Our Personal History
Our story began when I met Mary at conservative Mennonite youth fellowship meeting at the age of 16 years old. Mary’s parents had already moved to Paris Texas to start a new Mennonite community. My parents had already announced that our family (who now lived in Iowa) was pulling stakes and moving to Texas to help in this pioneer effort. Once in Texas Mary and I started our journey under the close monitorship of the Mennonite community. In November of 1981 we married, I was 18 years old. I bought a small run-down building in Roxton, Texas. The property was in a local bank repossession process and they sold it to me on unbelievable terms. Three years later we started our family having 3 children in 4 years, Kenda, Kimberly and Kendall. In 1984 we sold out in Roxton, bought a brick home in Paris and I accepted the manager position at a local engine building machine shop. Working in a machine shop and building engines would span for the next 18 years.
In 1989 our lives took a turn, Mary’s mother had a stroke and we chose to abandon our fellowship with the Mennonite church. We both grew up in Amish homes, members of the Mennonite church, spoke the german/ dutch language, attended Mennonite schools, were baptized in the Mennonite church, married under Mennonite leadership and now we chose to leave it all, I was 25 years old. We had to find our path. We heard of a mission organization that was looking for a family to help rebuild a well used mission house deep in the Heart of Mexico in the town of Zacatecas. We lived on the ground floor of the mission house while building a bathroom and remodeling the chapel and kitchen upstairs. Kendall was 2 years old, Kimberly was 3 years old and Kenda was 4 years old. The mission board furnished our living expenses and gave us 100.00 per month. We arrived on July 27th 1989 and returned to the US on January 9th 1990. Little did we know that we were being introduced to the workings for a child sponsorship program that would impact our lives till this day. Mary painted, sewed new curtains, and I learned how to mix mortar by hand and lay bricks, do plumbing, and lay tile.
Upon returning to the US we set out as a family to serve the underprivileged Spanish-speaking children in Latin America. Meanwhile our family was anxious to try our wings with music and traveling local until we could get our coach completed and ready for full-time ministry. We had no debt but no cash either, so I started a mechanic shop in our backyard that grew into another engine machine shop business. For the next 10 years our family travelled on weekends, Mary homeschooled the children, and every extra minute available we worked on our coach. In the fall of 1999 I sold my shop, moved all the machines to the new owners location and worked for him till he could get the layout of my customers.