HOULTON, Maine – It’s a bittersweet time for two Houlton pastors who came to Maine more than 33 years ago, never thinking they would stay.
Now, as Melanie Burns, the worship pastor and Randall Burns, the lead pastor, prepare to leave Military Street Baptist Church on the Hill later this month, it’s hard to say “good-bye” to a church family they love.
“I didn’t plan it to end this way,” said Randall, who contracted an autoimmune disease known as combined immunodeficiency.
“It was stripping the myelin sheath from my nerves thinking it was fighting a virus. I couldn’t feel my fingers, my feet, I couldn’t swallow, my breathing was affected,” he said, adding that one early morning In May, while praying, he knew their time in Maine was finished.
“We had been talking about this for the past couple years asking how does this end?” he said. “But I didn’t think it would end because of a disease.”
As they pack more than three decades of work and life experiences into boxes, holding on to a bit of what’s here, they look forward to their new life in Tennessee in the same town as their daughter and two hours from their son.
“My number one mission when I get there is spending time with my grandson,” Randall said.
Both Melanie and Randall know they are not finished with the work they are meant to do. But much like when they came to Maine, they don’t know what it is yet.
The couple met on a Christian music mission team and traveled the British Commonwealth and Europe, playing daily concerts: He as a professional trumpet player and vocalist and she on keyboards and vocals.
“That’s how a San Diegan meets a South Dakotan,” Randall said.
On Aug. 1, 1991, Melanie and Randall and their infant son traveled to Maine from Philadelphia right after he graduated from Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary.
He originally came on a call to be the music minister and associate pastor. Melanie was the organist, who almost from the start became the worship pastor.
Nine months later, the senior pastor left the church and as one thing led to another Randall became the interim pastor. By 1993, the church leaders asked him to be the lead pastor.
In the ensuing years, they have developed community programs like the Adopt-A-Block of Aroostook that works to meet needs in the community, often helping people with food, clothing, furniture and backpacks for kids.
They have grown to about 450 members and built a new church on 121 acres about a mile past the Houlton International Airport with a sanctuary that will seat 500. They even have a pond the state stocks with trout that they’ve dedicated as a kids’ pond.
They have taken trips to help in Israel, most recently this spring. They have a church mission to Haiti, Strong Tower Haiti, where they help Haitian girls and family care in the country.
“That’s been fantastic,” Randall said.
When they decided to build the new church, they had raised $900,000 in a capital campaign. But were stuck, unable to reach their $1 million goal to be able to get a loan for the rest of the building project.
The elders of the church dedicated a Saturday to fast and pray about what to do next, he said.
“On my way over to the meeting, I heard God say, ‘tithe what you’ve raised and give it to my mission,’” Randall said.
They did, donating 10 percent or $90,000 to local, state and foreign missions.
“We were like kids in a candy store,” he said. “It began the Haitian orphanage, it began Adopt-a-Block and two weeks later I got a check in the mail from a man who didn’t even go to this church for $100,000.”
And that’s how it has gone all these years.
“It’s a faith walk,” he said.
We have been rewarded and God has given us opportunities to do things if you looked at our bank accounts you’d think how could that have ever happened, they said.
Melanie and Randall raised two children during their time in Maine. They also have a daughter buried in Evergreen cemetery.
“She was born and lived a half hour and we had to give her back,” Randall said. “That was probably one of the most difficult times of any person’s life and for ours too.”
Grief is the price for living deeply, Melanie said.
Increasingly she said she has realized that you can do all the right things and say all the right things and stand for all the right things, but if you are not loving, it won’t count for a thing.
“We didn’t come saying, ‘well we will stay five years,’ we just kept staying,” Melanie said. “We’ll be back, I am certain.”
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