Throwing Seeds: Planting Souls for Christ
By Caroline F. Daniel
As a Marine helicopter pilot, Russ Bergeman could navigate the darkest night skies. He could rescue troops injured in combat and land his bird on an aircraft carrier slicing at the sea. “What I learned,” Russ says, “was to count on me. I had the controls. I was the one who had to save the Marines in the back of the helicopter. I was the one who had to save me. I was the one who had to do it. And for more than 20 years, that was my life’s philosophy.”
During her teens, Russ’ wife Gayle had battled an eating disorder and suffered the loss of her sister in a car accident. After she and Russ were married, they moved 12 times from base to base, from Japan to Monterey, and while he was stationed in the Middle East, Gayle was essentially a single mother of three. When Russ retired from the Corp, Gayle stood beside him as they opened a performance training business – a family business. And that’s when everything went south.
“We had essentially pushed God out of the way,” Russ says, “focusing instead on the business, building it and making money. Spiritually though - we were bankrupt.” They were desolate, he says,
That’s when the angel showed up. “During one of our low, low moments, we decided to go out as a family,” Russ says. “It was a Thursday evening and we had run some errands and decided to stop for dinner at Village Inn.” Since there was a wait for a table, the Bergeman's divided up and sat on opposite sides of the waiting area. A woman came through the door, sat down next to Gayle and started talking. “I couldn’t really hear the conversation,” Russ says. “I thought they knew each other. It almost looked that comfortable.”
|
and Gayle agrees, “I would say our marriage and our family were decimated. It was like a pile of rubble on the floor. Thinking back to that time in our life, I often wondered, ‘How did we get here? How did this happen?’ We didn’t trust God. We didn’t trust him to let us know what he wanted us to do. We thought we knew better, and it was the lowest point, the absolute lowest.”
Gayle’s story goes on. “This woman sat down next to me and struck up a conversation. She had just been to see a movie. I asked her what it was and she said Fireproof. I said, ‘Yah, that’s on my list to see.’” Except at the time, all Gayle really knew about the movie was that it starred Kirk Cameron.
|
“The woman said, ‘You need to go see that movie and you need to see it now.’ Then she asked me if we went to church and I said, ‘Yes, we do go to church.’ She asked me where and I told her, and she said, ‘Well, I go to Cherry Hills. It’s a wonderful church.’ I said, ‘I’ve heard of that church. It’s the big church.’ She said, ‘Well, the more you go, the smaller it gets. The services are at 9 and 10:45. You have no excuse.’”
The conversation left Gayle feeling as though she’d been lectured by her mother, but after their conversation with the woman at Village Inn, the Bergemans' lives had been permanently changed. “I had never seen her before in my life,” Gayle says about the woman they now call the Angel of Highlands Ranch. “And we haven’t seen her since,” adds Russ.
A couple of days after the Village Inn encounter, Gayle surprised Russ with a date night. “I got home,” he says, “…changed my clothes. We got in the car and drove right to the theater and saw Fireproof,” after which they sat sobbing in their car. “That was our marriage on the screen,” Gayle says. “That was our life…our marriage was hanging by a thread.”
And the next morning, “…because she told us to,” Gayle says, the family attended Cherry Hills for the first time. The change in their world was immediate. “From the previous year’s domino effect of evil and despair,” she says passionately, “suddenly, God took a hold of our lives and it was blessing after blessing, miracle after miracle, and it all started with this woman telling me to go to church and go see a movie.” They got involved in the Love Dare marriage seminar and began attending the Generations class. “We surrounded ourselves with wise counsel and wonderful Christians,” Gayle says, “and there is a difference between nice people and Christian people.”
Russ began attending a Bible study with their next-door neighbor, Todd Wilcox, a long-time member of Cherry Hills. He was also introduced to a men’s ministry, Marked Men for Christ. “It completely opened me up,” he says. “It cracked me open as a human being. It allowed me to find my spiritual side, to have the boldness and the courage to share that with other people, to really live my life out loud.”
Even before talking to the Angel of Highlands Ranch, Gayle and Russ knew Christ. “It’s not so easy to trust him though,” Gayle reflects, “…because in order to trust Christ you have to follow Christ.” They lost their business, and they hadn’t seen it coming. Her new prayer became, “I’ll follow you this time, Christ. I love you, I worship you and I’ll let you take control.” That was my big conversion, surrendering to him and trusting him. It’s easy to love him. It’s not easy to follow him.”
A natural extension of following Christ is the Bergeman's talking about living their faith “out loud.” At times that takes them out of their comfort zone. “The only reason I’m here now is because somebody needs to hear this,” Gayle says. “Somebody is going through something similar and I’m trying to do what somebody else did for me, bringing Christ back into the center of our lives.” Gayle and Russ worship Christ and they love Christ, which is comfortable and easy. “But to talk about Christ, to share with others about Christ, that’s not easy,” she says. “It’s hard especially with people you don’t know. What kind of reaction are you going to get? It could have been very different for the woman that told me to go to church and go to a movie, but she took the chance, not worrying about the outcome. “
It’s risky, having a contagious faith. “Even at Village Inn, I think I rolled my eyes. I don’t think I gave that woman the response she was looking for, but she took a chance and that’s what I’m doing here,” Gayle says. “Christ knows who needs to hear stories, and who needs for us to be in certain places at certain times. It’s just a matter of listening to him. I have to be here. I owe it to Christ, and I think Russ started the path for us.”
Russ could wear a Marine Corp sweatshirt and be proud of it. He could yell “Oorah” at any moment and not be afraid. “But as a Christian,” he says, “it’s a little more difficult to yell ‘Jesus’ at the top of my lungs, to wear my cross on the outside of my shirt, to wear a shirt that says ‘Jesus’ on it, to raise my hand when I’m singing. That was a big transition for me.” Russ loved Christ, but being verbal about it as a man was difficult. “He came home one day and said, “I’m a man and I love Jesus.” The kids were shocked,” Gayle remembers. “’Wow. What did Dad just say?’ My husband had decided. ‘This is it for our family. We are going to turn this around. We’re going to live our faith out loud.’” To which Russ adds, “Talking about Christ with other people has helped me, and I hope, I pray, humbly, that it helps other people as well.”
Blake LaMunyon, Cherry Hills’ pastor of evangelism, preached once on the Parable of the Great Banquet, a metaphor about God’s desire to have his house be full on Sunday mornings, which still rings true for Gayle. “God’s family table has a seat and a place for everybody and he wants us all there. It doesn’t matter: your sin or your woundedness. He has a place for all of us. We all need to be at that table.” Gayle says she hadn’t been there for a long time. “For me, it was about coming back to the table and making sure that every other empty seat was filled with people. We’re all welcome. We’re all supposed to be there, and if people don’t know about the empty seats waiting for them, we’re supposed to find those people and bring them.”
In learning not to fear talking about Christ, Russ and Gayle had a good role model. “It was the example of that Angel of Highlands Ranch, that single woman who came into Village Inn, opening up and giving me permission to do the same thing,” Russ puts it so eloquently. “She set an example, just like Jesus Christ set an example all the way through the Bible, of how to behave and how to act. She set that example in the most unlikely place, in the most unlikely situation, and gave me permission to share that love and that hope, that forgiveness and that message of Jesus Christ, with others – even people I don’t know. This church helped me do that, too. I meet people, run into situations, and it’s unbelievable how comfortable I feel. Whether it’s a handshake or allowing somebody to go first as you’re pulling out of the parking lot, or holding the door open for somebody, or just feeling that somebody in front of you is having a hard time and needs a hand on their shoulder. Act on it. Just love each other.”
For people who wonder if it’s worth it to share your story or to share your faith,Russ shares what he’s learned over the last two years: just throw the seeds. “Do it for God. Do it for the right reason and then put your faith in him.”
What would Russ say if he were to see the angel again? “Thank you. And God bless you. Thank you for approaching me, and thank you for listening to God and being his conduit to us. I wasn’t listening to God at the time. I needed another voice to speak to me and you were that voice.”
“I would go through it all again because of where we are today,” Gayle says. “Our youngest son is now at Cherry Hills Christian School, our middle boy will join him at Cherry Hills next year, and our daughter is a sophomore at Valor Christian High School. Jesus is at the center of our lives and it was something so simple: telling somebody, welcoming them, inviting them to church and telling them to go see a movie. She has absolutely no idea what transpired after that. She went out on a limb because she listened to Christ. She did what was in her heart – not what was in her head. She was doing it for Christ. Christ knew better. He always does.”