As the plan developed, we came in contact with a group in Arkansas, who came, picked up all the equipment, and took it back to ship it from Arkansas. They asked if I could go with them to set it up. I agreed to do that and at the time I only thought about getting a free trip to Europe! Hospital employees did a fund raiser to get air fare for me, and it cost me nothing to go!

We were there for 10 days and had the complication of the equipment not coming out of customs. Because of that, we weren't able to work with the equipment, but good came of it because we stayed with missionaries from Texas — Ray Kessler and his wife, Lisa, with their two children — the older five or six, and the younger, McKaia, between two and three. They were wonderful people and we hit it off from the beginning. Ray took me to different locations where they were working — several hospitals, a nursing home, and an orphanage, just showing me what the conditions are like there. It was really heartbreaking to think anyone has to live like that.

The country came under Communist rule just after World War II. They had built hospitals and public service buildings, but then stole all the money out of the country, leaving nothing for upkeep these intervening 60 years. Hospital patients' rooms are set up in wards. Poorly paid doctors and nurses were trying to make do with obsolete equipment. It is amazing they have been able to keep systems functioning — heating systems, for example. They kept babying them along but in a lot of cases they weren't working. On the third floor in one hospital, for 40 to 50 beds, there was one bathroom facility and one bathtub. They were not able to get water above the first floor, so water was heated in the kitchen and carried in giant buckets up three flights of stairs, where it was dumped in the tub and they tried to get all the patients through their bath before the water was cold. It was deplorable.

There is no medication because the country is so poor the drug companies won't sell to them. Unlike some European countries, they do not have socialized medicine. The people have to pay for medical services, which depend on the ability of the patient to pay. Their triage is not based on the seriousness of the illness or the most life threatening conditions, but on the amount of money the person can pay. The patient who has the most cash sees the doctor first. Those who have the least cash may not get to see the doctor on their first trip and have to come back.

I thought of how much time and money we spend for comfort — in hospitals and in everything we do. We assume the rest of the world lives like we do and don't realize nobody lives like us. We are so blessed and people don't realize that.
On my first trip it dawned on me that we should do more of that. Our hospital had so much equipment and supplies to be thrown in the trash. It occurred to me if I talked to other places maybe they had stuff, too. It took me a few months. God began envisioning what might happen if this could be developed, and he laid out a plan that involved me. I was in tears thinking, "You've got the wrong guy. This is w-a-y too big. I'm just an ol' Iowa farm boy. What do I know about doing such stuff?"

He didn't give up. He kept that burden on my heart until I made the first phone call a couple months after I got back, and asked, "Do you guys have extra equipment?" They did! Just like us, they didn't know what to do with it and were hoping to find a place to give it. Such a place was right here in Iowa! Because I was facility manager, I am a member of an organization called Iowa Society of Health Care Engineers, made up of maintenance people who belong to different hospitals and nursing homes. We occasionally get together, discuss our problems, do training — things like that. I have access to all these people who deal with such equipment.

I started asking and discovered all these people more than happy to help. There are a lot of great people wanting to do good but don't know what to do or how. I was still working full time, but on evenings and weekends I would use my beat up old trailers and vehicles to go pick up this stuff. I brought it back and stored it in my garage. Like so many things, it seems to start in someone's garage. In this case it was mine.

On my second trip to Romania, in 2002, we worked at a different hospital that had no hot water. The actual hospital had fallen in and they were converting the high school into a hospital. Our mission was to install a shower on the patients' floor. We raised $500 through the Christian Church, went over and refurbished the bathroom. In addition to putting in a shower, we took out the bathtub, put in more urinals and an instantaneous hot water heater. We made it a lot of difference for them, leaving them a bathroom facility with a working shower unit.

I went to Romania in 2001, 2002, and 2003. Our ministry kept growing and growing. We gained more hospitals as donors of equipment and more organizations to partner with. Our overseas shipping increased as we had more and more requests. It was just phenomenal! I traveled to more and more countries, each one touching me in a different way. We discovered other groups reaching out as we were doing — like Hope Haven International Ministries based on wheel chairs. We became collectors for them in southern Iowa. We send them wheel chairs that they refurbish like new and ship all over the world.

Along about this time I met Val and Art Brummel from northern Iowa. Val works for Hope Haven as their Mission Specialist. That is, she puts together mission teams who go all over the world. She takes dental teams to Thailand, and teams to Peru, South America. She also does the wheel chair distribution, and she was just back from Vietnam on a wheel chair mission.

She became a member of our Board, and in 2005, Val and I decided to incorporate C.R.O.S.S. Ministries, having a 501c3 status, which identifies us as a non-profit organization that allows people to donate something of value and take a tax deduction. This would give us some income to meet expenses which were mounting up.

In 2007, I went Guatemala and it began to dawn on me this is what I am supposed to do full-time. Every trip has had its own little miracles and that one was just incredible. Not only was I seeing what Christ has done and is doing, but the way he uses individuals to accomplish what needs doing. On that trip we met a minister in a little town. He told us that when he was young, probably 14 or 15, he helped support his family by picking coffee beans. As he was picking beans he heard a voice say, "Go home. Someone is there to see you." He thought that was odd because there was nobody around, but he decided he should listen to the voice.

He turned in his beans around noon. His employer refused to pay him because he hadn't worked all day. He went home and his parents were irate because he'd lost his job, didn't get paid, and there was nobody there to see him. The next day, when he got up, a gentleman came to the door and asked if he was (his name). He said yes. "I have heard you know how to play the piano." He said he did, to which the man said, "I would like you to come play the piano at my church. In return I will educate you, and help you study the Bible." The young man and his family agreed.

He left, stayed with this fellow and played at the church. In time he became a minister and when the gentleman who had educated him retired, the young man took over his church — the largest church in that section of Guatemala. The community was 98% Christian, and all seemed to be going very well when he heard the voice again, telling him to leave this church and go to another town, Santa Maria, to set up a church there.

By this time he knew it was Christ who spoke, and he listened. He announced to the congregation that he would be leaving and going to this other village to set up a church. They protested. There were no Christians there. It was a Mayan village where the people were more inclined toward voodoo and black magic than Christ. They were worried for his life, but his answer was, "God is sending me there, so that is where I am going."

It amazed me that this guy who was in a very wealthy church, making very good money as a minister, walked away from it because God told him to. He never doubted it for one minute. But finally it made sense. Why would God put somebody where everybody is already Christian? He is still there working with the church, and they are getting more and more new members every week. I believe this is what we are to do — find more people for the Lord. That is who preachers need to preach to. We can talk to the "choir" all day long but what good does that do? That guy and his story really spoke to me.
There was a second acquaintance in Guatemala. There was a beautiful young lady whose name was Candy. She was paralyzed, confined to a wheel chair. She had become involved with a lawyer, who asked her to many him. When she said "No," he shot and paralyzed her. He didn't go to jail. Because he was a lawyer, her family thought they didn't have a chance to win a lawsuit, so they didn't even have him arrested.

When I met Candy, she was living with her disability and had opened a little store. Somebody robbed her, which left her unable to pay for her merchandise and her creditors took the wheelchair. We were there to deliver a new chair. I couldn't believe her! With all she had been through, she wasn't bitter. She was so happy she literally glowed. She really impressed me. We complain about so many things — our cable isn't working or the microwave doesn't operate; and this girl had been through so much but didn't have a complaint. Something is wrong with us.

Another incredible person doing incredible things with their lives was Judy Kerschner also in Guatemala. She was a nurse who had gone there to visit as she was reconstructing her life after a divorce. While she was there, she met a little handicapped girl. She initiated a conversation and asked the girl what grade she was in. The child replied, "I don't go to school." "Why?" "Because I am disabled and they don't allow disabled children in the school." (I have discovered that to be pretty common in most developing countries.)

This well educated, financially well-to-do, nurse gave up her nursing career to start a school. She'd gone to Guatemala after her divorce to do something different and she surely did something different! She gave up everything and now runs this school. In Guatemala I met the minister and Judy. These people gave up what we call success to help other people. That is when it dawned on me that if God is asking me to give up something, who am I to question it? These people don't think about what they have given up but what they have been given.

I was told by the examples God gave me that on that trip, what I needed to do. Basically it was to get C.R.O.S.S. ministries where it should be instead of just dabbling in it like we had been doing. Enter Cathy Blair. I've known her for a long time. She always did my income taxes so she knew how I was supporting the ministry, and she kept saying, "You need to do something." So I did. I asked her to be a Board member. I recognized she knew money better than I did, so I'd let her figure it out. Then I asked Hugh Stone. Hugh and I have been friends for years and he has been aware of what we do at C.R.O.S.S.. Hugh wanted to set up a clothing closet or something to help the needy; but it was Cathy's idea to start the Thrift Store to generate income to help the ministry. We combined the two ideas. We have things for sale at a very reasonable price but if somebody needs something and can't pay, we just give them whatever they need.

Our starting the Thrift Store was almost a miracle in itself. Ed (Lundquist) knew that we were gathering medical equipment, and he let us use some of the lumber yard buildings for storage until we could get the equipment shipped out. When we decided to ask about using the main building, Hugh and I talked to Ed and Darlene hoping they would allow us to use the building rent free for three months. That would give us a chance to get the store up and running, with the possibility of it producing some income before we started paying them. Ed just said, "Well, I've got a deal for you. Why don't you just use it for free?" How incredible! Without their generosity, we wouldn't have started because we had no money. This entire venture started on a prayer and by this gift we were able to move forward!

Then came the volunteers. They are the heartbeat of the Thrift Store. Without them the Thrift Store could not function. But what really surprised me, and what I regard as another of the many miracles involved in this ministry, was the Thrift Store providing them an opportunity. They remark about how thankful they are to have a place to be useful. Some of them have lost a spouse or they are newly retired. They have spent their lives responding to need, and they wanted to continue being useful and helpful. We could provide that.

The best experience is when a family, who has lost everything in a fire perhaps, comes in. A volunteer can be the one who helps them find what they need and get it for them. The volunteer not only sees what is happening but is part of it. There is something transforming about that. It is a reminder that no matter how badly we feel life has treated us, no matter how deeply we hurt and have been hurt, there is always somebody whose lot in life is worse. We have become a family, always welcoming new members. If someone wants to volunteer for an hour or a day, that is fine. Some of them come almost every day.

Ed gave us the place on April 1, 2008. The second week of April we started cleaning and arranging it to meet our needs. We spent April and May getting it ready, and opened June 1. Now, early spring of 2009, we can assess where we are. A strange part is that the store has always provided enough money to cover expenses. That has been uppermost in our minds. The Thrift Store has become a ministry in itself. We have seen one miracle after another. The volunteers continue to come in, some have come and gone, but the ones who are there all the time are changed. They no longer think about themselves. They are thinking about others.

During these months, because of the generosity of those who bring us clothing and household items, we have been able to assist 11 families who had lost everything in a fire. We seem to get more and more requests due to domestic abuse situations. That is sad! However we can help, we help, but we don't provide counseling. This is where our partnering with other ministries has proven so helpful. When people refer the abused to us, we can send them on to another ministry. Jesus' Right Hand in New Virginia is fantastic in that area of need.

Yesterday a lady called to say she knew of a domestic situation in which the victim had lost everything. I assured her that if she would send the lady to us, we would give her whatever she needed. However, she also has a terminal illness and needed spiritual support. That isn't us but I have a friend in Leon who is very good at that. We are arranging for the two to meet.

I have noticed generally a lack of people working together. There are hundreds of groups doing various types of ministry, but none of them knows about the other. I believe one of the biggest contributions we make through C.R.O.S.S. is providing a network. If somebody calls to say, "I need an incubator for a hospital," I get online and check other ministries asking if anybody has an incubator. Most of these places don't even know the others exist. I don't understand that. I know Christians are supposed to be modest, but to be silent is wrong! We need to let people know we are there and what we can offer. What we can't offer we need to know who to refer to.

We are open Monday through Saturday and people are finding us! It is incredible! I had wished we would pray with the families and individuals more than we do. We're not really good about that, but with every situation we always let them know first and foremost that it is God who provides. I guess in a way that is prayer, as we help we are giving thanks to God who makes it possible for us to do what we do. It is expressing the love of Jesus Christ or we wouldn't care enough to be there to do for those who need. Christ's love motivates people to provide what we provide. They have to understand that. Second, it is the community. Friends, families, and neighbors provide the items we have. We have nothing to give them except what is given to us.

During these years, I have been to Romania in 2001, 2002, and 2003. On the third trip, we went with the Medical Division of the Arizona International Guard. They asked the year before if I could provide the equipment, and they offered a seat on the cargo plane they would use to haul it. I didn't realize how big the cargo planes are! We were gone about three weeks, and it was incredible! Before each trip, I seem to hear a song, which becomes the theme song for the trip. Just before we left on this trip, a song by a rock group, "Calling All Angels," stuck in my head. I mentioned it to a couple young Guards members and we noticed that every time we stopped, somebody was playing that song for us.

After that I went to the Dominican Republic twice, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Guatemala, where we've been asked to go again, and I returned to Kenya for the continuation of a project we've been working on. I've been asked to go to Zimbabwe and to Cameroon. I just haven't felt called to go there. We need to go to Cambodia. I don't know how soon or why, but each mission trip is a story in itself.

On the trip to Kenya, we landed on December 29th. Elections were December 28th and violence broke out. It was awful. I had a destination in mind but they couldn't even get me to the mission. Driving through all these people shooting and burning stuff was like the movies. The taxi driver said, "We can't stop, we can't stop nowhere." I was alone but that didn't seem to bother me.

Because of all the violence, refugees were coming into the central part of Kenya, where we were. I didn't know ahead of time, but in the family I was staying with was the head of the Ministerial Alliance of that region. We established a refugee camp in the southern village. Here we found over a thousand people with absolutely nothing, fleeing to escape the violence. Some were walking, some were hitching rides; they were coming by the truck loads.

All of a sudden, here they are, and what could we do? There was no food. The churches spent all their money the first day when the first group arrived. I had taken some money with me for travel — enough money to buy food for three days. We went to the farm village, bought bags of grain, rice, and beans, and took them back to the camp. Somebody donated some cabbage. I e-mailed Hugh, "I could use some money over here," and he wired me some money.

By the end of the third day we out of food and money and people were still coming. But just then a Kenyan division of the Red Cross, showed up with food. The timing couldn't have been more perfect. God had sent them and me at precisely the right time. I was supposed to go in November and ended up not going until January. I really don't know what those people would have done or if they'd have gotten to eat. Some of them hadn't eaten in days before they arrived.
The Kenya project I intended to be involved in was helping set up a construction budget for a hospital that was being built. While I was there, I contacted different organizations so when our equipment gets there, it will go through customs and be sent where it needs to go. We sent the first container in December and the second container last week (in March 2009).

Just outside Nairobi in Kenya, is the Kijabe mission. In this little village is a family whose daughter was in Des Moines. I had met them because we were trying to send equipment over for the Cerebral Palsy Society of Kenya. Their daughter asked if I would visit the family, which I did, and stayed with them three or four days. That was incredible. Nobody has a vehicle. They didn't have electricity, running water, or plumbing of any sort. It reminded me of Scout Camp when I was a kid. That is how they live. We had a wonderful time. I went to church with them, walking of course. The kids had never seen a white man and they called me by a name. I don't know how to spell. It is probably Swahili. They said it means "white man."

After being with them, I went back on the "bus"— a little trolley-type vehicle that took me to the bus station in Nairobi. It was huge! It extended for blocks and blocks and was just a sea of people. Unbelievable. I got up on a step and looked out over the crowd, people elbow to elbow, going here, going there. They were to send a taxi for me but there was no way a taxi could get through that human traffic.

They called some fellow who asked where I was and I said, "I don't know. I'm standing in front of these buildings" — and I gave him the name from the sign on the building. He asked, "How will I identify you?" I looked up the street one way and down the other way and said, "I am the only white man here." I thought I would stand out pretty well.

A young man showed up and asked, "Are you Mike?" I said, "Yes." He said, "I'm your runner." I didn't know what that meant but I soon found out. He asked if I had any bags and I said I did. He was speaking English, albeit broken English, but we understood each other. He picked up the heavier bag but I told him I would take it and gave him the smaller one. He took off and I started running after him. We ran through this crowd of people and into a store, he was cutting around all over the place. Of course, I'm an old fat man so I was just trying to keep up, dodging in and out, jumping over stuff— it was the darnedest thing. I caught up with him once and said, "Do you have a car?" He said, "No, if I did I couldn't get through here." So we ended up running to the market where friends were going to pick me up." When my heart slowed down I thought, "That was an adventure!"

We are beginning to look within the States as well as international ministries. We went to Louisiana after the hurricane. Last fall we did some work in Murray. We hope to work with Christian Church Disciples helping to set up a work station in Cedar Rapids after the flood. We are available wherever God takes us. We have found that when God has something for us to do, he tells us, then we decide whether we will listen to him or not. That is what it boils down to.

I guess God knows whom he can trust. He knows everything and once he places that burden on your heart — well, I confess there have been times late at night when I'm moving stuff or hauling stuff and I'm sore and tired, I think back to when the kids were little and we'd be home eating a pizza and watching some TV show. That was what we did. That isn't the life I want now!

I mentioned that it seems my entire life was preparing me for what I am doing. I was raised in a Catholic home. My dad was a staunch Catholic. I grew up in Hamburg, Iowa, where the Mass was the traditional Latin service. We moved to Osceola, where the service was a little more modern and Dad and Mom, Fred and Dorothy Sitzman, weren't very comfortable with it. We went through the catechism class and everything, but Dad became very discouraged. We began not attending church regularly.

My dad was unbelievable. He was always helping people — never for thanks or praise. He was just always doing things. I grew up on a farm and loved it and all the animals. But then came the farm crisis, and we lost our farm and everything; but Dad still was helping. He got a job helping other farmers cope. I don't suppose it paid very well but he wouldn't have been concerned about that.

There were six of us kids, my brother, Dave, sister Sue, brothers Dan and Joe, myself and a younger sister, Nancy. Dave passed away a couple years ago at the age of 58. He had an inoperable kidney cancer. They diagnosed it in July, and in October his wife was trying to take care of him at home. She couldn't do it and we put him in a Hospice facility in Des Moines. They also gave him some kind of drug when they found it was creeping up into his brain. They said the drug would help him for about 30 days. While he was in the Hospice Home, he figured out why he was there, which was not true of the other residents. None of them knew why Dave was there because he seemed okay. He was always going around helping the other residents.

Whenever I was picking up equipment in Des Moines, I would get him out of the home and he and I would go around to take care of the business I had gone for. That was when he started seeing what we were doing and what we were about at C.R.O.S.S. He became one of our biggest supporters. He was so proud of what we were doing and was getting to be a part of that. He found Christ while he was in the Hospice home. On December 24 of that year he passed away, and in January of the following year everything started happening for us. I sense Dave was a part of that. I know he is looking out for us. Timing-wise it all seems to be a coincidence but not everything is.

Joe is a deputy sheriff in Clarke County. Dan is a deputy sheriff in Corning. When someone did our family tree, they also researched occupations. Eighty percent were involved in some kind of public service — police or fire departments, hospital work or nursing. It was incredible that such a large number were in those professions.

When we moved here in 1971, I was in 5th grade and I graduated from Clarke Community High School. When I was a senior, I started working part-time, and immediately after I graduated, I started working for Furnas Electric. I took night classes at Southwestern Community College and went to Simpson for awhile. I worked for Furnas for about 16 years. I was in maintenance and worked my way up to knowing I either had to get into management or more technology.

There was a job opening in second shift. I applied for it and got it. Sally Riekena was the human resource person and she taught me so much about teamwork. We had training which emphasized that even though Furnas was a big company, every person was an individual and we were to treat them that way, being compassionate, caring, and willing to listen. I learned so much from her that I apply as I supervise the people I work with. She was very inspirational. The only reason I left was, I knew I needed to be on day shift for my kids.

I left there and went to Winterset to work at Eaton Technology. It was a huge corporation making electronic circuit boards that go into microwaves and appliances. While I was at Winterset, the products were sold everywhere, a lot going to Mexico. They sent a team of us down there, for which I needed a passport, which I had use for later, also. What impressed me in Mexico was the poverty, which was unbelievable. I was so surprised to see how bad it was just across our border, and nobody cared. It was the weirdest thing. From Texas you can see the cardboard houses and nobody cared. That seemed incredible to me.

I was with that company for five years before they sold to a bigger company who moved the plant to Mexico. I had opportunities to go, but at that time I was divorced and wanted to stay in Osceola for my kids. I was kind of tired of manufacturing because, for 21 years, that was all I'd ever done. My first thought was I had to get back into it because that was what I knew, but I was so discouraged about manufacturing at Eaton. We were the most productive, the most efficient, of all their plants. A reason they asked me to be there was because of all I'd learned at Furnas Electric. They wanted me to teach them the manufacturing process. A team of us went and that is what we did, but the Siebe company bought them out. They wanted to save money on their trucking so they drew a circle around the main plant, and any facility outside the circle was moved to Mexico. Because somebody drew a circle on a piece of paper almost 200 people lost their jobs!

I told the divisional vice president, "This doesn't make sense to me." His answer was, "The profit margin is so low that they think they can pay the stock holders an extra 1/2 percent dividend if we do this." I thought, "For 1/2 percent all these people are going to lose their jobs!" The people sacrificed so much to be as good as they were and nobody cared. To me that just isn't right. That was when I realized that in manufacturing we weren't working for anything but some stockholders. Nobody cared how good we were. They didn't care about the people doing the work. It was all about getting that stockholder a little more money. And they don't even need the money. Most of them have more money than they can spend anyway. That was why I ended up working at the hospital because what they do there is taking care of people.

I started out as Environmental Services but when the facility director left, they put me in his position over Maintenance and Environmental Service, Safety and Security. I was there for about nine years and I learned so much about the hospital and what it takes to keep a place clean and sanitized. I am able to use that at times when I go to other countries to help them in those ways.

That is also when I learned about waste. Our general way of life is so wasteful. It is all about time. People don't want to take the time to do stuff because it costs money so they throw everything in the dumpster. I told the Rotary club, "Sooner or later somebody has to stop and say, I am going to do the right thing because it is the right thing to do." If nobody else will, C.R.O.S.S. ministries will. We aren't worried about making a profit. We are non-profit. We are supposed to be poor. So that is what we do. We're poor and we don't care.

I've found incredible cases of people who want to be a part of a caring group, who want to help, and they do care. They just don't know where to go. A group asked me to go to Mexico with them. I couldn't go just then, so I asked a girl if she would go for me. It was a wonderful experience for her. For one thing, she didn't think she would ever be able to go on a mission trip, especially so soon after she had started volunteering. But I knew when I met her that God wants something from her. She is still not sure what or where that is.

I can't imagine a more blessed life than I've had and it gets better every day. I don't take a salary. I am still able to draw unemployment. We are hoping as we grow we will be able to have paid employees. We will need to have some full time people, who will need to be paid; and when my employment insurance runs out, I will need something to survive on.

One thing I've told the Board is that we will need part-time and full-time employees but I don't feel that any one person is more valuable than another. When we pay a wage, we will all make the same. I would like to see all the full-time people receive the same base pay. We are all persons, and being involved here, no one will try to get ahead of anyone else. It won't work that way, but I know once money enters into the equation, there is temptation to want someone else's job or advantages. People can be cutthroat. How to avoid it? Everyone gets the same. It is the point at which people emerge who will step up and do the work God is calling them to do and do it. They are more dedicated to God's calling them than doing what they get paid for.

It wasn't nntil after I was married and had children that I began searching for a church. I wanted my kids to learn about Jesus. At the time the Christian Church seemed to have the best youth program and Sunday School classes and that is where I became a member.

My oldest daughter is Sara Slyester and she is married to Nathan. They have one child about 18 months old. They named her Ella after my mom. They live in Winterset. She has been a reporter for the Des Moines Register, now for the Indianola Herald. Nathan is a teacher at Norwalk. My other daughter, Terri, graduates this spring. She is married to Phil Rater, who is a mechanic for a construction company. My youngest daughter, Breana, is a freshmen this year.

The kids are very supportive of what we do. Breana helps at the store. She hasn't been on a mission trip but hopefully will be soon. We are still affiliated with the Christian Church but we work with all denominations. Believers of all denominations are welcome to work with us. Even if you are an atheist, come on out. You'll meet Christ here. We'll take care of that.

What I do is what we've always done. We've always helped one another and others. That was what Dad did all the time. It just came naturally. When I saw what he did, I knew I wanted to do it. I think everyone knows they should help or they should do something. To their own loss, some don't.

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Last Revised December 9, 2014