So, I met this really handsome guy while working at JimBoys Tacos in downtown Grass Valley, California.  I was fresh out of high school seriously considering the Air Force as my next stop in life.  Dennis changed my plans.  I remember calling my recruiter, "You found some guy didn't you," was his response.  Well, as matter of fact....July 17th, 1982 we were married.

A few years back Dennis and I found ourselves in a conversation with friends about our past.  We kind of laugh because God has done such a work on my Dennis that he is not the same man I married, and that is quite alright with me.  Dennis was having a hard time coping with the pressures of life and the stress of his job on the California freeways. He was not a nice person.  We refer to that Dennis as the "California Dennis."  Every once in awhile California Dennis tries to reappear but New and Improved Dennis beats him back, with the help of the Holy Spirit and a very patient wife.  He is not perfect but God is still pushing and pulling and molding him towards perfection.

God is all about redemption and grace and Dennis is an example of both.  God has redeemed his life and made him into a new man.  Our God is a God of second chances and has given us a second chance at making our marriage and our lives pleasing to him.  God's grace now shines on my husband's face when he speaks of moving to Belize.  The grace that has been given to him is freely being giving to others.  California Dennis would have said "Not a chance in **** could you get me to go to a third world country.  I don't even like people, let alone little kids."  But God had already been working on my husband.  Dennis had been restless and felt like there was a higher purpose to life.  The first time he was asked to go to Belize he really wanted to say no.  But the Holy Spirit was working on him and he went reluctantly.  After the second visit he came home and said that he had found the higher purpose.  God had clearly laid out a path for both of us.  I guess that God and I were just waiting for Dennis to take the lead.  Actually, I'm sure God had all this worked out years ago, he is like that you know.