By Cordelia Fenwright, Pews and Pulpits Reporter

FENNICK FALLS — Three years after joining Maple Hollow Fellowship, Josh and Priya Tanaka-Bell have taught a Sunday school class, painted the nursery, and brought a seven-layer dip to every potluck since 2023. Not one person at the church knows their names.

To the congregation, they are the Hendersons.

The mix-up traces back to the church's pictorial directory, a spiral-bound book printed in the spring of 1998 that the greeting team still keeps on a music stand by the front doors. The directory has never been reprinted, because the committee charged with updating it has not met since its chairman left for a cruise in 2004 and stayed in Florida.

"When the Tanaka-Bells first visited, they sat in the third pew on the left," said head greeter Phyllis Arbogast, 77, who has memorized the directory "like it's the multiplication tables." "That was the Hendersons' pew for thirty years. Page 41, bottom right, matching sweaters. I put two and two together."

The real Hendersons moved to Tucson in 2001.

Josh Tanaka-Bell said the couple tried correcting people for the first several months. "I said, 'Actually, it's Josh,' maybe two hundred times," he said. "Then one Sunday a man I'd never met hugged me and asked how my hip was healing, and I just said 'Better, thanks.' That was the moment we became the Hendersons."

The arrangement has had its benefits. The couple now receives a birthday card every March for a woman named Bev, which Priya says she has started to look forward to. They have also been thanked repeatedly for a $500 donation toward the 1997 roof repair.

It has also had costs. Last month, the Tanaka-Bells were asked to chair the annual Henderson Memorial Pancake Supper, a beloved fall tradition named in honor of the original Hendersons' departure. "We're running a fundraiser in memory of ourselves," Priya said. "We're making the pancakes. The batter recipe was mailed in from Arizona."

Change may finally be coming. At its October meeting, the church council approved a new directory, to be photographed in the fellowship hall over two Saturdays in front of the same marbled-blue backdrop used in 1998, which was found rolled up behind the Christmas pageant camels. Sign-ups have been slow. Several longtime members said they would rather keep their 1998 photos "while they still look like them, at least on paper."

Youth pastor Marcus Oyelaran suggested replacing the book with a free app, a proposal that was gently tabled after Arbogast asked where you would set an app down.

The Tanaka-Bells say they plan to sign up for a portrait slot. They are not sure which name to put on the sheet.

At press time, the original Hendersons had called the church office from Tucson to ask why they had been invited to chair their own pancake supper, and were warmly told that the position had already been filled.