Salem Ridge Wesleyan Church
A New "Bible Story"
"Go instead to my homeland, to my relatives, and find a wife there for my son Isaac.” - Genesis 24:4 NLT
On February 24th, Pastor Jonathan & Brenda Rogers of the Salem Ridge Wesleyan Church celebrated their first wedding anniversary together! Their story is a story that only God could write.
In December 2008, Jonathan and his first wife, Carmen, returned from Tianjin and Beijing, China to Maysville, Kentucky. Carmen was ill and subsequently passed away the next month, January 2009. Meanwhile, Brenda and her first husband, Rob Myers, were living in Mansfield, Ohio and Rob was also very ill and passed away the following August of 2009. Neither Jonathan nor Brenda knew of each other.
In July of 2010, God moved Jonathan and his son Patrick to the Maysville Wesleyan Campground to be the caretaker there and also put him behind the pulpit as pastor of the Salem Ridge Wesleyan Church. Brenda, meanwhile, lived alone and worked as an RN, attending the Nevada Pilgrim Holiness Church in Nevada, Ohio. Not wanting to get out of the will of God for their lives, both Jonathan and Brenda waited to see what God had in store for them. After nine years of waiting on God, Jonathan finally told the Lord that if it was just him and the Lord for the rest of his life that that would be okay. Unknown to Jonathan, there was a widow in Mansfield who, after waiting on God for nine years, had also come to the same place with God. It was then that the God of heaven and earth moved.
On a Saturday in the Spring of 2018, Jonathan sat in a ministerial meeting and was told by the District Superintendent of the Kentucky-Tennessee District of the Wesleyan Church, Rev. Aaron Sherman, that Jonathan was going to have to “go out” to find the wife
that God had for him. The very next morning was Sunday morning, and Jonathan was sitting in the Teen Sunday School class teaching the 24th chapter of Genesis. It was then that verses 3 and 4 jumped right up on the page at Jonathan. It reads, “I want you to swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you will not get a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I am living, but will go to my country and my own relatives and get a wife for my son Isaac.” (NIV)
“Go to my country and my own relatives?” Jonathan thought. “Lord,” he exclaimed in his heart, “there’s no wife back there among my relatives for me!” But little did Jonathan realize what God was doing.
Thanksgiving was drawing near, and Jonathan was feeling like he was supposed to go back home to Northeastern Pennsylvania to be with his family and relatives there. He couldn’t get away from the feeling that God was busily up to something as he drove the 600 plus miles back to the “country” (area) of his birth. As it turned out, his mother wanted to actually have Thanksgiving dinner on Friday evening instead of the traditional Thursday noon time so that his U.S. Army sister could be home and join in the meal. As it turned out, Thanksgiving Day arrived and Jonathan felt prompted to go down to his cousin’s farm to be with many of his cousins who were gathering there for the Thanksgiving festivities, so he did.
After arriving at the farm house, he made his way through the hustle and bustle of chattering relatives and seated himself next to a cousin in front of the large bay window. It was then that the God who knows and sees all impressed on Jonathan that he was going to have to both testify and pray. Jonathan looked around the crowd in wonder, still feeling like God was up to something new.
It wasn’t too long and the wife of the couple who owned the farm came into the living room from the kitchen. “Can we sing a hymn?!” she questioned hopefully. Nobody responded. “Can we sing a hymn?!” she again inquired. Some affirmations were heard and she ordered her younger teenaged son to fetch the hymnals. As Jonathan received his hymnal, the cousin then pointed at him and exclaimed, “Jonathan, pick out a hymn!” Opening the hymnal, the hymn which appeared was “Glorious Freedom!” by Haldor Lillenas which happens to be one of Jonathan’s favorite hymns. A pitch pipe was blown and the crowd began to sing, “Once I was bound by sin’s galling fetters. Chained like a slave, I struggled in vain. Then I received a glorious freedom, when Jesus broke my fetters in twain!”
Once the hymn was sung, Jonathan’s cousin then asked for testimonies. A young man then testified. Suddenly the cousin pointed at Jonathan and exclaimed, “Jonathan, stand up and give us a testimony!” This was the first of the two things that God had revealed to Jonathan that he would have to do that day. Jonathan laughed and stood and told them that he already knew he was going to have to testify, and he did. Sitting back down, another testimony came from a person in the crowd. It was after that that the next thing that God had revealed to Jonathan also came to pass, for it was then that Jonathan’s cousin’s husband exclaimed, “I’m going to ask Jonathan if he would stand and ask the Lord’s blessing on the meal.” So, Jonathan stood and prayed, just like God had earlier revealed to him.
The folk then seated themselves and enjoyed their meal and fellowship together. And once he was finished with his meal, Jonathan informed the relatives at his table that he was going to go to the nursing home to visit his aunt. Upon leaving the house, he was met outside by another one of his cousins, Daniel Sickler.
“Jonathan!” Daniel exclaimed, “You don’t have a wife, yet?”
“No,” Jonathan replied with a smile.
“Well, do you want one?” Daniel said laughingly.
“Well, yeah, that would be nice.” Jonathan responded.
“Well,” Daniel continued, “I feel like God wants me to tell you about a woman that we’ve known for about 30 years now. She’s a widow. We all used to be on the mission field together when we were down in Belize, Central America at Crooked Tree. She’s a godly woman, and I can’t get away from this feeling that I’m supposed to tell you about her. Would you like to call her?”
“Well,” Jonathan replied, “I’ll tell you what: You ask her if it’s okay for me to call her, and if she says it’s okay, then I’ll give her a call.”
“Okay, that sounds good.” Daniel agreed.
So, to make a long story short, Daniel and his wife Kathy were texting Brenda’s cell number to Jonathan and telling him that it was okay to call Brenda. Jonathan spent Saturday driving back home all day, and then he had to preach on Sunday, so it was Monday morning when he finally had time to call Brenda. Upon calling her, he and Brenda ended up talking for a total of seven hours that first day. Things continued to turn out like a Bible story as we continued talking for six days, realizing more and more that it was God who was bringing us together. Finally, on the seventh day, Jonathan asked Brenda to marry him and she said, “Yes.”
They had only met over the phone on Monday, and by Sunday he was asking her to marry him. Some thought they were crazy. Others said it was God. And as it is, it IS God! In this story, God again played himself, and Daniel Sickler played the part of Abraham’s senior servant.
God is still in the wonder-working business! Just turn your whole self over to his tender-loving care and serve Him “wholeheartedly”, keeping to the path on which He is leading you (Deuteronomy 5:33)!