The Men and The Mess

Our small group of families purchased a hog pin at the corner of Rothsay and 10th Street.  We were off and running, but first we had to clear the area.  Just like we cleared the beer cans from our first meeting place, the VFW Hall; and cleared the chicken feathers from our second meeting place, Bert's chicken shed; we had to clear the manure from our future church location, a hog farm!  Cleaning up the mess before we could worship our perfect God became a theme for us.

Ellis brought his bulldozer to clear the mess.  He was bumper deep in poop for weeks.  Oh, the smell!

But before we started building, we choose an elder board to guide us.  The first elder board was Bert Hawkins, Ellis Adee, and Evan Kindall.  Later, Emery Berry, Don Boss, Cliff Seusy, Nick Dolloff, and John Pruitt were added.  All the elders were teachers of God's word.  They felt that in any decision they made should be of one accord and would not act until they had all prayed and shared about the plan.  If they had any major decisions in which the whole group should vote on, it was to be voted on only by members who were attending regularly.

Our pastor Bill Shoyer started with us at the VFW hall and continued through the chicken shed and onto our new building at the hog farm site.  In 1959 he left us to take a job in Topeka and Joe Wolfe filled in for over three years.  One summer Joe said he worked 54 hours a week at the cleaning shop, preached sermons Sunday morning and night, taught a bible study at CBC on Wednesday evening, another bible study at Bellville on Tuesday night, and a third bible study at Clay Center on Thursday night.  He was very glad when that summer was done!  Joe had been trained in a Bible Institute in Canada and later pastored several churches in Nebraska.  in 2016 he celebrated his 88th birthday and is currently retired and living in New Mexico.

During Dave Bohyer's 15 years pastoring here, the church grew so much we were going to have to go to having two services because we couldn't fit anymore chairs in the church.  Around 1980 some people from the Bennington area asked if they could start their own group which they did and met in a closed bar until they built their own building.  Dave Bohyer preached at both churches until Bennington got a preacher of their own.