I was born and raised in NE Ohio. I'm the youngest of five boys. I first picked up the trumpet in 5th grade. It quickly became the focus of my life as well as being the way most people knew me ... "Dan Page the trumpet player." My folks divorced when I was 12. Trumpet playing took on a whole new role then as not just part of my identity but as a refuge and place of welcome retreat. I regret that I began drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana shortly after the divorce. (I better understand now why God says He hates divorce. I have no excuse for any of my sin but there are some real "why's" behind the "what's." I'm also reminded God says He hates divorce - not the people who do or suffer from it.)

After graduating I continued to play in a bunch of different bands - some for fun, some for profit. There came a time when I was putting as much cash in my pocket in one night as I made working 40 hours a week after high school. During Spring Break in 1980 I went to Daytona Beach with one of my brothers. It wasn't to go fishing. The second night there I smoked what would be my last two joints of what I'd come to affectionately call weed. The guy who sold it to us had laced it with PCP, a.k.a. "Angel Dust." (BTW - it's ANYTHING but angelic!) After I came down the next morning, I began asking questions about life ... big questions like "Where did I come from?," "What am I doing here?," "Where am I going?," "Does God exist?" Over the next several months through a series of various conversations, encounters and studies I began to realize C.S. Lewis was right when he said "You've got three choices - Jesus is a liar, a lunatic or the Lord." I came to grips with the fact that if He isn't everything He claimed He couldn't be anything He claimed. Either he's a liar and reject him, he's nuts and ignore him, or He's God and worship Him. On May 31, 1982 I met Him and asked Him to make me His. As best I knew I turned from my sin and received Him as my Savior. To this day Jesus is my best friend. He's my strength, my song and my salvation. I love and follow Him.

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Shortly after becoming a Christian it became pretty obvious that one of the gifts God gave me was teaching. I started playing the trumpet almost exclusively in church. From April of 1984 to August of 1985 I was at Last Days Ministries in Lindale, TX. (Some might recognize LDM from a singer named Keith Green.) I spent the summer of 1987 with Youth with a Mission as a "musicianary" traveling and playing in western Europe. After the summer with YWAM I came back to Ohio and enrolled as a junior at Malone College where I earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Christian Ministries. While a student at Malone I met Lisa Valenti after she began attending the church I'd been at since coming to know the Lord. We were married in 1989. Daniel arrived in 1990 and Laura was born in 1991.

Over the years many of my preconceived notions about marriage, parenting and ministry have pretty much been trashed. I mean that in a good way :-) ... I've learned that I need to trust God always all the way. A line from one of my favorite songs from one of my favorite songwriters (Michael Card) is: "There is a joy in the journey, there's a light we can love on the way, there is a wonder and wildness to life and freedom for those who obey." Those words put a handle on my experience in a way that makes so much sense to me.

If we meet and you'd like I'll share in greater detail what I've written here. I want to be sure you know up front that I've failed miserably at times - and that's miserably with a capital "M" :-( ... but He hasn't - and that's hasn't with a capital "H" :-) ... as His child I've learned I cannot sin His love away. Not that I'm trying or want to. But me at my worst is totally engulfed by His goodness and grace. These days I find myself wanting to know Him better and more. I rest in knowing that since I know Him and He's made me His I'll be with Him forever.

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*Poiema is the Greek word used in Ephesians 2:10 to describe those who have been saved by grace (2:8-9) - "For we are God's MASTERPIECE. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things He planned for us long ago." It's also the word we use for poetry in English. That means our lives are to be part of His expressive and creative communication to those around us. Now THAT is cool :-) ...

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A newspaper clipping from kindergarten; my dad & brothers; just the boys; my family shortly before our folks divorced; my senior class picture from high school (did I REALLY have that much hair? - yikes!); one of my favorite pictures of Daniel & Laura as kids; me, Laura, Daniel & Lisa in December of '06.