WASHINGTON, VT. — When Dewey and Kathie Aiken survey the landscape of Vermont, they see much more than the beautiful red and yellow leaves of autumn, the traditional maple syrup-making in March, and 150-year-old churches with white steeples piercing the blue skies of summer.

Instead, the couple is haunted – literally unable to sleep some nights – when they ponder the lostness of the majority of Vermonters and the urgency to reach the tiny New England state’s population of 623,000 with the gospel. It’s estimated that only two percent are committed believers in Christ.

“Vermont is a beautiful state and it’s full of beautiful people,” says Kathie. “But we know that beneath the facade there is a lostness. Something is missing in people’s lives. I see the sadness in so many of their faces.”

 

Passion and urgency

The Aikens – a husband-wife team of Mission Service Corps missionaries commissioned by the North American Mission Board (NAMB) – say their passion for Vermont stems from the urgency of the state’s bleak spiritual condition.

“There’s an urgency to go and get the gospel out here. When I think about how so many people in this state do not know Jesus as Lord and Savior, it breaks my heart,” Dewey said.

The Aikens are two of more than 5,000 missionaries in the United States, Canada, and their territories supported by the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering® for North American Missions. They were one of eight NAMB missionary couples highlighted as part of the annual Week of Prayer, March 2-9. This year’s theme is “Live with Urgency: Seize Your Divine Moment.” The 2008 Annie Armstrong Easter Offering’s goal is $61 million, 100 percent of which is used for missionaries’ needs and ministries.

Hailing from Brevard, N.C., Dewey, 56, and Kathie, 54, were celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary 10 years ago when they vacationed in Vermont. They fell in love with the Green Mountain State.

Already active in missions and disaster relief back in North Carolina, the Aikens returned home and after several years, retired from their successful first careers – Kathie as a registered nurse and Dewey as a purchasing manager for Duke Energy.

“When we came up here on our anniversary, we saw the need here in New England,” Kathie said. “We had careers that we were finishing up, and we knew it was time for a change. Our children were married, our family was changing, and it was a time in our lives when we could serve Christ in another area in a different way. And we were ready.”

Their passion for Vermont grew even stronger. “We wanted to come here. We desired Vermont. We were at home in North Carolina, where we were raised and where we had good jobs and family,” Kathie said.

“We just felt like God was calling us to Vermont, to share the gospel here,” Dewey said. “I looked at Romans 10:14 which asks: ‘How will they know unless somebody comes and tells them?’ That’s why we’re here. We’re here to tell the people of Vermont about Jesus.”

And since the Aikens did not leave their North Carolina drawl behind, they joke about how they use it to witness to Vermonters.

 

Grin and tell it

“Folks up here grin when we talk but they’re polite about it,” says Kathie. “Our accent is actually a witnessing tool. Say we’re in a restaurant and we strike up a conversation. When they say ‘you’re not from around here,’ we make them guess where we’re from. That opens up doors and we can tell them why we’re here.”

Coming from a strong Southern Baptist state like North Carolina, the Aikens initially faced some culture shock upon their arrival in Vermont, a state known for its liberal political and secular bent. Vermont also suffers from a pervasive influence of New Age thinking and even Wiccan practices.

“God prepared our hearts and gave us a vision of what it was going to be like, even before we got here,” said Kathie. “We came up here with the mindset that nothing is going to shock us.”

A hindrance to their ministry, according to the Aikens, is the fact that many in Vermont – with its strong Catholic influence – have “just enough religion in their pasts to think – because they were baptized as infants – that they’re going to heaven. Or they think they are ‘genetic Christians’ because their families attended church or were members of a certain faith.

“It hurts your heart, and actually sometimes makes me somewhat angry at the way people up here have been deceived into thinking that everything is OK,” says Kathie.

Kathie gets frustrated at times because she sees children and young people who don’t understand the Bible and, in fact, say the Bible has never been read to them, even in a church. “They don’t open the Bible in church, only the priest does.”

So whether ministering to young people or conducting a Bible study for a group of 80-year-olds, Kathie tries to keep it basic and simple. Her strategy must work: she recently led an 82-year-old woman to Christ.

Rather than ask a person if he or she is a Christian – since two-thirds of most Vermonters consider themselves Christians – Kathie instead asks “Was there ever a time in your life when you asked Christ to be your personal Savior?” Or “Do you have a personal relationship with Christ?”

While Vermont is dotted with beautiful old churches built in the 1800s and before, many have closed their doors. People in some churches just quit coming; some churches died spiritually or financially; and yet others closed because entire families finally died out. Sadly, many of these churches have been converted into town halls, libraries, antique shops, and senior centers.

But Washington Baptist Church, the only Southern Baptist church around, is open for ministry. Located in the village of Washington (pop. 1,000), Washington Baptist has 90 members, including Dewey and Kathie Aiken.

Right off Washington’s village square is The Calef House and Retreat Center, a 7,400-square-foot Victorian mansion built by the wealthy Ira Calef in the mid-1800s. Today, it’s managed and maintained by the Aikens for God’s work.

Purchased from the local Catholic parish in the late 1990s by Washington Baptist Church and operated by the Green Mountain Baptist Association, the house was completely renovated by Southern Baptist volunteers who came from across the country.

“The church had a vision of changing the facility into a parsonage for the pastor and his family, a mission apartment for us and a retreat center,” Kathie explains. “We were called here by God to be the managers of the retreat center.”