When Friends Leave

By Dan Amos

When the newsletter comes out, it will be Valentine’s Day. For two weeks, Fran has treated me to a daily paper heart with a thing she loves about me. One of the things I love about her is she challenges me when I need it. Recently she said, “You don’t have a lot of really close friends you open up to, and you’re losing one of your best friends in Martin. How are you doing with that?”

I didn’t really have an answer to that, because I was avoiding the question as much as possible. It was easy to go into the mode of “What do we do next as a church to fill his position?” That has already taken a lot of time and energy of those on the Elder Board and surely the staff, but just like everyone else, I have a personal reaction to Martin moving on.

As I remember it, our first Sunday in 1994 was Father’s Day. Martin had been at Elim a couple of months at that point and was not there that day. This is one of several things I haven’t let him forget. We met soon enough, and he remembers taking me to lunch at a Taco Time near McChord where I was stationed at the time. I’ll give him that one because I don’t remember it.

One of my first memories was a church picnic at his house out in Graham, and he introduced me to Rich Henderson and we were soon part of their community group. Martin put a lot of energy into getting people into CGs. We’ve been in one ever since and we led one for many years, but we’ve never been in Martin and Kim’s group. Most of those really close friends from our first groups have also moved on—to the Philippines, Edmonds, Montana, Arizona. In the previous 10 years, we had lived on three different continents; now we’re the stable ones.

I guess that brings me to one of the first things I’m feeling. I’m tired of my friends moving away. Just because family and opportunities are elsewhere doesn’t mean you’re allowed to leave. I know that’s not rational, but it’s a feeling, so it gets to be irrational.

Martin forced me to learn to say no to the pastor. He would call me (on the landline, because this was before cell phones and texting) and ask if I wanted to meet. It was usually at 7 a.m. on Saturday. This was his prime time. It was my only chance during the week to sleep in, and I grudgingly said yes for a long time. But I learned to say no. We’d push back to maybe 9 a.m. It was still not my favorite, but it was a compromise. He later heard it forcefully from my wife at a CG leaders retreat where he wanted to get things going at 8 a.m. on Saturday. She’d gone to a lot of trouble to get someone to stay with the boys for the weekend, and she wasn’t about to be up, dressed, and ready at 8 a.m. if she didn’t have to be. He changed the start time.

Our boys are similar in ages and spent a lot of time together. They engaged in healthy property destruction, fortunately mostly at the Schlomer house. This gave us the need to talk about the mysteries of raising kids, boys in particular. They are such a wild card that you can do your best putting into their lives, but what they choose to do with it is really up to them.

All three of our boys came to know Jesus supported by the ministries of Elim. Luke was baptized by Martin in what is now the Shorts’ hot tub. JC and Di Williams lived there at the time. Nathan was very proud to put a rose in the cross made by Gene Davies signifying a new believer at Elim. Andrew was probably about the same time, but back then he didn’t like being up front.

These memories are kind of all over the place, but that’s how relationships can be. Martin is my friend, and I am mourning the coming separation. He has been a big part of my adult life and a big part of my family’s growth. I imagine there are many who have similar feelings and are concerned about what is to come next.

As Jeff Foerster said, we have a big God who is not surprised by any of this. He is with us. Martin has invested in and empowered leadership for times such as this. We will calmly and deliberately find the best man we can to fill the position of senior pastor. He won’t be Martin, but who is? He’s one of a kind.

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