Ted and Annabelle Haddan.

Dear Friends,

It is truly a privilege to share some memories with you at your time of celebration. Our experiences at FBC are some of our most meaningful. The Lord led Ted to choose FBC as our church home through the faithful witness of a coworker at the bank, George Swanson. That witness and eventual close friendship was the beginning of many unforeseen blessing.

Moving four children (the oldest, Dan, already in college) meant making many adjustments. FBC gave us as parents, the support needed and offered them many opportunities to experience their own spiritual growth and maturity.

For Ted, the most meaningful for him was being involved in the Shepherding Groups. Being able to meet in the homes, discussing the scriptures and how it solves problems gives wisdom and guidance for daily living and then being able to pray together was a tremendous help to him.

For Annabelle, the experience with the Pregnancy Center was a time of being stretched spiritually as at no other time. God was truly present through all the growing pains and of all those dear precious volunteers. Our prayer times together proved the power of prayer and what it can and will accomplish if we are faithful.

Together, Ted and I still count Craig First Baptist as a special place in our hearts. Your care and concern were very evident in 1991 when Ted went through the three months hospitalization at VA. He was held up in prayer by the deacons and others and only God knows what that truly meant and continues to mean to Ted. Your financial support throughout that time is our most precious memory.

The effectual, fervent prayers of God’s people accomplish much.

In Christ’s love,

Ted and Anabelle

Cliff and Marion Schiefer

Dear Friends at First Baptist

We praise the Lord for the ministry of FBC in Craig for 90 years! We are thankful for your support while we were missionaries in Japan. It was a blessing to visit FBC at Craig when we were on home assignment. We pray for you work. Appreciate receiving First Baptist Beacon.

In spring of 2000 we were able to return to Japan for a month. We were given a royal welcome when we visited the churches we helped to start. We are so thankful that God has given us Japanese contacts here in Buffalo. We have 2 women’s bible classes and a church worship service once a month, and a SS class in Japanese.

This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it! Ps 118.24

Cliff and Marion Schiefer

Mildred Herring.

Dear Friends,
My first contact with FBC was Sunday night, September 3, 1933, when I was married by Pastor Richard Sammons at the home of Ben L and Josephine Wright on Barclay St., in Craig, after the Sunday nigh church service.

My fiancée and I had dated for five years in Illinois and he had wanted to marry before he came to Craig to work for Ben Wright, but I kept putting him off, as I could keep both him and my parents happy as they liked him very much, but thought he was rather old for me and I was rather young to take on the responsibility of two stepsons, eight and ten years old. I really thought he wouldn’t stay in Colorado, but would come back to Illinois

Some cousins from the San Luis valley visited my parents and me in Ill. And invited me to come home with them for my vacation from the law office where I worked. I did and decided to come by Craig to see my fiancee on my way home to Ill., and tell him we would marry if he would come back to Ill.

What a trip I had from their ranch which was half way between Alamosa and Monte Vista. I arrived in Craig about 10:00 pm the Saturday night before Labor Day, September 2nd after boarding the first train around 2:00 am in Pueblo, changing in Denver Union Station to the Moffat line for Craig, an all day trip.

The conductor learned it was my first trip in the mountains, so he kept moving people and me around so I could see the best sights from the best places, and a very nice gentleman, a sheep rancher from around Baggs, invited me to have supper with him on the train, but I wasn’t sure it would be proper since I did not know him, so I told him I wasn’t hungry, and then I lacked the courage to go later by myself to eat, so by the time I reached Craig, I was famished, and it was quite a while before I got anything to eat, as I visited with the boys and met Mr. Wright and others at my fiancee’s place of work. Then my fiancee turned his apartment over to me, and he and his boys went to a hotel.

I was kept waiting all day long Sunday for them to come back and was alone all day. Finally, late afternoon, my fiancee came and told me we were getting married that night at the home of the Wright’s by the Baptist Minster. His name was Rev Sammon. How he ever managed to get everything done the Sunday before Labor day, I will never know, but everything was perfect, and Mrs. Wright even baked a pineapple upside down cake for our wedding cake, and the minister was extremely nice, and there was quite a group there—the boys, all the Wright family, several who I did not know, Renee Snyder who taught school in Craig, and who was one of the witnesses, and we later became best friends, and kept in touch till just the last few years.

About a week after we were married, my husband said “perhaps you should give me that wedding ring so that I can return it” It seemed the Minister’s wife had loaned us her wedding ring, since the jeweler couldn’t be contacted, as he was gone for the labor day weekend, and no ring could be purchased.

What a dear, wonderful thing for her to do—which is typical of good Baptist and Craig citizens. The First Baptist Church was at 700-school street then, just a ½ block from our home, so I became a regular attendee, taking my new sons, and became very involved. I sang in the choir, taught Sunday school class and did all the things a church member does. I did not transfer my membership from first Baptist in Ill. for quite a while, but really felt the Craig church was my church home. I was not involved the whole 90 years, but 68 years have been mine to savor and be proud of!

Sincerely, Mildred Herring.

Ted and Dona Gustafson.

Our Memories of First Baptist Church
We were married in 1977, for the second time, after having been divorced for eight years, and after four years of initial marriage. At that time we moved to Craig and eventually found FBC. It was a new beginning for us in many ways, for during the time we had been separated we both came to know Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. Our children, Curtis, then age 11 and Courtney, then 9, were deliriously happy at our reunion, but also, understandably, intimidated about the move to a new community. This was learning time for us all and the FBC became a big part of that process.

Our first real introduction to FBC came during a camping trip to the South Fork Campground near Buford CO. It was there that we encountered David Chambers and his son. We had heard of and considered visiting the church, but remained diligent in attending only a home study fellowship with which we were involved. We had just set up camp and gotten everything unpacked when up the trail came Dave and Dwight. We recognized David and asked them to join us. They didn’t stay long, but during the conversation we had with him we decided that FBC would be our church home and we were never sorry.

Over the next seven years, we not only attended services, got involved in the Tuesday Morning Women’s bible Study, The Youth Program, the Men’s fellowship, sang in the choir, helped with VBS, supported the Yampa Valley Pregnancy Center, attended and helped maintain Mt. Elim Camp, but we also decorated the church for holidays, (Ted traipsing up to Black MT with the guys for Christmas greens) took part in Christmas pageants, attended church picnics in the park and cold Easter Sunrise services, helped baby-sit in the nursery, went to wonderful progressive dinners and took pictures of everyone at all of the above. Dona joined many of the Gal’s night out  and Ted attended the men’s prayer breakfasts when he could and we both joined a small group and benefited from the fellowship of those relationships.

We received counsel on the give and take of Christian marriage and the art of raising our children, both from David and Muriel Chambers and later from Dan and Charlene Canady. We learned many things from Len and Cheryle Browning as they gave their all in their ministry to our kids. We grew in our knowledge of The Word and our walk with the Lord while we were at FBC and learned by example from brothers and sisters growing along side of us.

We learned how to butcher cows and sheep from the Klines, how to ride horses from the Greenwoods, how to clear snow from the parking lot by watching Vic Beckett do it every time it snowed and how to do many other things for the Fosters, Tagues, Drys, Gorhams, Rosines, Haddans, the Markhams, Moyers, Andersons, The Kings, Kiers, Covalts, the Overtons, the Swansons, the Grubbs, the Hoffmans, the Kinkaids, the James family, the Sheeleys, the Kochs and so many others.

We saw many of the children, now gone on to college and beyond, or just recently married, born while we were there and many we feted at showers in the church basement. Most of those, at one time or another, were baby-sat by our children, Curt and Cory. We saw many people come and go from the congregation, yet none of them left without being blessed.

If the lord allows us to do anything over, we would probably choose to stay in Craig and at FBC. We are confident He uses all things for our good and that all we have been through is part of who we are, but we treasure the memories of our time at FBC. We were blessed there!
Ted and Dona Gustafson.