How Jesus Changes Everything!
David and I are so blessed with this business. Our history is one of taking chances and amazing favor. It's also a history of challenges, stumbling and overcoming. Big Dave's history highlights what happens when you invite King Jesus to partner in your business.
Let's rewind to late summer 2017. I am still basking in retirement from corporate America. We spend time camping with the grandkids and taking short gambling runs. Life is good. But David aka Big Dave needs a hobby. And well that hobby morphed into what Big Dave's Tactical & Survival is now.
David is over at our friends Ed & Teresa Wendorf. Their conversation somehow comes around to gun shows - they own Falcon Firearms. Teresa suggested David start a gun show business. I wasn't there but can imagine the hemming and hawing coming out of him. These three have been friends quite a while so what happens next is no surprise. Teresa calls up Whipp Farms Productions and gets David two tables for an upcoming show. She tells David you have a month figure it out.
So David comes home tells me all this. Yay out of my a hair a weekend a month was my thought. I gave him $5k our of my retirement and my blessing. So he got all the legal stuff squared away. Then bought some lower end inventory. That first show was in August 2017 Burleson, Texas. Does anyone see an issue here? I do now - we never prayed about it.
The next big "event" for Big Dave's was our sweet grandbaby Audrey's fall. Shortly after that first show we were out hiking and camping with the older kids when poor Audrey fell hard. The big box store first aid we had was a joke. It was completely inadequate! God brings good out of everything and so was launched our brand - Big Dave's First Aid.
We didn't know it then but 2018 was our year of foundation. We built the first aid into a top notch quality product. We built new relationships. We branched into Oklahoma. We started our website. David got his NRA instructor certification. This hobby began to grow into a small business and I was a lot more involved now. Towards the end of 2018 our pastor started a ministry concerning strengthening small businesses. Whammo! Other than basic praying we had not involved God in this business. This was the turning point we made God a full partner in our business, the managing partner.
We asked God for a prophetic word in January 2019. Build walls. We took that to put walls on the strong foundation we had. We got better products. We branched out to new locations for shows. We built and strengthened relationships. And we consulted God on every single bit of it.
Let's talk about 2020. Did we stumble? Did we hideout in fear? No we flourished! God laid out the steps, we followed and we were favored for it. In January, as always now, we prayed for a prophetic word. We were given literal words - Resilience and Resourceful. God told me use these and ya'll will be ok. What? I thought we were doing ok already. We had no idea of Covid-19 as this point. As a matter of fact that first quarter was our best shows to date. Yes lock down wasn't easy, but we took it as an opportunity to research. We muddled through and overcame 2020 without too many scars.
2021 we exploded literally the growth was amazing. God showed our business so much favor. God showed us that obedience. is worth all the effort we put in. Our word for 2021 - Go! We branched out to more areas. We made goals and smashed them. We have a huge inventory of quality products. This is business is our ministry ... our way of doing the Lord's work. We fail and we don't get things right but we are fruitful. Our future God only knows. We have promises from God but we also have assignments to complete.
Our word for 2022? Take the reins!
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