Someone You Should Know: Bob Millican

In our Someone You Should Know series, we interview Faith members to help us get to know them, see how God is working in their lives, and make new connections within our community. In this episode we get to know Bob Millican.

Meet today's podcast guest: Bob Millican

• Automated Transcription

• Seth Weber 0:00
  Today on faith matters, someone you should know with Bob Millican,
  
  Seth Weber 0:10
  I'm Seth Weber, and you're listening to faith matters, a podcast designed to help you think biblically in matters of the Christian faith and update you on matters of faith, Bible, church. Ian,
  
  Seth Weber 0:35
  it's a pleasure to have you here, Mr. Millican, I mean Bob Millican, I mean Bob,
  
  Bob Millican 0:40
  it's a pleasure to be here. A little nervous Seth, this is not my normal forte, but I'm glad to be here.
  
  Seth Weber 0:50
  So tell me, where were you born? Where did you grow up? I was
  
  Bob Millican 0:53
  born in Moses Lake to my mom and dad, Maxine and Earl Millican. They were lived there before the town was called Moses Lake, really okay. Raised there my whole life. I became a young adult, I decided it was time to get out. Okay, it's a good place to be raised, a good place to leave. It was, it was a great childhood in those days and back in the 50s and 60s, you got any fun memories to share? Had a bicycle, had friends, we just ran the town. Lived by the lake for many years, swam, fished. I had a goal one time, Moses Lake has a then had a lot of carp, okay, which is a large garbage fish. And I had a goal to kill 100 100 carp one day, because we would go carp hunting, different methods of doing that. But I met that goal. Wow, that's impressive. Ian quite proud of that. Quite a mess. Did you eat them all when you were done? Never ate them. Never, never ate one carp in my life. But anyhow, that was kind of a funny, fun time. But yeah, it was great place to live. Grew up hunting, being in the sand dunes of Moses Lake.
  
  Seth Weber 2:11
  So you were there through high school, okay, yes. And then after that, did you? Did you go to higher education, anywhere?
  
  Bob Millican 2:19
  I went to the Junior College. There Big Bend, Community College. At that time, I had had interest in pursuing Park administration, recreation, wanting to be like a state park ranger. Nice. I did almost two years there, transferred to Ew, Eastern Washington University continued pursuing that education, and then they dropped that emphasis of Park administration. And I'm like, Yeah, what do I do now? So my my counselor said that, you know, everybody has to take a rec therapy class. So I took it, enjoyed it. Realized I had a heart for, you know, those with developmental disabilities, okay? And then that led on to I graduated. I was actually in and out of college for 10 years. Seth, wow. I dropped out a couple times for personal reasons, and then went back during the time that Janice I got married, okay,
  
  Seth Weber 3:20
  well, speaking of Janice, why don't you tell us about how you and Janice met, and your family and stuff.
  
  Bob Millican 3:28
  We met in college. She remembers meeting me at a social event. I didn't quite remember that, and then we ended up having a class together called psychology of child and adolescents, which is kind of ironic, but in that we became good friends and did one dance together at a at a school dance. It was like a Sadie Hawkins type of thing, okay? And our, you know, our, our romance started from that point. And this was in college. You said in college? Yeah. Okay, so that was in 1979
  
  Seth Weber 4:08
  I believe. Okay, we met. And then what year did you guys get married?
  
  Bob Millican 4:12
  1981 okay, it didn't take too long, yeah, a little bit of time. But
  
  Bob Millican 4:16
  yeah, she became a very good friend of mine before, yeah. And
  
  Seth Weber 4:19
  then tell me about your children. We have.
  
  Bob Millican 4:23
  We raised five sons, and the oldest, I believe he's turning 42 Caleb, okay, Janice will be better at the ages. Keegan is our second son. Caleb's a nurse, and Keegan does demolition work. He's kind of a crew leader on that. Corey is a pastor, associate pastor in Northern California, sent out from here, yep, yes. And then see, Ethan is starting his own business. Been doing that for a couple years, as he does excavation like you know. If you need a road put in or some small trees pulled out, he does stuff like that nice and clear, of course. And the Czech Republic sent out by this church. Wonderful,
  
  Seth Weber 5:09
  wonderful. Tell us how you came to know Jesus. You
  
  Bob Millican 5:13
  know God was very patient with me. Seth, I had several opportunities or times that people shared the gospel with me, and I just was not interested. I was interested in the things of my own life at that time, not necessarily always good things, sure, but I had heard it, and we got married March 21 of 81 and we were both at a non denominational rally, kind of a Christian service. It was a Christian service, okay? And that was in Portland, and we're sitting up at the top, literally the top seats, the top row of this the Portland Coliseum. And the man was sharing the gospel, man named Bill Britt. And I listened, and he made a statement. He said, if, if you were to walk out and get hit by a bus? And he was from South Carolina, so he had that accent. He said, Would you go to heaven or hell? And after everything I heard, I realized I had to go to hell. And the first, the second chapter in Ephesians, where talks about the depravity of man, and you know, the wickedness of us and wanting to live in our flesh. And it described me how I how I was, he was speaking to the Ephesian church, of course, and that any good works that I thought I had, because I thought I was a good person, that I may, I'd probably go to heaven, but after hearing the Gospel and understanding that none of my works would save me, that it was faith in Christ, Jesus, Grace. Even the faith that God gave me at that moment to believe in the gospel was a gift of grace. Yeah, and so that's, that's, I became saved. That there was an altar call, so to speak. And it was a large event, and several 100 people went down and received Christ at that time. And that started our journey, my journey of pursuing God.
  
  Seth Weber 7:34
  Wow. Okay, that's awesome. You get married. You get saved.
  
  Bob Millican 7:39
  We were married in March, got saved in July, early July, and I was at the time, I think I was going to college, and I was working part time at a facility called the adolescent treatment center. Was the center for youth with mental illness, okay? And I would take the bus to and fro, and I was on the bus head at home, and sat on the bus, and young lady sat beside me. And this kind of how I started coming to fourth Memorial, okay? Because we didn't have a church, yeah. And started the conversation, I shared that I was a new Christian, and she said, where you go to church? And then she invited us to go to fourth Memorial. Oh, okay. And why not, yeah, and so we, that's where we started.
  
  Seth Weber 8:29
  Did you just come immediately when, when faith split off?
  
  Bob Millican 8:34
  Yeah, we were at fourth for nine years approximately, and then the church split, okay? And I remember telling Janice, let's just watch how each side, so to speak, handles this. And in that I we went with the split. Those were hard times. There were hard times. What's your career path look like? Okay, so I did eventually get my degree in recreation, leisure services, with the emphasis in therapeutic started working at a place called Well, we both Janice and I did a couple summer. We were like temporary employees for summer time place called Interlake School, which was for the profound, severely disabled, okay and physical and brain injury stuff like that. Very disabled. Is that
  
  Seth Weber 9:32
  the place that used to be across from from Lakeland,
  
  Bob Millican 9:35
  actually it's closer to the eastern state. Oh, is it okay, which has now been torn down. Gotcha. So I worked there. Then I Yeah, then I went back to school again. Okay, they called me to ask if I wanted to come back and work full time. I said, Man, I'm in school. I can't. And they said, and this was back then. What about Janice? Because she had worked there part time to turn to her, so you want to work in early. Cunning. She's, yeah, why not? We didn't have any kids at the time, and while she was there, we got, got pregnant with our first son. Okay, perfect timing, yeah. And so she worked two years, and then they when she quit, I just slid into her position. So that started my 42 and a half years of state employment from Interlake. I worked there for two years, and then I transferred up to Eastern State Hospital. Worked. What
  
  Seth Weber 10:31
  kind of stuff did you do at Interlake? And then Eastern State
  
  Bob Millican 10:36
  Interlake, like I said, they're so severely disabled, a lot of was just trying to get them to respond to things, okay, you know, working on some of the things that the education work was working on, we would, we'd take him to the Y for, right, for therapeutic swimming, okay, which was really good. Do do some outings with them. Just get them out of the out of the hospital, out of the place, special events. So that was at Interlake, and then when I transferred up to Eastern, I said, at least, at least these people can tell me yes or no that they want to do something, because I got really burned out at at Interlake, and so I went up to Eastern and and as as a recreation staff there, okay, and really loved that I was blessed to work there for the many years I did, and the Lord used me in that capacity, did boy we had Eastern has quite a facility of have a Bowling Alley, indoor gardening, greenhouse, wood shop, full size gymnasium, weight room, a cardio room. So all that, all those things I did, big special events, outings. So it was, it was a good job. We were, you know, I had had some authority, but most patients knew that they gave me a hard time. I they would want to be able to come off the ward and go do fun things.
  
  Seth Weber 12:03
  So tell us about your ministry involvement at the church over the years. Stir
  
  Bob Millican 12:09
  it out in children's ministry. Janice and I under Susan Olson, okay with the toddlers, the young, young ones, okay? Kind of helping us train for our own kids. Yeah, and then we got involved in choir, okay? Did that for several years. And then through choir, under John Dirks leadership, we were growth group leaders for for a season, okay? And then that moved into becoming biblical counselors. Went through the training for that, and we did some biblical counseling, marriage pre marriage counseling, okay? For
  
  Seth Weber 12:46
  a while, you guys have been all over the place, yeah, didn't know some of those things. And
  
  Bob Millican 12:50
  then I was involved in what was called Ambassador core, okay, which was a ministry I did with Bob Gardner and Brad Alden. And there was a handful of men, usually men, and we would go out when, like, people came to our church, we're checking it out. We'd follow up and go to their homes, okay? And then sometimes just do cold, cold knocking and gospel evangelizing that way. Oh, okay. Then we took a took a break for a ministry for a while, and and I'm back in children's ministry now, currently, full circle. Yeah, this all the way back working with the first and second graders. And it's just cracks me up. How smart house actually, how brilliant some of these young kids are that you parents are raising. And so it's been a joy,
  
  Seth Weber 13:42
  nice. What has God been teaching you lately? Oh, man,
  
  Bob Millican 13:50
  it took me, Seth, some years to really come to grasp that there still where there was nothing I needed to do to earn God's love. And I think this may be typical for a lot of Christians, maybe that, you know, I got to be into God's word more, you know, I got to do all these things. And it wasn't. But several years ago, I realized I don't need to do these things to earn God's love. Jesus did that for me, and that was real freeing. So I continue to grow in that, just trusting that what I'm doing to pursue Christ is enough right now, I want to grow in that I want to grow in my time in the Word and prayer and loving and knowing Jesus as my Savior and as my friend, so still growing in my understanding of being married. You know, aren't we level? Yeah, loving my. Wife and living with her in an understandable way, and I feel like that, but God, she forgives me, and God forgives me.
  
  Seth Weber 15:10
  Yeah, it's definitely freeing to know that all those things that we do in the Christian life are a response to God's grace, and not to earn God's grace, because if we earn it, it's not grace, you're missing the point. So, yeah, well, how can the church be praying for you right now? Right
  
  Bob Millican 15:28
  now. It's funny, I had a call from my older brother. I'm the youngest of four in my family, okay, my oldest brother, Jim is in his 80s. He's 10 years older than me. I'm almost 70. Yeah. Anyhow, got a call from my brother that's closest to me in age that my sister's husband died. So be praying for how God might use this in the future days. Of you know, if there's like a memorial service, how can we speak into that. As far as the gospel, none of my Well, my older brother might know Christ, but that you know, just future ministry opportunities, being retired now, just seeing where God might use me more. Okay, parenting, still helping with you know, we're not, we're not, yeah, just our own children and now our daughters, praying for our daughters that they'd come to know Christ and our grandchildren. So our sons, we're seeing God move in there. So we're thankful to see that, that they're coming back to the Lord, yeah, there's signs of that wonderful. Yeah, okay. Well,
  
  Seth Weber 16:47
  we will continue to pray. Are you ready for the speed round and
  
  Bob Millican 16:51
  we'll get some water.
  
  Seth Weber 17:00
  Cats are dogs, dogs. Pineapple on pizza. Yes,
  
  Bob Millican 17:03
  pets, no, not at this time, and probably won't, okay,
  
  Seth Weber 17:06
  all right, but you have had we've lost dogs. We've had a lot
  
  Bob Millican 17:09
  of dogs. We've had cats. We've had RATS, RATS, RATS, yeah,
  
  Seth Weber 17:16
  which, which son asked for those. Well,
  
  Bob Millican 17:19
  we're counseled by a pet store that rats were a good pet to start with. Okay, so we got some rats, and sadly, they weren't. They weren't both the same sex, so we had a lot more rats. So about the kind of animal you want reproducing? So yeah, they were in the cage. Seth. But then we moved on to, I think we, I don't forget a cat or dog first, but we, one time, had both.
  
  Seth Weber 17:50
  So favorite book, besides the Bible, David in the
  
  Bob Millican 17:54
  Sphinx, it was a children's book, which I enjoyed. Okay, since then, Jan has found a copy of it for me, for for the grandkids. Oh,
  
  Seth Weber 18:04
  fun. Favorite band,
  
  Bob Millican 18:06
  probably three. Dog Night, okay, saw them in concert about three or four times. Nice. Favorite movie or TV show through the Shadow Lands. Braveheart. Also best surprise gift you've ever gotten, I would say, from my lovely wife a couple of surprise gifts. One was a which, which is framed and hanging in our house, a silhouette picture that was done of her and I were dating by by a man named Gordon Vail. And then she surprised me with a quilt she made, which on one side Gonzaga and the other side of Seahawks.
  
  Seth Weber 18:43
  Very nice. So two wonderful gifts. Yes, if you didn't have to sleep, what would you do with all the extra time?
  
  Bob Millican 18:49
  Probably, work on my house. Work on the yard. Do more outdoor stuff, hiking, camping, nice. Spend time with family, traveling, not a lot. We're not big travelers, but anyhow,
  
  Seth Weber 19:04
  nice. And then last question, favorite place to eat out in Spokane. Well,
  
  Bob Millican 19:09
  recently it's been Chipotle. Nice.
  
  Seth Weber 19:11
  That's the end. It's been wonderful to have you here. Thank you. Seth, faith, Bible, church. Bob Millican is someone you should know you

Seth Weber

Seth is the Communications Director at Faith Bible Church and loves anything to do with design, video, audio and tech. He and his wife Kaitlyn have four children.

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