Bill and I met at a youth group roller skating party. His girlfriend introduced us but we got better acquainted about four years later during a mission trip to Houston, Ky. He had recently finished his tour of duty in the army, and I was one semester short of graduation from Geneva College. The Houston Mission was a home for children who were wards of the court from broken homes. The mission typically had 35–50 children ranging in age from 2 to 16. I had spent a year there earlier, between my freshman and sophomore years of college, teaching 1st through 4th grade. Now I was anxious to finish Geneva so I could return and teach again. The superintendent asked Bill to come to care for the farm animals and do other general farm work as well as be house father for the older boys. With a staff of eight we learned a lot about work, discipline and each other.

In a year and a half, the mission was closed due to state regulations. The mission had existed for 60 years without the state’s knowledge. We both returned to Beaver County, were engaged in October 1968, and married in May 1969.

We had both accepted Christ as our Savior as teenagers. We both loved the Lord and desired to do His will, so we started our married lives on the same page. We fostered two boys from Kentucky and then had Will, Nellie, Lydia and Rose. After living on Bill’s parents’ farm for our first years together, we found a historic house built in the 1860s. Bill worked for a lumber supply firm and could get building materials at cost, so we did the basic repairs of heating, plumbing, etc. We then sold the house, which gave us a financial base for sending the children to Beaver County Christian School. When Rose was six months old we moved back to the farm to help Bill’s parents. We had both grown up on a farm and wanted our children to learn responsibility and dependability as we had. As each child accepted Christ as their Savior, we saw our ideals and dreams being fulfilled. A big step in that course was joining the College Hill RP Church. It warms my heart when I meet someone and, upon hearing our name, they remember one of our children from a mission trip, a youth retreat, or from college.

In this walk with the Lord we want to emphasize that God was the planner, and we lived in His plan. We were blessed by seeing His will worked out in our daily lives.

After 45 years of marriage and having been Christians longer than that, it seems we would know our walk with the Lord backwards and forwards, but this year has shown us that He has more to teach us. Last June our son-in-law died; in August a nephew died of cancer; in October another nephew died; in January my 95-year-old mother-in-law died; and in March our next-door neighbor died. The thing we want to emphasize here is our Christian family—especially the church but also our friends and neighbors. We have seen Christ’s love extended in so many ways—hugs, food, babysitting, prayers, cards and other ways we never expected. We have met other people along the way who, knowing our sorrow, have shared their stories and made us realize we had become self-centered and complacent instead of sharing God’s love. Hopefully this awareness will remain, but, knowing our sinfulness, God will probably need to remind us again and again.

When you have the opportunity to help those who are grieving, whether by action or prayer, realize you are doing a wonderful work for the Lord and showing His love, not only to your fellow Christians but to those who don’t know Him—those who need to see how He is working in our world. One member of our church family changed the oil in my daughter’s car after her husband died. Another man mowed the lawn all summer. Some folks stayed with my invalid mother-in-law during one funeral and brought meals for the whole family. All these gifts of love meant more than flowers that fade and die so quickly. This was a testimony to non-Christian family members who witnessed the support of Christ’s love firsthand.

To help us remember to focus on others, we have made a list, which we need to review often, of neighbors and friends whom God has put on our hearts for prayer. Hopefully we will see ways of doing more than pray when God gives us the opportunity. Our prayer is to have open eyes to see His work.

–Vernice and Bill McChesney

Vernice and Bill live in New Galilee, Pa., and are longtime members of the College Hill (Beaver Falls, Pa.) RPC. They have four children and many grandchildren.