Wheaton College Alumni Magazine Winter 2014 | Page 34

booming tourism industry and a total population of about 510,000—
Australia-wide, McCrindle Research estimates regular church attendance
at only 8 percent.
Like Nate and Faith, Peirce and Christina have submitted their
plans for development approval, and are actively raising funds with
the hope of welcoming guests to Pilgrim Hill by the end of 2014.
For Peirce, YHM also served as an introduction to the idea of
hospitality ministry. He served at both The Shelter in Amsterdam
and in Spain at The Fuente del Peregrino. At the Fuente, workers
shared a free meal with guests each night. “People were so blessed
by this kindness,” he says, adding that they plan to share a free meal
with their guests in the same spirit.
In Amsterdam he met a man who had been a male prostitute and
had just come to Christ. “In watching the transformation in his life,
the power of God’s work through a ministry of hospitality really
struck home,” Peirce says, noting that the man later married.
After Wheaton, Peirce considered Bible translation after traveling
to Papua New Guinea with SIL. “I loved my time in Papua New
Guinea . . . singing with young folk under the stars on the beach at
night . . . teaching card games to the kids in the dirt under
their houses . . . but it’s the post-Christian west that grabbed my

heart as profoundly needy for the gospel at this time in history.”
A Spanish major at Wheaton, Peirce studied German at Middle bury in
Vermont and then church history at Regent College in Vancouver. He
met his wife, a harpist and singer from Tasmania, while she was on tour
in the United States.
“Starting at 13, I knew I was going to go into ministry. The question
has been how. It took meeting Christina for the pieces to fit together,
and Pilgrim Hill was born,” Peirce says. Though he always thought
he would wind up in Europe, “the pieces made so much more sense in
Tasmania, where Christina already had a host of connections and knew
the culture.”
Today the closest alternative lodging to Pilgrim Hill is a “carbon
negative, posh, eco-retreat that runs sacred healing circles and various
other spiritualist events.” Peirce and Christina, with their team of seven,
offer something completely different: the gospel.
Both couples understand that working with a transient population
means they may not see the fruit of their interactions. Says Nate, “I know
that with or without Pilgrim House some pilgrims are experiencing
change. God is already present and at work here, and in the lives of
everyone walking. Our goal is to be part of that journey and to do our
best to encourage each pilgrim to move closer to Jesus.”

Clockwise, from top left: Evelyn
(Eve) Baehr, age 5. Jarred Khu,
principal of a local Christian school,
volunteers to help clear the land.
Stakes in the ground mark the site
of the future hostel. Margaret (Meg)
Baehr, age 3. Part of the couple’s
ministry at Pilgrim Hill will involve
hosting meals.

Photo creditS: Jordan de hooG (clearinG the treeS Shot); lili Baehr (StaKeS in the Ground Shot); JoShua laMont (SettinG taBle
toGether); MarGaret SonneMann (faMily Shot).

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