Harvest Time is a weekly podcast from KHMG. Pastor Gary Walton interviews Harvest Baptist Church members, friends, and special guests.
Welcome to Harvest Time. My name is Chris Harper, and our host on this program is pastor Gary Walton, the lead pastor at Harvest Baptist Church. Every week, we spend these twenty five minutes together telling you the stories of our church by interviewing our members and other friends of the ministry. We'd like to invite you to join us at Harvest Baptist Church this week. There are two services every Sunday.
Chris Harper:The first at 08:45AM, the second at 10:45AM. We have Japanese and Korean translation during the 10:45AM service, and that's also when we live stream at hbcguam.org, hbcguam.org. This week, a special Christmas service we hope you can join us for. Let's begin today's Harvest Time by welcoming pastor Gary Walton. Hi, pastor.
Gary Walton:Hey. Hafa adai, Chris. It's the week before Christmas and the Sunday before Christmas, which is always a special time. We will be having two services together, and it'll be a sweet time, with the church family. We'll have others, guests that will be here, family and friends that will join us, and we'd love to invite you to come as well.
Gary Walton:It'll be a little bit of a different service. Our worship team, our music team has been preparing for this Christmas service and it'll so the service will be filled with some more singing, some more reading. As always, we're going to open up the scripture, but we're actually going to do it in a little bit different way. Instead of just one longer teaching time, we're going to split up the teaching interspersed with some of the the reading, throughout the service. So I think you're gonna enjoy that and it'll draw us to the Christmas season, and we're gonna have an opportunity to hear from God.
Gary Walton:So we'd love to invite you to come and join us. If you don't have a church home, you're here on Guam. Come join us for this Christmas service. You'll give the opportunity for God to speak to you before we celebrate the Christmas season. Well, it's great to have a couple of guys here joining us today to talk about a missions trip that they just took.
Gary Walton:So welcome to Michael Buhrman and Ben Bagley. Thanks, you guys, for being with us.
Michael Buhrman:Thanks for having us.
Ben Bagley:Yeah. Thank you.
Gary Walton:You guys were just recently, well, a little a month or so ago now, on a trip missions trip to help out some gospel partners that we have in the island of Chuuk. And, so I want to we want to talk about that a little bit. Maybe begin, though, by introducing yourselves a little bit of background.
Gary Walton:Both of you are members here at Harvest. Both of you have some prior military background. I wanna ask you about that as well, Michael's, you know, current active. But, Mike, why don't you introduce yourself and your family, how you got to Guam?
Michael Buhrman:Alright. Hey. I'm, Michael Buhrman. My wife is Rebecca. We have three sons, William, Daniel, and Samuel.
Michael Buhrman:You'll see him running around campus on Sundays. We came back in October of 2020 we're almost done with our time here. We're gonna be leaving in January of '25 but, we've been with Harvest the whole time, our time on, Guam. It's it's it's been a blessing. I am active, air force.
Michael Buhrman:My job in the Air Force is, civil engineer. I'm an instructor out here, so I teach, building. I teach base recovery. So it's right up my alley being able to do these missions trips, where I get to do what I love, but it's not a, it's not a work requirement. Right.
Gary Walton:So Yeah. Good. I wanna talk with you about that. Ben, what about you?
Ben Bagley:Yeah. My name is Ben Bagley, and I, I came out to Guam in the navy. I was a submarine radio man. Not quite the same kind of radio as this, but, I worked with, like, satellite communications and intelligence. And, I was out here for three years.
Ben Bagley:I did three deployments. It was over the, during COVID. Yeah. And, it was definitely a tough time, especially being a Christian, you know, in the military, spending, you know, six months isolated on a a submarine alone with essentially no other Christians or very few. So it was definitely a trying time.
Ben Bagley:Sometimes when you're kind of brought the lowest, it's when you realize you need God the most. So, but anyways, so I came I left here in 2021, and I went to the naval shipyard up in Bremerton, Washington for my last year of naval service. And, after that I got out. I went spent some time back at home with my family and I did some missions trips down to, spent two months in Jamaica, doing construction projects and working in children's ministry. And then I spent a little bit of time in Nepal on a short term trip and, kinda got, I really felt like that call to ministry.
Ben Bagley:And, I was really good friends with pastor Jake Schnoor out here and he's probably, one of your best recruiters. Mhmm. So he,
Ben Bagley:he convinced me to come back and work a Harvest. So I just got back here in June of this year, So.
Gary Walton:Yeah. It's really fantastic, actually.
Gary Walton:You know, Ben was I wanna ask you some more about this, Ben and and Michael too. But faithful, you know, at church as he was able to and then off, you know, on the ship.
Gary Walton:And, you know, then, of course, military calls you away. But it was pretty cool actually to get the contact, like, you know, if there's a spot, I'd love to keep serving. And so, back, really great to have you back, serving in the, you know, cup well, serving in the ministry, but in a lot of different areas, but specifically job related in Maintenance, it's been a huge help. So thank you, for that, Ben. Let's talk about that a little bit, being a Christian in the in the military.
Gary Walton:I mean, we're gonna get to the mission trip part, but being a Christian in military, you know, what's what's that like? What are the, what are the blessings and some of the challenges?
Michael Buhrman:So I would say kind of, we are coming up on the Christmas season. So we all have that, that stereotypical Christian word, the chreasters, the Christmas and Easter people that come on Christmas and Easter. Right? I would say the military has a lot of those members that say, oh, hey. I am a Christian.
Michael Buhrman:I identify as a Christian, but they may not be walking as a Christian. So, being a being an actual Christian is what I would say in my head. That's that's trying to walk with the Lord every day, have a good testimony, in a hard work environment. It's a little different than just showing up, you know, once or twice a year to church.
Gary Walton:Right.
Michael Buhrman:It's not, you don't get singled out. You may get you may pass up on a lot of opportunities. You don't get passed over for opportunities. You just might pass up off on off duty time. Me and my wife will always say, we would rather hang out with non-military people on our off time and hang out with church family than we would military people.
Michael Buhrman:We get to see them during the day five days a week or sometimes longer, seven days a week. So, I enjoy the time where I can be around both brothers and sisters, that aren't that are not, necessarily gonna tear me down or make it hard for me to have a walk with the Lord. But, just build me up, have fellowship with them. I would say that's probably one of the harder things in the military is to find, someone at work that you can have fellowship with.
Gary Walton:Right. Right. You know, we have, well, Guam it in general has a very high percentage of young people that join the military. I think it's it might be the highest percentage, per capita of military, either that will join the military or former military. So we have a lot of kids coming out of high school and college, in the church that are considering the military.
Gary Walton:And I'll often tell them, as a Christian, the military will either make or break you, but it probably won't stay the same. So there's a lot a lot of a lot of challenges. If you are not all in for Christ, it's very easy for you to slide off the path. But on the other hand, you know, if you if you'll stay faithful, being a Christian in the military will force you to to stand for Christ and really grow your faith. Ben, does that feel consistent with your walk or your journey?
Gary Walton:Or
Ben Bagley:Yeah. That's that's pretty much what I experienced. So I would I would say for a young person going in, you have to have the foundation already built.
Gary Walton:Yeah.
Ben Bagley:I would say before you go in because if not, I mean, I saw so many people even in in, boot camp where it feels like everybody becomes a Christian in boot camp because it's, you know, a hard trying time and you see people that you, you know, never read the Bible or reading it and praying and trying to go to the church services. And then they get out in the in the fleet as we call it and, you know, things are easier and they slip back into their old ways. Even and even the Christians that showed up as a Christian, so many of them, you know, I hate to use the word fall away but I mean that might be what's going on here. And and I've had a few conversations with some kinda afterwards where they're like, man, like, I didn't realize, you know, I was doing some of these things or, you know, not walking with God. And so obviously some realize it, but a lot of them, I would say most just absorb the way of the world.
Ben Bagley:And I mean, we see that in scripture that, you know, not not all that profess are are true believers. So it's a really challenging environment for sure.
Gary Walton:Yeah. I think that's super helpful. You know, I I don't wanna oversimplify this. There there's a lot of pieces that go into it. But your two testimonies, because I've watched you guys from your first time, you know, showing up at Harvest.
Gary Walton:But so I think that you're good to speak to this. But it feels like the ability to connect with other believers and specifically a church provides some accountability, some structure that you desperately need to be able to maintain your walk with God. Michaels, you feel that?
Michael Buhrman:I agree with that. Even if it's not that that personal accountability partner, like between you and myself or me and any other, guy here at Harvest, it's just being able to have another another family
Gary Walton:Right.
Michael Buhrman:That you can hey. I know the house isn't perfect, but can we get together? Can I get off off base since we live up north? Right? Northern end of the island on Anderson.
Michael Buhrman:Kinda were secluded away from people. We can't get people on base as easily as, we could stateside. So, we we thoroughly enjoy being able to have those relationships where we know that it's a Christ centered relationship. Even if we're not digging into the word every single time we meet, but if we can just share in life together and be the be the body, together, and live life.
Gary Walton:I think that's a big piece of Hebrews 10, you know, 23, 24, 25, exhorting one another, encouraging one another, don't forsake assembling together. I mean, I think all that's connected with that. Ben, I want to ask you this. I mean, because you your experience was navy, you were off, you know, for six months. So I don't know what remember the time frames.
Gary Walton:So no church, you know, as far as, like, this ability. And then then we watched as you came back. You would always connect again, not just on services, but other, you know, groups together. But what's your experience as far as just the connection that you need in order to survive?
Ben Bagley:Yeah. I would say, of course, it was harder for me because I would spend roughly half the year gone. Not necessarily all at once, but, sometimes three or four months at a time. And one of the greatest things I look forward to coming back each time was, you know, going to church or going, you know, to Harvest for something. I was really involved in the the young pros group, which is a great group.
Ben Bagley:If you're a young person, definitely want to get connected there. There. That's pastor Jake's, his ministry there. Great, great thing going on there. And, so I did a lot of stuff with them.
Ben Bagley:A lot of hikes, a lot of just serving opportunities. And so it was like the the smaller community, you know, that obviously, you know, there's church and the services, which is great, but then you really gotta you gotta like do life with people.
Gary Walton:Yeah.
Ben Bagley:That's a good way to say that. But, so you gotta
Ben Bagley:you gotta find a way or a group and there's so many groups and and, you know, the community groups and different ways that we connect out here. And I would say the only thing I regret is not doing more. You know, I mean, of course, it was it was tough because even in port, I would stay on duty every Yep. You know, third or fourth day and even on the weekends. So there were a lot of stuff I missed.
Ben Bagley:But yeah, definitely it was something to look forward to. And then on the months or weeks when I wasn't here, you'd have to, you know, kind of be vigilant about, okay, well if I can't fellowship, I at least need a fellowship with God. And, you know, so when we'd go under underway, I'd have to download a bunch of sermons or, you know, different things. And I was always, I would always read my Bible every morning, which, which I do anyways, but it could be hard, you know, just in that environment day in and day out doing the same thing every day for seven days Yeah. A week for months, you know, and you get burned out.
Gary Walton:Yeah.
Ben Bagley:I don't know how you don't.
Gary Walton:Well, it's a good reminder actually of how desperately we need the the body. We need the church. And I'm tracking with you, which is it's not just attending a service. That's kind of the difference with, you know, you know, we've got this phenomenon going on, you know, most recently where the church can kinda be online. You know?
Gary Walton:So I did church. I watched church. And I I love that. I mean, we live stream our services. We invite people to that.
Gary Walton:I I think it's great, but we need to be together. And you probably experienced that more than most because you've got months where you don't have that. And what it does to your spirit, you know, is very powerful. Alright. I love talking about that.
Gary Walton:Thanks to you guys for sharing that. We gotta move on to this Chuuk trip. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about that. How did it come up?
Gary Walton:How did you guys, get involved? Michael, you wanna start us?
Michael Buhrman:So I was talking with, pastor Ken Keith. We talk a lot about, just work trips or work stuff around the Harvest Campus together. And like I said, my my job background is in civil engineering, carpentry, welding, building. And my wife will tell you I thoroughly enjoy I I I don't enjoy having free time. I have to stay busy.
Michael Buhrman:I don't really know how to enjoy myself on a vacation. Right? So I perfect vacation for me would be exactly what we did in Chuuk. Right? Let me go take some time off, but then do what I love, but it's not work.
Michael Buhrman:Right? It's a relaxing experience for me even if it is physical labor, if we're having to figure stuff out on the fly to make it work. That's just kinda how I recharge and how I, kinda take take care of myself so I don't get burnout Yeah. At work. Yeah.
Gary Walton:Ben, where'd you go? What'd you what'd you do?
Ben Bagley:Yeah. So I was, I just saw the, I guess it was the promotion when Ken put it in the, in the service on that one Sunday. He listed, I think it was like four four missions trips coming up and Chuuk was obviously the first one on the list. So I went up to him and said, hey, I'd like to go on the work trip. I'm in.
Ben Bagley:And I'm kind of a lot, a lot like Michael there where, you know, I grew up on a farm where it was always, something was always going on. We were always working, building something, fixing something, you know, helping somebody out. So I also, a lot of times, have no idea what to do with free time. So, you know, taking a week off is, there's, you gotta find something to do. Right.
Ben Bagley:So and it it sounds like fun, you know. I mean, that's that's what I do here at Harvest, you know. Building and fixing things as it is.
Gary Walton:Yeah. Yeah.
Ben Bagley:So and one of the one of the things I really looked forward to coming back out here, you know, to work was that you guys did do that kind of stuff. You know, I really wanted to go out to the outer islands. I wanted to, you know, get involved in the missions trip. So I pretty much told Ken I'll sign up for every trip.
Gary Walton:So Put me down.
Ben Bagley:I don't know.
Gary Walton:Yeah. It's great. You guys went to help missionary Josh Wager and also pastor Mike Abe that Harvest has supported for a long time on the main island of of, Weno. What specifically was the building project?
Michael Buhrman:So, this this trip, kinda Harvest Harvest was playing back up on this trip. The there was a lead church, over on the East Coast in Virginia. They had a couple guys fall off, and they made contact with, pastor Ken. And then that's when he pulled and said, hey. We're you know, Harvest wants to help.
Michael Buhrman:We need to send some guys. So, not really having too much information what went on it. You know, we packed our bags. We thought we were building something from scratch. I'll I'll be totally honest.
Michael Buhrman:I I had my stuff packed to the brim with full on heavy construction gear. Right? The Lord had different plans. So we did a lot of more, like, skilled labor, a lot of, electrical repair, replacing electrical, wiring up panels. The the church building there in Chuuk did not have interior water.
Michael Buhrman:It was plumbed for it, but they would just take, buckets of water to flush their toilets, buckets of water to use their sinks. So we were able to kinda design a water system that took, rainwater off the roof and then, installed pumps and piped in everything, ran electrical for it us. So now they have, interior running water, and then we're able to, give them electricity in their Sunday school space so they can have lights during the evening services and then fans during the day to keep cool. So
Gary Walton:Great.
Michael Buhrman:Also, that that was at the main church building. And then we got introduced to that, that, awesome gym building, that has a lot of potential. And it really has changed. We saw the pictures of what it was and then the pictures of what it's what it's become. Right?
Michael Buhrman:And the biggest thing that Josh asked for was if we could figure out why the lights wouldn't turn off when he when we turned them off. There was a bunch of wiring issues. So, me and Ben put our heads together, and we figured out we figured out how to how to how to make it work and corrected a bunch of issues, helped helped Josh with some tasks that he just wasn't comfortable with doing by himself. And then also his wife, Sarah, just said, just us being there to hang out with Josh, hang out with pastor Mike just really helped, helped give Josh some, extra fuel in the tank. He was getting kinda burnt out trying to figure out by himself.
Michael Buhrman:So,
Gary Walton:I get so excited just listening to that, man, because Josh and Sarah, I mean, they're at it in a challenging place. They're all in to see, you know, Chuukese come to Christ and the church be built there. They're trying to be creative in that. I mean, the the gym that you're talking about is a, I mean, an old building that they desire to retrofit to become a ministry center. Definitely a gym, workout gym, wrestling gym, martial arts, but needs a ton of work.
Gary Walton:And there's nothing like that in Chuuk. I mean, just not I'm not talking ministry wise. I'm talking there's no gym like that. So there's a lot of interest and Josh just, you know, has the I think is gifted in the ability to use something like that for gospel conversation. So I'm so excited about it.
Gary Walton:But he needs help, you know, and so you guys were really they were so encouraged by that.
Ben Bagley:Yeah. I just wanna put one more plug in. As much as this was a, you know, construction trip, and it was, and we did a lot of good stuff there, It was also, you know, a missions trip, right? So the first day we were there, at the airport, we're waiting around to pick up the stateside guys and somebody just walked up to me and asked if I was part of a church group. And it's kind of interesting and it kind of got into a conversation and I ended up sharing the gospel with this guy.
Ben Bagley:Mhmm. And, you know, it was just a good thing to remember that we always need to be ready to, you know, share. Right? First Peter three, I think it's 15 or 16, says always be ready to give a defense for your, you know, for your faith. Right?
Ben Bagley:So probably one of the most challenging, conversations I've ever had to have trying to share the gospel with somebody. And, I I mean, I prayed with him. I I guess he, you know, accepted, but I guess it's, you know, it's up to the Lord to know for sure. But I guess it's just something to remember that, you know, that's that is ultimately why we're there, you know, is to share the good news of Jesus Christ.
Gary Walton:Yeah. That was awesome. Maybe just one last question as time's coming up, but why do a trip like this? Ben, you've done a couple of them now, diff in a different formats, but why do a missions trip like this?
Ben Bagley:Well, there's plenty of need out there, all around the world. Right? So, the Bible's clear that we're to use our talents for the kingdom, right? So in an area like this where like Michael and I are pretty pretty good at this kind of stuff, I feel like for us these are, you know, things that we should be doing to further the gospel. And it's it's not just about, you know, some are given as evangelists, some are given as teachers and then others as, you know, all the other members of the body, right?
Ben Bagley:So, you know, we all work together to ultimately fulfill the great commission. And if that means bringing one running water into a church so that people can come there, you know, and hear the gospel
Gary Walton:Amen, man.
Ben Bagley:Then that's Yeah.
Gary Walton:You know, there's crowds in heaven for that too. Absolutely. That'd be great. Agreed.
Michael Buhrman:My my stronghold, I will come out and tell you I am, I I will share my faith. That is that's that's probably my weakest thing is coming out and and and seeing that person at the airport. I I saw it, and I stuck around for a couple of the questions. And Ben had a handle on it.
Michael Buhrman:So I went to talk to Josh about some other stuff. That's probably my weakest spot. But where I know that I'm gifted is the gift of giving, the gift of kinda supporting in the background. Right? So that's that's a 100% why I did the trip was, I wanted to give.
Michael Buhrman:There was an opportunity that, I knew I was gifted in. They needed they needed knowledge on how to, do some stuff to their facilities, do some stuff to the gym. And that's exactly where I excel. Right? That's where I can I can use that as my end to then talk about the Lord or, use that situation to then further further ministry opportunities?
Michael Buhrman:So I kinda use the work detail as my springboard into talking. I will never just personally start talking to someone about it. I always need to have some some some other way to get into it.
Gary Walton:A bridge.
Michael Buhrman:A bridge to get into it. Yep.
Gary Walton:Yeah. Well, thank you guys for being willing, to do that. And, even hearing this, I've talked with you both before, but there is an amazing thing on a trip like this. You go to give, but you almost always feel like you receive more just in the fulfillment. And, so, we've got three more planned this year.
Gary Walton:You're exactly right, Ben. Harvest is in a location where we have so many opportunities, and we wanna launch people out to to be bearers of the gut of the good news, you know, in this region. So thank you guys for being willing to go.
Michael Buhrman:Thanks for having us.
Ben Bagley:Yeah. Thank you.
Chris Harper:And thank you for listening to Harvest Time. Of course, at this point in the program, we wanna invite you again to services at Harvest Baptist Church. Special Christmas service this week, 08:45AM, 10:45 AM, Japanese and Korean translation available in that 10:45AM service. That's also with the service we carry live on 88.1 FM and khmg.org. We hope to see you this Sunday.
Chris Harper:Thanks again for listening to Harvest Time.