Refill with Randy – Grateful for 20 years in Orleans County

By Randy LeBaron

Good morning! Grab your favorite cup. Fill it up.

Believe it or not that young couple in the photo is my wife Sheryl and I leading worship at our church in Niagara Falls in the fall of 2003. Little did we know then that our lives were about to change as we were asked by my Conference Superintendent to consider transferring to Albion, NY to pastor the First Free Methodist Church there. We had many questions like, “Was God calling us to go somewhere new?”, “Did we really want to move when we had a not quite 2-year-old, Ashlyn, and another baby on the way?”, and first and foremost… “Where in the world was Albion?”

I had been a youth pastor at a Christian Camp in Cattaraugus for a number of years and I remembered that New Albion was in the vicinity so I figured “old” Albion wasn’t too far from there. Ironically enough, my church in The Falls was on Rt. 31 and our new home would turn out to be just one hour away down that same road. More than that I realized that I had actually been to Albion three times previously; in 1991 when I took 1st Place at a Bible Quiz Meet (I still have the trophy ), in 1996 for my friends Tom and Marsha Rivers wedding, and in 2002 at a reunion for the Staines’ Family who were distant relatives of my wife’s. Whatever the reason though Albion just had not stuck in my mind.

We found Albion all over again though as we traveled out the weekend before Thanksgiving 2003. I remember that it was a dark and gloomy kind of day and there was a lot of construction going on so many of the road signs were down making it tough to navigate. Nevertheless, after meeting with the church leadership God answered our first question and we agreed to start that following March.

From there it was a bit of a whirlwind as we had our baby boy, Brendan, at the end of January and then just two weeks later we bought and moved into our first home. I should also note that we left a place where we had a Walmart, K-Mart, Target, Tops, Wegmans, two malls, and any restaurant we could want within 2 miles of us and moved to a town where there would not even be a Walmart within 20 miles until a couple of years later. Needless to say we experienced a lot of change and it continued as I moved my father to Albion to care for him that very next year.

Now though, after calling Orleans County home for 20 years this week, I can’t think of any place else where I would rather be. Since moving in on that cold February day we have added two more beautiful girls, Madison and Jillian, to our family, I had the privilege of becoming the longest tenured pastor at the oldest Free Methodist Church, more than fifteen years, and Sheryl has found joy in her work as a teacher at Albion Elementary.

Our kids grew up engrained in music and sports, our oldest graduated valedictorian in spite of finishing her final year online due to the pandemic, and, after stepping away as Lead Pastor at AFMC and starting Go Scatter Ministries, I was able to connect with so many more throughout the County by speaking at several local churches, counseling at Care-Net, helping out with Hands 4 Hope, becoming an Orleans County Volunteer Sheriff’s Chaplain, coming beside both patients and families through my work at Hospice, and even serving coffee and ice cream for a while at Hebrews 5:9 and Lugia’s on Wheels respectively.

And now, as I finish up my first year as pastor at First Baptist in Medina, I think back to when my Bishop read my original appointment to AFMC in 2004. He made sure to highlight the fact that I was being appointed not to a church building but rather to a community—one that I still feel very much called to. One of the reasons why I wanted to start writing this column last February (It’s Refill with Randy’s one-year anniversary too ) was because over these past couple decades of meeting so many amazing people and experiencing so many of the good, though often overlooked, aspects of Orleans County I wanted to shine a light for all to see.

So, I will plan to continue sharing about the people, places, and things that inspire me in hope that they might inspire you as well. And, as always, if you see me out and about please don’t hesitate to say stop me and say hello. Better yet, let’s sit down with a cup of coffee so that you can tell me some of your story.