Brownsville minister, wife, remembered
Courtesy of Nathan Tinstman
Marc and Terri Tinstman celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary
Courtesy of Nathan Tinstman
When both their son, Nathan, and daughter, Bethany, relocated to Southwestern Pennsylvania, Marc and Terri Tinstman soon followed. The couple, left front and left back, adored their granddaughter Jessie, far right, and were always there for Bethany, back right, and Nathan, center.
If Dr. Marc Tinstman were a superhero, he and his sidekick, wife Terri Tinstman, would have shared the superpower of omnipresence.
“Even when they’re not there, they’re there,” said Nathan Tinstman, the eldest child of the Brownsville couple who died Tuesday in a four-vehicle crash along Interstate 70 West near Triadelphia, W.Va., near the Pennsylvania line.
After several texts and phone calls went unanswered by his parents, Nathan drove to where an accident had been reported along I-70; his gut feelings were confirmed.
Brishesh Kumar Yadav, 23, of Renton, Wash., faces two counts of negligent homicide in the crash. According to the criminal complaint, Yadav was driving a commercial motor vehicle when he came upon stopped traffic in a construction zone.
According to the criminal complaint, witnesses said the vehicle in front of Yadav was stopped or nearly stopped. Court documents state the brakes were applied on Yadav’s vehicle only within 51½ feet of the point of impact. That evidence and witness statements, according to the complaint, indicated a delayed response to the stopped traffic, resulting in the chain-reaction collision.
Yadav’s vehicle hit a pickup truck hauling a trailer, which hit the Tinstmans’ stationary Honda CRV, which collided with a stationary tractor-trailer.
Now, Nathan and his younger sister Bethany are trying to process their grief.
“When you’re the kid of a minister – and Mom felt this as the wife of the minister … you now have to share him with everybody. It’s not like a normal family: your parents are your parents. He wasn’t just our parent. He was a father figure to a lot of people,” said Nathan, who lives in Richeyville. “You’re at every church service, every function. There’s so much pressure on them … you can’t fathom how they did it. You almost want to look at him like a superhero: with all that time you were investing elsewhere, how did you manage to (be there) for everything?”
For more than three decades, Marc and Terri Tinstman were there for Nathan and Bethany’s milestones, school and sporting events, holidays and little moments, too. That their parents were present was not lost on the kids, who sometimes felt overshadowed by their father’s career.
“We had to share him a lot and give up time with him a lot. Mom, too,” said Bethany, of Pittsburgh. “No matter how much we had to share them … they made a point to do their best to still be our mom and dad.”
Dr. Marc Tinstman earned a masters degree from Texas Christian University and a Doctorate of Divinity from Northwest Baptist Theological Seminary, and began a life of professional ministry in 1957, at a small church in Dublin, Texas.
There, he met Terri, a nurse; the couple wed in 1977.
Marc followed God’s call for almost 50 years. He led seven congregations in states including Texas and New Mexico before settling in Ohio in 2004, where he spent 13 years as pastor of Brilliant Christian Church before retiring in 2017.
“What he loved the most was doing youth ministry and working with kids, and taking them on mission trips,” said Bethany. “The youth that he’s worked with over the years, I think that’s where he found his happy spot.”
Terri worked as a pharmacist in Ohio, but her heart, too, overflowed with passion for youth ministry. She oversaw the nursery, and led Vacation Bible Schools and Bible studies.
“The role of a pastor’s wife – that’s a career in itself,” Bethany said.
When they left Brilliant Christian Church, Marc and Terri followed their children to Southwestern Pennsylvania, where Nathan was working in Richeyville and Bethany was completing her masters at California University of Pennsylvania.
The Tinstmans also wanted to be nearer to Nathan’s daughter and their granddaughter, Jessie.
“Mimi and Pappaw were Jessie’s world, and Jessie was their world,” said Bethany. “There was no one Jessie loved more than (my mom).”
But even though he’d retired to Brownsville and was busy with his family, Marc couldn’t sit still.
“He was so driven to a goal … even when he would go to retire, he couldn’t. He had to be doing something,” Nathan said.
Marc joined a local church group, which allowed him to continue preaching, and served as a hospice chaplain in Uniontown.
“Marc got involved with (Brownsville Area Ministerial Association) as soon as he came to the area,” said Pastor Roger Diehl, who leads Allison Church of the Nazarene. “He was a brilliant and a humble man. Just very, very caring. Shared God’s word very effectively and I had him fill my pulpit several times. My people were really impressed with him and really enjoyed listening to him preach.”
Marc and Terri’s legacy is certainly one of ministerial service.
“Their lifetime of work and impact on people should tell you everything you need to know,” said Nathan. “They as a pair, almost as a single unit, had an impact you can’t measure …”
Between acts of service, the couple did know how to have a good time. Bethany remembers fondly a day trip to the Carnegie Science Center, where her father, who loved trains, was “like a kid in a toy store” as he admired the center’s model train collection.
One of Nathan’s favorite Marc memories is attending a Texas Christian University game against West Virginia University, in Morgantown.
“My dad’s passion was always TCU. I took him to a game in Morgantown the same year they almost ended up being a champion. We got stuck on the wrong side of the field with all the Mountaineers,” Nathan laughed.
A GoFundMe page at https://gofund.me/2bec0feb was started by a friend of Bethany’s to help offset funeral costs and other unexpected expenses the siblings now face.
Marc and Terri’s funeral will be held Thursday in Brilliant, Ohio. Donations to the funeral home, to help offset costs, are also welcome and can be made online at https://www.wheelerfuneralhomes.com/obituary/DrMarcandTerri-Tinstman?.
“They weren’t perfect, but I have never known a couple who cared more, worked harder and just really gave everything of themselves to others,” Bethany said.
“Mom always said she couldn’t wait to go to heaven. I keep telling myself that’s where they have to be. There was no one I know that did more for others. It’s not mistakes, or the human things they may have done, but how much they gave. They gave more than they ever received.”