About Chris

My parents maintained a transient lifestyle. We lived in homeless shelters, low income housing in grungy neighborhoods, and a couple of times our car. In fifth grade I went to school from a camp ground in New Jersey. Camping could be exciting in the summer, but became embarrassing and cold as school started. It became so cold that my parents began sleeping in the car. Night after night my brother and I heard the sound, just outside our tent, of the car turning on throughout the night as my parents kept themselves warm. My brother and I huddled together in our failed attempt to do the same. Hunger was a similar problem throughout our childhood.

Beginning in my early elementary years I had a deep passion to have a high functioning family. I began gathering information by analyzing families in public as they inter-related. In fifth grade I stumbled across two books about parenting. After skimming the two books, I realized that the one author knew what he was talking about. So…I stole the James Dobson book. I discovered other books by Dobson, as well as other authors. No, I did not steal all these books!

When I was fifteen years old we lived in the Salvation Army Homeless Shelter in downtown Phoenix, Arizona. Management required someone in the family to have a job within two weeks. I did what any self-respecting first born would do; I got a job. That afternoon I gathered applications, the next day in borrowed clothing, I returned those applications. I was hired at an animal boarding kennel to walk dogs and clean up after them. Hot, stinky, grungy work but I was glad to have a job. Although it didn't seem like it, my life was beginning to change

The owners of the kennel, Gordon and Norma, invited me to their church, Tempe Nazarene. I don’t know when I first committed my life to Jesus Christ, but this is when I first began to grow in the knowledge of who He was in my life. I became committed to church, even more to Bible study and memorization, but most of all I became committed to my relationship with Jesus Christ. As my commitment to Jesus Christ increased, so did my father’s anger and subsequent abuse.

My father made it clear that I would need to choose between my family and Jesus Christ. Suicide problems began for me which would last for years to come. The most painful trial I had ever had up to that point or since was the choice to leave my family. By the end of my Jr. Year of High School, the severity of abuse at home made it clear... I had to go. I would work at the kennel for the summer and hopefully get by. Over the summer I searched for a family that I could “board” with, in the fall, hopefully in the same school district. No family turned up. In desperation I cried out to God, “If there is another school district you want tme to go to, I will go. I will go to any school you want me to, if you will only open a door for me.” That afternoon Gordon and Norma called me into their office and offered to send me to a private Christian school in...IDAHO!!! I had just promised God that I would go wherever He wanted if He opened a door,so I accepted.

From here the story goes from sadness, to humor, finally to great joy as Christ revealed the amazing things He was able to do in my life. I am currently a resident in a suburb of St. Louis with my husband of 23 years and 5 kids, three of which are adopted out of the Missouri Foster Care System. I would have never dreamed that people would find me to have a powerful gift for public speaking, nor would I have ever thought I would write a book. All I ever wanted was to have kids who knew Jesus Christ powerfully through a strong, high functioning family. He is able to do immeasurably more than we could ask or imagine, according to His power at work in our lives. Are you letting Him do, in your life, what only He can do?