Many years ago, Pastor Jim Small of the Onarga Christian Church had a vision of moving his ministry out of the old antiquated sanctuary located at 309 W Seminary in the residential area west of the railroad tracks in Onarga. For years, Pastor Jim faithfully involved himself in the hard work of many fundraising campaigns including long walks for 100 miles from Onarga to Lincoln Christian University. Under two years ago, Pastor Jims faithfulness and dedication paid off as his dream came to fruition for the ministry of Onarga Christian Church when the construction of its new site began. The old sanctuary which once held the ministry of Onarga Christian Church is now being occupied by one of Onargas Spanish ministries. Today, the newly constructed more contemporary site of Onarga Christian Church is located at 721 W. Seminary Avenue right off Interstate 57 Exit 280. Pastor Jim Small is encouraging Onarga Christian Church and its surrounding neighborhoods and communities to designate Thanksgiving-Eve Wednesday November 27 as a special day to pray for our community and our entire nation, to repent of our negative attitudes and outlooks which may have surfaced, to prepare our spirits for renewal and revival, to remember and reflect upon Gods great redeeming love for all of us, to celebrate Gods goodness and faithfulness in the many blessings He continues to pour out upon us, and to recommit our strength and resources to the great causes and commissions to which God has called us. Those willing to join in the mission of Onarga Christian Church on Thanksgiving-Eve Wednesday November 27 are asked to send an e-mail to Pastor Jim Small at [email protected] and will receive a newsletter with a further explanation of the call to prayer. Onarga Christian Church will bring this special day of prayer to a special end with a special free-admission concert titled Patriotism, Praise, and Thanksgiving which will feature the talents of world-class world-traveled musician Adam Patrick Moore who was once a resident of Onarga, member of Onarga Christian Church, and student at Iroquois West and Christ Lutheran High School in Buckley. At the concert, a special love offering will be collected with all proceeds going towards the Onarga Christian Church building fund for further expansions and developments at the new church site. The story of Adams uprising success predates before his lifetime back to the early 1950s when United States armed forces serviceman and Local 150 heavy machine operator Norman Moore married hard-working single mother and matriarch Faye Bernice Wehrle. Norman and Faye Bernice finished raising her first seven children, birthed and raised three daughters of their own, and then provided many years of Christian foster parenting for several orphaned children. Norman and Faye Bernice raised their children with a love for the Lord, a love for people, a love for learning, and a love for music. Norman and Faye Bernice, biological daughter Nancy, and adopted children Carol, Amy, and Adam spent some years down south in Orlando before relocating in 1991 up north to the rural area of St. Anne, Illinois. With much encouragement and support from Norman, Adam enrolled into the St. Anne Grade School band department under the instruction of legendary teacher Cliff Smith who taught Adam to play several instruments and to read music incredibly well for such a young age. Adam played bass guitar for the school jazz band at St. Annes Pumpkin Festival and played tuba with the school marching band in Chicagos Saint Patricks Day Parade. Cliff Smith inspired Adam to spend summers playing tuba with the Kankakee Valley Wind Ensemble summer youth band under the direction of King Music owner David King. Norman was very committed to taking Adam to every music lesson, every band practice, and every concert. In 1994, the Moore family moved into the village of Onarga and renovated the house at 334 East Lincoln where Norman built the garage which still stands there to this day. Though new to the area, Adam quickly developed a reputation for his seasoning skills on tuba and bass guitar and his newfound skills for bass vocals with the Iroquois West music department under the direction of Martin Lawrence, Anne Stewart, and later Jane Davis who carried the music department to the IHSA Music Sweepstakes Championship two consecutive years in a row and gave Adam the opportunity to audition into the elite IMEA 1997 All-State Honors Band. Pastor Jim Small invited the Moore family to join Onarga Christian Church where Adam and his sister Amy began attending the Wednesday evening youth meetings as well as the Sunday morning youth classes led by Mike Johnson and Shane Cultra. Pastor Jim Small baptized Adam and inspired Adam to become more heavily involved in outings to Christ In Youth conventions and to the Promise Keepers conventions. Shortly after getting acclimated to Onarga and the rest of Iroquois County, Norman and Faye Bernice began to show signs of aging as their health began to deteriorate. In 1995, Norman suffered from a light heart attack for which he ultimately needed a quadruple bypass. In the summer of 1997, Faye Bernice suffered a severe paralyzing stroke which left her bedridden for the remaining years of her life. During the following years, biological daughter Nancy established herself as a home-based medical transcriptionist so that she could serve as her primary at-home caretaker for Norman and Faye Bernice. In the fall of 1997, Adam transferred to Christ Lutheran High School in Buckley where he helped pioneer the upstart band and choir under the direction of Barb Bennett and later Jennifer Brauer. As Adam began to learn piano prodigiously under the teaching of Kari Wasmer in Gilman and the late Barb Henrichs Bennett in Thawville, Adam occasionally filled in for Onarga Christian Church pianist Margie Johnson and also accompanied the Christ Lutheran High School choir. In the summer of 1998, Pastor Jim Small lined Adam up to spend part of the summer playing bass guitar and keyboard with a much older worship leading band from Ozark Christian College at Prairie States Christian Camp in Watseka. At Christ Lutheran High Schools very first graduation ceremony honoring the first eight graduates in 2000, Adam received the award of academic excellence in fine arts and an American Legion Award for an essay he wrote on patriotism, liberty, and faith. Upon graduating from high school, Adam auditioned and received a full-tuition free-ride music scholarship into the two-year music program at Champaigns Parkland College where Adam received specialized piano instruction from WILL 90.9 FM classical radio personality Vincent Trauth, studied music theory and ear training intensively under the professorship of Dr. Tim Schirmer and Dr. Peter Roubal, accompanied student vocalists and instrumentalists in quarterly student recitals, played tuba with Parkland Colleges community concert band and auditioned wind ensemble, and sang bass with Parkland Colleges community chorus and auditioned chamber singers. As Adam grew musically, the Moore family transferred their church membership to Kankakee First Church of God where Adam accepted the position of pianist and grew into the position of music minister under the pastoral leadership of pastor emeritus Dan Morris, pastor Dwain Miller, and assistant pastor Rick Goodwin. Adam became crucial in propelling the churchs musicmaking to go far beyond the four walls of the church for Sunday morning worship. Adam began planning small community concert fundraisers for such charities as the Ronald McDonald House in Chicago. Adam also became heavily involved in the seasonal Kankakee County singspiration services where Adams talents on the piano were requested by many singers and praise bands representing other community churches including Wildwood and Westbrook Churches of the Nazarene, the pentecostal Bradley Foursquare Gospel, and the predominantly black charismatic Genesis Community Ministries. Adam completed the two-year music program at Parkland College in 2002 and transferred to Olivet Nazarene University where he received several academic and music scholarships, majored in music ministry under the advisement of music department chairman Dr. Don Reddick, took classes in conducting and composing/arranging, sang bass with the choral union in concerts such as annual performances of Handels The Messiah, played piano with the concert band and symphonic band for campus-wide revival services and regional tours throughout the central United States, and received specialized piano instruction from Dr. Gerald Anderson whose piano work has been featured by WTTW public television on multiple occasions. Adam was challenged by Dr. Anderson to not play sloppily but instead to develop a more polished technique which helped Adam become a much better pianist. Adam began providing piano entertainment on weekends at Margos On Main in Watseka and occasionally at the Amishland Red Barn in Tuscola. As the final step in his completion of the baccalaureate program, Adam served his internship under the mentoring of worship arts director Ben Kunz at River Valley Christian Fellowship in Bourbonnais where Adam assisted with song selection and arrangement, played piano for large vibrant worship gatherings, had a couple opportunities to play piano in special duets with featured guest organist Matt Gerhard, and played keyboard and bass guitar regularly with the praise band which led worship for the Celebrate Recovery meetings led by Darrin Reed and Lanay Barga. In April of 2005, Adam held the hand of his mom Faye Bernice and prayed over her soul at her time of passing after the last week of her life was spent comatose and morphine-injected at home under hospice care. Adam helped plan the funeral service, coordinated with the key speakers and readers including Pastor Jim Small, and arranged the music for the service. Faye Bernices funeral service, held at Knapp Funeral Home in Onarga, celebrated the ending of her years of suffering and her passing on into her eternal life in heaven where she would no longer experience pain. After Adam graduated with his bachelors degree in music ministry from Olivet Nazarene University in 2006, APM resigned from his music minister position with Kankakee First Church of God in order to fill the more lucrative position of pianist and choir director with the larger American Lutheran Church in Bourbonnais. Adam began accompanying the Kankakee Junior High and Kankakee High School choirs under the direction of Bonnie Brewer for concerts inside Kankakees historic Lincoln Cultural Center, for regional solo & ensemble festivals and organizational contests, and even for governmental functions in Chicago. Adam registered with Iroquois-Kankakee and Champaign-Ford as a substitute music teacher often requested at Bradley-Bourbonnais Community High School and Urbana High School. From January 2007 to April 2007, Adam filled the special long-term assignment as temporary music director of the bands and choirs at Rantoul Township High School during the maternity leave of contracted music director Wendy Ronna. Additionally, Adam filled the role of accompanist and vocal coach for the schools spring musical Little Shop of Horrors under the direction of Mikel Matthews. In the summer of 2007, Kankakee Schools choir teacher Bonnie Brewer and her daughter Barbi Brewer asked Adam to share of his talents as a solo concert pianist and as the keyboardist with the live stage band which accompanied most acts in their annual Spice of Life variety show, a summer fundraiser for Kankakee Coalition Against Domestic Violence & Harbor House, which incorporated the talents of many of Illinois most talented performers and entertainers such as Momence mayor and Momence High School dean Mick Porter, Kankakee County District #18 board representative and African-American Improvement Associations general president Robert S. Ellington-Snipes, Verondas Music Village sales manager Nick Veronda, and famous comedic impressionist Tim Kilbride who regularly appeared on WGN television and made other appearances on Regis and Oprah and David Letterman. All of these professionals and many others went out of their way to express their satisfaction with Adams piano and keyboard work. Adams talents on the piano began to be recognized throughout all of central Illinois. Adam became involved in sharing his talents in fundraising events for other organizations such as Salvation Army, American Cancer Society, and the Easter Seals. Adam entertained at parties for such organizations as Bork Nursery, Riverside Medical Center, Kankakee Dental Society, First Trust Bank, Busse & Rieck, The Gathering in Paxton, the Champaign-Urbana Junior League. Adam began doing occasional collaborative work as a studio musician inside Joe Brights Studio G in Kankakee and Mark Rubles Pogo Studios in Champaign-Urbana for a variety of artistes including smooth jazz saxophonist Phil Smith, country singer Bob Overfelt, opera singer Ronda Lucas, and many others whose albums reached as far as prisoners in regional penitentiaries, U.S. soldiers stationed in Afghanistan, and radio programs at the national level in Nashville and international level in Australia. Adams work as a substitute music teacher and an accompanist ultimately led to him being offered the permanent part-time lucrative position as the accompanist at Champaign Central High School beginning in the fall of 2007. Adam accompanied five curriculum choirs under the direction of Jeff Dare and later Tom Mohr in daily rehearsals and frequent performances including the annual commencement ceremonies held in the famous Foellinger Great Hall of University of Illinois Krannert Art Center. Adam accompanied the drama department under the direction of LaDonna Wilson in such seasonal musical productions as Les Miserables and Sweeny Todd, Adam accompanied several band and orchestra student soloists under the direction of John and Jen Currey at statewide concerto competitions. Having found much enjoyment in accompanying the choirs of Champaign Central High School and Kankakee High School, Adam began occasionally accompanying other choirs including the Iroquois West Middle School choirs under the direction of Brenda Muench, the Franklin Middle School choir under the direction of April Smith Blacker, and Peotone High School show choir under the direction of Tracy Marcotte Toepfer. Having found much enjoyment in his work with school musicals, Adam began accompanying school musicals elsewhere including Oklahoma at Clifton Central High School under the direction of Brad Sneffner and Tracy Marcotte and Once Upon A Mattress at Iroquois West High School under the direction of Kyle Bush and Rebecca Johnson. Adam also began accompanying for musical productions with more professionally operated community theater companies such as Country Theater Workshop in Cissna Park where his talents were utilized by Robin Shuda and Anna Barnlund as an accompanist for the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical revue Some Enchanted Evening, the musical comedy Once Upon A Mattress, the Patsy Cline country music revue Always Patsy Cline, and the fabulous fifties musical revue Taffeta Memories featuring the prize-winning four-part harmonies of Kena Clark, Pryscilla Stam, Jayne Henrichs, and Maureen Rapier. In the early summer of 2008, Adam had the rare opportunity to go on a performance tour to California where he played piano at the Crystal Cathedral, entertained on Hollywood Boulevard, and was offered the esteemed accompanist position with Murrieta Valley High Schools internationally recognized choir department under the direction of Jaclyn Johnson who wanted Adam to accompany and chaperone the choir departments upcoming performance tour to Italy. Adam was tempted by the offer but ultimately decided to stay in Illinois. In the later summer of 2008, Adam went on an international performance tour to Scotland where he provided piano accompaniment and music direction for Champaign Central High Schools musical Zombie Prom at the Edinburgh International Fringe Festival and where Adam found a few opportunities to provide some piano entertainment at the well-established cool and contemporary restaurant and piano lounge The Living Room located on Edinburghs prestigious George Street. Near spring break of 2009, APM was requested by Kankakee High School choir director Bonnie Brewer to serve as the piano accompanist and a chaperone for the Kankakee High School Performing Arts Choir on a performance tour to Washington D.C. for the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial. If Adam had been lured to California in 2008, he would have missed out on the final year of his dad Normans life. For years Norman, miraculously by the power of God and the hands of doctors, had overcome heart failure with a quadruple bypass, had overcome kidney failure with renal dialysis, had overcome cancer in the duodenum with surgical removal, and had overcome prostate cancer by an act of God, Like a Timex watch, Norman took a licking and kept on ticking. But to everything there is a season, a time to live and a time to die. In the summer of 2009, Normans health took a turn for the worst as he was placed in Provena St, Marys Hospital in Kankakee where he was put on ventilation. Adam and Nancy were present at the hospital room when Norman passed away in July of 2009. Adam organized the order of the funeral service, wrote a short biography which paid homage to Normans die-hard work ethic and his faithfulness to God and marriage and family, collaborated with his younger sister Amy on the hymn selections and song leading, and asked Pastor Jim Small to deliver the eulogy. Normans funeral service, held at Knapp Funeral Home, celebrated Normans passing on to his eternal life in heaven with God and his many deceased loved ones including Faye Bernice. Following their dads death, Adam and Nancy realized themselves to be Moore familys remnants inside the familys house in Onarga as both parents had passed away and their adopted sisters Amy and Carol had both moved on with their lives. So Adam and Nancy determined before the 2009-2010 schoolyear began that they would leave the old house behind and move into an apartment in downtown Champaign-Urbana where Adam would be closer to his workplace of Champaign Central High School and have the amenities of the cosmopolitan area more accessible. On Sundays, Adam and Nancy still commuted via I-57 past Onarga on the way to Bourbonnais where Adam continued to serve as the pianist and choir director for American Lutheran Church. In Champaign-Urbana, Adam became involved as an accompanist for musicals with Champaign-Urbana Theater Company under the direction of Mike Galloway and also the historical blackbox Station Theater which occupied an old railroad station in Urbana. In the spring of 2010, Adam yet again had another opportunity to go on tour to Washington D.C. this time as accompanist with the entire Champaign Central music department. In the summer of 2010, APM resigned from his position with American Lutheran Church to accept the more involved position as Bradley Wesley United Methodist Churchs music director in charge of worship, the praise band, and the chamber choir. Though unexpected hardship struck in the fall of 2010 when Adam was wrongfully discharged from his position with Champaign Central High School during a multi-million dollar budget cut, Adam rightfully collected unemployment insurance after a trial and hearing process in which he used documentation to defeat the appeal of Champaign Central High School. Adam and Nancy left Champaign-Urbana, stayed temporarily in Indiana with Normans sister Rachel Market and her music-studying grandsons Matthew and John, and then stayed with their very sweet and hospitable half-sisters Sharon Baldwin in Midlothian and Norma Russell in Monee from Faye Bernices first seven children. Adam continued to serve as music director at Bradley Wesley United Methodist Church and engage in such endeavors as accompanying musicals with Danville Light Opera. Adams last big project in Illinois was directing the pit orchestra and accompanying for a completely sold-out run of the musical Hairspray at Urbanas Station Theatre in the summer of 2011 which Adam spent as a suitcase-toting bus-riding vagabond musician who sneakily spent many nights sleeping on his air mattress he kept hidden inside the theater. Before his last train ride out of the Champaign-Urbana area, Adam had the opportunity to be interviewed and to perform live on Champaign-Urbana radio programs including Live & Local with Kevin Kelly on WILL 90.9 FM and Penny For Your Thoughts with Jim Turpin on Newstalk 1400 WDWS AM. In August of 2011, Adam resigned from his music director position at Bradley Wesley United Methodist Church before he and Nancy relocated to southwestern Florida where Adam received a calling to the position of pianist and functional assistant music director with Crossroads Baptist Church in Fort Myers (rated among the top 4% of evangelical churches in the United States by Billy Graham Ministries), took on the additional lucrative projects as the music director of the hugely popular musical Footloose with Lemon Bay High Schools award-winning theater department and as the music director of the classic musical Music Man with Venice Theater (the third largest community theater in the United States), and found a nice luxury apartment at the Gulfstream Isles resort within short driving distance from several beaches along the Gulf Coast. But by far one of the greatest treasures Adam found in southwestern Florida is the love he shares with his beautiful beloved wife Peggy. Peggy Martini Strait was one of thirteen children of Bud and Mary Martini who owned and operated their own family-run pizzeria in Fort Myers for many years, so Peggy knew how to handflip pizza dough and bake some incredibly delicious pizzas. Peggy had lost her first husband in a tragic accident in 1996 and had spent the following years single-handedly providing a Christ-centered upbringing to her two daughters who are now fully grown and working in different capacities with Gulf Coast Hospital. Very similar to what Nancy had selflessly done for Norman and Faye Bernice, Peggy was a selflessly sacrificing daughter who lived with and took care of her aging mother Mary and COPD-diagnosed father Bud. Peggy was also a longtime church member at Crossroads Baptist where she was heavily involved in the womens ministries and summer beach retreats. As Peggy became very familiar with Nancy and developed a mutual fondness with Adam, it became evident to Adam that one of the reasons God had directed his steps down south to Florida was to lead him into holy matrimony with Peggy. On Easter Sunday evening of April 8 of 2012, APM and Peggy married in a beautifully intimate wedding at the open pavilion right on Venice Beach. In order to establish more stability for himself and his wife, Adam secured a substantial raise for his position with Crossroads Baptist Church and also supplemented that income with two other jobs as a ride operator with Zoomers Family Amusement Park and as a server at Pinocchios Original Italian Ice Cream on Sanibel Island. As with any marriage, there were transitional challenges through which all parties needed to work cooperatively and lovingly, needed to live by faith in Gods guidance and grace, and needed to be understanding and empathetic in order to persevere. In January of 2013, Peggy was diagnosed with stage four leiomyosarcoma uterine cancer which had metastasized to the lungs, underwent a hysterectomy procedure, and shortly thereafter began chemotherapy treatments and radiation treatments. When Peggy began receiving monthly social security disability income and Medicaid health coverage, Adam left his jobs with Zoomers and Pinocchios in order to dedicate and devote himself to being the primary caretaker for Peggy, going with Peggy to all her treatments and appointments, continuing to keep Peggy motivated to remain as active as possible, and sharing in daily prayer and devotional with Peggy. .Adam and Peggy find inspiration in the scripture of 2 Corinthians 4:16-18: Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. Adam and Peggy also find inspiration in the scripture of Romans 8:18: For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. Adam and Peggy are going to continue trusting in God, praising God, reading and listening to the word of God, talking with God, walking with God...one step at a time one day at a time, making the most out of each moment with which they are blessed, living life abundantly to the fullest, cherishing and savoring this gift of life that they have been richly blessed to share together...yet knowing that the best is yet to come, anticipating that glorious day when they each will be called home to bask in the light of His glorious presence, and proclaiming the good news that soon and very soon all of Gods children are going to see the King! Adam and Peggy will be scratching something huge off their bucket list when Adam brings his Back For Moore 2013 Tour to Illinois during this coming Thanksgiving week. On Tuesday November 26 at 12:00pm, Adam will perform a concert at downtown Chicagos Daley Plaza as part of the Under The Picasso noontime performance series. On that same Tuesday evening, Adam will be providing some festive holiday jazz on his melodica at the Christmas tree right on Chicagos decorated and lit up Magnificent Mile. And on Thanksgiving-Eve Wednesday November 27 at 7:00pm, Adam will be featured in a special free-admission concert Patriotism, Praise, and Thanksgiving at the new site of the Onarga Christian Church where a special love offering will be collected with all proceeds going towards the Onarga Christian Church building fund for future modifications and expansions. Aside from the performances, APM and Peggy have many exciting things they have planned in their itinerary for that week...riding the CTA Brown Line aerial train through the Chicago Loop and over the Chicago River, taking in a birds eye view of Chicago from the Sears/Willis Tower 103rd floor Skydeck, attending Chicagos WGN Thanksgiving Day Parade live and in person...but more importantly, revisiting APMs old hometown right in the village of Onarga, visiting Norman and Faye Bernices gravesite in the Onarga Cemetery, and seeing all the great people of Central Illinois.
Posted on: Sat, 19 Oct 2013 09:25:43 +0000
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