Journey’s End

by Tim Keller

It was a gorgeous autumn day when I drove from Moosic, Pennsylvania to Carlisle to meet with the CAC Search Committee. That 90-minute interview was followed three weeks later by a candidating weekend that featured a drenching rain on Saturday, Chinese food with the Governing Board and their spouses, and my first sermon at CAC on Sunday.

After accepting the call to serve at Carlisle, we arrived on a bitterly cold New Year’s Eve and, in spite of some memorable initial moments, got settled in for the start of what would become a multi-decade ministry.

Along the way we added a third son, said goodbye to two beloved pets, added a new pet, attended 1.2 million Little League baseball games, about a quarter million band competitions, and fell in love with a community of people who became family.

We were the recipients of encouragement cards, Pastor Appreciation gifts, Christmas bonuses, and prayer support that carried us through life in the parsonage.

Three times we had major renovations done to the parsonage and annually turned our dining room into “The Rainbow Room” on Valentine’s Day.

We hosted scores of guests around our dining room table and enjoyed every picnic in our yard with our neighbors and CAC family.

We witnessed God guide us through a building project in 2005-2006 that resulted in a $1.3 million dollar addition to the existing building. We worked together to see lives changed by the Gospel of Jesus Christ and many grow in their faith as a result of the loving environment that CAC offered.

At times we walked through dark valleys and tasted the bitterness of loss and grief. Occasionally our hearts were heavy and even broken. At each turn God met us and supplied what we needed to go on serving.

As we reach the end of our journey as your pastor and wife, Cheri and I simply want to express our gratitude to you for giving us the chance to serve you for more than 21 years. We depart with a sense of God’s call on our lives to move to a new realm of serving His Kingdom. We don’t see it as a promotion, but simply as a new set of marching orders in our pursuit of being obedient to God’s will.

In Acts 20:32, the Apostle Paul, addressing his closest friends in Ephesus as he departed from them, said, “Now I commit you to God and to the word of His grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.”

With our deepest thanks,

Tim and Cheri