So excited to get back into

real-life story telling!

I started with a close family friend of ours -

 we talked about how he ended up in Ohio, a

little bit of what he went through, and how he got to

where he is today.

Meet Ivan.

Back Then:

I said, "You were born in New York right?"

Ivan said, "Yes, I was born in Manhattan. Beth Israel Hospital on November 21st, 1985

at 2:00 in the morning, I think it was." He laughs.

"20 years in New York and 12 years in Ohio.

My mom is in Manhattan and my dad passed away when I was about 6 or 7."

I asked Ivan what he remembers about his Dad.

He said, "Nothing.

I never got a chance to meet him face-to-face.

I only remember calling him on the phone and stuff.  

...It was fun growing up in the city. I always liked riding my bike around the city,

playing basketball, staying out late,

and also just being able to experience different cultures growing up was cool.

It was never a dull moment living in the city.

Always something to do, so I was never bored."

Why Ohio?:

"It happened fairly quick. I was 21 and coming to visit Kent over holiday break

when I was in college. Kent is like a father figure to me and my best friend."

The two of them met when Kent went with Oasis Christian Fellowship Church

 to do a mission trip for his church in New York.

Ivan went to church a lot in the city and used to help run sound.

They were doing some remodeling and Ivan and Kent did a tile job together

in the lobby and became instant friends.

Kent then invited him a few times to come visit him in Ohio.

"When I came to visit him I decided to stay and I've been here ever since.

It was a better decision for me at that time and so far so good in Ohio.

I have been able to manage on my own.

I had originally first come to Ohio when I was 16 and 17

and I didn't really like it because it was such a culture shock. 

So I went back to Brooklyn, where I felt myself because you can definitely be yourself in Brooklyn.

That I did miss. When I lived here, I felt like I had to change and kind of pretend to be someone

I wasn't during a time of my life

where your just finding out who you are to begin with."

I asked what made him decide to come back to Ohio.

He says, "I was in college, not doing well with my grades. It being Christmas break,

 I felt like I needed to get some fresh air and I needed to get away from the city

because it was such an overwhelming time in my life.

So I would come here and gather my thoughts to see what I wanted to do with 

the rest of my life because college didn't seem like it was working out for me.

It's difficult in New York City because the overhead of living is very expensive

so it was challenging to live in New york and go to college. 

When I moved out here; I got a car, my own apartment, and a job within a month

-maybe even the first two weeks. So I stuck with it here for a bit and then 

eventually decided Ohio was going to be a better place for me

instead of going back to live in New York and start from scratch,

when I was already building myself an empire 

here in the cornfields." We laughed.

The Struggles:

"I got a job working in the factory on night shift.

I made a few friends, but didn't have much of a life.

It was mostly just work, playing video games,

and microwavable pizza for a good year or two.

I started making some good friends at the Outback in Archbold - positive friends.

They all lived in Defiance, and that's how I met my ex-wife.

That's how we got together

..and we got married fairly quick.

We were two totally different people just trying to make it work.

She and her family thought it was in her best interest to divorce me,

so I went through a divorce and gave her the house and the dogs when we separated.

I had to start back from scratch,

which is easy for me because I had to do that so many times in my life.

I went through a difficult season because I didn't have many friends,

most of my friends were her friends.

I mostly went through that divorce by myself

and never had a conversation about my divorce with anyone, until years later.

Kent was the only one there for me, really.

 None of my family came to visit, call,or ask me anything about my divorce.

It was a difficult season in my early/mid twenties going through a divorce and being single, which 

wasn't a good place for me.

Video games and alcohol was the life I lived for a couple years

until I met the mother of my children.

We got together fairly quickly and we had a child together, fairly quickly.

She was very young. She was dealing with the loss of her father and I was dealing with being divorced.

We were both two people in really hard places that just needed to help someone out.

So we were in the same place in life, and that was probably the only commonality we had.

We started a family together, bought a house, had two kids together.

She started to realize that I was just in a different place than she was. I started to grow in my faith and she wanted to 

understand what it felt like to be young, being that she had both of her kids before she was 21.

So, at 21, she wanted to live the 21 year old life and go to the bars and party. 

I thought it was a good idea to let her get that out of her system 

so she didn't feel like I was trying to imprison her. I would let her go out every weekend 

and I would stay home with the girls, and during that time she met someone else. She left me for

someone else who liked to do the things she liked to do at the time.

So that was another difficult season for me because we were engaged and we had a family.

It was a hard time, being that I had this big house, had to pay all my bills and support

my children at the same time. I did that for what felt like a year."

7-Fold:

"But I did a lot of praying during that year and the Word of God tells us,

'The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much', and I prayed a lot and I got a lot in return.

What the Devil takes, the Lord returns 7-fold.

Within that year, I met my wife Amanda and I would say she's my 7th fold.

My wife and I reconnected over a book we were both reading, coincidentally,

which was a book written by John Ramirez about his testimony.

He was a Puerto Rican Satanic worshipper-turned-evangelist from the Bronx.

That brought us together in communication.

We started to realize we were both in our word, really growing in God,

and we were encouraging each other as single parents to strive after God."

Seek First:

"'But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness,

and all these things shall be added to you'

I figured that if I go right after God everything would return to me, which it did.

On that road to redemption, Amanda and I were going down the same path, and God 

brought us together and reconnected us.

We started to fall for each other. I have known my wife for a long time, 

as she was good friends with my younger sister and throughout the years we would see each other.

I was a single father raising two girls and she was a single mother raising a son and at that time.

It was a season in my life that I was praying a lot, asking God for a lot, and challenging my faith.

In the Word, it says 'You have not, because you ask not,'

 So I asked a lot, and I got a lot.

My wife and I got together towards the end of the year

-in the same year that my ex-fiancé and I broke up."

Blended:

"So in the same year, my ex-fiance left me, and within that same year,

my wife proposed to me and we got married.

(photo by Jeff Jones)  

She moved from New York to Ohio to start our lives together here and bring our families together.

I finally left my factory job after 12 years.

I work in and elementary school as a social worker where I get 

to help kids K-8, who don't have a father, and never grew up with a father.

 I get to be a good male role figure for them everyday.

 I really love what I do in being able to make an impact

in the community on the South end of Toledo,

as well as help change lives in young kids for the better.

I really appreciate where God has me right now and where He has taken me.

 I feel good about what He has done in my life and what He's going to do.

I look forward to raising my children in a blended family,

which is something very common in our culture and in our nation.

It's something my wife and I want to pioneer together and inspire people

who have gone through hard times,

but want to find a right place in life with God."