Kent and Dena Elwood

Dena was born in Baldwin Park, California in 1957. She has been a Christ follower since the age of 13. In 1978, she moved to Red Oak, Iowa. Her first husband died in 1996 at the age of 38 after a 10 year battle with systemic lupus. She first started selling handmade greeting cards in 1989 till 1994 when her husband required all her time with his illness. In 2004, she met me (Kent) and the following year started selling them again at our local grocery store. Her talent comes from God as she has never taken art lessons.

I was born in Red Oak, Iowa and lived in near-by Stanton till I graduated in 1978. I lived in Red Oak the same time Dena moved here from California, but our paths never crossed. I moved away in 1986 and only moved back to Red Oak in 2005 after being introduced to Dena late in 2004. She is the one who brought me to the cross to be born again. When my job went to Mexico in 2006, a prayerful decision was made to make this our business. We grew slowly until I graduated from a local community college for web design.

Today, we are grateful to God for how He had grown our business. Our lives are still far from perfect, but our trust in the Lord grows with our daily walk. We are thankful that people buy our cards. We are also thankful for the encouraging e-mails we have received. It is also a joy to talk with people in the stores as we refill our cards. All the work is done from our home and we thank our three sons, Jacob, Tommy and Billy, for all helping make our office a reality. Thanks also to our son Pete for his technical support.