Pastor Vi's Bio

    When I was a little girl about 5 years old, I climbed up on my Grandpa’s lap which was one of my favorite places to be.  I told him I wanted to be a preacher like our preacher ‘cause they got to hug everyone.  My Papa told me to get that idea out of my head because girls couldn’t be ministers.  Well, I believed my Papa so I decided I would one day marry a minister.  As life would have it the man I fell in love with wanted no part of being a minister.  So I just worked hard in church all my life and really had a ministry of helping others.  After my husband’s death and having raised my three children and the grandkids started to come along I heard loud and clear it was time to go to seminary and become a minister.  I was 55 and had to work to support myself, so this was no easy thing to do.  With God’s help I was able to sell my business (5 weekly newspapers) and keep working for them to have enough money for seminary and to keep supporting myself.  It was a very busy time.  I worked in the newspapers, became an intern at my home church in Visalia, and went to school on weekends.  My poor mind really had to work to shake loose all the cobwebs of 50 years or so.  This was a wonderful time for me – opening myself up to new ideas and still arguing with some of my professors for my old ideas. 

    My Pastor, Roy King of 1^st Church in Visalia became ill with cancer, so the region licensed me so I could do the work of the minister while he was unable to.  In my time with you I will share some of my “firsts”.  In fact I am in the process of writing a book about them.  In June of 1994 I was called to be the pastor at Sierra Christian Church in Loomis.  I went to school at Pacific School of Religion and had private tutors and was ordained in March of 1999.   I was the pastor at Sierra until June of 2003 when I retired.  Now I am very happy being your co-pastor with Rev. Chris Rosso and opening up my mind to new things again.