Chapter 4 Strength through Adversity

The next was joining the church team

I was asked if I wanted to join the church bowling team, and if I was I would be on Juanita and Jim Nicols’ team, no one had any idea that I could bowl, they didn’t care we were bowling for fun in an eight team church league.  I still found it hard to believe that I was going to a church in Arnold, not only a church but a Baptist church, taught a Bible study and had signed up to bowl Friday nights in the church league, which happened to be the same night the Arnold Elks bowled.

The first night I arrived and entered the bowling alley the first people I see were Elk members, I don’t remember who asked me if I was coming back to bowl in their league. But I told them that I was bowling at the other end of the alley, which surprised them because the only people at that end were from a church league. I assured them that they were the friends I was bowling with. Now I understood why God had been sent me to the bowling alley on Friday night.

After two seasons of bowling with the church league I rejoined the Elks, as a witnessing tool, sharing my joy and love for them.  One of the bowlers’ girlfriends said she had heard about me and that hundreds of people knew me, and they were all are watching me, that was a heavy burden to carry on my shoulders.

Even after I was back in business, life was a struggle financially even paying for my bowling was a challenge. I soon joined the church’s softball team, which was fun, playing in a church league is like most leagues they were very competitive.

I had trouble with my car, so I took it, from a referral, to a member of the church. He told me that it would cost me $300; I asked if I could make payments. He assured me I could but that I would not be able pick it up until the bill was paid plus he wanted my jewelry as collateral, I was shocked. I found it hard to believe that he was a christian but that he felt that he couldn’t trust me.  I left the car behind, I don’t remember how I got around or for how long but I did eventually raise the money, retrieving my car and jewelry. On the way back home the car died and had to be towed, later to be junked, I was without a car again.

I worked out a payment plan with Bianco Oldsmobile and purchased two Cutlass Calais, they were each a year old, one for Diana and one for me for $5,000.

Roman 5:3 Rejoice in suffering

It seemed that I was always asking for prayers from the men at B.S.F, the leader told me later that he thought I was under a curse, everything seemed to be happening to me.

Two Cleaning Ladies and $55,000 in Remodeling

As our store grew in popularity we took steps to fix up the place repairing the ceiling tile, wall papering and later new carpet, we were building a nice store.  The first year I spent $55,000 in advertising to let people know where I had moved to, we didn’t have the money to advertise, but we couldn’t afford not to and it was paying off when old customers started showing up again.

I stayed in touch with some of the members of One Bell Bible study, including my good friend Willie Woodmore, he was still the spiritual advisor that God put into my life. As things continued to grow I hired a couple of ladies that I met after I was saved, they had a cleaning service. Were they in for a surprise, when they asked me if I was still religious and I said no I am not, religion will get you in trouble, they couldn’t understand it and assumed I had stopped going to church.

I assured them that I was still in church; and that the manmade rules and regulations of most churches would bind you up, however, at my church we had freedom and the power to raise the dead. This really confused them and they asked if I had ever raised someone from the dead, to which I responded maybe six or seven.

They must of thought that I had lost my mind, then I explained to them that people have eyes to see and ears to hear but they are the walking dead, unless you have accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior, your are dead in your sins, after all he is the Lamb of God who takes away your sins and you are born again, a new creation removing the blinders from your eyes and giving you a new heart. They lasted about one month more or less and moved on. I knew they thought I was strange.

Bob

Bob and I paled around together, mostly West Port Plaza, we would meet at the hockey games, the football and baseball stadium and even bowled together, we were both single and enjoyed life as we knew it, sometimes meeting at Pepe’s Restaurant in the bar area.  Bob was the one that told me that most of the guys didn’t want to have anything to do with me anymore. Twice it happened that when he called and asked what I thought of the big game of the year, I would be watching something else. What could be more important than the Cardinal’s playoffs or the Superbowl? The movie “The 10 Commandments”, it now meant something to me, the next time he called I was doing my Bible study; he just couldn’t believe it. Maybe a year had passed when he called me and told me that he had been saved and met a Christian lady and later was teaching a Bible class.  I haven’t seen him in the last couple of years, but I’m sure he is okay.

Jacqueline

In order to increase our customer base, we were having customers sign-up for a ruby pendant, when Jacqueline walked in the front door. She had wondered what had happened to me, she had come in to sign up for the drawing and when she saw me there asked if I would call her sometime.  It was nice to see Jacqueline again; it must have been a year since the last time. I did call her at times to go out for breakfast we had fun getting to know each other.  Later on she started going to my softball games and church on Sundays, it was nice to have a sweetheart on my arm who wanted to be with me, she didn’t care much for her job and mentioned how much she like jewelry.

After leaving the store one evening I went to eat at this barbeque restaurant near by, after having a large meal and driving home, Jacqueline called and asked if I would like to go to dinner that night, I didn’t want to tell her that I had already eaten.  When I picked her up I asked her where she would like to go, she suggested the barbeque place near the store, as we walked in the front door the waitress gave me a double look as I put one finger over my mouth. I saw the waitress a few days later and explained to her about my dilemma, she laughed and replied, “Where does a skinny guy like you put all that food.”

Later Jacqueline confessed to me that when she first walked in and looked around that she didn’t see much of anything, except wax models and brass samples, she thought that all the jewelry was in the safe, not knowing that I was starting all over again.

Later Jacqueline told me that she would like to work part-time later on she went to full-time. One day Jim Hart comes into the store to buy pearls, after speaking with him for a bit I introduced him to the team. After he left Jacqueline was surprised that I really did know him. I hadn’t realized until then that when she mentioned her travels with local celebrities that she had wondered if I really did know them. It was really no wonder with having lost so much weight, wearing clothes that had no longer fit and the old Cadillac that I had been driving, I thought it was funny. So it wasn’t about what I had or who I knew, that was nice to know.

After many years of being single and living in a one bedroom apartment, not involved with anyone who felt about the Lord as I did, it was fun to have a classy lady like Jacqueline to attend church with me and going my softball games. Jacqueline seemed to be happy to be with me, it was refreshing that I could spend time talking about the Lord and listening to Christian music without static. Having been divorced twice already I understood what it meant in the Bible, “don’t be unequally yoked with a non believer, what does fresh water have in common with salt water, they don’t mix”. So I felt comfortable that Jacqueline was a believer, until one day she told me that she had just gotten saved, wow!  I thought she already was, I had been around church ladies who weren’t as spiritually interested as Jacqueline. Then I remembered someone telling me that I should be patient that God was preparing someone for me just as he was preparing me for that special lady.  I was and still am thrilled that to this day I was patient, she is truly a prize to be with, Thank You Lord!

Starting a new life with Jacqueline wasn’t without struggles, we both had parents getting older, she had two children, twins – a boy and a girl, and I had a daughter and a grandson, life had its challenges.

We began attending Life Christian Center on Tuesday evening where Rick Shelton was the pastor, Rick and I had known each other for years. At one time I asked him how he became a preacher, he told me that he heard from the Lord, I remember I had laughed and said you have to be joking. I reminded him of that comment and said we’re now on the same team.

We loved attending Life Christian Center on Tuesday nights so much that we started going there on Sundays as well, sometimes we would see Dave and Joyce Meyer there, and Jacqueline would talk about how she loved Joyce’s teachings. I held my tongue, until one evening as she went on about Joyce; I quickly replied that she didn’t know Joyce like I did. The next Sunday I saw Joyce in church and she smiled, as I waved. After the service I went over with Jacqueline and told her what I had said about her, and to please forgive me.  She was very gracious about both our pasts, after that we became friends and her husband Dave has become one of my closest golfing buddies, he continues to be a blessing in my life.

As Jacqueline and I continued attending Life Christian Center we became good friends with Rick’s parents, when I had first met Rick’s father I remember wondering what he wanted from me, he was always so nice, I have come to realize that it is just how he is. He is also the person instrumental in us buying our first home together on Sugar Creek Golf Course in 1994. The home that I had purchased, after losing everything, was turned over to my daughter Diana.

While living at Sugar Creek we joined Sunset Country Club, the membership welcomed me back. I looked at everything as God’s plan for me, I was asked what it would take to get members of Sunset to come to our church, my response was not to talk about money, because for some that it their God.

After rejoining Sunset, I reconnected with a real estate person I knew.  He told us about a house near the club that was worth a million dollars and was selling for $610,000.  The place needed a lot of work and was very expensive to maintain, but we felt blessed that God made it possible, things were looking up, and the store was growing.

Being in Bible study had been the learning experience that you read about, but don’t always understand until you experience it for yourself.  I’m talking about tears and wheat; the tears (or tares) are those who claim to be like you but aren’t.  It’s what called a bearded darnel, it’s wheat that looks the same but when you pull back the stalk, it’s gray instead of white, bitter rather than sweet.  Those are people who claim to be Christians and then turn people off with their lies and corruption.

The 1^st was a gentleman that needed $4500 and said he would pay us in less than 60 days with interest.  He was about to lose his house, on faith I gave him money that we couldn’t really afford, after receiving the money he filed for bankruptcy.  We survived and moved on, the store was growing and we were hiring, going to Antwerp to buy diamonds, traveling to Africa with a large group of jewelers.  We went 3,000 feet down in the Kimberly mines, where the crown jewels came from, and met with an elite group from DeBeers at their offices in Africa, we even spent time in their home office in England. We were truly blessed growing from $200,000 to over a $1,000,000 in sales.

We purchased a new home in Florida on a golf course in 2004.  I was 63 and looking to spend less time at the store and more time playing golf.

In August of 2005 I had a triple by-pass after putting in seven stints on my birthday and flew to our Florida home in September, to find out later that our director of operations told our sales manager that I was going to let him go after Christmas, so instead he left while I was in Florida without calling me.  I had already begun to have suspicions that something wasn’t right.

Our director of operations was a man that we trusted and believed in, he claimed to be born-again and we had helped him purchase a new home, completely furnished, as well as a new car.  He was the one I was grooming to take over our company. I later found out that he had been stealing from us for years.  We were devastated to think that we had full confidence in him and believed all of his reasons as to why we were losing money.  One year we were unaware that he hadn’t paid the $90,000 in taxes we owed, until my daughter saw our name in the papers; he had a plausible excuse for it. The bookkeeper told me later that we had the money in the bank.  He got rid of the bookkeeper, because he said that he wasn’t capable of doing the books.

We left for Florida right after Christmas of 2005, but I kept in touch with our Board of Directors. Because of the suspicions that I was beginning to have, I called ADP about payroll, I wanted compare that year with the previous year’s salaries, and found that our director of operations had given himself a $10,000 bonus without permission. I told the board about this and they had a meeting with him, he informed them that he was thinking about turning in his resignation papers that he wasn’t happy and the Neustaedters were destroying the company. About that time we received notice that Jan, who took care of our physical inventory, had been fired without our permission. A few days later I called the board of directors, about Jan’s firing, they went back to the operations manager and accepted his previously offered resignation papers. We discovered that he would get rid of anyone that he believed would catch on to what he was doing.  After he was caught he admitted to stealing $40,000 plus, it turned out he had actually stolen between $500 and 600,000.

Jacqueline flew back and I stayed behind, Jan returned. Jackie was hurt, overwhelmed, angry and emotionally stressed. It came to light that he had been about to open his own store.

I came back about two weeks after Jacqueline, I met with the board and they said that they were interested in taking over the company and providing us with the income to maintain our lifestyle. I told them thanks, but we felt we could turn it around, not realizing what was ahead.

After we returned I told the employees if they wanted to leave I understood, but for those who stayed, hold on because God was on our side and we would prevail. Most of the employees left, we rehired two that had been let go previously, one a gentleman we had always liked and my daughter, who would take over as the repair coordinator, we later hired a new onsite jeweler to replace the one that had left.

It is tough to be reminded of what happened, but that’s life in the world we live in. The easiest plan would have been to file for bankruptcy and leave our creditors holding the bag, but our reputation meant more, plus we’re fighters and we had a challenge on our hands. He did so much damage by the lies he told, no telling what tales our customers believed, most people thought he was great and couldn’t or wouldn’t believe it.  I spent weeks going over checks and invoices, discovering that a lot of the checks had been issued under false names. His lawyer contacted us, saying that our former director of operations was willing to pay us back $80,000 in restitution. What was $80,000 compared to what he had done, but the company was in financial trouble and we needed the $80,000.  So we settled, last we heard he had moved his family to Las Vegas. We rarely mention his name anymore; we want to remain positive and optimistic.

The company owed so much money that a fellow believer, who owned a bank, said he would help bail us out by loaning us money to pay some of our debt that would have been March of 2006.    We told the new banker that we would sell our estate home and move to a much smaller place; that was just before the real estate crash.  We made $310,000 putting $250,000 back into the business.

Then there was our church lady that couldn’t work on Wednesdays, because she was in the choir. She stole a 3 carat round diamond valued at $50,000, although seen on the surveillance camera it wasn’t conclusive enough to arrest her, but rather than speak with the police, she quit.  The insurance paid us $10,000 a net loss of $40,000.

We hired a Christian couple that had been let go from another jeweler, the wife was a saleslady and the husband a financial wizard.  We couldn’t afford either one, but the financial man was a blessing. The wife later went to work somewhere else.

Our banker friend sold out to an investment company called Stifel Nicholaus; we had a working capital of $675,000 and $1,200,000 in inventory. After a couple years our relationship with the new bank became stressful, as we had to continue to use most of the working capital to pay our vendors.

The bank was keeping close tabs on us, informing us that they weren’t interested in having a jeweler on their books, they wanted the $675,000 we owed by December 7^th, the beginning of the our biggest time of the year.  This would have forced most jewelers to close their doors and file for bankruptcy after all 25% of the business is done in 3 weeks. Was 2008 going to be our last year in business?  Or was God going to provide another way, we continued sharing scriptures, that if God is for us, who can be against us.  So many promises from God throughout the Bible, we are more than conquers who are in Christ Jesus.

Jacqueline contacted CFCO about a liquidation sale; Chuck Frey, the president, flew in from the Carolinas the next very next week to meet with Jacqueline, the bookkeeper and me.  He made arrangements, to start December 12 with the bank to liquidate our inventory and pay off the debt. Our bookkeeper kept telling us to consider filing for bankruptcy but we chose to hang in there. It was a hard experience selling some items below cost to reduce the debt. One of our biggest concerns was that we weren’t allowed to pay any vendors; with very few exceptions the money went to reduce the loan.  One of the very few other things that was approved were basic operating expenses, which included staff salaries, except for Jacqueline’s and mine.  We lived on debt that was owed to us, this continued for a 13 months.

The plaza where we were located didn’t like the signs we had on our front windows and demanded that we remove them. I told them how important they were to drive in business, but plaza management didn’t care, I refused to budge.  The economy was getting worse from October 2008 until now, but we were making progress.  The bank was happy but our suppliers were upset and began filing judgments with the Jewelers’ Board of Trade affecting our JBT rating, which is what new suppliers look at, ours slipped a long way.  We were cut off and the bank didn’t seem to care, we contacted other banks but they weren’t interested in assuming the loan.

Jacqueline and I went to Vegas for the jewelry show, mostly to make contact with our suppliers and mend fences with others.  The owner of another jewelry store, who claimed to be a man of God, was on the same plane and spent the entire time asking me questions, as usual I volunteered everything I knew or planned to do, if and when all these things happened. I told him that the strip center wasn’t happy with us and our lease would be ending August 2009 we were looking to move somewhere else, but had not decided.  We didn’t have the money to do many things and maybe we would remain there, if not I couldn’t imagine another jeweler interested in the location.  If no one signed a lease we would strip the place of the fixtures and materials that we had added at a cost of over $250,000. When we got back the strip center told us that they had someone interested in this space, after 20 years it didn’t seem that they cared and were going to bring in the new prospect.  Low and behold it was the store owner from the plane, he informed the strip center management what he wanted to remain with the property, which was almost everything. Although the management company tried to pressure us, we took what was necessary for our build out, but left a lot behind.  After the first couple of days in the new location we stopped receiving phone calls. We contacted the phone company to find out that the owner of the other store had called claiming to be from Neustaedters asking them to cancel the roll over to the new address and to keep the phone active at the Concord Plaza store.

Our bookkeeper came to me with concerns about what we were going to do. I decided contact the management company that was in charge of the spot in West County that we had been interested in.  Our bookkeeper, was concerned that they wouldn’t accept us based on the financial history of the last couple of years. I continued trusting that God would provide. Not only were they excited for us to sign but they gave us a build out of $84,505 cost to complete was $108,570.  They completely gutted the place, it was the location Jacqueline and I talked about for years next to the Vein Center we were closed for business for six weeks. In January of 2010 Concord Bank came to our rescue eliminating Stifal and giving an additional $70,000 to pay off some of our vendor’s.  Our bookkeeper spent time with our vendors assuring them that we hadn’t forgotten that we owed them money. He has since retired and moved to Tennessee to be with his family.

When we first arrived at 12360 Manchester St. Louis, MO 63131 the manager of Schnuck’s flag ship store invited us to open a kiosk to display our gifts, he said he knew of our reputation and was honored to have us anytime.  The location is new and exciting it was worth the move.  We have experienced a roller coaster ride in this place, we have six people on staff including Jacqueline and me.  We have been supported by our customers from the old store and the people in this location are thrilled as if they never have met a true jeweler. Unfortunately we still haven’t received a paycheck, but we can say that no one else has ever missed one.  When others are closing their doors we’re still here, Praise the Lord for he has never seen the righteous forsaken.