Reaching out…

Paul is the Area Director for Young Life in Jefferson County.  Jefferson County is located on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. It and San Juan county are the least church-ed counties in Washington State. He and his family moved to Port Townsend, in 2003 with their then two children.  Since the beginning of their ministry in Port Townsend, they have laughed and cried over the kids that they the get the pleasure of working with.

Over the last 4 years of their time in Port Townsend, they have remodeled a Victorian home ( with the help of a community ), they have had another child.

They felt called to the Olympic Peninsula in 2003 originally with a partnership with one of the local churches. Although a great church, it became clear early on that the church partnership was not going to be the mechanism for Paul and Jessica to move to Port Townsend, and some prayer and contemplation, they decided to go the bi-vocational route toward ministry. So Paul spends part of his time working with teens in Young Life and spends another part of his time programming computers.

One of the biggest surprises about Young Life in Jefferson County was just the plight of rural kids. When they lived in Mukilteo and Seattle they weren’t exposed a lot to rural kids, but within the first couple of days of being in Port Townsend, they knew that they loved the profile of rural kids.