What probably is the first Southern Baptist church to worship in a Marshallese context officially became part of the Northwest Baptist Convention at its mid-November annual meeting. But even before Valleypoint Marshallese Church of Spokane, Washington, affiliated with the NWBC, it started a second church for people from the Marshall Islands living on the opposite side of greater Spokane.
“I felt led to start another congregation in West Spokane because there’s no Marshallese-speaking church in that area,” pastor Freddy Joklur Jr. told the Northwest Baptist Witness. “I want to reach as many Marshallese as I can for the gospel.”
Who are the Marshallese?
The Marshallese are a Christianized people group, but typically not Baptist, Joklur said. At least 75% affiliate with the Assembly of God or United Church of Christ, he noted.
The congregations he leads became NWBC partners because of the welcome they felt from their partnering church Valleypoint Church and pastor Jim Shiner.
“Through our one-on-one meetings, I could see Pastor Jim’s heart and I don’t think we ever experienced this kind of a loving pastor,” Joklur said. “As a Marshallese, I never experienced such a love like that, the way he talked, treated me as a person, as a brother.”
It felt like coming home, he said.
“Before the [American Board for Foreign Missions] missionaries came [in 1857 to the Marshall Islands] there was a lot of shedding of blood, but after the missionaries came, the gospel pretty much spread all over,” Joklur said. “It’s very calm and peaceful. Everyone is a family.”
The Marshall Islands nation consists of 29 coral atolls (clusters of islands surrounding a lagoon, which is a freshwater pool separated from the ocean by a natural barrier) and five large islands covering 750,000 square miles located north of the equator and west of the International Dateline.
The lightly-populated and remote island chain was commandeered by the U.S. military after World War to conduct testing of nuclear bombs — in the air, on the ground and underwater — 67 of them on the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958, for a total of 210 megatons of radioactive material. The bomb that devastated Hiroshima at the end of World War 2 was 15,000 tons.
Seeing a need
The resulting fallout led to weakened immune systems of the less than 50,000 people living on the Marshall Islands. Today they suffer from tumors, cancers and birth defects as well as an overall weakening of their immune systems. Fish, the Marshallese main food source, suffer similarly.
Joklur’s father — Freddy Joklur Sr. — moved his family to Everett, Washington, in 2008 to pastor a church and to receive better medical care than was available on the Marshall Islands.
He started a Marshallese church in Spokane in 2013, after seeing the need while visiting a friend in the large eastern Washington city. Spokane has one of the largest numbers of Marshallese in the United States outside of Springdale, Arkansas.
Joklur Jr. served as worship pastor for the Marshallese church and the American Bible church from which they were renting Sunday afternoon space.
The pastor of the Bible church asked for the church keys back when he read in April 2020 that although only about 1% of people in the area were Marshallese, 30% of those who caught COVID-19 at the time were from the Marshall Islands. The pastor still wanted Joklur Jr. to lead his congregation’s worship, though online.
By early summer 2020, some American members of the Bible church had started attending Valleypoint Church. When Pastor Shiner was looking for a new worship leader, they suggested Joklur Jr.
A partnership is born
Joklur Sr. died in August 2020 from diabetes complications, after 40 years in the gospel ministry. Joklur Jr. became the pastor of the Marshallese church as well as Valleypoint’s worship leader. He had been training for the pastorate since 2014, as his father’s condition had worsened.
“When my dad passed away, that’s when Pastor Jim felt led to ask me if I was interested in doing a partnership with Valleypoint,” Joklur said.
“When we joined Valleypoint Church I thought we were already part of the Northwest Baptist Convention,” continued Joklur, who had attended three annual meetings. “I found out later that we weren’t, so I thought this [2023 annual meeting] would be good time to join.”
Today Valleypoint Marshallese Church has about 300 attending Sunday afternoon services, and another 2,000 or more from across the nation and Marshall Islands watching online.
Children meet for Sunday School during the service. About 70 middle and high school students gather Friday evenings with Joklur as teacher. Seven adult groups meet Wednesdays in homes for Bible study, discipleship and fellowship.
‘Marshallese Sunday’
The partnership with the American congregation works beautifully because of Shiner’s support, Joklur said. Shiner arranged a six-month trial, and led a “Marshallese Sunday” during Valleypoint’s service, during which the Marshallese story was told.
In December 2021, Valleypoint voted unanimously to receive the Marshallese congregation. Valleypoint members had decided the Marshallese congregation would not just meet in the building, but be treated as part of the church family.
Slowly the two congregations began mingling so personal relationships could develop. People used to racism because of their Asiatic look and fear they might be contagious, instead were warmly welcomed by the Valleypoint congregation.
“Fast forward to today,” Joklur said, “the Marshallese congregation look forward to having a joint service or any event happening at church,” such as the recent Christmas Eve candlelight service where all three congregations celebrated together God’s gift to all people.
About 2,000 Marshallese live in Airway Heights, where there was no Marshallese church. Joklur prayed about it for two years, studying demographics and other data, asking “if it was God’s will for me to go out there.”
In January 2023, Joklur started West Plains Marshallese Church at Airway Heights Baptist Church. Joklur had met pastor Dale Jenkins at NWBC pastors’ gatherings in the area.
Two months later, Joklur was offered the building previously used by the Medical Lake Baptist Church, which had disbanded. Today, about 75 Marshallese worship Sunday mornings at what has become their own facility.
To date, more than 40 people have been baptized at Valleypoint Marshallese — 27 at one time — and two at West Plains Marshallese.
EDITOR’S NOTE — Story written by Karen Willoughby and published by the Northwest Baptist Witness, newsjournal of the Northwest Baptist Convention.
