Ask Drew Colebank what inspired him to specialize and practice family medicine and he’ll tell you: it happened in church.
“There’s a lot of need here….and a lot of potential,” Drew tells me when I catch up with him between classes at Cornerstone Care Teaching Health Center in Mt. Morris.
He’s talking about Masontown, the town where he grew up, the town where nearly every church is part of the Klondike Clergy Association, the town where everybody knows your name. This homegrown ministerium, named after the Klondike coal boom days, is a unique, sermon-in-its-shoes brigade of churches and churchgoing neighbors working together to serve a community that is working hard to renew itself in an ever-changing world.
“I’ve always wanted to do something where I could help people and use my mind – and build long lasting relationships with patients,” Drew admits. The precocious kid, who was on the Albert-Gallatin Zero Robotics team that competed in NASA’s International Space Station games while in high school, went on to study pre-medical sciences, neuroscience and religious studies as an undergrad at Pitt and earn his doctorate in Osteopathic Medicine at WVU. Drew discovered his specialty in 2019 while home earning money for medical school. “I remember it was Memorial Day weekend at the Brethren Church and the the pastor passed out. …He was turning gray and there was one other person who knew CPR. We took turns while I dialed 911….” That 15 minutes of CPR saved a life. “I decided to go into family medicine. Plus, I made sure everybody learned CPR!”
Another year of residency with Cornerstone and Andrew Colebank, DO. can hang out his shingle.“I love my town and I hope to live here.”
Helping Hands Thrift Store on Main Street is an important project and so is the community soup kitchen, started by the First Presbyterian Church 17 years ago. There’s a meal every Tuesday, with hymns on the piano and a local pastor on site to commiserate, Masontown Matters board member Frank Martin tells me. “Our monthly food bank serves 50 families.” He’s also happy to mention that the Free and Accepted Masons Valley Lodge 459 has been here for 150 years, has 200 plus members and does its part with Make a Wish and aiding families in general.
The churches also get together for one Sunrise Service and one Vacation Bible program for all the kids.
When I contact Pastor Benji Zilka and Deacon Louie Diamond of Masontown Brethren Church about projects they participate in, the list of shared community events fills my screen. I pick my favorite: “The milk distribution happened during Covid….. it ended up distributing all kinds of food,” As a joint effort between firemen, police, the borough and business in Masontown, “We gave over 20,000 gallons of milk.”
This unique multi-church community will come together once again on May 21 for a CROP Walk, a nationwide movement sponsored by Church World Service to fundraise to end hunger and poverty in the US and the world.
How to find a photo that represents the loving egalitarian spirit of the churches and churchgoers of Masontown? Pastor Benji and his daughters found it in the cemetery by his church. Masontown native Mary Malinda Sterling (1859-1933) is listed as the first woman in America to be ordained as a Brethren Church pastor in 1889.
Her life reflects the quality of the education she received in Masontown’s public school and her degree from Monongahela College in Jefferson, which she finished in four, not six years. Her life of teaching, evangelizing and caring for her family when needed reflects the value the Brethren Church puts on women as the spiritual and mental equal of men. Her life offers those who came after her a reflection of the value of education and the spiritual rewards of “duty and from wherever the call is heard, be it from the pulpit, farm or home, it is always heeded.”