Dave Abel – Facility Manager
I and my wife, Melissa, are no strangers to the York area as we both grew up minutes from Aldersgate Church in the Mt. Rose Avenue area of Spring Garden Township and graduated from York Suburban High School. I enlisted in the United States Air Force, serving tours of duty in Europe and Southeast Asia as a Weapons Loading Crew Chief on fighter aircraft. I later found myself deployed in an alternate fashion as a musician in the US Air Force Band of the West. After my enlistment ended, I returned home and started what would be an illustrious career in engineering; first at Dentsply International as a Product Development Engineering Technician and later as a Technical Writer in the areas of manufacturing, PA government, military, and pharmaceutical. I received my education at the US Air Force School of Applied Sciences, Air University, Lowry Technical Training School, York College, and PLC Programming training at Siemens. Prior musical affiliations and activities include District and Regional Band Festivals while in high school, the Spring Garden Band of York, Lancers Drum and Bugle Corps, York Little Theater, Hershey Symphony Orchestra, and part-time, co-curricular Band Director at Central York High School.

In 2012, I became re-acquainted with the love of my life, Melissa – a gal I had known growing up in church and living two blocks from me as a teenager. Both of us had been active in church ministries for most of our lives in areas such as Youth Leadership, Missions, Worship Team, Elementary Education, and Instrumental and Vocal Music (both of us were National Fine Arts Finalist within the Assemblies of God), and Dramas.
We left the York area briefly in 2015 to pursue ministry opportunities at Melissa’s Alma Mater, the University of Valley Forge, and became heavily involved in various campus ministries there as well.

In late 2018, we returned to the York area where I worked at Graham Engineering as a Technical Writer until my retirement in January 2019 and Melissa resumed her career as an Account Services Coordinator at Delta Dental in Camp Hill, PA. The search for a “church home” had become futile until God opened a door at Aldersgate Church.

Along with a yearly vacation abroad and a fall get-away to Vermont each year, we enjoy our time together, along with our Golden Retriever, Chelsey, at our Ruxton Road home in Spring Garden Township. Melissa continues to further her education with online courses from Evangel University and I can be heard practicing my horn nightly in preparation for concerts with the New Cumberland Town Band. Frequent trips to Pittsburgh occur as we root for our Pirates, Steelers, and Penguins.
Although I am employed as the Facility Manager at Aldersgate, my wife and I consider this an opportunity to get to know each of you and become involved in various areas as a “ministry” outreach so lives can be changed as evidenced by the love of Christ.

Be sure to check out this article in our full November/December 2019 newsletter - Click Here!