Joe Ingrao oversees Vineyard Boise's men's ministry and counseling.  "I get the most out of seeing people realize that the answer to their problem is Christ and run after Him."

He had a wife and two children, and he just lost his job.

"Everything fell in on me, and I cried out to God."

Later that same day, there came a knock at the door. It was his Aunt Marian. He explained how he was struggling.

"What you need is Jesus," she said.

"No, I just need a job," he replied.

But his aunt persisted: "No, what you need is Jesus."

She opened her Bible and traced the love of God through the scriptures, and the young man accepted Christ.

Christianity was not entirely new to Joe Ingrao. He and his wife, Janet, both had been raised in the Catholic church. But around 1970, they stopped attending church.

"We just felt like we had better things to do," Joe recalls.

After they began their new lives in Christ in 1978, everything changed for the Ingraos. Joe picked up another sales job for a trucking company, but he soon became disenchanted with his work.

After visiting Janet's sister in Boise in 1979, the family knew it was time to leave their San Gabriel, Calif., home and move north.

"We came over the Owyhees and said, 'Come on, give us a break!' " Joe says. Down in southern California, "we had all that smog, and all the people. We just fell in love with the Treasure Valley."

So the family packed up and relocated to Boise in 1980. Following a lead from a classified ad in the Statesman, Joe started his own sewer- and drain-cleaning business.

The Ingraos didn't arrive at the Vineyard until about 10 years after they arrived in Boise. Dissatisfied with the church they had been attending, they started to explore other churches. They had never heard of Vineyard churches before, but they had seen the sign on Overland Road and noticed plenty of cars in the parking lot every Sunday.

The family made Vineyard Boise their home in 1991, and became more and more involved as the church grew during the early 90s.
Since Joe had his own business, he had the freedom to spend lots of time at the church, helping with the men's ministry and other projects.
After observing Joe and Janet's service for some time, pastor Tri Robinson asked them if they would consider becoming lay pastors. The couple prayed for months, and Tri had to ask two more times before they finally accepted.

A few years later, in the fall of 1997, Joe accepted a full-time position on the church staff.

"When I was first hired, they gave me everything," Joe says. "Everything but the dishes."

Now Joe's responsibilities have been whittled down to overseeing Vineyard Boise's men's ministry and counseling. It's a job he obviously enjoys.

"I love seeing the men in the church really discover how to handle themselves in a godly manner in their home lives and in their work," Joe says. "There's a hunger among men for how to be a good dad and a good husband, and they're looking for answers. And I just pray that we would be one of the vehicles God would use to accomplish his plan."

In the area of counseling, Joe aims to provide spiritual guidance for individuals in the church who are struggling in difficult areas of life. Joe doesn't have any formal education, but he says he has learned plenty from the school of hard knocks.

When someone comes to Joe with marriage problems, he offers insight and support based on lessons he has learned during his 31 years of marriage. In his own life, he has dealt with abuse, alcoholism and addiction, so he draws from those experiences _ as well as from God's wisdom _ to help lead others into the same freedom he has found in Christ.