Pastor Drew Anderson

I was born in Goshen Indiana, but spent 41/2 years in Durban South Africa as a missionary kid. My wife Whitney and I were married in 2005. We have been blessed with two children, a son Harrison (8) and a daughter Lola (4). I have been ordained in both as both an independent Baptist and as a Southern Baptist. I enjoy history, nature, world cultures, basketball, animals, reading, music, and football.

I received a Bachelor of Arts from Piedmont International University in Winston-Salem, NC majoring in Pastoral Studies, a Master of Ministry from Piedmont International University and Graduate School, and a Master in Biblical Counseling from Luther Rice Seminary, GA.

Kathleen Schultz Mendez, Assistant Treasurer

I have attended Bethel since 1950. I was saved at 10 years during Vacation Bible School conducted by a team from Child Evangelism, and I was baptized two years later. As a teen I taught Sunday School and helped with Vacation Bible School. I graduated from Collinsville High School and Southern Illinois University Edwardsville with a BS in Education majoring in history. I left home for the US Army in 1971 and served as a Women’s Army Corps and Quartermaster officer in Alabama, Virginia, Chicago, Thailand and Alaska for 15 years before being medically retired. While in the military I received a Master’s Degree in Human Resources Management. 

In 1989 I returned to the area and to Bethel. I worked as a secretary at the Veterans Administration hospitals at Jefferson Barracks and John Cochran Divisions until retiring in 2009. I have been a Sunday School teacher, an AWANA leader, and Church Clerk; now I am one of the Assistant Treasurers. From 1990 until 2017 I was a volunteer with Freedom Flyers Prison Ministries (now Law and Grace ), a program of Faith Baptist Church in Belleville, as a reading tutor and a teacher of the Ladies’ Bible Class on Saturday mornings at the Madison County Jail. About the same time I helped form a volunteer group interested in Bible translation, the Cameron Townsend Memorial Wycliffe Chapter of St. Louis, under the umbrella of Wycliffe Bible Translators. The chapter, which meets four or five times a year, supports missionaries who are translators or support personnel. The group now includes five Liberian women who are working on translating the Bible into their languages.

I am an election judge for my precinct in Edwardsville, I tutor reading and math for the GED program at Lewis and Clark Community College, and I occasionally play a “standardized patient” for the SIUE School of Pharmacy to help test pharmacy students on their skills in dealing with patients. 

Recreation includes: reading English mystery writers from the 1930’s and 40’s, such as 

Dorothy L. Sayers, Ngaio Marsh and Marjorie Allingham; following politics; working crossword puzzles; collecting wisdom monkeys (see no evil); and traveling to historical places near and far. My next trip may be to the Erie Canal.

Tara Skipper: Assistent Treasurer

Married to Alonzo aka Joe Skipper since 1998. Has 2 children, Alonzo III aka Trey and Grace. I met Joe while serving on the USS LASALLE AGF-3. We went or separate ways and reconnected in 1997. We have ben active members at Bethel since 2000. I am originally from Texas then Delaware.

Cheryl Baker: Assistent Treasurer

Has been a member of Bethel for 5 years. Currently serving as assistant treasurer. Married for 23 years, no children, but two cats.