David Rogers' Personal Page

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After BL, I went to Liberty University for one semester, but decided to attend Florida Institute of Technology and received an AS Degree in Flight Technology. Next, I attended Cedarville College for two quarters but was asked to return home in Florida by my father to work with him in a project that he was involved in. While home, I continued college classes at the University of Central Florida. It was during this time that I met my wife, Melanie.

Melanie's mom was the choir director at the church where my mom and me sang in the choir. Believe it or not, I was actually the coveted tenor - wouldn't Mr. Parker be shocked :) Our mothers realized that Melanie and I were perfect for each other and determined that we should meet. We officially met in March 1985 and were married December 21, 1985. I am extremely happily married. We have six beautiful and brilliantly intelligent children: Tim 13, Jennifer 11, Kristin 9, Joshua 6, Lydia, 3 and James 2. In 1989, we returned to Cedarville College and I finally graduated in 1990.

At this point in my life, I had not been to enough college! :)We attended seminary in Memphis Tenn. After graduating in 1993, we returned to Florida for a year before I was called to a small church in Forestville, Maryland, which is a suburb of Washington DC. In fact, the parsonage was off of Pennsylvania Ave just 10 miles from the White House. We spent three bitter/sweet years in Forestville. Bitter because it was frustrating to work with church members, most of whom were over 70 years of age, who did not want to reach their community for Jesus Christ because they wanted the church to be like "it used to be." That was impossible because Forestville in the 1960s and 1970s was an exclusive white suburb and is now almost entirely African American. The "sweet" part was some of the people we grew very close to.

Meanwhile, our family business in Buffalo/Niagara Falls area, a KOA kampground, was not performing as well as it should, so I decided to take a sabbatical from church service and bring the business back to profitability. We have turned around the falling number of customers and hope that this year will be the best in 10 years! By September 2000, we'll have been living here for three years, although my original plan was to work here during the summers and live in Florida (or ANYWHERE in the south!) during the winter. If this does not happen by Nov 1, I might do something drastic, like quit this job! :) We will try hard to see you all in the fall.

David Rodgers