Hi! I’m Dave. I’m a teacher, language-lover, incurable infracaninophile (lover of the underdog), dad and granddad, and a bunch of other things. I live and work on a farm in Virginia and commute to my other job in North Carolina. Mostly I’m just a broken person who is therefore qualified to minister to other broken people. It’s been said that God teaches us to trust by reminding us how helpless we are. He teaches us patience by making us wait for what we want. He teaches us wisdom by allowing us to fail, make mistakes, and learn from them. He teaches us grace by not stopping difficulty or hardship. And He teaches us humility by sending us thorns to strip away our pride. Like Paul, I’ve been through thorn therapy. When I wrote about Paul’s concept of weakness in my doctoral dissertation, I discovered that Paul was a broken man. He was a man who operated his life on his knees, a man who could say, “When I am weak, God’s strength works through me, and I can do things I could otherwise not do.” Paul had learned the lesson of the thorn. The grace of God had taught him strength in weakness. I’m hoping to learn those same lessons.

I’ve led a pretty interesting life I guess you could say. I’ve been a surfer in Hawaii and a lifeguard in California. I’ve climbed the Sakkara pyramid in Egypt and explored the Great Wall in China, the Parthenon in Athens, the Eifel Tower in Paris, the British Museum in London, the Roman ruins of Trier in Germany, the tombs of Cyrus and Darius in Iran, Nahum’s tomb in Iraq, the rubber plantations of India, and have enjoyed a danish in Denmark, a hamburger in Hamburg, a frankfurter in Frankfurt, and vienna sausage in Vienna. (There are no french fries in France, only pommes frites.) For 15 years I did cross-country riding on my fantastic horses. (See My Horses, My Teachers.) I was born in Honolulu and raised in Kailua on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. I enjoyed big wave riding at such famous beaches as Makaha, Pipeline, Sunset Beach, and Pupukea. But the biggest ride of my life was when I put my faith in Jesus Christas Savior and Lord at the age of eight. During my teen years I was active in the Jesus Movement as well as in my local church, serving as deacon, youth pastor, and music leader. 

After graduating from Kailua High School in 1970, I studied music at the University of Hawaii. I had played the trumpet from grades 5 to 12 and had been selected to be first chair, first trumpet in the Hawaii all-state band when I was a senior in high school. Growing up I also learned how to play the piano, the guitar, and, of course, the ukulele. In 1971 I left Hawaii for California in order to study the Bible at Biola University. Here I am with my blind roommate from Brazil.