Youth pastor receives 'hand up' from Habitat

Paul Aydelott has come a great distance in three years, and says every mile was indispensable to reaching the better place he and his family are in.

Weighing 650 pounds, the Apostolic Promise Church youth pastor's life was in jeopardy. With burdensome debts and never having lived anywhere but in public or church housing, Aydelott resolved to turn his life around.

After he received Medicare-Medicaid coverage for a May 2011 gastric bypass at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, he said, "The anesthesiologist told me there was a 50 percent chance I would die."

His surgeons surmounted a postoperative crisis when the stitches holding his diaphragm came loose and a worse one when he developed pulmonary embolisms in both lungs.

But he pulled through, lost 330 pounds, straightened out his finances through radio adviser Dave Ramsey's program and earned junior status as an education major at Southeast Missouri State University's Sikeston, Mo., campus. He intends to graduate in 2015 and teach history and English with the ambition of becoming a counselor and administrator.

Aydelott's body mass index has decreased from 84 to 44, and he will qualify for necessary skin removal when it reaches 37, he said, noting he works part-time for a Sikeston communications company.

Starting ministerial work at age 16, he worked at convenience stores, as a welder and in quality control at a steel mill before serving as youth pastor or pastor at churches in Steele, Mo., Cairo, Ill., and Malden, Mo., resigning because he could no longer walk.

"It was horrible," he said. "I'd go to lunch with other pastors who sat in a booth, but I had to sit at a table because I couldn't fit into the booth."

Living in 900 square feet of public housing in Steele, in January 2011, the 32-year-old Caruthersville, Mo., native and his wife, Patricia, learned about Habitat for Humanity through the Community Caring Council in Cape Girardeau and applied for a home to move here and be closer to the university and his surgery, he said.

Aydelott said Habitat turned them down because he had a $6,000 credit card judgment and other bad debts he was eventually able to clear. They applied again in January and were approved.

In a news release, Habitat spokesman Justin Kertz said construction should wrap by year-end on their three-bedroom, 1,200-square-foot home at Cape Rock Drive and Perryville Road in Cape Girardeau. Their children are 12-year-old Kelsey and 10-year-old Lewis, who was given his mother's maiden name.

"The thing I like most is that it's not a handout," Aydelott said. "It's a hand up. I still have to pay a no-interest mortgage" -- of $400 to $450 monthly for 25 years.

Kertz said the couple has put in 175 hours' work at the Habitat store and will contribute that much more by the time their house is ready.

Patricia Aydelott is impressed with her family's change of fortunes and pleased she will be able to continue as a full-time homemaker and home schooling teacher. "I think it's amazing," she said.

Explaining they'll continue as volunteer youth pastors at Apostolic Promise, she said their biggest problem with the 45 young people they counsel and play volleyball with is the technology gap between the young people and their parents.

"It's like we stand in that gap," she said. "People helped us, so we have to help them. We tell them to honor their father and mother."

One of the family's friends, the Rev. Tracy Lewis (no relation to Patricia Aydelott) of West Palm Beach, Fla., said teaching should come easily to Aydelott because "he is an outgoing, transparent person, compassionate, and kids pick up on that.

"He's funny, and that breaks down barriers," Lewis said. "At the same time, he knows how to be serious," he said. "Paul is a great family man who is very committed to his relationship with God. He is a sports guy. I played softball, golf and fantasy football with him. He's a big fan of the Indianapolis Colts."

Aydelott's favorite scriptures are Psalm 37:25: "I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread;" and Micah 7:8: "Do not gloat over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will rise. Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light."

"I love getting to minister to people," he said. "I let them know that regardless of their situation, there is a God that can help them and people who want to encourage them."