Mission to Saratoga

One of the draws of being in the military is being able to travel the world. The same applies to being a pastor and a missionary. Pastor Phil Arndt of Saratoga Alliance Church has done both. While enlisted in the military and stationed in Korea, Arndt was involved with a small group of Christian servicemen and felt the calling to become a pastor. It also helped that being a missionary was in his blood.

"My parents had been missionaries in Honduras and Central America," said Arndt.

Arndt has been a pastor for 25 years, having first entered the ministry in 1992, and has spent most of that time overseas. Stateside now for nearly 12 years, Arndt says the time between overseas and stateside is getting to be close to even.

"We worked as missionaries over in Russia and Germany," Arndt said.

Arndt and his wife were originally in Germany near the Black Forest before going to Russia. Their kids attended school at Black Forest Academy, where they continued to go even while Arndt was a missionary in Russia. When he had first become involved in missions, Arndt had hoped that he would be heading to Central America where his parents had missioned and he and his wife had prepared for going to that part of the world.

"Just through a series of circumstances, we wound up in Russia, but spent 10 great years in Russia," said Arndt.

Eventually, Arndt found his way back to Korea to serve in a large church. Life, however, had different plans for the pastor and his family.

"We were asked to be a part of the ministry, serving in a very large church in Seoul, South Korea," Arndt said. "We were there for about three or four months and my wife's father got very sick. My wife ended up going back to the states and I resigned my position a few months later."

Arndt and his wife spent the majority of 2017 as caretakers for his father-in-law. On the day he was accepted for hospice care, the family received notice that they had been asked to move to Saratoga for Arndt to pastor. The family moved to the Valley just before Thanksgiving and Arndt's father-in-law passed away while in hospice care shortly after Christmas.

"The last couple of years have been a bit of a whirlwind. We're glad to be here, we're glad to be settled down in this area," Arndt said.

Of all the places he has been, the recently arrived pastor never thought he would wind up in Wyoming. Arndt, however, is far from disappointed. He has been involved in the community since arriving, not just giving sermons and working with his parishioners but going out to the surrounding ranches and lending a hand to the local landowners. Originally from the Midwest, Arndt confessed his love for the sight of the mountains.

"I can sit here and stare at these mountains all day long," he said. "It's different from what I was thinking about at this point in my life, but it's just a lot of fun."