Remembering WAVS co-founder: Herb Reynolds

WAVS opened the doors to its first vocational school in Guinea-Bissau thanks to the dedication and vision of our founders Herb and Martha Reynolds. Rather than coasting through their retirement years, Herb and Martha committed themselves to following God’s lead in their lives – even if it meant living modestly in a rural community in West Africa well into their 60s and 70s.

On April 4 – on the eve of Easter Sunday – Herb Reynolds passed away at the age of 92 while in hospice care. He had last traveled to Guinea-Bissau when he was 78 years old.

Herb and Martha, both longtime Seattle area residents, each lost their spouses in their early retirement years. In 2001, a friend told Martha about a man she knew who went on daily prayer walks and shared Martha’s love for gardening. She told him that this man spent much of his time counseling others who were dealing with their own losses. Helping others was therapeutic, but he was still lonely. So she set them up on a date.

Herb and Martha started dating that summer. In an interview years later, Herb said that he quickly realized he wasn’t just exploring a potential new relationship – he was possibly signing up for a new life.

By that time, Martha had already made several trips to Guinea-Bissau – first with a church group, and later by herself – and was convinced that God was calling her to work with a local community in Guinea-Bissau to open a vocational school.

In the interview, Herb told the story of one of their first dinner dates:

“I found myself falling in love with this lovely lady and I asked her how soon she thought she’d be going back to Africa and how long she’d like to be there. And she said ‘Well, I’d really like to go as soon as possible. I could be there for up to two years.’ And I found myself thinking: ‘I’m falling in love with this lady and she could be going away for possibly two years!’”

Herb said he struggled to decide whether to pursue the relationship, knowing it would mean moving to West Africa.

“Then the Lord began to work in my heart,” Herb said. “One morning I woke up and just felt peace in my heart that God wanted me to go with her. So I took her out to dinner and I asked her to marry me.”

As Herb and Martha began planning for the future ahead, Herb’s confidence in his decision grew. Herb had spent most of his life in Lake Forest Park, a Seattle suburb, helping his family business sell supermarket equipment. Over the years, he acquired a number of practical trade skills.

“We began to develop a unity about how God was calling us together to do this,” he said. “As we looked at the talents and the spiritual gifts God had given each of us, we could just see that we were really meant for each other.”

The couple married in the spring of 2002. The newlyweds solicited a few donations from friends – someone sold off an old van for $2,500; others pitched in however they could – and they left for Guinea-Bissau before even celebrating their first anniversary.

Herb, then 68, said that he remembered the bewildered looks on peoples’ faces when he told them he was going to travel to the other side of the planet at a time in life when he should be enjoying retirement. He told his friends: “Look at it this way: Moses stood in front of a burning bush at 80, so I’ve got a head start by 12 years.”

Over the next two years, Herb and Martha traveled back and forth to Guinea-Bissau, spending a total of six months living together in a local family’s home, which had no electricity or running water.

“I learned more about the culture living with the family than we probably could have learned by living in a separate dwelling and just mingling with them,” Herb said. “It was a very valuable experience.”

To raise funds for the construction of the school, they both sold their respective homes. While back in the states, they stayed in a motor home parked on a 5-acre parcel of land they owned in Snohomish, outside of Seattle. Next to the motor home, they built a massive garage so they could store and sort supplies which they later shipped to Guinea-Bissau in 40-foot containers.

Thus began the Reynolds’ unorthodox retirement life – spending half a year in Africa, then half a year in the relative comfort of their Snohomish motor home. They traveled to Guinea-Bissau almost every year from 2003 to 2012. With every trip back to Africa, they brought medical supplies, plant seeds, toiletries, and bags of rice.

The couple recruited seven board members and pieced together an $40,000 annual budget. They refused to take a salary and instead lived off their retirement savings.

In 2003, construction work began on the first WAVS vocational school. The school opened in 2006. At first only a few dozen students attended. But as the school’s reputation grew, more and more students enrolled. Over the next 20 years, WAVS vocational schools trained more than 2,500 students.

Herb and Martha both continued to serve on the WAVS Board of Directors until 2020.

Herb grew up in a small town on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, where his father owned a grocery store. Later, the family moved to Seattle and started a cabinet shop. In the early 1950s, he served in the U.S. Army as a lineman in Alaska. He then returned to Seattle and married his first wife, Winnifred Reynolds, and raised five children. Herb eventually went on to become the vice president of the family’s company.

At his memorial service in Shoreline, Washington, on Saturday, Herb was remembered as a devoted father with a deep faith who enjoyed gardening and, in his earlier years, teaching mountain survival skills. Herb is survived by his wife Martha, 88, and his five children and numerous grandchildren.

In his interview more than a decade ago, Herb shared his vision for WAVS: “What is the purpose of this school? The purpose of this school is to bring students to Jesus Christ so that they might know Him as their Lord and savior. And how do we do this? Through teaching vocations and devotions in each of the classes we teach. Our prayer is that these students will come and discover Jesus Christ. So that’s why the school is really there.”