An Interview With Nate Koechig

We’re excited to kick-off our Goshen Baptist Church staff interviews with our custodian, Nate Koechig. On February 17^th, there will be a coffee house fundraiser for Nate to raise money for a cochlear Implant. Learn more here about Nate and the event!

Goshen Baptist Church (GBC): Nate, thanks for being our first Goshen staff interview! Tell us about your event coming up.

Nate: It’s a fundraiser for a cochlear implant that I want to do.  I’ve been looking into it for a long time and finally decided to go through with it after meeting my first nephew.

GBC: Tell us about your nephew.

NATE: Uh.  I don’t know.  Cutest thing I’ve ever met?  Does that suffice?

GBC: Absolutely! How old is he?

NATE: Three or four months now.  He’s really, really cute.

GBC: Tell us about why you have the hearing loss.

NATE: Doctors removed a cancerous tumor from my brain stem when I was seven.  It was pretty serious.

GBC: And was it the medication and treatment for that that led to the hearing loss?

NATE: Yeah it was the meds that I received for the next couple of months after that which actually stopped my growth and affected my hearing.  Over time, due to the treatment, I’ve experienced gradual hearing loss.  It’s steadily, yet very slowly diminishing and will continue to get worse.

GBC: Tell us about your role here at the church.

NATE: Apparently anything that anybody wants done (Laughs). I don’t know, just trying to keep things ready to go from one thing to the next. I could not explain my schedule.  Certain seasons are certain things, other seasons are other things.  Sometimes it’s hectic, sometimes it’s relaxed.  There’s not a set schedule.

GBC: What is your favorite part of the job?

NATE: Probably the people.  And preschool is a definite thumbs up.  It’s fun to watch all the preschool kids.

GBC: What is the most challenging part about your job?

NATE: Probably that I have 300 different bosses. (Laughs). It makes things interesting.

GBC: How long have you been working here?

NATE: Since out of high school.  Like 11 or 12 years. It’s a safe environment for me to be in, especially considering my hearing loss.

GBC: What’s the highlight of your week?

NATE: I don’t know.  This week it would be when my grandfather come out of surgery much better than we thought he would.

GBC: That would be a great highlight! Tell us about your hobbies.

NATE: Hobbies would be cars, guitars, and reclaimed lumber projects.

GBC: Tell us about cars.

NATE: I just enjoy cars.  I enjoy looking at cars, pretending I can buy cars, and buying cheap cars. I don’t fix up cars, I “de-fix” cars.  The longer I have a car the worse condition it’s in. I enjoy driving period.  It’s kind of my recluse spot that I go to.  When my grandfather died I just went driving for like four hours.  Just to clear my head.  If something catastrophic happens I’m probably just out driving somewhere.  Technically they say that’s bad, but it works well for me.  I haven’t had any accidents in that situation yet.

GBC: You like to drive on the beach?  In North Carolina?

NATE: YES!  The Corolla 4x4 beach in North Carolina!  It’s gotta be my heaven on earth.  No paved roads, and you have to have a 4x4 to be in the area.  You just drive up and down and back over the dunes to get stuff.  And there’s nothing.  Nothing but houses, so if you need to get to the store or something you drive down the beach for like 10 miles and back over the dunes to get back to civilization. It’s awesome.

GBC: Tell me about your guitars.  How many guitars do you own?

NATE: I don’t know, too many.  For a while, when I was in high school, I would literally buy a guitar like every couple of months. Just because I was young with no expenses and I had a job.  I don’t know, maybe 18-20. Out of the 18-20 of them I would say that 4 of them are decent guitars.  Same with my cars.  I have quite a few, but if I have to say which ones are really nice, and really work, and are really reliable…it’s just a couple.

GBC: Tell us about your music.  Do you write songs?

NATE: Nothing serious.  I just enjoy spending time that way.  I like putting old music, like hymns and chords to new music rhythms.  That just kind of happens a lot.  I’ve written quite a few.  I’ve got a notebook of things that I’ve written, but I don’t do anything with them.  That would imply being in front of somebody.

GBC: So speaking of, let talk about the coffee house fundraiser.

NATE: We’re putting together a coffee house to raise funds for the cochlear implant that I finally decided to go for.  We’ll just have some live music going on.  I’ll make some music, and some friends will make some music, maybe a couple of cousins.  We’ll have some soup and salad available and some different things people can raffle on.  Let’s see…I’m going to have a lot of my creations from my reclaimed lumber hobby displayed through the area. Hopefully it’ll just be fun to have everybody there. Lots of people hanging out.  I’ll have prayer request literature around for people to see and I’ll spend a short time with a short testimonial of my history and why I really need the cochlear implant, and what led up to that.

GBC: So with this event you’re hoping that the GBC family can help raise additional monies that you need to offset the cost?

NATE: That would be really, really, helpful.

GBC: Lord willing, we can do that!

NATE: I’m already quite impressed by how much response and help I’m getting just in the beginnings of the process.  It’s pretty cool.

GBC: Tell us about your reclaimed wood projects.

NATE: I’m not sure where it comes from.  My grandfather tells me it comes from him, which is probably quite true.  I guess a lot of people from that lived through the depression would never throw out anything.  They’d always find something to make due with.  I think I got that from him.  It kind of started when I was in middle school and I didn’t have a license or money to do anything.  I discovered by finding things, wood projects and what not and taking them apart that I could come up with lumber and nails and things like that to build what I wanted to.  One summer I ripped apart our tree house and swing set.  I think I was a freshman.  We were done with it and it was starting to fall apart.  So I spent the summer ripping it apart and stacking supplies in my parents’ garage.  That got me through the next couple of year’s projects.  It was fun.

GBC: Now you’re going to have some of those available at the coffee house for people to look at?

NATE: Yeah, I’ll have a display of the kind of things that I like to create.  I just finished a coffee table that’s made from an old window that I came up with.  The top is a reclaimed window and the legs are from a table that I picked up from somebodies trash on trash day.  It keeps me entertained.

GBC: If I love something, am I going to be able to buy it and take it home?

NATE: Possibly.  Possibly.  Well, my problem is that I enjoy creating all of these things so much that I have a hard time letting them go.

GBC: If you could have dinner with any living person who would it be?

NATE: I don’t know.  I think it would be cool to sit down with Billy Graham.  After, AFTER I have the cochlear implant!

GBC: What’s your favorite kind of music?

NATE: I’m going to talk a little about this in my story.  When I was coming out of surgery somebody asked my dad if I would enjoy some music.  My dad said “oldies”.  Consequently, I definitely acquired a taste for oldies.  So I’d say oldies and country too.

GBC: Last question.  If you had the power to change one problem in the world today what would it be?

NATE: Is this comical or serious?

GBC: Give us both.

NATE: Comical would be that hots dogs and hot dog rolls come packaged in different numbers. Serious would be the medical world.  The expenses and insurance policies, and insurance rising and all that kind of stuff.  It would be nice if there was some kind of a more reasonable fix to all that stress.

GBC: Thank you, Nate.  We’re really looking forward to the coffee house!