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Biography

Called to be a pastor and apostle for her church, Pastor Geraldine Sanford has learned to succeed in the face of discrimination in Council Bluffs and in her denomination. She has a heart for caring for the youth of her church, a heart for growing the church, and a heart for all believers in and out of her denomination.

Transcript

Date of Interview: 3 April 2008

Shaun Hampton: Hi! I’m Shaun Hampton and

Jordan Sanford: I’m Jordan Sanford and this is Apostle

Shaun: and Pastor

Jordan and Shaun: Geraldine Sanford!

Geraldine Sanford: All right!

Jordan: What advantages did you have being black in Council Bluffs?

Geraldine Sanford: Well, when I moved here back in the ’60s, the advantage that I have for being black was that it was so few blacks, everybody knew my name.

Shaun: The second question we have to ask you is: what kind of discrimination did you encounter in the business world?

Geraldine Sanford: I’d say quite a few of them when you think about it. When I would apply for a job, sometimes they would throw a test on me and no one else had to take a test. So I encountered a lot of that. I encountered a lot of…the other race of people would see you coming and automatically say the houses has been rented or the job has been filled. It was rough during the late ’50s and early ’60s of being black in Council Bluffs.

Jordan: Our third question is: How long have you been in the church ministry?

Geraldine Sanford: All my life I’ve been in part of the ministry, but I started pastoring back in 19 and 84.

Shaun: Our fourth question is: What year did you get your first church?

Geraldine Sanford: When I got that position in 19 and 84. They put me in a little church a very small, because you do get a lot of discrimination against men. They won’t put you in a large facility-back then. Now they’ll assign you to a large facility. But then they give you like a little one room church and expect you to cause that to grow. And God is good because he caused it to grow we soon moved out of that and into a larger facility.

Jordan: What are you doing in the Black Church in Council Bluffs today?

Geraldine Sanford: Well, trying to teach you guys how to be good Christians. (Laughter) No really, we’re seeking after the youth and we’re doing activities that are causing the young people to try to stay in school. One of the things I’ve noticed is that the kids in Council Bluffs has such a high drop-off rate. So I’m telling them every Sunday, you won’t be successful if you don’t graduate from high school. We’re trying to work with the parents. We have programs that we have in our church now, teaching the kids how to respect their parents and teaching the parents how to respect children. One of the activities, we get to leave on the 26th and go to Des Moines to the Drake Relays. That’s a nice outing for the young people.

Shaun: Our sixth and our final question is: What do you plan on doing in the future for Black Churches in Council Bluffs?

Apostle Geraldine Sanford: Well, I plan to do some fellowshipping, where all of the black churches can do something where they would become one and not so many denominations here because sometimes we discriminate. The Baptist against the Methodist and the Pentecostal against the…oh...Baptist or whatever. Different churches. We need to learn how to fellowship one church, as one church in God.

Shaun: And this is our interview. I’ m Shaun Hampton.

Jordan: And I’m Jordan Sanford.

Shaun and Jordan: And once again this is Apostle Geraldine Sanford.

Geraldine Sanford: Thank you.