My Husband: Mortician/Pastor

I don't talk much about Rand or his work on this blog. Mostly it's about me and kids, kids and more kids. I know some people have no idea what he's up to. Sure, we moved to Phoenix to plant a church and Rand is a pastor and what-not, but really, this part of the story needs to be told lest we forget this part of our journey when it eventually (hopefully) comes to an end.
Rand passed up a pastor-job offer in New Jersey right before we decided to move back to Phoenix. It was a tough decision for him. One of his main goals in life is to provide for us and to pass up that job, at first, seemed like maybe a not-so smart move. But moving back towards the West and pursuing his dream of church-planting seemed like good timing. And I agreed.
However, church-planting doesn't provide much of an income! And although it would be great to pastor and minister and worship without the care of money, the truth is, pastors need money! Money to live, and money to minister. Fortunately, Rand has a fall-back career. He's a funeral director! Remember that?! Right before we moved here he landed a job with a "transport" company and it enabled us to get into our house before we got here. That was nice since I was 30 weeks pregnant and double moving just didn't sound like that much fun. So Rand's job, for those who aren't in the "know" was working on-call for a company that did pick-ups from homes and hospitals for funeral homes. It was a HORRIBLE job. By far the worst job he's ever had. The work itself wasn't the bad part, but he was on-call 24 hours a day (96 hours a week) and sometimes was working way too much and sometimes he was sitting at home not working at all. The management was extremely poor and the pay was even worse. This company cannot keep drivers....and now we know why. So Rand started pursuing getting his funeral directors licence reinstated. It happened quickly and he got everything he needed done just in time for the April Board meeting to approve it (state test, finger prints, school transcripts ect). An interview, another interview and some more waiting and ta-da! Rand got hired by a big funeral home to be one of their embalmer/funeral directors. His first day was yesterday. His hours are pretty set and although he will be working overtime regularly (his choice) at least we know when he'll be working and what he'll be making. Phew!
All this is great and all, but let's not forget that this mortician/embalmer, if you will, loves Jesus and telling people about Him and Rand's passion is for that (not embalming!). It's a hard job working more than full time and trying to get Liberti off the ground (not to mention being with us as much as possible). It is going much more slowly than he would like, but he is sticking with it and plugging along. He is talking to guys all over town and anxiously looking forward to his first event: Beer and Bible Night (for the fellas) in May. He is talking to a lot of guys that aren't Christians and it's exciting to see their interest and there is hope for them to be the beginning of strong Christian men that will be a part of Liberti.
So there ya have it! That's what my hubby has been doing. He's busy, a tad stressed out (you should see the giant cold sore on his lip. Let's be glad it wasn't in his eyeball again!) but he is making the best of it all...even though it's hard. We are learning a lot about patience, and trusting God, and being content, and giving thanks for everything. It's hard to do sometimes, believe me.
So hats off to Rand....the best mortician/pastor I know!