The first three letters in "Funeral home" spell FUN!

               What happens when you take two young families who really enjoy one another and make them live, work, eat, and minister together? Eventually I ruin it. I’ll explain later. I’m really struggling with how to tell this part of the story because there was so much happening in every avenue of our lives that it seems an impossible task to get it all across in an understandable way, but when have I ever let a little thing like making sense get in my way?

A house is not a home unless it's a funeral home.

In June 2006 we were finally on staff at a church and trying to open a new joyful chapter in our lives. Unfortunately it seemed that circumstances would seek to demand otherwise, but we are stubborn. We lived 50 miles from the church we were serving at, but it was an acceptable sacrifice for the opportunity. Carpentry work was hard to come by since I was still pretty young and an entirely new face on the scene. I worked mostly for family and friends and hoped that the quality of my work would speak for itself and solicit new business for us. Although those were some pretty hefty hurdles for us at the time, they were nothing compared to what we faced at home.

I had a real job once....

In May of 2006 we found ourselves back in my home town actually living with my parents for a time while I did some work on one of their rental properties to prepare it to receive our wild bunch. I started trying to build business in carpentry and remodeling to support our family, and continued to pursue ministry while Hannah devoted her time to the boys. It was only a week or so before we had our first face-to-face scheduled with the pastor of the church we had been visiting with previously so we went to sit down at a local fast food joint.