Deciding My Future Path
Making construction my career had not been an easy decision. I’d struggled whether to follow in my family’s footsteps or start a new life by ministering to others through the church. Influencing my decision was something Dad had included in his will.
It has always been my desire that someone in my family be in fulltime Christian service. Since my older children are established in business, I bequeath to Elling 50 percent of my estate, if within five years of the date of my passing, he is involved in either fulltime Christian work of some sort of studying to that end.
Of course, Dad’s hopes for me added to my dilemma. I was truly conflicted and unable to make up my mind. But all that changed one memorable day when a friend told me how much he enjoyed a book by one of America’s great inventors, Robert “R.G.” LeTourneau. Dad knew the gifted engineer well, and I’d met the man as well. LeTourneau’s biography, God Runs My Business, gave me an immediate insight
Bob LeTourneau lived a combination of ministry and business throughout his life. Why hadn’t I seen that possibility? As far back as I could remember, conversation around our dinner table had centered on the construction business, and my family had always demonstrated the core values of honesty, integrity, and generosity. I felt confident I could establish my own company based on those core values, which I had already realized were the real keys to success. After all, one must be successful in business in order to be successful in charitable areas. And true charity goes beyond finances. It has to do with respecting others.
I felt as if a light had been switched on in a dark corner of my mind. For the first time in a couple of years, I saw a pathway I’d be spiritually comfortable with for the rest of my life.
With that internal conflict settled, I began focusing on what it would take to set up a construction business of my own. I was confident I could do it. After all, when I was young, our family’s dinner-table talk was often about construction—its ups and downs, its hazards and rewards. My father was one of the top executives in the field. Even my quiet but awesomely smart sister, Evelyn, learned how to keep a construction-business office humming in Montana—and keep her brothers from fighting.
With both hot ambition and the happy ignorance of youth, I began visualizing a new construction firm—a trailblazing one. After all, there was no shortage of construction firms. Often there were too many. In asking how I could make my new firm stand out in the crowd, I developed some ideas.
Through this I learned that your career and your faith can work side by side. I do what I love while also ministering to others in the process.
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This is an excerpt from my new book, Detours to Destiny: A Memoir, available in Kindle and a version for all other e-readers. Now you can read the entire story to discover what happened after my detour over the Pacific Ocean. Watch for details about the paperback version soon to be released.
© 2018 Elling Halvorson. All rights reserved
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