Pastor’s hobby raises $85,000 for Moscow
seminary
|
The Rev. Sam Duree, a retired United
Methodist pastor, sets up a display of his
hand-crafted birdhouses at a rose festival in
Independence, Texas.
UMNS photos by John
Gordon.
|
By John Gordon*
Jan. 9, 2008
| BRENHAM, Texas (UMNS)
The Rev. Sam Duree could be enjoying his golden years in an
easy chair.
Instead, the retired United Methodist pastor came up with
an idea that took wing: building birdhouses to support a
Moscow seminary.
“I build about 35 different kinds,” says Duree, 77. “I wake
up in the middle of the night and can’t go back to sleep, so I
design birdhouses.”
|
During the past six years, Duree
estimates he has built about 3,000
birdhouses.
| Duree spends
about four hours a day planning, sawing, sanding, drilling,
gluing and nailing cedar fence pickets in a workshop in the
garage at his home. Then he takes to the road, selling the
birdhouses at festivals, farmers’ markets and craft shows.
Over the past six years, Duree estimates he has built about
3,000 birdhouses, raising $85,000 for Russia United Methodist
Theological Seminary to train pastors in Russia and other
nations in the former Soviet Union.
“In 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed, there were no
Methodist churches in Russia; now there are 120-plus, and they
all have pastors,” he says.
“We don’t start a new church until we have a trained
Russian pastor. And so that meant we needed some place to
train them.”
Variety of styles
Duree builds birdhouses in a variety of church styles —
Gothic, country, Russian Orthodox and chalet churches. He
daubs paint on the “windows” to make them look like stained
glass. Other favorite designs include a Noah’s ark, a bed and
breakfast, and a log house.
|
Duree puts the finishing touches on a
birdhouse at his workshop in
Brenham,
Texas.
| Many of his
customers are collectors who never put the birdhouses
outside.
“I had one man that called up after he’d bought a birdhouse
and said, ‘I want to complain; there are no birds in my
birdhouse,’” Duree says. “Before I could say anything, he
said, ‘Do you think it’s because it’s sitting on my
mantle?’”
Duree started preaching in 1951 and served churches
throughout Texas. He was also one of the founders of the
Houston International Seaman’s Center, a ministry at the Port
of Houston.
Later, Duree became a district superintendent in the
Houston area before retiring and moving to Brenham in 1996. He
saw the need for the Moscow seminary during 14 mission trips
to Russia and Siberia.
The beginning
His birdhouse business began with a hobby of restoring
antique furniture. Duree saw the collectors’ interest in
birdhouses at an antiques auction and started designing and
building them.
“I built a few and put them on a little parking lot sale up
at the church and made a little money,” he explains. “And, I
thought if I do this, I’m going to have to get a tax number
and keep records, and I don’t want to do that.”
His wife, Beverly, suggested giving the money to the
seminary. And Duree is quick to explain the importance of the
project everywhere he goes to sell his birdhouses.
|
Gloria Alvarado checks out some of
Duree’s birdhouses at the festival in
Independence.
| “We have
to realize we’re a part of a global community and we have a
global ministry,” he says. “Isolationism is something that not
only was out of step in World War II, it’s even more out of
step now. Somebody in the Middle East does something, and
suddenly my car is more expensive to run. It’s all
intertwined.”
Gloria Alvarado of Deer Park, Texas, bought two birdhouses
at a rose festival. “I think they’re beautiful. They’re going
to make wonderful gifts,” Alvarado says. “And the fact that
it’s going to a ministry, it’s like a double gift.”
Duree says he will probably not make any more physically
taxing trips to the former Soviet Union, but he figures he can
keep building birdhouses for a decade or more, and the money
will make a difference for the Russian seminary.
“I feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to do,” he says.
“The good Lord has plans for us, and I’m doing what I can to
carry them out.”
*Gordon is a freelance writer and producer in Marshall,
Texas.
News media contact: Fran Coode Walsh, Nashville, Tenn.,
(615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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