I grew up in a solid home with 2 (Lutheran) parents who believed in God and regularly attended church and tried their best to instill a good character in us and live out what they believed is their faith.

I continued to attend Lutheran churches throughout undergraduate college and into the early years of my chiropractic education. However, my girlfriend (who later became my wife, Eileen) found the Lutheran service at the church near the chiropractic campus to be boring and unfulfilling. She was raised catholic and found that equally unfulfilling. We began attending a relatively new church plant off from Willow Creek and enjoyed the music and strong emphasis on the Word. I can't say I ever made a "decision for Christ" at that time, but I was growing in my knowledge of Him. I started going to church for more than just to say “I went” or out of habit. I was actually feeling like the services were making a difference in my life.

In December 1990, I graduated from chiropractic college and began practicing in Bloomington, IL. I continued to do so until my girlfriend (Eileen) graduated from chiropractic college in December 1991. We were married January 18, 1992 and we moved up to the Racine/Kenosha, WI area. She worked for another doctor in Milwaukee and I began the difficult work of starting a practice from scratch in Kenosha.

Once we moved up to live in Racine, we began attending a church recommended to us by the pastor we had in the Willow Creek church plant. Grace Church is a North American Baptist church. The word was preached boldly there. I continued to grow in my knowledge of Him and began, slowly, to relinquish control of my life.

However, I continued to struggle with getting along with my new wife and was really struggling with the concept that I felt like I was not being appreciated and did not feel very loved. At least not unconditionally. I felt rejection and feared rejection all the time. And I was so concerned about hurting others in the same way I was feeling hurt, I repressed and buried everything I was feeling. I would desperately avoid sharing anything with my wife or anyone else that might cause conflict and hurt.

The joy of living was being sapped from me. I had moments where I just wanted to (and actually began the process of moving into the basement one time) get away and not have to deal with these feelings. I would hear the gospel preached and I would, just in case it wasn't so, tell God that I wanted Him in my life, but I felt no change... no relief from the torture/anguish of being so misunderstood and underappreciated and not unconditionally loved.

One day at church I found myself sitting next to a vision of Jesus. He didn't say a word. I asked him all the controversial questions (abortion, homosexuality, end times revelation, etc) and he looked at me like I was asking the wrong questions and he took his finger and touch the left side of my chest and my chest lit up. I continued to ask the "dumb" questions of him (after all, how often to you get to converse with Jesus) and he would just point at my chest and my chest lit up. Finally, I got it. He knew what my deepest cry was... my fear. Lord, are you truly in my heart? His answer to me was "YES, I am in your heart."

A couple of years after that, my wife and I seemed to be having the same arguments over and over. We had 2 kids by now and they were old enough where we were seeing that they were getting scared with the loudness of the voices (shouting) they were hearing from us. One such argument stemmed from a broken promise and lying from me. About 9 months earlier, Eileen had uncovered a financial mess in the office. I had been telling her the practice was doing well and all the bills were being paid. She found out otherwise. I promised her that would not happen again. Nine months later, it happened again. She was even more hurt the second time. I was scheduled to go to a men's retreat about a week after that. My wife knew that I was operating in fear and not in honesty. She also knew that I had understood God's love and mercy and grace, in my head. But when she confronted me, she discerned that in my heart, I didn't have a clue.

I went to the men's retreat. They had some great worship times. I found myself in the midst of worship (on Saturday) on my knees sobbing like a baby because I was such a miserable, ugly, scummy man. I knew I was in need of a healing. They indicated on the second day (Saturday) that there would be an open microphone for testimonies and confessions and sharing. I so much knew that I needed to be at that mike sharing my struggles with these guys that I commented to the guy that was running it that if I didn't come up (because of pride/fear), to make sure that he called me up. That turned out to be unnecessary. Because as soon as they indicated that the mike was open, I found myself (by the power of the Holy Spirit) standing and then walking toward the mike.

I confessed everything. I humbled myself before these 40 men. Allowing them to see the ugly underbelly of my life. I had no clue how they would respond. I didn't care. I just knew that, as I was sobbing and sharing in front of them, that I was doing the right thing. I told them that my marriage was in miserable shape and because I had built it on my wife's needs and on reacting to circumstances. Basically, I had built my home on shifting sand. I was glad to tear it all down. I told them that I had nothing left and that I was starting from scratch. I asked them to pray that God would help me build my marriage on the Rock (Jesus Christ). However, once I stopped and was going to sit down, one of the men called the rest of them to pray for me. Next thing I knew I was kneeling and weeping on the floor and I had 40 men laying hands on me praying for everything from prosperity for the clinic, purity and grace for me and for forgiveness and love from my wife.

I was amazed how it felt to "come clean." I still realized that my home was a mess. But I had hope. God was now in control. I needed help. These men were God's tools. The next morning I found myself weeping on my knees again. Only this time, I was weeping because God showed me what grace was and I felt it. I finally felt the unconditional love of God. It didn't matter that I screwed up, what mattered is that I was His and I opened the door of that messy room up to him and He cleaned it out.

In November 1999, God moved us to Racine Assembly Church. We had felt a glass ceiling in leadership at Grace church, but we were immediately welcomed and "put to good use" at RAG. By February 2000, we were baptized in the Holy Spirit and received our prayer language. I have been in many theatrical productions at Grace and at RAG. I have also taught classes.

In May 2002, I was elected to the Board of Deacons for a 3-year term.

In January 2003, I strongly felt God was directing me to begin a men's ministry called Mire to Rock. It would be a place where men would be free to share, where men would not be pummeled, but encouraged and loved. It would be a place where the prophetic would flow and men would be pulled from being stuck in the mud, cleaned off and sent on their way to their calling in Christ Jesus. I put on 3 conferences last year that were successful beyond my expectations. At the Lord's leading, I passed on that torch to another man.

At that time God was moving my office. He spoke into us that we were in a transitional place. He was positioning us. However, we just assumed it was to help us reduce our debt.

On January 18, 2004, Eileen & I were out celebrating our 12-year anniversary and we were awed at all we had been through and how God had healed our marriage and had been changing us. Then we started an unusual conversation. Next thing you knew, we were feeling the call of God to the missions field. Now I had never desired that ever before in my life. I had envisioned our family ministering together, coming in for a week for conference like events and then leaving. But going in and staying? It didn't seem likely.

Here's what we felt: God was calling us to an island or a tropical "beachy" area (Caribbean or South Pacific). He was calling both of us to use our chiropractic, but not for money. We were going to bless others by giving it away. We were also going to be as much (if not more) into ministering and discipling as we were going to be doing the chiropractic. We would be leaving here with NO DEBT. (Which was significant because at one point we carried over $425,000 in business, credit card, house and student loan debts.)

Now the question was where and when. We felt like God was going to do it quickly. Maybe in as soon as 1.5 years or as long as 3 years. The selling of the practice and the house would then pay off a huge portion or all of our debt.

Eileen went to the "fly in" in Atlanta in earlier this year and was surprised that the only person that she was really able to hook up with was someone who was talking about that Belize had asked for a chiropractor on their next short term missions trip. I had heard of Belize but thought, "it's not an island". So I ignored its possibility.

We talked every single day about different areas and different possibilities. We were looking at the South Pacific for a while, then Jamaica, then Haiti. Eileen was surprised that the only missionaries in the Caribbean who responded to her emails were serving in Belize. Our kids were also not very excited... until we started talking about Belize. Only a few weeks later, we have had so much confirmation about Belize and are really growing a love for the people of Belize and their spiritual state.

We are still open to other countries, but Belize is the leading candidate in our hearts, by far.

I then went to Belize with Health Care Ministries through the Assemblies of God and determined a few things: Yes, we were called to Belize. No, we weren’t called to do JUST health care down there, but that would be a tool to reach the Belizeans.

Since then we have gone down there as a family on 2 separate occasions and are scheduled to go again in Jan 2006. Our hope is to get down there every 3-4 months until God makes a way for us to be down there full time by ridding us of our debt and raising our support to live down there.