BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

No Bouncing Back In December 2007, six months before Micah lost his job at State Farm, the U.S. housing bubble had burst to the tune of $8 trillion. That loss thrust the country into what was later termed the Great Recession. It was the worst financial crisis in the country since the Great Depression. Although the worst of it lasted until June 2009, its effect on the economy lasted until 2010 and beyond. This time, when Micah sent out his résumé there wasn’t so much as a nibble of interest. Companies weren’t hiring. Many were downsizing or going out of business. “By the time Micah worked his last day at GMAC, I was eight months pregnant,” Shannon says. “The first thing we tried to do was get out of our apartment lease. We explained that I was pregnant and we were both out of work. It didn’t matter; they wouldn’t release us. We were soon behind on all of our payments and were using credit cards to survive. I felt as though God had abandoned us. We knew we must have done something wrong, but had no idea what it was. In addition to the baby Shannon was carrying, she had a son, Jared, who was 5 years old, and Micah had a son and daughter, Levi and Abigail, from a previous marriage. “Micah was so depressed that his father and I were worried about him,” Shannon recalls “I felt so alone. The stress had taken a huge toll on our marriage. Things were so bad that I felt certain the rest of my life would be miserable. I had no idea where to turn.” Step of Faith One day, as the two worked to get the nursery ready for their new baby, Micah asked Shannon, “Are you familiar with Kenneth Copeland Ministries?” Micah had grown up reading books by E.W. Kenyon, a minister and Bible scholar who’d lived from 1867 to 1948. He had studied all of Kenyon’s teachings, especially those on healing. During that time, the Lord told him to start listening to Kenneth Copeland as well. “No, who is he?” “He’s a minister I grew up listening to,” Micah explained. “We can get his teachings on our computer and I think we need to start listening to them.” Going to the computer, Micah pulled up the video of one of KCM’s most recent conventions and they listened to the first session. Then the second. And the third. Before long, they were listening to messages on faith 24/7. Kenneth Copeland talked a lot about prayer, which convicted Shannon that she should pray more and expect results. She had a prayer language, but seldom used it. From that point on, every day she started going into their closet with a CD player and listening to Kenneth Copeland. Then she prayed asking, “Lord, what’s our next step?” On Feb. 1, 2008, Shannon gave birth to a son, Kaden Kenyon Stewart, named for E.W. Kenyon. “I had gotten a GED, so I didn’t have a lot of marketable skills to help us earn a living,” Shannon recalls. “When Kaden was 3 months old, Micah and I both went to work in a restaurant as servers. We staggered our shifts so that one of us was always at home with the children. Then I added a second job at another restaurant. I would work one job from 5:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., go home and take a nap, and then work the second job from 4 p.m. until 10 or 11 p.m.” Still, their combined income wasn’t enough to pay the rent. “We would have lost everything except that Micah’s dad helped with our bills,” said Shannon. “We were both so confused, stressed and frustrated that we argued and fought. More than anything else we wondered what we’d done to get ourselves in such a mess.” The Next Step In the fall of 2008, Micah and Shannon heard that a church in Farmington, Mo., was hosting Kellie Copeland, Kenneth Copeland’s daughter, as a guest speaker. They visited the church, and the Lord told them to join. In retrospect, Shannon recalled that it didn’t make sense financially. The church was two hours away from where they lived. However, they’d been asking God for their next step and this was all they’d been told to do. After joining the church, the Lord told Shannon to begin volunteering, so Shannon offered to clean the church. Instead, the pastor asked her to work in the church office as his secretary. One perk included in her volunteer position was that she got to take Kaden to work with her, which meant she didn’t have to be concerned about paying for child care. In 2009, the lease on their apartment was up. With no ties left, Micah and Shannon moved from St. Charles to Farmington, where they had found a worn little mobile home that rented for $300 a month. The first night in their new home, Shannon woke to check on the baby and found the entire place covered in cockroaches. The mobile home park, they learned, was famous for drug addicts and meth labs. ***** article continues on next page ***** Read Through the Bible JANUARY Old Testament/New Testament Sun 1 Gen. 1-3 / Matt. 1-2 Mon 2 Gen. 4-5 / Matt. 3 Tue 3 Gen. 6-7 / Matt. 4 Wed 4 Gen. 8-9 / Matt. 5 Thu 5 Gen. 10-11 / Matt. 6 Fri 6 Gen. 12-13 / Matt. 7 Sat 7 Gen. 14-15 / Matt. 8 Sun 8 Gen. 16-18 / Matt. 9-10 Mon 9 Gen. 19-20 / Matt. 11 Tue 10 Gen. 21-22 / Matt. 12 Wed 11 Gen. 23-24 / Matt. 13 Thu 12 Gen. 25-26 / Matt. 14 Fri 13 Gen. 27-28 / Matt. 15 Sat 14 Gen. 29-30 / Matt. 16 Sun 15 Gen. 31-33 / Matt. 17-18 Mon 16 Gen. 34-35 / Matt. 19 Tue 17 Gen. 36-37 / Matt. 20 Wed 18 Gen. 38-39 / Matt. 21 Thu 19 Gen. 40-41 / Matt. 22 Fri 20 Gen. 42-43 / Matt. 23 Sat 21 Gen. 44-45 / Matt. 24 Sun 22 Gen. 46-48 / Matt. 25-26 Mon 23 Gen. 49-50 / Matt. 27 Tue 24 Ex. 1-2 / Matt. 28 Wed 25 Ex. 3-4 / Mark 1 Thu 26 Ex. 5-6 / Mark 2 Fri 27 Ex. 7-8 / Mark 3 Sat 28 Ex. 9-10 / Mark 4 Sun 29 Ex. 11-13 / Mark 5-6 Mon 30 Ex. 14-15 / Mark 7 Tue 31 Ex. 16-17 / Mark 8 “Read Through the Bible in a Year Plan” written by Marilyn Hickey, and used by permission. 20 : BVOV

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