between Switzerland and Puerto Rico for my YWAM program. However, my grandparents said, if you go to Puerto Rico, we’ll pay for your ticket. So I went to Puerto Rico, and Eric was there because his dad had wanted him to do YWAM there.
Eric: My dad knew one of the teachers at that base In Puerto Rico.
Sam: So that’s how we met.
Terry: That’s a good transition. Which leads us to Eric’s story.
Eric: My story is somewhat like Sam’s since I grew up in a Christian home. My dad wasn’t a minister like Sam’s was, but yeah, I first accepted Jesus as maybe an
eight-year-old. My dad led me to the Lord. I remember as a young kid thinking that some of my extended family might not be believers, and so I went around asking them if they believed in God. And they all said, yes. I was like, okay, great. Like, we’re good here, you know. So that was kind of my first foray into evangelism, I guess. And then I went to high school and college, YWAM and the Marine Corps, kind of in one big season. I was a believer, but I was largely an immature believer. I had a lot of my own ideas and things that I wanted to do with my life. And there were lots of idols: they were kind of weeds that were growing up in my life.
When I was 11, I decided I wanted to be a Navy SEAL. It was a driving factor in my decision making from then until I was 18, which is when I found out, shortly before going to YWAM, that my vision would basically never allow me to be a SEAL. So, I was in a bit of a turmoil at that time, but ended up joining the Marine Corps instead, to make a long story short. I kind of had this idolatry of adventure and travel and being a cool guy, and what I wanted my life to look like. And like I said, it didn’t stop me from being a believer. I think I would say I paid lip service so to speak to, like, “Jesus comes first”, right? And I believed that, but I didn’t always examine myself as I should have to see if I was really living that out. Shortly after I got out of the Marine Corps, we moved to Colombia with Samaritans Purse. During that time was probably one of the most intense times of spiritual growth for me in my
Sam, Cole and Ellie (in the carrier) while living in California.
life, where God was showing me that I had these areas of idolatry, and even as I was kind of getting what I thought I wanted, like the travel and the adventure, I was beginning to see this as being empty and that it really wasn’t what I wanted.
Terry: So, the picture I’m getting is that you were both Christians, but you were inactive, in a sense in a bubble. Did YWAM activate you guys after which you push ahead and overcome the obstacles or whatever.
Sam: I wouldn’t say I was inactive. I was leading the children’s ministry at our small church when I was 16, because nobody was there to do it, and so I took it over. I started going on mission trips when I was 12. The first time I went on a mission trip was to Mexico to help build a school at an orphanage. It was very formative for me. We were helping other people. For me, my faith was a huge part of my teen years, and it did govern a lot of things I did, although as a teenager, it was obviously still somewhat immature. I had these standards, but the standards were, now looking back, probably more cultural things within my church than particularly based on the way of Jesus. I still am trying to understand the way of Jesus. But that is probably where the YWAM thing shifted my faith and when I began to see that Christianity is not just a series of things we don’t do.
daily lives, not going beyond “we don’t, drink, smoke, chew, or go with girls who do.”
Terry: Let’s get back to the military timeline.
Eric: As you were talking, it made me think about the way my faith affected my life as a high school and college student. I was avoiding sins of commission but committing sins of omission. I think that was true of both of us, that both of us grew up really wanting to be people of faith, like especially wanting to do something meaningful with our lives, but not really living it in our
Sam: I went through a period of intense spiritual growth while Eric was in the military. I had two young kids and I was experiencing very intense postpartum anxiety that was undiagnosed and undealt with, and I was really struggling. Eric was working all the time and then was gone for seven months because he got deployed. I was solo parenting all the time with no family around, and I was really struggling with anxiety. We went to a big mega church because it was right down the street. I really struggled to go on Sunday mornings, because you had to put the kids in one building and then walk across a quad and be in another building. I didn’t know anybody, and I felt uncomfortable leaving the kids with people I didn’t know. I had started going to a women’s Bible study that met at a smaller campus. It was kind of like a small group. I’d never really been in a setting that had that level of intimate community and that changed things for me in a big way, which sparked an intense period of spiritual growth for me. This led to me starting to reach out to the neighborhood that we were in in California. I would put a picnic blanket in our front yard and sit out there with the kids, and I would text a few people whose numbers I had in the neighborhood, and I would say, I’m going to be in the front yard for the next couple hours. If you want to bring your kids by, we’ll be outside. And some days it was just us, but it grew over time, where it became almost every afternoon. It was all other military
Continued on page 34
Eric, Ellie, Cole and Sam in California
families, most of them had kids around our kids’ age. Over time we started to make dinner together and build community and relationships. I started to cook meals for people, whether they lived in the neighborhood or went to church or not.
Terry: So, your spiritual growth was finding outlets to serve other people and build a community?
Sam: Yeah, I think looking back, I can say that that’s likely what was happening. During that time, I started praying about the possibility of one day moving to Sweden which is where Eric’s family is from. I was praying that our life would change. I didn’t want to be in the military anymore and Eric was considering a career with the CIA which I also wasn’t excited about. Eric could not be present in our life in the way we wanted. I wanted to get out of the military, and I wanted to have our family be able to build community together and actually have roots. And then I forgot that I’d written down those prayers for years after I had journaled them.
that. We had often pursued a life of adventure, but after we had kids, I didn’t want quite so much adventure. I was longing for community. And after leaving the military Eric went through almost a year of unemployment.
Terry: So, you’re now out of the military and unemployed.
This is Eric and Ivy in Colombia
Terry: And then two of them were answered.
Sam: That’s true. I don’t even remember making the connection at the time, but while on deployment, Eric resigned from the military.
Eric: While I was getting out of the military, I applied to the CIA and went partway through the process. I got an interview and after the interview, I realized the CIA wasn’t for me. And then a couple months later, they said, we don’t think we want you. So, it was mutual.
Sam: I really wasn’t thrilled about you pursuing the CIA, but I had this vision for our family and for our life that was different from what we had experienced before
Eric: I got out of the military in October 2017, and we traveled around the American West for a couple of months, and that was fun. Then I kind of buckled down and started looking for work. I really wanted to work in disaster relief. So, with the CIA out of the picture, I was like let’s investigate some disaster relief jobs that would allow me to travel. I really wanted to live in Colorado, where I could rock climb and do all that kind of stuff, but I was coming up against a brick wall. When I left the military, my dad was like, hey, Eric, you could come work for me selling candy. And so, 10 months of looking for work go by and I’m like I need a job. My dad called me again and said, I’m hiring. I said, alright, give me a week, because I still have a couple of applications out. If I don’t hear anything within that week, I’ll come work for you. I had come to this place of humbling myself and realizing I was not going to get the cool guy job that I wanted. God was bringing me there on purpose. I had applied to Samaritan’s Purse during that year and didn’t get that job. When I said to my dad if I don’t hear something within a week, I’ll come be a candy salesman, I think God wanted me to let go of my pride. Then during that week, Samaritan’s Purse reached back out to me about a different job and said we think you should apply for this job in Colombia in South America. This was the week our third daughter was born. Things were moving very fast. I was like, they’re going to offer me this job, and I said to Sam, this is happening, is this something we want? And she flat out said, No.
Sam: My no was tied heavily to my postpartum anxiety. I was afraid that one of the kids was going to get kidnapped if we went to Colombia.
Eric: So at the part-time job I was working at, I had a day where I spent a lot of time by myself, which was unusual. And I spent a lot of that day praying about the situation. I was like, God, if this is what you have for us, I need Sam to be on board. I don’t know what I expected. I certainly didn’t expect what happened when I got home from work. Sam goes, hey, I think we can go to Colombia. And within a few days, I received the job offer.
Sam: There were a lot of things that helped me to know that God was with us in that. When Eric came home that night and said I’ve been praying all day for you, I felt even greater peace about going to Colombia. Other things happened as well, for example we applied for expedited passports for three children on a Wednesday, and the next Wednesday, we had them in our hands. Which is like a miracle right? Then everything started falling into place.
This is Eric, Ivy and Mattias in Sweden
world events for a certain pandemic. We had about two months of freedom in 2020 where we did whatever we did, just normal life, and then we were logged into our apartment for three months. I got to go out only for work and Sam could go out once or twice a week to get groceries. That was kind of like the legal limits of our freedom at the time. It was an exciting time, work wise, because the whole situation changed in Colombia and we were doing new stuff, and that was cool. I also had a lot more downtime and I spent a lot of that time just reading the Bible, memorizing scripture, praying, and God was really working in my heart at that time. I also began reading Bonhoeffer’s “Cost of Discipleship” where the first half of the book is a discourse on the sermon on the mount. I look back on that as a pivotal moment in my walk with the Lord. Backing up a bit, right before covid hit, my boss came to Colombia. And before he came, we had been talking about how after our two years were up, we really wanted to go somewhere and build community for the sake of the gospel.
Terry: So, your story could almost start there. That’s where the rubber meets the road.
Sam: I feel like Colombia was a time when we took this leap of faith together and spiritually grew as a couple rather than individually.
Terry: What did you learn from a Christian perspective while you were in Colombia?
Sam: We finally found ourselves on the same page, which is a miracle for sure, and a blessing as well.
Eric: We had made a two-year commitment for Colombia. And the second year was 2020, notable in
Sam: Yeah. The community that happened in California was influential on Eric and his spiritual growth, although maybe not to the same extent as it was for me. We had started saying let’s find a place where we can be Kingdom emissaries. Let’s live like Jesus someplace. At the point his boss arrived from Boone, Eric was starting to look for jobs in Minnesota. The week his boss came to visit…
Eric: He offered me a job in Boone. I said, let me think about that and I went home and told Sam about the job offer. She’s like, yeah, let’s do it. And I was like, I agree.
Terry: So, now you’re in Boone after leaving Colombia and looking for a house and a church.
Sam: We had a long list of churches to visit and one of those was Mountainside. We showed up, and it was love at first sight and we both felt that this is the place the Lord has for us. One of the most significant things about coming to Boone has been us being together to do ministry and it’s been a time of rich ministry for both of us here. We started having people over all the time and we would walk around to every neighbor that we knew and bring jam, baked goods or produce from our garden. It was a good way to show people that we cared about them and to help build a sense of community for ourselves and others. Eric put a little library out front of the house and he would share produce and seeds from the garden. And our community kind of grew and grew and grew.
Eric: We made it our mission to be intentionally connected with our neighbors here, which is something that really began with us in California. We had a strong desire for community in Colombia, but it was difficult there.
Terry: That really fits with one of those questions I gave you before we met and that is, what role do you think Christianity plays for you in our community?
Sam: We had these moments where we were sitting down and planning how we could bring more people into our little house. How can we invite more people in to community who don’t know Christ? After about a year of living in Boone Eric came to me and said, what do you think about moving to Sweden someday? I was like, that’s weird because I wrote that down in a prayer journal during our time in California. I was really scared at that point, because we were finally in a place right where we were going to stay, build community, and put down roots. We continued to pray about the idea and ended up going to Sweden in 2022, as something of a vision trip. We visited a YWAM base there and we spent a good amount of time praying and talking to friends while we were there. That trip changed my heart about going and was what led to Eric taking a year sabbatical to go work on this local farm and do an apprenticeship which would come in handy if we moved to Sweden and were able to start an agricultural business there. That was also a leap of faith, because we were living off savings for the most part, since the apprenticeship only paid a small stipend, which barely covered our mortgage.
Eric: Mainly my mindset at the time was, I’m going to learn farming and I’m also now going to work with non-believers, so there are some evangelistic opportunities there. That second part wasn’t at the front of my mind, necessarily, but it seems that that was in the front of what God had for me and so within the first month of becoming a farm apprentice, I was frequently having conversations with people who had rejected the church, or had been hurt in the church, or had very strong, negative opinions about Christians. I was having opportunities to talk to them about it. I was able to have these conversations with people, where I was able to treat them with love and address their questions, without being aggressive.
Sam: It has been really great to build relationships with people outside of our christian bubble and walk alongside them as friends. I really value being able to show the love of Christ to others in organic and practical ways.
Terry: So bottom line: you were successful in following what you believed God was showing you?
Sam: Yes, but there was a major pause on my desire to go to Sweden after one of my best friends’ husband passed unexpectedly, leaving behind two young boys and I couldn’t think about anything else besides taking care of them. So, the conversation about Sweden got put on the back burner. Eric also took on an eldership role at Mountainside Community Church at about that time.
Terry: So technically, these were a couple of obstacles to keep you from moving to Sweden.
Eric: You could look at it that way. Or perhaps it was just not time yet. We had responsibilities here that God had given us and we needed to see through.
Terry: Which slowed down your plans.
Eric: That’s true.There have been some challenges in the last couple years.
Terry: So, let’s transition to the next phase,
Sam: Our dream, so to speak, is to continue and deepen what we have been doing here for the last five
years, which is opening our home and using our gifts of hospitality for the gospel and developing community with those who are outside of community, whether that’s those fully on the margins of society or just people who are not in the community of the church. And whether that happens here or in Sweden, I think that our long-term dream is to continue what we are doing and deepen our faith while interacting with people from all walks of life.
Eric: So, every January, or late December, Sam and I try to have a little meeting and ask what’s this year going to look like. This year we said Samaritan’s Purse has been great, but that time needs to end. That was one of the things that working on the farm taught me: as long as I’m working in an office surrounded by believers, I’m not living out my spiritual gifts.
Sam: Once you went back to Samaritan’s Purse,
because of your schedule, our ability to do ministry in the way that we were doing it really diminished, right? We have kept up as many connections as we can, but there have been basically no new connections, except with Christian homeschoolers, Christians at church, Christians at work and so on.
Eric: So, we went into 2025 saying by the end of this year we need to decide what is next for our family. It became clear right away, within weeks, that both our hearts are in alignment and we want to move to Sweden next year, 2026.
Terry: Sweden, which is not known as a Christian country.
Eric: As a country, it’s an extremely secular soci go abroad. And I guess going to Sweden would fit into that category. But I don’t think going to Sweden is what
Eric and Sam in front of their home in Boone, NC. Rainbow is extra!
I think that I spent so much of my youth waiting around for the big thing that I was supposed to do. All the while I had all these small things in front of me that I was sometimes doing, sometimes neglecting to do because they didn’t seem worthwhile enough.
makes us missionaries. I think being believers is what makes us missionaries. And you know, if that’s the case, if every believer has a responsibility to live as a missionary, I feel like, why don’t we go? Let’s go where the church needs some reinforcements, right? This is kind of where I’m at. We do have a unique ability because I’m a Swedish citizen.
Sam: I randomly found out that OM (Operation Mobilization) has a whole program now for marketplace missionaries. They’ve been helping us make connections in Sweden with people who are already doing marketplace missions, or more traditional church planting in Sweden. And they’re helping to provide us
with training. There’s been a lot of different things coming together for us as we prepare to go.
Terry: So, as we wind down with you most likely going to Sweden next year, what advice or encouragement would you like to share with others who may be struggling with their faith or in recognizing what their journey in Jesus might be. Not in 10 words or less, but what’s the bottom line here?
Eric: What I often say is you believe what you do. If you believe the way of Jesus you are going to follow it. When we sin we’re showing that in some way we believe our way is going to be better for us than God’s way. When we obey Jesus’ commandments, even if we don’t feel like it’s going to work, we’re showing real belief. We have these teachings of Jesus that show us how we should live in the world; to be generous, to love our enemies, to be peacemakers, etc. So we don’t need to wait around forever asking God what we should do, he has told us how to live. Start living that way and more opportunities will open up for you to do the good works that he has prepared ahead of time for you to do. If you are faithful with the small things I think God will bring you bigger things to be faithful with.
Terry: He does the big things.
Sam: I think that I spent so much of my youth waiting around for the big thing that I was supposed to do. All the while I had all these small things in front of me that I was sometimes doing, sometimes neglecting to do because they didn’t seem worthwhile enough. But all those tiny things matter. Daily life with my kids, interactions with neighbors, and things I often see as inconveniences are all valuable. Something simple like getting over needing to have the house perfect so that if someone stops by and needs a safe place to share difficult things, makes a big difference because it means I can let them inside. It’s the tiny things and they add up to a life of following Jesus.
Another great family picture with younger kids.
HELPING IN JESUS NAME
A Personal Testimony from Ken
Isaacs, Vice President of Programs and Government Relations at Samaritan’s Purse
By Ben Cox with Ken Isaacs
Introduction:
Once upon a time there was a man named Jesus who had the power to heal people. He had the power to raise people from the dead. He also could predict the immediate future with 100% accuracy. Many in Israel thought He must be the long awaited Messiah that their prophets and wise men from ancient times had foretold.
Over the span of his 3 year public ministry, He drew multitudes of people to hear Him teach truth and explain Old Testament Scripture in a way that was simple yet deeply profound. The people would even remark about how superior and powerful His speaking ability was as compared to their finest rabbis and teachers of the law.
He also made disciples by choosing 12 men to have close personal access to Him during His 3 year ministry. But, He also masterfully demonstrated the effectiveness of intentionally communicating Truth, in concentric circles of influence.
asked Him this question: “what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?”
Now’s the time we should all lean in to hear Jesus’ answer, even if you have read His answer 100s of times:
For example, among the 12 there were 3 who He invited into the most holy of intimate moments between Him and His Heavenly Father. And then there were the 70, the 120 and the crowd of 500 He appeared to after His bodily resurrection from the dead! Plus, there were thousands who traveled great distances to be healed by Him, behold His miracles and to hear Him speak the very Words of God that moved them deeply in their hearts.
One time, after He finished one of His most challenging sermons in the outer courts of their massive, beautiful, sacred temple, in the heart of Jerusalem, His disciples
“Take heed that no one deceives you. For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.
“Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake. And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.
I chose to begin our Kenny Isaacs’ story with a Jesus story from Matthew 24:3b-14, because for over 37 years Kenny has been one of the many who have made great personal sacrifices to bring the good news of the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ to the nations! And He’s done most of that through his affiliation with Samaritan’s Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.
Ken Isaacs, June 1988.
Samaritan’s Purse, with its headquarters in Watauga and Wilkes counties and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association’s headquarters in Charlotte and Asheville, NC travels the world to communicate God’s love and compassion to a world where millions have not experienced the kind of peace, mercy and hope that only Jesus can impart!!
It was through Samaritan’s Purse disaster relief program where I first met Ken Isaacs as a volunteer where Ken had been deployed. We were in New York City in September of 2001, after the horrific terrorist bombings that shook that city and our nation.
Ken was the disaster relief specialist who Franklin Graham called in to help establish a kind of disaster relief that Samaritan’s Purse had never done before. Samaritan’s Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association were going to partner together to establish an outreach office in the city. The office would be called the Billy Graham New York Prayer Center, where people could call and receive Biblical encouragement and prayer from trained professionals.
volunteer stint would turn into a “job” for the next 4 months. That happened because Ken asked me if I would agree to be the prayer coordinator for the BGEA prayer center and I said yes. Ken and I got to know each other better in the context of his work to spearhead Samaritan’s Purses efforts to get the prayer center up and running at 133 West 25th Street, Suite 4E New York City.
The events of 9/11 have changed our world. Do you need to talk? We’re here to listen.
In conjunction with this, SP & the BGEA were going to join with a Calvary Church in Manhattan that would assist the Center with helping train, coordinate and deploy thousands of Christians from all over the nation to go to Ground Zero to minister the love and compassion of Jesus to the many who were suffering unbearable grief and sorrow.
I was there as one of the first “boots on the ground” volunteer grief counselors to arrive in NYC. Allen Blume, a friend of mine, and a former pastor of Mount Vernon Baptist Church here in Boone, asked me if I would be willing to go and I said yes.
Soon after getting off that van with the other volunteers, I met Ken Isaacs, little knowing that my one week
In the course of our time there, thousands of humble servants of Jesus came to volunteer from all over the United States of America to demonstrate our Savior’s love in practical, tangible ways.
After receiving instruction at Calvary Church on the do’s and don’ts of sharing Jesus’ love on the streets, they would reach out to Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx and Staten Island to show Jesus’ love with simply ears to listen and prayers. God’s love could even come through sharing comfort over a cup of coffee in a local diner, or offering bottled water on the streets.
Meanwhile, at the call center, which Ken helped establish, we would pray with the many people who responded to the simple posters we plastered the city with and the other ways we got the message out about the help we could offer in Jesus’s name.
Through those efforts and our vast network of local churches, we partnered with, we got the word out, even joining with the spiritual leaders of local churches in the 5 boroughs to join them in praying onsite at cross-denominational prayer gatherings. In other words, we prayed, prayed and prayed some more.
One thing that the teams that came to NYC to help for a week or so were required to do was to join us at the prayer center to pray over the prayer needs we were discovering through the call center and the street ministry. As a direct result of these passionate prayers that we offered to our Father through the precious Name of
Jesus, miracles happened and many received the comfort that came down from heaven. I am humbled and grateful to have been a part of that.
I accepted Christ that day. I was baptized maybe two weeks later. That is sort of my introduction into the faith.
As you know, all of us have different journeys in the faith. After that, there was a friend of my parents who took an interest in me, and for two years he mentored me in the Bible. That seems very unusual in today’s thinking, but he was a very special guy, and I really appreciate the time that he invested in me, his mentorship, instruction, and sharing scriptures with me. It has stuck with me all through my life, even though I went astray from the Lord when I was around 19 or 20. And by the time I was 24, I was probably an agnostic and had gotten married and wasn’t thinking anything spiritual or anything about God.
When I returned to Boone in December of 2001 Ken went his way and I went mine, but we would run into each other from time to time at church and other places. Now, 24 years later, I get to do one of my favorite things, which is finding out about how people like Ken became Christians and how their faith in Christ has changed the trajectory of their lives.
BEN: Tell me about how you became a follower of Christ, and then how you came to Samaritans Purse.
KEN: My mom and dad were Christians. We lived in Jacksonville, Florida, and attended Arlington Baptist Church. The pastor there was Grady Snowden, and he gave an altar call one Sunday. I was 12 years old and I felt moved and convicted by my sin and raised my hand.
The following day, he came over to the house and sat with me in the living room, and we talked through the plan of salvation, what it meant, the theology of it, and
BEN: It’s sad, but there are far too many Christians, myself included, who go through a time of backsliding or fall away from faith in Christ. It’s amazing Grace that brings us back to Him in different ways for different people.
So, let’s go back to how you got from being saved in Jacksonsville, Fla. to being an agnostic married man at 24.
KEN: My parents moved all the time. In 12 years of school, I went to 13 schools in four states and seven cities until we ended up in Boone, NC. I was always the new kid in class every year, except for my last two years in high school which was Watauga High School.
It was there that I met Carolyn Wright in the beginning of my senior year and it was love at first sight. We got married two years later when neither of us was walking with the Lord.
EDITOR’S NOTE: After my in-office interview with Ken, I received permission from the book publishers
Ken, Coy, Coy Issacs, Jamey, Louise, Carolyn
to share this portion of Kenny’s testimony that Kenny wrote in his own words from pages 18-19 and it fits nicely here:
“When I was just two years old, my biological father abandoned my mother and me. For the next 4 years, she raised me as a single mom. When I was six, she married a man named Coy Isaacs. At ten years old, Coy adopted me, and my last name was legally changed from Warren to Isaacs. That Father’s Day in 1962, as a gift to him, I began calling Coy “Daddy.” From that year on, I considered him my father.
I soon came to the conclusion that my parents liked to move. In my twelve years of education, I went to 13 schools in seven cities in four states throughout the Southeast. So I was always “the new kid.” One day when I was in third grade, I looked outside to see our 1956 Chevrolet loaded with my bed strapped to the top. We drove all day into the night to the new town my parents had chosen. Around the time I might be able to start settling in, we’d leave for the next stop. The longest time I spent in one place was my last two years in high school in Boone, North Carolina, where I graduated.
& Ken at well pump, southern Ethiopia, 1990
Sadly, my daddy, Coy, died in 1979 of a massive heart attack when I was twenty-seven. In 2002, after deciding to try to find my biological father, I was able to locate him. After just one visit, I was grateful that he left Mom and me all those years ago. We were clearly better off and so blessed that Coy had come into our lives.
NOW LET’S RETURN TO KENNY’S TESTIMONY OF HOW HE CAME BACK TO CHRIST AND ENDED UP WORKING AT SAMARITAN’S PURSE:
KEN: By the time my wife and I were probably in our late 20s, early 30s, things of a spiritual nature started coming back up. And then at 34 we rededicated our lives to Christ. As a result of that and going to church, I got involved with the North Carolina Baptist men and went with them as a volunteer to West Africa for a month.
When I came back from that trip, I felt God was calling me to the world. And I couldn’t even explain that. I
Kenny, southern Ethiopia, 1990
Solomon
mean, I’m from this area. My wife was born and raised here, and when I came home and told Carolyn, I feel called the world, she looked at me and said, “have you lost your mind?”
That discussion went on for a while. I prayed about it. “You know, God, if you’ve got something for me, if you open the door, I’ll go through it.” And I prayed that prayer for 16 or 17 months, and nothing happened. I stopped praying that prayer because I thought no answer meant NO.
Then in 1986 Dewey Wright Well and Pump Company drilled a well at Franklin Graham’s house and I took the opportunity to leave him my business card and said, “if something comes up about water in Africa, and I could help you, let me know.”
Our younger son was eight, and it was an adventure for him to go see the elephants or whatever. I could go on about him too, but the point is it changed the nature of our family totally and strengthened us in the Lord. Being in Ethiopia expanded our worldview, and it put our lives on a much different course.
BEN: So, you transition from digging wells to living in Ethiopia for three years to directing major relief operations around the world since 1990?
KEN: That’s right, and I would return to Ethiopia in 1991 when the communist government was overthrown. Therefore, my own experience as a missionary to Ethiopia came in handy when war broke out. Here’s what happened:
It wasn’t long until around August of 1987 he had someone reach out to me and asked me to come and talk to him. After that talk my family and I moved to Ethiopia. We lived there for three years and set up a Clean Water Well Drilling program in Ethiopia. There were two wars going on there. It was a very rich learning environment.
BEN: I knew you went to Africa with SP, but didn’t know you lived in Ethiopia. So, you took the whole family?
KEN: Yeah, the whole family. Our oldest son was 16 and getting ready to go into senior year of high school. He wasn’t happy about moving to Ethiopia at first, but it ended up working out well for him because he went to the international community school there in Addis, Ababa. It was there he found out that he was gifted in linguistics, so today he speaks four languages. From there, he spent 17 and a half years in the Marines and went to Naval Postgraduate School. Now he’s in Texas and working for Amazon.
As a result of the war that overthrew the ruling Communist government, there were about 60 or 70,000 displaced refugees that came into Addis Ababa trying to escape the conflict. About 60,000 of them moved into an open roof football stadium and within that population were quite a few pregnant women, ready to give birth. So, we decided to take them to a greenhouse we had been to where we put some mattresses down, got some medical staff and birth attendants in, and we brought the pregnant women in where they could have a clean, dignified place to have birth.
Our mission at SP is to go to the ditches of life and look for people and help them in Jesus’ name. And we want people to know that God loves them. We want to show them love and introduce them to Jesus. The mission is always the same: These women are going to have babies. We’re gonna do something. And so, we brought those ladies out of the stadium, and we probably ran that program for two months.
Ken, Carolyn, Jamey & Coy at departure from Boone, August 1988
During that same year, the first Gulf war was launched in May of 1991. As I recall, Saddam Hussein attacked the Kurds who primarily live in a mountainous region called Kurdistan. Editor’s note: (Kurdistan spans across parts of Eastern Turkey, Northern Syria, Northern Iraq and Western Iran. It also has smaller communities in Armenia and Azerbaijan.)
About that time, I came back to Boone and Franklin Graham asked me to go to Turkey. I went there with a couple other guys, and we worked our way down to Iraq. It was there that the US Ambassador to Iraq gave us a helicopter to use. I was flying in and out of Iraq, seeing the Kurds and sitting down in the refugee camps and figuring out what was going on and what we could do to help.
After that I was on to Afghanistan and Somalia, then working around hurricane disasters, other wars, in Rwanda and Bosnia. Rwanda was a genocide. It was horrible. There were probably about a million people killed in just a few days.
forces fought to regain control of the city. That must have been incredibly intense.
KEN: Well, it was intense. And I think God gave us great favor. ISIS was moving all through northern Iraq and up in Syria. There was so much violence, and I went over there on a trip to meet with staff and with the doctors as well.
BEN: When I read your biography from your new book, I found it interesting that you were awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award from Health Outreach to the Middle East (H.O.M.E). The award was for leading the response that deployed Samaritan’s Purse’s Emergency field hospital to Mosul, Iraq as Iraq security
They were doing mobile medical clinics, and they were telling us that more needed to be done.
When I got there, I had coffee with a lady and her assistant and our country director over there. I hadn’t seen her in some years. She worked with the UN and asked me, “So what’s going on in the world of Samaritans Purse?” I said, oh, you know, working and developing mobile field hospitals. So, she wrote down a guy’s name in the World Health Organization and said, you need to call him. So, I called and went and visited him the next day, and the World Health Organization was looking for a hospital, but a hospital is not a box of stuff, it’s a team of people, and you gotta have the doctors, anesthesiologists and nurses and all those things. And we had that.
So anyway, we ended up putting a hospital down about 10 kilometers east of Mosul. We had a fantastic group of people staffing that hospital, and we stayed there for nine months. We performed 1,700 life saving surgeries
People fleeing Mosul area during time of conflict, 2017.
Medical staff treating patients in emergency room outside of Mosul, 2017
and had over 4,000 patients, and some of those patients were ISIS fighters. As long as I live in this world, I will always wonder how those patients got to us alive. Because there was so much killing and the survival rate was about zero.
BEN: It’s amazing that ISIS itself didn’t try to destroy the field hospital.
KEN: Well, you know, we had a Lebanese interpreter that didn’t look Arabic, who spoke fluent Arabic, and he was doing some attendant stuff in the men’s ward. And one of the chief fighters, you could tell he was by the way he dressed, the length of his pants, his beard and everything. He asked why are these people being so kind to us? We’re trying to kill them. And, you know, and I think that was an encouragement to all of us to continue to show the love of Christ, even to somebody that you know is antagonistic towards you and your enemy. God blessed us and gave us great favor there, and he used us in a mighty way.
BEN: Wow! In one of our previous Journey Magazine articles we shared Kayleen Lundstrom’s testimony which included serving at that hospital as a nurse and it blew me away.
When I think of the risks that so many of you take to help in the midst of great crises it reminds me of that
line in the song, “To Dream the Impossible Dream” that talks about being willing to march into hell for a heavenly cause.
Now let’s switch gears to talk about the chapter in your book that you titled:
“My Seventeen Month Detour Through Washington, DC.”
In that capacity, you served as Director of the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance with the US Agency for International Development, USAID. And under your direction, you served as the lead agency for US government relief responses and to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
KEN: Yes, I left Samaritan’s Purse during George W Bush’s first administration. I was the Director of the Office for Disaster Assistance called OFDA.
And yeah, that tsunami in Indonesia happened on December the 26th of 2004 and killed about 230,000 people. It was a huge emergency response. The United States government sent ships there and the Department of Defense was heavily involved. There were probably 15,000 Americans involved in the response.
I didn’t have any illusions that I was going to tell the military what to do, but I did go meet with the head generals and offered to provide senior humanitarian advisors in every appropriate rank of their strategic decision making and they quickly and warmly accepted the offer. I had people sitting next to every general, next to all the admirals that were involved. We had them on aircraft carriers. We had them in airplanes and military bases. And it worked out well, It was a big deal, but I learned a lot. You know, you learn a lot through experiences,
BEN: That’s so true and we could help people learn a lot from our failures and mistakes as well.
Starting the day with team-prayer, near Mosul, 2017
That segues nicely to make some final comments about your new book that is filled with the lessons you’ve learned from your many adventures in some of the most dangerous situations around the world.
KEN: The book is titled “Running to the Fire: Helping in Jesus’ Name.” It is a memoir of sorts, not that I think I’m finished, but it’s a memoir of things that I’ve seen in my over 37 years with Samaritan’s Purse. It’s a collection of some of the stories that you asked me about and how I got involved. From a well driller to the rest of the world. In the book I talk about my wife who died in 2017. She passed away from cancer. We were married 46 and a half years.
BEN: And you were probably the primary caregiver.
KEN: Yeh I was able to stay home and take care of her and work at the same time using the telephone, and people would come up to the house. I will be forever grateful for that latitude I had.
BEN: She was a great woman in her own right because of the sacrifices she made with you in Ethiopia, moving to Washington DC when you worked there and being alone for long periods of time when you were traveling to places where you could easily have died.
KEN: That’s true. Sometimes I’d be gone for three months, six months, nine months. I would come home and then deal with whatever I had seen and been exposed to which she was not aware of. She never pushed me, except to say, hey, get up, let’s go for a run. Let’s go for a walk. She was a great exercise person.
Carolyn and Ken underneath the Lalish holy site.
Yazidi holy site in Lalish, Kurdistan region, northeast Iraq, 2016
BEN: I think the fact that she deployed with you at the very beginning of your marriage was probably the thing that helped her. She knew the intensity of it all.
KEN: That’s good. She was always there for me. And sometimes I couldn’t talk about things for weeks or months. There was a period of my life where all the things that I was seeing you know, Bosnia and the genocides and all of this, they take a toll on you.
BEN: You probably had some trauma, like PTSD, right?
KEN: Yeah, it’s traumatic, but my wife was the perfect shoe on this old foot to make me feel comfortable and get me talking about it.
And you know, when we were up in New York City after 9/11, we went through stress management training down by the harbor to get our credentials. If you remember, to get to Ground Zero, you had to go there.
You had to take that eight-hour training, and we were one hour into that training, and I looked over at Mickey Stoner and Skip Heitzig and I said, guys, I’ve got Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I realized I’d been suffering with this for years, and I didn’t know what it was until that woman running the clinic, I think her name was Teresa, identified it in me.
I’ll never forget it. She explained to us what it was and what the symptoms were, and I’m listening to her, and I realized she’s describing me. I had been wrestling with those things for years, but the Lord carried me through all of that.
BEN: Here’s the million dollar question I didn’t ask at the beginning. And I know you shouldn’t do this, but it’s okay for men to do it. How old are you?
KEN: I will be 73 tomorrow.
BEN: Well, happy birthday. And tomorrow, you’re going to Israel? Is that right?
KEN: I’m going to Israel. I’m going to Gaza on my birthday.
BEN: I’m sure that’s a very intense situation to walk into.
KEN: It is, I’ve spent about four months in Israel, and
it’s intense. Also I spent about a year in Ukraine.
The world is a dicey place with a lot of things going on, and Samaritan’s Purse wants to be there. It’s not that we’re chasing adrenaline. We don’t do it because it’s fun. We know because we’re called to do it, but we literally run to the fire, and that’s what my book is about, running to the fire, helping in Jesus’ name.
BEN: And it seems like ever since you and I were together in New York City after 9/11, the world is getting darker.
KEN: You know, I look at the world today with the electronic communications, artificial intelligence, the wars, the famines, the storms, the floods, and I think of Matthew 24. I think it’s going to get worse. The speed seems to be picking up on the fulfillment of those verses. I’m not a theologian or a student of prophecy, but I read my Bible, and I can’t help but notice those things.
BEN: Yeah, I think the sad thing about many Christians in our American culture today is that they depend on others to tell them what the Bible says instead of devoting time to immerse themselves in the reading of God’s Word for themselves.
KEN: I would advise everybody to read the Bible. God’s word is straightforward, and there’s no denying things that are going on in the world today and that those things are written about in the Bible.
BEN: Well, thanks so much for taking the time with us today. We’ll be praying for you.
Carolyn and Ken in Iraq.
Ken with “Running To The Fire”
Ben Cox and Ken after interview in Ken’s office.
From left to right: Jane Graham, Franklin Graham, Ken Isaacs, President George H. W. Bush, Barbara Bush, Carolyn Isaacs, President Jimmy Carter.
As for prophecy (the gift of interpreting the
will and purpose), it will be fulfilled and pass away; as for tongues, they will be destroyed and cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away [it will lose its
and be superseded by truth].
1 Corinthians 13:13 and so faith, hope, love abide... of these three; but the greatest of these is love.*
Hi, I’m Dr. Derrick Denman, DC., PA. Let me personally invite you to our office. We’re conveniently located at the Shops @ Shadowline near Harris Teeter. Feel free to stop in, allowing me to shake your hand and take a few minutes for a quick office tour! We enjoy introducing folks to our patients, who’ve benefitted from our services. Their testimonials offer hope and encouragement to others! Don’t suffer another day. There is a better way, and… We’re Here to Help!
