Guest host Pastor Larry Nagengast speaks with long-time staff members Pam Daniel and Debbie Staley today They share memories and reflect on God’s goodness.
Download the HBC 49th Anniversary Harvest Time
Episode transcript:
Chris Harper: Welcome to Harvest Time. My name is Chris Harper, and our guest host on this program today is Pastor Larry Nagengast. Every week, we spend these 25 minutes together telling you the stories of our church, interviewing our members and other friends of the ministry. We’d like to invite you to join us at Harvest Baptist Church this week. There are 2 services on Sunday at Harvest, the first at 8:45 AM, the second at 10:45 AM.
We have Japanese and Korean translation available during that 10:45 AM service, and that’s also the service we live stream at hbcguam.org, hbcguam.org. This week, pastor Gary Walton will be back preaching on Sunday services, and we have our anniversary fiesta after our 2nd service, and everyone’s invited. Let’s begin today’s harvest time by welcoming pastor Larry Nagengast. Hi, pastor Larry.
Larry Nagengast: Good morning, Chris. Welcome, folks, to Harvest Time. We are celebrating our 49th anniversary this Sunday with, 2 services and a fiesta, as Chris just said. And this morning, we just wanna reflect on God’s goodness over the 49 years of Harvest Ministry. One of the blessings that God has given us through the years is a faithful staff that he brings to Harvest to serve him here.
And we have 2 of the best and longest serving with us this morning, Pam Daniel and Debbie Staley. Pam is our secretary to our pastor and has been here this is her 30th year and, she connects everybody and everything. She’s our hostess, connects the travel for all the visiting speakers, our calendar, and just helps pastor, in this ministry. We appreciate that. And then Debbie’s been with us for 27 years.
She taught 4th grade most of that time and now is our Dean of Education in our Baptist Bible College and teaches a lot of the education courses. So we’re great to have these ladies with us. Good morning, girls.
Pam Daniel: Good morning. Good morning.
Larry Nagengast: Alright. So first of all, we’re gonna start with, with a just let us know how you came to Christ and how you came to harvest. And I think we’ll start with Pam on that and where are you from and how you got to harvest.
Pam Daniel: Well, I’m originally from a little town in Colorado in the mountains, and I was raised in a Christian home. When I was 5, I went to my dad and knew I needed to accept Christ. My sister had been sharing with me, and he was fixing a garden hose in the living room, and he told me later he wasn’t sure that I really understood, but he didn’t, you know, dissuade me. He prayed with me and knew that the test of it would come out later and, but I really did understand and I became a child of God there when I was 5 and, haven’t, thankfully, haven’t questioned that since, so I’m really really grateful for that. Kind of an in between step that I think really led to me coming to Guam at 15, I was at a school conference, and the preacher one night was preaching on being willing to go wherever God would have you and I really felt God strongly, putting that on my heart.
Now I was from a little bitty town, 400 year round residents. My parents are both native Coloradans. My dad has lived in the same area about 45 minutes from where he was born 82 years ago. So I wasn’t raised from a place that everybody went places, so that wasn’t necessarily a big thing. And I didn’t see myself.
I couldn’t even see myself going far, but I really believe that was a step of obedience. God was asking me to obey him and be willing to go. And, then when I went to college and my fall of my senior year, one of my teachers said, hey, my pastor’s coming. Their ministry is really growing. I’ve watched you in these classes and I think you would enjoy the ministry and the island once you talk to him.
And I wasn’t really worried about a job yet, you know. Right. Finals were more coming up in December than graduation in May. So I went to be nice, but he talked with me and as, he left I left, he said, well, I can pretty much tell you have the job and I thought, oh my word, they’re serious. But, that was really the point the Lord started working me.
It wasn’t overnight of, oh, okay. I know I’m going to Guam, but over the next 3 months then he finally made it really clear beyond any question that that’s what he had for me to come here to Guam.
Larry Nagengast: Oh, that’s so awesome. I love those stories, how people come to Christ and then to surrender and then now to Guam. That’s awesome. Debbie, how’d you get here?
Debbie Staley: Yeah. So, it started really, I grew up in a Christian home just like Pam. And when I was 7, talked to my mom about wanting to be saved. And so she showed me from the Bible. And I had made a profession when I was 4, but didn’t really remember it.
And so just wanted to make things sure at that point. And, and say as far as coming to Guam when I was in 7th grade, we went to a, youth conference, and they talked about surrendering your life, being willing to do whatever God wanted you to do. And so similar to Pam’s story that at that point, I was like, okay, Lord, whatever it is that you want me to do, I’m willing to do it. And around 9th grade year, my the Lord started working in my heart about missions. And so over the course of that year, he just really kept bringing it back up over and over again.
And so, in 10th grade, I just surrendered, okay, Lord, if you want me to go into missions, then I’m I’m willing to do that. And so thinking through okay, what would be best for a girl to major in? I went into education since that can be used anywhere. Yeah. And, went to Northland Baptist Bible College.
They were very mission focused and, and so, got to my senior year and had some plans laid out that God completely changed, over Christmas break and, really showed me that, okay, I think I’m gonna be teaching next year. I hadn’t been planning to teach at that point. And so, Harvest called me while I was student teaching and hadn’t even gone to look at Harvest Table ever. They had come to Northland, but I had never visited their table or anything. They just called me while I was student teaching.
And it kinda fit the mission mindset, the and, you know, of just all the things that God had been working in my life, and he kept he didn’t close the door. My parents are okay with it. And so I was like, okay. I’m going to Guam. And here I am 27 years later.
Larry Nagengast: Yeah. So a girl from the West, a girl from the Midwest, now you’re in the middle of, you know, the South Pacific. So what were some of the adjustments coming right out of college to, Guam? Deb, we’ll start with you.
Debbie Staley: I think for me, the hardest part was just being a 1st year teacher and being so far away. It’s a lot of work your 1st year and and then being away from family and and then you’re also here dealing with different cultures and a lot more students. My student teaching experience was a combined grade level. And I think there were 15 students total in both grades. So then coming here to 24 students, and so a lot of different adjustments Yeah.
Coming here.
Larry Nagengast: Wow. Pam, what what do you remember?
Pam Daniel: Well, I was actually trying to think through that. I obviously came from a very different climate. It was cold Oh, right. And dry. It’s literally snowed frequently, not every year, but in every month of the year in the town that we live in.
So I come from cold and dry to hot and humid, so that was, you know, an adjustment. The Lord had been getting me ready, I think, incrementally by being in Pensacola where I was attending college. So I got kinda 9 month adjustments at a time. Hearing a lot of different languages really around me, Spanish was about the only language that was there. So kind of getting my ears attuned to listening for that was was a big adjustment because there were so many and I was working in the office answering the phones, and, I also grew up where they raise potatoes.
That’s big potato farmers, and so I moved here and we did not have a lot of rice. High altitude doesn’t do well for cooking it, and that was those were some of the biggest changes, I think, that I that I noticed.
Larry Nagengast: Yeah. The climate and the food, for sure, and the culture, which is what what Debbie mentioned. Now, how big was harvest back then, Pam? I mean, what was the school and what was the church?
Pam Daniel: The school was actually a little bit bigger. It was at 1100
Larry Nagengast: Oh, wow.
Pam Daniel: When I came. Wow. But the church was at about 300.
Larry Nagengast: Okay.
Pam Daniel: So they had just moved into the new church building about a month before I got here. They dedicated that. Kmart was just opened a month before I came, actually, as well. Really? And that was a pretty big phenomenon on Guam.
Larry Nagengast: Now, did you get here before Pongsangwa? Did you get here before the big
Pam Daniel: Yes. I actually Were
Larry Nagengast: both of you here before the whole building? We were
Pam Daniel: both here for Pongsangwa, but I was here for which was in 97. So I’ve been through 2 super typhoons.
Larry Nagengast: Yeah. Wow. So what do you think the biggest changes in Guam since you’ve been here? You know?
Debbie Staley: I know one of the biggest ones I came up with right off the bat was the phone. So especially that 1st year, a lot of time on the phone with mom and dad.
Larry Nagengast: Yeah. Right.
Debbie Staley: Really expensive.
Larry Nagengast: Just landline. Right?
Debbie Staley: Yeah. I think we even had a rotary dial phone and then
Larry Nagengast: Oh, no kidding.
Debbie Staley: Halfway through the year, they came out with these phone cards where you could call for 3¢ a minute, and that was huge.
Pam Daniel: Yeah. I I had written that down too of kind of some of the Guam changes. There’s, I think, less jungle, more buildings, even just around the harvest campus. Just the harvest. Yeah.
There’s, you know, a lot lot more buildings. And, when I came, there wasn’t even Internet or email. And so the only way you communicated was
Larry Nagengast: A letter in the mail.
Pam Daniel: A letter in the mail or a dollar a minute for a phone call with echo. And if you got a special, it was 30¢ a minute. But man, if you thought you had the special and you’d missed it and you got your bill, you weren’t talking for a long time because that made a big difference. And you didn’t talk, you know, real long. So those were some of the the big things that I noticed as well.
So now to be able to video call my family for free Yeah.
Larry Nagengast: No kidding.
Pam Daniel: Is amazing compared to a dollar a minute phone call.
Larry Nagengast: I bet. That I mean, did you did you sign, like, 3 year contracts back then? So they still did that?
Pam Daniel: Yes. Yes.
Larry Nagengast: And then you had very little communication. Wow.
Pam Daniel: And, you know, there was no because of no email at that point Yeah. Even once we got email, there still was no digital phone pictures. Yeah. So, like, when my sister had her first baby, you know, actually the first two babies, they had to mail pictures the 1 hour development, which was a big deal because it was more expensive. So you didn’t do that very often, but mail them.
But still, 2 weeks later, by the time I got them, you know, the child you knew was totally different than what you had, but that was your only way to actually see that.
Larry Nagengast: So did you go home that 1st summer?
Debbie Staley: I did.
Larry Nagengast: Did Deb you went home that 1st summer. Did you go home that 1st summer?
Pam Daniel: I went home, basically in September because we alternated, one of the other, secretaries in the office and the family vacations. I went in September and was able to see my sister’s
Larry Nagengast: That’s amazing.
Pam Daniel: Baby when she was 6 weeks old, where if I’d gone in earlier in the summer, I might have missed that.
Larry Nagengast: So I do love that about Harvest. They provide some travel stipends for our staff to get home. But those early years, man, with no phone every I mean, I gotta believe our staff calls their home about every day, I would think, especially the the 1st year once. That is amazing. So, how have you changed?
Deb, how have you changed in in 25 years? I don’t wanna get too personal about these things, but but the the it’s it’s neat when God calls you and brings you someplace, and then you look back at what you came like and what God has done in your life. And, I think
Debbie Staley: I think just a settledness of seeing God work and seeing his faithfulness and, just letting him write your story. And he writes the most amazing story when when you let him do that. And I think as far as, like, like, one of the biggest challenge I read a book a few years ago called When People Are Big and God is Small, and just piggybacking off of that of what was really emphasized at Northland on the character of God. Mhmm. And, it’s so easy to make God small in your problems or, in life and whatever you’re facing, and he wants to be he’s he’s bigger than all of that.
And so, that has really made an impact. Obviously, still an area of growth. We tend to make people bigger than God, sometimes, but, yeah, he’s still growing and changing me, and I’m sure there’s many other changes. But it’s kinda hard to look back and see remember what you were then, but so many things have happened.
Larry Nagengast: I think when you’re in a ministry as transiting as as harvest is to you, It forces you almost to do that because there there were people you came with. They’re not here anymore. Your family’s not here. The church has changed. The staff has changed.
The I mean, there there is a lot of things that you might put your confidence and insecurity in and and they just change or they leave. And then but God is always there, always the same. And I love that about when he puts us at these kind of places. We don’t like it originally, but then we realize, you know what? You’re still the same God that you were when I came.
And and that’s really
Debbie Staley: And he’s continually preparing you for what he has for you in the future.
Larry Nagengast: Yeah. Yeah. Amen. Amen. Pam?
Pam Daniel: So I thought about it. I can definitely say I am an island girl now. My body cannot handle anything colder than 70 degrees.
Debbie Staley: Oh, probably better.
Pam Daniel: And, my father mocks me about that, but the the mountain girl that did 40 below is gone and, I do love the ocean and the beauty that God has given us here. But I just in the nature of my job, God’s made me very detail oriented and, that can come with the to do list. Mhmm.
Larry Nagengast: And I
Pam Daniel: think one of the areas that God’s really worked with me and obviously is continuing to do so is that the to do list isn’t the most important thing and that people are and looking for needs and
Larry Nagengast: Amen.
Pam Daniel: And knowing that, okay, you know what, I thought that was important for today, but, man, you know, seeing seeing that face, even at the gas station, how are you today? Okay. And and just taking that moment of saying, I’m not convinced and having people pour their hearts out and, you know, we’re just people are hurting everywhere and and really just taking time to to stop and see that and and I think that God’s really probably changed me a lot in that sense. Yeah. Yes, I still like to get things done.
I still make to do list, but, you know, I do find that a lot of times those lists will kinda just keep dragging on because what’s really important are the people and the needs that are there.
Larry Nagengast: Yeah. Amen. I do love that about Pam and Debbie both. They’re they’re very faithful in our church and they care about people. And, one of the ways they show they care is they’re both involved in our ladies prison ministry.
Pam hinted up. Debbie comes along, and and, I appreciate your your faithfulness to that ministry and those needs. Well, what has been one of the toughest experiences in your time here?
Debbie Staley: I’ll go first and go back to the first few years of being here and no water. That probably just stands out, above all of them. At Guahan, we lived on the 3rd floor, and I just remember daily life was a challenge of, you know, you cook dinner and then you’ve got to take the dishes down to the hose and wash the dishes and
Larry Nagengast: because the water pressure wouldn’t because
Debbie Staley: the water pressure would not come up.
Larry Nagengast: So you get a drip for your shower and everything.
Debbie Staley: Well, sometimes not even that. Sometimes, yeah. It was, it was yeah, after a certain time, sometimes overnight, we would get water. And so then you could do a load of laundry in the middle of the night. And then my favorite story was we were all showering down there at the host too, and I would walk in the morning and, mister McGrew was down there showering.
And I’m walking and I’m like, I’m coming right after you. So that would be probably one of the most challenging times. And then I think like 6 months prior to Pongsong Wa, we just didn’t have any water at all. And they brought in 50 gallon drums and put them in the stairwell. And so we were able to get water for washing dishes and not have to go all the way down 3 flights of stairs.
And then they worked on getting water tanks, but the typhoon damaged. And so then that delayed the process. And then I think by the time we got power back on after the storm, pretty shortly thereafter, they had the water tanks installed and then that kinda corrected the the issue. But Wow. That was probably one of the toughest
Larry Nagengast: times. Yeah. I can I guess
Debbie Staley: I went in there? I didn’t even have kids. So I can’t imagine Families. Yeah. The Macrues lived across from us and Yeah.
Had to deal with it. So yeah.
Larry Nagengast: Wow. Alright, Pam.
Pam Daniel: Well, I don’t have anything quite as grand as that. When I did come, we were load shedding constantly and so probably 5 out of 7 days of the week, you know, you didn’t know if you could cook dinner or you weren’t gonna be able to cook dinner or you cooked it and you went out in the middle or so you cooked it earlier the next day and then it didn’t go out until later, and that was challenging trying to figure out how to play the game of when do I when do I make supper, how do we do this. But I I stopped and I thought, I really I don’t really think of these huge trials when I came and the and the big, adjustment. And one of the things when I was really praying, seeking God’s specific guidance was I wanted to pray. My dad’s a pastor and I knew there’d be trials in the ministry Yeah.
And I was like, I want to know a 100% this is where God wants me or I’m not going. And God did make that very clear to me and I really do think that that has changed a lot of when I
Debbie Staley: came Mhmm.
Pam Daniel: Because I didn’t get in these hard times, these type I mean, yeah, months without power, after super typhoons, it’s exhausting and, you know, it’s hard, but, I didn’t have this, oh, no. Am I out of God’s will? Am I not where God wants me? Because there was a subtleness coming into it Mhmm. That this is where God has me, and I am sure of it.
Yeah. Amen. And I think that and then I’ve had a really great heritage of parents who have modeled faithfulness in the hard and the good times that I believe taught me you just stay by the stuff and you just keep on going when it gets hard.
Larry Nagengast: Yeah.
Pam Daniel: And recently, just Sunday night, I was reading a book and she was talking about faithfulness and it just caught my eye thinking about kinda the radio and thinking of the time in the ministry, you know, what God’s done in using harvest. Faithfulness is not a one time act, not a decision or a destination, not something to eventually be attained. Faithfulness is what we repeatedly do. It’s a habit formed of long hard obedience in the quiet. Faithfulness is in a 1,000,000 tiny decisions and in a 1,000,000 small surrendering submitting with a simple yes, Lord, that create a lifetime of obedience in the extraordinary and the mundane.
As it turns out, faithfulness was in the ordinary in everyday things that do not feel glorious, but in fact lead us to his feet. Mhmm.
Larry Nagengast: And I
Pam Daniel: think as I thought of what is the hardest, you know, obviously 30 30 years is a long time to try to, you know, think. There was some, you know, broken hearts. There’s some been some challenges obviously along the way, but I think that perspective, God has really allowed to make it not as hard as those things could have been.
Larry Nagengast: Yeah. I love that about our God that even in the tough times, he’s faithful in the little things. And, and it’s it’s just been a blessing to hear some of those things. Well, we’re gonna wrap this up. So now I wanna hear about the good stuff.
So what is some of the best experiences you’ve had here at Harvest? Well, I
Debbie Staley: think, as I was thinking, the best experience has been transitioning to HBBC. I love teaching them, and I love the kids, and that has been one of the most amazing things.
Larry Nagengast: Yeah. Well, we’re happy to have you in the college, Debbie. You’ve been doing awesome. Pam?
Pam Daniel: I think there are 2 vastly different groups of people, but I think it does portray really what has been the best part to me is the people of Guam. Yeah. God is just really, they have welcomed me and given me a love for them and, the prison ministry that you mentioned, you know, I went the summer I started and I didn’t anticipate that, but God really has used that to be, you know, one of my best days of the week to just go and see how God is working. And then, also, God’s given me kind of a unique opportunity to kind of be an encouragement in the medical community. Mhmm.
And, like I said, they’re vastly different groups, but, everybody has needs and, I feel like God’s just given me that. It’s just been a really neat opportunity to see, some of the great experiences that God’s given, but at the heart of it is the people.
Larry Nagengast: Yeah. For sure. I think being a part of the staff and the community of Harvest has helped us to have a home away from home. And I I love being on the front line. I love being able to give the gospel every day to kids.
I had a boy, trust Christ from one of my bible classes, one of our bible classes last week. And and it’s it’s just such a privilege, as you said, to remember the call of God. So even when difficult times come, you remember, wait a minute. The cause is more important than my convenience. And and early, man, your conveniences were tested.
I mean, big time. And to have, I mean, big time. And to have to be reminded, wait a minute, I’m not here by accident. I’m not here for the water or for the power. I am here for the cause.
And and I think that’s that that’s why you guys have stayed and you’ve been faithful because of the call and the cause. And I just want you to know how much I appreciate your service and your you’ve been a tremendous blessing in our ministry. God bless you. Thank you so much.
Chris Harper: And thank you for listening to Harvest Time. Of course, at this point in the program, we wanna personally invite you again to services at Harvest Baptist Church. We have our first on Sunday at 8:45 AM, the second at 10:45 AM. We do have Japanese and Korean translation during the 10:45 AM service, and that is the one that’s broadcast live here on 88.1 FM and khmg.org. We hope to see you at church and at our fiesta this Sunday.
Thanks again for listening to Harvest Time.