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August 25 Today in OPC History

Allen and Kathie Harris

2021

 

Our first date in the summer of 1965 was at a miniature golf game, the scorecard still in Allen's possession. That, with some “Charlie's Hamburgers,” were the sum total of our first date. I knew Allen was in seminary. Rumor had it around our Bible believing, fundamental church that he believed a few “strange” things. So we ended up talking most of the evening about theology. I loved it. I, too, was in school, Philadelphia College of the Bible in center city. In the years that followed, we loved exploring together the riches of the gospel, and how the Lord Jesus is in all of Scripture.

Friday, August 25, 1967, at eight o’clock in the evening we were married. The week of honeymoon was spent here in Cape Cod about 4 miles away from where we live today. As we walked the beach, ate together and did the dishes we talked about the Five Points of Calvinism and Van Til's apologetics. Much of what I learned at PCB had to be “corrected.”

Our first ten years together were spent serving on college campuses with Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship, the first four years in Maryland where we had our first daughter, Heather, in 1971; the last six years in Syracuse, New York, where we had our second daughter, Julie, in 1974.

In 1977, a fledgling group of 25 people from the Burtonsville OP congregation wanted to start a church in the new planned city of Columbia, Maryland. Allen took the call and we arrived in June, 1978. In 1979 our last child, Dean, was born.

As we grew as a congregation, the church moved three times to our final location on Rt.108, where we built our facility. We served that beloved congregation for 33 years, until 2011. During that time, I finished my degree at the University of Maryland, Baltimore Campus, our girls married and our son finallly went off to college.

In retirement, we continue to look for what God has further for us to do in ministry, as we celebrate over fifty years of marriage. He has been so good to us!

Editor’s Note: Today’s entry was written by Allen and Kathie Harris in 2015 and edited for today's use.

 

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