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By John W. Kennedy and
Scott Harrup* |
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Shawn
Bouchard and Jim Mills lived in central |
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Shawn, 25,
and Jim, 23, eagerly anticipated serving the Lord through Assemblies of God
ministries. Shawn planned to enroll in the Brownsville Revival School of Ministry
in Pensacola, Fla. Jim was preparing to move to Phoenix to join Master’s
Commission, an evangelism and discipleship program. But first, Shawn and Jim
figured nothing would ready them for the rigors of missions work like a
three-month tour as fishing processors in the icy waters off |
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The income
would enable them to whittle away debts and start their missions training
with a clean slate. The job paid well; the work was excruciating. On the deck
of the 92-foot-long Arctic Rose, Shawn and Jim cleaned fish and prepared the
catch for freezing. Often they labored 16-hour days. |
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The Arctic
Rose worked in a remote area of the |
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With only
two weeks of their three-month job remaining, all 15 men aboard drowned in
the worst |
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Relatives of
Shawn and Jim are grateful the year was 2001, not 1998. Since starting to
live for the Lord less than three years ago, Shawn and Jim had been
testimonies to how God can redeem wayward souls. Along the way, they
evangelized family members, friends, co-workers and even strangers, bringing
many into the |
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In high
school at Harlowton, Shawn excelled in wrestling, baseball, swimming,
basketball, football, track. Trophies filled his
bedroom. He received a full athletic scholarship to attend college in |
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Shawn had
attended Sunday school occasionally as a child but he had no personal
relationship with Jesus. After Shawn’s younger brothers, Ryan, now 23, and
Brad, 17, came along, visits to church became less
frequent. |
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"His
dad and I didn’t have a strong faith," Joan Branger, Shawn’s mother,
says. Shawn’s parents divorced during his first and only year in college. |
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Shawn
slipped into using and selling illegal drugs. His behavior led to a four-year
battle with addiction, run-ins with law enforcement officers and two drug
rehabilitation stints. |
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With the
divorce pending and his eldest son addicted to drugs, Shawn’s father, John
Bouchard, started drinking – heavily. One night in a barroom brawl he ended up
with his head seriously injured. Doctors said he likely would die from the
injuries. He awoke in the hospital three days later to news that friends and
neighbors had put him in "chains." None of the then-unchurched
family members understood the concept of prayer chains. His father’s recovery
planted seeds of faith for Shawn. |
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The
life-threatening injuries also made Bouchard, now 50, receptive to God. He
accepted an invitation to Faith Chapel, the Assemblies of God church in
Harlowton, a town of 1,100. "From the first time I was there people
loved me like I was family," says Bouchard. He is now a board member at
the church that has tripled in size to 120 since he began attending five
years ago. After his own salvation, Bouchard started praying for family
members. |
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At that
point Shawn’s pursuits focused on burglarizing homes to support his drug
habit. But God had other plans, sending friends, relatives, churchgoers and
the sheriff himself to confront Shawn with his need for the Savior. |
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Dennis
Parisi, a member of Faith Chapel, became the first to witness to Shawn behind
bars. Ironically, Parisi had Shawn arrested for breaking into his home, in
part because of concern that Shawn’s drug addiction had caused the youth to
lose 100 pounds off his 240-pound, 6-foot, 6-inch frame. "I didn’t have
him arrested to be mean," Parisi says. "I didn’t want to see him
die." |
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"We
prayed together in my office, and he confessed to the burglary and other
crimes," says Wheatland County Sheriff Steve Riveland, also a member of
Faith Chapel. "From that point on God turned his life around." |
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Despite
his four years of drug addiction and thievery, neither parent gave up on
their son. Bouchard visited Shawn in jail and noticed the change. "When
I saw his face I knew he had found Jesus," Bouchard says. |
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Bouchard
also served as a father figure to Jim, whose father died of leukemia in 1987.
Jim, then 10, rebelled and ended up in a home for delinquent boys, en route
to years as an illicit drug user. |
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Faith
Chapel Pastor Andy Raatz knew both Shawn and Jim before they joined the
church in Harlowton. |
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"My
first experience with Shawn was sitting looking at him through the bars of
the jail," Raatz says. "My first visit with Jim was when he got
arrested." |
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Jim made a
confession of Christ while reading a Bible in an Alaskan jail in 1996. But
because he was not discipled, old habits remained. Deliverance didn’t come until
two years ago when Jim began working a construction job — with Parisi — at
Glacier Bible Camp, an Assemblies of God lodge near Hungry Horse, Mont. |
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Afterward,
evangelism became Jim’s passion. "God had rejuvenated his mind and
body," says his brother, Chuck Mills, 25. "He wanted to tell people
about God’s love. |
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"He
was always with God," Mills says. "Ministry wasn’t separate from
the rest of his life." |
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Both Jim
and Shawn often spent more than an hour a day reading the Bible and
participated in all-night prayer meetings. They evangelized on street
corners. Their transformed lives spoke volumes to their families. Jim’s
mother, Annie, and brother Chuck became Christians after he witnessed to
them. Shawn brought his brother Ryan to the Lord. |
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All six
remaining members of the two families that had been torn asunder are now
Christians, in large part because of the efforts of two sons who died. |
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"God
changed them," Raatz says. "Sometimes people say they turned
themselves around, but it was God who did it. They just wanted to be used of
God." |
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Seth
Breding, 23, says Shawn and Jim helped set him straight. "God put them
in my life at a time when I was struggling and really searching. They helped
me through some really hard times in my Christian walk." |
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"You
could just see them both growing in their faith," Raatz says. "They
told everybody about the Lord." |
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Jim had a
passion for music, playing bass and drums. He led the youth worship band at
the church and hoped to become a youth pastor. |
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Shawn
witnessed to everyone, from preschooler to retiree, from business executive
to homeless person. He gave away Bibles — sometimes expensive leather-bound
editions that had been given to him — to new converts. |
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In looking
to the future Shawn didn’t forget his past. In a town of 1,100, a person’s
past, especially a notorious one, is grist for
public consumption. Yet after his born-again experience Shawn apologized to
everyone he had harmed. |
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If
anything, the rigors of life on the Arctic Rose strengthened the faith of the
friends. They told relatives they had been the only two Christians when the
journey began. But the strange calm the pair exhibited in the high-pressure
job led to converts. At Shawn’s request, his mother mailed three "What
Would Jesus Do?" bracelets to the boat’s dock site. |
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"I
know they went up there to be fishermen, but they were fishers of men,"
Raatz says. |
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More than
500 people attended a memorial service for Shawn and Jim in Harlowton on Good
Friday. Scores raised their hands during a salvation invitation. |
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Breding
couldn’t attend the memorial service because he is training with Youth With a
Mission in |
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*John W.
Kennedy is an associate editor of the Pentecostal Evangel. Scott Harrup is
general editor. |
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