We were married on June 25, 1995. Our best man was my oldest son, Joel, who was 7 years old at the time. Jan’s “man of honor” was my youngest son, Aaron, who was 5 and so began our journey of building our stepfamily.

I was previously married and Jan had never been married. Joel and Aaron were from my first marriage that ended in divorce after 8 years. Jan did not bring any children into the marriage. We are a stepfamily family in one of its simplest forms. Although others may be more complex in form, the building of our stepfamily was as complex and challenging as it gets.

During the first seven years of our marriage we were bombarded with financial hardships and custody battles while trying to build a stepfamily. In fact during the first 6 months of our marriage I had foreclosed on what was the previous family home and Jan went into the hospital with pneumonia. While at the International Marriage Conference in Phoenix, AZ, Jan and I heard Dr. Greg Smalley give an analogy of marriage as the journey the Israelites made from Egypt to the desert to finally the Promise Land. When Jan and I heard this analogy we realized that we got married in the desert and only dreamed of the Promise Land.

But God…

Jan and I both feel that we have a blessed and wonderful marriage. We also realize it is a daily task of keeping it that way. Loving, living and working together as a stepfamily is also a daily task. Our boys, Joel and Aaron, are now teenagers. And so the challenge becomes even greater.

God has truly taken us out of the desert and we can see the Promise Land. God has done so much for our family. The testimony of what God has done in the life of our family is incredible. Because of this, God has put the desire in our hearts to minister to stepfamilies.

This desire has led us to develop Family Forest Ministries. This name came up when one of our boys came home with a school assignment of creating a family tree. After looking at it, and thinking about more complex stepfamilies, we realized that sometimes it isn’t just a family tree. It’s a family forest.

We look forward to what God is going to do with Family Forest Ministries.

Blessings to all,

Dan & Jan