By the Rev’d Fred Jessett, Vicar Emeritus
Realizing that population was growing rapidly in King County east of Lake Washington, in 1988 the Episcopal Churches in that area set up the Overlake Mission Extension Committee (OMEC) which surveyed the area and then asked the Diocese of Olympia to open a new mission church on the Sammamish Plateau, the most rapidly growing area in King County and the state. The Diocese responded in 1989 by purchasing a site for such a church and by allocating money for calling a missioner to form the church. The property is located on 244th Ave. NE at about NE 17th St., the present location of Good Samaritan Church.
The Rev. Frederick Jessett, 55, Archdeacon for Program and Ministry in the Episcopal Diocese of Spokane, and a priest with 28 years experience, was called to be the Overlake Missioner. He began work, Aug. 1, 1989. The first year he was to spend two-thirds of his time planning for the new church and one third of his time as priest-in-charge of St. Clair of Assisi Church in Snoqualmie. He soon learned that was far from an ideal set up but it was too late to change it.
The plan for this new work was to start in a way that would do two things: first, start large enough to avoid the small church trap, and second, to reach unchurched people and not draw any members from other Episcopal churches in the area.
Fred had lunch with each of the Episcopal clergy in King County east of Lake Washington. He talked with them about his plans for the new church and to assure them that he was not looking to take any parishioners away from any of them. He would be looking for the “unchurched”.
Fred began to lay the ground work by attending seminars and workshops on church planting, and reaching the unchurched. He met with clergy of churches of other denominations already established on the plateau as well as school principals and other people knowledgeable about the area. Then he drew up a plan of action.
From all the contacts he made, Fred learned that the vast majority of the population was made up of families with pre-school and school age children. Population statistics showed that the plateau area had the highest number of children per capita of any area in the state. This was truly a great opportunity to plant a family oriented church.
To his surprise, Fred found that the churches already on the plateau were very welcoming. When he talked with their clergy they were very supportive and shared what they knew about the plateau. There seemed to be no feeling of rivalry at all.
Fr. Steve Szeman of Mary Queen of Peace Church told him, “You want to know what the real religion is up here on the plateau? It’s soccer.”
All offered whatever help they could, except for worship space on Sunday mornings. In the course of getting started and through our first years we held meetings or services in Faith Methodist, Sammamish Presbyterian, Pine Lake Covenant, Mary, Queen of Peace Catholic, Sammamish Hills Lutheran, and the Community Church of Joy (Lutheran Brethren). We also received help from the Sammamish Congregational United Church of Christ who also did not have a building and later we would share worship space with them at Lutheran Bible Institute.
One of the most helpful contacts he made was with a Presbyterian minister who had surveyed the area for his denomination. He gave Fred the rundown on every church that had been started in the area over the previous ten years. It was tremendously helpful information on what Fred could expect.
Fred also learned there were unique challenges. There was little sense of community as the area was still unincorporated King County, even though the Growth Management Plan for the county called for urban population density on the plateau. Most people were newcomers and there were few community amenities. There were two shopping centers, each anchored by a large grocery store, one in the north plateau and one in the south.
Further, the area was divided between north and south in four ways. First, the north lay in the Redmond future annexation area and the south was in the future annexation area for Issaquah Second, addresses in the southern end were Issaquah addresses served from the Issaquah post office while the north end had Redmond addresses and were served from Redmond.
Third, each end was served by a different phone company. The south end ( US West now Qwest) had Issaquah numbers and the north (GTE, now Verizon) had Redmond numbers. Calling between the two areas was a long distance call, even if the person you were calling lived across the street. However, in both areas a call to Bellevue or Seattle was a local call. This also complicated the matter of advertising in the yellow pages, which is often the most effective church advertising. People all over the plateau received phone books from both companies as well as the Seattle Metro book. Then each year there would be one or more additional directories put out by other publishers. There was no way of knowing which book people actually used.
Fourth, the north end was, and still is, in the Lake Washington School District which also covers Kirkland and Redmond, while the south is in the Issaquah School District. In addition, people in the north end tended to call it the Sammamish Plateau and went to Redmond to shop, while those in the south called it the Pine Lake Plateau and went to Issaquah to shop.
And each of these things divided the plateau in a different place so some people might, for example, have a Redmond address and an Issaquah phone number.
In addition there was no single newspaper that people in the area read, except for the combined Sunday edition of the Seattle Times and Post-Intelligencer. Both Issaquah (Issaquah Press) and Redmond (Redmond News) had weekly papers that were distributed in some manner on the respective ends of the plateau. There was a daily paper in Bellevue, the Bellevue Journal-American which some received. Some people read one of the Seattle papers, the morning P-I or the evening Times. The Eastside Week, published by the same publisher as the Seattle Weekly, was also distributed all over the plateau.
Fred had a sign put up on the church property announcing: "Future home of a new Episcopal Church for the Sammamish Plateau." A contact phone number was given also. Later when the church name was chosen the sign was changed to: "Future site of Good Samaritan Episcopal Church" even before we had held our first service.
One matter that had to be settled before plans could go too far was where the new church could worship. The only public buildings with space that might rent to a church on a Sunday morning were the public schools, the Pine Lake Community Club, and the Lutheran Bible Institute. All of these, except for two elementary schools, already had churches worshiping in them. On checking, Fred found that those two schools were not available for other reasons.
Finally, Fred secured permission from the Lake Washington School District to rent space on Sunday mornings at an elementary school then under construction and scheduled to be finished in time for school to start in September 1990. Later it was named Christa McAuliffe.
In February 1990 Fred began calling door to door, eventually ringing 1,268 doorbells. On several Saturdays he trained groups of lay people from Episcopal churches around the diocese to do calling and they called on 570 more.
The house to house calling campaign, and the sign on the property, began to spark a “buzz” and people began to call Fred with questions.
The challenges to get to the first service were huge and Fred’s prayer life became more intense that it had been for a long time. There were critical problems that he realized he could do little or nothing about except pray – and they all got solved. One clear example was church music.
In his journal he wrote “August 14 ‘Am praying for and will be looking for keyboard & or guitar players.’ The next day a friend of Fred’s from college days, Alice Crickmer who was also a member of St. Claire of Assisi in Snoqualmie, called to volunteer to play piano for Good Samaritan for the first year. That night in his journal he wrote of her offer and then: “Talk about an answer to prayer.’ Shortly after that Ted Potter volunteered to play guitar for us.
A couple of meetings were held in the summer of 1990 for interested people to choose a name for the church and organize a Sunday school. A list of names was submitted to the bishop who edited it slightly and sent it back for our final choice. The name of Good Samaritan was chosen at a meeting held on August 20th .
The Diocesan Altar Guild loaned us a complete portable communion set with a paten and two chalices, all in sterling silver. They also loaned a processional cross and vestments for acolytes. The first public Sunday morning service was set for September 29. St. Thomas, St Margaret, and Resurrection Episcopal churches all gave money to Good Samaritan in the first year.
The Bible and Common Prayer Book Society of the Episcopal Church gave us 100 red prayer books and 100 blue hymnals and a Book of the Gospels. Later they gave us more of each and a large number of the red Hymnbooks, which is the hymnal without the service music.
Along with the sign on the property, Fred had eight sandwich board type signs made which were used to direct people from 228th Ave NE, the main north-south street on the plateau, back to the school where we worshipped. Every Sunday the signs had to be put out early and then picked up after we had finished at the school. Without those signs properly placed each week, new people would never have found us.
Articles about the new church were routinely sent to all six papers in the hopes that some would publish them and sometimes they did. This was, of course, before the internet made multiple submissions easy.
With the help of Diane Walker, who became the first editor of the New Samaritan newsletter, bulk mailers were sent out to thousands of homes on the plateau before the first Sunday morning service, and before Christmas and Easter each year thereafter.
The Redmond News sent a reporter out to interview Fred and take pictures of him. An article about Fred and Good Samaritan ran shortly before the church’s first public Sunday morning service.
Three Sunday evening Eucharist's were held in the weeks leading up to this service --the first at Faith Methodist Church and the latter two at Sammamish Presbyterian Church. These services were for people who had attended the meetings or been involved in organizing for our start-up and were not advertised to the public. Fred's mother, Louise Jessett, then age 87, played the piano for one of these services.
The first Sunday public Sunday morning service at 10:00 AM on September 29, 1990 drew over 170 people. The family choir from St. Margaret's, Bellevue sang for the service. Children were registered for Sunday school that day. On our second Sunday the Sunday school classes began and that Sunday the choir from St. Thomas, Medina sang for us.
The worship service was held in the lunch room portion of the school while the Sunday school met in the gym. There was a folding wall between these areas which was usually opened up after the service. Children returned from classes in time to receive communion. At first Fred did a children's sermon each week but later that was eliminated to give the Sunday School teachers more class time.
The church was not allowed to store anything at the school so people volunteered to take parts of our church equipment home and bring them back the next Sunday for worship. Our saying was not "If we build it, they will come, but "If they come, we will build it." The last couple of years at McAuliffe, Sharrel McCrery gave us a Chevrolet Suburban in which we were able to store all our things as well as move them to and from the school each Sunday.
The sign on the church property was changed to read “Now worshiping at Christa McAuliffe School Sundays 10:00 AM” with the address.
Participation in worship by all was a strong value of the congregation. It was a symbol of the active role that all baptized members were asked to take in all areas of congregational life. In the liturgy this meant that we would seek to have the maximum participation by the people of the congregation. This meant that the readers, chalice bearers, musicians and choir did not vest or process, but came out of the congregation to do their parts, then returned to the congregation. Only the clergy and acolytes vested. There was no money for a lot of vestments and no place to store them so maybe it was just a case of making a virtue of necessity but that’s what was done.
When the bread and wine and the money offering were brought forward, the bearers came all the way to the altar and handed them directly to the celebrant or deacon. We also had greeters, ushers, oblation bearers and offering counters scheduled for each service. Roles were not combined. We wanted as many people involved as possible.
During that year we also chose a musical setting for the Eucharist. It came from a church in California. Written by a priest named Bettencourt, it was easy to sing and the whole congregation sang it well. This setting also carried out the full participation idea in that it gave the congregation a larger part in singing the preface that leads into the Sanctus. One Sunday when Fred momentarily forgot his part, small children in the congregation could be heard singing the priest’s part, for they had been singing it with him every week.
During that first year, any baptized Christian who was attending Good Sam could sign up as a Founding Member. By January 1, 1991 we had 104 members in good standing.
In November 1990 Good Sam took part in a community Thanksgiving Eve service held in the new Mary Queen of Peace Catholic Church. Other churches participating were Faith Methodist, Sammamish Congregational UCC, a Christian and Missionary Alliance, and a Christian Reformed church. The latter two ceased to exist within the next year but the other churches continued this service through 2002.
In Holy Week 1991 Good Sam joined with a number of local churches to sponsor a noon-hour Good Friday service. Included were the three mentioned above plus Sammamish Hills Lutheran, Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran, and Pine Lake Covenant churches. This service continued until 2010. It was the clergy from these churches that formed the Sammamish Plateau Area Ministers (S.P.A.M.), an informal group that met most months of the year for mutual support.
During our first year we held a contest to chose a logo. Several people submitted designs. All the designs entered were put on the covers of successive Sunday bulletins over the course of weeks and then the congregation was asked to vote one Sunday to choose a logo. The logo chosen was designed by Diane Walker and now appears in many places in the church including banners, tiles in the kitchen, the pastoral candle stand and in the new logo Steve Angelo designed for the 20th anniversary.
In the years at the school we did not use prayer books in worship. Bringing boxes of hymnals or Gather books was enough of a load. We printed booklets that contained the service including music for the parts of the liturgy we sang. Booklets were made for Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost and for Sundays on which there were baptisms, and there were a lot of those. We had several different booklets for Sundays in “ordinary time” in the church year. All these booklets were reusable and over time we saved quite a bit on the cost instead of printing a new booklet each week. We did use hymnals and we also bought copies of the first edition of the Gather song book from GIA.
When Alice Crickmer's year as our pianist was over in the fall of 1991, we hired a young man from Lutheran Bible Institute as pianist/choir director. However, the job was too much for him and he resigned after a few months. We struggled then to keep a choir and relied heavily on the group of guitarists Ted Potter had drawn from the congregation.
Dent Davidson, organist/choir director from St. Thomas, Medina, came out from time to time on a week night to work with the choir and guitars. It was Dent who pointed out that the Bettencourt Sanctus was a really a variation on the theme from the TV series, MASH.
The first banner to be used as a dossal curtain behind the altar was created by Diane Walker and Daphne Robinson. It was an all purpose banner of white doves on a blue background. Steve Trimble built a metal frame for the banner, one that could be assembled and disassembled easily each week.
Our first annual meeting was held on February 2 1991 at Mary Queen of Peace Church at which time four more members were elected to the Bishop’s Committee.
Diana Larson and Rick Bocko began a youth group which Diana continued to work with devoting huge amounts of time and energy to this ministry. In 1995, at Diana's suggestion, we hired our first paid youth person, a student from Lutheran Bible Institute.
In these first years Diana Larson also organized our women's book group. Other monthly activities that developed were a men's Saturday breakfast group, a men's book group, a parents’ night out (held at the Presbyterian Church nursery), and Dinners at 7 which organized small dinner groups for fellowship. There were seasonal potluck dinners as well as an annual women’s retreat and a parish picnic in Marymoor Park or Pine Lake Park.
At first, the church office was located in a room in the house Fred and Kris bought on the plateau. It remained there until 1992 when office space was found in the back room of the one‑hour photo shop in the Sammamish Highlands Shopping Center. When the Safeway store expanded, the photo shop moved a few doors down the mall and the office moved with the shop. When that shop closed, the church office moved to the back room of an insurance agent's office, and then finally to the annex of Sammamish Hills Lutheran Church. The church mailing address remained the same through all the moves. It was a private mail box at the Mail Post store in the Sammamish Highlands shopping center.
Beginning in Lent of 1991, Fred arranged to do a Wednesday morning Eucharist at Providence/Marianwood Skilled Care Facility. He intended to do this just for Lent but residents of the facility asked if Fred would continue the service after Lent and he did.
This service grew and became regular part of the pastoral care program at Marianwood. Fred was still conducting that service 19 years later.
Each year on Ash Wednesday people from the community joined in the Marianwood Eucharist. For many years the pastor of Mary, Queen of Peace, Fr. Paul Dalton, took part in that service by giving the homily and helping with the distribution of ashes. For an evening Ash Wednesday service, Fred arranged with the Community Church of Joy, a Church of the Lutheran Brethren, to use their church. We did that for seven years.
Holy Week services were difficult because of the problem of finding places to held them. Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services drew a few people. In later years we sometimes shared these services with Sammamish Hills Lutheran Church in their facility.
For the first two years we also tried having an Easter Eve service. The first year there was a baptism and the attendance was fair. The next year almost no one came and we realized the response didn’t merit the cost of renting space.
According to the policies of the Lake Washington School District at that time, churches renting school space had to show progress toward gaining a facility of their own. So a Building Committee was organized in 1991, and began preliminary planning. The committee, co-chaired by Diana Larson and Ken Large, accomplished a good deal of necessary technical analysis.
In the fall of 1991, as Good Sam began its second year, a priest from California, the Rev. Al Smith, arrived to study two congregations that the diocesan office had told him were examples of excellence. The Archdeacon of the Diocese recommended Good Sam as a unique example. Fr. Smith spent four days talking with people and attending meetings and Sunday worship. Fr. Smith's book, Call to Excellence was published by Forward Movement Publications in 1993. The chapter about Good Samaritan is titled, "Not like you have ever done." It gives a fairly accurate picture of life at Good Sam at our one year mark.
During our first year we also began outreach projects. One of the first was providing cookies for the USO facility at the Seattle-Tacoma Airport. This contiued for many years. In 1993 we began collecting white socks for homeless teenagers in Seattle. We have also participated in providing backpacks and school supplies for school kids, providing Christmas gifts for children or families, and support for such programs as Habitat for Humanity and Eastside Baby Corner.
When King County began the Adopt-a-Road campaign, we signed up for a section of 228th Ave, the main street through what is now the city of Sammamish. This meant that we clean up the road in front of the Covenant, Catholic and Lutheran churches.
During our second year the first wedding took place. On January 18, 1992 Charles Dorian and Billy Dow, older members of the congregation, were married in their home in Klahanie. Also our first death occurred. Hattie Hall an elderly woman who, although confined to a wheel chair, was an enthusiastic member. She looked forward to helping with the Altar Guild. Unfortunately she was taken sick not long after she began attending Good Sam. Fred visited her in the hospital and had a long talk with her. Sadly she died soon after. Her son, who was a member of another church arranged for his pastor and Fred to do her funeral which was a graveside service. Some Good Samaritan members were able to attend.
In October of 1992 the convention of the Diocese of Olympia admitted Good Samaritan as an Organized Mission of the diocese with all the appropriate rights and duties.
In the summer of 1993, the Bishop's Committee of Good Sam requested a meeting with diocesan leadership concerning our future. The mission agreed to draw up a five-year plan to bring Good Samaritan to full self-support. The plan, when finished the next year, called for Good Sam to reach this goal in 1999.
Also at that meeting, Good Sam was urged to look for an alternate building site because there were questions as to the suitability of the property that had been purchased for a church. For the next year considerable time was spent checking out alternative property that might be purchased. The Building Committee did locate what appeared to be a better site.
Unfortunately, anticipated capital gifts to the diocese did not materialize. When Good Sam presented the possible alternative building site to the diocese, the diocesan Board of Directors replied that there was no money with which to purchase the site. The directors went on to say that even if the money was there, they did not know that Good Samaritan had any priority to it. That was a direct contradiction of what the diocesan authorities had said the year before. Today the City Hall of the City of Sammamish occupies that site.
In August 1993, Good Sam added a part‑time administrative assistant to the staff. Cheryl Trimble served for over 12 years before retiring in December 2005. In 1993 the Altar Guild was organized by Kris Jessett, who had been doing that work herself.
In December of 1993. the Rev. Mary Gould was ordained deacon and appointed by the Bishop, at Fred's request, to ministry with Good Samaritan. Mary was the Director of Pastoral Care at Marianwood. She served Good Sam for five years, leading and encouraging the congregation in outreach ministries through her insight and compassion.
In the spring of 1994 Xavier Casademundt was hired the first real choir director and was with us for two years. He was an excellent musician and a great teacher with a warm, out-going personality. He gave much to our community. When he left in the spring of 1996 the congregation knew it would be very difficult to find a replacement with the skills, both musical and personal, that Xavier had.
Good Sam was extremely fortunate in its first staff members. Diana, Cheryl, Mary and Xavier did their jobs so well they added immeasurably to our growth in every way.
The next funerals conducted for members of the congregation came in 1995 and 1996. Martha McCrery was a founding member. Julie Mackie was baptized with her daughter at Good Samaritan in 1994. Both Martha and Julie came to Good Sam following surgery for breast cancer. Both were active, well-known and well-loved in the church community. When cancer returned they fought the good fight but early in 1995 Martha died, and a little over a year later, Julie died on the second anniversary of her baptism. Martha's service was held in the Community American Baptist Church in Issaquah. The full choir sang for Martha who had been a faithful choir member. Julie's service was at Sunset Hills Funeral Chapel in Bellevue with many Good Samaritan members present.
The illnesses and deaths of these two young mothers with small children had a profound effect on the church members. It deepened the awareness of our need for God and for each other, and for our need for the love of both.
Other important events in the years at Christa McAuliffe include the first visit by Bishop Warner in 1992 when he confirmed and received members for the first time; a visit by the Presiding Bishop, Edmund Browning, in June of 1995; a concert given by the choir which was held at Pine Lake Covenant Church in the fall of 1995 which was well attended; each year the observance of the anniversary of our founding service at which time we took a picture of the congregation; the great Christmas pageants on the school stage which served as the Liturgy of the Word for our single Christmas Eve service -- Fred always promised that service would be over in one hour and it always was (usually because something in the pageant got skipped). Our parish picnics held first at Marymoor Park and later at Pine Lake Park were always fun and well attended.
Our relationship with the principal and staff at the school was good and we allowed them to use the cordless microphone we had been given. When the school moved its piano to one of the portable buildings, we bought a piano of our own and they let us bring it in with the provision that the school could use it when needed.
Good Sam's sixth anniversary service, Sept. 30, 1996 was also our last service at McAuliffe as we had outgrown the space. As we had on the previous five anniversaries, a group picture was taken of the congregation. The senior acolyte at that service, Scott Trimble, had been the acolyte at our first service, and so completed six full years of service before moving on to the University of Washington.
After six years at Christa McAulife school, the Sunday average attendance grew from 84 in 1991 to 133 in 1996 and we had 270 baptized members.
Lutheran Bible Institute AKA Trinity Lutheran College, 1996-2002
October 7, 1996 Good Sam began worship and Sunday school in the big beautiful chapel and classrooms at the Lutheran Bible Institute. The move, a change from the north to the south end of the plateau of about five miles, also required a change to an earlier service time. It cost the church four families who were not able to make one or both of the changes.
In order to use the chapel and school rooms, Good Sam had to share with the Sammamish Congregational U.C.C. Church. That church moved its service to 10:30 AM so we could worship at 9:00. Good Sam’s service and Sunday School had to be done by 10:00 AM sharp because the U.C.C. set up crew were waiting at the doors. However, LBI was the only place available on the plateau that was big enough for Good Sam.
The chapel seated some 400 people in straight rows of pews. The building had been built for the Roman Catholic Sisters of Providence and the chapel was very much in that tradition even though it then belonged to a Lutheran institution. Its stained glass windows and stations of the cross were both designed and executed for this chapel by the world renowned French artist, Gabriel Loire. An organ and piano, and an "iffy" sound system were also part of the chapel. The contrast in setting from Christa McAuliffe could hardly have been greater.
But at LBI our Sunday school was able to use classrooms, which was a big improvement over the school gym. Also there was storage space at LBI for all the things we needed for worship and Sunday school.
In 1997 the Building Committee was reorganized and began to move ahead with new energy, making good use of the work already done. Jim Hutchins volunteered to lead this renewed effort. In the fall of 1997 the Bishop's Committee contracted with the architectural firm of Broweleit Peterson to begin planning a building.
By 1997, Fred felt he needed to retire and let new leadership take over. The Bishop's office was willing to let the congregation do this transition in its own way. The Bishop's Committee interviewed three clergy who lived near by and called the Rev. Woody Peabody to be the new vicar. Fr. Woody had many years of experience, a sense of confidence and a steady hand that kept the congregation on course to grow and build.
Fred retired on January 1, 1998 but remained as a part‑time volunteer. Fr. Woody took over as vicar on January 16, 1998. This unusual arrangement succeeded because of the unique gifts and experience of each priest.
Fr. Woody's first challenge was to lead a building fund drive for the new building. He began the fund drive in May, 1998 and by December of 2000 $1,100,000 had been raised by 71 pledges and gifts, all done without the services of a fund raising firm. A second drive began in January of 2001 through September of 2002 raised $260, 000 from 105 pledges. The diocese loaned $649,000 to complete the financing of the building.
Woody’s second challenge was to bring the church to full self‑support which was done right on schedule in 1999 with a budget of $130,000. Fr. Woody also took over direction of the choir in January 1999 when the third choir director left.
Fr. Woody discontinued use of service booklets and used the prayer books with a service bulletin instead. Rolling carts were purchased to hold our hymnals and prayer books for ease of storage.
In 2000, Sue Hamke began as the first paid part‑time Director of Christian Ed and Sonja Ingles became Youth Director. Both were members of Good Sam.
In 2001, another member, Myrtis Riley took over as Choir Director. Also in Lent of 2001 a second Building Fund drive started with Charles Dorian leading that effort.
On Saturday, April 28, 2001, Bishop Warner came to the church property for the formal ground breaking for the new Church building. It was just twelve years from the time the diocese purchased this property as home for a proposed church until the ground was broken for the building.
Some other highlights of Good Sam’s days at Lutheran Bible Institute (which changed its name to Trinity Lutheran College while we were there) are as follows: One Easter an entire youth orchestra and chorus from New Zealand played and sang for us (and for the UCC congregation). The Sunday after Woody’s mother died in a Bellevue nursing home our Eucharist was her memorial service. The Eucharist on the Sunday after 911 was filled with emotional power. Blessed confusion always seemed to reign on Christmas eve before the pageant began and then it morphed into a great celebration of the Eucharist all in the auditorium behind the chapel.
The Process of Building our Church Building
The whole building process had been fraught with problems and obstacles from the very early stages of planning, and especially concerns about water. At first the concern was over how wetlands on our property and adjacent to it would affect our ability to build. That concern continued until we got into the permit process with the new City of Sammamish.
The next issue was whether or not the water and sewer district would allocate us water. The district had imposed a moratorium on the issuance of permits due to a shortage of water. In cooperation with other churches seeking to build on the plateau, we were able to have churches included, along with fire and police stations, as exempt from the moratorium.
Then there was concern over storm water retention ponds and how much of our property these would take. Initial county zoning made it look as if very big ponds would be required but finally, in the permitting process with the city, a tank was put under the parking lot for this purpose, along with ponds along 244th Ave. NE..
Another problem arose over zoning. County zoning rules changed and at one point it appeared that these restrictions would make it impossible to build a church on the site. However, the area voted to incorporate and in 1999 the new city of Sammamish came into being. While still vicar, Fred had made sure that Good Samaritan's land was included in the planning for the new city.
The original plan from the architects did not include a basement but a challenge gift of $250,000 was given to put in a basement if the church met the total needed for the rest of the building. In the end the unfinished basement was added to the plans.
When the actual permitting process began, it became clear that working further with King County would not be helpful, so the application was withdrawn and Good Sam applied through the City of Sammamish. That process made it possible to build.
The final question to be answered was, what kind of sewer arrangement will the water and sewer district approve? They initially asked Good Sam to form a LID, or failing that to pay for a sewer line to serve the whole area. The diocese finally signed off on an arrangement by which a grinder pump would attach the church to an existing high pressure line from a development further north. This came with a proviso that Good Sam put in further improvements when property north of the church was ready to be developed.
Financing of the building was arranged with the Diocesan Board of Directors and included a loan from that board in addition to the building fund of some $1,500,000 raised by the congregation.
Work on the building continued into June of 2002. Meanwhile, Fr. Woody had announced his intention to retire from Good Sam by September of 2002 after the building was finished. A Call Committee was set up in 2001 to seek his successor.
Home At Last! 2002
At 4:15 PM on Wednesday, June 12, 2002 the City of Sammamish signed off on a temporary occupancy permit for our building. At 7:00 PM Bishop Warner arrived with members of his staff to consecrate the building. The church was packed for the service.
The evening of the consecration, Michael Bodine, son of Brian Bodine and Wanda Martinez was baptized and the new vicar who was to replace Fr. Woody was present and introduced. She was the Rev. Anne Barton previously on the staff of Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Rapid City, South Dakota.
The new church building was furnished with some 300 metal folding chairs and a few assorted other chairs that Fr. Woody had begged from other churches, and some that members had donated. Beyond that we used such furnishings as we had. The altar was the portable one that Dan Kruse and his brother had built for us while we were still at Trinity Lutheran College. The banner frame and banners we had at McAuliffe and at TLC were used in the new building. The Pascal Candle stand was made by Karl Besecker and he also made a new processional cross. Laid out around the altar were the altar rail cushions we had been given by Emmanuel, Mercer Island. The basement, where the Sunday school classrooms were to be built, was unfinished.
The most complete room in the church was the kitchen given by Rick and Marilyn Wong in memory of Rick's mother, Pearl Wong. It is a lovely spacious room equipped with commercial grade appliances and capable of feeding very large numbers of people.
In the fall of 2002, a two service schedule was begun with Holy Eucharist at 8 and 10 AM. The 8:00 AM service alternated Rites I and II and a Celtic rite Anne had found. The 10:00 AM service with music was to carry on much as the previous 9:00 AM service at TLC had done. The plan was for Sunday School to be held at the same time.
After one week it was realized that it wasn't possible to hold Sunday School at the same time as the worship service. There was no place to put all the classes. The schedule had to be changed to put Sunday School at 9:00 AM, one hour before church.
To provide space for classes, office partitions which the church had previously acquired were used to create three class areas along each side of the sanctuary. This reduced the area available for seating for services and made the interior of the church less attractive but there was no alternative. Some families found it hard to adjust to having to be at the church from 9:00 until after 11:00 and some were not happy having their children with them in church for the whole service.
It proved to be more difficult than anticipated adjusting in other ways to the new building. The congregation was now responsible for everything that happened in and to the building all the time, not just on Sunday morning for worship and Sunday school.
Moving into the new building was also a big change again in location and setting. The church building is very close to Christa McAuliffe School where Good Sam began. The chapel at LBI, (the name was changed to Trinity Lutheran College) had been much more formal than the new building with its wonderful view of trees and sky, and its metal folding chairs.
In early 2003 Sue Hamke resigned from the Christian Education position to take a full-time job at Fred Hutchinson Cancer institute and Sonia Ingles took over the Christian Ed position along with Youth Director. In 2003, Lisa Yip was hired as pianist, and a music teacher from Skyline High came to be choir director.
A push quickly developed to finish off the basement and so a new building campaign began in the summer of 2002 and concluded in February 2003. Forty pledges yielded $145,000 and the basement was finished.. We moved into the basement and its classrooms in the fall of 2004. Some of the finish work on this was done by members of the congregation.
By the spring of 2004, Anne Barton had come to the conclusion that her talents and abilities did not match the needs of Good Samaritan and she offered her resignation. The Bishop's Committee and the Bishop accepted it. The agreement provided Anne with a salary for six month's while she discerned her next call. The choir director resigned at that time also.
In 2004, the Creative Kids Pre-School which had been located in Fall City was looking for a new location. Good Sam was contacted and arrived at an agreement with the owner and director, Roberta “Bobbi” McCormick, to rent space on our lower level to the pre-school. There had been recognition ever since planning for the Church had begun that a pre-school program could be a very important ministry. To receive a fully formed program seemed to be a true gift of grace.
When Anne Barton left the diocese assigned the Rev. Jane Maynard as priest-in-charge and the Rev. Jerry Garman as deacon. Jane was part-time at first but became full time when the salary commitment to Anne Barton ended. Jerry was assigned by the diocese with the added duty of dealing with the Water and Sewer District about the sewer requirements. He served one year with us and then was assigned to St. Dunstan's Parish, Shoreline.
The original sound system was not working well and so in 2005 a new sound system was installed to the relief of many. Also in early 2005 a committee was appointed to choose appropriate seating for the church. By the spring of 2006 $77,000 had been raised for the seats and to help pay the rest on the new sound system. The seats were delivered in the summer of 2006.
Also in 2005, Bobbi McCormick offered to donate the pre-school to Good Samaritan so that it could become fully a ministry of the church. The congregation accepted, and Bobbi continued as Director as an employee of the church. Financially the Pre-school was helping to support the congregation.
Jane Maynard served through June of 2006 at which time a new Call Committee completed its work and the Bishop's Committee with the approval of Bishop Warner, called the Rev. David Marshall to be the fourth vicar of Good Samaritan.
The Rev. David Marshall served at vicar of Good Samaritan from July 2006 through October 2007. For a period of almost six months from November 2007 until April 2008 Good Sam was served only by Sunday supply clergy.
Starting on Easter 2008 the Rev. Canon Curt Zimmerman was assigned by Bishop Rickel as Canon Missioner to Good Sam. In August of 2009 he retired and Bishop Rickel announced that the Rev. Suzi Robertson, who had been interviewed by Good Sam’s Bishop’s Committee, would become the vicar starting on October 1.
Several unfortunate events, and no long tenures of priests over the previous seven years, had left Good Samaritan a troubled church, with significant financial and leadership issues.
As Good Samaritan began its twentieth year on October 4, Dr. Suzi Robertson began her ministry with the congregation as its fifth vicar. Plans were immediately pushed forward to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the founding of Good Samaritan.
Steps were taken immediately to deal with the serious financial situation the congregation faced due to its inability to make consistent payments on either its assessment to the diocese or its building loan from the diocese. An anonymous gift of $200,000 enabled the vicar and Bishop’s Committee to negotiate an agreement with the diocese that reduced the indebtedness significantly if the congregation would stay current on its future assessment and loan payments. A ten year plan was adopted that would allot the church to be debt free at the end of that time.
Another anonymous gift enabled the creation of the Rev. Fred and Kris Jessett Ministry Fund with the funds to be used for ministries that support the growth of Good Samaritan. This fund was set up as one that was restricted, and every withdrawal had to be matched by other donations. In the first few months, the congregation and friends raised more than $13,500.00 and allocated more than $24,000.00 to be infused into the program of the church and school. A new playground was purchased and installed, and five other ministry initiatives were funded with these monies.
Dr. Suzi expanded the Godly play program in the Sunday school. The acolyte corps also expanded and a group of 12 acolytes and adults traveled to Washington D C to take part in the National Acolyte Festival in the National Cathedral.
The 20th Anniversary celebration culminated in a parish dinner on Saturday, September 25 at which the Rev. Fred Jessett was made Vicar Emeritus. The following day Bishop Rickel came to celebrate the Holy Eucharist and confirmed or received 54 people into the Episcopal Church, the largest number of persons he had received and confirmed in his ministry as Bishop.
