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“Though thy beginning was small, yet thy latter end should greatly increase.”
Job 8:7

A Burden for Merrill

In November of 1985 the Lord laid a little town in Wisconsin on Dr. Hohman’s heart. This was not unusual: as a traveling evangelist, the Lord would often put a town on his heart, and he and his wife Pam would lift that town up daily in prayer. Through this, they would see the Lord establish a new church in the town or move by His Spirit in an already established church.

But this would not be the case with Merrill, Wisconsin. The burden for Merrill grew beyond a need for intercession. Early on the morning of Friday, January 10, 1986, Pam was stirred by the Spirit of God to wake Dr. Hohman and encourage him to go to Merrill that day and evangelize. After breakfast he phoned brother Gordon Jeager to take a trip to Merrill, knowing Gordon had been born and raised there, and by mid-morning the two were off to Wisconsin. With a background in street preaching, Dr. Hohman expected that would be the plan for the day — but on that cold January day in Merrill, he found only an echo on the streets.

The First Bible Study

So he and Gordon went into the stores, and Dr. Hohman shared his testimony with anyone who would listen. After three people prayed and accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, he and Gordon organized a Bible study for the new believers at Marcella Geiss’s home in the Little Florida Trailer Park. During that evening’s study the Lord spoke to Dr. Hohman to commit to meeting every Thursday night.

While driving out of town on the way back to Michigan, the Lord spoke to him a second time, telling him he was going to pastor a church in Merrill. His response was, “I’m willing, Lord, but You are going to have to tell my wife, because I won’t touch that with a ten-foot pole.” The Bible study continued for several months with great success, and by April, 27 people had come to know the Lord as their Savior — yet Dr. Hohman told no one of his conversation with the Lord about pastoring the newly founded congregation.

A Church Is Born

On the morning of Thursday, April 24, Pam again woke him early, this time saying the Lord had been speaking to her. “You know that we are to move to Merrill and pastor that church, don’t you?” When he answered “Yes,” she said, “Well, I will put a for-sale sign on our house. You can tell the people tonight that we will obey the Lord and move.” When Dr. Hohman shared their plan at the Bible study that evening, everyone shouted for joy — they had been fasting and praying for two weeks, asking the Lord to move on William and Pam’s hearts to come to Merrill and pastor them.

During the three and a half months Dr. Hohman waited for Pastor Pam to talk things over with the Lord, Jesus gave him the verses on which the church was to be founded:

“Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ: that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel; and in nothing terrified by your adversaries: which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that of God.”
Philippians 1:27–28

Little did Dr. Hohman know that meditating on these scriptures would become a constant way of life for him through many years of battle, fighting “the good fight of faith.”