I was born in Los Angeles General Hospital, but all through my childhood years, my family was transient, moving back and forth between Iowa and California. Part of the reason was that my dad's parents divorced early. Grandpa Poland lived in Gladbrook, which we kind of regarded as the Poland's hometown. My dad's mother, Grandpa's wife, moved to California, remarried and my grandpa came back to Iowa. So Dad had family in both states.

From the time he was nine years old, Dad had juvenile diabetes, which affected his eye­sight. In early years, he was able to paint houses — in Iowa in the summertime, and we moved so he could paint in California in the winter. The diabetes became worse until it was impossible for him to continue painting, and he took on other jobs. For awhile he worked as an exterminator, which he could have done in either state, but moving back and forth had become a habit. That was what we continued to do until 1968, when we settled in Iowa.

Mom worked for Northwestern Bell Telephone Company, so we also moved within Iowa according to her transfers. When she worked in Ames, we lived in Cambridge; when in Marshalltown, we moved back to Gladbrook; Her transfer to Des Moines necessitated another move, but two of her brothers lived in Adair so we moved there. By the time I graduated from high school I had gone to 12 different schools, not counting the same schools I had transferred to more than once. The benefit of all that moving and transitioning, was that I learned to meet new people, but the downside was that everywhere we went, I was always the new kid.

Dad was declared legally blind when I was just turning 11, and he has been on disability ever since. I started helping support the family when I was about that age, in fourth grade. In a rural community that was easy to do — walking beans and hiring out to pick up bales of hay — jobs that no longer exist. I discovered one of the egg farms was going out of business so I decided to invest the money I'd earned that summer in 4,000 laying hens and 800 roosters. Our farm had a chicken house complete with roosts and nests so that aspect of the business was covered.

These were old chickens but there was an incubator, which my parents helped me fix up, and I incubated some of the eggs so I could get younger chickens. I replenished my flock with younger laying hens, selling off some of the roosters. I spent my mornings and evenings feeding chickens, and because we were paid more if the eggs were candled, I did that. We'd crate them in big boxes, two dozen on a rack, and sell them to a local egg company. That had a two-fold benefit — generating income and keeping me out of mischief. With some of the profits we bought sheep and hogs.

It was in my nature to farm. I would probably have liked to make it my career. However, after two or three years, when I was half-way through sixth grade, my parents moved to Cambridge from Colo, and I sold my livestock and chickens. I got another job, though, so income continued. I confess that with all the moving in my childhood, I was a pretty rebellious youth. I wish I could say I always happily contributed financially to the family but that wasn't the case. I felt a lot of resentment because of my dad's disability and other things. The result — I was often in trouble.

We built a house when we moved to Cambridge, and were there until the summer before my sophomore year when we moved to Gladbrook and lived there during my sophomore and junior years. Half way through my junior year, my parents moved to Adair, where Judy and I met. She was a year behind me in school, and we didn't start dating until just before I graduated. Our first date was March 12, 1977.

By July, I had fallen hard and fast in love with Judy. I had just graduated from high school, and was managing the kitchen in a restaurant in Adair. I had an idea to buy Judy a promise ring. These were a big thing at that time. But I was going to be sneaky. I knew nothing about ring size but a jeweler and I had it all set up. I picked out a blue opal promise ring that I would buy to give her for Christmas. I planned to take her to Wolfe Jewelers in Atlantic, we would nonchalantly stop in and get her ring size, before we'd go out for supper and a movie.

It happened on a Saturday afternoon. I showed her the promise rings which she barely glanced at, shoved the tray aside and looked though the top of the glass case at all the engagement rings. My ally, the jeweler, suddenly changed sides. He quickly brought out the tray of rings that had caught her attention, and immediately Judy's eyes focused on one ring which she took out and tried on for size. The next thing I knew, he was writing down the size, and I said, "This is a diamond ring. I can't afford a diamond ring." I'd paid him for the opal and he said, "I happen to know you can afford the down payment." As he wrote out the contract, Judy said, "This is so exciting! I am so happy!" I didn't know what else to do. I just signed on the line. As we walked out, Judy said, "You can't say anything to my parents about this." I was 18, she was 17, and she knew they'd be really upset that we were engaged when we were both so young.

When we picked up the ring, Judy took it home and hid it in her bedroom. In the fall, she started wearing the ring — as she registered for school, signed up for cheerleading practice and everything. I told her, "You can't wear that ring if you don't tell your parents. You have to tell your parents!" Her response was, "Okay, we'll tell them, but if they start yelling at you and hitting you, you have to promise you won't stop seeing me."

Judy tells her part of the story:

My parents are Noonan and Ardyth Christoffersen. When I was beginning to write, I had a terrible time learning to spell it. I may have been in second grade before I accomplished it. I grew up on a farm in southwest Iowa, between Casey and Greenfield, and at age 17, I had lived in the same house all my life. I have two older brothers, Randy and Lonnie, so I was the baby of the family. My dad was quite a lot older than my mother. She had married right out high school, too, so in the back of my mind I didn't think they could have a lot of objection to my becoming engaged.

My dad had been wounded in WWII. He was in the Army, in his mid-20s, when he was drafted and sent to the Philippines. He was in heavy fighting in Bataan and Corregidor. His unit was nearly wiped out. Although he was wounded and rheumatoid arthritis set in where he'd had shrapnel, he was one of few survivors. A lot of his friends died over there, and Dad told that he found God in a foxhole. He came back with a very strong faith. In his growing-up years, his family hadn't been church goers other than for Christmas and Easter, but he became really involved in the church after he'd come back. His faith made a deep impression on Bill.

Dad had been in poor health ever since I was born, and his hands were pretty crippled. When I was 10, he was run over by a tractor. He and my brother were out working when the tractor slipped out of gear and started rolling backward. Dad tried to jump on the tractor to stop it but with his arthritis, he wasn't quick enough. He slipped and fell. It was a small Massey-Ferguson but it went over his chest and the back tires rolled over his head. It crushed his skull and he was in the hospital for three months that summer. My brothers were 15 and 17 — old enough to stay on the farm and keep things going. I was shipped around to stay with different people. Other than that, I had a fairly normal childhood.

Dad had been engaged to a woman before he left to go into the service, but she dumped him and married someone else while he was in the Pacific islands. He was 28 years old when he came back, and most of the women his age were taken. He farmed with his uncle, whose housekeeper was my grandmother, my mom's mom. My mother was still in school and lived with them. He started taking her to choir practice, to dances and other events. She was 14, he was twice her age. They started having feelings for each other, which turned into love. Neither of their mothers were very happy about that but they finally accepted the fact that this was happening.

They dated all through high school and were married on June 24, after Mom graduated. Dad was 32 and Ardyth was 18. Before they were married, Norman came down to Adair County and bought the farm where I grew up. Before the turn of the century, it was owned by Bishop Wright, Bishop of the Evangelical Churches west of the Mississippi. Mom has a copy of a published book that is his diary. It mentions the farm and its location, also that he bought it for his sons Orville and Wilbur so they would stop the folly of building bicycles, which he thought was a ridiculous trade. "Come and be farmers and earn an honest living." Because they didn't do that, they became an important part of American history.

We didn't know until about 15 years ago, when we saw the deed, that in 1901 or '02, the Wrights sold the farm in order to raise the money to build their airplane. Except for closing on it, Orville and Wilbur didn't ever see the land. One of them came to sell it. Their father had been there and built the original house and barn. When my parents married, they moved to that farm, and lived in the house. They tore it down just before I was born and built a new house on the same location. My older brother, Randy, still farms the family farm. My next older brother wanted nothing to do with farming He became a hair stylist and he and his wife have a shop in Atlantic.

Bill picks up the story:

I didn't really know all of that when I was preparing to tell Judy's parents about our engagement. I had met her mother, which was not a reassuring experience. When my family moved to Adair, I attended the Adair/Casey school. In October, the school was getting ready for Homecoming, which included a pep rally complete with bonfire on the previous night. They traditionally burned old outhouses. One of the guys on the football team was the grandson of people who went to the Highland open country church, which was Judy's church. He said, "I know a place where we can get two outhouses." What he either didn't know or didn't bother to tell us was they were still in use.

My old Chevy pickup truck was chosen to haul them. We easily loaded the first one. The second was so heavy, three of us couldn't lift it. Every time we lifted, all we managed to do was slide it backward. We had to leave the second, which the young man's grandfather discovered. He was in charge of starting the furnace on Sunday mornings and for choir practice on Wednesday nights. That week, in the evening's cool October air, he felt the call of nature and went to the outhouse that had been moved back about three feet, so you can guess what he stepped into.

When Judy went to school the next day, she recognized the outhouse we were able to move, called her mom, who called the principal, Steve Horning, and he called me into his office at once. The other two fellows faded into the woodwork. I was in this alone. I purchased the paint to repaint the outhouses and went out to the site by myself. When I drove up, Judy's mom, Ardyth Christoffersen, and Gladys Nicholq were both standing there with their aims folded and their feet tapping the ground so hard that children in China were bouncing up and down. Right away I saw them and thought, "Oh, no, two more church ladies."

Sure enough, I heard all about how it was wrong to take those outhouses. . . they used them . . .this, after all, was a church. . .and what kind of person was I that I would steal outhouses from a church, etc. etc. etc. They were really picky. I had to get both of those out-houses set back exactly as they were. They were watching to make sure I painted everything. As I left there, I was saying to myself and to God, "This is why I don't go to church." This story, showing God's sense of humor, is how I met Ardyth, my intended mother-in-law.

Between that time and when I was setting myself up to break the news of our engagement, they had come to know me better. Because I liked farming, I spent a lot of my free time helping Judy's dad and brother with farm work. Ardyth is a great cook so I ate well, made some money and saw Judy all at the same time. We decided when was the appropriate time to tell them and I had asked if we could have supper with them that evening and share some news.

It was hilarious. Judy's mom hurried everything. She hurried the meal, she hurried the dessert, she was taking the plates away before I was finished eating. She put everything in the sink, rinsed off the dishes, rushed in, sat down beside me and said, "Okay, you have something to tell us." Judy's dad was on the other side of the table and Judy on my left. I summoned up all my courage and said, "Mr. and Mrs. Christofferson, I would like to ask permission to marry your daughter." I watched both of them stiffen noticeably, and Judy's mom said, "When?" I answered that we had been talking about a lot of  dates andime would like to be married on their anniversary, June 24th. This was in August and Ardyth started counting on her fingers. When she finished, she said, "Oh!" and threw out her arms.

I dived under the table because I thought she was going to hit me and Judy slid away from me. What her mother was worried about had never crossed my mind. Ardyth pulled me up off the floor, gave me a big hug and started with, "Congratulations! Congratulations!" I said, "Then I have your permission?" and she said, "Of course. Of course!" Then she stopped herself and said, "Norm, does he have your permission?" I actually don't remember Judy saying much of anything. They called in Randy — Judy's brother, who was living with them and doing most of the farming. Ardyth said, "Did you hear the news?" His answer was "Oh, good grief; my little sister is getting married even before I am!"

We talked and they went off to bed. I thought it had gone very well. We were sitting on the couch and I looked over at Judy. Her expression told she was mad at me. I was trying to figure out what on earth I had done to make her mad. Had I said something wrong? I'd given them the date she and I had talked about and pretty soon she said, "Well! I think you are taking a lot for granted!" I was dumbfounded and asked, "What?" She said, "You are going around telling everybody we are getting married and you've never even asked me." I made her take off the ring that she had picked out for me to purchase, I got down on my knees, asked her to marry me, and put the ring back on her finger. We were married on June 24th, 1978, Norman and Ardyth's 27th anniversary, and now our daughter Andrea has been married the 24th of June on our 27th anniversary.

When we first were married, I worked for Cardinal Glass factory in Greenfield. I lost that job because I injured my back trying to catch a big palette of glass that was falling, and they didn't want to employ an injured person. Two weeks from the time I was laid off; I started driving a truck hauling gas for the Thermogas Company out of Greenfield, selling fertilizer, doing furnace installations and appliance repair.

We come now to 1979, which was not a good year for us. About three months after we were married, Judy became pregnant with our first child. She went full term with the baby. When she went in for her check-up, a week after her due date, they could not hear a heart beat. It developed the child had died. They decided it would be better if she went into labor naturally so she carried the baby nearly a week, knowing he was dead. She went into labor and had a natural birth: He weighed eight pounds. We named him Wesley William. We had talked with the mortician ahead of time and made the arrangements for a grave-side service.

This was particularly hard on me. I was a new Christian. I had not grown up in the church. My parents hadn't been involved with the church at all, and prior to my acquaintance with Judy and her family, my only exposure to the church had been in the Lutheran tradition. That wasn't entirely positive, and made me affirm that I really didn't want much to do with the church.

That experience happened when we lived in Cambridge. I went to catechism mainly to keep a member of that church from getting beaten up by another member. I attended for two years and learned a lot about grace, which Martin Luther emphasized. But that church didn't offer open communion, and at my early teen age it really bothered me that there would be people who would be restricted. If grace was free, why wasn't it offered to everyone? As a result, I decided the church was hypocritical and I didn't want to have anything to do with it. In addition to Martin Luther's catechism, in my young years I had spent some time reading the Bible. I saw how Jesus was described in the New Testament, which didn't match up with what I experienced in the church. In those naive years, I simply wrote off the church.

However, when Judy and I started dating and throughout our engagement, I really was attracted to the kind of faith her family had. Norman had gone through a lot in his life and he talked about how important his faith was to him — not just because of the providence of God in keeping him alive during WWII, but the importance of grace. He talked about the war during which people did things they didn't feel good about. It was not only in terms of shooting and killing enemies —they had no choice of who were the enemies, but here they were shooting and killing each other. Additionally, he shared with me that on one of the islands they took sniper fire. They thought it came from a hut and their reaction was to return fire into the hut. However, when Norman and his companion went into the hut, they discovered it was a mother and three children. They had killed them! For him, God's grace immediately became something he had to hold to for the eternal life of those they had killed and also for himself.

He had thought through issues that many accepted without giving them any thought. I was impressed. One day I said, "Norman, why are you allowing me to date your daughter, let alone to be married to her?" He said, "You know I have done things and God still loves me. How then can I not love you?" That really hit me. That was the kind of stuff I read about in the Bible — real stuff.

One day Norman said to me, "Why don't you come with us to church?" Coincidently, it was the first Sunday of the month on which their church traditionally served communion. My only experience of communion was at the time of my confirmation. The pastor who was confirming me got so wrapped up in the ritual, that he forgot to baptize me. He gave me communion afterward, then told me we were both guilty of mortal sin. The lesson I took from it was that if you come to communion without proper discernment, you were sent to hell. So when Judy's family invited me to go up for communion in the United Methodist Church my response was, "I've already sent two people to hell over this, I don't want to send anybody else. I haven't been baptized."

Remember Gladys Nichols from the outhouse incident? I think everybody had gone up for communion except she and I. Suddenly I felt a tap on my shoulder and she said, "Bill, this is for you." I explained that I wasn't baptized, she said, "It doesn't matter. God loves you anyway." When I went forward and knelt with her at that communion railing, my faith journey began. Once you experience what real Christlike love is, it makes you long for more. From that time on, from the first day we were married, Judy and I made it a goal to read through the Bible together. Every night before we went to bed, we spent time reading the Bible.

I was baptized in the Greenfield United Methodist Church. By that time, I had moved to Greenfield, and had attended church there on Sundays when my work prevented my going to Highland with Judy. I also could relate well in Greenfield because there were younger people, which was not the case in the Highland Church, and I really liked the pastor. Judy's mother had wanted us to see if we could be married in that church because Highland wasn't large enough. We fell in love with the people in the church, so I was baptized January 29th,1978. I had come to faith, we had been married in the church there, and were leading a youth Sunday School class.

It seemed like my life was being straightened out. I was feeling a kind of newness in God and now our baby, Wesley, had died and I questioned how this could be. How could God allow this to happen that our baby we had fallen so much in love with could be taken from us this way? We grappled with the inadequacy of human answers. We heard so many people saying, "It is better this way; God needed an angel; maybe something would have been wrong with the baby." Dick Hohl, our pastor, said, "I wish I could give you an answer. I don't know why God would allow this to happen, but I do know this." And he went on to share with us Romans 8:28: "In all things God works toward good for those who love the Lord, who are called according to his purpose." That stuck with me in a way that said we had to look for good in what happened and God would be there if we just kept reaching out to God.

In our Sunday School class we kept sharing that with the kids and in August Judy started talking about it in regard to our motorcycle incident. We were living in a small mobile home on a farm after we were married. I was coming home from work at Thermogas and a lady from Casey was coming home from Creston. She had stayed there too long and her husband was evidently very demanding. He had to have his supper at a certain time and she was going to be late. She wasn't paying much attention to my motorcycle. I saw in my rearview mirror that she was coming up behind me too fast. I tried to gun the motorcycle to get out of her way, but I heard her hit the brakes and the cycle slid out from under me just as she hit. I know I couldn't have done the timing of that myself. She rode over the motorcycle, drug it down the road, and I was there bouncing on one leg but totally unharmed. The bike was totaled but we count it a miracle that I came out without a scratch. So God had allowed our baby to die but here I was still alive after all of this.

Then in November 1979, the Monday before Thanksgiving, I was driving our gas truck filling house- and dryer-tanks with propane. The truck we had for Thermogas was kind of a swing truck. In early fall and late spring, we took the propane tank off and put on a liquid fertilizer tank. That is very caustic, causing the metals to corrode. As I was pulling up to a stop sign, the brakes went out on my gas truck. Fortunately I was able to use the gears and slow it down so I got through the intersection without hitting anybody but it meant that our truck was down.

The manager, Tom Lampe, and I took the truck to the shop and he took me to Atlantic, where they had an old truck. They put a propane tank on and we brought it back to the shop so they could start delivering on Tuesday morning. It also was a fertilizer track and what I didn't know at the time was that it was a smaller straight truck, the tank was old and by itself, empty, it exceeded the weight limit of the truck.

I filled it 80% fall of propane and may have been on my second run of the day. I was going north of Greenfield on a road past the Tracey farms when all of a sudden I hit a washboard. I heard a loud crack. The tank on the back of the truck hit the back of my cab, the truck went up on the front end — the county sheriff said it had gone end for end eight to twelve times. In the process, the line was broken, all the propane was spilling out, the wires snapped and created an explosion. The fire took out about an eighth of a mile of fence row.

When it was over, I was sitting in the truck and there was fire all around me. I looked down at my hands. They were smoking and the skin fell off like gloves. I guess adrenalin kicked in, and I ran to the first house but found no one there. I ran to another farm where I'd seen people working in the barn. They had seen the explosion and were coming I ran up and said, "I need to use your phone right away." They motioned that it was in the house.

I called the fire department and told them to come immediately for a propane fire. I called an ambulance. I called my boss and told him to come. Then I called Randy and asked if he would take Judy to the hospital because I'd been burned in a fire. I don't think Randy realized how bad it was. I didn't realize how bad it was but the jacket I had on was still smoking. It was flame retardant and melted into my back. They tried to pull it off me. By then my hands were dripping blood so they were wrapping towels around them and they cut the jacket off me.

While they are doing that, the fire truck came. I watched and saw them make the mistake of putting the fire out. With the propane coming out of the big tank, it traveled to where there were embers, and ignited again to an even bigger fire ball. They dropped their hoses and ran. Even though this account depicts total chaos and panic, in retrospect the mental image is hilarious. I started running down the road to tell them just to put the hoses on the tank. The ambulance pulled up and here I was running down the road with the ambulance following me. They were calling me to stop but all I could think about was telling them to keep the tank cool until all the gas was out so that nobody else was injured.

I was pretty badly burned on my face, hands and back. They took me to the burn unit at Iowa City. Judy rode with me but we were separated when they admitted me. The first time she saw me in the room, Judy describes "this awful looking man sitting on the bed." She didn't recognize me and said, "Excuse me, I must have the wrong room." She tells that my face was so swollen that my eyes were shut. My beard and mustache had been singed off. I was simply unrecognizable. They told us that I would be fortunate to get out by Christmas and I'd have to have quite a few skin grafts after that.

Everybody at home was praying for me. It was weird that I could literally feel when the church started praying. But within eight days I walked out of the hospital, and never had any skin grafts. I had to go back for treatments but I didn't ever have any surgeries. I have a few scars on my back and a place just above my wrist. In that area, I could see clear to the bone.

The hardest thing about that whole experience — the part I still sometimes have nightmares about — is sitting in one of the whirlpools they used to wash the burn away. They use stiff bristle plastic brushes to clean the wounds. They gave me morphine but one of the most real experiences of my life was that while I was sitting there watching them do that, I realized somebody was screaming, then I realized the somebody was me. That memory does not leave my mind.

Another memory is of my roommate, whose burns were from hot water, resulting from an explosion as he attempted to light their water heater. The medical team expected and the family was told he would be there a couple days and go home. Instead, he got a blood infection and died. I had first, second, and third degree burns and he just had third degree burns. He died and I was still alive. More than that, I had taken a blow from a 40# fire extinguisher that came loose and hit me in the head. I still have a crease in my head from that. The hard part was trying to figure out why I was still there. I don't know how to say it, but it was kind of like feeling guilty for still being alive. He had a young family — two children. It was horrible to watch the wife grieving. He wasn't supposed to die. He was supposed to be going home. Again, the inadequacy of human answers.

By March 15, I only had bandages on my left hand. The Greenfield Church, where we were working with youth, was doing a follow-up to a Lay Witness Mission called "Venturing Discipleship." Peggy Christianson, president of our UMYF (United Methodist Youth Fellowship), said, "Bill, whenever we have a problem, you say why don't we pray about it?" She had us kneel on the kneeling bench in the little chapel of the church and 45 to 48 kids gathered around us while Peggy led them in prayer. I still remember it. She said, "God, we know that you love Bill and Judy more than we do. We know they feel there is something they are supposed to do. Won't you show them?" That was her prayer.

We got up, embraced the kids, and left. That evening we went to see my new nephew, Chad. That was kind of a hard thing. It had just been a year since we lost our baby. We got to see my sister and Chad, but my mom came running out saying, "Bill, there is something your grandpa needs to talk to you about." Grandpa Wileke helped raise us kids when Mom was working all the time, so he was a stable factor and probably the most influential adult in my life. I practically worshiped the ground that guy walked on.

We waited and he said, "Let's go over to see your folks. I've never driven your car. I'd kind of like to drive your car. Maybe we could talk then." He got behind the wheel of the car and we were all the way through Anita, almost to Adair where my parents lived, and finally I said, "Well, Grandpa, if you are going to say something to me you'd better do it because we are almost there." He blurted out, "I know this is going to sound funny coming from me, but, Bill, I think you'd ought to be a minister." I spent some time saying we were ministers, every Christian is a minister, and our ministry was working with youth. And he kept saying, "No, that isn't what I mean. I think you should be a preacher and if there is anything I can do to help with that, I want to do it."

This is a man who never went to church — ever, except for funerals and weddings. He was about as crusty as they come, rough around the edges — a very kind hearted man but we never saw any inkling that he was a man of faith. So for this to come from him was bizarre. If anyone else had said it, we might have sloughed it off, but all the way home I kept thinking about what he'd said. I had moved around all my life and had decided that one thing I wanted for our married life was that we would put down roots. Judy had lived in the same community all her life, we had bought a house in Greenfield. That was going to be our home.

While we were driving back to Greenfield to this home I was thinking about, I was telling Judy how important it is to have a home and roots, and if we were Methodist pastors, we would be moving around and then we quit talking. As soon as there was silence, I kept hearing this verse over and over in my head, "The birds of the air have nests, the foxes have dens, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head"(Luke 9:58). It would not go away and when I started to tell that verse to Judy, she quoted the same one. It just wouldn't let go of us.

We contacted Pastor Dick Hohl, and I said, "Dick, I need to talk to you." We shared all of that at his kitchen table, and he looked across the table at me and said, "Bill, that's the dumbest thing I ever heard." I said, "That's exactly what I'm saying." He said, "No, not what your grandpa said, but what you said." We prayed about it some more. We talked to Judy's parents and got their consent. Grandpa had already talked to my parents about it, and finally after a lot of prayer, I said, "Okay, God, if this is what you really want, we'll do it."

This whole time Judy had been trying to get pregnant again and nothing was happening. I suppose we both were battling little bouts of despair from time to time. I realized my further education would have to include college, because I hadn't gone that far. But I told Judy, "I'll tell my boss. I'll say, Tom, I need to let you know that the first of September I will be resigning so I can go to college to prepare for the ministry." He said that was fine but asked that I train a replacement. However, just before it all happened, he asked me to come to his office. "I need you to sign something." It was a letter of resignation. Now Judy is pregnant, we are going to have a family, and I would have no income for the whole summer. My health insurance and everything would be gone. I told Tom, "I just can't do that. If you need to lay me off, lay me off so I would have some employment income." He said, "That's what I thought. You are the one who keeps saying, 'You've got to have faith over this and faith over that, face the hardship, pray about it, God provides and all this. I knew you didn't mean it. You people are all like that." I was very hot headed in those days. I snatched that paper back from him, signed it, and walked out the door.

Suddenly I realized what I had done. How do I tell Judy? To her credit, she didn't get too mad at me. She just asked what we were going to do, and the funny part is how it worked out. Beginning in June, I had no job, and very little money in savings. I took odd jobs. I sold some hogs I'd been raising. Rich Pippert, a diaconal minister, who was doing evangelism for the church, decided he had been called to seminary to become an elder. He left. In June, we had a change in pastors — Charles Gilbert came and Dick Hohl was appointed elsewhere. It was a blow but it was Gil who persuaded the congregation to hire us half time to continue our work with youth. At the end of the summer all our debts were paid and we had more money in savings than we started with.

To fulfill my educational requirements, I attended Southwestern Community College for two years and Simpson for the last two. During my senior year, I was accepted at Duke Seminary on a full scholarship, a stipend and student appointment. All indications were that we would go to Duke, when Gil's wife, Winnie, passed away. He took a leave of absence because he had a terrible time with grief. Suddenly the pastor was gone, and I was their student pastor. In the meantime, Judy's dad developed a heart infection. Judy was only 22 years old and had never lived away from her parents. North Carolina seemed thousands of miles away, and we decided to go to Dubuque.

I got my license for local pastorate on July 1, 1982. Gil's leave of absence was for six weeks, then he decided he needed to move. Here I was, a student, pastoring an 850 member chiirch. Everett Lanning, a professor at Simpson, came over to fill the pulpit occasionally, but it was a very stressful time, driving back and forth to classes, hospitals, trying to make visits to members and keep everything cared for. It may have been the stress that caused my back injury to start bothering me again, and I herniated a disk. A back procedure was done in May 1984, and I had to withdraw from school for a semester. I was 11 credits short of being ready to graduate.

I was hoping to stay one more year so I could finish that last semester, but Bill Cotton, Creston District Superintendent, felt I had been in the Greenfield Church long enough. He wanted me to move and suggested I attend Dubuque University, which I did. The Dean of the Seminary told me, "You have the courses you need. Why don't you take those in the undergraduate school, finish that so you can come here right away, and then just transfer into the seminary." It turned out he had no authority in the undergrad school, so I took the minimum credits I thought I needed to meet the requirements, when they told me, "No, you need to take the full load if we are going to credit you for the whole semester." I complied, but when I reached the end of the semester and applied for graduation, I didn't meet the residency requirements to enable me to start seminary.

Between Eugene Miller, superintendent of the Dubuque District, with Bill Cotton putting in a really good word for us, we were accepted by the Dubuque seminary and had the ideal student appointment. I would serve two churches in Dubuque — Center Grove and Rockdale. I was five minutes from school, able to go home every night. It was simple to respond to an emergency or hospital call. The Dubuque Hospital was 2 1/2 minutes from the seminary.

In the middle of that, because of the youth ministry I had done, the folks at Hillcrest Family Services approached me to ask if I would serve as a part-time chaplain at their facility for the Residential Treatment Program. Against everybody's advice, I took the job. The churches were half time, the Family Services chaplaincy was half time, and seminary was full time. We lived in a 100-year old house that was the parsonage for these little churches. Our two children — Andrea born January 3, 1981, and Jeremy July 22, 1982 — by now were two and three years old. Looking back, we don't know how I did it, but the churches kind of adopted us. It was a really good experience.

After graduation I was appointed as an Associate at Salem United Methodist Church in Council Bluffs. We went there to work with Tony Nester, who was wonderful, but when we got there we knew we were in trouble. The Conference was doing the Spirit Alive/Churches Alive program. The pastor, Ron Blix, had applied for a grant to add an associate to the staff. Ron thought it was an easy thing to do — basically it was free money from the Conference, and in his thinking, the Associate would generate enough growth to pay the salary.

But when Ron was awarded the grant he applied for, the Conference thought they were funding 2/3 and the church was funding 1/3. Ron had devised a way to do everything on the 2/3. His plan was based on the assumption the hired person would be single, right out of seminary. An efficiency apartment would suffice, and the rent would be within their housing allowance of $300 a month. Here we came, a married couple with two children, and they couldn't find anything suitable to rent for our housing. They upped their projection to $500, renting from a parishioner who lived in the basement and rented the upper part of the house. The asking price was $650 a month, so they agreed that we would pay utilities for ourselves and the landlord. We would also mow the lawn and take care of the yard and their dog, because they were house parents for the Omaha Home for Boys, therefore gone for a week at a time.

The first utility bill arrived — $350, and I was getting minimum salary which was just over $18,000. Part of the cause was two ancient, huge deep freezes in the downstairs apartment. We told the church there was no way we could afford this. Tony Nester agreed it wasn't fair, and convinced the church to pay the utility bill. There was another complication: when the landlords were home, they smoked, and when their children came home, they smoked. We shared the heating system and I have asthma. All the smoke was coming upstairs into our apartment and I was constantly having asthma attacks. I was going to the emergency room to get steroid injections and all kinds of things.

Finally I couldn't sleep in the house anymore. We had a Volkswagen camper so I began sleeping in the driveway. However, come the end of October, it was getting really cold and there was no heat in the camper. We finally decided we couldn't do that anymore so we went out on our own. We put together a budget to figure out what we could afford. We rented an apartment, went back to the church and said, "We did this without your permission and whether or not you choose to reimburse us is entirely up to you, but we couldn't live in those circumstances."

We had told them the problem and everybody kept saying, "The conference should do something about it" The conference was saying, "The church should do something about it. You agreed you would pay for housing. You're not doing it." We were just out of seminary and felt in the middle of the controversy. But another situation came up, created by the presence of a visitation pastor. It was hilarious because the congregation didn't know about adding a pastor. Ron was leaving, Tony was coming, and here was this other pastor. The congregation was asking why. However, through the combined ministry, people were getting more and more on board.

For awhile things went well. The church paid the rent on our apartment, and paid off the lease on the other. Then we discovered the school, where our kids were going, did not allow open enrollment. A number of members at Salem were faculty members there, and the idea that we would go to another school system was offensive to them. We didn't really want to move the kids. This time the church became proactive and rented a house within the school district. We moved again, and were settled — until we were asked if the church would be interested in buying the house. There were foundation problems and they said, "No, we wouldn't." The landlord said, "Then we're not going to rent to you any longer. We'll sell it, but we do want you to stay here until that happens."

It was just crazy! This was the end of our second year in this appointment, and we were going to have to move again! The final straw came that made things really horrible. Where we were living was formerly a one-room apartment. Our bedroom was downstairs, the kids were upstairs. On this occasion, Judy and I were gone to a work camp with the kids. We got back late at night and in the morning, I had my shower, was drying off and getting dressed, when all of a sudden I heard footsteps coming down the stairs. Judy was coming out of the shower, with only her towel wrapped around her head, when without a knock or anything, the door opened and here was the realtor leading a couple. Instead of saying, "Excuse me," and walking out, the realtor stood there and said, "You weren't supposed to be here," and started to carry on a conversation. Judy ducked back in the bathroom and the moment passed. It took us awhile to recover, but that finally was it for us. We went to the church and said, "We understand that you are not responsible for this, and although we love it here, we can't do this anymore. We are going to have to ask for a new appointment."

They protested and came up with a plan to do a capital campaign to buy a second parsonage. It was a beautiful home. The ministry continued to grow, we had a great working relationship with Tony. Cheryl Cripps was the Christian Education director, Perry Bishop was our visitation pastor, so we were staffed for growing. However, expenses and income were not matching. Tony and I had a commitment that apportionments were our top priority, especially since this was a church that was receiving funds in a five-year grant from the Conference. The financial strain became evident. To correct the problem, they decided to cut the Christian Education division to half-time, but even after that finances continued to be a problem and it led us to the decision that we needed to go.

The response to our request for a reappointment, was a call from Mark Berbano informing us that we were wanted to pastor a new congregation in the Quad Cities. He said, "I need to have you think about this, pray about it, and give me your answer in the morning." I made some phone calls, one to Rick Olsen, who held the experimental field outreach position in the Muscatine, Cedar Rapids and Ottumwa districts. He didn't think they were ready, they hadn't done their homework, and there wasn't community support. When Mark called, I told him I was declining the appointment and asked to have it reconsidered. Mark said, "You can't reconsider. I've told people you were corning."

We met with the committee. They told us they had everything ready for the plan to go, but I found that was not the case. Worship space had not been secured, tele-inviting was intended but no firm arrangements made, we even discovered those people didn't want a new church. However, because no parsonage had been provided, it had seemed wise to us to use the housing allowance and buy a house in Davenport. Now the realtor wouldn't release the money we had put down on the house, and there seemed to be no option but to attempt to revive the original plan.

In trying to spare readers reliving with us the complexities involved in starting a new church, and relocating our family in another community, I will simply report that we did endure step by step all that was involved, with the reward of having a wonderful ministry there, watching a church grow. Our goal was not to take members from already established churches but to invite those who had no church home. We named the church "Community of Joy" and discovered a lot of people were looking for the joy of the Lord in their lives.

Amidst all the tension and hard work, there was much joy in what we were doing. During our tele-inviting, when we were all around the bank of telephones making our calls, Jeremy who was just starting seventh grade, was calling right along with us. Part of our pattern was to ask those who responded positively, "May we call you later? As we get ready to start the new service, we will be looking for people to help welcome those who come. Can you assist us with that, too?" This person said, "Yes," and Jeremy was stunned! He blurted out, "You will? Oh, oh!" We were supposed to say "God bless you," when we hung up, but Jeremy said, "I love you!" He hung up the phone and said, "I just told someone I loved them!"

It was great to start a new church. We didn't have any traditions so we started our own. One was that you didn't have to go through a committee to do things. Our motto was simply "Do good and avoid evil," from John Wesley's general rules. So if you could think of something good to do, do it and if somebody could help you do it, let's do it together. They started a food pantry out of the church and lots of other mission things. So, the summation of it all is, "God is good!"
On Labor Day of 1996, Judy was at Highland for the centennial celebration of their church. I had begun experiencing stomach pains. The diagnosis was appendicitis but when I went to the hospital for an appendectomy, they discovered my colon had perforated. I had internalized all the stress and had a colon resection. We tried to make some adjustments to take better care of ourselves but the church was growing. We found a building, and where our average attendance was about 100 per Sunday, we started growing again. We went from one to two services — then in January 1999, I again started having abdominal pain. That initiated a call to our District Superintendent, and I was reappointed the following July to serve the Wesley Church in Mason City. At that time Andrea had graduated from high school (in 1999) and had enrolled in Simpson College for the fall, Jeremy had started his senior year but he decided to go with us to Mason City. He enrolled in an Information Technology program at North Iowa Area Community College through the high school so he started taking that his senior year. It worked out well.

For us the move was a real culture shock. We were leaving this new church, where the average age of the congregation was 34, and we had a big youth group. The first Sunday at Wesley, only two children came up for the children's sermon, and they were visitors. They had ended their Sunday School program. Vacation Bible School was combined with another church and still there were only 14 kids the first night and six by the end of the session. The teachers didn't like what they were doing, they kept saying, "Do we have to keep doing this?" It was a dismal contrast to the place, where even though stressful, was still alive. When we left Joy the average attendance was 185 and growing; Wesley was a 700 member church that averaged 199 in attendance and continued declining.

However, they said they wanted to be a church that included young people, and to their credit, they meant it. I talked to them about changes we could make so they would be more receptive of young people, and young people started responding. Couples were coming for weddings, and started bringing their friends to get married. A good portion of them started getting involved in the church. For some we had to wait until their kids were born and it was time for them to be baptized. The Sunday School started growing. Actually we had a lot of fun there. The people really embraced us at Wesley. Then Emmanuel Tabelisma, our District Superintendent, came to ask if I would be open to adding Grace United Methodist on with Wesley to serve both of them. We added Grace, which we were told had lots of financial problems, and actually every year we were there, we paid our apportionments and every year we were a third mile covenant church. We had no money in savings, but we had great people willing to work with everything. It was really fun.

We had planned on staying there quite awhile, when we got a call from the Bishop. They wanted me to be a D.S. (District Superintendent) of the Dubuque District. That was the last thing we were looking for. This was the end of June. We had committed to Vacation Bible School and a mission trip in August to Mississippi, and now we had three days to pack. We moved to Dubuque and I was the D.S. for 10 months, then at Annual Conference the next June, restructuring was approved and the announcement was made that I would be the District Superintendent of the South Central District with the district office to be in Osceola. I was to assume these responsibilities July 1st. However, the house in Osceola was under construction and wasn't ready.

We had nowhere to go at the end of June. The Bishop contacted Simpson College and they offered to let us stay in a rental house they owned. We moved into the rental house for two months. All of our household goods was in storage and we got by with a minimum of possessions. Within a year we moved three times. Looking back, we have moved many more times than we have had appointments. In Council Bluffs we moved four times in the five years we lived there, twice in Bettendorf. This was the guy who said he wanted to stay planted and never move again.

By that time Andrea had been married, had finished seminary at Perkins Southern Methodist College at Dallas, and was expecting our first grandchild. She was pastor of the Huxley/Cambridge charge. Jeremy had graduated from Simpson and gone to Drew in Madison, New Jersey. He was working at the Aldersgate Church in Des Moines as their youth person. He was engaged to be married, and his fiance had just moved to Iowa. We had much to look forward to.

Our lives have never been boring. It has all been amazing. The restructuring has been intimidating but the people on the district have been very helpful. We have been blessed. Every place we have gone we have served with terrific people. Dick Pfaltzgraff said to me at the beginning of my ministry, "The best advice I can give you is, if you love your people, they will most often love you back." That is what we've told our children, and Jesus told us, "Love them as I've loved you." This is what we have done and our congregations have loved our family to the point that both of our children have felt the call to ministry. They will go into it knowing what it entails — work, pressures, transitions, but a lot of love and a lot of laughter.

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