Beginnings and Tragedy
Mike was born into a Roman Catholic family in Central Louisiana while Dottie was the daughter of a Southern Baptist minister in Southern Arkansas. Both were born in 1943. They met at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana in 1962 and married in 1963. Upon graduation Mike took a job teaching special education in Bakersfield, California. Their first child, Michelle, was born with many birth defects and died eleven months later. Being isolated from their family during the death of their child, they moved back to Louisiana where he studied for his Master's in Special Education.

Studying at NSU and working at the State Institution for the Mentally Retarded, Mike and Dottie had another child also born with birth defects. Misty lived eight years and was the reason that Mike and Dottie's marriage stayed together. Having many, many marital problems, neither Mike nor Dottie was willing to give up Misty. A third child was born and died within hours of birth from the same birth defect that took Michelle's life and would eventually take Misty's.

Blessings Returned
Offered a teaching stipend to the University of Florida, Mike and Dottie moved there to study for an EdD in Special Education. Here began the relationship with God that would bring them to Guatemala years later. The first of six adopted children was received that year. God would bless over the next decade with five more children. As in the case of Job, the Lord gave to Mike and Dottie double what the Devil had stolen. Time would eventually take them through Louisiana again where for eleven years they pastored Alleluia Acres Fellowship in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Build your House on the Rock, a daily radio broadcast, has been on the air for over 20 years now.

The Beginning of the Call
As a man who never had compassion even while pastoring, Mike went to Guatemala on a one week mission trip to get a fellow minister to quit bothering him. This minister had been asking Mike to go to Africa for years which was expensive and time consuming. So when the inexpensive short trip came up, Mike thought it would be a good way to get the minister to quit asking. While in Guatemala, Mike went walking each morning at 4:30 a.m. and everywhere he went, he saw children in need.

Back at the hotel while in the shower, Mike's heart broke and he began to weep. Returning to Louisiana, Dottie asked him how his trip was and again, he began to cry. Although Mike had buried three children, his father and his brother, Dottie had never seen him shed a tear. She knew something both strange and wonderful had happened. "When are we moving to Guatemala?" she asked. Four months later with five children in the back of a pick-up truck, $2,000 to their name and unable to speak Spanish, they moved to Guatemala.

God has done more here than just this ministry. He has allowed us to build over fifty churches, pastors' homes and Sunday school buildings - far beyond anything that we could ever pray for.