A profile I wrote for my Magazine Writing class:

Pastor Marsh Drege believes God led him from his native North Dakota to where he is now. “We have two different ways of delineating time in the Church,” he said. “One is chronos, which is chronological, the other timing is kairos. It’s a Greek word that means God’s timing.”

Pastor Marsh radiates positive energy. Wearing a grey fleece sweater over a white collared shirt and black pants, he looks both warm and professional and exudes natural confidence. His brown eyes are shielded behind thick-framed tortoiseshell glasses. He has a grey, well-groomed beard as if to compensate for the lack of hair elsewhere. As a Lutheran Pastor, the 55-year-old is unafraid to speak of God’s plan, or refer to the Holy Spirit in conversation. It doesn’t come across as naïve. Rather, it’s clear that his beliefs give him a comfort and purpose that many people spend their lives searching for.

Drege is the CEO of Seafarers International, a mission of the Lutheran Church. Seafarers was set up almost 150 years ago to support to seamen coming to New York from the predominantly Lutheran countries of Scandinavia. Located near Union Square, Seafarers is now a guesthouse. It also provides temporary accommodation to asylum seekers, victims of domestic violence, and other vulnerable people in need of shelter. “It is in the DNA of the Church to work with people on the move,” he said.

Stepping into his office one sees a wall lined with shelves filled of books, folders and memorabilia. A Stephen Sondheim songbook shares space with a wooden cross and a plate painted with the word “Shalom.” All Lutheran Pastors must learn Greek and Hebrew as part of their training.

Drege’s work at Seafarers is all consuming. His work life and his home life blend together. He lives in the building, so it’s hard for him to take a day off. But he enjoys the unexpected dramas that can interrupt his days, and sometimes his nights. He spoke fondly of an elderly Chinese couple who were sent to Seafarers after they were found wandering the streets. They had booked a one-way ticket to New York because they believed their daughter in Shanghai was poisoning them. Seafarers was possibly the only place in the city that would have taken them in. Pastor Marsh worked to ensure the couple got the medical care they needed, and he even contacted their family in Shanghai to try and get the couple home.

The concept of kairos has shaped the way Drege views his life. Everything happens for a reason, and if it part of God’s plan, then it will work out. After he moved from North Dakota to Washington, D.C, as a young man, his belief directed him back after he was offered the position of camp director at a North Dakota bible camp.

“I really didn’t wanna move back to North Dakota,” he said. “But I prayed about it, and you know, as Jesus taught us in the Lord’s Prayer, thy will be done, and not ours. I don’t think God ever wants us to do something totally against our will, or totally against what we think is right. I tell ya, I tried so hard not to go back to North Dakota. I wanted to stay in D.C so badly. I loved it, but I just felt compelled to go back.”

Despite being a non-sports playing liberal in one the country’s most conservative states, he stayed in North Dakota for 14 years. Pastor Marsh is passionate about music, and in his work as a camp director, he lead young people in song while playing the keyboard and guitar. “I played every key on the keyboard,” he said. “I mean not just physically, but metaphorically too. I used every possible gift that I could discern in this ministry and I loved it.”

He could have stayed on for another 14 years, but his hearing was deteriorating. He found it hard to communicate to large groups, and he realized that a change was needed. In the end, it would be his wife’s work that took him back to the East Coast, though he might say it was kairos.

He has been at Seafarers for seven years now, and the change from North Dakota was dramatic. He no longer leads young people in song, and his guitar and keyboard are stored away. He does try and make time to sing in a church choir, but the lack of music in his day-to-day life can be a challenge,. “Every once in a while, I think, “wow, how did this happen?,” he said. But he believes that he is where he needs to be.

“I think I have deep gifts for this place, and this place has deep needs,” he said. “I’m using a lot of my gifts. They just don’t happen to be musical.”