140 Years of Jesus in Idaho Falls

  Over two weeks in June of 2000, 72-year-old Rev. Erick Kaiser led a group of young people on a 205-mile walk from Salmon to Idaho Falls, to raise money for an orphanage in Romania.  The Post Register’s report of their trek begins, “They battled blisters, braved the blazing sun and even ran into a couple of snakes…” [1] The money they raised went toward the construction of Idaho House, one of several houses in the City of Hope, [2] a community of orphanages in Bucharest, Romania.  Born to German immigrants, Erick Kaiser grew up of a farm in eastern Montana.  Following graduation in 1948 from North Central Bible College in Minneapolis, he married, and for the next six years he and his wife Joyce pastored a church in Glendive, Montana. [3] Then they moved to Billings, started a church that met first in their home and then in a building they constructed on neighboring property. [3] In May of 1958 the Kaisers, now with four children, moved to Idaho Falls to pastor the Central Assembly

  O n March 1, 1956, the whole community of Idaho Falls gathered to give the body of Rev. George Peacock a loving burial as messages arrived from all over the country. [1] “With the passing of the Reverend George Daniel Peacock, a great Missionary Era of the West is forever closed.   And his name will stand with the names of Whitman and Spaulding and Sheldon Jackson, Samuel Wishard, Henry F. Kendall and others who had energy, vision, courage; and who were driven by a Spirit not of themselves to push out the outposts and help build Christ’s Kingdom in the West.   His requiem is one with Paul’s: ‘I have fought a good fight’ – handicapped and imperfect – ‘I have fought a good fight.’ Church, on your knees to pray that you lose not the Missionary Passion such as lived in him! ”    --- Joseph I Gulick, God’s Missionary (from message delivered at Rev. Peacock’s funeral) [2] Joseph I. Gulick was Idaho Falls’ Presbyterian Church’s longest serving pastor, 36 years, and a friend of Geo