Judy Pask- Central Region

Judy Pask- Central Region

With little religious connections growing up, the last thing I’d thought I’d ever be is a pastor’s wife!  My husband, Wayne, has been the Pastor for the last nine years at Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Ashland, Virginia until his retirement last week.  It is my husband who has led me on my journey of faith.

In 2003 at Wayne’s installation as vicar at Holy Cross, Pastor Art Umbach led the congregation in the response: God is good.  All the time.

All the time. God is good.

And God has been so good to us!

Wayne and I were confirmed in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod as adults forty years ago and God began to call Wayne to the ministry.  Years later, after I began a career as an academic librarian at Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN, Wayne began monthly drives to Louisville, KY for training as a lay minister.  Four years later in 1997 he was commissioned as a lay minister to serve an English district church, plant a new congregation and be a missionary to several rural counties.  I was now a “pastor’s wife”, and Wayne’s desire to be ordained finally led to his entering Concordia Seminary at age 54. All the time God is good. Finding that I could get full benefits after 27 years at Purdue, I retired to join him in St. Louis.  God was good to us again as I was offered a job six months before retiring which was held for me, and Wayne’s tuition was paid through grants. After his vicarage year, Holy Cross called Wayne as their Pastor where he was ordained on July 4, 2004 and has served as sole pastor since then.

Now we are in transition again.  We will be worshipping in a new congregation, but know that
God is good, all the time, and are looking forward to the future and what God has planned for us!

 One of the retirement gifts from the Holy Cross congregation was a God is Good t-shirt for each of them. A wonderful way to still be the witness of God's Good Grace and Mercy in their lives.