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| Pastor Paul and Samantha Roach |
What is pastors-wives.com? This is pastor's wives support site. It is a place to go when you as a pastor's
wife are hurting to get answers. This site was originally started for young pastor's wives who didn't know how to be
a pastor's wife. When I was a new pastor's wife I made every mistake in the book. I was crying out for help.
I went to the Christian book stores and found a couple of books that were sweet but really had no substance to them.
I thought right then, someone needs to write an honest book to pastor's wives.
This is a site where I'm honest and open about my mistakes, blow its, good times and bad times. I talk about
the duties of a pastor's wife, the stereo types that some try to put you in and how to become your own person as a pastor's
wife. I encourage you to e-mail me and tell your own
story and...if you're willing, I'll tell your story (anonymously if you like) on line to help other pastors wives. We're
not just interested in how you blew it or someone hurt you and how you overcame...we're interested in how you did it
right too. We're always looking for resources to share with
other pastor's wives out there and so encourage you to let us know so we can share it on this site. God bless you as
you grow and flourish as a pastor's wife.
I thought you might want to know a little background on me. I am married to a wonderful husband...Paul Roach,
whom I call the hunk! Paul has a son, James, whom we raised from the time he was 11 years old. He is grown now, and a pastor
in Cordell, Oklahoma, married to a wonderful girl, Lori, who is also a minister, and we now have 5 grandchildren. Paul and
I pastor Faith Family Church in El Reno, Oklahoma, my husbands home town. We love being here and we love our wonderful
people.
Life was not always wonderful for me. Many years ago because of poor decision making on my part,
I married, divorced and married a 2nd time; to a man who was physically and mentally abusive as well as being an alcholic.
I wasn't such a great catch either. I was dabbling in things that would have destroyed me including fast becoming an alcoholic.
Life was not good. Three years
after I married him, he was sleeping around on me, I was sleeping around on him. One morning in one of those situations,
I looked at the guy I was with and I heard myself say inside, " This isn't right! I can't live this way anymore.
I know better!" That week I told God, "I don't know how to serve you. If I did I would have
all those years, but now I'm asking you to put within me what ever it is that I need to follow you all the rest
of my life." That was in April of 1971. He has been so faithful. My 2nd husband finally asked me for a divorce one final
time and I said yes. We were just $50,000 away from being millionaires (at least on paper) but I had to walk away
with nothing but the clothes on my back and my car.
At age 32 I had nothing to show for my life, but God spoke to my heart and said if I would follow him he would make my life
rich and wonderful. I had to change my name and start a whole new life. For the next 2 years I slept on the floor in
the home of my pastors and their wives, who had moved to another state. I helped them with a new business they were
doing. If I had 2 dimes to rub together I felt blessed. At the end of that time, I went to Oklahoma to help my pastor's mother, whom I had known in California.
She needed someone to run her restaurant while she had surgery. So off I went on a new adventure, thinking I would only
be in Oklahoma for 2 or 3 months. Little did I know that God had a destiny for me. Three months later I was still
in Oklahoma and trying my best to leave Oklahoma. I had absolutely no intention of ever staying Oklahoma, but did God
listen to me??? Nooooooo! He told me to stay. I said, "Okay?" At that point I began praying
and God spoke to me to attend a Bible School called Rhema Bible Training Center in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. Never in
a million years would I have thought God would call me to ministry, but call me he did. I almost had to have Moses and
Elijah and 3 angels appear before me to convince me it was ok.
Rhema accepted me and I graduated in 1982. I met my wonderful husband and in a romance
only God could put together we married in 1984 and I've been a pastor's wife ever since. The Lord spoke to me while
still a student and said he would take me from border to border and coast to coast preaching that God is the same yesterday,
today and forever. What he did in the Bible he'll do today. Today, I travel border to border and coast to coast
preaching the message of victory and overcoming that he has given me.
In looking back over my life I see that my life has become rich and wonderful because of the faithfulness of God.
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Hello Pastor's
Wives How are you all? First, let me say thanks for all the
e-mails and calls. I appreciate you trusting me enough to share your challenges with me. I would have been so
grateful in the early days to have someone to talk to.
I have a question for you: How many of you are willing to contact your ordaining organization to talk to them about
problems between you and your husband or problems you see in how things are handled in your church and if not how
have you handled those situations? The reason I ask that is...if you're like me...you're very hesitant about sharing
anything with a governing board that might hurt your spouse. Paul
and I were both ordained & still are through a wonderful organization that we've been with for over 25 years and
we love them. My husband had been a youth pastor and later a pastor before we were married. He was 34
when we married and I was 39. I had no experience and so when we started a church in sourthern California I had no idea
of what I should be. So being the "charge hell with a water pistol" type person that I am...I just invaded
everything. Paul is a very laid back easy going guy who loves people and is very slow to move on issues. Those differences between us created major problems between us AND between me and
the congregation. Most of the congregation was made up of people who had sat under Paul's ministry before he knew me.
I was the new kid on the block and in my zeal to be a "spiritual giant" I alienated a lot of people. They
loved Paul, but basically didn't know what to do with me.
In those days, I didn't have anybody to talk to. I would watch Paul and in my zeal and super spirituality I would
feel like "things" could be done better. I would talk to him and try to convey what I felt like
needed to be done differently and ofcourse he didn't agree. I didn't know how to communicate with him and he didn't
know how to communicate with me. We would both retreat to opposite ends of the boxing ring...so to speak and lick
our wounds and come back out to try again. Over and over this would happen until we both felt like broken records. I wanted help but I was afraid to call our Board...because I didn't want to
do or say anything that would hurt Paul or make us look bad. That's not saying that the Board would have judged us,
it's just where I was at the time. That's
why I started this web site...to create a safe place for wives to get help, share how they've dealt with problems,
either in the home or at church...that would not be judgemental.
Recently, a wonderul former pastor's wife, whose church I used to preach at got in contact with me. I
hadn't heard from her for about 18 years and through a book with our name on it, she got back in contact with us.
She was married to a pastor who got involved with one of the women in his church, divorced his wife and took off to another
state and started a church. She was devastated. She came and stayed with us a couple of weeks and left and we
never heard from her again until about 2 months ago. She was a wounded pastor's wife who felt she had no one to
turn to basically, and stayed away from our group of ministry all these years because of it. She's just now at
a place where she's able to go on and become all that God has for her, but it took a long time. I'm convinced that had she had input from other pastor's wives or former pastor's wives who had experienced
what she did and how they did or didn't handle things that the healing process would have taken much less time for her
to heal. There's just something about being able to identify with others who've gone through the pain and hurt we've
gone through that have come out on the other side in victory, that if they did we can. What about you girls....any one out there who is willing to share how God got you through ...
or anyone out there who's dealing with that now or something similar who would like to share? We're a unique sisterhood, girls, and I would appreciate some input from some of you. e-mail me:
samantha@faithfamilychurchinc.com or phone me...1-800-611-4909 or call the 800 line and if I'm not here they'll give you my cell phone #. God Bless....Samantha
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