hris and Sharon Blodgett are a married couple from the Pahrump, Nevada area. When they came to Oregon to "help" the Christian Media ministry, they represented that Sharon had been a police officer from Nevada and Chris represented that he came from the motion picture and television industry. Both were involved in a 501(c)(3) ministry known as Perfect Gift Ministries, Inc. - as well as a church known as New Hope, from the Pahrump, Nevada area.

Chris Blodgett called us one day in the Summer of 1999 and said he and his wife Sharon were coming to Jacksonville for a visit. I met with them on July 12th, 1999. During that meeting, they indicated an intense interest in our type of ministry and said they felt that God was leading them to come and join themselves to our ministry in Oregon. In Nevada, Chris had told us his work was unsteady, the rent was high, and they were desperate to get out. They represented that they would like to help us in any way possible. After a couple more conversations with Chris over the telephone, Susan and I agreed that we could certainly use the help, and invited them to come and stay in our guest cabin.

he Blodgetts moved in on October 21, 1999. In the first few weeks, stories began pouring out about how terrible life in Pahrump had been. They repeatedly complained about a "filthy" trailer which they had rented back in Pahrump. "It was unlivable," they said. The landlady was a "tyrant" who insisted on $600 per month for a "bug infested tin box." The place sounded dreadful, so when they saw our cozy 2 room cabin, Chris said it would do nicely.

They told us the church they had been involved with had become so apostate that the pastor had organized other pastors in the area to pray against Chris and Sharon specifically. This was the devil's way, they said, of squashing their very fruitful ministry Perfect Gift Ministries.

They told us that Chris was being unfairly persecuted by his ex-wife in Los Angeles. She was a lesbian, they said, and she had lied about everything in order to get Chris to pay her alimony and their two children's financial child support. Chris told us that because he had opposed the apostacy at their church, an elder of his former church that worked in the District Attorney's office was out to get him. He said this man was attempting to use the suit filed by his ex-wife to destroy them. Chris told us they had purchased a brand new Sport Utility Vehicle (one of those $20-25 thousand dollar models) and the Ford Motor Company had "ripped them off." They claimed the new vehicle had actually been in an accident and Ford (or their dealer) had fixed it, concealed the fact that it had been in a crash, and sold it to them as a new vehicle. Accordingly, they stopped making payments on the truck until the conflict could be worked out.

Chris also told us the Lord had told him to run their credit card debt up very high and give the money to some worthy Christians. This was clearly wrong, but the way they presented the information was somehow compelling enough to convince us they were sincere in their belief that "God told them to do it."

While I believed the truck story, I felt the credit card scenario demonstrated they had not yet allowed the Lord to teach them how to be good stewards of money. Indeed, many Christians have never learned how to manage assets the Lord gives them, and I resolved to be very careful about finances with Chris.

Even though many of their assorted tales sounded quite fantastic, I thought "wow, these people are really being attacked because they're preaching the truth." Susan was more reserved in her response to the incredible tales being spun.

Chris told us he had once been a paid killer for the military and worked as a sniper and assassin in Southeast Asia. He said they would send him in to a village like some character out of an Arnold Schwartzeneggar or Sly Stallone action film, and he would murder key enemies of our government forces.

He told us when he came back from overseas killing, he was a lighting director in Las Vegas for major celebrity headliners. He said he worked for Steven Spielberg and other big directors. He claimed he worked on big pictures like Outbreak with oscar winner Dustin Hoffman. Sharon also claimed to work at one of the LA studios and to have written many scripts for episodic television.

He claimed to have toured the country as the sound engineer with top bands like Smoky Robinson, Jethro Tull, and Foreigner. He claimed he was aggressively recruited to go to Canada and do engineering for a major network television project. He claimed he worked for the NBC series The Watcher when he was in Las Vegas. He knew certain things about the music and TV industry that gave his bragging a certain validity.

They told us when he worked in Hollywood in the movies, some weeks he made well over $10,000 per week. He claimed he was injured on the job and the technical union he belonged to paid him a cash settlement of tens of thousands of dollars.

Chris and Sharon told us a story about a young friend of theirs that they had counseled in the Lord. Apparently, it didn't take because he shot himself. The tale goes that the young man's family was wealthy and was so impressed with Chris that they had told the Blodgetts that Chris was to receive the young man's inheritance of over $1 million dollars. We heard a lot about "boy, when that inheritance comes in, why we'll do this...." Or, "You can bet this ministry will be multiplied big time when Chris' inheritance comes in."