Schumann's Story
Jeff Dornik: Would love to start out a little bit with where you’re coming from, your testimony, how God saved you and then we can get into some of the issues that are going on and that we are facing in the church.
Schumann: Sure, yeah, absolutely! As it stated in my profile, I grew up in a godly Christian family. Parents were both Christians. Not too many struggles growing up, for the most part. I lived on a little farm. If dad asked twice you better be running. He always taught me on being a man. Raised me up with Godly character, always trying to be a man that served. Went to college then, figured I knew what I wanted to do with my life. I stress that I knew what I wanted to do with my life. I was going to get a degree in civil engineering. It was going to be awesome! I showed up and got into a bit of trouble, things weren’t really going my way. I was like, no, this is going to work out. I’m going to make this happen.
My dad didn’t want me to go to the college I went to. It’s far away, really expensive. I’m a big hockey nut, so I went for the hockey and they have a really good engineering program, so I made it up in my mind that’s where I’m going to go. Halfway through the semester, I got really sick with mono. It’s not just a little bit of coughing, I passed out in the bathroom of the dorm room. Had my buddies carry me down three flights of stairs, luckily I was in the hockey dorm, so I had some nice gentlemen carry me down. They threw me in the back of a pickup and drove me to the hospital. The hospital told me that I need to get off campus. Being that it was halfway through the year, I was no longer able to finish my finals. So I was unable to return.
It hit me really hard, this is obviously not going to happen. I knew how to weld. I threw myself into that. I did some small stuff around, I kind of fell away during that period because I was like, if this isn’t working out for me, nothing’s going to work out for me. So I’m just going to do my own thing, I guess.
I went into the work field. The people you meet in the workforce aren’t always all they can be. Not the greatest mentorship would be the correct word. I got into a lot of the rough stuff, drinking and drugs became really prevalent. As long as I was making a good paycheck I didn’t care about anything else that was going on.
The oil boom hit, got involved with the oil field. Worked in the oil field, got college paid off. I bought a house, had some guys move in with me. Probably not the greatest support I could have had. I really fell away. I seemed to lose a lot of emotion. Whatever happened just kind of happened and I didn’t really care one way or the other. Well, this is just the way it’s going to be!
Then the oil left. I ended up being let go from the job I was at. Well, this sucks! I have nowhere to go to. Nowhere to turn. I remember I showed up at the church that I “went to.” I was really bad about going. I think that was part of it too, I didn’t have that support. Once you stop going, you lose the group of people that were with you that held you together and coached you and kept after you.
After that happened, I went back, and I pretty much fell apart. I was like, “Hey, I need to get my life back together.” They gave me a few verses to read and a few books to read. That kind of got me on the right path for the most part.
I ended up getting a job that I was expecting to be a part-time job. It ended up the career I have now. It ended up being in the field I went to college for.
Kind of coming full circle, there.
Oh yeah, it was totally a God thing. As soon as I realized that my life wasn’t meant to be in my control. My life was meant to be given to Christ, and every moment that I breathe or that I live or that I’m awake, I should be giving back to Him. And the more that I was doing that, the more that things began to work out.
Now I’m not saying that the second you decide to do that, everything’s going to be easy and roses. But when things happen in your life, like when my job moved me across the state. When I moved away from the girl that I’m now married to for just about nine months. Sewer line collapsed in the house, couldn’t sell the house because the oil dropped out. So I was like, “Well, you know what? God’s in control of all of this. So I don’t even have to worry about this. Everything’s going to take care of itself.” And it just does. That was the whole attitude that helps with that situation.
So I started doing that. And then I told myself, “Gosh, I just have to do something.” I listened to a gentleman by the name of Brannon Howse. He gave a sermon on being a man, and how if you keep waiting for someone to step up to the plate and do something, you’re going to be waiting for the rest of your life. So it’s up to the men in our generation to step up, carry the flag and keep moving forward. To be the coaches to the younger generations.
That hit me really hard. I started doing a lot more research. I started looking into things, events of the day. It really opened my eyes to how corrupt society is. I mean, our culture is so messed up.
It normally starts with the younger youth. So I started writing papers for a few different people. That’s when you reached out to me, and we talked a little bit. I was on the fence about it, I was excited but wasn’t sure if I wanted to jump headlong into this.
My little brother got married then, so I went to his wedding. One of our old family friends was there, and I was telling him about it. I told him, “I don’t think I’m ready, I don’t have the knowledge quite yet.” He was like, “Shoe, if you wait long enough or if you wait to get that knowledge, you’ll never be there. You’ll never start doing any of this.” So that hit me really hard, and that’s when I contacted you and said, “Alright, let’s do this!” I’m just along for the ride now!
This post is taken from an Episode of Conversations with Jeff. You can watch the entire episode on Youtube, or listen on SoundCloud, iTunes or Spotify.
