Our first service was held on Mother's Day, May 10, 1981 in the Sewing Room of Social Center West. This came after the Lord began leading Pastor Stowell to start a work in the Green Valley area. He was working as an electrician for what was then Duval Mine. As he would drive to work the Lord laid this community on his heart. In the meantime pastor led Henry Ayala to the Lord and Henry began to tell him that there wasn't a pentecostal church in the area for him to attend now that he had gotten saved which helped to convinced him that God was calling him to begin a work in this area. Pastor Stowell went to the presbytery board and asked for permission to begin a work in the area. They gave their him blessing. Pastor Jones at Victory Assembly of God in Tucson was instrumental in helping get the work started. We rented a room at the community center for a 2 P.M. service and put an ad in the paper.

That first Sunday there were 11 people who came with us from Victory and 11 people who showed up from the community. That marked the beginnings of the church in Green Valley/ Sahuarita. Not long after that we began looking for property on which to build a church. Developed land was scarce in those days and the only place we could find with more than one acre was on Calle Privada. It was a newly graded dirt cul-de-sac off of another dirt road. This was not exactly an ideal location, but was all that we could find. We decided to purchase it and start the process of our first building. God provided two mobile homes for us to use temporarily while we built.

With the help of Pastor Jones at Victory Assembly in Tucson we began construction on the church. Pastor Jones sent Perry Broquet to help with the foundation, floor, block walls and putting the roof on the building. Thank God for their help! The roof was on at that point but there weren't any shingles on it. The monsoons were on their way and we needed to get our bare plywood covered. Joan Stowell, started talking to the ladies in the church and got a crew of them together to help the men with the shingles. There weren't very many of us in those days. The ladies weren't thrilled with being on the roof, but they could hammer nails and we needed more hands so they agreed to help.

Two of those women were Rosie Ayala and Carol Braun who are still active members of our church today. The men would get the shingles near the edge of the roof because the ladies were afraid to go there and then they began snapping chalk lines and the women would nail rows of shingles. Together we got the job done before the rains came. That building served us well until the mid 1990's when we began to make plans for relocating. We found 15 acres on La Cañada Dr. and started the process of having plans drawn up for a building. From the time we purchased the property until we actually moved in on Jan 13, 2002, 6 years had elapsed. Needless to say we were bursting at the seams in the building on Calle Privada by the time we moved into our new church on La Cañada.

We sold that church to another pentecostal work and were so grateful that the message of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior would continue to be proclaimed from within its walls. We have been in our new facility for 4 years now and are again beginning to think about building a larger facility. With God's help we will continue to expand and spread the Gospel of Jesus through the communities of Sahuarita and Green Valley. Our heart's desire is to see people's lives changed and made new again through the power of our Lord.