Pastor's hobby raises $85,000 for Moscow seminary

By John Gordon*

The Rev. Sam Duree, a retired United Methodist pastor, sets up a display of his hand-crafted birdhouses at a rose festival in Independence, Texas. UMNS photos by John Gordon.

BRENHAM, Texas (UMNS) -The Rev. Sam Duree could be enjoying his golden years in an easy chair. Instead, the retired United Methodist pastor came up with an idea that took wing: building birdhouses to support a Moscow seminary.

"I build about 35 different kinds," says Duree, 77. "I wake up in the middle of the night and can't go back to sleep, so I design birdhouses."

Duree spends about four hours a day planning, sawing, sanding, drilling, gluing and nailing cedar fence pickets in a workshop in the garage at his home. Then he takes to the road, selling the birdhouses at festivals, farmers' markets and craft shows.

Over the past six years, Duree estimates he has built about 3,000 birdhouses, raising $85,000 for Russia United Methodist Theological Seminary to train pastors in Russia and other nations in the former Soviet Union.

"In 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed, there were no Methodist churches in Russia; now there are 120-plus, and they all have pastors," he says.

"We don't start a new church until we have a trained Russian pastor. And so that meant we needed some place to train them."

Variety of styles
Duree builds birdhouses in a variety of church styles - Gothic, country, Russian Orthodox and chalet churches. He daubs paint on the "windows" to make them look like stained glass. Other favorite designs include a Noah's ark, a bed and breakfast, and a log house.

Many of his customers are collectors who never put the birdhouses outside.

"I had one man that called up after he'd bought a birdhouse and said, 'I want to complain; there are no birds in my birdhouse,'" Duree says. "Before I could say anything, he said, 'Do you think it's because it's sitting on my mantle?'"

Duree started preaching in 1951 and served churches throughout Texas. He was also one of the founders of the Houston International Seaman's Center, a ministry at the Port of Houston.

Later, Duree became a district superintendent in the Houston area before retiring and moving to Brenham in 1996. He saw the need for the Moscow seminary during 14 mission trips to Russia and Siberia.

The beginning
His birdhouse business began with a hobby of restoring antique furniture. Duree saw the collectors' interest in birdhouses at an antiques auction and started designing and building them.

Duree puts the finishing touches on a birdhouse at his workshop in Brenham, Texas.

"I built a few and put them on a little parking lot sale up at the church and made a little money," he explains. "And, I thought if I do this, I'm going to have to get a tax number and keep records, and I don't want to do that."

His wife, Beverly, suggested giving the money to the seminary. And Duree is quick to explain the importance of the project everywhere he goes to sell his birdhouses.

"We have to realize we're a part of a global community and we have a global ministry," he says.

"Isolationism is something that not only was out of step in World War II, it's even more out of step now. Somebody in the Middle East does something, and suddenly my car is more expensive to run. It's all intertwined."

Gloria Alvarado of Deer Park, Texas, bought two birdhouses at a rose festival. "I think they're beautiful. They're going to make wonderful gifts," Alvarado says. "And the fact that it's going to a ministry, it's like a double gift."

Duree says he will probably not make any more physically taxing trips to the former Soviet Union, but he figures he can keep building birdhouses for a decade or more, and the money will make a difference for the Russian seminary.

"I feel like I'm doing what I'm supposed to do," he says. "The good Lord has plans for us, and I'm doing what I can to carry them out."

*Gordon is a freelance writer and producer in Marshall, Texas.