Northwood Alliance Church celebrates 40 years

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A celebration feast was held on September 22 at Northwood Alliance Church featuring joyful music, loads of salmon and roast beef and much laughter, as memories of the past 40 years were shared by a crowd of over 120 people.

Like many churches, Northwood Alliance Church had a humble beginning. In September 1979, a small group met in the home of Jonathan and Esther Hughes for the purpose of creating a church. From there, they rented the Haynie Grange building, moved to the former Lutheran Church building at the top of the H Street hill and finally moved into their own building at 6th Street and C Street in Blaine.

Jonathan Hughes was both a pastor and a contract builder, so when Doug Freeman donated a city block of land, Hughes and the people of the congregation literally built the church building with their own hands.

The purpose of Sunday’s celebration was to give glory to God and to honor the many people who gave their time and money to establish and sustain this church. Marla and Glenn Tuski shared the history of the church, calling on guest speakers from different eras of the church. Three pastors have led the congregation: Jonathan Hughes, Mark Bassett and the current pastor, Charles Gibson.

Northwood has a long history of service in our community. They gave the land for the Blaine Food Bank as well as the clothing bank of the Community Assistance Program (CAP). The church parking lot serves clients for both of these organizations. For 15 years, the church gave out hundreds of Christmas dinner boxes to local families. And for the past two decades, they put on an annual Living Nativity as part of Christmas celebrations for the general public.

This coming year, CAP plans to construct a new building for their programs on church land near the food bank. Also this coming year, the church will call its fourth pastor, as Charles Gibson is retiring.

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