How I got here Chapter 4: the wrap up, I would say final, but that chapter is yet to be written.

We arrived in Niagara Falls, the place I had runaway from 7 long years ago, in August of 1988 and took up residence in my parent’s spare room.  This was a very difficult experience for Ruby and me.  Living in your parent’s home when you are trying to start a family of your own is not a good way to start, especially when not everyone is following Christ as Lord.  So after a couple of long months we moved out into our first apartment, more on this later.

I found work as a painter, what else did I know.  I was working with a group of potheads and basically painted circles around them all.  They would spend their lunch hour in the truck smoking up, and of course they were not interested in hearing about Jesus.  But it was steady work and I was able to support my family.  So we took the step of securing an apartment and moved in during October 1988.  It was a nice little 3^rd floor apartment in a tough downtown Niagara Falls neighborhood, but it was our first home together.  At JPUSA we had one room with an adjoining bathroom.  Life seemed to be going well.  We found a nice little Lutheran Church with a wonderful new young pastor and started attending there. 

November 16, of 1988 and I was laid off from my painting job.  Ok, now what.  I started searching frantically for work.  I went back to the temp agency Manpower where I had worked as a youth and started working in local factory jobs again.  Seemed like I had come full circle but now I had a wife and baby to care for as well. 

Then of course the 8 yr old Dodge Omni that my grandmother had given us broke down every other week and keeping even a temporary job was difficult.  Life seemed nearly impossible.  We spent many days and nights lifting our plight to the Lord.  Then one day a money order would appear in the mailbox just in time to pay the rent for December.  Ruby’s parents gave us money to buy a dryer for Christmas that year and we used that money to pay the January 1989 rent.  Fortunately some elderly ladies from the little church we were attending brought by boxes of foodstuffs for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Life was hard but God was truly blessing us as we started our little family. 

Come February 1989 we were planning to celebrate our 2^nd anniversary (never get married on Valentines Day, it may sound romantic but it makes celebrating very expensive every year) and I received a phone call from the mother of a friend from my teen years.  She was calling to offer me a job.  I had not seen her in years and had no idea she even knew I was in town.  My phone number was not in the phone book, because we had only lived in our apartment for a few months.  I never did find out how she knew I was back in WNY or how she new I needed a job.  My guess is George (from Chapter 1) told her I was around.  George had let me work with him for a couple of weeks before I started painting.  Now this job only paid 13,600 a year, but it came with health benefits so I jumped all over it. 

God has blessed our family in many ways over the years, but this beginning was one of the most amazing times of our lives.  God met every need no mater how big or small when we could not see a way out, He was there with the answer, waiting for us to ask.  God is good!

I am now in my 21^st year at that job my friend’s mother offered me.  The pay has become reasonable over the years, and the job is working with families struggling to survive in Buffalo, a city struggling to survive.  I can’t share Christ with my clients, but I can work to create safe loving families for my young clients.  Seeing a small child find a forever family to love and care for them is amazing.

So now that you have heard of my beginnings I will tell you I have 3 great sons who all know and love God and that is the best gift God has given us.  I could probably go on for several more chapters of how God has led us to different churches, as we moved a couple of times.  How God provided friends who love and serve him to come along side of us and help us find our way.  But this has carried on long enough that you can get a sense of what our wonderful, gracious God has done in my life.  Thank you for reading my story and I thank God for his grace in letting me live it.