In recent years I have had the privilege of pastoring a wonderful church for nearly 20 years. I have had the privilege of caring for my father with Parkinsons disease for 8 years.  I have had the privilege to successfully make it through quadruple bypass surgery.  Through all this I had the opportunity to become total exhausted as each day morphed into another day of survival. 

My wife Melinda, of 39 years, and I made a quick decision in May 2022 to move to Reeds Spring Missouri.  Having met a real estate agent “by chance” during a visit to Branson in April of 2022, we simply asked her to contact us if something came up for sale that was in our price range.  Two months later we received a call and in 30 minutes decided to embark on an adventure by moving to a town we had never visited, into an older home that we had never entered.  Boy was I a dummy.  I didn’t own a tool and had no construction experience.  The Lord took care of us and delivered to us a helper that sang like a bird, was full of joy and the knowledge and experience to do just about anything.  He calls himself a broken stick, but to us he was like the rod of Moses leading us to our new “promised land”.  The Lord provided sweet neighbors, a place to worship, and some needed time for rest, reflection, repentance, and rejuvenation. 

While we began to play a lot of pickleball, I began to officiate volleyball games at the area local schools.  One evening an administrator at Reeds Spring asked if I might consider substitute teaching.  I did.  It wasn’t long before I began to see the need to support our area teachers, coaches and especially the students.  Over the course of several months the Lord began planting and cultivating a desire to bloom in this new ground that he had planted us.  In April of 2024, BEST Ministries was established to provide faith-based coaching, training, and education to students in need of spiritual, physical, emotional and educational support.                                                                                                       

Thank you to everyone throughout the years that has been used to prepare me for such a time as this.  My hope is to encourage those around me by loving them the way they are and doing my BEST to tell them the truth.  Thank you to our prayer and financial supporters who keep us encouraged along the way.