DL man’s life, mission changed after divorce in ‘72
By Vivian (Makela) Sazama
If you’ve ever driven along West Lake Drive in Detroit Lakes you may have noticed a series of red and white signs with the Lord’s Prayer along a span about one quarter of a mile. Many have wondered how they ever got there. The man behind the signs is Barry Schoder, a former Air Force Major, who lives in Detroit Lakes.
Barry has organized the Bible Reading Marathons held in Detroit Lakes over the past 10 years. As part of the event, he ordered 800 signs with Scripture that he gave away to the participants. These signs have found their way across the area and the state. The idea of 10 signs with the Lord’s Prayer along West Lake Drive in front of his house kept coming to him. “Way back when there used to be Burma Shave signs along the highways, with two-line limericks on each sign. I thought I’d like to see something with Scripture, like the Lord’s Prayer set up much the same way,” he said.
After Barry’s wife died in 2016, it became his mission to get the signs up.
“I knew I wanted to somehow get those signs up, but I needed 10 neighbors to give me permission to put one in front of their home. At the time I only knew my next door neighbors on either side. I didn’t know anyone else’s name. So I decided I would start at the American Legion Road and start knocking on doors. At first they were hesitant and a little suspicious of who I was, until I said I just lost my wife a few weeks ago. Then they opened up. I then told them, ‘I have a problem. I have all these vegetables in my garden and I know my wife would not really want them to go to waste. Could you use some fresh vegetables?’ And that started a summer of delivering vegetables to my neighbors whenever I could. When the idea of the Lord’s Prayer just wouldn’t go away, I then asked them one by one if I could place a sign in front of their home, and soon I had permission to place all 10 signs up. I have long desired for the city of Detroit Lakes to become a beacon of righteousness, and it’s getting there!”
Barry might credit his tenaciousness to his New Jersey upbringing. Barry was born August 9, 1939, in Jersey City, New Jersey to Erlo and Helen (Nebel) Schoder. “My brother Warren was two years younger than I, then came my sister, Carol, who was born in 1948.”
All four of Barry’s grandparents emigrated to the United States from Germany in the late 1880s, and settled in New Jersey.
“I grew up in a good family. We lived in a middle-class neighborhood. I took piano lessons from age five to 14,” he said.
During his college years, Barry was also active with his fraternity’s Intramural Glee Club, which he directed for three years. “We won first place all three years,” he said. Little did he know that those experiences would be useful in later life.
Barry graduated with a four-year Business Administration degree and worked as an
Executive Trainee at a Trust Company Bank of Morris County, in Morristown, NJ, for a year, from 1961-62, when he married Pat Cullen on Sept. 1, 1962.
“I joined the Air Force three weeks after we were married and we moved to San Antonio, Texas, where I attended Officer Training School at Lackland Air Force Base (AFB) from October through December 1962.
Barry was to be assigned to seven different AFB bases during his 12 years in the Air
Force. “After Texas, I was assigned to Utah, Massachusetts, Japan, Ohio, Thailand, Idaho and finally, Florida,” he said. “I also had short stints for training in Alabama, Hawaii, New York and Colorado.”
During those years Barry and his wife had two daughters, however military life was hard on the marriage. “My wife ended up alone for the birth of both our daughters. At the birth of our first daughter, husbands didn’t have much to do with it. I took my wife to the hospital and when they said it would be a while before the birth, I went home and went to sleep, and didn’t hear the phone call. With our second daughter I was stationed in Wakkanai Air Station, Japan, where we lived from 1966 to 1968. Wakkanai was on the farthest northern island in Japan, just 15 miles from Russia. There was no maternity hospital when it came time for Pat to give birth, so she had to fly to Misawa two weeks early. There she was all alone as I wasn’t able to be there for the birth of our second daughter, who was born on 4th of July,” said Barry.
“My wife had to put up with a lot. I was so busy doing all the things I wanted to do I neglected what she wanted and needed. She asked if we could get a TV. I told her ‘No, it’s too much money,’ yet I could spend money on what I wanted!”
In 1972, Barry transferred to Mountain Home AFB, 50 miles south of Boise, ID. It was while there that he received a notice to go to an attorney’s office as there was a paper for him to sign. Pat had filed for divorce. “She had tried three times prior to this over the years to divorce me because I was insensitive as a husband and a father, but each time I cried, and told her I’d change. My brother convinced her one time to think of our girls.
“A Chaplain counseled us in our first year of marriage that all couples go through transition times and to stick it out. But this time there was no turning back. I was devastated. I really did love her, but I didn’t know how to show it. It was at this time that I got down on my knees and asked God ‘What’s going on? I’m a Christian!’ And the Lord spoke to me clearly that I was a hypocrite. God radically saved me that night, April 19, 1973, 12 hours after my wife filed for divorce.”
After Barry gave his life to Christ he tried unsuccessfully to reconcile with his wife, who then remarried, and in June 1975 Barry resigned from the U.S. Air Force as a Major.
From October to December he attended the Institute of Ministry at Bradenton, Fla. He committed the rest of his life to sharing the Gospel. From 1976 to 1982 he was mentored by Gerald Derstine and became part of the pastoral staff at Florida Christian Retreat at Bradenton, and served as Camp Director at the Strawberry Lake Christian Retreat (SLCR) north of Detroit Lakes, Minn., during the summers of 1978 to 1981.
It was during the summer of 1978 that he met Sharon Janz, a recent widow of just six months with five small children. Little did Barry know that she would become his bride of 37 years.
“Sharon’s husband was a Missionary pilot who flew missions to the Arctic in Canada. On this particular trip he was gone for three weeks, and Sharon was excited to have him come home again. Just before he landed he would buzz their house, to let Sharon know he was landing and she would go to pick him up. This time she got a knock at her door and there stood a good friend of theirs. She said, ‘Well, hi Ike! Good to see you!’ Ike just looked down and told her, ‘There’s been an accident.’ Her husband crashed his plane just one quarter mile from their house. Sharon hadn’t heard the crash.”
Six months later Sharon’s sister and a friend asked her to come with them on a trip to the Black Hills. Sharon was reluctant to leave her children, but they encouraged her to go and that they could stay with their grandparents, so Sharon went along. As they were traveling down Highway 59 Sharon saw a sign for the Strawberry Lake Christian Retreat. She had heard of the place before from people in her church, so they decided to stop and check it out. When they arrived they were told at reception that all the facilities were full, however, if they went to the lakeside area there may be someone who was leaving early, so they went across the road to the lake. As they were waiting for a room to open up Sharon was sitting on the beach reading a book she had brought along. Barry happened to be waterskiing that day. Normally he would land at the beach with little disturbance, but on this day, the final turn didn’t quite make it as it should and he landed on the beach with a big swoosh, spraying water all over Sharon and her book. After apologizing profusely, Barry convinced the three women to take a boat ride with him as a way of apology. Five days later he proposed to Sharon, and on May 25, 1979, they were married.
The family of nine now included Barry’s two daughters and Sharon’s one daughter and four sons, whom he adopted. For several years the family served winters at the Florida Christian Retreat and in 1982 Barry and his family moved permanently to Minnesota and they became the full-time camp directors at SLCR.
Together the couple and her children ran SLCR for 14 years. Eventually they built a home on grounds adjacent to the Retreat, and in 1991 they resigned their positions as camp directors and Barry went on to do carpentry work for several years. In 1995 they moved to Detroit Lakes where they flipped homes for several years. “Sharon was the visionary. She saw the potential in the property,” said Barry. “She was really gifted at decorating and seeing how to make things look really good for resale.” Sadly, after 37 years of marriage, Sharon passed away in 2016 from cancer.
Over the years since enlisting in the Lord’s Army, Barry has had short-term mission opportunities in Haiti, Israel, Honduras, Trinidad, Hong Kong, Mainland China, the Arctic and Mexico.
His piano lessons as a child became useful as he has blessed many at various venues, including churches, funerals and currently weekly gatherings at four different nursing homes, plus the monthly High Mileage meetings held at the Community Alliance Church. He has directed and sung in choirs and choral groups, and assisted in producing, directing and promoting the dramatic production ‘In His Steps’ at the Holmes Theater in Detroit Lakes held in April 2024.
Since 2018 Barry has produced a Daily Devotional which is heard every day of the week on KDLM Radio, as well as a weekly 15-minute TV broadcast entitled “The Golden Ride,” which airs 42 times a week, on the local CH3 cable network.
Barry has also served as pastor at four congregations over the years. In his lifetime he has served as Associate Professor of Aerospace Studies (AFROTC), has been on the faculty of a ten-week Institute of Ministry for over 10 seasons, served as Dean of a six-week annual Institute of Ministry at the Strawberry Lake Christian Retreat for five years, and was a substitute K-12 teacher for the Detroit Lakes schools for two years, ending in 2020 at age 80. “That was a lot of fun!” he said.
Now, at age 85, Barry continues to be active in competitive pickleball, biking (praying for his neighbors as he rides along) and continuing with the Lord’s work in the area, doing his part for Detroit Lakes to become “a beacon of righteousness.”
Kommentare