What You Will See

The vast majority of what I post here will be funny stories that are true. I really did do them. My suspicion is that many who read these will relate to them, and many have done something similar themselves. I will however, occasionally include some more serious stories that also reflect on my way of thinking. As a general rule, I have written these stories in a way that no names are revealed. The few times I include names of individuals is because I think it is important to give honor or respect to that individual. I do hope you will comment on the stories. I would love to read those comments, so please do so. I also hope that you will be rolling in laughter after reading my stories. Enjoy.

The Most Important Story of All

The stories I tell in this blog, for the most part are funny stories about my life. But they are not the most important story about me. There is a serious side to my life and I want to tell THAT story. It is the thread that runs through everything I do and everything I am. It is the story of becoming a Christian and how Christ has guided me throughout my life.

Salvation comes from a personal relationship, not church attendance

I grew up in a Christian Home, faithfully attended church, but it was not until college that I realized I was missing something in my life. Through the witness of a friend, and a Christian youth group at college, I came to realize that it did not matter that I grew up in a Christian home, or attended church faithfully. What mattered was that I have a personal relationship with Christ. Near the end of my Freshman year at college, I prayed that Christ would forgive my sins and I accepted Christ as my savior.

As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord

Soon after doing so, I felt God calling me into the ministry. I met my wife at college and she also had accepted Christ in college, and felt God leading her to the mission field. Together we set about to serve Christ in whatever way we were led. Our marriage was dedicated to that purpose. In our wedding rings, we had engraved the scripture Romans 8:28 “All things work together for good, to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” Life has not always been a bed of roses. But through it all, we have tried to seek out God’s will, and follow Him no matter where He led us. And He has been faithful to his promise in Romans 8:28.

God leads where He wants: I follow where He leads

When I went to seminary to earn a Master of Religious Education, my focus was on children’s work. For several years I followed his lead doing so. Then He asked me to step out on faith, and go into Prison Ministry. For the life of me, I could not see anything in my background that would prepare me to work with prisoners.  Sure, I had done some stupid things in my life, but I felt like I had nothing in common with prisoners, let alone understand how I could relate to them. But God asks for us to follow, and I did.

I joined Prison Fellowship, and took the required training courses to allow me to do prison ministry. Most of the “in-prison” ministry I did was in women’s prison. I discovered that there was a real need for Christian men to be role models as most of the women in prison had never had a Christian male role model.  My wife even took some of the training and joined me in the women’s prison. That was even more significant, because the inmates really did not know any Christian role models of a husband and wife. There is such a need for that in our prisons.

God lead me to children’s work, and later to Angel Tree

But the most important direction God was leading me, became clear when I was taking my basic prison ministry training. One of my trainers was Mary Kay Beard, a former criminal who had been on the FBI’s 10 most wanted list. She told of her life of crime, and how God changed her while in prison, and her promise to Him when she got out. What she did when she got out was start the program adopted by Prison Fellowship called Angel Tree. A program that provides a way for inmates (who never stopped loving their children) to be able to have Christmas gifts given to their children, in their name, by local churches, since being in prison, they had no way to do so themselves.

Angel Tree is my passion: I will serve God thru Angel Tree until He leads me somewhere else

I have been doing Angel Tree for over twenty five years, and it is the major passion in my life. Through Angel Tree, I am able to reach the families of inmates, help the children to realize their parent had not forgotten them, and facilitate the reconciliation of the incarcerated parent and their family. I now serve as an area coordinator, helping line of up churches to meet those needs. I coordinate an eight county area in Illinois, which serves approximately 1,000 children of inmates each year.

That is my passion, and that is what God has led me to do with my life. He asked, and I obeyed, and that is MY story. If you would like to know how to become a Christian, or more about Angel Tree, please use my contact page and I will gladly try to answer your questions.