Our Leadership

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One of the things that we highly value is listening to one another's stories. In particular, we love to hear about how people are encountering Jesus in their day-to-day lives. This might be in big ways...but it also happens most often in smaller ways (sometimes in ways that are really easy to miss.)

On this page you will find a treasure trove of such stories! May your own walk with Jesus be deeply encouraged and nourished by what you read here.

If you are interested in sharing some of your story here, please email us to let us know!

Veteran

I went into the Coast Guard at the tail end of the Vietnam war. I was stationed in Kodiak, Alaska on the Coast Guard cutter Storis. And even though the war in Vietnam was winding down, the Cold War with Communist Russia was going strong. We spent much of our time patrolling for Soviet ships. We had training on NBC warfare. (Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical warfare.) I remember once, for a whole week, we had training with the US Navy. There were two or three Naval ships there

Steve Pettijohn

10 hours ago3 min read

Prison Volunteer Part 2

This is a continuation of a previous blog post about volunteering at the Monroe Penitentiary. There are rules to volunteering in the prison system. The typical prison attire is khakis with a white tee shirt or a gray sweatshirt. So volunteers are discouraged from wearing either. No shorts, or revealing or immodest clothing. Volunteers are not allowed to bring in computers, iPads, iPhones or Apple watches, only pen and paper. Or materials pre-approved by the prison. Walle

Bob Witty

Nov 54 min read

Follow the Promise in Chalk

When Julie and Tim told me over the summer that the fall sermon series was “Follow the Promise,” tracing the lineage of Jesus, I knew I wanted to turn the letters of “promise” into stories from that lineage for the sanctuary chalkboards. As I brainstormed and revisited stories where biblical characters followed God’s promise, I was struck by how they were all so very much in the middle of their own stories, and the story, God’s story. The P represents Noah. God commanded h

Marisa Peterson

Oct 283 min read

Everybody Needs A Dave

As a longtime Seattle Mariners fan, my most memorable birthday occurred three years ago. I was privileged to spend an inning in the broadcast booth with the Mariners broadcaster Rick Rizzs. Having long admired Rick, this unique opportunity was indeed a thrill. He is a class act! Last month Rick signed-off as the play-by-play announcer for the Mariners with an emotional farewell for fans. In his poignant remarks he paid tribute to Dave Niehaus, the legendary Mariners’ broadcas

Greg Asimakoupoulos

Oct 193 min read

Prison Volunteer

It was October of 2017 that Jani James sent out her famous email, “Prisony Stuff.” Happily, my experience with prison had been on the visitor side of the glass. 1968, King County jail, visiting a Hippy acquaintance who was busted for possession of marijuana. 1969, McNeil Island, visiting the brother of a friend incarcerated for bank robbery. 2001, Monroe State Prison, visiting with some volunteers with Prison Fellowship. ("A bent reed He will not break. A dimly burning w

Bob Witty

Oct 153 min read

Evacuation!

In late July, I went to Young Life’s high school camp, Washington Family Ranch at Canyon in Central Oregon. The prior week, campers had been sent home early because of the nearby Cram Fire. That fire didn’t really threaten the camp directly, but they evacuated as a precaution. We campers knew about the evacuation, but assumed things were OK because - Here we are! They let us come! Although the air was hazy and smoky, we thought it must be OK. On the third day of camp, ar

Lyla Watson

Oct 84 min read

Rainbow of Promise

In mid-September we had a blustery, windy, rainy day on Lake Sammamish. The skies darkened; the rain came pelting down with gale force winds. They blew in sideways getting everything wet, even things under cover. The lake had white caps. I had no desire to go outside. I was grateful for a warm, dry house. As I looked out, I thought about Noah and what he must have been looking at on the ark. I can imagine him looking out and seeing what I saw: lots of water, gray clouds

Bob Witty

Oct 12 min read

The Eyes Have It

Three years before we met as freshmen in college, my wife and I had a similar experience. At the age of fifteen we both sat for gifted artists who used pieces of pastel chalk to create images of who they saw sitting before them. Wendy’s portrait was done in Mexico City by Gordon Wetmore, who would later paint Richard Nixon. My portrait was done at Lohr’s Pharmacy in Wenatchee by Srae Stronach who had painted Harry Truman. Both portraits hang in our bedroom six decades later.

Greg Asimakoupoulos

Sep 253 min read

I Shifted

In high school, a “Jesus Freak” told me about Jesus. A few weeks later, I decided to accept Jesus as savior. But not 100%, not yet. Not fully yet. Then in Alaska on a Coast Guard ship, a cook told me again about Jesus. Then in Seattle, still in the Coast Guard, I saw the “I Found It” billboards and called the number. A man came to the base to talk to me once more about Jesus. This time it was different. This time I made Jesus my Lord and Savior. Shortly after, I met Karen,

Steve Pettijohn

Sep 183 min read

A Memorable Summer Recalled

The summer of 2001 was memorable for many reasons for our family. Our oldest daughter graduated from high school. Both my folks and my wife’s folks celebrated their 50th wedding anniversaries. Those celebrations included family reunions in both Wenatchee (my hometown) and Seaside, Oregon (where my in-laws had honeymooned in 1951). It was the summer my brother and I traveled to Norway to visit the birthplace of our immigrant grandfather who left home with his four brothers t

Greg Asimakoupoulos

Sep 103 min read

Mom's Ashes

Mom passed into the arms of Jesus on February 10, 2022. On August 17, 2026, I knew what to do with her ashes. Since February 2022, her ashes have been sitting in a cardboard box, enclosed in a green velvet bag. They weigh five and a half pounds. I scattered my dad’s ashes on Tiger Mountain in 2020, on the Bus Trail, a wheel chair accessible trail that loops around to Tradition Lake and features an ancient abandoned school bus. Although I had permission to scatter the ashes

Jani James

Sep 33 min read

Celebrating A Remarkable Life

Canada, Mexico and the United States hosted this year’s FIFA World Cup. Those same three nations hosted a most remarkable life over the course of ninety-five years. She was my wife’s mother and she died last month. Norma Steven was born and raised in British Columbia. She served as a missionary with Wycliffe Bible Translators in Mexico City and spent the last six decades of her adult life in Southern California. Her life, like the soccer tournament that highlighted our summer

Greg Asimakoupoulos

Aug 273 min read

Assumptions

“Bob,” the voice on the phone says, “we have a problem…with a breaker in our electrical panel at church. It keeps tripping. It won’t hold.” Never a good scenario. My mind kicks into overdrive reviewing all the different possibilities and what may be the cause. “It's the breaker that feeds our server and computer cabinet. I think it might be a bad breaker,” Kent (the voice on the phone) clarifies. Okay, good. More information. At least now I have an idea of what it fe

Bob Witty

Aug 203 min read

All's Well

This pastoral search has been an absolute delight. Not one day have I known what I was doing. As our Leadership Team put together the Pastoral Search Team (PST), I found my arm volunteering to chair the team before my mind caught up. My heart was fertile ground for God’s move. I told the Lord, “We are not going anywhere that You are not leading, and we won’t move until you say.” Our time this winter and spring was spent praying, studying our Covenant missional markers (remem

Beth Soderlund

Aug 132 min read

It's a Wonderful Memory

I met Karolyn Grimes, best known for her portrayal of Zuzu, George Bailey’s youngest daughter in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” shortly after our family moved back to Washington State from the Midwest in 2005. As the new pastor of the Covenant church in our community, I invited Karolyn to share her faith journey with our congregation. She graciously agreed. In the course of that interview, I realized her life (unlike the title of her movie) has not been all that wonderful. Karolyn

Greg Asimakoupoulos

Jul 314 min read

Sagrada Familia

Our big to-do for the summer was getting our immediate family together for a vacation in July; daughters, husbands, grandkids. It ended up being a vacation in a little town about an hour north of Barcelona. We would stay in a 14 bedroom mansion with a large swimming pool, tennis court and a short walk to the beach. We began planning this a year in advance and, to our amazement, everyone said they would come. We didn’t pre-plan a lot of activities, but I did try to get guid

Bob Witty

Jul 303 min read

Twilight

I was awake at 5:30am, even though the cloud cover muted the eastern sun, usually so bright at that hour. I puttered around, making tea until Greta woke up. Kent and I were staying in a house on the beach on Whidbey Island. Our job for the week was Grandma and Grandpa Camp with our grandsons, no hard task with the beach at hand and two World Cup games to watch. As the first one up in the morning, my task was to make sure Greta could get outside right away when she woke up.

Jani James

Jul 243 min read

Celebrating God's Global Family

OK! I admit it! I am a proud American. I don’t just listen to the National Anthem when it is sung at sporting events, I sing along, I religiously fly the Stars and Stripes on every national holiday. In addition, my closet has an array of patriotic apparel for such occasions. What a blast it has been dressing up to cheer on our team in the World Cup and to celebrate our nation’s 250th birthday. Seeing others wearing their flag sweaters and USA jerseys prompted the realization

Greg Asimakoupoulos

Jul 153 min read

Coming Home Part Four

A rule of thumb with problems is that they come in threes. Returning home this year, my problems came in four groups of three. In the Lord’s mercy, they didn’t come all at once. There was the water heater, in-floor heat, the HVAC system, multiple waterfront issues. The last group came in the form of our boat lift cover and the frame that supports it. The boat lift cover is a heavy canvas laid over a light duty frame and attached to the frame with heavy duty cord. The fr

Bob Witty

Jul 103 min read

America the Colorful

The purple mountain majesties and snow-white Mt. Rainier remind me of what's grand to me and you. There's Red Rocks Park and Yellowstone. Mt. Rushmore's hills are black. And add to that our flag's red, white and blue. I recently came across this little rhyme that I penned in my journal a decade ago while pondering our nation’s birthday. At the time it dawned on me that America is not only beautiful. It is also colorful. To the aforementioned American communities of color, I c

Greg Asimakoupoulos

Jul 33 min read