About Zetousa.com

Tom & Linda Anson of Zetousa.com

Allow me to introduce myself.  My name is Tom Anson.  I've been married since 1987 to a wonderful lady named Linda.  We have no children, but we do have a very large dog.  He's a Great Pyrenees that we got through the Pyrenees Rescue of Nebraska.  His name is Xanti (a Basque name I found on the internet).

Throughout the years of our marriage, our hearts have been set on ministry.  It's very literally the why of our decision to get married.  This website is born out of that desire.

Where our hearts are

Linda has always had a heart for helping others in very practical ways.  She worked as a home health aide some years, and then spent the better part of a few others assisting in the care of a terminally ill brother.  More recently, she (along with me) has been quite involved in supporting a person involved in church-planting in Asia.  She feels like this is an important part of her calling, and is excited for the opportunity.

I was training for the ministry when my health finally gave out completely (in 1977) and forced me out of school.  I've been disabled ever since.  But, while in school, I played guitar and sang semi-professionally in Christian coffee houses in the Minneapolis area.  I was on the verge of entering the professional circuit when my health gave out.

In college, I met another love: writing.  And during the years of my disability, I researched and wrote a book on the church life of the first generation of believers, tracing the decline of the church since then, focusing on key eras in that sad history.  It has been an exhilarating project; but the need to dig a little deeper into a few key subjects dealt with there has kept me from finishing the work.  I'm hoping to put it on-line here sometime soon.

I've found it refreshing to work with our brother in Asia, seeing some of the things I've known in theory worked out in practice.

Despite the fact that we have not been able to work in a full-time ministry, as opportunity allowed over the years, we've given ourselves to ministering to others in whatever ways we could.  In heart-to-heart talks with others and letters, we've encouraged those with whom we've come into contact.  It seems like a small thing; but those are the best of times for us.

Since August 2000, I've also been operating a web business, selling Young Living Essential Oils and, most recently, an amazing new stem cell enhancer call StemEnhance™.  This business, while mostly what might be referred to as "tent-making" (with reference to Paul, the apostle — along with Priscilla and Aquila — supporting their ministry in the gospel by making tents), is an extension of that minister, giving us the opportunity to help others in another way.  That is, after all, where our hearts are.

Our experience in the way

From the time the Lord first laid His hand upon us and gave us some sense of light ("In [the Word] was life, and the life was the light of men"), Linda and I have seen that the Lord was calling us to a different kind of expression of the ekklesía.  We've tried to find a place within different churches, but were always left yearning for something more: more real, more biblical, more of the Spirit of our Lord, more tangibly of Him — not man.  We're still looking for that expression of the body of Christ.

I guess what we were looking for was:

• Real fellowship in the life of the Lord,
• A gathering of believers who had set their faces to follow hard after God, forsaking all that was not of Him or for Him; a people whose heart was in eternal things, not the things of the earth,
• A community of faith that supported actual growth in the things of the Lord,
• A body in which we could find someone with spiritual maturity, who could encourage and uplift, who had the mind of the Lord, and could discern the most excellent way.

But, what we found was a religious system that was utterly bankrupt, that looked — and acted — more like the world than the Lord.  It seems to have no moorings in the things of the Lord, and is ever more vulnerable to the deceptions that so plague mankind, in general.

And because our hearts recoil at accepting church as it is known today, we have had a long time in the desert.  If, by God's grace, we have something of worth to share with you, don't mistake that for great stature in Christ.  We are, in many ways, really struggling, and hope for brothers and sisters who can encourage us in the way.