One of South County’s prominent clergymen recently moved to
Kansas. The Rev. Richard Garcia, an associate pastor of Gilroy’s
South Valley Community Church and former columnist for the
Gilroy
”
Dispatch,
”
is now ministering to a small community church in what he first
considered
”
the middle of nowhere.
”
One of South County’s prominent clergymen recently moved to Kansas. The Rev. Richard Garcia, an associate pastor of Gilroy’s South Valley Community Church and former columnist for the Gilroy “Dispatch,” is now ministering to a small community church in what he first considered “the middle of nowhere.”
St. Francis is a town of less than 2,000 located in the northwest corner of Kansas. The nearest big city is Denver, some three hours away. I wondered what caused the 38-year resident of Gilroy to make such a drastic change in his life.
Last summer Garcia and his wife Ingrid decided the hectic pace of life in Silicon Valley was getting to be too much. The 45-year old pastor noticed the number of men his age suffering heart attacks and became aware of the stresses in his own life. He questioned whether his situation was really “God’s plan” for his own life.
In August he requested a leave from SVCC and began visiting other areas with his wife, including Oregon, Arizona and rural California. He prayed for guidance in his search and asked friends to pray for him. Although he received some offers from fairly large churches in Portland and San Antonio, “the fit just didn’t feel right.”
Then he was contacted by St. Francis Christian Church, a congregation of about 150 which had been without a pastor for a year. At first, he “kind of laughed” at the prospect, but more prayer “pointed me in the direction of accepting the call.” Finally, he arrived at “the strong sense we can be used here.”
St. Francis is a town greatly in need of healing: It has the highest teen suicide rate in the state, as well as high rates of alcoholism and domestic violence. The mainly agricultural economy is suffering from three successive years of drought and many farmers are losing their land and livestock.
The original settlers were German, and he admits some difficulty in pronouncing many local family names. But there is a growing segment of newer residents who are Hispanics that have moved there to provide cheap labor in the local livestock feed lots, and he sees this as an opportunity to reach out to a part of the community being ignored by other churches.
Another area where he can use his expertise is in Christian counseling. Putting to use his master’s degree in this field, he is in the process of establishing some of the support and crisis-care groups for which SVCC is so well known.
St. Francis reminds Garcia a bit of Gilroy when he first moved to town nearly 40 years ago. There is only one high school (with an enrollment of less than 300 students) which provides the whole town entertainment through its Friday night football games. Everyone seems to know each other in the stores and restaurants. And the cost of living is incredibly low: The six-bedroom parsonage the church provided him is valued at $19,000.
Although Pastor Rich misses the many friends and colleagues he had to leave behind after his 17-year career at SVCC, he and his wife have been “warmly received” by his new congregation and neighbors, and he is looking forward to serving them and God in this new, very different environment. He says he’s “very glad to hear from friends back in Gilroy” and can be contacted at co***********@**.com.
