Lustre News
The morning temps the first week of October were 45-48 degrees. Saturday, Oct. 10, it was 48 degrees at 7:30 a.m., and Sunday 33.4 with rain. Monday, we woke to 3½ inches of snow and 30.4 degrees at 7:30 a.m. By Tuesday, the snow melted, but it was 32 at 7 a.m. and morning temps inched up to 32.9, 36.1 on Thursday and a cool 25 this morning. The afternoons were usually a bit warmer, and it’s 42 Friday evening. Welcome to a new season of fall.
We enjoyed a cattle drive and the students are enjoying a long weekend with school over early Wednesday, Oct. 14, for the MEA convention. Dorm students are guests at community homes which is always an interesting time. Jean Toews welcomed people to the ladies’ meeting, reading Psalm 100: 5 and rejoicing over the 217 they had been able to serve a meal to celebrate Harvest Missions. Their former Pastor’s wife, Lisa Epp, wife of J. Epp, was the guest at the Oct. 5 morning MB Women’s Missionary Society. Lisa was a pastor’s daughter in Minot, N.D., and “asked The Lord to come into her heart at a CEF club her mom held in their backyard.” Her folks moved to pastorates in Dayton, Ohio, Enid, Okla., and in Kansas, where she took grades 1012 before attending Tabor College. She earned her general music degree and “planned to be a music therapist.”
Lisa and J met at Tabor and were married by their senior year. Though they sought work in California where she’d applied to the music therapy program, there were no jobs. Someone phoned that he had a job for J selling cars in Enid, so they packed up and moved. “God knew there was a music therapy program at the Phillips University in Enid.” During that time, one of the youth in their youth group was David Jansens, who is the current president of Tabor College. Because their intent at that time was to be missionaries, they took a missions trip with MCC’s Swap program in Kentucky that summer. “There, they learned how to talk with people in poverty.”
Going back to Enid, they were informed that SWAP was looking for a director for the very place they’d been, or it would need to close. By February, they sold their house and moved to Kentucky, “a wild place,” so J could become the director. They were there 2½ years, during which they tried to make homes safer and warmer. It was so hard J developed an ulcer. Lisa had one year left of her studies and a sixmonth internship, so they returned to Enid, before going to seminary. J was asked to be assistant pastor alongside his studies and he loved it. But Lisa had grown up in a pastor’s family and wasn’t keen on the idea. Shortly after his graduation, the MB conference called to say they had a church for J. It was in Lustre. They were 34 and found they had been given “the best mentors” for their first real pastorate. In fact, “for 36 straight Sundays, we never ate at our house.” They were invited to families’ homes to get to know them. They left Lustre in tears with their two boys after six years, because J’s dad had a stroke and they were needed to help. This was their first visit back in 25 years.
For the last 21 years, Lisa has worked with Community Action Agency in York, Neb. It administers programs with WIC, Head Start, HUD’s housing program, immunization, child care, thrift stores in five of the nine counties she is responsible for, food vendors, helping with back rent and electricity.
For the past 11 years, J has been back in the pastorate at Henderson, Neb., at Bethesda, where he is one of three pastors.
The LCHS Foundation Dinner is Nov. 2, at 6 p.m .at LCHS. Guest speaker will be Andy Shewey of the MB Foundation. RVSPs are requested by Oct. 26 to Keith Unger.
