My Family: Each Member a Superhero
God put it in my heart to quit. I had worked 12 years with the City of Bay Village, a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. My job provided four weeks vacation, good pay, great benefits—and a restless heart. I told the mayor that I would be stepping down as recreation director to begin reaching Spanish speakers and inner-city families of Cleveland for Christ with my local church, Cleveland Baptist.
The pay for an associate pastor was significantly less than that of a civil servant, but God took great care of our six superhero children. They didn’t have a lot of luxuries. My superhero wife made do with limited income. Hey, our tiny starter home became our finisher home, but as the song goes, love grows best in small houses.
As my superhero wife home schooled and raised our superhero children, I served more than full-time as not-so-superhero associate pastor, bus director, deacon, Sunday school superintendent for 5th & 6th grade department, and 8th grade Bible teacher in the Christian school. Monday and Tuesday evenings I worked to complete my Bible degree at Heritage Baptist Institute. Wednesday evening was church, and Thursday evening was visitation. Saturday my superhero family accompanied me to bus ministry, visiting both Spanish speaking families and some of the underprivileged of our community. Sundays we corralled the 20 buses filled with mostly children, usually over 500 of them, to hear the glorious gospel of Christ. Somehow we made time to spend time with our superhero cousins that were always there for us.
Home schooling turns to 15 passenger van schooling
After three years, I had graduated from Bible institute—and had visited in hundreds of the homes of the children who visited our church via the bus ministry. I learned to speak Spanish while heading up the Spanish ministry.
My wife and I visited with a missionary family in Costa Rica to help discern God’s will in our lives. We felt He was calling us to missions. It seemed there was a lot going on for Christ there in Costa Rica. To every city we pointed to on the map, our missionary host said, “Oh yes, we have a work going on there.” So we looked for a more needy country. While my wife and I traveled, we knew our children were safe because our superhero siblings and parents where always willing to watch them.
Soon our entire family was crisscrossing the USA raising support to reach the more isolated and needy field of Bolivia, South America. Our mission board was BIMI, our sending church was Cleveland Baptist Church, and our home was a 15 passenger van. My superhero wife home schooled our six children as we traveled from church to church to church…to church. We presented our ministry from coast to coast, and to a few churches in Canada. In her downtime, my wife also managed to become certified as a teacher of English as a second language, a skill she would use in the future to lead children and their parents to Christ. Our extended superhero family and friends supported us financially and cheered us on. We are so blessed by God.
Dangers, toils and superhero snares
I cannot disclose all the difficult things that happened to our family while we served as missionaries in Sucre, Bolivia. Sometimes, it was too dangerous for our five daughters and one son to go out of the home. We ventured through tear gas, tire fires, and a civil uprisings just to get to church. We got caught behind violent blockades while out, getting groceries. I won’t take anymore time telling you about the food poisoning, and the other near death experiences of church planting. God protected us.
God did allow us to win people to Himself. Miraculously. God did build His church as He promised. We introduced people to Christ, baptized them, and watched as God did the impossible. The Bolivian believers soon became our superheros. My wife continued faithfully homeschooling our own children and leading precious Bolivians to Christ in her English classes and at Sunday School. Our children never complained. I have the greatest family in the world. Superhero is a vast understatement.
Pastoring the Greatest People in the World
I realize all people are sinners, so how could I say the people at Antioch Baptist Church are the greatest people in the world? Easy. They called me to be their pastor! They have taken great care of my superhero family. While serving as pastor at Antioch we have gone from 5 children living with us to one. We have seen 3 of our children married off (one was married while we were in Bolivia), and we now have 6 superhero grandchildren! Incredible. Sienna is the last remaining superhero at home…and she’s pretty amazing.
Back to the Jungle
Seems like half of my heart remained on the mission field. So, I’ve got to go back. As we desired to reach the isolated and needy country of Bolivia, I now desire to reach the isolated and hard-to-reach around the world for Christ. I have asked our church to release me from call as their pastor and send me to the regions beyond.
My network of missionary friends encircles the globe and is still growing. Based out of West Virginia, I am taking the Great Commission personally, calling on churches, family, friends and individuals to help me reach a few more souls for Christ before I die, or the Lord returns. Humanly speaking, I want to reach where no one is reaching and preach where no one is preaching. If the Lord would allow it, I would travel to each one of Earth’s195 countries and preach Christ. Personally, I think that’s totally doable, and if I think it is, what do you think God is capable of in light of Ephesians 3:20?
[stextbox id=’black’]Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us,[/stextbox]
So here’s to my superhero wife, and superhero children, extended family and friends. Here’s to the dear folks of Antioch. I will be relying on their prayers and patience as I travel the world. I thank my God for the life He has given me – and look forward with extreme joy and excitement to what He has in store.
- Sending Church: Antioch Missionary Baptist Church
- Mission Board: Gospel Preachers Association
For more details see the support or contact page.
Thanks for reading, thanks for praying, thanks for doing all you do for the cause of Christ!
Photo: This is a few years old, but I couldn’t resist the heart shape since we love them all. This photo includes just some of our superhero children and their spouses, one superhero sister and superhero cousins and spouse.