John Nunn, 52, was born, the oldest of 14 children, to a poor coal miner and his wife in the Appalachian Mountains of Kentucky. He started his work career at the age of five, going into the coal mines to bring out the miners' tools to be sharpened.
The family lived in a hard-packed-clay-floored shack without electricity or running water, and his mother scrubbed the clothes on a scrub board. Many times John carried water until his hands bled. After John graduated from the eighth grade, he entered the work force full-time. He has worked as a mechanic and logger, among other things. He broke his back in a logging accident in 1986 and has been disabled ever since.
One day in 2004, Nunn was strolling through the Klickitat County Fair in Goldendale, Wash., when he came upon the Adventist health booth. He stopped to pick up literature and started talking to Stanton Parker and Shirley James. They both invited him to start the Discover Bible course. After three weeks, Shirley sent him an invitation to come to church, and he has been in church ever since. He finished his Bible studies, accepted Jesus as his Savior, and was subsequently baptized into the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Warren Blanck, Goldendale Church pastor, gives the Welcome! book, which is given to each newly baptized member, to John Nunn (left).
