By JENNA BURLEIGH
KEESEVILLE — The Rev. Richard Reese didn't always want to preach.
In fact, he gets nervous about speaking to crowds. But after several visions and a near-death encounter, Good Shepherd Church of the Nazarene's new pastor discovered his calling.
"I felt God touch me, and I knew that he had healed me," Reese said.
SANCTIFIED
The Church of the Nazarene is a Protestant sect of Christianity. The denomination allows ministers to wed and women to pastor.
"The main difference that sets us apart is we believe in sanctification," explained Reese, who is 59.
Sanctification occurs when a person decides to completely give his or her life to God.
"Our lives are for him. Whatever we do, we do it to help with his kingdom," the pastor said.
For Reese, the decision came after a few eye-opening experiences.
In 1975, undergoing preparation for a vasectomy, he had some routine X-rays.
"They found something, just like an egg, right there in my chest," he said.
Believing it to be cancerous, doctors removed the mass. Then they detected a malignancy that required another surgery.
All procedures went according to plan, but another problem surfaced — a blood clot in Reese's leg broke up and passed through his heart. That's something, he said, that very few survive.
He slipped into a coma for a week. It was thought that he had died, Reese said, and nurses came to prepare him for the morgue.
"I had an after-death experience," he said. "I was going down, and smoke was swirling. I could see flames, and it was like a voice said to me, 'You'd better pray.' So I started praying."
Despite the odds, he lived. Sent home with blood so thin it once passed through his skin, Reese was ordered to stay put, so he began studying his Bible. Then the visions came.
"I was in a funeral home, and my wife and two children were in coffins. Someone said the pastor was there, and it was me, walking up to the podium," he said.
"That (vision) happened three times."
THE LORD'S WILL
Reese became certain he would spend his life preaching the Word, but it was unclear for which denomination.
His mixed-faith childhood had exposed him occasionally to the Methodist church. Then, when his parents split, he moved to Ohio with his mother. There, he began attending a Baptist church where his uncle preached.
It wasn't until Reese returned to West Virginia to work with his father that he found the Church of the Nazarene.
"A light went on," Reese recalled.
As a Nazarene minister, he served a church in West Virginia for two years, then one in Pennsylvania for seven. Before coming to Keeseville in October 2009, he pastored in Schenectady for two decades. Reese has progressed further and further north, and joked that soon he may be preaching in Canada or Alaska.
Although he had hoped to be assigned to a church in Kansas, close to his children — Shelley and Richard and their families — he is happy here, and his purpose is evident.
"I want to help people to become disciples, to learn from Jesus," he said.
His wife, Deborah, partners with him, doing much of the administrative work and helping to teach Sunday school.
Reese knows that God will guide him to where he needs to be, and for the time being, he belongs in Keeseville.
"Just 'til the Lord tells me it's time to move on."
