Pastor Walton spoke with Jared and Tammy Baldwin this week. They have just returned to Guam, Jared serving as Executive Pastor, Tammy as a Project Coordinator.
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Episode transcript:
Chris Harper: Welcome to Harvest Time. My name is Chris Harper, and our host on this program is pastor Gary Walton, the lead pastor of Harvest Baptist Church. Every week, we spend these 25 minutes together telling you the stories of our church by interviewing our members and other friends of the ministry. We’d invite you to join us at Harvest Baptist Church this week. There are 2 services on Sunday, 8:45 AM and 10:45 AM.
We have Spanish translation during the 8:45 AM service, Japanese and Korean translation during the 10:45 AM service, and that’s also the service we live stream at 10:45 AM. That’s on hbcguam.org, hbcguam.org. This week, we’re back in our series, investing in God’s kingdom, and this week from 2nd Corinthians 9 6 through 8. Let’s begin today’s Harvest Time by welcoming pastor Gary Walton. Hi, Pastor.
Gary Walton: Hey. Hafa adai, Chris. We are in the middle of a series, a 4 week series on, this text in 2nd Corinthians where Paul is talking to the church in Corinth and talking about a gift that he is encouraging them to give towards the needs of the church in Jerusalem. And, we’re gonna come back. This is part 3 of a 4 part series.
It is coinciding with a stewardship campaign here at Harvest. We believe that God is leading us towards an expansion of our welcome center and kind of a new front on our auditorium. And so all of that is connected together. But we’ve just been working through the text. That’s what we do on Sundays, just walking through a text, finding out what God says.
And we’re coming up to a couple of verses in 2 Corinthians 9. You might be familiar with this verse. This is where you find the verse that says, He who sows sparingly will reap sparingly, and he who sows generously or bountifully will reap bountifully. And it’s not talking about your garden. It’s actually talking about finances and giving.
So, we want to discuss this Sunday morning what does that mean and what it doesn’t mean and just what the Bible has to say about generous giving and cheerful giving that comes up in the same text as well. So, we’d love to invite you to come and be part of our family, be part of our worship. I know that you’ll be blessed, by the the love of people to worship God and care for each other And, we’re just going to be in the scriptures. So, we’d like to invite you to come and join us this Sunday. And we’re very thrilled to have, on harvest time Pastor Jared and Tammy Baldwin.
If you’ve been listening this afternoon, we are just finishing up the the early rebroadcast, the first rebroadcast of, Live ’til Five started this afternoon. Pastor Jared hosting that program. And, now we’re following that up with kind of a official introduction, I guess, in this way to the church family. So welcome back to Harvest and, of course, the harvest time, Pastor Jared and Tammy.
Jared Baldwin: Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you. And doing harvest time is a familiar thing because I got to fill in for you in the past as well. And so we we really enjoy this program and enjoy being able to do live till 5 as well.
It’s like Chris said, it’s like falling off a log.
Gary Walton: Yeah. And I guess in some ways, this would be sort of the the formal, reintroduction of you guys, you and Tammy, both to to this our school families, you know, our island families. Of course, you’ve been here a couple of months and so and very, very connected with the church as well. But welcome back. We could not be more thrilled about how God has led in your life and, bringing you both back here.
You guys are so gifted in in so many ways and, but you just fit here. Sometimes when I think about first Corinthians 12, you know, it talks about God giving gifted people to the church. And in my mind, like, across first Corinthians 12 and Harvest, it says, Pastor Jared and Tammy. It’s, like, written right in there. God’s really gifted you guys in that way.
So we’re thrilled and and our friendships too. Thankful to have you back.
Tammy Baldwin: Thank you, pastor Gary.
Jared Baldwin: Yeah. Thank you. That’s very kind. We we, probably don’t really deserve that. We wanna give glory to the Lord for giving us whatever gifts we’ve been able to scrounge together.
It’s because what God’s given us in the past experiences and training and people investing in us like you, like Harvest, over the years investing in us. We’re glad to be able to give back.
Gary Walton: Tammy, your family has changed a little bit since you were here. Well, let me back up to that. Pastor Jared, for somebody that might be listening new, is, our executive pastor. Tammy’s serving, as a project coordinator for our admin team and doing a lot of, different things. I want to talk a little bit later.
Your heart is discipleship. I want to ask you about that in a minute, but these very specific roles that God has gifted you guys for. And you were here, previously for, I think almost 15 years in 2 different times that God brought you here. When you first came here, Tammy, you had a very young family. Tell us about that and then maybe the transitions for your family where where things are at now.
Tammy Baldwin: Yes. Whenever we first came to Guam, Jared had just finished up seminary training for ministry. He had, he had gotten out of the military. He was prior military, US Air Force, and, really felt the call of God on our life to go into ministry. So did, ministry training for 6 years.
And, whenever we just accepted the position and the call that God had for us in Guam, we came here with all 3 of our kids had already, you know, been born. So they were, Kayla, our oldest was 7, and Andrew, the middle, was, 4, and then our youngest, Zach, was 2. Yeah. So none of them were babies. So I I do really, really respect people who do that trip with babies.
But, you know, they were still really young and, transferring to a new school for Kayla, and then the 2 boys were you know, they weren’t in school yet. But yeah. So, you know, now we have all 3 of our children are married and have their own children. So we have let me see. I gotta do the count here.
Five grandchildren, and there’s one on the way in August. So, so, yeah, quite a bit of changes. It all feels a little bit like deja vu to, be, sharing Guam and harvest with a few of our grandchildren and for our children to be able to come back and visit where they grew up and be able to then show their children where they grew up is is an experience I didn’t really anticipate. So it’s really a joy.
Gary Walton: Tell us about your kids. I mean, you you, you know, across the island, people know and love your family. You know, your kids grew up in soccer and school and, you know, they’re well known. So tell us this about your kids
Tammy Baldwin: and families. So Kayla is our oldest, and she’s her and her husband, Q, have 2 little girls, and, they’re here on ministry staff at Harvest. And so, that’s really neat to see. And, then our second Andrew and his wife, Cara, have 2 little ones, and they’re the ones that are expecting one on the way. And they’re in Iowa, where we moved from, close to the Des Moines area.
And he owns, Andrew owns his own moving company. So they’re pretty settled there in Iowa and,
Gary Walton: doing great. Loving that.
Tammy Baldwin: Doing great.
Gary Walton: Very entrepreneurial. I don’t know where that came from.
Jared Baldwin: Well, he’s yeah. He I I I pretend to be an entrepreneur. It takes a lot of faith to step out and actually do it. So I love giving advice to entrepreneurs. But, I’m not I’m a lot more risk averse.
He’s he’s actually stepped out and done it. And it’s been pretty exciting to see the transformation of that.
Gary Walton: Yeah. That’s cool.
Tammy Baldwin: So the past 5 years, you know, it was really nice to be able to just spend time with them and see their family grow. And then our youngest, Zach, and his wife, Christy, and then they have a little one. They’re actually back on Guam, and Zac is working on the military base and, raising their little family. So that’s pretty neat that 2 of them came, and, so I I don’t think our middle one feels left out. He’s pretty settled.
A lot of people ask me, does he feel bad? And nah. He’s okay. But they would really love to visit Guam and also show their kids. And, you know, it’s pretty neat to be able to show your spouse or your kids where you grew up, especially when it’s such a remote place.
I know some of you listening might not know that Guam is remote, but it is.
Jared Baldwin: Yeah. It’s hard for them to picture. I know that talking to our kids’ spouses, it’s hard for them to picture. You know, our our family has all these inside stories about things that happened at harvest. What the school is like, what the church is like, camp, what the island is like, what the cultures are like.
And without any context, it’s just hard to imagine that. And so it’s been very eye opening for our daughter-in-law and son-in-law that have moved back to actually see it and experience it. And a lot of things are much better than what they could have imagined. And there are a few things that are, you know, we they didn’t expect that are harder. So Yeah.
So it’ll be neat to see our other daughter-in-law eventually get to experience that as well, Lord willing.
Gary Walton: It’s pretty cool actually, I I think, to see the way, you know, in in the work that god did in your guys’ lives to call you back here to watch the influence of your kids on this process and their enthusiasm, you know, for you here, that’s, you know, at the at our stages of life, that’s not always true. Family don’t always completely understand that. And your children, all of them, at least from what I understand, all of them are really not just understanding, but, you know, seeing your fit and Yeah. Enthusiastic about it.
Jared Baldwin: Unanimously, almost pushing us towards deciding to come back when we Andrew’s a very perceptive young man. So he he picked up on kind of my unsettledness with I was working in the secular world for a little while and just in general and seek he kinda put 2 and 2 together and asked me about harvest in Guam. And then he was the first one to say, you should do it. It’s a great fit for your dad. It’s the right timing.
We’ll be okay. You just go for it. We’ll we’ll support you, visit you. And then even his wife kinda released us even though there’s, you know, a big hole left in the family we spent. Every Tuesday night.
We babysat those little kids. You know, we’re we spent a lot of time together. And so to move away is was a big step for us, but it’s it’s hard for them to let us go. But they both released us and actually promoted this. Like, they really wanted us to take this opportunity.
And then when we shared it with our other kids, they not only were excited for us, but then they started asking questions about, well, what if we move back to Guam? Would we, you know, would you guys be okay with that? And then Kayla and Q actually accepted jobs here before we made our final decision
Gary Walton: Yeah.
Jared Baldwin: And told us they were coming whether we came or not, which I thought was really neat. But it put us in an interesting situation. We’re like, okay. We’re, you know, we’re not a 100% yet, and they’ve already said yes. And then Zach and his wife said, well, if you guys don’t mind when we when you get on the plane, we’ll just get on the plane with you because we don’t have anything holding us here.
You know, they’re ready to kind of launch and do something. And they had already been talking about living in the islands and things like that. So this actually afforded them an opportunity to fulfill a dream that they had. And so the Lord used all of it to to direct us this way. And so we’re hoping to see God continue to use that in in all our family’s life and lives and maybe be able to see nieces and nephews and brothers and sisters come out
Gary Walton: to visit as well. Tammy, I didn’t set you up for this, pre warn you. So maybe this isn’t fair. But, you know, making a move like this, it’s not an easy thing at this stage. You know, Jerry, pastor Jared just mentioned, you left, you know, a son and daughter, 2 kids every Tuesday night.
You know, we’re together. That’s a hard thing. I think it’s good for people to hear that when we’re following God. There’s some hard parts of it. How did you process that?
Tammy Baldwin: Yeah. It it was a hard thing. I think whenever something is really unexpected, you you kind of wrestle with that. I I don’t know if that’s just, you know, our human nature where you’re thinking that a certain stage of your life is gonna look a certain way. Yeah.
And, even if you’re you’re not trying to be willful about it, you just kinda have something pictured in your mind and you you’re settled. You know, we had settled where where we were at. We had you know, the kids were there. Kayla and her family were in Wisconsin. So if you’re from the states, you know, that Iowa and Wisconsin aren’t too far.
And then we have family we’re originally from Kansas City, Missouri. And so it’s a 3 hour drive just to go down and see, you know, your mom. And and we’ve been overseas for a long time. So
Jared Baldwin: Since we were 18 years old. Yeah.
Tammy Baldwin: So that that was a cozy little situation for me.
Gary Walton: Very comfortable.
Tammy Baldwin: Yes. I can
Gary Walton: Yeah.
Tammy Baldwin: You know, and just and I really appreciated the time with the family. So it I didn’t really take it for granted because we had been overseas a lot. And so being able to just conveniently and quickly go see go see your family, even if it was just in a day.
Jared Baldwin: We went down and watched the Super Bowl with our family. That’s the first one we won. And it it was just a spontaneous Caelan Q drove down from Wisconsin. Karen, Andrew, and Zach all hap hopped in the car. It’s before Zach was married.
And we all just drove to Kansas City and watched Super Bowl family and came back at midnight. And, you know, that kind of stuff was just really special. Special events, holidays, things like that.
Tammy Baldwin: So, you know, when God kind kind of starts working in your life and doing something unexpected Mhmm. You just you wrestle with your human feelings. And, so, yeah, it was just very unexpected. I think it took me a while to really think through it. And then, you know, age and stage of life is this, you know, it’s in some ways, coming back to Guam and harvest is just the easiest thing ever.
It’s just an easy fit. But with our stage of life and our family, that, you know, that’s a harder that made
Gary Walton: It is. Yeah.
Tammy Baldwin: A prayerful pause. And, so, you know, I’m very thankful that whenever God, starts working in your life, that he also graciously directs you and leads you as you just trust him, even as you wrestle through things that I think sometimes are important in that decision making. Those are questions that you have to answer. And so bringing them to the Lord honestly and just with a transparent heart in prayer and just, you know, pouring out your heart to the Lord and and getting that answer from him and that confidence from him and then seeing him open doors or close doors in all of our seasons of life. Like, the lord is with us, and I think that’s something that brought me a lot of comfort and direction that he was gonna guide and direct, and I could just trust him.
Gary Walton: Thank you for your genuineness and just your openness about that. I think you’re right on. It will be helpful for people, and it’s healthy and good for us to process that along, along beside you. So thank you for being willing to to share that. And for all of us, I mean, these decisions are always a work in progress.
God’s continuing to, you know, guide and direct and challenge it. These faith steps aren’t they don’t tend to always be, boom, I make it, and then everything’s like smooth sailing. Right. You know, there’s, God’s continuing to teach us that. Jared, tell me about tell me about coming back.
What was the I don’t I don’t I was I was gonna say what was the draw? I mean, not that. What what what did god use to say, hey. I really have, have an another I have a season for you here. What what was that?
Jared Baldwin: Yeah. We when we would talk about it, we talk about it as another chapter. And, you know, I moved away, took on a role as a college professor and program chair, and got to develop a program at Faith Baptist Bible College, and we knew that was God’s will. And then I had this kind of out of nowhere job come up with the state of Iowa where I got to have a a huge platform. And, I learned a ton and and then that job just disappeared.
And just one day, it there was no more job, and no one expected that. And so then a friend of mine who had been a good influence on me, he was he’s a believer and was a entrepreneur businessman that I’d had speak in class, asked if I’d come and fill the role of vice president of his company, business development and sales. And and I have a little background in that. I have a little background in logistics, and it was the opportunity God put in front of us. And so I took it.
And, it was, you know, it was everything on paper that would work out. But within weeks of starting it, kind of once I got through the holidays, I started to feel an anxious feeling about it. Like, I don’t think this is it. But they were rolling forward like they were planning for me to be, you know, the head of this and the head of that. And they were introducing me to people as talking about, you know, where I was gonna be, you know, a year, 2 years down the road.
And I was trying to tap the brakes. And we had originally I thought we had said, hey, we’re just kinda engaged. And the my my friend, was more like naming the children already. So he was way down. But during that process, I went through a anxious time where I just, you know, was, no sleep and praying and trying to just figure out what is this feeling like I’ve never had this before.
And I’m really trying to evaluate, am I, you know, Lord, was ministry just a period of time? Is it like a lifetime calling for me? Is it is pastoral ministry it? Is is it just something generally adjacent to ministry? Is and just trying to pray through and think through every possible thing.
And then you and I, Pastor Gary, talked, very early in that period of time. So, like, right in the middle of that anxious time you and I talked. And then, as I prayed through it, I really wasn’t certain. I mean, the opportunity to come back to harvest, everything about the role is very attractive to me. I I love it.
I love the challenge of it. I love the the opportunity to make a difference and see, you know, decisions that God has informed me by giving me all this experience, being able to help develop leaders, grow things. So all of that was great. We honestly couldn’t say the word Guam for, I would say probably 2 months in the 1st 2 months. We tried one morning.
We’d like, hey, let’s pray together. And I was like, and Lord, if it’s Guam and then, you know, we both start crying. It’s like, okay, we can’t. And and at the time, in the earliest stages too, what it looked like was if God calls us to Guam, we’re gonna say goodbye to everyone and everything that we are really attached to. We’re gonna say goodbye to 3 we had 3 grandkids and 2 on the way at the time.
We’re gonna say goodbye to all our kids, their spouses. We’re we’re literally letting go of all that. We wanna be sure this is not just a, receding into something comfortable, nostalgic attachment. You know, the weather of Guam and because Iowa’s weather is terrible sometimes. You know, we we just weren’t sure.
And so we’re like, you know, we’re gonna go through this together. We’re gonna take our time, and I’m gonna explore every opportunity that comes my way to see if god would have something else besides Guam. And I specifically started praying. Lord, for the sake of, like, just our our own our own, peace and comfort and family. It’s like, lord, give me a Guam opportunity that’s not in Guam.
Literally, anywhere else in the planet is slightly closer than Guam. So I looked at a number of I had people approach me out of the blue, churches, other ministries. Of course, the company I was working for because the owner is a very good friend of mine and brother in Christ. I went to him early on because I felt like I didn’t want him he told he would tell, like, other business owners. He’d be like, yep.
We’re giving Jared the keys to the Lamborghini, and he’s gonna drive it. And I’m like, I don’t want him sharing that illustration anymore because he thinks I’m gonna be driving the Lamborghini. I’m thinking I might not be. And so I better before they, you know, promote me, we were gonna go on a South America trip and stuff. And before they start buying tickets and playing that, I need to let them know at least where my heart is at.
And so they try to talk me out of it for months. And so is like this constant tension of like, okay, lord. What else is there? And not comparing everything against harvest or Guam, but just honestly being open to it. Lord, if you’ll have me do something else, I’m willing.
And so as we went through the whole process, we got more comfortable with at least talking about. We we knew that eventually, we had to get to the point of being able to talk about it. We had some family stuff going on at the same time that was just really, you know, hard and scary. And so it was like, we can’t we needed to kind of maybe put the discussion on the side until we get through some of this and but over time, as the Lord settled some of those things down, we were able to talk a little bit. We’d try and just talk about on Saturday mornings over coffee.
And then I really didn’t have a picture in my mind of what life was going to be, but I liked how things had developed.
Gary Walton: Mhmm.
Jared Baldwin: So the harvest thing was very disruptive. I mean, it’s just a very disruptive thing. But, you know, we just we prayed about it, sought advice. We finally let our kids as Andrew kind of figured it out, then we kinda had to start telling our kids. And so by the time we hit you had asked me and Tammy to come out and do in service.
By the time summer rolled around, we were able to tell Kayla and Q and then Zach and Christy. And at the 11th hour, we had a opportunity come along that seemed like it would be the ideal thing that would be the exact opposite of coming to Guam. Mhmm. It was 10 miles away from where we lived. We wouldn’t Tammy wouldn’t have to change jobs.
We wouldn’t have to move away from anybody. It would have just been kind of a comfortable slide over to a new and a neat ministry opportunity that I would be very interested in in helping with the church plant that was right down the road and economically would have worked for us. You know, everything would have been good. But, as we looked at that even and prayed through that, we had a long drive up to visit our new granddaughter, Eden. And so we talked about it the whole way up.
And we’re just like, you know, it I don’t think that’s what God wants us to do at this time. It seems like we would want something like that, but when actually presented with the opportunity, it’s like, that’s just not it for us right now. So, the saying yes was hard enough and then the actual okay. Now now what? Like, okay, Lord.
You’re gonna have to give us grace not just to say yes, but then the actual doing of it. Even though coming back, like, even when we came and spoke in August, we thought maybe the August in service would be the slam dunk. Right. It’s either just gonna be so perfect that it’s gonna be like, of course. Or it’s just gonna be, they don’t need us.
It’s not a you know, it’s just kind of a a a nice memory, good home reunion, but, you know, it was really neither one of those. It was a little bit of both, I guess. It was the worst weather, worst week of weather I’d seen on Guam in his I was I couldn’t remember that. 7 straight days of heavy, heavy rain. We never went to Tumont.
We never went to the beach. We never we walked one beach down by the governor’s complex for an hour. It got rained on. It the sun came out as we drove to the airport. It was stressful.
You know, there were a number of things happening back in Iowa that kinda, you know, there was pressure. There was pressure because it was kind of this big inside secret with most people about us even praying about coming back. And so every conversation was a little strained on our side. Like, we can’t really open up about what’s actually going on in our lives because we don’t wanna defraud anyone if this isn’t it. We don’t wanna get ahead of ourselves.
We haven’t made a decision. So the August thing didn’t actually solve it for us. It just kinda added to the fog of, okay, Lord. What are you doing? But in the end, as the Lord just kinda cleared away all the other things as we pursued my boss, actually.
The guy who was losing me to whatever I was gonna choose, said, you know, you really have to ask yourselves, is this from the Lord or not? Like, where is it coming from? Is it from the Lord or not? And then he also asked me specifically just about he’s very much, you know, he knows giftedness and different skills and abilities and things like that. And he’s like, you know, God’s made you very unique, Jared.
If there’s a unique position, who else is gonna fill that? Like, why would God present this to you if you if you aren’t the the candidate to to fill this role? Because it’s such a unique thing. And so that, you know, that along with dozens of other people’s advice, I think really helped be like, okay, lord. This is a big step of faith.
I think it’s probably the hardest decision I ever made in my life. Yeah. Because it’s it’s hard on me personally. It’s hard on my wife. It’s hard on all the people we have to tell.
Like, you know, we get to kinda, in a way, gallivant off and go take this other adventure. Other people stay behind. And that’s, you know, all these things are hard. It’s when we were young, I think when Marty Herron asked us to come to Guam in 2,000 and 1, 2,002, I don’t think it took us a day to be pretty sure that this is what we were gonna do. I mean, we we there was a process, but it was a pretty quick then when we moved back in 2011, we had been praying about a move for a few months and it just just came very easy.
It was just like a you know what? It’s it’s the right thing. Let’s this one was just a prolonged, like, process that I never really experienced anything quite as intense as this. So I
Tammy Baldwin: was gonna say that, just in going through the process, you end up running across other people who are praying through decisions or have, and they’ll share their wisdom with you either from the word or just, you know, practical wisdom that they’ve gained. And and I will say that, even with our kids and then our parents, you know, they just gave such grace in the situation. And, I was just so blessed by that. And I I think even, like, our parents you know, everybody has their personal feelings about it because you care and you love and you you wanna be around the people that you love all the time. And it’s something that I just have noticed, I think, more so in going through the process of this decision.
You know, it’s not flippant and and when people are going through that, it’s not flippant for them either. And and so being able to say, oh, this is something that really helped me or this is a verse or passage that God has used, you know, that meant a lot to me when people would just impart that type of grace that you know came from going through it.
Gary Walton: Well, what you’re saying is so true that people that live here, whether whether they came here later in life or whether they grew up here, there is regularly, it feels like this ongoing seasons of decisions about do I stay here. I’m amazed by that conversation. I have it all all the time. Of course, there’s staff conversations, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about local people.
Their kids are at different stages. They’re talking about opportunities and then parents and it really is an ongoing thing. So what you’re talking about here today, I’m again, I’m so thankful for you guys willingness to kind of open up the doors on that because it’s not just you that walk through decisions like this. It’s heavier here. There’s these amazing things about living on Guam.
And of course, we all are in on on this idea that, man, God is at work here in the investment, the eternal investment. You know, that’s it’s so that part is easy for us, but it’s the cost. And it’s not just for our staff here. It’s a cost for everybody about investing here and whether and what that means. And, and I I just wanted to say too that I I felt so honored really to to be able to just have a little window into that decision making process for you kind of from the beginning and through it.
Because of I I just felt the godly way that you guys wade through a very heavy time for you, desperately wanting to do what God wants, all of the pieces that came through it. It was sweet watching your relationship together, you know, Jared talking with you about your, you know, just the gentle, careful way of caring, for Tammy through this. Tammy, your desire to see, you know, Jared fulfilled and, you know, all those pieces, you know, your relationship together, but then you’re just your relationship with God together, and genuinely seeking God’s will over a long period of time. You needed that time, but that time is hard. I mean, it was months months.
That’s a hard to make a long decision like that.
Jared Baldwin: Especially, we’re relatively decisive people. Like, we we don’t usually labor over
Gary Walton: Yeah.
Jared Baldwin: Decisions. We kinda
Gary Walton: Well, you make a lot of decisions in multiple roles and they come quick.
Jared Baldwin: You know, I’m a decision making. My I like that part of my job. Right? I like make trying to be wise. And and so to have a long decision on this one specifically, I think what you’re talking about, pastor Gary, is early on I said, well, it really doesn’t matter if even if I think this might be what god wants.
If Tammy and I aren’t on board together
Gary Walton: Yeah.
Jared Baldwin: I’m not gonna do it, and I’m not gonna put her in a position where it’s like, well, I would do god’s will, but it’s, you know, my wife doesn’t want me to. I
Tammy Baldwin: we’re well,
Jared Baldwin: I’m not gonna get I I get ahead of Tammy all the time. Like, even when we’re walking into the store, she’s like, you know, and she’s 10 feet behind. I’m like, oh, sorry. But so
Tammy Baldwin: I said it’s only leadership if there’s actually someone following me.
Gary Walton: That’s a that’s a good You’re still
Jared Baldwin: out in the parking lot. You’re
Tammy Baldwin: not a good maxim.
Jared Baldwin: That’s a good messaging. But it it in this specific case, it was like, we have to be to we might be at different levels of intensity of, you know, how excited we are about the results of this decision or the impact of us, on us emotionally. But I’m not gonna get ahead and just say, well, we’re doing this. And there are times where that might need to happen, where someone says tacos or pizza. We’re having a pizza.
You know? But in this case, it was like, we either do this together or God is not in it, in this specific case. And so that was one of the things I committed to early on. And and not to be gaslighting, not to say, well, we really haven’t decided, but we’re coming in November. You know, as we truly, even when Kayla and Q told us, we’ve decided we’re going.
That did not close the deal for us, like, where where it wasn’t like, well, now I know for sure. It’s like, what do you think? What do you think? Let’s pray together about this. Let’s make sure that we’re not, getting ahead of each other on this or that I’m not pretending that I’m not ready, that I really wanted to be certain that we both could say yes and that we could both live with the consequences of that.
Yes.
Tammy Baldwin: Yeah. I I think, obviously, you don’t wanna be labor like the whole decision making, but hopefully, it can be a help to people as you, you know, obviously, it it makes it sound like it was such a hard decision. There’s obviously so many joys now that we’re really experiencing here and and the ministry here. So I
Gary Walton: No. I don’t mean it in that way. I mean, it it
Jared Baldwin: of course,
Gary Walton: there was weight to it. There’s a weight to it. Yes. But I know I just was so really blessed by the ways you guys walked through it with open hands. Maybe that’s what I’d say.
Open hands. God, what are you doing? Let’s be clear about it. And, so I’m thankful for that. Thank you guys for open up that window, you know, for us here today, you guys are loved here and God’s using you already.
We look forward to a lot of seasons, of ministry together. Thank you.
Tammy Baldwin: Thank you.
Jared Baldwin: Yeah. Thank you. It’s been a a gracious re-entry into the Harvest atmosphere.
Chris Harper: Well, thank you for listening to today’s harvest time. We wanna take this moment to personally invite you again to services this week at Harvest Baptist Church. 8:45 AM is the first service, 10:45 AM, the second service, Spanish translation at 8:45, Japanese and Korean translation at 10:45. We live broadcast the second service at 10:45 here on 88.1fm and khmg.org. We would love to see you this Sunday.
Thanks again for listening to Harvest Time.