I have been working on putting together a biography of our life and how the Lord has worked in our lives over the years bringing us to the place to begin LBM.  As I have worked on this I have been encouraged to look back and see the hand of the Lord working even when we were not concerned about serving Him.  I thought I would post this so that maybe others would be encouraged as well.  I know it is a long article but Lord willing it will be an encouragement.  
   
            Bárbara and I met in 1991 at Jefferson Forest High School in Forest, Virginia.  It was my senior year and she had come from Brazil as an exchange student.  We dated the whole year and as the time for her to return to Brazil approached we began to talk about marriage.  Eventually we decided that I would return to Brazil with her and we would be married.  So at age 18 I took my first airplane flight leaving home for good.  We were married on August 22, 1992.

            Even as a lost person I was very moved by the poverty in Brazil.  I just felt like someone needed to do something.  The average person seemed oblivious to it.  However, for a young man who had never seen a homeless person before it was heartbreaking.

            After a few months we returned to Lynchburg to begin our life together.  We rented a small apartment and our furnishings consisted of a bed, dresser, kitchen table, a microwave, a 13” TV, and the cushions from my parents’ porch furniture.  Bárbara could not yet work due to her immigration status and I was making a whopping $5.00 an hour as a desk clerk at a hotel.  Things were difficult but we loved it.

            Within a year I had become the Assistant Manager at the hotel and Bárbara was working.  We had reconnected with a friend from high school who began to witness to me regularly.  Often, I led him astray more than he kept me on the straight and narrow, but he was persistent in sharing Christ over the next six years.

            In March of 1994 Bárbara had began to attend community college and I was offered a great opportunity.  The General Manager of the hotel I was working at was promoted to a Regional Manager position and he stuck out his neck to get me a shot at a General Manager position of a small Hampton Inn the management company was building.  I began training for this position a month before my 20^th birthday.  My plan was to put Bárbara through college and then she would put me through.

            In June 1995 I was transferred to Fayetteville, NC to open a new Hampton Inn twice the size of the one I had been managing.  We bought our first home in Fayetteville and Bárbara worked and went to community college.  In the spring she graduated and transferred to N.C. State University majoring in Spanish.  Upon graduation she would be fluent in both Portuguese and Spanish.

            In October 1996 I was recruited by another hotel management company and we moved to Durham where I managed a larger Hampton Inn.  Bárbara had been commuting to N.C. State so this made her life a little easier.  By the end of 1996 my old company had recruited me back as a Regional Manager and I was responsible for all of their Hampton Inns, I think it was 8 hotels all together.

            Bárbara graduated in December 1997 and a couple months later we moved to Roanoke, VA.  Our plan had been for me to quit work and go to school, but I liked what I was doing and didn’t want to give up the money to go to school.  In Roanoke, we reconnected with my high school friend who had visited us in North Carolina periodically and he was still faithfully sharing the Gospel.  I had never been interested, but he had been a good friend so I listened to what he had to say.  By this time in life, success and money had become my gods and I was not about to hand over control of my life to anyone, including God.  After all I had done very well for myself, or so I thought.

            In September 1998 we bought a house and some land near Smith Mountain Lake in Virginia.  Bárbara was working for Burlington Industries handling International Customer Service for Central and South America.  I was responsible for several hotels throughout Virginia.  During this time I began to ask my friend questions about God and Christianity.  I know now the Lord was drawing me to Himself.

            Bárbara and I decided that we would begin a family in late 1998 and she was pregnant by early 1999.  One morning in March I was getting ready to leave for work when my phone rang.  It was my mom telling me that my paternal grandmother had passed away unexpectedly during the night.  Three days later I was sitting on the front row at her funeral with my male cousins as a pallbearer.  As far as I know no one in my family was a Christian but we had a Baptist preacher who my grandfather knew preaching the funeral.  For the first time in my life I understood that I was a sinner in need of a Savior.  I repented of my sin and asked Christ to save me.  Even more wonderful my wife, several rows back, was committing to follow Christ at the same time I was being saved.

            After the funeral we shared our decisions with one another and rejoiced together.  The following Sunday we were in church worshiping the Lord.  Unfortunately, within ten days of being saved my appendix almost burst and I had to have surgery.  To make matters worse within 30 days of me accepting Christ, Bárbara had a miscarriage.  It was a difficult time for us but I remember trusting the Lord to work it all out.

            The following year in May of 2000 we went to Brazil to visit Bárbara’s family.  It was on this trip that the Lord gave us an idea for the ministry that would eventually become Living Bread Ministries.  However, at this time I was still struggling with sin in my life and I was unwilling to give up my own plan of early retirement and the love of money.  On this trip we found out that Bárbara was pregnant again, we were so happy.

            When we returned I became increasingly discouraged with my life.  I no longer enjoyed my job.  I wanted to do something different but I was afraid to try.  We went for Bárbara’s routine check up for the pregnancy, we were so nervous, but when they did the ultra-sound we were thrilled to hear that little heart beat.

            A month later that joy turned to sorrow when, at her next checkup there was no heart beat.  The baby had died.  At that point we were so broken.  We thought we would never be able to have children.  We fell on our faces before the Lord and surrendered our lives to Him.  We would go wherever and do whatever He willed.

            Within two months we had both walked away from our careers and put our home for sale.  We answered God’s call to become house parents at a Christian group home.  If we could not have kids we would be missionaries to young people in need.  From October 2000 to August 2002 we ministered to boys and girls from broken homes.  The Lord blessed and used us to lead many of the children to Christ.  However, our house never sold during the two years we were there and with the dramatic decrease in income it essentially destroyed us financially, but we were at peace in His will.

            Shortly after arriving at the group home Bárbara found out she was pregnant again.  Several weeks later, at a worship service, she had felt the Lord reassure her heart that everything would be fine this time.  We had several complications with the pregnancy, one resulting from exposure to a disease similar to chicken pox, at one of the group homes.  The result could have been a miscarriage but apparently Bárbara had been exposed to it as a child and was immune.  Praise Jesus!  During many other complications and scares we held to the promise the Lord had given Bárbara and on July 19, 2001 our son Patrick was born.  The Lord always keeps His promises.

            During this time we met Mary, a teenage girl from a very bad situation.  She took to us right away.  The Lord had used us to lead her and several of her friends to Jesus.  Unlike the other kids Mary did not have a relationship with her family so when the others would go home for holidays she would always remain behind.  We began taking her with us and trying to show her what a family was like.  After we left the children’s home we adopted Mary.  Although we were only about 11 years older we wanted to give her a real family that she could lean on as she set out to build her life.  This worked for over a year, but as is often the case in these situations she ultimately left.  We do our best to keep in touch with her and have an influence in her life.

            When we left the group home in August 2002 we really didn’t know what to do.  Our home finally sold in October, but our life savings was gone.  What little we made on the house we paid off Bárbara’s student loans and paid some other bills.  However, we had learned to trust the Lord, a priceless lesson. 

            I took a job and began praying with my Pastor regularly about God’s will for my life.  For one year we met regularly and prayed.  In December 2003 on another trip to Brazil the Lord finally answered my prayers and showed me that now was the time to begin the ministry he had given me a vision for almost three years earlier.  The difference was that now we had the faith to trust Him.  When we returned in January 2004 we began working on what would become Living Bread Ministries.  By March LBM had been established on a God given vision with $50.00 from Bárbara and me.  A month later the Lord blessed us with Tabitha and in April 2007 He blessed us again with Olivia.

            This is a rather long bio but I hope you see the Lord working though our lives to fulfill His plan.  From bringing a 16 year old girl from Brazil to Forest, VA, to opening doors for a lost 20 year old to manage a hotel the Lord has been preparing and equipping us to do His will for His glory all our lives.  For that we give Him praise and I hope you will to.