When the Church Serves Amidst Suffering: The Gaskills' Journey to Pioneer
Recently I was reading about Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. I was particularly struck by his desire for his friends to be there for him in this desperate time. He asked them to stay awake and was repeatedly disappointed when they fell asleep despite his obvious anxiety and stress. I realized if our Lord needed community during a time of crisis, why wouldn’t we? I couldn’t help but think of our recent journey to find church community again, and how finding it has impacted us greatly during a time of crisis.
My name is Terri Gaskill, and I grew up in Rock Hill. I joke that every school I attended from kindergarten to college is within a ten-mile radius. My husband Kane is what he likes to call an “Air Force brat,” having lived in many places but primarily growing up in New Jersey. He moved south to Rock Hill to play soccer at Winthrop University, and has been here ever since. We met while I was still attending college at Winthrop and married five years later. We have two wonderful children, Delanie and Brogan. Delanie is 24 and working on obtaining her master’s in social work from Winthrop University. Brogan is 23 and on track to finish up his master’s in theology from Southeastern Baptist in May. Most of the last quarter of a century, we’ve lived a truly idyllic and joyful life. I’d be remiss not to mention the last few years, however, have been overshadowed by cancer. Kane and I have had three diagnoses between the two of us—Kane receiving the short end of the stick for sure, with two separate stage 4 cancer diagnoses.
Prior to the COVID lockdown that began last March, we were in the process of looking for a new church home. During quarantine, we continued to “visit” virtually with different churches. We chose to remain virtual for church throughout the summer, and during this time, we heard about a new church plant that was coming to Rock Hill. It was called Pioneer Church. We learned Pastor Ross hoped to build a demographically integrated church and serve the community in the Sylvia Circle area. I watched the videos on the Pioneer website and became more and more excited about the possibility of joining Pioneer. In our minds, we planned to start attending in the Fall of 2021 when church services officially started. Until then we thought we’d just keep watching different church services online and wait . . .
Little did we know, the Lord had other plans. He eventually led our son Brogan to become part of Pioneer’s core team, with plans to join the staff as Leader of Musical Worship. As he shared with us about the group of people committed to planting Pioneer Church, we also felt called to join this core team. We talked with Pastor Ross on the phone and eventually met him outside on a church clean-up day. Unfortunately, around this same time, my husband’s cancer progressed, and he was experiencing a good bit of pain. Subsequent treatments made his immune system become even more compromised, and it became painfully obvious we wouldn’t be able to participate in Pioneer’s activities in-person. To be honest, I wasn’t sure being involved was going to work at all, but I desperately longed for church community. By now, the weight of not having church fellowship was really hitting home. I felt isolated, and it was getting harder and harder to feel faithful. I prayed the Lord would somehow make it work.
Around this time, Pastor Ross suggested we begin joining core team meetings and praise and prayer nights virtually. One of the core team members offered to facetime with us so we could listen and participate during all Pioneer core team events. I was even able to share my testimony at one meeting, using the Facebook portal in Pastor Ross's home. We were also able to participate in group messaging via a GroupMe account Pastor Ross set up. To my delight, in addition to Pastor Ross checking in on us often, other members of the core team began texting and reaching out too. We started to feel fully connected to a church community again. We knew we were being prayed for and truly felt loved. A few days ago, several core team members even came and visited with us outside for a few hours. I can’t express how grateful we are for this community.
Just as Jesus needed his friends to keep watch for him, we did as well.
What a beautiful thing to think our Lord would subject himself to humanity in order to fully understand the condition of our lives, and in his wisdom give us the church for his gospel to be practiced and preached amongst community.
“Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.” Acts 20:28