These wonderful friends and faithful servants to God’s church move back East today. Bill and Rachel Roberts came out to minister to our church during a time of great need and difficulty. These sweet friends were just entering retirement after Bill’s 37 years of pastoral ministry, and could have driven off into the sunset to enjoy a well deserved break. Instead, the saw the need our church had for an interim pastor, responded quickly, and then moved in faith across the country to a snowy indy city in the middle of the winter!
Their presence at our church caused our whole congregation to breath a sigh of relief. While we had been so thankful for the weekly preaching provided by our denomination prior to that, to have a dedicated pastor to shepherd us through the season of finding a permanent pastor was God’s good gift to us.
Bill and Rachel arrived on scene, picked up the reins, and poured their hearts into each member and attendee at our church. They led bible studies, prepared food, hosted game nights, demonstrated hospitality, shared wisdom, taught membership classes, loved on our kids, preached faithfully (Bill), ministered to hundreds, participated in the lives of their congregation, and were great listeners and encouragers in a time when we so desperately needed it. Nick and I felt especially blessed to have these local leaders while we walked through a personal season of exhaustion.
The Lord answered so many prayers through this couple and we will never forget their ministry nor cease to be thankful for these gracious and humble friends.
Thank you for your prayers on behalf of our church this past year! God answered them in so many ways, and clearly through Bill and Rachel!
Will you also continue to pray for our church? We are without a local pastor again now, but our church voted unanimously last week to call a new pastor, Gary McNamee, and we are awaiting his answer to be our long term pastor. It’s an exciting and nerve wracking time as we wait to see what God will do for our church.
If you have a heart to serve, much like Bill and Rachel’s, consider coming to work in the Casper Reformed Presbyterian church plant. We often feel that even if this church plant closes and never takes off, serving in our church has been one of the most growing, stretching, challenging, humbling, rewarding experiences in our lives.
Kathryn Rayes, Casper RP
