Outpost Stories
Jeff and Celeste Dannemiller: And the Soul Felt its Worth
Though they grew up in different Texas towns with different family structures and expectations, both Jeff and Celeste Dannemiller knew the oppression of being defined by labels and appearances. Neither had a solid sense of self-worth – or, more importantly, an understanding of God’s deep and unconditional love. Jeff’s upbringing in a large, Catholic family felt stark and sometimes harsh, and the dyslexic little boy sought pleasure and fulfillment through an early addiction to pornography. Celeste’s family looked “perfect” on the outside, but on the inside Celeste was lonely, insecure, and anxious. The value of a person seemed to be found in the externals of money, possessions, achievement, and beauty, and Celeste craved approval and encouragement. The Lord tenderly showed His love to both of them and revealed that they have worth, value, and purpose because He made them and they are His. Read their story to find out how the Lord touched and transformed their lives. Like the lyrics of “O Holy Night,” Jeff and Celeste were “pining” in sin and error until Jesus appeared, and two broken souls “felt their worth.”
Read the full story
Jeff: I was the middle child out of seven, and I grew up attending mass and catechism classes. Church was a part of our lives. I believed in God, but I didn’t understand who He was. I didn’t know His love. I don’t remember ever being read to as a child. I struggled with dyslexia, which led to me failing a grade – a failure for which I was beaten. In Dallas, an X-rated world was readily accessible to me, and pornography became a part of my life early on.
The Dannemillers were all swimmers, and Jeff found success in diving. Although dyslexia made schoolwork incredibly challenging, Jeff received a full diving scholarship to Texas Tech University. As a freshman, Jeff sought freedom, fun, and affirmation through the college party scene, where drinking and flirting were the activities of choice. During that first year of college, Jeff’s path crossed with Celeste’s for the first time.
Celeste: I grew up in Texas with my Puerto Rican father, my mother, and a sister who was five years older than I. My parents both worked, and, on the outside, our family looked like we had a perfect life. We had a beautiful home, new cars, tropical vacations, and nice clothes. But inside of our home things were far from perfect. My father was an alcoholic who was also addicted to pornography, and his relationship with my mother was volatile. I was a deeply insecure child. While my older sister was a go-getter who was smart and organized, my emotional instability meant that I struggled with school. I was worried and afraid all the time. Poor grades meant that I was often grounded, but I didn’t have the encouragement I needed to succeed. We didn’t share family meals; our family values were skin-deep.
Because Celeste didn’t feel valued for who she was, she learned to manipulate others’ perceptions of her through exaggeration. While she was a moral girl who made mostly right choices through her high school years, she clung to the idea that the honest version of herself was not enough. To be loved or approved of, she had to fabricate a persona that met the elusive standards of beauty and success.
Celeste: I went to church with my grandparents, but religion was a confusing topic. My father was an atheist who said that the Christian faith was a nice story that helped weak people. On one hand, my grandparents were strict, Bible-believing and legalistic. On the other hand, my parents lived a licentious life without faith. It was confusing. But I always felt pulled towards faith.
At a Nazarene revival, sixteen-year-old Celeste was stirred to fear by a hellfire and brimstone message and its accompanying altar call.
Celeste: I was definitely compelled to go forward out of fear, but I also truly believe the Lord saved me that night. He did move in my heart and call me to Himself. I learned more about the Gospel by serving with the Billy Graham crusade a few months later, but I still didn’t fully grasp what it meant to be Christ’s follower.
During that time of new spiritual growth, Celeste found herself on a blind date to a rock concert where everyone was smoking marijuana. After taking one puff of her date’s joint, she panicked, and sought the aid of Jeff – whom she recognized from the pool. Celeste was only looking for a safe ride home, and clean-cut Jeff seemed like her best option. A trio of police officers noticed that the pair did not seem to belong or be comfortable in the wild, drug-fogged scene of the large concert, and escorted them outside. Jeff walked Celeste to his campus dorm. He borrowed a car to drive her home, and she impulsively invited him in for popcorn and cocoa. Their late-night conversation in Celeste’s living room started a whirlwind romance that led to marriage within a year.
Jeff: Our first year of marriage was rough. We fought a lot. I was still drinking quite a bit, which didn’t help.
Celeste: We didn’t have the tools to work through our disagreements. We didn’t know how to apologize to each other. We had poor conceptions of marriage and didn’t know what we were doing.
Jeff: Six months after our wedding, Celeste found out she was pregnant. I had been struggling my way through college up to that point. With Celeste expecting our baby, the need to support our family seemed like a good reason to quit school. It probably wasn’t the right decision, but we were wise in our own eyes, and, at the time, it seemed like the right thing to do.
When baby Danielle was a few months old, Celeste determined to take her to church. She walked each Sunday to a neighborhood congregation and Jeff eventually joined them. Attending church helped bring stability to their marriage as their family grew, though the pattern of flaring tempers and unresolved conflict continued. The local church leaders baptized Jeff and invited him to serve as a deacon, even though Jeff had never accepted Jesus Christ as His personal Savior.
Jeff: I was teaching junior high boys at this church, and I didn’t even know Christ yet. I had never really understood salvation. I invited a pair of visiting Mormons into our home and went through their seven-week training program, though Celeste, who knew they were teaching false doctrine, didn’t join us. I was so confused. I tried asking God for a sign. Ultimately, I told Him that I just wanted to be on the right team. I wanted Him to show me which beliefs were His Truth.
"I craved reading the Bible. Even though reading was so hard for me, I had this desire to know God’s Word and to study it and teach it. My language improved, I stopped drinking, and our marriage grew stronger." - Jeff
One day, during a lunch break at the electrical warehouse where he worked, Jeff found a radio sitting on his workbench. When he turned it on, the voice of John MacArthur filled his workspace; he had stumbled onto a Christian station. The wise but faraway pastor became a spiritual mentor to a searching soul, and the Lord saved Jeff through the radio ministry. Eventually, Jeff’s growing scriptural understanding compelled them to shift to a church with sound doctrine.
Celeste: Jeff was growing so much. He would work all day, then come home to our family (which now consisted of four children), help with dinner and bedtimes, and then stay up most of the night studying God’s Word.
Jeff: I craved reading the Bible. Even though reading was so hard for me, I had this desire to know God’s Word and to study it and teach it. My language improved, I stopped drinking, and our marriage grew stronger. I still had a hidden struggle with pornography. We were growing in our faith, but we didn’t have a community where we were fully known and fully loved, where we could confess our sins.
As Jeff’s faith was flourishing, Celeste found herself limping through a season of intense physical and emotional pain. Undiagnosed pituitary tumors led to a variety of strange symptoms, including depression and suicidal thoughts. During her medical crisis, Jeff demonstrated unconditional love to Celeste.
Celeste: When I was at my most unlovely, Jeff loved me so extravagantly.
Celeste had spent her life worrying that her failures would lead to rejection. In a time when she felt unlovable, Jeff’s love showed her God’s mercy and kindness. The reality of God’s love, manifest in Jeff, enabled Celeste’s soul to truly feel its worth for the first time. God had made her, loved her, and wanted to use her for his Kingdom purposes.
The desperation of an unexpected job loss led the Dannemillers to accept a job offer in Powell, Wyoming. When they arrived in 1993, they expected to stay in Wyoming only long enough to get back on their feet financially. The Lord had different plans, and they have now lived in Park County for 31 years.
Celeste: We dove into church ministry in Wyoming. Our kids were older, and we found opportunities to help other parents raise their young kids to know the Lord. I taught childbirth classes, and Jeff and I led parenting classes. Jeff began discipling other men and teaching in other areas, as well. We expected that Christians would always love and treat each other well, but we learned repeatedly that that was not the case. We went through a lot of church hurt over the years and saw things that were handled poorly, and I stored up bitterness in my heart from those hurts.
By 2020, the Dannemillers were ready to seek recovery and wholeness, and they jumped eagerly into the planting of Outpost. They visited Watermark on several occasions to learn about the ministry of Regeneration and led a pilot program in preparation for starting the ministry at Outpost. For Jeff, Regen offered an opportunity to finally tackle his decades-long struggle with pornography, while, for Celeste, it meant facing stored-up bitterness and hurt from others’ sin.
Jeff: We knew we had to go first and be vulnerable if we were going to lead that ministry. God did a lot of healing as I confessed my sin.
Celeste: Jeff helped me to see that holding onto bitterness was keeping my own heart in bondage. Christ has forgiven me for so much, and here I was so offended by others. When I confessed my bitterness as sin, it vanished, and I was able to own my sin, to make amends, and to move forward in grace. All those trials God brought us through were ultimately for His glory.
The Dannemillers love God more than they ever have. They have learned that their value and worth come from His love and from Christ’s work on the cross – not from anything external they can do to prove themselves. And because they are deeply and unconditionally loved, they can also love others deeply. Their family tree has grown to include their children’s spouses and eight wonderful grandchildren, and the Dannemillers take every chance they can to support, disciple, and encourage their offspring. They have also “adopted” several young families and joyfully claim those little ones as bonus grandchildren. At Outpost, they love helping others experience Jesus’ love. From leading Regen to teaching Sunday morning classes, to hosting gatherings, to serving young families with childcare and mentorship, they are living out the “one anothers” on a daily basis.
“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”
Ephesians 2:4–7
Outpost Stories
Jeff and Celeste Dannemiller: And the Soul Felt its Worth
Though they grew up in different Texas towns with different family structures and expectations, both Jeff and Celeste Dannemiller knew the oppression of being defined by labels and appearances. Neither had a solid sense of self-worth – or, more importantly, an understanding of God’s deep and unconditional love. Jeff’s upbringing in a large, Catholic family felt stark and sometimes harsh, and the dyslexic little boy sought pleasure and fulfillment through an early addiction to pornography. Celeste’s family looked “perfect” on the outside, but on the inside Celeste was lonely, insecure, and anxious. The value of a person seemed to be found in the externals of money, possessions, achievement, and beauty, and Celeste craved approval and encouragement. The Lord tenderly showed His love to both of them and revealed that they have worth, value, and purpose because He made them and they are His. Read their story to find out how the Lord touched and transformed their lives. Like the lyrics of “O Holy Night,” Jeff and Celeste were “pining” in sin and error until Jesus appeared, and two broken souls “felt their worth.”
Read the full story
Jeff: I was the middle child out of seven, and I grew up attending mass and catechism classes. Church was a part of our lives. I believed in God, but I didn’t understand who He was. I didn’t know His love. I don’t remember ever being read to as a child. I struggled with dyslexia, which led to me failing a grade – a failure for which I was beaten. In Dallas, an X-rated world was readily accessible to me, and pornography became a part of my life early on.
The Dannemillers were all swimmers, and Jeff found success in diving. Although dyslexia made schoolwork incredibly challenging, Jeff received a full diving scholarship to Texas Tech University. As a freshman, Jeff sought freedom, fun, and affirmation through the college party scene, where drinking and flirting were the activities of choice. During that first year of college, Jeff’s path crossed with Celeste’s for the first time.
Celeste: I grew up in Texas with my Puerto Rican father, my mother, and a sister who was five years older than I. My parents both worked, and, on the outside, our family looked like we had a perfect life. We had a beautiful home, new cars, tropical vacations, and nice clothes. But inside of our home things were far from perfect. My father was an alcoholic who was also addicted to pornography, and his relationship with my mother was volatile. I was a deeply insecure child. While my older sister was a go-getter who was smart and organized, my emotional instability meant that I struggled with school. I was worried and afraid all the time. Poor grades meant that I was often grounded, but I didn’t have the encouragement I needed to succeed. We didn’t share family meals; our family values were skin-deep.
Because Celeste didn’t feel valued for who she was, she learned to manipulate others’ perceptions of her through exaggeration. While she was a moral girl who made mostly right choices through her high school years, she clung to the idea that the honest version of herself was not enough. To be loved or approved of, she had to fabricate a persona that met the elusive standards of beauty and success.
Celeste: I went to church with my grandparents, but religion was a confusing topic. My father was an atheist who said that the Christian faith was a nice story that helped weak people. On one hand, my grandparents were strict, Bible-believing and legalistic. On the other hand, my parents lived a licentious life without faith. It was confusing. But I always felt pulled towards faith.
At a Nazarene revival, sixteen-year-old Celeste was stirred to fear by a hellfire and brimstone message and its accompanying altar call.
Celeste: I was definitely compelled to go forward out of fear, but I also truly believe the Lord saved me that night. He did move in my heart and call me to Himself. I learned more about the Gospel by serving with the Billy Graham crusade a few months later, but I still didn’t fully grasp what it meant to be Christ’s follower.
During that time of new spiritual growth, Celeste found herself on a blind date to a rock concert where everyone was smoking marijuana. After taking one puff of her date’s joint, she panicked, and sought the aid of Jeff – whom she recognized from the pool. Celeste was only looking for a safe ride home, and clean-cut Jeff seemed like her best option. A trio of police officers noticed that the pair did not seem to belong or be comfortable in the wild, drug-fogged scene of the large concert, and escorted them outside. Jeff walked Celeste to his campus dorm. He borrowed a car to drive her home, and she impulsively invited him in for popcorn and cocoa. Their late-night conversation in Celeste’s living room started a whirlwind romance that led to marriage within a year.
Jeff: Our first year of marriage was rough. We fought a lot. I was still drinking quite a bit, which didn’t help.
Celeste: We didn’t have the tools to work through our disagreements. We didn’t know how to apologize to each other. We had poor conceptions of marriage and didn’t know what we were doing.
Jeff: Six months after our wedding, Celeste found out she was pregnant. I had been struggling my way through college up to that point. With Celeste expecting our baby, the need to support our family seemed like a good reason to quit school. It probably wasn’t the right decision, but we were wise in our own eyes, and, at the time, it seemed like the right thing to do.
When baby Danielle was a few months old, Celeste determined to take her to church. She walked each Sunday to a neighborhood congregation and Jeff eventually joined them. Attending church helped bring stability to their marriage as their family grew, though the pattern of flaring tempers and unresolved conflict continued. The local church leaders baptized Jeff and invited him to serve as a deacon, even though Jeff had never accepted Jesus Christ as His personal Savior.
Jeff: I was teaching junior high boys at this church, and I didn’t even know Christ yet. I had never really understood salvation. I invited a pair of visiting Mormons into our home and went through their seven-week training program, though Celeste, who knew they were teaching false doctrine, didn’t join us. I was so confused. I tried asking God for a sign. Ultimately, I told Him that I just wanted to be on the right team. I wanted Him to show me which beliefs were His Truth.
"I craved reading the Bible. Even though reading was so hard for me, I had this desire to know God’s Word and to study it and teach it. My language improved, I stopped drinking, and our marriage grew stronger." - Jeff
One day, during a lunch break at the electrical warehouse where he worked, Jeff found a radio sitting on his workbench. When he turned it on, the voice of John MacArthur filled his workspace; he had stumbled onto a Christian station. The wise but faraway pastor became a spiritual mentor to a searching soul, and the Lord saved Jeff through the radio ministry. Eventually, Jeff’s growing scriptural understanding compelled them to shift to a church with sound doctrine.
Celeste: Jeff was growing so much. He would work all day, then come home to our family (which now consisted of four children), help with dinner and bedtimes, and then stay up most of the night studying God’s Word.
Jeff: I craved reading the Bible. Even though reading was so hard for me, I had this desire to know God’s Word and to study it and teach it. My language improved, I stopped drinking, and our marriage grew stronger. I still had a hidden struggle with pornography. We were growing in our faith, but we didn’t have a community where we were fully known and fully loved, where we could confess our sins.
As Jeff’s faith was flourishing, Celeste found herself limping through a season of intense physical and emotional pain. Undiagnosed pituitary tumors led to a variety of strange symptoms, including depression and suicidal thoughts. During her medical crisis, Jeff demonstrated unconditional love to Celeste.
Celeste: When I was at my most unlovely, Jeff loved me so extravagantly.
Celeste had spent her life worrying that her failures would lead to rejection. In a time when she felt unlovable, Jeff’s love showed her God’s mercy and kindness. The reality of God’s love, manifest in Jeff, enabled Celeste’s soul to truly feel its worth for the first time. God had made her, loved her, and wanted to use her for his Kingdom purposes.
The desperation of an unexpected job loss led the Dannemillers to accept a job offer in Powell, Wyoming. When they arrived in 1993, they expected to stay in Wyoming only long enough to get back on their feet financially. The Lord had different plans, and they have now lived in Park County for 31 years.
Celeste: We dove into church ministry in Wyoming. Our kids were older, and we found opportunities to help other parents raise their young kids to know the Lord. I taught childbirth classes, and Jeff and I led parenting classes. Jeff began discipling other men and teaching in other areas, as well. We expected that Christians would always love and treat each other well, but we learned repeatedly that that was not the case. We went through a lot of church hurt over the years and saw things that were handled poorly, and I stored up bitterness in my heart from those hurts.
By 2020, the Dannemillers were ready to seek recovery and wholeness, and they jumped eagerly into the planting of Outpost. They visited Watermark on several occasions to learn about the ministry of Regeneration and led a pilot program in preparation for starting the ministry at Outpost. For Jeff, Regen offered an opportunity to finally tackle his decades-long struggle with pornography, while, for Celeste, it meant facing stored-up bitterness and hurt from others’ sin.
Jeff: We knew we had to go first and be vulnerable if we were going to lead that ministry. God did a lot of healing as I confessed my sin.
Celeste: Jeff helped me to see that holding onto bitterness was keeping my own heart in bondage. Christ has forgiven me for so much, and here I was so offended by others. When I confessed my bitterness as sin, it vanished, and I was able to own my sin, to make amends, and to move forward in grace. All those trials God brought us through were ultimately for His glory.
The Dannemillers love God more than they ever have. They have learned that their value and worth come from His love and from Christ’s work on the cross – not from anything external they can do to prove themselves. And because they are deeply and unconditionally loved, they can also love others deeply. Their family tree has grown to include their children’s spouses and eight wonderful grandchildren, and the Dannemillers take every chance they can to support, disciple, and encourage their offspring. They have also “adopted” several young families and joyfully claim those little ones as bonus grandchildren. At Outpost, they love helping others experience Jesus’ love. From leading Regen to teaching Sunday morning classes, to hosting gatherings, to serving young families with childcare and mentorship, they are living out the “one anothers” on a daily basis.
“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”
Ephesians 2:4–7
Outpost Stories
Jeff and Celeste Dannemiller: And the Soul Felt its Worth
Though they grew up in different Texas towns with different family structures and expectations, both Jeff and Celeste Dannemiller knew the oppression of being defined by labels and appearances. Neither had a solid sense of self-worth – or, more importantly, an understanding of God’s deep and unconditional love. Jeff’s upbringing in a large, Catholic family felt stark and sometimes harsh, and the dyslexic little boy sought pleasure and fulfillment through an early addiction to pornography. Celeste’s family looked “perfect” on the outside, but on the inside Celeste was lonely, insecure, and anxious. The value of a person seemed to be found in the externals of money, possessions, achievement, and beauty, and Celeste craved approval and encouragement. The Lord tenderly showed His love to both of them and revealed that they have worth, value, and purpose because He made them and they are His. Read their story to find out how the Lord touched and transformed their lives. Like the lyrics of “O Holy Night,” Jeff and Celeste were “pining” in sin and error until Jesus appeared, and two broken souls “felt their worth.”
Read the full story
Jeff: I was the middle child out of seven, and I grew up attending mass and catechism classes. Church was a part of our lives. I believed in God, but I didn’t understand who He was. I didn’t know His love. I don’t remember ever being read to as a child. I struggled with dyslexia, which led to me failing a grade – a failure for which I was beaten. In Dallas, an X-rated world was readily accessible to me, and pornography became a part of my life early on.
The Dannemillers were all swimmers, and Jeff found success in diving. Although dyslexia made schoolwork incredibly challenging, Jeff received a full diving scholarship to Texas Tech University. As a freshman, Jeff sought freedom, fun, and affirmation through the college party scene, where drinking and flirting were the activities of choice. During that first year of college, Jeff’s path crossed with Celeste’s for the first time.
Celeste: I grew up in Texas with my Puerto Rican father, my mother, and a sister who was five years older than I. My parents both worked, and, on the outside, our family looked like we had a perfect life. We had a beautiful home, new cars, tropical vacations, and nice clothes. But inside of our home things were far from perfect. My father was an alcoholic who was also addicted to pornography, and his relationship with my mother was volatile. I was a deeply insecure child. While my older sister was a go-getter who was smart and organized, my emotional instability meant that I struggled with school. I was worried and afraid all the time. Poor grades meant that I was often grounded, but I didn’t have the encouragement I needed to succeed. We didn’t share family meals; our family values were skin-deep.
Because Celeste didn’t feel valued for who she was, she learned to manipulate others’ perceptions of her through exaggeration. While she was a moral girl who made mostly right choices through her high school years, she clung to the idea that the honest version of herself was not enough. To be loved or approved of, she had to fabricate a persona that met the elusive standards of beauty and success.
Celeste: I went to church with my grandparents, but religion was a confusing topic. My father was an atheist who said that the Christian faith was a nice story that helped weak people. On one hand, my grandparents were strict, Bible-believing and legalistic. On the other hand, my parents lived a licentious life without faith. It was confusing. But I always felt pulled towards faith.
At a Nazarene revival, sixteen-year-old Celeste was stirred to fear by a hellfire and brimstone message and its accompanying altar call.
Celeste: I was definitely compelled to go forward out of fear, but I also truly believe the Lord saved me that night. He did move in my heart and call me to Himself. I learned more about the Gospel by serving with the Billy Graham crusade a few months later, but I still didn’t fully grasp what it meant to be Christ’s follower.
During that time of new spiritual growth, Celeste found herself on a blind date to a rock concert where everyone was smoking marijuana. After taking one puff of her date’s joint, she panicked, and sought the aid of Jeff – whom she recognized from the pool. Celeste was only looking for a safe ride home, and clean-cut Jeff seemed like her best option. A trio of police officers noticed that the pair did not seem to belong or be comfortable in the wild, drug-fogged scene of the large concert, and escorted them outside. Jeff walked Celeste to his campus dorm. He borrowed a car to drive her home, and she impulsively invited him in for popcorn and cocoa. Their late-night conversation in Celeste’s living room started a whirlwind romance that led to marriage within a year.
Jeff: Our first year of marriage was rough. We fought a lot. I was still drinking quite a bit, which didn’t help.
Celeste: We didn’t have the tools to work through our disagreements. We didn’t know how to apologize to each other. We had poor conceptions of marriage and didn’t know what we were doing.
Jeff: Six months after our wedding, Celeste found out she was pregnant. I had been struggling my way through college up to that point. With Celeste expecting our baby, the need to support our family seemed like a good reason to quit school. It probably wasn’t the right decision, but we were wise in our own eyes, and, at the time, it seemed like the right thing to do.
When baby Danielle was a few months old, Celeste determined to take her to church. She walked each Sunday to a neighborhood congregation and Jeff eventually joined them. Attending church helped bring stability to their marriage as their family grew, though the pattern of flaring tempers and unresolved conflict continued. The local church leaders baptized Jeff and invited him to serve as a deacon, even though Jeff had never accepted Jesus Christ as His personal Savior.
Jeff: I was teaching junior high boys at this church, and I didn’t even know Christ yet. I had never really understood salvation. I invited a pair of visiting Mormons into our home and went through their seven-week training program, though Celeste, who knew they were teaching false doctrine, didn’t join us. I was so confused. I tried asking God for a sign. Ultimately, I told Him that I just wanted to be on the right team. I wanted Him to show me which beliefs were His Truth.
"I craved reading the Bible. Even though reading was so hard for me, I had this desire to know God’s Word and to study it and teach it. My language improved, I stopped drinking, and our marriage grew stronger." - Jeff
One day, during a lunch break at the electrical warehouse where he worked, Jeff found a radio sitting on his workbench. When he turned it on, the voice of John MacArthur filled his workspace; he had stumbled onto a Christian station. The wise but faraway pastor became a spiritual mentor to a searching soul, and the Lord saved Jeff through the radio ministry. Eventually, Jeff’s growing scriptural understanding compelled them to shift to a church with sound doctrine.
Celeste: Jeff was growing so much. He would work all day, then come home to our family (which now consisted of four children), help with dinner and bedtimes, and then stay up most of the night studying God’s Word.
Jeff: I craved reading the Bible. Even though reading was so hard for me, I had this desire to know God’s Word and to study it and teach it. My language improved, I stopped drinking, and our marriage grew stronger. I still had a hidden struggle with pornography. We were growing in our faith, but we didn’t have a community where we were fully known and fully loved, where we could confess our sins.
As Jeff’s faith was flourishing, Celeste found herself limping through a season of intense physical and emotional pain. Undiagnosed pituitary tumors led to a variety of strange symptoms, including depression and suicidal thoughts. During her medical crisis, Jeff demonstrated unconditional love to Celeste.
Celeste: When I was at my most unlovely, Jeff loved me so extravagantly.
Celeste had spent her life worrying that her failures would lead to rejection. In a time when she felt unlovable, Jeff’s love showed her God’s mercy and kindness. The reality of God’s love, manifest in Jeff, enabled Celeste’s soul to truly feel its worth for the first time. God had made her, loved her, and wanted to use her for his Kingdom purposes.
The desperation of an unexpected job loss led the Dannemillers to accept a job offer in Powell, Wyoming. When they arrived in 1993, they expected to stay in Wyoming only long enough to get back on their feet financially. The Lord had different plans, and they have now lived in Park County for 31 years.
Celeste: We dove into church ministry in Wyoming. Our kids were older, and we found opportunities to help other parents raise their young kids to know the Lord. I taught childbirth classes, and Jeff and I led parenting classes. Jeff began discipling other men and teaching in other areas, as well. We expected that Christians would always love and treat each other well, but we learned repeatedly that that was not the case. We went through a lot of church hurt over the years and saw things that were handled poorly, and I stored up bitterness in my heart from those hurts.
By 2020, the Dannemillers were ready to seek recovery and wholeness, and they jumped eagerly into the planting of Outpost. They visited Watermark on several occasions to learn about the ministry of Regeneration and led a pilot program in preparation for starting the ministry at Outpost. For Jeff, Regen offered an opportunity to finally tackle his decades-long struggle with pornography, while, for Celeste, it meant facing stored-up bitterness and hurt from others’ sin.
Jeff: We knew we had to go first and be vulnerable if we were going to lead that ministry. God did a lot of healing as I confessed my sin.
Celeste: Jeff helped me to see that holding onto bitterness was keeping my own heart in bondage. Christ has forgiven me for so much, and here I was so offended by others. When I confessed my bitterness as sin, it vanished, and I was able to own my sin, to make amends, and to move forward in grace. All those trials God brought us through were ultimately for His glory.
The Dannemillers love God more than they ever have. They have learned that their value and worth come from His love and from Christ’s work on the cross – not from anything external they can do to prove themselves. And because they are deeply and unconditionally loved, they can also love others deeply. Their family tree has grown to include their children’s spouses and eight wonderful grandchildren, and the Dannemillers take every chance they can to support, disciple, and encourage their offspring. They have also “adopted” several young families and joyfully claim those little ones as bonus grandchildren. At Outpost, they love helping others experience Jesus’ love. From leading Regen to teaching Sunday morning classes, to hosting gatherings, to serving young families with childcare and mentorship, they are living out the “one anothers” on a daily basis.
“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”
Ephesians 2:4–7