Pastor Ryan Kraus
Whenever I tell someone I’m from Moscow, I run the risk of hearing in reply, “But you don’t sound Russian!” While Moscow, Pennsylvania, may feel as cold as Russia in the winter, you never need to worry about urban woes like traffic jams. My hometown remains small and quiet, and growing up on the outskirts of it, most of my childhood was spent running wild through the fields and woods that stretched unbroken for nearly a mile beyond our backyard. Yet more wonderful than the freedom, space, and safety I enjoyed, was the caring presence of my family, particularly my grandparents, who lived just down the road from our house. Almost every Sunday I can remember, my mother, father, sister, and I would return from church and then head to my grandparents’ house for dinner. Besides a full stomach, what I took from that time was respect for the ritual of coming together around the table. There I gained a rich knowledge of where my family had come from, what we worked for, and what we believed were life’s nobler goals and attitudes.
Because my family attended Covenant Presbyterian Church in Scranton, PA, a city beyond the bounds of North Pocono school district where I lived, I grew up in two separate peer groups: my school friends, and my church friends. I know now that such separation between my experience of worship and hometown, of Sunday School and school work, of my youth group and my school social life, did not aid the growth of my faith. Rather, I learned rather quickly how to speak one way while at track practice or in the stands with the marching band (a less than polished speech, I confess), and another way at church on Sunday morning or while at choir practice or when at youth group. Through high school I was a faithful member of two very different worlds – my church world, and my hometown one. I consider it evidence of God’s grace that my friends and I never got caught or in trouble for the things we did on Saturday nights, and I consider it proof of God’s love that the church building never shuttered or shook as I entered the sanctuary the morning after.
My faith remained in this limited state until college. Arriving at Bucknell University to realize my dreams of a successful career in engineering and an exciting tour of duty through the Army’s Reserve Officer’s Training Corps (R.O.T.C.), I wasn’t exactly looking for a spiritual home in a strong campus Christian fellowship. It was through a fellow ROTC cadet, however, that the Christian fellowship quickly found me. Invited by my friend to attend a mid-week meeting for praise-songs and Bible study, I met for the first time in my life peers whose faith bridged the worlds of home and school and church. In the company of these Christian students, with whom I could eat lunch, attend class, or go out with to catch a movie, God brought me into a greater awareness of his presence and his power to redeem every aspect of my being and living.
Not only did God use fellow students to draw me closer to himself, God used the United States Army as well. A member of my high school track team and two grades ahead of me, whom I admired for his athletic ability and popularity, had told me about an ROTC scholarship he’d won, and about how much he liked the program. I applied for a scholarship too, though at the time I was more enamored with the financial award than with the opportunity to serve as an Army officer. Winning the scholarship and enrolling in ROTC at Bucknell, I soon discovered that the discipline, the physical training and demands, the camaraderie, and the highly organized structure fit me in a wonderful way. To my great surprise, our ROTC program became my fraternity, its cadets my closest friends, and the training it provided an arena for God to reveal his desires for my vocation in ministry.
It was while attending the Army Airborne School at Fort Benning, GA, during the summer after my sophomore year that I first met and witnessed the ministry of Army Chaplains. Seeing these soldier-pastors preach in camouflage, and pray with us just before we took our first jump, sparked a desire in me to follow their lead. I returned to school that year looking with new eyes for God’s direction as to what my vocation should be. By my last year at Bucknell, I had grown confident that ministry as an Army Chaplain offered the best use of my God-given gifts and my desire to make his glory known. Through many people and events, including the death of a housemate by a drunk-driver, God confirmed to me his calling to ministry. Even as I worked on senior design projects I knew that I’d never practice as a professional engineer. While my classmates tested their resumes and attended job-fairs, I worked on getting my application to Princeton Theological Seminary in the mail.
It was also during that last year at Bucknell that my girlfriend from high school became my fiancée, and that my parents finalized a painful rending of their marriage with divorce. Adjusting to joining another family and witnessing the dis-joining of my own exacted a great emotional toll. Swallowing enough pride and gathering enough courage to go and speak to a campus counselor may have been the most difficult achievement for me that year, and the most important. Refusing to accept that I need help remains a thorn in my side, one I inherited from a long line of stubborn, stoic sufferers traceable on both sides of my lineage. But I am learning, slowly, that the Savior came because I need him.
Life at Princeton Theological Seminary opened my eyes to new questions, new answers, and new encounters with the Living God. Newly-wed and anxious to see if I could make the transition from Greek letters in formulas to Greek letters in paragraphs, God stretched and pulled me, and my wife, Lisa, into a new life of looking at the world, as Calvin says, with a knowledge of God gained through study and time spent soaking in his wonderful and mysterious Word. In seminary my calling to serve as an Army Chaplain was affirmed, and as were my experiences as a student intern serving in several local churches. In May of 1998, I graduated with my Master of Divinity degree and headed back to central PA for a summer of Clinical Pastoral Education at the PennState Geisinger Hospital in Danville, PA.
While learning the work of chaplaincy there, I accepted a call to serve as the first Associate Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Griffin, Georgia. In Georgia, my wife began her own seminary studies, though God saw fit to move us so she could complete them back in Princeton. She is still owed another diploma from that esteemed institution however, for she walked down the long aisle of Princeton Chapel, not alone, but just a few weeks shy of delivering our first child, Isaac.
Following our return to Princeton Seminary in January of 2000, I worked for a while outside of the church. One of those jobs was as a survey data editor for Peterson’s Publishing, the other as a chimney sweep for a company called “Ashes - Up, Up, and Away!” Let me tell you, chimney sweeping is not all so “lucky” as Mary Poppins would have you believe.
In June of 2000, I accepted my second pastoral call and began serving as the Associate Pastor for Youth and Family Ministry at Thompson Memorial Presbyterian Church in New Hope, PA. Again, I was fortunate to be the first minister to fill this brand new Assoc. Pastor position. There I had opportunity to come alongside youth, teens, and adults with the good news of God’s love in Jesus Christ.
In August of 2002, I joined an Army Reserve unit based at Fort Dix, NJ. Our unit’s mission was to prepare other Reserve and Guard soldiers for deployment around the world, and as a Chaplain(Captain), I had opportunity to counsel, pray with, and minister to thousands of men and women from all over the United States as their units were called up to fight in the Global War Against Terror. In January 2003, our unit was mobilized too, and for 18 months, I worked full-time at Fort Dix doing what Chaplains do – nurturing the living, caring for the wounded, and honoring the dead.
In July of 2005, our growing family (our first daughter Hannah joined us in Nov. 2004) moved from Morrisville, PA, and I ended my work at Thompson Memorial. Now living in Waymart PA, we enjoy the gift of open spaces and close ties that life in Wayne County provides. With the birth of our second daughter Ruth in April 2007, our family excitedly waits to see what God will do next, as he works his grace through, in, and with us in this community. Joyfully spending my spare time to hunt, fish, hike, and run in all the beautiful places near to our home, I give thanks to God for taking me this far, and for his faithful promise, given in Jesus Christ, to finally bring me home.