Karen

When I graduated from high school, I started going out with a guy that was emotionally abusive to me. I had fallen into a life of sin. for some reason it took me 5 years to get out of that relationship. It was a very destructive relationship for me. My self-esteen is still suffering from it. When we broke up, I started frequenting bars. I would drink, sleep around and I even tried drugs once (it wasn't for me - Thank the Lord).

I continued this life of sin until I met my husband in 2001. We worked at the same office and after we got over our shyness, we started dating and eventually moved in together (something we regret doing now). We got married in April of 2002 and had our son in Dec 2003. My daughter was born Mar 2005 After my kids were born, my husband and I decided we really needed to bring God into our lives and raise our kids right, so....I started attending VBF (Bakersfield) in March of 2006. I rededicated myself to the Lord. My husband and I got baptized together on June 4, 2006.

I have been serving as a small group leader for 1st graders for about a year and am going to continue this year alongside my husband, Darrell. I really do love working at kids's church. It is a lot of fun, espcially when you have growing relationships with some of the kids. I now work at VBF part-time for Pastor Steve in the Children's ministry. I think my position title is called "Volunteer Recruitment" . I am the one who gets the volunteer applications and schedule live-scan appointements and basically walk the volunteers thru the application process. I love my job (even when there are not enough hours in the day).