Joe was five years old and the pastor was angry that people would be stupid enough to sin and, what’s worse, not repent. His anger showed in his red face as he yelled, “YOU WILL ALL BURN IN HELL FOR ALL OF ETERNITY IF YOU DON"T REPENT!!” Joe knew about fire. It burns! It hurts! He wasn’t that stupid. At home in the Grand Rapids, Michigan area, where he lived most of his life, his mom lovingly helped him understand how he could go to heaven, not hell. He needed to trust Christ to forgive his wrongdoing, his sins. An almost euphoric relief swept over him, and he built the best Lego castle ever, sure that he was set for eternity!

At the age of sixteen, those childhood feelings of euphoria were gone. Drugs and everything that went with them seemed the only way to deal with the pain, fear, depression, anger, and bitterness that accompanied his teenage life. Church every Sunday was a Stolz family must, but Joe would sit there thinking how it was all a big lie. Oh, not God, He wasn’t a lie - but church, in general, was. At the same time, he knew he was the biggest hypocrite there. Finally, he could stand living the lie no longer. God got his attention, not in just one circumstance, and his mom’s prayers began to be answered. Then, one Sunday, God’s Word given in the sermon jumped out and ripped into his heart with a vengeance. During Sunday School, the youth pastor’s wife noticed Joe wasn’t his normal, disruptive self and asked if he needed to talk. Saying “Sure” brought about the moment on January 17, 1999, which Joe calls his spiritual birth. His life has never been the same.

Jen’s family was Catholic and, as Jen puts it, “an amazing family where love abounded.” The second oldest of four girls, she says the love the siblings knew has kept them friends throughout the years.

As a very active two-year-old, Jen’s extra energy was channeled into gymnastics by her parents. It became the world to her, and she competed and trained on a daily basis right into high school. A little on the shy side, she loved spending all her time at the gym with her teammates and was a happy kid; that is, until her dad’s job transferred them to Indiana. Leaving California meant leaving her coach and teammates with whom she’d trained for ten years! Thinking to remain in California, Jen realized it would be even harder to leave her family.

The challenge of a new high school was daunting. Sitting alone at lunch, wishing she could fit in was a daily struggle. The new gymnastics team just wasn’t the same. The thing that meant the world to her became a chore, and she dreaded it and school. Because quitting school wasn’t an option, Jen quit gymnastics, thinking she’d have more time to make friends. Instead, she simply had more free time - and nothing to do. Wearing the latest fashion, giving into peer pressure, and trying alcohol still didn’t make her accepted and she longed to be popular. Jen began to wonder why she was alive, what was the purpose? Life was confusing and filled with sadness. “If this is all life is, why wait ‘til I’m 80 to die?” she often thought. Death seemed the only option out of her dilemma. During her senior year, a friend suggested they run together and lose five pounds. “Maybe this is the answer,” she thought, “lose some weight!” Thus began a path into anorexia that almost took Jen’s life. Ultimately, the doctor’s pronouncement that she was dying showed her she really didn’t want to die. She just wanted to know how to live. That thought put her on the right track and it began with a nine-week stay at a treatment center.

During the second week of freshman year at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, Jen was invited to a Christian group on campus and marveled at the kindness and love extended to her. The next day, one of the staff members shared the Gospel with her. Jen says, “I had never heard about how I needed to receive God’s gift of forgiveness so that I could have a relationship with Him, but on that day I trusted Him and believed.” The next day that staff member stopped by to give Jen a Bible and she immediately fell in love with God’s Word, finding an answer to many of her questions. God’s amazing work continued and Jen’s whole family also heard, believed, and chose to serve the Lord with all their lives. Her parents even became missionaries in Ecuador!

And God was not finished. Jen’s parents left to be missionaries the year Joe moved to Indianapolis, but he met them at church during that year and, as Joe says, “they hit it off.” Long distance from Ecuador, having learned of Joe’s proclivity for things electronic, Jen’s dad sought Joe’s expertise in helping him fix the mission’s office computers. Returning home for a week-long missions conference gave opportunity for these tricky parents to see that Joe and Jen met and even manipulated them into working together on a project. As they worked, they talked of how God had led them into ministry and found they had very similar goals, dreams, and desires.

This “pretty good-looking guy” (per Jen) and this “pretty girl” (per Joe) became one on November 11, 2006. Jen says her marriage to Joe has been life changing and it’s a blessing to be married to a man who truly loves her as Christ loves the church. Joe, Jen says - full of gratitude for his friendship - makes her laugh all the time and challenges her in many ways. She loves to listen to his random bits of knowledge about odd things and tolerates his harmless pranks. (Watch out, youth!) Joe and Jen share a love of exercising, though somewhat differently, and an interest in food, with Jen cooking amazing food and Joe eating it! (Ask them about their other fascinating fascinations.)

Joe’s youth pastor led him to Christ and discipled him, practically adopting him into his family. Joe attributes a large part of who he is today to the way God used this man and wife in his life. During college, Christian friends, still his closest today, impacted Joe’s life, challenging him then and still today to follow after God with all his heart and giving him a better understanding of who God is. Marrying Jen stands out in his life experience. He says, “God prepared us both in advance for each other and I thank God continually for the gift of Jen.” Travel to other countries, separately and together, opened the their eyes to the diversity of the world and the extent and diversity of Christ’s Body, His church, as they praised God with people where the only commonality was knowing Christ as Savior.

Joe says, “My life goal is to be a youth pastor, though at 17, when God first called me to that, I ran. But God was persistent and I grudgingly ended up going to Appalachian Bible College in Beckley, West Virginia, and working with youth at a local church there. It was then God really cemented His calling on my life. I just enjoy being around teens. Their spontaneity, enthusiasm, and honesty are refreshing to me. Teens have such a huge potential to rock the foundation of this earth’s system. I’ve seen what can happen when a young person loves God more than anything else and steps out of the mold of the encircling culture. I want to see teens come to know God, love Him wholeheartedly, and live for His glory. When I look really far down the road, I see myself as an eighty-year-old who is still working with teens in one way or another.”

Joe graduated from Appalachian Bible College with a degree in Bible and theology and, in the fall, will enter Moody Bible Institute to pursue a master’s degree in discipleship and spiritual formation. Once-shy Jen graduated from Purdue with a degree in hospitality management and from Tennessee Temple Seminary with a Masters of Ministry graduate degree.

Welcome to Water’s Edge Bible Church, Joe and Jen. We look forward to knowing you and working with you. May you deeply sense the open arms we extend to you.