Faith Stories

My name is Dave Sande.  I have been a member of this church since the beginning, 1995.  When thinking about my faith, I think back to my early days of Sunday school. For a young child to get to Sunday school, he had to have his parents take him. For those parents to have the faith to send their kids to Sunday school, they would have to have been brought up in the faith themselves. For that reason, I think of my grandma Sande.  All four of my grandparents attended church, but somehow I think of grandma. For her to have that faith instilled in her, I would have to think about my great grandparents, and so on and so on.

My family attended church in Perry as my sisters and I were growing up. The pastor at the time wasn't into youth programs, so I knew nothing about bible camps; we went to bible school at the Christian church in Adel. Church was just something boring you had to do.

I was in my rebellious teens when I went through three years of catechism; I despised every moment learning absolutely nothing. My biggest accomplishment was drawing stick figures on the edge of my confirmation book; when you flipped the pages, the figure moved around. We threw spit wads across a Sunday school room partition at the second graders. My friends and I sat in the back of the church taking the bare minimum of sermon notes. I do remember my confirmation bible verse. It was the same as my grandma Sande’s confirmation verse: Psalm 119:105 “Thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”

When I was a junior in high school, we got a new pastor with teenage daughters. Here came Luther league and information about bible camps. I went to bible camp for the first time going into my senior year. I also attended a national youth gathering in Houston. I found out church activities could be fun.

In 1973, there was a violent uprising at Wounded Knee by the American Indian movement. To this day, I don’t know the details about how it arose, but I was part of a gathering of Lutheran youth to spend a week on the Winnebago Indian reservation just across the border in Nebraska. It was a risky thing to do at the time that summer. I remember them saying they had sheriff deputies patrolling the pow wow ground where we were camping. We were there to gain understanding of the poverty, alcoholism, joblessness and despair the native Americans faced in their daily lives. I’ll never forget how naive we were, one person asked why poor people simply didn’t quit smoking. It’s not that simple.

A high school classmate invited me to attend the Fellowship of Christian Athletes my junior year (though I wasn't very athletic). Between that and Riverside Bible Camp, I developed a faith in God. I was hired to be a camp counselor at Riverside after graduation, but I had an opportunity to travel to Europe with 95 youth, so I did that.

My Iowa State University years found me attending church regularly at a couple of Lutheran churches near campus. I’m an alumni of Beta Sigma Psi fraternity for Lutherans (a frat rat). The Beta Sigs encouraged church attendance, but that didn’t mean there wasn't the college antics and partying. Years later, Pastor Bernau asked me if I realized how unusual it was to be a regular church attendee as a college student.

After college, my family was attending church in Waukee. My uncle and aunt, and other grandparents were members of St. John's Lutheran in Des Moines. My uncle called one day to say there was a singles group starting up there. I was skeptical but checked it out, I made some really close friends there. I transferred there hoping to blend into the woodwork with the large congregation. As it turned out, I became quite active and was on a first name basis with the staff and even the senior pastor. I guess God won't let you hide if he has plans. It was at St. Johns that I met and married Nanci. I really enjoyed the days at St. John, but we wanted our children to be active in church, so we came back to Waukee because it was closer to home.

In 1995, a new Lutheran church was starting in Adel. We attended that first service in the brewpub but I really did not want to be a member here; I was enjoying church in Waukee too much. Besides, who wants to go to a start up church? The pastor in Waukee said “Dave, you have to go there”. So I was a reluctant member of the start of Grace. It’s been really something being a part of this church.

A family member was diagnosed with autism at age three. Those days were some of the darkest times of my life; I prayed as hard and often as I ever did before. In the end, the diagnosis remained, but we got through, and he’s doing quite well as a grown up. Pastor Lesher came to me one Sunday and told me I should be our church’s representative to Bethphage missions, a Lutheran based organization that tends to the lives of the developmentally disabled; I told him no. He said “I really think you need to do this Dave”, so I did. That was the beginning of advocacy that took me to other disability groups and an attempt at politics. I guess the lesson is that God won’t always change your situation, but he will be there to walk you through it.

Circa 2002, my wife gave me a study bible. As I ate my bowl of cereal before work, I would read four pages at a time starting from the beginning of Genesis. Over the years, I’ve read the bible cover to cover eight times, and currently am in Psalms.

Our family lumberyard closed in the summer of 2001; I went to work for the large competitor. Going out of business is a sad thing to do, and the job was vastly different then the one I had. I fell into a depression. I do remember the morning I woke to start the new job; the first thought that came to me was this is the day the Lord hath made. At Christmas time, I decided to make something good come out of this. I got permission to start a flannel shirt drive at work to be donated to Hope ministries. Some were incredulous, commenting I was probably going to keep them for myself. The drive was a success, and went for several years. They have changed from that into a collection of food for the local food pantry. So, I guess a good thing was started by a sadness in me.

I’ve taken vacation days off to advocate for Lutheran services in Iowa at Lutheran day on the hill. It’s an incredibly frustrating thing to do, but I have no doubt that God calls us to advocate for the least of these. After an exchange with my state representative regarding disability issues, I ran for state representative with the idea ‘I could be a voice for the developmentally disabled and mentally ill.

I guess the story of my faith is that I've been a reluctant person at times, and at others I've tried to make a difference. A guiding bible verse comes from Proverbs: Speak for those who can't speak for themselves, speak up and judge fairly. Defend the rights of the poor and needy. Another is Micah 6:8. Oh man the Lord has told you what is good. And what does he require of you but to do justice, love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.

In my retirement years, I read the headlines and fight despair. I wonder sometimes if I’ve made any difference at all. In some ways, I can see a difference, I was a part of starting this church. Other ways are a mystery; I just hope a difference was made in some way. I’ve been in lots of heated arguments when I see wrong and I believe in what is right; I’m not afraid to stand up for truth and what is right. A few of those arguments were with higher ups at work, a dangerous thing to do. I hear the voices saying God is in charge, but I question whether he was really in charge in Nazi Germany and the holocaust. I’m more of the idea that we are God's voice, feet and hands here on earth. But then I remind myself that I can’t fix the world alone. I can do what I can do with what I have, where I am, I guess that's all anyone can do. If enough good people do that, we will do God's will on earth.

When my life has been lived, I hope that I will be seen in God's eyes as a servant who tried to make a difference.