Wyoming history

Wyoming

As in all sparsely populated regions, assembly work in Wyoming has always been difficult to maintain. The earliest known assembly in the state was in Fort Washakie, population 250, on the Wind River Indian Reservation.

Wesley and Gladys Kosin were missionaries to the Shoshone Indians for 23 years. They began Breaking Bread in their home in about 1959, and soon several of their converts joined in the fellowship, meeting as the Fort Washakie Assembly. However, many of these converts were drawn into Pentecostal fellowships over the years, and when the Kosins retired to South Carolina in 1981, the assembly discontinued.

Mr. Kosin worked with Wycliffe Bible Translators and taught classes at the Summer Institute of Linguistics in North Dakota for several years. He was the first to analyze the Shoshone language and did considerable Bible translation into that language. The Kosins had a Scripture literature booth at the Wyoming State Fair for many years and had a local radio Gospel program in simplified English. They suffered the loss of a daughter, Beatrice, who with another commended missionary, was martyred by Viet Cong during the Viet Nam war.

The Kosins were an influence on Stark Wilson of Casper, north of Cheyenne, who established the Casper Assembly in his home for several years. In 1989, one source says there was an unlisted meeting in Casper, probably this one. It has discontinued.

A family in the small town of Upton in the northeast corner of the state, had the Upton Assembly in their home for a time.

By 1970, Robert and Betty Twing were Breaking Bread as a family in their home near Buffalo in the north-central part of the state. They had been introduced to brethren meetings by Betty’s parents who lived in Tennessee and had been with an assembly started by T.B. Gilbert. In 1977, Rodney Parr moved his family to nearby Sheridan from Garden City, KS to help the Twings establish an assembly in northern Wyoming. The two families began regular assembly meetings in the Parr home in late 1977, and two other families joined with them a little later. The assembly was called Cloud Peak Bible Chapel.

Mrs. Parr developed a sizeable neighborhood Sunday School, but after the Parrs moved to a different area, that work came to an end. The assembly moved to the Twing home near Buffalo in 1982 and continued for just a few more months, discontinuing in May 1983.

The Cheyenne Bible Chapel, WY started in Cheyenne in the home of Roy Huffman in 1987 and lasted a year or two. Each of these assemblies consisted of just a few believers.

In 1985, the Bread of Life Fellowship in Laramie was meeting in the home of Robert Koenig in Laramie in the southern part of the state. It closed in the early 1990s when the Koenigs moved away but has resumed in the Koenig home at 519 S. 4th Street, with the Lawrence Thomas and Matt Lundberg families.

A larger assembly formed in 1997 in the sizeable town of Powell, east of Yellowstone National Park. The Powell Assembly of Believers began in June 1997 through the efforts of the Tillotson, Kinkade, and Krevo families. The Olsens soon joined, then Nordlands, Schmidts, and Ottos. John Tillotson, Lloyd Olsen, Mark Nordland, Kevin Schmidt, and Don Otto are the current elders. Meeting first in the Tillotson home, the group subsequently moved to a funeral home, then to Powell Hospital, and currently meets at Northwest College.

The Tillotsons and Olsens had been associated with Park Bible Chapel in Everett, WA. Others had some contacts with brethren assemblies, and others did not, and simply wanted to meet as a New Testament church. As to its start-up, “The Lord brought us all together; there is really no other way to explain it,” according to John Tillotson. The young assembly has commended a worker to Immanuel Mission in Arizona. About 40 adults and youngsters attend the Powell Assembly of Believers.

Sources

• Questionnaire Responses and Letters