Cautiously entering the church, a naive 16-year-old girl and her 18-year-old drug dealing, rock and roll guitar playing, high school dropout boyfriend made their way to the balcony. Their reason for coming? To make fun of the evangelist. "Maybe if we make enough noise, they'll call the police," whispered Jeff. "Then they'll never ask us to come back again!" That girlfriend was me!

As we started making a lot of noise, the older folks glanced up to the balcony, wondering who those roughly dressed, obnoxious teenagers were. Then the music started! It wasn't rock and roll, but at least it grabbed our interest. Next, the evangelist stepped to the pulpit. The subject that night? Spiritualism and the occult!

The evangelist explained things clearly from the Bible—much like a professor from a university. Jeff reflected back on his own experiences with spiritualism. We returned the next night—this time to listen. Each night was one subject after another, all being backed up by the Bible. Serious questions came to mind: "What happens after we die? Is there really a God in control of all this? Why am I here?" We sat on the edge of our seats night after night, hearing Bible truth and finding answers to our questions. The desire to share what we had learned also began to grow in our hearts. Life would never be the same again! But cutting old ties with drug dealing, rock musician friends would not be easy.

MENTORING

Two years later, at the ages of 20 and 18, we married and moved 60 miles from our hometown out into the country, trying to get away from the negative influences of our friends. We believed God had a plan for our lives but we weren't sure what it was. I really took hold of the message in my limited understanding, but Jeff still hung on to many of his old habits. It is easy to have a head knowledge, but a heart experience with the Truth can be another matter.

Through a series of events, such as his father being killed in a freak accident, Jeff began thinking more seriously about his relationship with God and finally made a serious commitment to Christ. About that time, Jeff was set up by some friends to play music with Willie Nelson's bass player. They never said who the fellow was or anything at the time, only that he was going to be in the area, and "just wanted to jam with Jeff." When they got together and started playing Jeff found out who this fellow was and that he wanted Jeff to come and audition for the upcoming tour! When Jeff told them, "No way!" they all thought he was crazy, but they did not understand that God helped him to see this was a trap back into his old way of life!

It is amazing how God places the right people in our lives at the right time! Jerry and Linda Wernick, founders of Tamarack Springs Academy in Polebridge, Montana, struck up a friendship with us. In actuality, they ended up becoming our mentors.

The Wernicks were just beginning to build their self-sufficient country home in the remote mountains of Montana. Linda taught me everything from baking bread to canning fruit and buying food in bulk. She set an example of honoring her husband and working beside him. Jerry and Jeff worked together on their trucks and planned how to make a home self-sufficient. Jerry taught Jeff how to build, do stone work, and make lumber with a chainsaw mill. He also taught us economics and how to budget. But most importantly, he demonstrated trust in God.

One day Jerry asked, "Do you believe that God wants you to have your own place in the country?" "Yes," Jeff replied with some hesitation, as he was in debt owning twelve pre-1940 vintage cars, and was too young to have thought much about actually buying land! Jerry encouraged us to trust God, step out in faith, and buy our own wilderness property. "God said it. I believe it, and that settles it for me," I thought to myself.

A MOVE TO THE WILDERNESS!

We systematically liquidated all of our assets, including Jeff's antique cars. One by one the Lord brought buyers. The sale of these cars made us debt free and gave us some working capital. When his prized 1936 Plymouth coupe was taken away, he cried. All but one car sold—a 1937 Ford coupe.

Together with Jeff's brother and sister-in-law, we sought the Lord's help to find a remote piece of property. Jeff and his brother took a long, exploratory trip through Montana and Idaho, looking for 10 acres of remote land with a southern exposure, a good stand of trees, and a creek, spring or lake on the property—all for $800 an acre! People everywhere said they were crazy, even in 1981!

After days of searching they were about to give up, but decided to look at one last property—and it was perfect. They bought it on the spot—right here in Northern Idaho. God tested our faith, and when we had done all that we could, He stepped in and did what we could not do. It was a lesson in trust. God is more interested in the process of developing our character than in giving us what we are looking for. This is an important point to remember.

So here we were, two city kids only 22 and 24 years old, with an 18-month-old daughter, Carissa, when we moved to our newly purchase wilderness property. We lived that first very wet spring in 1981 in an old truck camper with no heat. We built a makeshift kitchen, complete with a picnic table and wood cook stove under a tarp lean-to. Money was often tight—really tight. We lived on $35 a week by cutting posts and poles from trees off our property to sell to a post and pole company. To make things more challenging, I was pregnant with our second child.

We had brought with us very basic tools: a wheelbarrow, a treasured Alaska Chainsaw Mill, a smaller chain saw, a hammer, a square, and a wooden keg of used nails from my grandfather's barn. Some of these nails were so old they were square!

We still had one completely restored 1937 Ford Coupe safely stored under a tarp, parked way back in the forest on our property. Later, money from its sale would keep us afloat. To say the least, my parents thought we were crazy! The adventure was merely beginning!

A DREAM—A REALITY

The dream of owning and working our own land was becoming a hard reality. Mornings consisted of cutting down trees and milling them into lumber with the chainsaw mill. Afternoons were filled with building the house (yes, with green lumber!) The foundation trenches were dug by hand with a shovel; the cement for the foundation was mixed by hand in the wheelbarrow; rocks for the foundation were hand picked and hauled, a truckload at a time, from a local quarry. We were getting pretty handy!

After we the house was mostly built, we heated and cooked with wood. Although the days were busy and full of hard work, we were still determined to keep our connection with God. Every morning and evening we committed to family worship. That next winter we had our second daughter, Trisha..

HUMBLE BEGINNINGS

Our original goal was to establish some type of "outpost ministry." It took three struggling years before that goal was realized. Alternating between full-time jobs and continuing to build on our country home, Jeff found time to begin a simple backyard newsletter—Laymen Ministry News. Using an old Smith-Corona typewriter, often with an oil-lamp, he hand made the newsletter masters and they used a copy machine to make the actual newsletters. The first mailing in 1985 was to 22 people. In a matter of months the newsletter, dedicated to laymen and written in lay-language, was being mailed to over 200 homes. The theme was simple: God has granted to each the work of ministry; the early Christian Church began as a lay-movement, and the work would, to a large degree, finish as a lay-movement.

In those days many thought we were radical—that we were trying to overthrow church organization! In reality, our emphasis was simply the biblical concept of the priesthood of all believers—while still supporting church organization. All church members are also pastors and workers for Christ.

Jeff thought, "Maybe I should offer some literature as outreach tools for laymen." He found an old tract from the 1890s that was long out of print, so he cut the pages apart, and pasted them up for duplication on a high-speed copier. In a few days his first tract was ready. To his great surprise, a well-known pastor and public speaker ordered fifty! Wow! Imagine the possibilities! One tract led to another. Books were advertised in the newsletter. This led to the creation of a bookstore. All the time the mailing list was growing by word of mouth.

Laymen Ministries began in just such a small, humble way, clinging to the promise, "He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much."—Luke 16:10. We made a commitment to stay out of debt. While building our house, we lived without running water for four years, without indoor plumbing for six years and without power for nine! Each improvement brought great joy, as we appreciated the value of working hard for every gain.

A PUBLISHING WORK

Before long, Jeff saw there was an interest for old out of print tracks and books so he put his mechanical talents to use in a new way. We purchased an old printing press and a gas generator, as we did not have power at that time and began printing tracts for outreach, thus establishing LMN Publishing. It was a trial and error venture—not to mention sharing my living room with boxes of paper, ink and a large paper cutter. We even stored books under our bed and in the closets! More and more tracts and booklets were published, along with the regular newsletters. The newsletter grew into a bi-monthly mini-magazine with a circulation of around 3,000 people.

After two years, we traded in the old press. The gentleman who delivered the new press declared, "You have been printing these booklets on that press? The quality is so good, but that press is totally junk! An angel must have kept this thing running!" We smiled, as we well knew it ran on prayer!

We needed a collator for making booklets, and Jeff hesitantly picked up a demo to try out—knowing he did not have the money to purchase it. Driving home from the city with the equipment in the back seat, he stopped in town to check the mail. To his astonishment, he found a check for the exact amount of the collator, with a note saying, "We felt impressed that you needed this money!" This scenario happened over the years time and time again!

GOING INTERNATIONAL

Shortly after the fall of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, a gentleman from New York called Jeff. "You need to train others to do what you have done," he said firmly. "You need to help those in these newly opened countries to set up simple printing facilities. It would be so practical, and take very little financing." They prayed about it on the phone.

The next thing we knew, a student named Victor Kuczek was on his way from Poland to learn desktop publishing and printing. He and Jeff worked together to develop a publishing work in Poland, which later became Springs of Life Institute. Victor left a deep impression on our family, as he not only joined in with chores and family worship, but also shared with us the difficulties of life under communism in Poland. The local newspaper even ran an article on Jeff and Victor. Then another student came from Romania. Our eyes were being opened to the possibilities in these former hard-line communist countries.

Jeff and co-worker, Arnet Mathers, took their first trip to Eastern Europe to learn firsthand how to be of more help. This was the spring of 1991. They planned to stay for about one month. There was one problem—after buying airplane tickets and Euro-rail passes, they only had $60 in cash for food and lodging for the whole month!

The Ministry ran on a shoestring budget, as the saying goes. Some call us crazy, others stupid, and still others say, "You sure have a lot of faith!"

The day before their departure, an Express Mail envelope arrived. It contained $600 in cash with a note that read, "We were impressed that you needed this money right away." That money provided food and covered their travel expenses.

That trip and others that followed resulted in printing facilities being established in Romania, Poland and Lithuania. Books and tracts were published in Albanian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, Moldavian and Lithuanian languages. The Ministry’s name was then changed to LMN Publishing International, Inc. That name was too long to deal with on a day-to-day basis, so we filed a DBA (Doing Business As) request as Laymen Ministries, which we are known as today.

The Lord opened doors to contact high-ranking government officials in Romania to start a Prison Ministry. In that country alone, we have printed over 500,000 books, 1,300,000 Bible lessons and tracts, and distributed thousands of Bibles. God opened doors to meet the vice president of Albania and we sent over 1.3 million tracts and Bible lessons to this little country. In Nepal, we attended a private celebration with the former King and held the largest ever Christian Health Expo with medical professionals participating from many parts of the world! It was aired on national TV in Nepal. We became pioneers of Adventist TV ministry in India. The work has expanded to various locations in India, Nepal, China, Lithuania, Bulgaria, and the Philippines. Millions of books, tracts, and Bible lessons have been printed and distributed in various languages around the world.

Schools for indigenous children were built in the Philippines; an orphanage was established in India; workers were sponsored deep inside China; prison ministry formed in The Philippines; and a unique medical missionary work was founded in Vanuatu—all by lay people encouraging lay people to be involved in ministry! Truly, anything is possible with God!

TV MINISTRY

In 1992 Jeff bought a video camera and began practicing the art of videography. The vision for publishing had become a reality, and we trusted that God would work to realize a new dream—television production! Today Laymen Ministries owns and operates two TV production facilities equipped with the latest in digital technology. One studio is here in America and the other is located in Chennai, India. Our mission programs take viewers right to the mission field to experience what missionaries are facing day to day. Fast-paced and exciting, the programs have been used in public schools and for local TV broadcast. In India, we produce programs in several different languages—health programming, Bible questions and answers, sermons, and also short programs for social media.

God has an interesting way of preparing each of us for our unique work. When Jeff was seventeen, he worked for a television station in Montana. He learned about lighting, control room switching, camera operation, and many other skills necessary to manage a video studio. Even his past experience as a rock and roll musician has been useful in understanding electronics and sound systems.

Laymen Ministries has been blessed and has grown amazingly. We produce programming in America for 3ABN satellite TV network. In India we produce programs in Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, and English languages, which are broadcast by satellite all over India and to people around Asia and the South Pacific. Bookstores in various parts of the world ship materials all over, and our mission magazine, Laymen Ministries, reaches over twelve thousand readers every quarter. With a small office staff, low overhead, key leaders and numerous indigenous workers in the field, the influence for God has been incredible! All we can say is: "God has blessed!"

TODAY

Even with all these changes, we still appreciate the back woods of Northern Idaho. You will still find Jeff working in the forest or editing TV Programs. I work in the office answering phones, sending thank-you cards to donors and do accounts receivable. God's message to us is simple—ministry is a way of life, not something you do just through the institution of the church. The challenge we extend to you is this: if God can use us, with our limited education and drug-dealing, crazy background—God can certainly use you! We are no one extraordinary. "Be faithful today in your sphere of influence." Watch God open the doors of opportunity!

The above article is a brief overview of the history of Laymen Ministries. The expended version of this story, called The Spiritual Journey Series, is available on YouTube. See how the Reich's built their house with a chainsaw and simple tools, listen to Jeff tell his amazing testimony about coming out of atheism and spiritualism to becoming a Christian. This series has touched many people's lives. To watch The Spiritual Journeys Series just click here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBDB45986DA46029F