The Pastor at New Hope Free Methodist Church is Daryl Martin and his wife Maria. Read on and get to know their heart for ministry.

 I grew up on a farm north of Marion, Iowa and accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior in the summer of 1971.  I began working with teens and adults, sharing Christ with them from a full heart.  In the early summer of 1974, I sensed a stirring in my soul to serve God even more and Maria and I moved to Oskaloosa, Iowa so that I could do something I had never thought I would do, attend college.  Vennard College was a 4 year Bible college.  Somehow by the grace of God, I finished in four years and then took another step of faith and attended the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary.  With another three years ahead of me, I scratched my head and did it in 2 ½ years.  While attending seminary, I pastored the Calmar/Waucoma United Methodist churches for one year and the Alburnett Christian church for 2 ½ years.  When God sent us somewhere again, it was back to Oskaloosa to serve as the Executive Director of South Central Iowa Youth for Christ (YFC).  (That's just a fancy title for someone who gets to work with teens.)  I did this for the next 16 years, working with 200-300 teens each year through our various ministries.  I had seven teen clubs going toward the end with two staff members and a secretary.  Today there are at least 9 of those teens that are pastors or youth leaders.  One even became the head of a mission group in Europe. 

 While in YFC, I had the privilege of leading several teams of teens on foreign mission trips and went on two trips with our local Nazarene church.  The trips were to Mexico, Venezuela (2 times) Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Trinidad and Tobago (4 times).  Probably our most memorable trip was to Moscow.  It was March and below zero, but it was exciting. 

During my time in YFC, my wife and I bought the Mahaska Hearing Aid Center in Oskaloosa.  She received her training and has been in that business 25 years.  Through her business we have had the opportunity to travel to many places.  Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand and Vietnam were our favorites.  Three years ago, we just splurged and went to Alaska.

After 16 years of working with teens, I sensed God's leading to start again as a pastor and the New Sharon Friends church opened up just 12 miles away.  It was only part time, but I had cut my own position to part time in YFC.  After totally leaving YFC, I was looking for another part-time position in a church and the Free Methodist church in Oskaloosa was looking for a pastor.  They had eight people left in the church and we began a rebuilding and a remodeling program.  Rebuilding the congregation for Christ and remodeling the building to meet the needs of a new generation of Christians.  After six months I left the New Sharon Church and now eleven years later we have over 75 people involved New Hope Free Methodist Church and God is blessing over and over in our lives.

Now to our family.  Along the way we had three children of our own.  Lisa and her husband John live in the Chicago Loop district with two of our beautiful granddaughters, Quinn 6 and Keiran 3.  Lisa is a grade school teacher/librarian and John is a medical photographer for Lutheran General Hospital.  Loren and his wife Shannon live in San Dimas, CA with our other two granddaughters, Addison 5  and Olivia 3.  Loren is a professor at Azuza Pacific University.  Loren's research in the field of autism has broke new grounds in understanding it.  His wife Shannon is a registered nurse and works at Hope Hospital in Los Angeles.  Ben and his wife Thu (she is from Vietnam) live in Shawnee, KS.  He is a high school math teacher and she works in the insurance industry.

We have also had several foster children over the years and one year took in two foreign exchange daughters, Nadia from Khazakstan, and Thais from Brazil.  

Our hearts desire has always been to serve and honor God and allow Him to use us to bring others to His throne of Grace that they too might experience the blessing of knowing Jesus as Lord and Savior of their lives.