Who Are Emil and Karen?

Emil: I was born in Chicago, the 2nd of five children, and raised in Evergreen Park, IL. I accepted the Lord at age 11 in Vacation Bible School at Ashburn Baptist Church in Oak Lawn, IL. Jesus was always my best friend from as young as I can remember. I remember playing and talking with Him all day long from the time I could walk. At age 11, I heard that you needed to make a public confession and so I did.

I preached for the first time at age 21 at Holy Vessel Church in Chicago. In 1989 I moved to Mesa, AZ, where I attended Vineyard Christian Fellowship of Gilbert, taught home groups for several years and dedicated myself to any and every position I could do in the church.

Karen: I was born in Vancouver, WA, the third of four girls, and raised in The Dalles, OR. I accepted Jesus at age 9 in the First Christian Church. I later attended Northwest Christian College in Eugene, OR for 2-1/2 years. In 1983 I moved to Mesa, AZ where I attended Word of Grace Church for 9 years, the last three years working as the Counseling Department secretary. I then attended and worked for Vineyard Christian Fellowship of the East Valley in Mesa. My son, Adam Smith, and his wife Jennifer live in Canton, MI.

Emil and Karen: We got to know each other in 1995 by co-leading a singles ministry sponsored by our respective Vineyard churches. We were married on the 4th of July in 1996 and currently live in Queen Creek with our 4 cats.

We have always felt a calling from the Lord to be in full-time ministry. During the first four years of our marriage, we led a singles ministry, an outreach and compassion ministry, and various home groups. We held staff positions of church office manager, church administrator, associate pastor, and co-pastor.

Our Ministry: Then one day in October 2001, Emil heard, "Sell your car and buy a motorcycle." Needless to say, we (especially Karen) needed a confirmation that this was God and we sought Him earnestly in prayer about it. By the end of two months, the Lord had clearly confirmed it and we had sold Emil's car and purchased our first motorcycle, a Honda Shadow 750. Within a week of the purchase, a friend felt strongly compelled to give us an application to CMA, Christian Motorcyclists Association.

We attended our first CMA meeting January 5, 2002 and came away committed to evangelizing the biker world. We soon traded in our Honda for a longer-distance bike, a Kawasaki Vulcan Classic 1500. By May 2002, Emil was voted in as Chaplain of the Desert Disciples, the Mesa CMA Chapter, which is the largest chapter in the Southwest region. During all this time, the Lord continued to show us that this was the harvest field to which He had called us. He threw the doors open to us in miraculous ways, and we simply walked through. Using our past experiences in ministry and our hearts' passion for evangelizing the lost, we realized that God was customizing a ministry for us.

In obedience to the Lord's prompting, we went on a one-week camping trip to Colorado in June of 2003 with no other goal than to be in His presence without distraction. During that week, the Lord laid before us a full-time ministry plan called "Bikers with Boundaries." When we laid this plan before our pastors, Michael and Darci Niva of City in the Desert Metro Church, and our intercessors, they confirmed not only the plan but that the timing is NOW.

In September 2003 Emil quit his fulltime job and began the roadside ministry. On December 7, we were ordained at City in the Desert. In February 2004 Emil resigned the CMA chaplaincy to focus fully on Bikers with Boundaries Ministries, and Karen rearranged her work schedule to join him on the roadside in the afternoons.