Young Adulthood Blog Posts: Five Is Enough and I will Make You a Fisher of Men

Five is Enough
 
March 22, 2018

"Everybody today seems to be in such a terrible rush, anxious for greater developments and greater riches and so on, so that children have very little time for their parents. Parents have very little time for each other, and in the home begins the disruption of peace of the world"
St. Teresa of Calcutta
 
When Jan and I were engaged, we gave our lives to God including our fertility. We took Natural Family Planning classes and found out that there was a safe effective way to plan out our family. It was safe for Jan with no extra hormones going into her body. It upheld God's plan for a one flesh union. It kept us always open to the possibility that our act of total self giving could be used by God to create a new human being. We just didn't know how God would use that power. We never sat down and figured out how many children. The cool thing about NFP is you can know the day each of your children is conceived.

Our goal is to get each other to heaven and get our children to heaven. So, all our family's decisions must be filtered through this goal including our fertility, finances, recreation, education, and everything else in family life. If we were going to be serious about putting God first then every aspect of our lives had to be on the table. I looked to God's word and found the following chapter of the Gospel of Matthew: 6:25-34. It became the foundation of our family. These verses will be trusted in the years ahead. We were going to rely on Jesus' promises in the day to day decisions of our family.  

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

We were only married a couple of months. We had yet to perfect our budgeting skills. We are out of money. It is a Monday and Friday is payday. We prayed about it, and in the morning we went to work. I got home first and got the mail. In the mail was a small white envelope with no return address. It had no note inside just seventy five dollars wrapped in a piece of paper. A couple of months later, it happened again. We are out of money, and in the mail the next day is an envelope. The envelope has a note. It says "I was in prayer and felt compelled by God to send this to you". There was fifty five dollars inside the note. God is good. All the time! Now, we did get better in budgeting our money. Even though it was tempting, we didn't stop tithing although it would have been nice to have the extra money to spend on other things.

We had only been married about six months, and Jan is not feeling well. She eventually wonders if she is pregnant. I can recall the moment. The test is on the sink in the bathroom. We read the test. She is pregnant! We head to the living room and Jan is sitting on the couch. I am pacing the floor. We are overcome with all kinds of emotions. It is not what we expected. God is full of surprises! It takes us a little bit to get our bearings any time God steps in.

Bethany (which means House of God) showed up on the scene a month premature and in distress. I maintain that she figured out that she had to go through the birth canal and thought "there must be an easier way out!" God creates each person uniquely. Bethany was designed by God to be a very determined person. In the middle of the night, Jan's water broke. We head to the hospital. Jan's body isn't progressing so they induce labor. Late at night, things are progressing but the baby is in distress. A little after midnight, we head to the operating room, and Bethany is delivered by C section. Later on, I said to Jan: "I have seen your guts, and I love your guts!" I don't think she quite appreciated the sentiment.

St John Paul I I wrote that man is incomprehensible to himself until he lives FOR another. After the grace of the sacrament of marriage, I noticed that I thought differently. I was thinking of ways to serve Jan. After Bethany was born, it was heightened even more so. I had choices to make. I could be self-centered or I could serve. I believe the Holy Spirit was pushing me to serve. Having a C section is a major operation. It was difficult for Jan for several weeks if not longer. Having a new baby is exhausting. Bethany was a challenging baby because she was so smart. She knew what she wanted, but couldn't verbalize it except with crying. We eventually developed a list: Hungry? Diaper? Pacifier? Tired? Blankie? etc.

Bethany was a beautiful little baby. She was so small that I could hold her with one hand. She weighed just a little over five pounds. She was perfectly bald until she was about two years old and then her gorgeous hair started growing. She is a perceiver so she has ingrained in her a keen sense of right and wrong. It has served her well as she pursued her education especially in science and mathematics. It would not surprise any of her teachers that she ultimately earned a PhD in Applied Math. She is a quiet and kind person, but underneath she is a very thoughtful and determined lady. Her teachers used to tell us that she was soft spoken, and it was hard to hear her. One of my favorite memories of her childhood was her love for reading. I loved reading her stories. Of course, I would change the stories, and she would object. "Read it right, Dad!!" In the summer, she used this love of story by organizing little plays in our garage using siblings and neighborhood friends. 

Her faith has always been important part of her life. When she was in middle school, she started journaling her prayers after her aunt bought her a journal. Then, she discovered that you can password protect specific files, so I would hear her at night journaling on the computer. In high school, she would travel a half hour to attend the youth ministry program at Holy Cross in Batavia. Later, she served on their high school peer ministry team. She was a camp counselor for their middle summer camp for four years. She was great at reaching teens one on one. When Bethany is in college, I am at summer camp listening to a witness talk given by a high school student from Holy Cross. She is talking about one of her God moments in her time at summer camp. Even as a high school student, this young lady is a shy quiet person. When she got off the bus for the first time as a shy quiet sixth grader, she was scared. She shared that Bethany came up to her and helped with her bags. Bethany took her to her bunk room and helped her feel comfortable. When Bethany was a sophomore at Rosary high school, a new girl transferred into the school. Bethany knew that she wouldn't know anyone, so she invited the new girl to sit with her at her lunch table. Soon, they became friends.  

When Bethany was about a year and a half, we discovered that Jan was pregnant again. God is full of surprises. We will need every ounce of grace as we add another flower to our bouquet of blessings from God.  It will take another decade before God will say "Five is enough!" 

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I will Make You a Fisher of Men
 
 April 10, 2018
"Neither wealth, nor pleasure, nor power, nor honor is, in point of fact, the final cause of the will’s activity, Human experience reveals clearly that the attainment of even the greatest worldly goods leaves us still wanting more, still unsatisfied.” 

Bishop Barron

After graduating from the University of Wisconsin Whitewater with a degree in business management, I took a job as a manager trainee at Radio Shack. I worked at the Wheaton store. It's volume was just below the mall stores. My boss was a former air traffic controller. He was fired when President Reagan fired them for striking illegally. I loved working for him. He taught me everything I needed to know about running my own store. It was during this time that I started down my path of inviting God into my life. Eventually, I began to realize that it must impact my career choices. I started dating Jan, and getting more involved in the Happening program by joining the service team which was the leadership board. 

In March of 1985, I was promoted to the store manager of the Wood Dale Radio Shack. It was in a bad strip mall that was half empty. The previous manager ran it like an old hobby store. The place was in disarray, so I spent the first month turning it into a clean modern retail store. I was able to make it profitable. Yet, my regional manager didn't support me with the employees that I needed. My spiritual life was suffering. I didn't have time to go to church because I was working open to close seven days a week. So, after praying about it for a month, I quit my job without a job. I felt that God was leading me on a different path. I just didn't know what it was. I had been working over seventy hours a week, and I was exhausted. I took a week off. The following Monday, I started to make phone calls. On the first phone call that I made, I found a job working at a bank. I thought that I would try my hand in the banking world.

It didn't take me long to realize that banking wasn't for me. The hours were great. Still, I was not very good at it. I think the cash drawer is supposed to balance every day. Right? The hours allowed me more time to help in the Happening program. I was working on two teams. One team was doing weekends in Kankakee, and one team in Du Page County. Working a weekend would leave me exhausted. After one weekend, I went to a McDonald's for a lunch break and thought I would take a little nap in my car. Big mistake!! I woke up two hours later! On that weekend retreat, I gave a talk about surrender. I came out waving a big white surrender flag. I made little white surrender flags. I challenged each young person to take one and surrender their lives to Christ. There is a big difference between going to weekly Mass and total surrender to Our Lord. Jesus wants your heart. He wants everything. Have you surrendered? Once we surrender, He will fill us with His peace, and take us on a roller coaster ride that will be unbelievable! I encourage you to surrender today and every day. To show God our love, we must do his will even in the least things.  

Working the Happening weekends was a blast! The people were excited about Jesus. Every meeting was joy filled. The weekends were filled with prayer and fun. Steve, who was the program director,  would spend the weekend telling elephant jokes. We always had name tags and would switch around names tags just to confuse people. My mother in law's name is Jean, but most people called her mom. So, her name tag would read "Mom /Jean". One weekend, we put "Slash" on her tag. The priest at Mass said "Body of Christ, Slash". We laughed about that story for a long time. We set up one room in the building as a chapel with pictures of Jesus, flowers, candles, and carpet squares. There was someone in the chapel praying at all hours of the night and day. Every weekend was covered in prayer, and we saw many lives changed. The turning point on the weekend for many of the young people was the Agape dinner on Saturday night. It was a candlelight dinner with Jesus and the whole team. There was a sharing of bread and a sign of peace which usually consisted of a hug. For many young people who struggled with being loved and accepted, it was their "God moment".  

I decided that I needed to discern what God wanted me to do for my next job. I was sent to a bank  branch that was pretty slow except on payday. So, I decided to spend one week fasting on bread and water while waiting on God to direct my path. On Wednesday, out of the blue, my brother called me and told me that a friend's company was looking for a salesman. I had a list in my head about sales jobs and this job checked them all. I had an interview with the owner of the company and got the job. 
I worked on this job for three and a half years. I covered parts of Illinois and Wisconsin. In retrospect, I learned many skills that I would use later in youth ministry. I had to strike up conversation with people that I had never met. I had get up in front of people and sell them on a product while over coming their objections. I had to work at building trust, and show commitment. I had to tell the truth even if it meant losing the sale. The product line was pretty technical so I had to educate myself before each sales call. It was the technical aspects of the product line that ultimately led me to  change industries. I got a job selling audio visual equipment which was more in line with my Radio Shack days. I worked for a small company out of Elk Grove Village. I sold to schools and companies in the western suburbs.

 In April of 1987, Jan and I were married. We made St Thomas Parish in Naperville are home. We pulled back from working the Happening, and became involved in youth and adult ministry at St Thomas. We led a small group of teens for three years. We helped with youth and adult retreats. We helped lead an adult Bible study, and was involved in a marriage prep program. In May of 1988, Bethany was born. By the end of 1989, we thought it would be a good idea to give Bethany a sibling, and Jan was pregnant. I had a friend, Bob, who was a civil engineer. He quit his job and took a position as a Director of Evangelization at St John parish. Bob was influential in my conversion. He was the director of the Happening weekend in Kankakee where I gave the Holy Spirit talk that changed the direction of my life. Since that day, our friendship has been more of a "soul" friendship. There is a spiritual bond that runs deeper than a normal friendship. I can talk to him about anything and he will always give me a very thoughtful answer. I could go a whole year without seeing him, and our relationship doesn't miss a beat. I started to discern if God was leading me to leave the business world and work for the church. Don't forget we had a bun in the oven not exactly the best time to change jobs.  

I read a book by a Protestant pastor who had visions of angels. In fact, at one point he wrote that he was taken on a tour of heaven. He saw a room in heaven that the Catholics call purgatory. I suddenly had a fascination about angels. I would wake up in the middle of the night thinking there were angels in my room. This went on for several months. In April of 1990, Bob calls me and tells me that there is a parish in Aurora looking for a youth minister. You will never guess the name of the parish.

If I were a Rich Man/Rebecca is born
 
 
April 23, 2018
 
 
 
“Young people of "World Youth Day", the Church asks you to go, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to those who are near and those who are far away. Share with them the freedom you have found in Christ. People thirst for genuine inner freedom. They yearn for the Life which Christ came to give in abundance….In your hands, carry the Cross of Christ. On your lips, the words of Life. In your hearts, the saving grace of the Lord.” St John Paul II
 
In May of 1990, I sat down with Msgr Kobbeman at Holy Angels Church in Aurora to discuss their youth ministry opening. I remember being greeted at the door of the rectory by Fr. Lutz. It was pretty intimidating to be in a rectory with two priests dressed in their blacks. I had a desire to serve God, but I was not sure of the direction. In order to work for the church, I would need to take a pay cut. I was married with one child and one about to be born. If I was sure God was calling me to not only work in youth ministry but also work at Holy Angels Parish, we would need to rely on God promises of provisions for our family. Jesus said in Matthew 6:25-34: "Don't worry about your life...But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well". 

A couple of weeks later, they called me in for an interview with a huge committee of fifteen people. Talk about intimidating! It seemed like I was peppered with questions from all sides of the room. I survived! They asked me to leave the room and a little while later, they offered me the job! I would start July 1st, 1990. The job was bigger than I realized. I was going to be in charge of grade school, middle school, and high school RE and youth ministry which included first communion and confirmation prep. Wow! That's a mouthful! I have to admit that I would have no idea what I was doing. I had volunteered in most aspects of the job. But, now I would be in charge. Later, I realized that God over the years had taken me on his own training program from my management degree to each job to all the volunteer positions. He trained and gave me the skills that I would need, but also made me weak so I would rely on his power.

On June 5th, we welcomed Rebecca Jean into the world! She was a little over five pounds but longer than her sister. She would fill out that length and become our tallest daughter. Rebecca has always been "My Rebecca". Picture a little girl in a pink tutu and tights with a purple feathered boa around her neck as she pretended to be a ballerina. She loved to dress up. She loved to dance. She captured my heart with her joy of play. She had her barbie dolls and she didn't have just one. She had many dolls much of it was provided by her grand mother who loved to go to garage sales. She did not just have dolls, but all the trimmings including clothes, houses, furniture plus everything else imaginable. Using her love for story, she used to create extravagant pretend doll neighborhoods.    

She found a love for reading and books which turned into a desire to write her own stories. This love for story and writing turned into an English degree. Her love for books turned into a Masters in Library Science. She developed her personal relationship with God through writing and music. Oh, I can not forget her love for music in general but especially praise and worship. This love for music parlayed into playing the clarinet from childhood through senior year of high school. I told her she could be the next Benny Goodman, but she didn't believe me. I also told her after every concert that I could hear squeak. Of course, she didn't. Everyone who knows me knows I wouldn't lie! She has heart for others especially young people. I have loved that she was able to help me over the years in youth ministry from youth group, to retreats, to camps, and conferences. I watched young people fall in love with her. I would be remiss if I didn't talk about her love for food. We have many pictures of her as a child with food all over her smiling face. Anytime she goes somewhere, we get a food report. This is a girl who likes to party with music, dancing, and food. It is her love for God and her family and loyalty to her friends that are her most impressive traits.

"Here I am Lord, Is it I Lord?
I have heard You calling in the night.
I will go Lord, if You lead me.
I will hold Your people in my heart."

This was my theme song throughout all my years in church ministry. I wanted to serve God wherever He wanted me to serve. I would go and serve the people. I would give them my heart. I started at Holy Angels Parish on July 1st. The staff and the people of Holy Angels were very welcoming and supportive. I would serve the people of the parish for a blessed 12 years. 
  
I loved working for Msgr Kobbeman. He is such a good priest and he empowered his staff to do their jobs. He created a strong staff bond. We had staff retreats and staff parties. He was respectful of my family life. Over the years, he was very supportive of every youth ministry effort that I felt was important to pursue from summer camp to national youth conferences to World Day in Rome. He gave the youth a room in the rectory to use for youth group meetings. I called it the "Oasis". I wanted it to be an oasis from the world. He basically allowed us to make the 11 o'clock mass a youth mass every Sunday. We had a youth choir directed by Arlene and Barb. It was awesome. For example, Arlene's son ended up on Broadway. In addition, there were many other very talented teens on the choir. 

In August of 1990, one of the most powerful tornadoes (F5) hit Plainfield and Joliet. The storm came right over the west side of Aurora before it landed in Plainfield. It was the middle of the afternoon. I was having a meeting in the youth room which was located in the basement of the rectory. I looked out the window and it was really dark. I mean dark! I opened the youth room door. There was a long green awning over the stairway. Hail was landing at my feet! I looked up and the hail was coming through the awning ripping it to shreds. I knew the storm was bad, but it was much worse than I realized. Then the horrible news started rolling in. One of my volunteers was the school counselor at Plainfield High School. Praise God! Because school was over, most of the students were gone when it took a direct hit. She was able to get a group of students behind a brick wall as the tornado hit. St Mary Immaculate church was totally destroyed. The news only got worse. One of our parishioners was missing. He was the father of three teens. He was in the area on a sales call. His body was found hundreds of feet from his car. A young lady from our parish was overwhelmed by the darkness of the storm and jumped off a building in Chicago. The storm killed twenty nine people and injured three hundred fifty. Going to wakes and funerals became part of the job description. I found it to be the hardest part of the job. Over the years, I will attend many funerals of parents of teens.

There was an established youth ministry effort going on at Holy Angels Parish. It was called Antioch. Antioch was the town where the followers of Jesus were first called Christians. Antioch had a weekend retreat that was built-in to the program. The teens gave most of the talks. It was a well thought out schedule and talk outlines. The hardest part was getting teens to commit to a whole weekend. The group was filled with an awesome diverse group of young people. Holy Angels Parish was a unique parish. It's western border went all the way to Lee, Illinois. Aurora is a city. The teens that came from Sugar Grove, Big Rock, Hinckley were rural teens. Over the years, the mix of rural and city teens will make an interesting challenge.  

My first mistake: The Antioch youth group already had an outing to Six Flags planned when I started at Holy Angels. It was great! They had it all planned out. I was just going along for the ride! No permission forms. Teens driving. What could possibly go wrong! What was I thinking!? I get into a car of one of the teens. He was a terrible driver. He is weaving in and out of the lanes on the interstate without a rear-view mirror! It was a great day and everyone got home safely. Praise God! I will never ever make those mistakes again. Though, I will make plenty of other ones. 

While the Antioch youth group was full of awesome teens, there is a difference between awesome and converted. Awesome Catholic teens have Jesus in their car. Converted teens have Jesus driving the car. I will spend the rest of my time in youth ministry inviting teens to let Jesus take the wheel.

Youth Ministry in the City
 
 
May 03, 2018
We moved to Aurora in the fall of 1990. We had a hard time finding suitable housing that we could afford on a youth ministry salary. We ended up renting the front half of three story house that was in pretty bad shape. The landlord promised to fix it up, but of course he never did. We discovered squirrels living between the walls of the girls bedroom. Never fixed it! He promised to install a shower in the bathroom. Never did it! The house didn't have air conditioning except one window unit. The windows didn't have screens nor could we open some of them.

God surprised us again. By the spring of 1991, Jan is pregnant! Guess who was miserable the summer of 1991 with little air conditioning? Guess who spent a lot of time at her parent's house? Jan!  It is a boy! Johnmark was born a couple of weeks before Christmas in 1991. He was an early Christmas present! It is a good thing that he was born by C-section. He was active in the womb. He had the cord wrapped around his neck not once; not twice; not three times; not four times, but five times! If he was delivered normally, he mostly likely would have died. One thing that I learned about Johnmark over the years is that he has a heart of gold. He is by nature a nice person. As a father, I cant think of a higher compliment. He is funny, creative, a servant, hard working, and can pull a prank with the best of them. What more could a father ask? He was born with some learning challenges so school has been a challenge for him. So, to give him the most help possible, we took him out of school in first grade. My wife quit her job, and she home schooled him all the way through high school. It was hard for him every step of the way. Did it stop him? No! He went to Waubonsee Community College and earned an Associates degree in Auto Mechanics. Was he finished? No! He earned a Bachelors degree from Southern Illinois University in Automotive Technology. In his field, his 'weakness' is actually a strength.     

He was the first child to climb out of his crib. Having a boy after two girls was an adjustment! He is all boy! Johnmark is all hands! He can't just look at something. He has to touch it and examine it. When he was younger, the city was installing a bike path in Lincoln Park. After they sprayed a layer of tar, Jan took the kids over to the park to "see" it. Johnmark stuck his hands right in it! Using his hands he would build things. Over the years, he acquired a massive amount of legos. He would use those legos to create things. One of my favorite things that he created was rock music stages. With those stages, he created awesome stop action music videos. He loved cars and vans. He had a huge Hot Wheels collection along with the orange plastic track. Anytime that I rented a van for a youth ministry event, he had to ride in it. His love of cars and his skill with his hands led him to his degree. His most impressive accomplishment was keeping my green Toyota Camry alive for 296,000 miles! Of course, he probably thinks his greatest accomplishment is how many times that his dinosaurs destroyed Rebecca's Barbie village. Seriously, I think my proudest moments were watching him be a Camp WOW counselor. one year, he gave a talk! One year, he was the star of an ongoing camp skit.  Campers always thought that he was the greatest counselor. After only being there one semester, SIU made him an RA. He is just a good person that people like to be around.

The Antioch Youth Group was full of a variety of characters. Aurora is a city not a suburb. Aurora teens are city teens. Aurora is a mini-Chicago. Many of the teens went to a high school were there were 'safe' and 'unsafe' hallways. Many of the teens had a rougher hardened exterior about them. We had one teen who was struggling trying to stay out of gang activity. Eventually, his family had to move to Arkansas just to keep him out of it. It was a never ending challenge to keep some of them under control. It got to a point where I had to lock the doors of every room that we were not using. We used the school gym on Sunday nights mainly to play volleyball. So, I would get a Monday morning phone call from the school principal, who was a Dominican sister, about all the things that were damaged. Now, I also used the school for grade school RE, so most of the calls were about broken pencils or messes made in the classrooms. One Monday she called, I was able to say, "Sister, but, we were not in the classrooms this past Sunday!". Yes!! The RE kids got blamed for everything!

Fish Boil! Sister had a fish tank just outside her office. A youth group member would somehow turn up the fish tank heater full blast, so by Monday morning half the water was missing and the fish were dead! This happened several times! I am not sure who did it, but I have my suspicions. Locker room shenanigans! They would ask to use the bathroom in the locker room. Seems harmless until I would get a call on Monday morning from Sister that all the lockers were emptied and stuff thrown everywhere! Broken window! One Sunday night, a teen got "locked out" of the school and was trying to get people's attention to get back in. Somehow, it included breaking the window on the door. It was one of those windows with the wire netting inside. I don't know how he did it. Beer Party! After the 11 o'clock mass, teens, who were altar servers, snuck downstairs and raided the Bingo worker's beer supply! It was in a locked cooler!   

I could regale you with more stories, but I don't want you to get the wrong impression. These teens were good people. City teens just do crazier stuff than suburban teens. They led awesome retreats. We had great weekly discussions on a wide range of topics. Many of them took turns leading a night's discussion. They had bonfires, softball & volleyball games, and Six Flags trips. Rick, one of my adult leaders, led an annual Boundary Waters canoe trip. We had other camping trips out west. Many of the families hosted youth group parties. They supported each other by attending their plays, games, meets, and concerts. They built such a strong community that they hung out together outside of youth group and built life long friendships. It is even more amazing when you consider that they attended six different high schools. Today, they are strong Christian witnesses.