{"id":8328,"date":"2004-12-08T17:50:41","date_gmt":"2004-12-08T22:50:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/newswire\/?p=8328"},"modified":"2011-07-06T08:28:37","modified_gmt":"2011-07-06T13:28:37","slug":"3999","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/newswire\/2004\/12\/08\/3999\/","title":{"rendered":"A Knock on the Door Changed Her Family’s Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (December 8, 2004)\u00a0 – Editor’s note: the following story was\u00a0 written by Sharon Read, who as a child lived in the state of Washington.\u00a0 It speaks of the often overlooked acts of love and kindness that have\u00a0 far greater impact on a life than one might realize at the time. It is\u00a0 particularly appropriate as we celebrate the birth of the Christ child\u00a0 who is the source of inspiration for this kind of love.<\/em><\/p>\n

By Sharon Read<\/p>\n
Recently, while putting together some genealogy material and stories for\u00a0 my adult children, I found myself writing about my parents’ lives and\u00a0 the limited exposure we had to God as kids during the fifties. From my\u00a0 earliest memories, our family didn’t attend church. The extent of my\u00a0 knowledge about God was the “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep” prayer my\u00a0 grandmother taught me when I was small.<\/p>\n
It was in 1955 that the pastor of a local church entered our lives \u2013 and\u00a0 changed our lives forever. Pastor Alfred Ulner was the pastor of a\u00a0 church located a few miles from where we lived. At that time, our little\u00a0 town was nothing more than a small grocery store and gas station with a\u00a0 feed store by the railroad tracks that ran from Renton to Bellevue. We\u00a0 lived next door to my grandparents on land that my great-grandparents\u00a0 bought in the early 1900’s \u2013 it was considered out in the country. We\u00a0 didn’t get a lot of drop-in visitors. The only people I can remember\u00a0 coming up our driveway during those years was the Fuller Brush man or\u00a0 the Avon Lady.<\/p>\n
One day, Pastor Ulner came knocking on our door. He was out visiting\u00a0 door to door, which as anyone knows who has ever done that kind of\u00a0 outreach can be challenging. You never know what kind of reception you\u00a0 might receive. He introduced himself, spent some time talking with my\u00a0 mother and invited our family to church. After that visit, the Sunday\u00a0 school bus, sometimes driven by Pastor Ulner, began stopping in front of\u00a0 our house and picking up my brother, sister and me on Sunday mornings.\u00a0 My mother went to church occasionally for awhile, but my father never\u00a0 did attend with us. Pastor Ulner continued talking with my mother about\u00a0 God and generally encouraging her. She was studying the Bible during\u00a0 this time and I can remember her reading her Bible every day. She and\u00a0 dad began to watch Billy Graham Crusades on television.<\/p>\n
In a conversation with my mother a few years before her death in 1999,\u00a0 she told me the story about that first time Pastor Ulner came to our\u00a0 door. She was several weeks pregnant with her fourth child. She didn’t\u00a0 want any more children and a friend had directed her to a doctor in a\u00a0 town who did abortions. She made the appointment to abort the baby, but\u00a0 the day before the appointment, Pastor Ulner came to visit. She said she\u00a0 felt his visit was a direct intervention from God and she did not go\u00a0 through with the abortion.\u00a0 My baby brother, Mark, was born in 1956.<\/p>\n
For the next few years the three of us older children attended Pastor\u00a0 Ulner’s church. In our Sunday school class my sister, brother and I\u00a0 learned about Jesus. I remember loving the singing part of church. My\u00a0 brother, Steve, who was about six years old, remembers that at some\u00a0 point he said the sinner’s prayer with his Sunday school teacher. When I\u00a0 was about 11 years old, I had my first experience really knowing that\u00a0 God was real while attending a local bible camp with my Covenant church\u00a0 Sunday school class. The wind of the Holy Spirit was blowing on our family.<\/p>\n
In 1958 my grandfather died, and by 1959 our family had moved from the\u00a0 area. We no longer attended church. I wish I could say that our life was\u00a0 wonderful after our short exposure to God, but that wouldn’t be reality.\u00a0 There were many hard times for my parents and for us kids in the\u00a0 following years. But God is faithful.<\/p>\n
As he grew older, my father became more open about his childhood. He\u00a0 shared with me about his Baptist background, how he was saved as a boy\u00a0 in a church he attended with his parents. Shortly before his death in\u00a0 1982, he recommitted his life to God. My mother’s faith continued to\u00a0 grow during the last two decades of her life. In 1974, I accepted Jesus\u00a0 Christ as my Savior. Soon after, my husband also became a Christian. All\u00a0 four of my children are Christians as are my six grandchildren. My\u00a0 brother, Steve, continues to serve God, recently traveling to Mexico on\u00a0 an outreach trip.<\/p>\n
Through my eyes as a child, the church seemed kind of formal . . . the\u00a0 grownups seemed intimidating. Maybe I felt that way because it was the\u00a0 1950s and we were the little kids that came on the bus without our\u00a0 parents. But my memory of Pastor Ulner will always be of his kindness to\u00a0 us, how his faithfulness in reaching out to my mother changed the course\u00a0 of her life, as well as saved the life of my brother.<\/p>\n
To my knowledge Pastor Ulner never knew about the day he just “happened”\u00a0 to come to our house to invite us to church \u2013 and how his visit had a\u00a0 bigger purpose. I decided to do an Internet search to see if I could\u00a0 find him, to tell him and to thank him. When I typed in his name, a\u00a0 Covenant news story came up telling of his memorial service in August\u00a0 2002 (he had died at Mt. Miguel Covenant Village, a retirement facility\u00a0 in California). I was sorry to hear of his passing, but I saw from the\u00a0 article that he had five daughters. I contacted Covenant Communications\u00a0 and asked if someone would forward my note to Pastor Ulner’s family, if\u00a0 possible. A few days later (thanks to the assistance of the Department\u00a0 of the Ordered Ministry), I received a reply from one of Pastor Ulner’s\u00a0 daughters.<\/p>\n
I enjoyed reading her note about her memories of her family’s time\u00a0 living in Washington while her dad was a pastor and where he had\u00a0 ministered later on. (After leaving Washington, Ulner was called to\u00a0 churches in Berkeley, California; Phoenix, Arizona; northern Michigan,\u00a0 and Mason City, Iowa.) She noted that she and her husband also entered\u00a0 the ministry as missionaries to Africa. The daughter said she was young\u00a0 when the Ulner family lived in Washington \u2013 from the third grade to\u00a0 about the sixth grade \u2013 before the family moved to California. “I\u00a0 remember often riding on the bus on Sundays or during Vacation Bible\u00a0 School,” the daughter wrote. “So probably I met you many years ago.”<\/p>\n
I’m happy that I was able to share my family’s story with Pastor Ulner’s\u00a0 daughters. I think that all too often, men and women like him go through\u00a0 their lives being faithful in the small things, but never really knowing\u00a0 or understanding the incredible impact that they had for God and\u00a0 eternity. And I guess to some degree, all of us go through life not\u00a0 knowing or understanding – this side of heaven anyway – about the seeds\u00a0 that were sown or the harvests reaped for the Kingdom of God by our\u00a0 everyday “knocking on doors, driving the bus, kind words, a smile,\u00a0 reaching out, sharing the love of Jesus” kind of faithfulness.<\/div>\n
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Copyright \u00a9 2011 The Evangelical Covenant Church.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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WASHINGTON (December 8, 2004)\u00a0 – Editor’s note: the following story was\u00a0 written by Sharon Read, who as a child lived in the state of Washington.\u00a0 It speaks of the often overlooked acts of love and kindness that have\u00a0 far greater impact on a life than one might realize at the time. 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