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Family who prays together ....
Growing up as an only child, Terry Mosher was afraid of having children.
"We had our first child in January of '79, said Mosher, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Nevada. "We went on to have eight children. Today we have 12 grandchildren and one on the way."
Jeremy, 34, is close to earning his masters. Jason, 32, is Vernon County sheriff. Jacob, 29, has a pilot license and wants to be a crop-duster pilot. Jill, 25, is a stay-at-home mom with four children. Janice, 21, works at US bank. Jonathan, 19, works for a private contractor. Joseph, 16, and Joy, 13, are still being home-schooled.
"All of our children's names start with J," he said. "We didn't do that on purpose to start with, but after we had five or six, we just decided to continue,"
He credits his wife, Karen, with their children's success and attitude.
"She's a good mother. Whatever good there is in our children, it came from her or the Lord," he said.
Joseph described his father as always calm.
"He's one of the most patient people I've ever met," he said.
The second-oldest, Jason, said his father is kind of quiet.
"He's always counseling people," Jason said. "He's a good listener. He'll tell people what he really thinks; he doesn't try to sugar coat anything."
Jason has seven children.
"I think part of the reason we have a big family is I had such a good experience growing up in a big family," Jason said. "I decided that's what I want to have, I think family is pretty much the best thing you can get out of life. Other things can get lost or stolen. I wanted a big family to grow up as I did."
Besides having several children, Jason also emulates his father by home-schooling.
Terry and his wife started teaching their children at home right when the idea of home-schooling began to take off.
"Our older son Jeremy was among that first group to hit the colleges (who) were home-schooled, which gave us some problems," Terry said. "At that time, there was a lot of questions about their academic performance and whether they could function among people because we secluded them in the basements of our homes. In the time that's gone on since then, they've found that those fears were unfounded and not true. Colleges don't seem to have the problem they used to have."
Working the night shift at the time, Terry said home-schooling gave him other advantages.
"If we weren't home-schooling, I would have only seen my children on the weekends," he said. "I would have worked all night and slept while they were up during the day."
Jason and his wife, also home-school their children.
"Since I was little, we learned how to work on lawn mowers and cars," Jason said. "One of the benefits of home-schooling is you can teach them the book work, and you can also take them out in the field.
"I don't have anything against public or private schools," he continued. "For us, it was important to make sure that what our kids were learning were our views and what we wanted them to learn. We've got good teachers in schools, but in school the subjects have to be kind of generic to teach a whole bunch of people. When you home-school you can teach them what you want them to learn."
Joseph said he would rather be home-schooled than go to public school.
"Actually, it doesn't suck," Joseph said. "Some people think having a pastor as a father would also be bad, but actually, I don't think I'd rather have anything else. If I could pick anything for my father to be, I'd pick my father to be a pastor."
Terry said his work as a pastor often comes in conflict with his parenting.
"I think there's a real high percentage of pastors that say that being a pastor is not good for the family. My children can tell you birthdays when I was with someone else instead of them. You never know when somebody is going to call you, and you're going to have to run to the hospital or something," he said.
Still, Joseph's favorite childhood memory is of a birthday with his father.
"I still remember when I was 5, the day before my birthday we went to a Toys R Us. We looked at two bicycles there. I rode one of them around in the store a little bit," he said. "I remember we went to the checkout. I bought a Lego set. But, he bought that bike and had someone stick it in the back of the van and gave it to me the next day for my birthday."
Terry's advice for fathers is to spend all the time they can with children.
"That's hard sometimes with all the demands that life puts on you," he said. "If I could go back and change anything in my fathering, it would be spending more time with my children. I think one of the most important things fathers can do for their children is to pray for them."
Having lots of children has some pretty good perks, one of which is grandchildren -- even if the worst part of becoming a grandfather is admitting to himself that he was old.
"The youngest is 2. The oldest is 12," he said. "Jill's youngest are identical twins. They're a lot of fun. They dress them alike. I don't know which one is which."
He said seeing his children succeed is the most rewarding part of being a father.
"It's nice to see you're children doing OK and to realize that they have embraced the same values and become Christians themselves," he said.