My wife and I came to Chokoloskee from Brooksville, FL, in 2019. We came in April of that year and joined our names to over twenty other Pastors before us, to assume the pastorate of Chokoloskee Church of God. We had left a large, thriving Assembly of God church where we had attended for five years, two of which were as their Children’s Pastors.

I had been ordained with the Church of God since 1998, and during that time, my wife and I had started and pastored two previous churches, one with help from a local Church of God, where my wife served as the Worship Leader.

In early 2019, after I had called the state office, I was told of a small church in the Everglades National Park on a small Island, called Chokoloskee. The church had a small congregation at the time, and the church itself was the third such church to sit on the property. The first one was built and officially opened in 1913. This marked the beginning of over 100 years that a congregation has been meeting on Chokoloskee. It’s currently the third-oldest congregation in the Church of God in Florida. When my wife and I came down to speak in early 2019, it had been two years since Hurricane Irma devastated the area, and especially the little church. Under the leadership of then Pastor Lynette Morris, they were able to remodel the church, thanks to many generous people locally and from afar.

Though the church had suffered bad water damage, the building itself had withstood the Category 5 hurricane, as it had many hurricanes before it. The block building was built by Pastor Thomas Jefferson Wells in the late 1950s. It was the third church building to sit on that property.

Pastor Thomas J. Wells had a thriving congregation, and along with his wife, Willie Emma Wells, they had built a beautiful church to serve those who lived in the Ten Thousand Islands. His son Robert Wells, along with his wife Vickie, are faithful member of our church today. Pastor Wells was actually pastoring up the road in Immokalee, Florida, where he had built another church, when the call came for him to come to Chokoloskee. He and the pastor here on the Island decided to swap churches, and that’s how Pastor Wells ended up coming to Chokoloskee. It would turn out to be a great decision.

From its beginnings, the little church on the island would have fish dinners for the community, and one tradition that still stands today is that if you want to get baptized, it’s in Chokoloskee Bay, in the same place that hundreds of others have been baptized, at Martha and Craig Daniels’ home on the Western side of the Island. If only those waters could speak, there would be some incredible stories!

When my wife and I settled in on the island, it became apparent in a short period of time that our little 100-seat church needed to be higher off the ground. So beginning in late 2019 and into 2020, plans were made to build a new church, and one that would stand high enough above sea level to not flood anymore. After over three years of designing, planning, and county inspections, Chokoloskee Family Church, the 4th church built on the same land donated in 1913, was finally completed. The new church will officially open its doors in January of 2026, 113 years after the first church opened. The new 160-seat sanctuary will continue a long tradition of serving the Ten Thousand Islands and the incredible families that live here.

My wife and I are honored to be part of a long history of pastors and members who have prayed, wept, given, and worked hard to keep the church going strong. Many have asked what will become of the current church building that Pastor Wells built. Well, it will serve as a multipurpose building and renamed The Thomas Jefferson Wells Family Life Center in honor of the pastor who built it. The current church was designed to look like the old church it is replacing, and inside, as you enter through the hallway, there will be photos of our rich history, because sometimes, you have to look back to see ahead.