Oh What A Man!

My friend Marti inspired me to talk about my husband! My husband Gene is an amazing man, as you can see! As a young man he studied Taekwondo.

I met him in 1975 at UCR. (University of California at Riverside) He graduated there with high honors and two degrees, one in Psychology and the other in Philosophy.

He wanted to go to into a specific program for a Master's Degree in Psychology. You see he wanted to be a psychologist because he wanted to "help" people. The program was full and he didn't get in. So he decided to get a "real" job as a loan officer. During this time (1976) we were married.

He soon started working for the same company I did, Orange Coast Title. Swiftly he rose to the rank of Assistant Vice President. During this time he became a drunk. He would drink with clients and would eventually start drinking at noon in bars. I believe he held some kind of pinball championship at one of the local bars in Riverside, California. As you can imagine our marriage was horrible. We were near divorce, not only because of his drinking, but for many other reasons. Then one day, on our way to a family function, we decided to stop and see a movie. It was "The Late Great Earth". God used this movie to open our eyes to what was going on in the world. I was raised Baptist, so I understood what the movie meant. I decided to give my life to Jesus not long after that. I have been told that Gene, upon being told I was now a Christian, thought "now she has to do whatever I want"! A few days later Gene saw how wicked his heart was and then decided to give his life to Jesus. A week before all of this happened we had bought an antique bar to have in our bedroom. We also bought a T.V. and $200.00 worth of booze to fill the bar. (this was almost 30 years ago, so you can imagine how much booze that was)

Anyway, we both gave our life to Jesus and it was an amazing thing! Our lives completely changed! We dumped all of our alcohol down the drain and flushed all our pot. We started going to church. We stopped swearing and became new people! Our marriage became wonderful again. Not long after our conversion, Gene mentioned he thought he wanted to go into full time ministry. I told him that if we were to do that we would have to pair down our life. We had to move to a smaller home with a less expensive mortgage. We prepared ourselves to be ready for the "call" the Lord might give by being able to live on less. Soon we went on staff at Calvary Chapel San Bernardino. He was the Assistant Pastor. He was at that post for about 3 years and in 1985 we found out from a friend that a little city in Hanford needed a pastor. In May of 1985 we packed up our young family (Mary was 4 and Geno was 2) and went to Hanford. It has been nearly 22 years and the church has grown.

During that 22 year time Gene has gone to China, to smuggle Bibles for the underground church there. He has gone to Japan and the Philippines to teach the pastors how to study the Bible without any resources other than the Bible. He has gone to Honduras and Mexico on trips with our children to help the impoverished people there. He is a volunteer chaplain for the Lemoore Police Department. He wishes he could work more there but tries to do what he can. As a chaplain he comforts those who loose loved ones, helps the officers in difficult situations and helps with the homeless.

He really works tirelessly and I am so proud of him. He is the best husband! Thanks for following our Lord, Honey, I love you!