This is what could be called a landmark year for the Stephan family as a whole. But it is an incredible and fulfilling landmark for my beautiful wife and I. This is the year that I have been married to my wife for 40 incredible years. We have had many of life's challenges that every couple faces throughout a marriage. One thing that we have learned in the past forty years is that for every hurdle and every devastating situation that we face there truly was a light at the end of the tunnel. Today as we look back we see that if we add up all the victories, no pun intended, our victories and the beautiful success are all the rewards of enduring the hard times, this has left us with unimaginable and uncountable beautiful memories. Today I sit back and look at all the memories that we made in the past 40 years with our children and with each other and it was worth every second of time and resources that we put into it. When people tell me that we got lucky that irks me a lot and I think of the gentleman who encouraged us at superstore one day, he encouraged us by saying anyone can get to be 60 it just sort of comes naturally if we're given the opportunity and in most cases we don't have a lot of choice, it just happens, but he said to be married to one woman, to have six children and have 15 grandchildren he says now that takes effort. So when I look back to the times and the opportunities to go on fishing trips, motorcycle rides with the guys, or to attend roundups, go to men's retreats and so on and we refused many opportunities because we knew our better half needed us to be there with them. It was a time we don't regret a bit but today we look at the fruit of those choices and the fact that today our Harley Davidson sits idle as we spend such incredible time with our children and our grandchildren making memories. Would anybody ever make any other choice? We are also so blessed to be a part of an incredible ministry that has changed our priorities and lives and has been changing lives for several years now, there again to be a part of God's plan at changing lives making opportunities and options available, to see lives rise up from absolute devastation, chaos, brokenness and no hope, to lives with purpose, vision and prosperity, lives that are now a productive part of society. Encouraging others wasn't really a choice it was just a matter of listening and following a great, great God. 
