A Little Bit of Auction History

In 1990, James B Notkin, then pastor of Youth Mission & Ministry, started the auction as a way for students to fund their own missions.

“From the beginning it was an endeavor to believe in students, to build community among the students, and to foster a greater relationship between youth and the greater church.”

In the last 20 years, the auction has funded the construction of 217 houses in Mexico, and has helped several thousand YMM students go on missions not just to Mexico but to Los Angeles, New York, Wapato, Scotland, El Salvador, Ecuador, and more.

Under Two Conditions

One year, a 95-year-old UPC woman donated a 1967 Chrysler New Yorker, complete with an eight-track tape player. She requested a starting price of $3,500.

A UPC member who knew something about cars saw the price and told James B, “You know, that car is worth six-hundred dollars, tops.”

Later in the day, James B encountered that same UPC member writing a check to buy the car for more than $3,500. He told James B, “I’m going to do this under two conditions: One, I don’t want the car. And two, I don’t ever want to see the car again.”¹

Two for One

One year Walt Wagner donated a private in-home piano concert. He agreed beforehand that if bidding reached $4,000 he would do two concerts, one for each of the $4,000 buyers.

When bidding approached $4,000, the student auctioneer told the audience that if bidding got up to $4000, then Walt would do two concerts—for the price of one. And that’s exactly what happened.

Dessert with Earl

To solicit donations for the auction, Edge students have pre-auction phone parties where they call UPC members and request donations. Donors are asked to estimate the value of items so that students have an idea of where to start the bidding.

During one of these phone parties, a high school girl set down her phone during the middle of a call and announced:

“I have some guy named Earl on the phone, and he thinks that dessert with him is worth eight-hundred dollars!”

One Woman’s Ministry

Each year, one UPC woman (who will remain anony­mous) bids on lots of items she has no intention of buying. She does this to increase the price, so that whoever ends up buying the item has to donate more money toward YMM missions.

Of course, sometimes no one outbids the woman. Every year she ends up with an assortment of items she didn’t necessarily want, which she usually gives away.

Rejected Items Include …

• A half-eaten jar of peanut butter
• A package of Depends
• A shower seat

This year’s Youth Mission Auction is Sunday, March 13. Click here for details.

I love UPC. I have been coming since my Mom and dad felt awake enough to bring me. When I was a couple weeks old, I guess we sat in the back of the big church. I don’t remember that.

If we are on time to church, Policeman George waves us into the parking lot. Even though I know he’s a good guy—he even gave me a police sticker once—I’m still a little shy around him. If we are late, dad pulls into this special spot right by the door but he can only be there for a few minutes, so my Mom hurries my brother, Karl, and me out the door. I’m not really sure what all the fuss is about.

Now that I’m four, I’m in a very important class on the third floor. We have a special password to get in to class, wear our nametags on the front of our shirt, and even get to have choir practice after our class. I miss Teacher Jill from last year but this class is serious. We learn some pretty important stuff.

Did you know that the Israelites didn’t have time to put leaven in their bread before they crossed the desert? Leaven makes bread fluffy and it’s pretty flat without it. I really like it when I can play with the desert after the story time. I’ve been to a desert, you know. In Arizona. You can ask me sometime about my favorite cactus.

After class, I like to slide down the railing from the third to second floor. A lot of the kids do it. There are special kid rails on all these stairs. Just for us!

We pick up my brother, Karl, from his “baby class.” He’s two and isn’t really in a big kid class yet. But he likes his teachers, Paul, Sue, and Anne, very much. He has a hard time leaving sometimes. They were my teachers too when I was two. But now I’m four, remember?

I love what comes next. Snacks. Sometimes we go to Starbucks but since this last summer, we go to the big room. In the summer, Pastor Tim was making pancakes and I got to put whipped cream on them! We sometimes sit with Grandma and Grandpa and sometime with our friends.

Also, sometimes I get to come to the big church. That’s where Mom and Dad hear their story and sing their songs. They have a really big class with a lot of people. I love how loud the organ is and also the windows with all the colors. I could look at them for a long time. I was really excited that I got to come to the big church during Christmas time to watch the bigger kids light the candles.

Last year, at Christmas time, Mom and Dad snuck me in for the ‘wonder of it all’ and we ended up sitting in the second row right behind Pastor Tim and the other pastors in their blue robes. Well, I guess I got a little fidgety and started dropping pew pencils on the ground. They make a nice “tinkling” sound when they hit the floor and I guess I liked that but Mom said we had to go. We snuck out during a prayer. I’m pretty sure no one saw because when you pray, you have to close your eyes.

On the way to school this fall, I realized something, and Mom thought I should tell you too. I was talking about how school and Community Bible Study have a summer break and I told Mom, “Isn’t it great that church doesn’t have a summer break?” I think so.

– Jackson

Nancy at the tree line on Mount Adams

In August 2010, three UPC women climbed Mount Adams—the second highest peak in Washington—to raise funds for Team Survivor Northwest, an organization promoting fitness for women overcoming breast cancer. All of the women on the climb were cancer survivors, and their combined participation raised about $60,000 for Team Survivor.

Nancy Haunty and her husband, Jake, joined UPC just prior to their marriage in 2001. A year later, Nancy was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent successful treatment. In 2007, a local recurrence occurred—but, after six more months of chemo, Nancy was doing well.

Then, last summer, Nancy began experiencing unusual back pain. Tests brought crushing news: she was diagnosed with stage four (advanced) breast cancer; it had spread to her spine, liver, and lungs.

The timing was “especially cruel for us,” recalled Nancy with tears. She and Jake were in the final stages of adopting an infant daughter.

Nancy and Dawn

During subsequent chemo treatments, Nancy walked around her neighborhood and tried to stay fit. “It wasn’t working,” she admitted. “I needed a group to keep me motivated.” Then she heard about Team Survivor Northwest and began “tagging along” on their regular hikes, not sure whether she’d be able to do the Mount Adams climb. But her chemo treatments ended in time and her oncologist gave the go-ahead.

Nancy had never been on a backpacking hike. “I haven’t slept in a tent since I was eight years old,” she said with a laugh.

But the months of training were successful: Nancy reached the summit of Mt. Adams and gained some unexpected benefits.  Previously, she felt isolated by her cancer diagnosis. “I gained a whole support network,” she said.  “It’s been very therapeutic and healing to be so supported [by this group of women] at a time when I really needed them.”

A special experience on the climb was the prayer flag ceremony, when women unfurled flags they had created, most of them honoring a loved one with cancer or in memory of someone who had died of the disease. Nancy made three prayer flags: one to honor her husband for all his support, another for a friend who has stage four breast cancer, and a flag representing “prayers of blessing” for the little girl Nancy and Jake almost adopted.

Another climber, Dawn Siler, came to UPC in 2005 and became involved in several ministries, including World Markets and Second Wind hikes. Then came her cancer diagnosis in 2008.

“Some of the people from the Monday evening Bible study and other friends from UPC really gathered around me and prayed with me,” Dawn recalls. “I was so grateful for that support.”

Over the past ten years, Dawn has hiked a lot: “That’s where I go to worship God and to celebrate his creation and his redemption.” Still, she found climbing Mount Adams a challenge because of the high altitude. “It was much more painful for me [than I expected] in the final ascent.” To keep motivated, Dawn meditated on two dozen loved ones—including a half-dozen family members—whose lives have been impacted by cancer. “I breathed a prayer [for these people] as I walked and just remembered them in my heart.”

The third UPC climber, Pam Davies, works at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance and saw ads for Team Survivor’s weekly fitness classes—free for all women with a cancer history—posted in the elevator. “I had no excuse not to go to exercise class, because it was right there in my building.”

Then Pam heard about their upcoming climb but doubted she could do it. Her radiation treatments three years ago caused significant lung damage. “I was quite breathless,” she recalled. “I would have to stop and rest after one flight [of stairs].”

In spite of her doubts, Pam decided to join the training program laid out by a certified fitness trainer for all the women going on the climb. Her months of hard work paid off. “I never thought I’d be able to participate in this level of activity again.” In her high school and college years, Pam had climbed many major peaks in the Pacific Northwest. After her cancer diagnosis, she thought those days were gone forever.

“To be able to summit the second highest peak in Washington is just amazing,” she said. “It was dramatic, it was moving. The group was really helpful; I couldn’t have done it on my own.”

Dawn Siler said she made the climb, in part, “out of my gratitude for God’s goodness to me. It was a wonderful time of spiritual renewal.”

Nancy Haunty said being out in the mountains was really healing. “I felt God’s presence. It was an anchor to hold onto.”

In Psalm 23, David says the Lord is with us when we “walk through the valley of the shadow of death,” a familiar feeling to all cancer survivors. But these women have left the valley and now are climbing mountains—and finding God there as well.

7 pm worship service

Last November I entered the UPC Sanctuary on a Sunday night at 7 pm pretty beat down. I had just spent the last year living in the San Francisco Bay Area working at a job that drained me spiritually, emotional, and mentally. After that job I was unemployed for several months, living in a hippie house in Berkeley, and figuring out how to feel productive and accomplished with all this new free time. Nothing worked.

Several months of unemployment took its financial toll as well. It didn’t take too long to realize that I would have to do what no college grad wants to do… move back home.

I began to pack my stuff into a little 1996 Saturn sedan to drive back home to Seattle. The drive through southern Oregon was beautiful that November day, but through the mountains the Saturn decided it had had enough and it broke down. I was stranded at a rest stop in the middle of the woods, six hours from Seattle, with the sun going down.

My father drove down to Oregon that night to pick me up and help send the Saturn to the junk yard the next morning. The cost to repair it was more than the car was worth. So long, freedom of transportation.

So I returned to Seattle, after a year in San Francisco, with little money, no car, no job, and my childhood bed waiting at my father’s house in Mill Creek. It deflated my sense of independence, to say the least.

I had worked as an intern for University Ministries, so that first Sunday in Seattle it was second nature to drive down to UPC for church. Of course, I had to get permission to borrow my father’s car. As I said earlier, I entered the Sanctuary for the 7 pm service feeling pretty crushed.

I had heard that things were changing at the 7 pm service—some young blood was given the opportunity for leadership and it was going to be a service that took more risks and experimented with worship. Risk? Experiments! At UPC?! But this isn’t science class or mountaineering, this is church! I must admit I was skeptical, a little intrigued, but mostly desperate for any place to go that wasn’t Mill Creek.

The Sanctuary was the same as I had always remembered. The stained glass windows were beautiful, the large ceilings provided a sense of awe and wonder, and the sculpture of the Last Supper always sends an electric jolt down my soul.

Up front I noticed younger faces, interesting facial hair, more jeans and T-shirts than the typical Presbyterian attire of “business casual.” As someone in the target-market age for most churches, I can sniff out right away when a service is trying too hard to appeal to younger audiences. Before the 7 pm service started, this trendy-church spidey-sense was tingling.

The room was dark, candles were lit, and the service began. There was an introduction by a familiar face, someone I knew from my days of working at the church. Things did not feel very different, but then the music began.

Music is not everything in worship, but that night I particularly remember melody and rhythm enveloping me in a very true sense of God’s presence. It might have been a number of things—the mood of the night, my hunger for community after a year of turmoil, being lampooned in Oregon, a future of jobless suburban living—but that night I began an important relationship with the 7 pm service.

I introduced myself to the new leadership and thanked them for such a reverent, surprising, and engaging service. And then I realized that there was more going on at 7 pm than just a change of musical style and leadership. There were amazing people gathering together in community and fellowship.

I had spent many Sundays the previous year attending church services in the Bay Area with this sneaking feeling that most people were going through the motions. Sunday was the day to hear a sermon, drop the kids off at childcare, listen to some nice live music, and politely connect with acquaintances or folks from the small group. Watching people go through the motions always made me feel disconnected from the point of church as a community of believers. What do these people believe? I concluded that, for these people, going to church on Sunday must be as mundane as going to the grocery store.

After a year of observing such stale communities I was overwhelmed by the close-knit fellowship at the 7 pm service. It wasn’t like I was bombarded by friendly greeters or asked to share the state of my soul to a pew neighbor, but the camaraderie in the room was very apparent. People enjoyed being together.

And people were happy to see me. From my time as an intern with UMin I saw students I had worked with, church staff that were still around, and old friends from my time as a college student at UW. This was a place where I was well cared for and well known. This is what I lacked for the year in San Francisco.

If we think of church like a house then UPC is kind of like your grandparents’ house. It may not be the edgy college house with the rock band in the basement, but it is warm and inviting, consistent in its love and support. People may leave UPC to explore the world or other communities, but when they return from their explorations UPC is always there to listen, encourage, and supply a place to hang your hat.

Most people my age don’t want to spend their Sundays at their grandparents’ house—they want to go on adventures, carve their own path in the world. I do not blame them; I carved my own path that year in San Francisco, but I wonder if things fell through so epically that year so that I could arrive at a place of utter dependence on God and community in Seattle.

The 7 pm service seems to be the place that met me right where I was. And funny that our theology about the incarnational Christ, God taking human form, to meet us where we are shows us that God’s presence is intimately involved in our lives and stories.

This service has been home for me this past year and I am indebted to it as a place of grace, truth, and surprise. My father joins me for church at 7pm now—this is the first time he has been to church since he was a kid, nearly 50 years ago. I don’t live in my father’s house any more—I have started seminary at Seattle Pacific University—but he still drives down from Mill Creek to be a part of the community. Words cannot explain how meaningful it is for me to share that time with my father.

So even though UPC may be like your grandparents’ house, there is something happening around 7 pm where people old and young gather in the cool of night for an intimate community that plays fantastic music, prays together, listens to God’s word from the sacred texts, takes communion, and connects with a community of believers. Sounds like spending a Sunday with the grandparents might be cooler than you think.

Amelie and Olivia browsing the World Vision Catalog

Christmas is such a special, magical time for children. But as parents, we want to make sure our kids know that Christmas means much more than receiving gifts! As we’ve meandered through toddlerhood, preschool, and now the elementary school years with our two daughters, Olivia (7) and Amélie (5), we’ve found that a few simple traditions have helped us, as a family, to focus on the needs of others and share the love of Christ with people nearby and worlds away:

• Give a Goat! One of our favorite ways to serve at Christmas time is through gift catalogs from organizations like World Vision, Agros, and Compassion, to name a few. We put our children in charge of a portion of our family’s holiday budget for giving. (It’s good for the math skills too.) Our kids spend hours selecting and examining what they can give: a bunny rabbit, a goat, a soccer ball, school supplies. This also provides rich conversations about gratitude, of basic needs we take for granted, and how much of our world lives on so very little.

• Bring Christmas to a Child. Our family supports a child from Compassion International born the same month and year as Olivia. This gives us a very tangible way to support, pray, and write letters to our “adopted” son, Andre. We pay for the monthly fee, but for Christmas and birthdays the kids raise the money for gifts. We’ve found that the girls are very motivated, especially when they realize that without their help Andre may not receive a single gift for Christmas.

• Fill Up a Shoebox. Samaritan’s Purse has a fun shoebox project we’ve participated in for several years. You get a shoebox, fill it up, and they send your packed box filled with necessities and some toys to be distributed by local churches or relief organizations in other parts of the world. It has been so empowering for our daughters to pick out the items, pack the boxes themselves, and then write a letter to the intended child. Their eyes light up when they see the pictures and follow-up literature from children who have received boxes from this program!

• Remember your missionaries. Growing up as a Missionary Kid (Amy), I have vivid memories of the packages we received from supporting churches and friends. Today, the missionary families we support love special candies and treats from the U.S., spice packets, activity books for their children, etc.  If you’re not able to send a package, include your children in the conversation of why you may not be ordering pizza tonight, but instead are sending missionaries an additional check for Christmas.  Have your kids make a Christmas card to send along.

• Go shopping! Our family has been involved with UPC’s Street Youth Ministries for over a decade. Each holiday season we take the girls shopping to select just the right socks, scarves, and hats to give. Now with Tent City so close and visible, when you come to and from church no doubt you are answering the same questions about those without permanent homes. When you buy socks for the program through the deacon fund, it gives a visible impression of who the items are for.

• Love your neighbors. Don’t forget your neighbors! Who in your neighborhood could use some encouragement or kindness – especially during the holidays? This may be as simple as bringing over some baked cookies or helping with a chore. Throughout the year, we continually ask: “who in our neighborhood are we going to show kindness to today?”

Our family has been given so much.  As you explore your own family traditions, think about ways to incorporate giving and serving. It takes planning and budgeting. Not only do traditions help make the holidays a lot more meaningful for your family, but they can be avenues to see the world and bless others with the true meaning of Christmas.

Flora May & Bob in Kauai

For Bob Bradley, church isn’t just a Sunday-morning activity. It’s a gathering place for all aspects of life: social, familial, and spiritual.

Bob, 88, and his wife Flora May, 83, are two of UPC’s longest-attending members. Bob grew up in Seattle regularly attending church with his family, which prompted him to become a member when he was only 12 years old. Flora May didn’t move to the area until her teenage years and joined in the early ’40s.

The pair met at a UPC service, the day after Bob returned from serving in the Pacific with the Army in World War II.

“We were in the Christian Endeavor group,” Flora May remembers. “His sister — she talked all the time about her brother coming home, but she had her best friend picked out for him.”

His sister wasn’t the only one; a friend of Bob’s had also taken it upon himself to map out his love life.

“He had two girls he wanted me to look at in the back of the church,” Bob said. “He says, ‘OK, we’re gonna date these two girls.’ I said, ‘You do what you want, and I’ll do what I want.’ ”

“I chose the girl who had the red sunburnt face from skiing,” he said, smiling at his wife.

The two were married in 1947 by then-pastor Dr. Peter Erickson, a cornerstone of life at UPC in those days. Bob had met Erickson 14 years earlier when he first came to the church.

“He won my heart when he gave us a demonstration of how to throw a curve ball,” Bob wrote in an autobiographical letter. “His office door was always open.”

Erickson isn’t the only character the Bradleys remember from those years; Bob’s Sunday School teachers are still fresh in his mind: In his letter, he recalls George McKean bringing a carton of Baby Ruth candy bars for the kids every week, as well as Mr. Guidinger taking the class out for swimming and basketball at the Washington Athletic Club.

When the Bradleys first joined, there was no Inn college ministry or The Edge youth program, but there was the Christian Endeavor group for high school and college students and the SkyMasters group, for the “young marrieds.”

“All our friends were involved in the SkyMasters group,” Flora May said. The couple explained that the group was formed after the war ended, and the rules stipulated that couples could only join if their combined ages added up to less than 88. “We were the most recently married, youngest people in that.”

SkyMasters met monthly in people’s homes for potlucks, movies and get-togethers, and held whole-group gatherings a few times a year. Members hosted sing-alongs in their homes after church every Sunday, which was a real highlight, Bob said. Two men from the group, Joe Capron and Cal Sigrist, lost their lives flying in the Air Force in World War II.  Joe’s memory is ably carried on by his brother Dave, the longest serving member of the UPC choir.

“We had programs, guest speakers—often somebody from the mission field,” Flora May recalls. “And we had a theme song we sang every time at the end.”

SkyMasters also went on retreats to Seabeck, a camp and conference center on Hood Canal. The group stayed together for decades, Bob said, only discontinuing its monthly meetings a few years ago.

“When we were raising our kids, [UPC] was the center of everything,” Flora May explained. “All our friends were involved in the SkyMasters group; we had a lot in common.”

Aside from participating in SkyMasters, where the Bradleys say they made many of their lifelong friends, the Bradleys were active in church life: both taught Sunday School for many years and found great reward in shepherding the youngsters.

In his letter, Bob recalls 23 years of teaching 4th, 5^th, and 6th grade boys.

“Many Septembers, I got their attention for the rest of the year by taking them on Saturday activities such as a hike in the Cascades or sitting in the end-zone bleachers at a Husky football game,” he wrote.

A few years ago, then, one of Bob’s former students came up to him and informed him that he was now teaching Sunday school himself.

“He wanted to show me what he was doing,” Bob said.

The Bradleys have weathered their share of storms at UPC; changes in leadership and organization over the years prompted some members to seek community elsewhere, but Bob and Flora May stayed put.

“There were some trying times,” Bob recalls, “but the changes were all for the better. I had no trouble accepting a new way of doing things. [UPC] was our connection to what we thought Christianity was all about; our principles kept us here.”

Flora May agreed.

“It’s been a support all our lives—all the time we’ve been together,” she said. “I think we were too busy to get upset,” she added with a laugh.

The Bradleys have played an influential role in the church over their many years of membership. During one of Bob’s three terms on Session with the mission and Christian adult education departments, he used his position as chair of the nominating committee to nominate the first woman elder. Nobody advocated it, he said; he just instituted it.

“I also told them we would not nominate any of ourselves or our spouses,” he said.

The Bradleys have poured years of time and energy into UPC, and the church has not let them down. Most recently, Flora May said she was very impressed with the compassionate response of the congregation when her brother passed away a short while ago.

“It’s always been a very caring group of people; they truly live the life of community together,” she said. “That really sort of tells what the church is — outreach of caring for other people.”

Dios le bendiga. That’s “God bless you” in Spanish, a phrase commonly heard when you say goodbye, accompanied by a kiss on the cheek. This, my friends, is characteristic of the unique and beautiful country known as Ecuador, which is also conveniently the place where I spent two months of my summer as a part of the University Ministries World Deputation program.

Other useful phrases in Español, you might ask? “Está bien,” “no soy fea,” “donde está el baño,” and “me gustan empanadas, dame una, por favor.”[1] Just in case you were wondering.

Running through a field of llamas--just one of the many things you can do in Ecuador

Ecuador is a South American country right on the equator, above Peru and below Colombia. People commonly think that being on the equator for the summer would a) be unbelievably hot and b) make a person incredibly tan. Both of these things, however, are false. Or at least they were in our home at a church in Cotacachi, a small mountain town at 8,000 feet. My Deputation team—Kellie, Allyssa, Mandi, Jamie, and myself—wore pants and sweatshirts most of the time, and it rained pretty much every afternoon without fail. But even that couldn’t detract from the amazing beauty around us. Towering green mountains, rolling fields, and clear lakes—they left us completely breathless. Pictures don’t do the country justice. I guess that just means you’ll have to go to Ecuador and find out for yourself!

Our missionary work covered a wide range of things. We worked for families from the church, doing anything from childcare to house-cleaning, from gardening to working in family-owned restaurants. Which, by the way, is where I learned how to make the aforementioned empanadas. We also taught English in a remote Ecuadorian village for two weeks to people ages 8 to 21, which was challenging, but probably one of our favorite parts of the trip. Other tasks of ours included starting the first English service at the church for American expatriates, singing worship at church—in both English and Spanish—running games and crafts at a kids camp, and painting the church, inside and out.

Amigos de Ecuador

One of the things that stuck out to me throughout my Deputation experience was an overwhelming sense of God’s love pouring out from the Ecuadorian people. The church we worked with was incredibly small and didn’t always have enough money to pay the pastor, and yet they would rent a bus and drive two-plus hours to a remote village to talk about Jesus to non-believers. That, my friends, is one of the greatest examples of God’s love that I’ve ever seen. Their selfless devotion to spreading the gospel and caring for others less fortunate than themselves was beyond inspiring. How many churches here have exponentially more than a tiny church in Cotacachi and yet don’t do as much with what they have? That was a question that constantly was, and continues to be, on my heart. All I can say is that the souls of the people there are beautiful.

On the Ecuador, doing their best Abbey Road impression

In Ecuador I constantly faced my own weakness and the necessity of relying on God. I’m the kind of person who feels the need to take care of others and get everything done myself, but in Ecuador everything familiar and comfortable was stripped away from me—my family, my friends, my boyfriend, the foods I’m used to, my language, and even my normal intake of oxygen (there’s not really a whole lot of air up there at 8,000 plus feet). And with all of that came the realization that I can’t do everything on my own. At first, that was defeating. But soon I found myself praying to God multiple times a day for everything. Even if it was as simple as “please get me through this day, Lord.” As time went on and challenges arose, I became more confident in the power and peace of Jesus. And even though it continues to be hard, I’m learning more and more to embrace my own weakness and turn it into reliance on the wonderful grace of God.

Another thing that struck me while I was on this trip was the idea of God as the ultimate Father. A bit of background info: my home life isn’t very good, and—to make it simple—I don’t really have a good father figure in my life. However, while I was in Ecuador, this idea of a father was just something I couldn’t get away from. It’s something I’m still working through, but I had the privilege of seeing what real and good, loving fathers look like in the men of the church, particularly our pastor host. Witnessing these very well put-together and connected families led me to thinking more about God as our heavenly father. And as simple as it is, it really hit me that God loves me and there’s nothing that I can do to make him love me more or less. To him, I am perfectly done; I am lovely. And I am his daughter. And he would do anything and everything for me. And in fact, he already has: he sacrificed his true and perfect son, something that would agonize any loving father. He lost his perfect child so that I could have the chance to live and love, even with all of my flaws and mistakes. And that is something that will continue to mystify and amaze me.

Deputation was a challenging but life-altering experience. I met people who are now a second family to me, I tried new foods (although regrettably not the Ecuadorian specialty dish of guinea pig), I learned new skills, worked on a new language, and discovered new things about myself and about God. And I got to zipline upside-down through the jungle, snorkel, paraglide off a cliff, and boat down a river in the Amazon.

I’d say that’s a pretty good summer, wouldn’t you?

The Moores at home

It seems safe to say that Wayne and Zaida Moore, at 99 and 97, respectively, are UPC’s oldest couple.  They’ve been attending UPC since 1938—72 years, seven senior pastors—and, although they can’t make it into the building anymore, they sometimes listen to services on the radio when they get reception.

One afternoon a few weeks ago I tagged along with Steve Elde, one of UPC’s pastoral care associates, as he visited the Wayne and Zaida in their Arroyo Beach home (which Wayne built with his own hands in 1950). They weren’t keen on appearing in the UPC Times—“If you’re looking for something interesting, you’re wasting your afternoon,” Zaida said—but agreed to share memories and wisdom from their long lives and long marriage.  As Steve said, Wayne and Zaida “are a treasure to UPC.”

Life Wisdom from Wayne & Zaida

Zaida, on Chores

“I used to worry about cleaning, but now that I’m almost 98, who cares?”

Zaida, on Marriage

“It’s hard to communicate. I don’t hear half of what he says, and he doesn’t hear half of what I say. The hearing aid lady says that’s probably why we’ve been married so long.”

Wayne, on Hobbies

“I had a gold pan in the back of my car all the time. Never found any gold.”

Zaida , on How UPC Has Changed Over the Years
“It got bigger.”

Zaida, on Age

“I never thought I’d live this long. I certainly did not. At one point I started watching what I bought at the grocery store, because I didn’t want to leave all these groceries behind. I don’t do that anymore.

Wayne, on What He Thought When He First Saw Zaida’s Photo

“Boy, that’s good. That’s just right.

Zaida, on What to Look for in a Man

“He was nice looking and tall, which was important. I used to be five-foot seven, and I was very interested in anybody tall. Wayne was six-foot three. I was attracted to him, I think. I must have been.”

Why Wayne Married Zaida

“I was making one-hundred dollars a month, so Wayne probably married me for my money.”

Wayne, on How to Propose

“I was eating supper at her mother’s house, and I grabbed her hand under the table and slipped a ring on it.”

Zaida, on God

“We’ve been blessed all along. We have a lot to be thankful for. We have aches and pains, but it could be worse. God looks after us, and we’re very thankful. We have lots to be thankful for.”

Wayne with his grandfather's Civil War journal

Memories from Wayne & Zaida

• Wayne remembers sitting on his grandfather’s lap, listening to him tell stories about the Civil War. His grandfather was in the signal corps, where he had to carry messages from one general to another. When his grandfather died, Wayne inherited his Civil War journals (see photos).
• During the depression, Zaida worked at Fredrick and Nelson’s for $13.50 a week—well above the minimum wage of $13.20.
• Wayne worked in the Boeing factory during the depression, and got drafted to fight in World War II. The armed forces didn’t take him, though, because he was working on B-17s at Boeing. He later went on to work on experimental projects.
• Zaida’s grandmother was a Baptist, but her grandfather was a Presbyterian. Zaida says they ended up going to the Presbyterian Church because “The Baptist Church was on the other side of town. The Presbyterian church was one block away.”