Josh and Sarah Wagar are missionaries in Chuuk. They joined Pastor Walton to discuss their current work on the island and the events that led them there.
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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 twenty five minutes together telling you the stories of our church by 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’s just one service during the summer months at 10AM, Sunday morning.
That’s one service at 10AM, Sunday. We have Japanese and Korean translation during that service, and that’s also when we live stream at hbcGuam.org. hbcguam.org. This week, part 12, the final message from our Love Is series, first Corinthians 13:8-13. Let’s begin today’s Harvest Time by welcoming Pastor Gary Walton.
Hi, pastor.
Gary Walton: Hey, hafa adai, Chris. I was gonna mention we didn’t talk about this earlier, but we also have, at 04:00 on Sunday afternoon, we’ve got kind of a church family neighborhood picnic together. It’s not a service, and we’d like to invite you to come and join us. We’re gonna have some food together. It’ll be in the family life center.
We’ll eat some food, play some games. Our summer ministry team is here. We’ve been talking about that a little bit. And, they’re getting ready to kick off their next week of of, we call it cool school, but they’ve got some games that are gonna be up for kids, and, we’re just gonna have a family gathering on Sunday afternoon. So, if you’re new to the island, trying to find a way to connect with some people, we’d like to invite you to come and join us for that as well.
And as Chris mentioned, we’re gonna have our final message in a series that we began way back in, January. So this is a would you say the thirteenth, twelfth?
Chris Harper: Yeah. It’s the twelfth.
Gary Walton: Yeah. Twelfth. This is the twelfth part in a message series of messages on first Corinthians 13. And right here at the end, we’ve been pulling in the teaching that surrounded this chapter in chapter twelve and fourteen. We’ll focus in this Sunday on, chapter, 13 and verse 12.
It says, we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face. It’s a beautiful picture of some important spiritual truths, and we’re gonna talk about what it means, how it interacts with the whole context of, of spiritual gifts, and, we’d like to invite you to come and join us as we finish up as we complete this series here this summer. Come early. The auditorium will be full, and, you’ll get a chance to meet a bunch of people and worship God together. Well, we’re really privileged to have on campus and with us for a week or so here this summer, missionaries, Josh and Sarah Wagar.
Welcome back to Harvest. Glad to have you guys with us.
Josh Wagar: Thank you. It’s, it’s always a privilege to be here. We enjoy it.
Gary Walton: Yeah. Well, your family’s here, and in fact, even, Josh, your parents, are able to be here for a little bit. They spent some time with you. I guess I didn’t even say this. You guys are missionaries on Chuuk.
Been there for eight and a half years. Your parents were with you for a little bit, and and now you guys are here before they head back stateside.
Josh Wagar: Yeah. It was an awesome opportunity. So they were slotted to come out in the spring of 2020, and then COVID hit and shut everything down. And so this is their first time, ever being out this way. So been nice.
They’ve been there for three weeks with us, and then this is a great way to wrap up, their time. It gives us a few more opportunities to do cool things that we don’t have on Chuuk. So
Gary Walton: Yeah. Well, cool’s got Chuuk has cool things, and, Guam has different cool things.
Josh Wagar: So Yep. Very much.
Gary Walton: Well, we’re really, very glad to have you guys back on campus. God’s done, in our minds, and, you know, Harvest, just really a neat thing in connecting our church family with your family and really our burden for what God is allowing you to do on Chuuk. We have a burden for the islands. And since the last time you’re here, we’ve had the privilege of being able to take on your family and support. If you’re listening, you’re like, what’s that mean?
It just means that we’re part of the support team, for Josh and Sarah as they’re serving in Chuuk. There’s churches that have said, we wanna be with you. We wanna support you. We wanna kinda hold up your arms in the ministry, and we’re really thrilled to be able to say we’re part of that, support team and actually have you back here as part of our Mission family this time.
Josh Wagar: Yeah. And it really means a lot. We’re really privileged and excited to hear that that happened. When we were here last time, we just enjoyed getting to know everybody. Then Ms.
Pam emailed us a couple of weeks ago and said, hey, guess what? You made it.
And I said, oh, wow, cool.
And so it’s a blessing to have people this close to us that we’re now connected to in an even deeper way. And, it’s kind of a breath of fresh air that we haven’t had, so it’s nice.
Gary Walton: Well, we want it to be a place we want Harvest to be a place where you guys have family, family that’s close, and also a place of refreshment, encouragement for you, not just when you’re here. Hopefully, it’s true while you’re there that you feel that.
Josh Wagar: Very much so. Yep. Thank you.
Gary Walton: Sarah, why you tell us about your family? You got two little children, names, ages?
Sarah Wagar: Sure. We have a daughter, Milena, and she’s nine years old. And then we have a son, Uriah. He’s two and a half.
Gary Walton: Okay. And, they have grown up in Chuuk for the most part. Right? You guys have been there eight and a half years, so Milena would have been.
Sarah Wagar: Yes. She was one years one year old when we moved there, And then, we took a furlough after being there for five years. So, that was a a big experience for her. A lot of new things that she had never never been around.
Gary Walton: Yeah. That’s fantastic. I’m really interested in, our audience being able to hear your story, and maybe we can start it from the beginning. I mean, I don’t know how far you wanna go back. But, Josh, can we start with you?
Kinda where where did you grow up? What kind of a family did you grow up in? How did how did you know about God? You know, how did you give your life to him?
Josh Wagar: Sure. I, I had the absolute privilege of growing up in a a young Christian family. My dad got saved after I was born. But then from that time onward, we were in church all the time, and my mom was Navy. And wherever we went, which because my brother and I were both health patients, we were mainly stationed in Norfolk, Virginia.
And so there, we got involved in some good churches and that’s where I started to hear about the Lord. And when I was very young, I remember hearing a Sunday school lesson and feeling convicted. And I remember Ms. Terry took me downstairs and showed me from the Bible what it means to be a Christian, to be saved. And so as a young person, I accepted Christ as my savior.
And several years later, we ended up moving out to Hawaii, and that’s we got involved in
Gary Walton: How old were you when you moved to Hawaii?
Josh Wagar: I was 13, I believe 13 or 14, somewhere around there. Okay. And so, we moved out there. That would have been 14, I guess. And we moved out and that’s where we got involved with Ohana Baptist Church.
And it was there that I started interacting with a bunch of Chuukese people. And so in the church, we had its own separate Chuukese congregation. I was going to school and youth group and things like that. Never really was much on my radar. I didn’t know much about it other than we would just hang out together.
And then fast forward, we moved back, finished up high school in Virginia and went off to college. And I I knew the Lord wanted me in ministry. I honestly thought we’d be going back to Hawaii. There’s a great need there. And while I was in college, the Lord just kind of started answering some really direct prayers and started moving towards Micronesia.
But I didn’t know the difference really between Chuuk and Pohnpei and Yap and all of that. And so it was during that time where I knew that I was supposed to be heading that way. I didn’t know what that looked like. I didn’t I was pretty ignorant of the area. And our pastor from Hawaii came to the college and did some series of sermons and was there as a guest speaker.
And I told him, I said, pastor, I think I’m heading to Micronesia as a missionary. And he said, well, you need to go to Chuuk. And I said, oh, okay. And pretty much from that time onward, the Lord really used that to spark that. Sarah and I were dating at the time, like, we knew we were heading towards marriage.
So we talked about it together and kind of started pursuing the path. And here we are thirteen, fourteen years later, and we’ve been in Chuuk now for eight and a half years. So that’s the long and short of everything.
Gary Walton: Okay. I wanna ask you some more questions about that. Let me back up, Sarah, get your story and then, you know, how you guys met. Why don’t you put all those pieces together for us?
Sarah Wagar: Sure. So I also grew up in a Christian home. My parents were faithfully serving in church. And then when I was a young girl
Gary Walton: Where did you grow up?
Sarah Wagar: I grew up in Jacksonville, North Carolina.
Gary Walton: Okay.
Sarah Wagar: And then my dad felt called to go to Bible College. So we moved to another area of North Carolina and he attended a Bible College out of a church. And through all of that and just he he knew he was pursuing missions. And so, eventually we landed in Spain, and I was 12 years old when we went there. So it was it was my formative years and so it was a little bit of a struggle for me at first to adjust to a change of leaving behind friends that, you know, I had spent my entire life with.
I was never outwardly rebellious, but, you know, there was definitely discontentment in my life.
Gary Walton: Do you have brothers and sisters?
Sarah Wagar: I do. I have an older sister and a younger brother.
Gary Walton: Okay. So all three the whole family of five, right, moved together? Yes. Okay. Yeah.
That’s that’s your whole world’s changing. Right?
Sarah Wagar: Sure. Yeah. And the Lord used a ministry, by another missionary, Andy Bonakowski. He holds a, yearly retreat for missionary kids throughout Europe and and really any missionary kids who can attend. And the Lord used that to help me understand my privilege that I had to, serve alongside my family and ministry.
And that really just, it changed the direction of my heart and my attitude. And then I came back to The US for college. We attended the same college, met in college. And I knew he was interested in missions and and I I was fine with that as well. I grew up on the mission field.
Gary Walton: So Mhmm.
Sarah Wagar: Yeah.
Gary Walton: It’s really interesting. I mean, I think we all can look back on our life and see different points in time where, there’s just, like, pivot points. And, it feels like, at least for me when I look back at my story, there’s a couple different spots where almost like I I was on a ridgeline, and depending on what direction I went in a very short period of time, it would have sent me in a very different direction.
Sarah Wagar: Yes.
Gary Walton: And and I think about this often. It is only God’s grace
Josh Wagar: Mhmm.
Gary Walton: During those moments. And and some people actually, like your story, that helped Mhmm. To just push a little bit past the ridge so I was on the side, you know, that would lead towards, you know, towards God. And it’s amazing how God does that. Right?
Sarah Wagar: Yes. Yeah.
Gary Walton: Yeah. Yeah. It’s cool. And and, of course, there’s sometimes in life we we make the bad choice and God’s grace is good for us, you know, and he turns us around, and there’s some repentance and some heart that comes with that. I’m thankful for that story.
I I might, if we have time at the end, I might wanna ask you guys both about just people in your life. But Andy Bonakowski.
Sarah Wagar: Bonakowski. Yes.
Gary Walton: Praise God for people that God uses
Sarah Wagar: Yeah.
Gary Walton: At those times. Yeah. So you said this a little bit, Josh, but Chuuk, you know, why Chuuk? You started heading that way thirteen plus years ago. Is that what you said?
Josh Wagar: Sure. Yeah. So when we started looking towards Chuuk, I didn’t really I couldn’t have told you anything about it except about the kids that I grew up with. And that was within pretty much a church and a Christian school context. So I didn’t know much about it.
But in talking with people, we heard that there was kind of a greater need there within the four states of the Federated States Of Micronesia. We’re kind of the ones with the bad reputation, whether that’s for violence or, whatever. And some of that is stereotypical, so it’s not as true as people make it out to be. But, nevertheless, that reputation was there, and I was I was encouraged to go that way. So we went in 2013 and checked it out and really, we kinda had a Jonah moment where we really, really wanted to run away.
Like, we just we didn’t want to be there. During that survey trip, as the new brave husband that I was, I was really hoping. I said, do we need to buy a ticket to go home right now? Trying to be a hero and secretly hoping that my wife would say, yeah, yeah, we need to go home. And, she, thank God, speaking of brave and people that impact us, that Ridgeline.
Yeah. She said, no, I think we should should stick it out. Wow. And so I started to pray, and and there are some big things that God did in our hearts while we were in Chuuk, and it didn’t take away all the fear or the difficulty.
Gary Walton: Like what? Josh, tell us about that.
Josh Wagar: Well, I remember, I think there was just a time where I got out on a walk, and I just kind of opened up and told God, like, I don’t like it here. I don’t wanna be here. This is not when when I when I thought about Chuuk before I knew anything about it, I thought it would be like, Hawaii. Right? You know, maybe a small Hawaii.
For those of you that have maybe Guam is your context, you think, Okay, Guam’s a small island. Well, Guam is New York City compared to Chuuk Micronesia. It’s like night and day difference. So when we got there, it wasn’t anything that I expected. And to any of our Chuukese friends listening, you know that we love you, but it was it was dirtier.
It was, dingier. There’s there’s just a a darkness. We can we can sense a darkness there. And and so that really started to eat away at us. And, we didn’t have a lot of friends.
We don’t really we didn’t know anybody out there. And so I got away with the Lord, and the Lord really just reminded me of Jonah. He said, Look, you’ve got the opportunity to run away and have comfort or you have the opportunity to kind of suck it up like a man, embrace it, and then just let me do something great. Not me, but God. Let God do something great.
And so that’s Sarah and I, I came back. We had that talk, and and it was amazing. You can you can feel that burden lift. Mhmm. And the rest of the time there, there was still difficulty of, you know, surrender.
But we did. I think we can say that we completely let go and we surrendered. God, this is your will.
Gary Walton: Sarah, what about you there? I mean, you you know, Josh said you you said, no. Let’s stick it out for this trip. But now when Josh is starting to say, hey. I think maybe God’s calling us, did you feel the same?
Sarah Wagar: Yes. And I knew that for me, the things that I was struggling with were, ultimately so insignificant in the grand scheme of
Gary Walton: Wow.
Sarah Wagar: Of kingdom sacrifice and service. I I realized that the things that that were holding me back were were insignificant and materialistic. Mhmm. Yeah.
Gary Walton: That’s really powerful.
Sarah Wagar: And I think, you know, part of what Joshua was saying and the things that we struggled with, I think that was just spiritual opposition.
Gary Walton: Right.
Sarah Wagar: Trying to, dissuade us from from staying and and coming back. So I think that really, in the big picture, that was what we were struggling with and it was just materialistic and and other things of that nature that we thought were the
Gary Walton: Comfort based.
Sarah Wagar: Yeah. Comfort based things that we thought were the issues, but but in the grand picture.
Gary Walton: Yeah.
Sarah Wagar: It was spiritual.
Gary Walton: Wow. Wow.
Josh Wagar: That’s been that’s been true over and over, you know, in there’s such a spiritual opposition
Gary Walton: Yes.
Josh Wagar: That we’ve dealt with there.
Gary Walton: Yeah.
Josh Wagar: And it’s a religiously saturated place and yet still very dark in areas. And so it’s really interesting. Sarah, that’s a great observation. What we initially think this is the issue, as we’ve been able to step back over time and look at it from a further distance, it was 100% spiritual warfare and opposition that that was in dark darkness. Wow.
Gary Walton: So you, felt, okay. This is how God’s leading us. We’re together. We’re gonna bring our family back here. Maybe didn’t even have Nope.
Your daughter yet.
Sarah Wagar: No. We didn’t have children at the Yeah. Okay.
Gary Walton: Go back to The States, raise some support, right
Josh Wagar: Yes, sir.
Gary Walton: To, be able to come back. When when did you come back to Chuuk?
Josh Wagar: We moved to Chuuk. So we visited it at the very end of 2013. So it took us about three years. And then in the very beginning of 2017, we moved to Chuuk to live full time.
Gary Walton: Yeah. Okay. And that was hard, Josh, right? You know, I’ve talked about it.
Josh Wagar: Yeah. We moved into a garbage dump and we didn’t know it. And so I had found us a house. The Lord opened it up. But when I had first seen it, there was grass everywhere.
And when we got back, we found out quickly it had been used as a literal garbage dump for who knows how many decades. So our first year was finishing up renovating or building the house and, clearing out a garbage dump and getting life going in a foreign field. And it was it was an intense, intense year.
Gary Walton: Yeah. Yeah.
Sarah Wagar: And if I can just share something about that time, coincidentally, Paul Zimmer was on the island at the time that we landed and we didn’t know each other. He was there for another reason and he attended our church on a Wednesday night service, met us, saw that we were just in like the first two weeks of being on the field, came up, saw some of the struggles that we were facing and he said, hey, what do you think about Sarah going over with me, Laina, and spending about a month with Sherry? And I did.
Gary Walton: You did? Wow.
Josh Wagar: Wow. Wow.
Sarah Wagar: They were, it was, it was fantastic. I learned a lot from her just in the time that that we were there about how to live and thrive in Micronesia.
Gary Walton: Wow. Another just God moment of the right people at the right times. Yeah. You had some health difficulties early on and even just some challenges staying there, right?
Josh Wagar: Yeah, the health difficulties were just kind of typical island sickness. So, I mean, we went through the gamut of nameless sicknesses and who knows what we had or whatever. And so then, again, not to keep harping on the spiritual aspect, like the spiritual darkness, but there were some pretty intense spiritual things that happened. The first five and a half years there, thereabouts, they were constantly felt like we were trying to be pushed, pushed off, pushed out, give up. And so that that first five and a half years when we came back on furlough, I don’t think we realized quite how, like, frayed and broken we really were.
Like, looking back at it, I think, wow. We were pretty haggard. But, again, the Lord’s grace just kept extending every little bit more that we needed. It was still there. It never gave up.
But he got us out at just the right time. And so but, yeah, that first five and a half years was was pretty intense.
Gary Walton: Well, I remember talking with you maybe the first time we really were able to sit down and and you described in some more details, you know, some of that. And I remember thinking, Josh, for you, but also for you, Sarah, that most people would have assumed this is enough, that this is we we’ve come. We’ve given up our lives to come here, but just one thing after another of just seemed like push away, push away. I mean, that’s what you described, and I I heard it the same way. Each one of them would have been very easy to say, hey.
Maybe God didn’t. You know? Maybe this wasn’t. And I just I mean, honestly, I I was so blessed and moved and burdened, by your faith that said God’s called us here, and to stay. And and, frankly, Sarah, I’ve I’ve told you this before, but yours too, to stay, to say, you know, in this setting, I’m staying with my husband, we’re together in this, in in a time when you, early on maybe especially felt pretty alone, with that.
And, man, I’m I’m so blessed by that. I want people to know you guys have stayed, and God’s beginning to honor, I think, that commitment.
Josh Wagar: Faithful is He who’s called you who will also perform it. And I will brag on Sarah for just a minute because it was hard enough for us to stay when we were in agreement. I cannot imagine if Sarah was, less of a strong woman. And so our staying was made possible by this spiritual depth of Sarah.
Gary Walton: I got it. I’m with you. I’m grateful. Yeah. I felt the same thing that, Josh, you’re strong and God’s made you for that.
But Sarah, you’re you’re strong to come along beside him and stay. God’s gonna honor and bless, you guys together. And I’ve told you this before, I’m so, so happy that Harvest can come alongside you because I I think we’re close enough to hopefully provide some real support and help and encouragement that you could feel like we’re here and close. I want that desperately to be part of it, you know.
Josh Wagar: Well, we feel it. I mean, it’s even an hour and a half flight doesn’t sound that that far. But, man, even coming here, I was telling, I think Miss Pam the other day.
Gary Walton: Yeah.
Josh Wagar: I told her, this is one of the very few places that at least I can go and I can honestly turn off. Like, I don’t feel like that anywhere else. Mhmm. But here I come and I feel like, wow. This is actually a haven, like, really refreshing.
And it’s it’s amazing because we don’t get that Yeah. Really anywhere else. So
Gary Walton: I’m so thankful. We want it to be an oasis. Yeah.
Josh Wagar: It is.
Gary Walton: An oasis where you can just rest and recover, hopefully be ministered to. Yeah. And you guys are blessing us too.
Josh Wagar: Oh, praise the Lord.
Gary Walton: You’re serving alongside Grace Baptist Church, Pastor Mike Abbe, who we support as well. We love him and his family. How’s the church doing?
Josh Wagar: Yeah. It’s going well. Pastor Mike, it’s been one of the greatest privileges in my life to serve underneath a pastor. He is one of the greatest, most humble pastors I’ve ever had the privilege of being around. And so he babyed us in the language.
He has grown us up in the culture. And then just learning ministry, like true ministry, from a local perspective has been something we wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. So the church is doing well. We have two sides. We have the English side because we have a lot of expats, you know, from all over the world that come.
And that side’s bigger and a little bit stronger. And then we have the Chuukese side, and it fluctuates, all of them fluctuate. And so the church itself is doing well. I think we’re seeing growth, we’re seeing spiritual growth for sure. So we’re grateful for that.
Gary Walton: Want to just quick, we ran out of time so fast, but new gym. Yeah. Tell us about that.
Josh Wagar: Okay. And so we just opened up Sounfiu Gym. This has been in the works now for about three years.
Gary Walton: What’s Sounfiu means?
Josh Wagar: Sounfiu means warrior.
Gary Walton: Okay.
Josh Wagar: So it’s warrior gym. Our motto is Achocho Akufu. It means strive and overcome. And, being being of, a Baptist church in Chuuk, we’re kind of the outliers, the outcasts, a lot of people get real nervous about that. And so, though I might be a little bit respected as a missionary, I’m still kind of held at arm’s length.
But as a coach, as president and CEO of an NGO, all of that, and then having the only gym in all of
Gary Walton: It’s the only gym in Chuuk.
Josh Wagar: Right? It is. It’s the only gym. It’s professionally equipped. We’re coaching the wrestling team, the track team.
We’ve got jujitsu going. We’ve got it already. We’ve been open about a month, and we’ve already got, like, 30 members. We’re opening up ladies classes for the summer, and it’s just giving us already within the first little bit just countless opportunities to get involved. And then now people know, okay.
Our heart is there with you guys. Like, we’re we’re here to stay. We love you. And so it’s been really fruitful already. We look forward to seeing the discipleship opportunities that come from it.
Gary Walton: Yeah, I think it’s fantastic. It’s going to give you so many opportunities. I saw it about a year ago. Was with in Chuuk. You saw the vision stage.
I saw the vision stage, but I’m telling you, Josh, I could see it with you. I could I
Josh Wagar: meant a lot because you did. You said that. Said, I can see it.
Gary Walton: Could see it.
Josh Wagar: How many people can’t?
Gary Walton: It was rough at that time, but I could see it. And it’s really cool seeing it come, you know, to fruition and praying that God would give that. It’s just a platform for ministry investment in people’s And
Josh Wagar: Harvest got a huge part of it. Guys gave a huge chunk of money right toward the end, and that chunk of money has helped us be able to continue on. And that it
just it meant the world that before we were even officially part of the Harvest Missions family, you guys believed in what God is doing enough in Chuuk to to do that. So it was we’re really grateful, and Harvest has played a huge part of it, so we’re grateful.
Gary Walton: We’re glad to be on your team. You know, if we can hold you up your arms a little bit, support you on the front lines there, we want to be able to do that. Glad that you’re here this week. Josh and Sarah are going to be with us through Sunday. In fact, Josh is going to share a testimony in this morning’s service.
Glad that you’re here. Thanks for coming and joining us on Harvest Time.
Josh Wagar: Thank you for having us.
Chris Harper: And thank you for listening to Harvest Time. Of course, at this point in the program, we always wanna personally invite you again to services at Harvest Baptist Church. Just one service during the summer months, 10AM, 10AM Sunday, Japanese and Korean translation at that time. You can also hear that service live here on 88.1 FM or KHMG.org. We hope to see you this Sunday.
Thanks again for listening to Harvest Time.