I was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1960 and my family moved to Pound WI in 1964. I lived there until I was married in 1980. When I was 5, I went forward in a church service and made a profession of faith. My church actually had AWANA in 1966 for a brief time, although I don’t remember much about it. I was raised in a Christian home and we were in church every time the doors of the church were open. I was very active in church the whole time I lived there.

In 1978, I went to Northland Baptist Bible College in Dunbar, WI, where I met my wife Penny. After we got married in 1980, we moved to Sturgeon Bay, WI, for work. The town was a very Catholic and Lutheran area. There was only one Baptist Church so me, my brother, and our wives helped to get a church started. We had a Bible study going for a while until we had a good nucleus of people, and then we called a pastor. That was the beginning of Beacon Baptist Church. We went on door-to door visitation every week to get the church to grow, and it was growing slow but sure.

An evangelist came to our church in January of 1982 and preached on repentance.  In the last service, God started to work on my heart and I realized that I was religious but very lost. I was active in church, but I was not reading my Bible or praying at all. God showed me that I was lost and on my way to Hell. On January 19, 1982, I received Christ into my heart. I could not believe how much my life changed! I had a desire to read the Bible and I understood what I was reading.

Shortly after that, God started to work on my wife and me to go into full-time Christian service.  I started to look at going back to college but soon found out it wasn’t what He wanted for us at that time.  When we were down in Florida visiting my wife’s parents for the Christmas holidays, I was checking out a Bible college in Jacksonville FL and things were not falling into place.   Then we found a job listed in the paper, at Rodeheaver Boys Ranch in Palatka, FL, working with troubled kids. We went down to Palatka to visit and applied for a job as cottage parents. We were seeking Gods will for our lives.  We were hired that day and moved to Florida in February of 1989. It was tough work and we realized after 6 months that it was hard on our 3 boys.   We worked 12 days on and 4 days off and we didn’t get to go to church regularly.  After our 4 year old asked, “Do we have to go to church?”, we decided we would leave the cottage.  We lived on the boy’s ranch for a year and a half, while I worked in the farm section for that last year.

From there, I became a principal of a small ACE school for a year, still searching for where God wanted us.  In August of 1990 when I started with the school, I asked the pastor of Faith Baptist Church if they needed any help in the church. That was the fist year that I began working in Awana. He asked me to be the Commander, JV director, and youth Sunday school teacher. That was a big year of learning for me. I loved Awana, and when I left the school I got a job which allowed me to be active in the church. Later the next year I also became the youth director on a volunteer basis.

The church was active in the Awana Olympics. They always had a Varsity Olympic team, Pastor asked me to coach the team. I didn’t know anything about it but the kids showed me the games and I fell in love with it. We went to the Olympics that year and won first place. I was hooked! I coached the Olympic team until 2002. We went to the National Competition four times with them, and I loved it.

After my first year with Awana, we thought that God was calling us to be Awana Missionaries. When we were in Chicago with my Varsity team we had a meeting with Everet Hawbaker, and we told him that we wanted to be missionaries.  He told us that they would not look at someone to be a missionary until they had been in Awana for 5 years.  So we went home and joined the Ministry team with our regional Awana missionary in Florida, Steve Stahl, and learned everything there is to know about Awana for the next 5 years. Then we applied to be an Awana Missionary to Poland.  When the application process was over they told us that they were not planning to go to Poland at that time. He said that we could apply later on if we wanted to.

Four years later they were going to split Steve Stahl’s territory, so I applied again. There was another couple applying for that area and they picked them over us. I thought, “OK, God doesn’t want me to be an Awana missionary.”  I was happy staying a youth director and Awana Commander.

In August 2001, God opened doors for us to go with Source of Light Ministries International in Madison GA. They wanted us to open an office for them in Canada.

I am enjoying what God has given me and am also helping in Awana as a Game Director for a small church here in the city.