Community Building as a Way of Life

An Interview with Sam & Eric

By Terry Henry

The whole family in Boone. Left to right: Ellie, Cole, Ivy, Mattias, Sam & Eric

Terry: I’m sitting around a large dinner table with Sam and Eric.

Sam and Eric are a couple that I met two years ago at Mountainside Community Church in Boone, North Carolina. And I must add, it’s interesting to interview couples, because we are going to hear two different stories, which will include the beginnings of their faith in Christ, hopefully merge at their marriage, and then lead us into where they are today and where they are headed tomorrow. Ladies first. Sam, I know you’ve had an interesting life because of some of the talks that we’ve had previously. So, this is your story. Okay?

Sam: Well, I grew up in the church. My dad was a youth pastor in the Assemblies of God denomination. As it has been told to me, the first time that I prayed the prayer, so to speak, I was two years old, so I have zero recollection of that, but for my entire memory of my childhood, the church and my faith in Jesus were just the water that I was in. I didn’t necessarily have any strong periods of rebellion or anything like that. There were certain times where I felt a stronger presence that I think held me. One of the things about being in a charismatic environment is that interesting stuff happens, right? And I saw enough movements of God that I never came to a place where I didn’t believe that God was real. Growing up in church with my parents as pastors, it was always hard for me to know, had I made enough of a connection with God on my own for it to be real? And I think when that question first got answered I had a specific day where I remember having a very intense spiritual experience that felt like the closest that I’d ever experienced to what we call a Born-Again moment. Because I had grown up in the church, I didn’t have this come to Christ moment, where now I’m in Christ, and everything has changed. I grew up in a family that was very protected and very safe, and so I didn’t have to experience the world like I saw some of my friends experiencing it, but it also meant that it was hard for me to be sure of where I stood with God.

Terry: So, were there any early prayers you prayed, that were answered, or were you afraid of that interaction?

Sam: I don’t know. That’s interesting. I was a fearful child, and so I prayed a lot as a little kid, especially at night, because I did not like nighttime. I never questioned whether my prayers were answered or not. I had this innate sense that God was listening when I was praying. Occasionally I would wake up from a scary dream, and I would sit and just say the name of Jesus over and over and over again, because I had this thought in my head that if I said the name of Jesus, then, if there’s any anything going on that’s uncomfortable, Jesus’s name was going to make it go away. I’m sure I learned that from like, VeggieTales or something,

Terry: So, we are heading up to your YWAM experience that’s probably after marriage, right?

Sam: No, it was before we were married. That’s how we met when I was 18. For me, going through that program was a big deal. I didn’t grow up with a lot of theology, so there were a lot of feelings and experiences that I didn’t understand, like who God is, or what the church has historically thought about who God is, and how we understand that, and how it affects our faith. I lived in a Christian kind of bubble which, looking back, I would describe as low-key fundamentalist, because we did have that us versus them kind of thinking. However, because it’s an Assemblies of God church, women are allowed to be in ministry, and there wasn’t the fundamentalist thinking of you must dress this way or do this thing. We had our own legalism, but it was a very, emotive, very feelings-based environment.

Terry: So YWAM happened at 18 years of age.

Sam: It was right after high school. I was deciding between Switzerland and Puerto Rico for my YWAM program. However, my grandparents said, if you go to Puerto Rico, we’ll pay for your ticket. So I went to Puerto Rico, and Eric was there because his dad had wanted him to do YWAM there.

Eric: My dad knew one of the teachers at that base In Puerto Rico.

Sam: So that’s how we met.

Sam, Cole and Ellie (in the carrier) while living in California.

Terry: That’s a good transition. Which leads us to Eric’s story.

Eric: My story is somewhat like Sam’s since I grew up in a Christian home. My dad wasn’t a minister like Sam’s was, but yeah, I first accepted Jesus as maybe an eight-year-old. My dad led me to the Lord. I remember as a young kid thinking that some of my extended family might not be believers, and so I went around asking them if they believed in God. And they all said, yes. I was like, okay, great. Like, we’re good here, you know. So that was kind of my first foray into evangelism, I guess. And then I went to high school and college, YWAM and the Marine Corps, kind of in one big season. I was a believer, but I was largely an immature believer. I had a lot of my own ideas and things that I wanted to do with my life. And there were lots of idols: they were kind of weeds that were growing up in my life.

When I was 11, I decided I wanted to be a Navy SEAL. It was a driving factor in my decision making from then until I was 18, which is when I found out, shortly before going to YWAM, that my vision would basically never allow me to be a SEAL. So, I was in a bit of a turmoil at that time, but ended up joining the Marine Corps instead, to make a long story short. I kind of had this idolatry of adventure and travel and being a cool guy, and what I wanted my life to look like. And like I said, it didn’t stop me from being a believer. I think I would say I paid lip service so to speak to, like, “Jesus comes first”, right? And I believed that, but I didn’t always examine myself as I should have to see if I was really living that out. Shortly after I got out of the Marine Corps, we moved to Colombia with Samaritans Purse. During that time was probably one of the most intense times of spiritual growth for me in my life, where God was showing me that I had these areas of idolatry, and even as I was kind of getting what I thought I wanted, like the travel and the adventure, I was beginning to see this as being empty and that it really wasn’t what I wanted.

Terry: So, the picture I’m getting is that you were both Christians, but you were inactive, in a sense in a bubble. Did YWAM activate you guys after which you push ahead and overcome the obstacles or whatever.

Sam: I wouldn’t say I was inactive. I was leading the children’s ministry at our small church when I was 16, because nobody was there to do it, and so I took it over. I started going on mission trips when I was 12. The first time I went on a mission trip was to Mexico to help build a school at an orphanage. It was very formative for me. We were helping other people. For me, my faith was a huge part of my teen years, and it did govern a lot of things I did, although as a teenager, it was obviously still somewhat immature. I had these standards, but the standards were, now looking back, probably more cultural things within my church than particularly based on the way of Jesus. I still am trying to understand the way of Jesus. But that is probably where the YWAM thing shifted my faith and when I began to see that Christianity is not just a series of things we don’t do.

Eric: As you were talking, it made me think about the way my faith affected my life as a high school and college student. I was avoiding sins of commission but committing sins of omission. I think that was true of both of us, that both of us grew up really wanting to be people of faith, like especially wanting to do something meaningful with our lives, but not really living it in our daily lives, not going beyond “we don’t, drink, smoke, chew, or go with girls who do.”

Terry: Let’s get back to the military timeline.

Sam: I went through a period of intense spiritual growth while Eric was in the military. I had two young kids and I was experiencing very intense postpartum anxiety that was undiagnosed and undealt with, and I was really struggling. Eric was working all the time and then was gone for seven months because he got deployed. I was solo parenting all the time with no family around, and I was really struggling with anxiety. We went to a big mega church because it was right down the street. I really struggled to go on Sunday mornings, because you had to put the kids in one building and then walk across a quad and be in another building. I didn’t know anybody, and I felt uncomfortable leaving the kids with people I didn’t know. I had started going to a women’s Bible study that met at a smaller campus. It was kind of like a small group. I’d never really been in a setting that had that level of intimate community and that changed things for me in a big way, which sparked an intense period of spiritual growth for me. This led to me starting to reach out to the neighborhood that we were in, in California. I would put a picnic blanket in our front yard and sit out there with the kids, and I would text a few people whose numbers I had in the neighborhood, and I would say, I’m going to be in the front yard for the next couple hours. If you want to bring your kids by, we’ll be outside. And some days it was just us, but it grew over time, where it became almost every afternoon. It was all other military families, most of them had kids around our kids’ age. Over time we started to make dinner together and build community and relationships. I started to cook meals for people, whether they lived in the neighborhood or went to church or not.

Terry: So, your spiritual growth was finding outlets to serve other people and build a community?

Sam: Yeah, I think looking back, I can say that that’s likely what was happening. During that time, I started praying about the possibility of one day moving to Sweden which is where Eric’s family is from. I was praying that our life would change. I didn’t want to be in the military anymore and Eric was considering a career with the CIA which I also wasn’t excited about. Eric could not be present in our life in the way we wanted. I wanted to get out of the military, and I wanted to have our family be able to build community together and actually have roots. And then I forgot that I’d written down those prayers for years after I had journaled them.

Terry: And then two of them were answered.

Sam: That’s true. I don’t even remember making the connection at the time, but while on deployment, Eric resigned from the military.

Eric: While I was getting out of the military, I applied to the CIA and went partway through the process. I got an interview and after the interview, I realized the CIA wasn’t for me. And then a couple months later, they said, we don’t think we want you. So, it was mutual.

Sam: I really wasn’t thrilled about you pursuing the CIA, but I had this vision for our family and for our life that was different from what we had experienced before that. We had often pursued a life of adventure, but after we had kids, I didn’t want quite so much adventure. I was longing for community. And after leaving the military Eric went through almost a year of unemployment.

Terry: So, you’re now out of the military and unemployed.

Eric: I got out of the military in October 2017, and we traveled around the American West for a couple of months, and that was fun. Then I kind of buckled down and started looking for work. I really wanted to work in disaster relief. So, with the CIA out of the picture, I was like let’s investigate some disaster relief jobs that would allow me to travel. I really wanted to live in Colorado, where I could rock climb and do all that kind of stuff, but I was coming up against a brick wall.

When I left the military, my dad was like, hey, Eric, you could come work for me selling candy. And so, 10 months of looking for work go by and I’m like I need a job. My dad called me again and said, I’m hiring. I said, alright, give me a week, because I still have a couple of applications out. If I don’t hear anything within that week, I’ll come work for you. I had come to this place of humbling myself and realizing I was not going to get the cool guy job that I wanted. God was bringing me there on purpose. I had applied to Samaritan’s Purse during that year and didn’t get that job. When I said to my dad if I don’t hear something within a week, I’ll come be a candy salesman, I think God wanted me to let go of my pride. Then during that week, Samaritan’s Purse reached back out to me about a different job and said we think you should apply for this job in Colombia in South America. This was the week our second daughter was born. Things were moving very fast. I was like, they’re going to offer me this job, and I said to Sam, this is happening, is this something we want? And she flat out said, No.

Sam: My no was tied heavily to my postpartum anxiety. I was afraid that one of the kids was going to get kidnapped if we went to Colombia.

Eric: So at the part-time job I was working at, I had a day where I spent a lot of time by myself, which was unusual. And I spent a lot of that day praying about the situation. I was like, God, if this is what you have for us, I need Sam to be on board. I don’t know what I expected. I certainly didn’t expect what happened when I got home from work. Sam goes, hey, I think we can go to Colombia. And within a few days, I received the job offer.

Sam: There were a lot of things that helped me to know that God was with us in that. When Eric came home that night and said I’ve been praying all day for you, I felt even greater peace about going to Colombia. Other things happened as well, for example we applied for expedited passports for three children on a Wednesday, and the next Wednesday, we had them in our hands. Which is like a miracle right? Then everything started falling into place.

Terry: So, your story could almost start there. That’s where the rubber meets the road.

Sam: I feel like Colombia was a time when we took this leap of faith together and spiritually grew as a couple rather than individually.

Terry: What did you learn from a Christian perspective while you were in Colombia?

Sam: We finally found ourselves on the same page, which is a miracle for sure, and a blessing as well.

Eric: We had made a two-year commitment for Colombia. And the second year was 2020, notable in world events for a certain pandemic. We had about two months of freedom in 2020 where we did whatever we did, just normal life, and then we were logged into our apartment for three months. I got to go out only for work and Sam could go out once or twice a week to get groceries. That was kind of like the legal limits of our freedom at the time. It was an exciting time, work wise, because the whole situation changed in Colombia and we were doing new stuff, and that was cool. I also had a lot more downtime and I spent a lot of that time just reading the Bible, memorizing scripture, praying, and God was really working in my heart at that time. I also began reading Bonhoeffer’s “Cost of Discipleship” where the first half of the book is a discourse on the sermon on the mount. I look back on that as a pivotal moment in my walk with the Lord. Backing up a bit, right before covid hit, my boss came to Colombia. And before he came, we had been talking about how after our two years were up, we really wanted to go somewhere and build community for the sake of the gospel.

Sam: Yeah. The community that happened in California was influential on Eric and his spiritual growth, although maybe not to the same extent as it was for me. We had started saying let’s find a place where we can be Kingdom emissaries. Let’s live like Jesus someplace. At the point his boss arrived from Boone, Eric was starting to look for jobs in Minnesota. The week his boss came to visit…

Eric: He offered me a job in Boone. I said, let me think about that and I went home and told Sam about the job offer. She’s like, yeah, let’s do it. And I was like, I agree.

Terry: So, now you’re in Boone after leaving Colombia and looking for a house and a church.

Sam: We had a long list of churches to visit and one of those was Mountainside. We showed up, and it was love at first sight and we both felt that this is the place the Lord has for us. One of the most significant things about coming to Boone has been us being together to do ministry and it’s been a time of rich ministry for both of us here. We started having people over all the time and we would walk around to every neighbor that we knew and bring jam, baked goods or produce from our garden. It was a good way to show people that we cared about them and to help build a sense of community for ourselves and others. Eric put a little library out front of the house and he would share produce and seeds from the garden. And our community kind of grew and grew and grew.

Eric: We made it our mission to be intentionally connected with our neighbors here, which is something that really began with us in California. We had a strong desire for community in Colombia, but it was difficult there.

Terry: That really fits with one of those questions I gave you before we met and that is, what role do you think Christianity plays for you in our community?

Sam: We had these moments where we were sitting down and planning how we could bring more people into our little house. How can we invite more people in to community who don’t know Christ? After about a year of living in Boone Eric came to me and said, what do you think about moving to Sweden someday? I was like, that’s weird because I wrote that down in a prayer journal during our time in California. I was really scared at that point, because we were finally in a place right where we were going to stay, build community, and put down roots. We continued to pray about the idea and ended up going to Sweden in 2022, as something of a vision trip. We visited a YWAM base there and we spent a good amount of time praying and talking to friends while we were there. That trip changed my heart about going and was what led to Eric taking a year sabbatical to go work on this local farm and do an apprenticeship which would come in handy if we moved to Sweden and were able to start an agricultural business there. That was also a leap of faith, because we were living off savings for the most part, since the apprenticeship only paid a small stipend, which barely covered our mortgage.

Eric: Mainly my mindset at the time was, I’m going to learn farming and I’m also now going to work with non-believers, so there are some evangelistic opportunities there. That second part wasn’t at the front of my mind, necessarily, but it seems that, that was in the front of what God had for me and so within the first month of becoming a farm apprentice, I was frequently having conversations with people who had rejected the church, or had been hurt in the church, or had very strong, negative opinions about Christians. I was having opportunities to talk to them about it. I was able to have these conversations with people, where I was able to treat them with love and address their questions, without being aggressive.

Sam: It has been really great to build relationships with people outside of our christian bubble and walk alongside them as friends. I really value being able to show the love of Christ to others in organic and practical ways.

Terry: So bottom line: you were successful in following what you believed God was showing you?

Sam: Yes, but there was a major pause on my desire to go to Sweden after one of my best friends’ husband passed unexpectedly, leaving behind two young boys and I couldn’t think about anything else besides taking care of them. So, the conversation about Sweden got put on the back burner. Eric also took on an eldership role at Mountainside Community Church at about that time.

Terry: So technically, these were a couple of obstacles to keep you from moving to Sweden.

Eric: You could look at it that way. Or perhaps it was just not time yet. We had responsibilities here that God had given us and we needed to see through.

Terry: Which slowed down your plans.

Eric: That’s true. There have been some challenges in the last couple years.

Terry: So, let’s transition to the next phase,

Sam: Our dream, so to speak, is to continue and deepen what we have been doing here for the last five years, which is opening our home and using our gifts of hospitality for the gospel and developing community with those who are outside of community, whether that’s those fully on the margins of society or just people who are not in the community of the church. And whether that happens here or in Sweden, I think that our long-term dream is to continue what we are doing and deepen our faith while interacting with people from all walks of life.

Eric and Sam in front of their house in Boone, NC. Rainbow is Extra!

Eric: So, every January, or late December, Sam and I try to have a little meeting and ask what’s this year going to look like. This year we said Samaritan’s Purse has been great, but that time needs to end. That was one of the things that working on the farm taught me: as long as I’m working in an office surrounded by believers, I’m not living out my spiritual gifts.

Sam: Once you went back to Samaritan’s Purse, because of your schedule, our ability to do ministry in the way that we were doing it really diminished, right? We have kept up as many connections as we can, but there have been basically no new connections, except with Christian homeschoolers, Christians at church, Christians at work and so on.

Eric: So, we went into 2025 saying by the end of this year we need to decide what is next for our family. It became clear right away, within weeks, that both our hearts are in alignment and we want to move to Sweden next year, 2026.

Terry: Sweden, which is not known as a Christian country.

Eric: As a country, it’s an extremely secular society. We think of this term missionary as people who go abroad. And I guess going to Sweden would fit into that category. But I don’t think going to Sweden is what makes us missionaries. I think being believers is what makes us missionaries. And you know, if that’s the case, if every believer has a responsibility to live as a missionary, I feel like, why don’t we go? Let’s go where the church needs some reinforcements, right? This is kind of where I’m at. We do have a unique ability because I’m a Swedish citizen.

Sam: I randomly found out that OM (Operation Mobilization) has a whole program now for marketplace missionaries. They’ve been helping us make connections in Sweden with people who are already doing marketplace missions, or more traditional church planting in Sweden. And they’re helping to provide us with training. There’s been a lot of different things coming together for us as we prepare to go.

Another great family picture with the younger kids.

Terry: So, as we wind down with you most likely going to Sweden next year, what advice or encouragement would you like to share with others who may be struggling with their faith or in recognizing what their journey in Jesus might be. Not in 10 words or less, but what’s the bottom line here?

Eric: What I often say is you believe what you do. If you believe the way of Jesus you are going to follow it. When we sin we’re showing that in some way we believe our way is going to be better for us than God’s way. When we obey Jesus’ commandments, even if we don’t feel like it’s going to work, we’re showing real belief. We have these teachings of Jesus that show us how we should live in the world; to be generous, to love our enemies, to be peacemakers, etc. So we don’t need to wait around forever asking God what we should do, he has told us how to live. Start living that way and more opportunities will open up for you to do the good works that he has prepared ahead of time for you to do. If you are faithful with the small things I think God will bring you bigger things to be faithful with.

Terry: He does the big things.

Sam: I think that I spent so much of my youth waiting around for the big thing that I was supposed to do. All the while I had all these small things in front of me that I was sometimes doing, sometimes neglecting to do because they didn’t seem worthwhile enough. But all those tiny things matter. Daily life with my kids, interactions with neighbors, and things I often see as inconveniences are all valuable. Something simple like getting over needing to have the house perfect so that if someone stops by and needs a safe place to share difficult things, makes a big difference because it means I can let them inside. It’s the tiny things and they add up to a life of following Jesus.