Spoke Of Hope: How An Oregon Church-Turned-Hostel Became A Vibrant Hub For Cyclists
Jalét and Pat Farrell run “Spoke’n Hostel” in eastern Oregon, which was once a church. (Photo by Julia Duin)
MITCHELL, Ore. — Deep in eastern Oregon’s high desert, surrounded by sagebrush and juniper hills where U.S. 26 takes a tiny detour around the small town of Mitchell, sits a white clapboard church.
A tiny white cross is perched atop the church. In front, a bright red bicycle repair station, a bike pump and a brown-and-white sign proclaims “Spoke’n Hostel” to greet visitors.
Not only does this church-turned-hostel offer the cheapest accommodations — just $35 a night — in this remote part of the state, but its reputation for warm hospitality has earned two awards from Oregon’s governor’s office.
On the top floor, 12 neatly arranged bunk beds feature privacy curtains, bedside lights, comforters and fluffy gray throws. These blue pine marvels were crafted by an Amish carpenter from a church in Powell Butte, about 60 miles west of Mitchell.
“The beds had to be strong enough to support a 300-pound Harley rider without bouncing someone out of the top bunk or having them hit their head on the ceiling,” said co-owner Jalét Farrell.
In the front, where the pulpit and altar rail once stood, an assortment of upholstered chairs, decorative pillows, two pianos, a chess set and a pile of bedroom slippers for guests are arranged (so cyclists, the majority of guests, don't have to walk around in their cleats).
On the ground floor, a spotless kitchen offers racks of free canned food and enough kitchenware to outfit a small army. There's a freezer, a popcorn popper, cheerful red and yellow cereal bowls, stacks of mugs beside a coffee maker and maps of local bike trails and scenic byways running through eastern Oregon.
On the east wall, a cross made from two planks of wood from the church’s original 1943 building is wrapped with a barbed-wire crown. Beneath the TV, a small sign reads, “Please join us at 11.”
“A lot of people don’t notice it,” said Jalét, 63, who, 10 years ago, co-founded the hostel with her husband, Pat Farrell, 56. “Or they say, ‘This is a church?’”
Religion in the Pacific Northwest — one of the country's least churched areas — tends to be subtle. Thus, Spoke’n Hostel offers five-star accommodations in the middle of nowhere, while only hinting at its spiritual mission.
The hosts explain their motivations only if guests ask.
“We sit down and talk about what we’re doing — hospitality that's centered in the Gospel — and why we do it,” Pat said.
The Farrells view their ministry as a modern form of monastic hospitality, where places of faith also offer shelter to travelers in remote parts of the world. The hostel is part community center, hosting events from baby showers to 4H club meetings.
“There’s a greater strategy at work here,” said Pat. “Evangelism is leading people to Jesus. That’s our job. But evangelism can't happen without a foundation of community. We want to be a network hub for creating that.”
So when space was needed for officials from Travel Oregon or for planning meetings related to Oregon's 2017 solar eclipse, the Farrells were happy to host.
“We offer as many meetings as we can,” said Jalét. “That's what a church should be. Having this building sit empty six days a week would be criminal.”
The story of how the couple moved from a comfortable life in western Oregon to the high desert of the eastern part of the state began in the 1970s, when Jalét spent part of her childhood in John Day, a small city in Oregon's Grant County, which lent its name to the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. The monument features towering cliffs, lava flows and thousands of acres of fossil beds dating back some 50 million years.
(Photo by Julia Duin)
She eventually married Pat, a photographer and web developer, and the couple settled in Monmouth, a small university town near Salem, the state capital.
In 2015, while visiting friends in Mitchell, Jalét and her sister, Kary Gaskill, noticed an intriguing building for sale on the town's quirky Main Street.
Mitchell, population 136, is just seven miles from the Painted Hills, one of the most spectacular units of the fossil beds, where millions of years of geological history are displayed in vivid yellow, black and red bands across a series of low-lying hills. Located at mile 404.3 of the 4,200-mile TransAmerica Trail, Mitchell struck Jalét as a place full of possibilities.
“I literally had a vision of what it would look like running a hostel out of a house,” she recalled. “‘Somebody should open a hostel,’ I thought. I didn’t know that someone would be me.”
However, the building they admired was not for sale. Then, by chance, Jalét learned from the pastor at Praise Church in Monmouth — their home congregation and an Assembly of God affiliate — that the AG church in Mitchell was about to close. The 4,000-square-foot building was up for grabs.
“I told Pat, ‘We can have this building for free and operate it as a church and part-time hostel,’” Jalét said.
It took a year for the couple to be accredited as lay pastors, for the new church to come under the umbrella of Praise Church as a satellite congregation, and for the Farrells to relocate 200 miles to Mitchell. Work parties from various Assemblies of God congregations helped them gut and remodel the church. One task was to split the 10- and 12-foot pews from the old church to create seats for the hostel.
Spoke'n Hostel opened on Memorial Day weekend in 2016, hosting its first guest — a cyclist from Scotland. Word spread quickly, and that year, 365 people stayed at the hostel, some taking advantage of the free shuttle to the Painted Hills. In recognition of their efforts, the Farrells received a tourism development award from the state. Eight years later, the governor’s office would single out Jalét for a similar award, honoring her for being a “beacon of warm welcome and exceptional hospitality” for the 18-hour days she works from March to November.
This year marks their 10th hosting season, having welcomed some 5,000 guests to date, averaging up to 800 visitors per year.
The Farrells use a donation-based system, asking $35 per night, though most guests donate more. The largest foreign contingents come from the Netherlands, Germany, and the United Kingdom.
“What inspires me,” Jalét said, “is we get Christmas cards and postcards from around the world after we’re closed, telling us we were the best part of their entire trip.”
While they don’t credit themselves with converting anyone, the Farrells said some visitors have told them they returned to church or renewed their faith after staying at Spoke’n Hostel.
The Farrells also started a church in the basement, as there was no other place of worship in town except for the Baptist church.
“It’s a small group that meets here,” Pat said. “Around 10-20 people come. It’s more like a Bible study, but people have told me, ‘We like this style of church.’”
Guests — especially cyclists, who often leave at dawn — are usually long gone by the time the service begins at 11 a.m.
“It’s not like if you sleep in our bed, you have to sit in our pew,” Pat said.
The townspeople embraced the Farrells quickly, electing Pat as mayor for the first time in 2018. He also drives a school bus and handles maintenance and custodial work at the local school.
The couple also built a 1,600-square-foot home on a bluff overlooking the town—the first new home built in Mitchell in over 30 years.
“We wanted to invest in the community and create a home that would house a professional in the future,” Pat said, looking ahead to retirement.
Due to rural zoning laws, “there's limited housing for families here,” Pat added.
One of their first discoveries was how little social cohesion existed in town.
“When we moved here, jobs had dried up, and people had moved away,” Jalét said. “So, we had to start by building community.”
For example, there were no Halloween celebrations, and parents had to drive their children 50 miles to Prineville just to trick-or-treat.
“I said, ‘We have 60 houses—let’s have a neighborhood night,’” Jalét recalled. She approached local businesses to ask if they would sponsor a costume contest or apple bobbing. One ranch sponsored a hayride, and Pat came up with the idea of “coffin races” — hand-built contraptions on bike wheels, decorated to look like coffins.
The idea caught on, and more events were added over the years: a haunted house above the general store, a chili cook-off, a caramel apple dipping station, and a spooky story contest.
The coffin races are the evening's final event, and the whole town gathers to watch the teams — mainly teenagers perched on various wheeled contraptions — race a few hundred feet down the street to the post office. Last year, the high school shop class built the fastest entry.
Pat oversaw the races.
“Last night, everyone pushing those carts was helping each other and having a good time,” he said the day after Halloween. “The whole idea was to make it less competitive and more about something everyone could be a part of.”
Spoke’n Hostel, at 300 US Highway 26 in Mitchell, Ore., is closed until March 15. To reserve a bed, go to their site at https://www.spokenhostel.org.
Julia Duin is a Seattle writer and author of seven books. Her fourth book, “Quitting Church: Why the Faithful are Fleeing” (2008), lists singles as one of the top unchurched demographics in contemporary religion.