I worked as a Case Manager and rose to the position of Northeast Director in 5 years covering 22 counties in Kansas the Northeast section from Salina to KC and every county North. Establishing offices in Salina, Beloit, Washington, Marysville, Clay Center, Junction City and Atchison. I then took the position in Wyandotte Cpounty as Director of Foster Homes some 100+. I retired in August of 2007. It was and is a valuable experience protecting children in the foster care system and placing children in adoptive homes. Great organization to work for and be a part of.

My job opportunities including taking parishioners into Mexico and over the 19 years in that position I led over 50 trips. Medical Missions, and Construction Missions. Another role was Pastoral Care. The Senior pastor and his wife were the visionaries of the church and I was able to support them and see the vision for Emporia accomplished.

These rural churches were my first charges in the full time ministry. A wonderful experience with my wife and three small children. The rural churches still practiced many of the old school practices like the "pounding" I received when we first moved to that area. A "pounding" meant that the parishioners brought a pound of this and a pound of that, including a fresh beef and pig offering in the local butchers freezers or locker house.Also when a couple were married a couple of weeks after the ceremony we the congregation would get together and have a "Shivery". We marched the couple around town in a wheelbarrow and beat pans announcing the marriage. Wonderful people and wonderful memories!

I worked here and returned to College working on my Associates Degree at KCKCJC.

As a new hire I was taught to pick and pack orders of agricultural implements and parts. They were shipped all over the Midwest. I learned fork lifts skills and later after the addition of an overhead collator, I was trained to weigh and store boxes for shipping. The last 3 years I was brought into management where I worked until my life took another direction back to school and on to the ministry.

During the slaughter process of beef the end result is a half of a carcass wrapped in cheese cloth and hung to chill in a cooler. My job was to take the cooled beef and shove it on rollers from the cold up the ramp to the boxcars to load and then be shipped off. Daily as we shoved the cold beef out the warm beef would be coming into the room right behind us so by the end of the morning the cooler would be filled up once again. We could see what our work looked like for the next day. It was a Jewish Company and we would go down on Mondays and watch the rabbi bless and cut the throat of the animals, because a Jewish person cannot not eat unkoshered beef. Beef that had been strangled first. A Jewish custom.

After training I was shipped to Okinawa for jungle training and then off to Viet Nam for the remainder of 1966. In Viet Nam I was the gunner on a 60mm mortar and humped it on all patrols and ambushes. I participated in 3 Defensive Operations and 12 Offensive Operations.From Phu Bai to the DMZ in the Quang Tri District. Returning to the United States, I served on guard duty of a installation in Seal Beach, California.