MEDICAL LAKE — St. Johns Lutheran Church has a new pastor. Two, actually.
Greg and Carol Yeager arrived in mid-December and began tending to their flock that includes Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Reardan on Jan. 1.
The Yeager’s came from North Carolina via North Dakota where they spent “three winters,” as Greg put it, before moving south where they pastored for 15 years at various churches in the Carolina heat as independent Lutheran pastors.
And Greg, at least, was just fine with that.
“It’s too dark and cold,” the Spokane native said of the Dakotas.
But change is constant, and the couple moved to the West Plains because “the Spirit brought us here,” Carol, a Chicago native, said.
It was unexpected, at least from Greg’s perspective.
“I was going to die in North Carolina,” he said with a hint of an acquired Carolina accent. “I was perfectly happy being buried in that red mud. I loved it there a lot.”
But after the couple visited family in the Tri-Cities area two years ago, then again last spring and summer after Greg’s father died, they sensed they were entering a season of change.
“Every time we turned around it seemed like there was a sign,” Greg said.
For example: they were driving along the Klickitat River on one visit and found themselves suddenly immersed in a swarm of migrating monarch butterflies.
“That’s not a sign,” Greg said sarcastically, adding they experienced a number of similar occurrences. “You spend your life telling people to listen to what God’s saying, and every once in awhile you have to actually do it yourself.”
So, they began inquiring about church opportunities in the area and found one on the West Plains.
Confirmation came when they put their North Carolina house on the market thinking it might take a couple months to sell. It was bought by the first people who viewed it.
The couple have since found and closed on a house in Spokane’s Perry District.
“We looked around here,” Carol said. “Houses are hard to come by on the West Plains.”
Both are military veterans. Greg served as a C-130 pilot in the Marine Corps; Carol is still a colonel in the Air Force Reserve, where she serves as a chaplain.
The couple met when stationed in Okinawa, Japan, in the late 1980s, and after their discharge attended seminary together at Wartburg Theological Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa.
The two will co-pastor their flock that, between the two churches, numbers around 150 souls.
“Come by and meet us,” Carol invited. “Come listen to pastor Greg play his guitar.”
She noted there is always plenty going on at St. Johns: Feed Medical Lake operates from the church, there’s Senior Lunch, and lots of ecumenical activities in both churches. They are starting some new programs for youth and Christian education next month.
“Were really excited to be a part of the community,” Greg said.
Lee Hughes can be reached at [email protected].
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