Someone You Should Know: Charlie Kopp

On our Someone You Should Know podcast, 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 Charlie Kopp.

• Automated Transcription

• 0:06
  Hey, welcome back, friends. Today, we are having a conversation with Charlie Kopp. Charlie, welcome to the show. Thanks for coming in. You bet glad to be here. Charlie is you will all recognize him. He's he, if you look up faithfulness in the dictionary, his face is there. Charlie is our lead organizer, master planner of communion. And so if you Yeah, if you don't know his story, he is gonna get going to share with us today, tell us about your your hometown, your your
  
  0:53
  growing up. Okay, well, I'm originally from Pennsylvania, and I grew up in a little town called Spring Grove, and it is well known for the pH glatfelder. It was a paper mill, and some people called it stinky town. Fortunately enough, I lived about seven miles west of there, out in the country, we could occasionally smell it. The wind was coming our direction. But Chris told me that it smelled when she was back there all the time, but I guess I got used to it nice. Anyways, yeah, so I lived out in the country, farmland around me, woods in the background, and that stuff, and just enjoy that. The biggest thing I enjoyed about there, too was in the summertime, at night, being out in the country with the woods behind us when the lightning bugs were out. We call them lightning bugs. Some people call them fireflies, and how we just light up the whole backyard, and that was cool, and we used to, of course, as kids, my brother and I have a brother who's three and a half years older than me and other neighbor kids too, we'd always try to catch them and put them in jars and then release them. So I the house I grew up in. It was an old two story house. It didn't have a bathroom. In fact, we didn't get a bathroom till I think I was about 11 years old. We had the outhouse and the honey bucket that we used that you had to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, and then that was one of our jobs that morning to go dump it in a hole out in the field. Wow.
  
  2:49
  So whole different culture, yes.
  
  2:53
  So yeah, like said, I enjoyed when I was back there hunting, and in the summertime, I would help the farmers make hay and and Buck bales.
  
  3:07
  Oh, yeah. So, yeah, you didn't have a gym back then. Like life was your gym, right? Yep, that was it.
  
  3:15
  And that's actually, that's how I kind of learned to drive a stick car, yeah? Because I drive the tractors and, of course, stick, and that's where I kind of learned, yeah, yeah.
  
  3:28
  So that's incredible. Do you Do you have family still back there?
  
  3:33
  My day I have my brother lives back there. In fact, he lives in the house right next door to where we grew up. Oh, wow. So he didn't move very far, okay,
  
  3:46
  that's great. So then high school, or any other education was that, back back home, back there as well, or
  
  3:57
  Yes, went through course, Spring Grove High School, okay? And I graduated there 12 years. And then after I graduated, I went into the Air Force for four years, and that's how I got out west here. I was stationed at Fairchild. I followed in my dad and my brother's footsteps. My dad was in the Army, Air Corps. Oh, okay. And then my brother, of course, this is back during the Vietnam War, when he graduated from high school in 64 he enlisted in the Air Force. Oh, air forces. And then, of course, I wanted to follow them and and I didn't want to get drafted so well, they said it was 180 day delayed enlistment program where, after I graduated from high school, my mom and dad had a sign for me because I was only 17 to go in and so well, I turned 18 in August, and I left that September, Dan or October to go into. Air Force, yeah,
  
  5:00
  okay, so, okay. Then, then tell us more about your family.
  
  5:09
  Okay, my horse I told you a little bit about, was just my brother and I, and then, of course, for immediate family here, of course, we have three boys, and they're all married, and we have 11 grandkids,
  
  5:28
  the best. And are they? Are they all local? You're no, you have a son that's in ministry, I believe, right?
  
  5:38
  Yes, our middle son, Matt, okay. They were missionaries there for a while over in Africa, so we had a chance to go over there and see them, and that was right when covid hit. So that was an interesting flight. Hopefully we were getting back to stateside, which we did, but now they live in Maryland. Some people, well here at church would know John Coe. He used to be one of the pastors here years ago, and then he went back to Maryland to a Korean church to pastor it. And so our son now is associate pastor there with him.
  
  6:19
  And then your other two kids are local here. Then
  
  6:22
  the other son, our other son, the youngest one, Mike, he is in France. He does international school teaching. Oh, wow. And then our oldest son, Dan, him and his wife and grandkids come here church, okay, and they live exactly one mile from us. Oh, that's nice on the South Hill.
  
  6:48
  That's awesome. Okay, so then you mentioned you went to you were in the Air Force. So tell us more about that. Was that long career for you?
  
  7:03
  It was, I put into four years my what I did out there, my career field was, I was a crew chief on the KC 135 tankers, the refueling tankers. So I worked on those the whole time I was in there. And there was time where I went temporary duty, which is TDY, I would spend six months over in Thailand. And then I made two, let's see, year or six months twice over in Okinawa, and then my last place I went was spent six months in Guam where I worked on B 50 twos. Oh, wow. So it's a experience I'll never forget being, you know, 19 years old, and getting up in the cockpit of the tanker, or the B 52 and when they were pulling maintenance on them, sometimes we had to start the engines up. And so that's what to do that. And, yeah, it was cool. Yeah. Enjoyed it. Yeah. Wow. And then I got to, of course, on the tankers, I would fly missions with them, refueling missions when I was over in Thailand or in Okinawa, and when they went on refuel fighters that were going over in Vietnam and and so I got the lay back in the boom pod where the boomer lays. He's the one that operates the boom. And just watched come up behind us and refuel mines.
  
  8:47
  How many can you refuel in before you needed to refuel yourself on
  
  8:54
  fighters, they refueled. It was either three or four of them, okay? And that was pretty cool, the way it did that the one plane would be getting refueled, and the other two, one would be on the left side of the plane on the right side, then they'd rotate around until the next one would come up and refuel.
  
  9:16
  So your first time refueling a plane was it scary? I imagine, like, you're it's what, like finding a needle in the middle of a haystack, like, like flying through the air. Like, how that all? Well, how
  
  9:31
  does it work? Yeah, I didn't do the refueling myself, okay? It was the boom operator he was doing. I went along on the plane, okay? And so I was just able to, yeah, watch, yeah.
  
  9:45
  That's incredible. Wow. And this is all, like, many years ago, yeah, like before, like, obviously, like, advancement of super technology. So that's pretty. Be pretty advanced, yeah?
  
  10:01
  Now, with the newer tankers that they came out with, the boom operator sets up in front the main cabin and the TV screen in front of him in a joystick, so they took all the video, yeah, really?
  
  10:18
  Oh, man, that's great. And so, so you did that for was that your career? Then that was
  
  10:25
  my whole career. Yeah, doing that. I went in 1969 and I got out in 1973
  
  10:31
  okay, okay, wow, awesome. Well, for on behalf of your church, thank you for serving. Thank you. Okay, so, how did you come to know Jesus?
  
  10:46
  Well, this make a long story short, at that time, I was dating Chris Weber dating, and she was going to hear a gentleman named Bob Harrington, and he was out at the they used to call it the Boone street barn, because it was on West Boone there, nice. And she was going there and the Lord's plans, how he worked that out. Then I was out at the base. I didn't have a car, but my roommate, I was able to get his car and was able to drive out to there, and I told her I'd meet her there, and we were sitting there, and he was one of those guys he was when he said, You're going to go to hell if you don't repent, and pounding his fist on the pulpit and and when he gave the altar call, I felt I don't want to go to hell, so I stood up and went forward and didn't think about Chris. I just think about myself, there and went up, and that's when I received Christ.
  
  12:05
  Wow, that's incredible. It never ceases to amaze me, the like all the different ways the Lord brings his kids to himself. Some stories can be similar, but no two are the same. It's It's pretty incredible. So thanks for sharing that. Okay, so Charlie, how did you end up at Faith Bible Church?
  
  12:32
  Well, we started there from the beginning, when we the faith Bible Church, so when they called it the wagon train when we didn't have a church building to go to, and where we were meeting at different schools and and so that's how we got started. Wow.
  
  12:52
  So you, you guys are, are have have been through the ups and downs of the journey the Lord has had had for faith, Bible, church, so you guys have have seen a lot, yes, so yeah, that's that's sweet. Well, so what's your ministry involvement now?
  
  13:15
  Well, I of course, the Head usher and getting the people the help, you know, for offering seating people, and then for communion, setting that up each Sunday. And I'll have three other guys, or two other guys now, Brett Hughes and, of course, Mike bought them. We take turns rotating each month who sends out for the emails to get the servers for communion, which that has been a big help to have Brett come aboard and help out with that and communion.
  
  13:59
  Yeah, yeah. It's, it's thank you for everything you do. I It's, I know it's a joy for me to to be able to serve unto you and that in that capacity. So thanks for your leadership in that Charlie. So what is God teaching you now?
  
  14:17
  Patience and trusting in Him when I'm one that I always want to get my ducks in a row, and if I don't, can't do that, I get anxious about things, and I know I just have to allow him to do the work and that he's in control, and trust in Him.
  
  14:40
  That's good. So how can, how can we be praying for you
  
  14:47
  that I would be live a godly example to all my grandkids, and that they would see Christ in me and just the strive feel. Will till the day Lord takes me home due to work for him and in the following in him,
  
  15:09
  yeah, well, we will thank you. Thank you, Charlie, for again, just your testimony of faithfulness before we let you go, we got to do Seth's favorite the speed round. Okay, are you ready? I'm ready.
  
  15:31
  Here we go, cats or dogs. Dogs, pineapple on pizza. Yes. Bummer. Okay. Pets, dogs. Favorite book, besides the Bible,
  
  15:45
  unbroken, Ooh, good. One
  
  15:47
  best surprise gift
  
  15:50
  is when our son and his wife of that time, they were over in the Philippines, and they surprised us by being with us on our 35th wedding anniversary.
  
  16:04
  Ah, that is sweet. Okay, what would you do with extra time if you didn't have
  
  16:11
  to sleep? Well, I'm one of those, probably people think I'm crazy. I love when it snows to get my snow blower out, and I would snow blow probably the whole town if I could. And in the summertime, I enjoy being outside, working in yard, mowing grass and just yard work.
  
  16:34
  Nice. Favorite place to eat out in Spokane,
  
  16:37
  wild sage.
  
  16:39
  I love that place, all right. Well, that's it, folks, there you have it. Charlie, thank you so much for coming on the show, and we look forward to having your dear bride on the show. Chris, so thank you
  
  16:52
  again. Thank you for having me.

Caleb Effinger

Caleb and his wife, Malisa, have been members at Faith since 2025 and have two daughters. Caleb hosts our Someone You Should Know podcast and has hosted his own podcast called "Strong Courageous Men".

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