Nancy, Jerry Reed Honored During Annual Meeting

MINNEAPOLIS, MN (June 22, 2004) - Well-known Covenanters Nancy and Jerry Reed were honored for their many years of service during the Tuesday afternoon business session of the 119th Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Covenant Church (see accompanying photo).

The Reeds have been involved in Covenant ministry of some sort for 39 years, many of them on the mission field. They were honored following the recent announcement of their full-time service to the Covenant.

Although they have officially retired, the Reeds will not end their ministry efforts. They are headed to LaCoruna, Spain, this summer as short-term missionaries. Son, Roberto, is a mission pastor in LaCoruna and he and his wife, Nancy, have two children.

In recent years, Nancy was helping in the work of CIPE, the Confederation of Latin America Churches, and working for Covenant World Mission at denominational offices in Chicago. Along with her work with the Covenant, she worked behind the scenes to help establish a Hispanic Covenant Women Ministries presence in the Central Conference. Meanwhile, Jerry was an evangelism professor with North Park Theological Seminary (NPTS) in Chicago.

The Reeds were honored at Covenant offices on June 9 during a special afternoon ceremony. Nancy was given a two-volume set of thank you letters and a staff-customized Beach Boys rendition of a song noting her many miles in traveling throughout the world for her ministry. Weeks earlier, NPTS honored Jerry for his 17 years of service at the school.

President Glenn R. Palmberg, executive vice president Donn Engebretson and Covenant World Mission's executive minister Curt Peterson all lauded the longtime efforts of the Reeds. So did Raymond Dahlberg, who headed Covenant World Mission for much of the Reeds' 22-year tenure in Ecuador and Mexico.

"I think the Kingdom and the Covenant, has been blessed by both of their calls," Dalhberg said. Palmberg told of how the Reeds had impacted the life of Gwynn Lewis, who was a NPTS student while Palmberg was dean of the seminary. The Reeds had helped Lewis come to know Christ and Lewis eventually became a missionary after he had been in prison for a time. Palmberg also shared a story told by Jorge Maldonado, the president of CHET, the Covenant's Hispanic seminary.

Maldonado was so impressed by how he was treated by the Reeds that he named a daughter Nancy in honor of Nancy Reed. His daughter is now Nancy and Jerry's daughter-in-law – Nancy married the Reeds' son, Roberto. The Reeds' other son, Dale, is now a professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago and he and his wife, Desiree, and their family attend Grace Covenant Church in Chicago. A daughter, Kathy Mattson, lives in McLean, Virginia, with her husband, Steve, and family. Nancy and Jerry have eight grandchildren.

"It is a gratitude to two people who have loved and cared for people because of their love of and passion for Christ," Peterson said. "Generation after generation after generation of leaders and followers of Christ have taken the heed to become disciples of Christ. And that is the legacy of Nancy Reed and Jerry Reed."

The Reeds had headed to Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, when Jerry attended school there. They had Pasadena Covenant Church at the time Peterson grew up at Pasadena Covenant and said that he knew the Reeds initially through his home church. So did Peterson's wife, Martie, who was befriended by the Reeds while she lived in Ecuador for a time and has received the Reeds' friendship again as the Petersons have adjusted to their new home in Chicago after more than two decades in Santa Barbara, California.

Peterson thanked Nancy and Jerry for their gift of hospitality, "for welcoming countless friends into your home for meals, for friendship shared and prayer and giving refuge in a strange city . . . for noticing struggling students, broken hearts, grieving and displaced travelers, as well as dignitaries, church leaders and neighborhood rabbis with equal grace, kindness and sensitive strength."

Jerry was born in Hollywood and grew up in southern California. His father was an artist for Walt Disney Company. He spent his summers with relatives in a Quaker community in Idaho. He came to know Christ at age 14 while attending a youth camp. "They had something I didn't have," said Reed, who had grown up in a Methodist church background, but didn't have the personal relationship with Christ that seemed evident in the other kids at camp. A year later, at the same youth camp, the 15-year-old felt called to mission work in Latin America. "The speaker spoke to me and the Lord got my attention," said Reed. "I had a strong sense of this . . . and I never had any serious prolonged question about it."

By the end of high school, Jerry was attending a General Baptist Conference church. A Sunday school teacher and a rancher from the congregation suggested that Jerry attend the University of California-Davis. While studying agriculture at Davis, Jerry got involved in InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and his experience helped him gain a more open-minded Christian view. It also led him to Nancy Bergmans of Danville, California, a former cheerleader who had gotten an academic scholarship after being the valedictorian of her high school class.

"Several of us guys at InterVarsity took this group of girls from a church service back to the dorms and we asked the girls if they'd be interested in going to an InterVarsity meeting that night," said Jerry as he recalled meeting Nancy. "That fall we had an InterVarsity retreat and we sat next to each other on the drive to the retreat. By December, I knew I was in love with her."

Jerry and Nancy married on September 5, 1958 – one year after Nancy had hit the Davis campus. Jerry was asked to become a youth pastor at First Covenant Church in Sacramento later that fall and that job helped the Reeds stay in the area so the couple could finish school. Jerry graduated from Davis in 1959 and taught school for a time while he was a part-time youth pastor so Nancy could finish college. Jerry said that his experience at First Covenant helped him appreciate the denomination's theology and welcoming attitude, something that he has appreciated ever since.

"I had grown up in a number of churches that would get nit-picky in minutiae and here was this church that was talking about life," Jerry recalled. "That church became a wonderful support for us. And one of the most notable early answers to prayer came from that church."

The Reeds traveled to southern California, where Jerry enrolled at Fuller Theological Seminary and worked with youth at two different churches as he finished his theological education. Meanwhile, Nancy took graduate courses in Missionary Medicine at Biola University. The couple had two of their children during that time.

After spending a year in Chicago at NPTS, the Reeds were called to mission work in Ecuador by the Covenant in 1965. They spent nearly 10 years in that country before being called by Executive Secretary of Mission Russ Cervin to serve in Mexico City. They served there for 12 years with the Mexican church, working alongside Marlan and Fern Enns, Jerry and Vicky Love, Tom and Janice Kelly and David and Wendy Mark.

Nancy said that some of her best memories in mission were in working in discipleship and Bible studies with Mexican women, seeing discipleship happening throughout 33 Bible study groups and watching a "Women of Decision" outreach ministry, evangelistic breakfast reach many for the Lord. And Nancy's work with leaders and missionaries in Latin American during the past two decades has been a catalyst for CIPE, the Confraternity of Hispanic Covenant Churches.

"Seeing them (CIPE) sending out missionaries and starting a Bible school (now in its fourth year) has been tremendously satisfying," she added.

Jerry stated that the discipling efforts that helped grow the Mexican church from one to six congregations was a highlight in his mission ministry. He is also thankful that God could use him to assist in the life of Lewis, whose unique story of faith is known throughout many circles. Since arriving at NPTS, the materials Reed used for discipling others are a blessing to many others as well – those materials have now been translated in 22 different languages.

"I'm excited about giving my ministry away," said Jerry as he recalled how the Lord blessed his efforts. "God does things and people ask you how you did it but, there were so many factors uniquely given to the situation."

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