My dad is a pastor and always involved us in ministry at church, especially any work that needed to be done and that no one else wanted to do! Or at least it seemed that way to us sometimes. He and Mom wanted to make sure we knew how to work, although the list of chores at home was already exhausting!

The three oldest in our family are boys. As we got a little older, Dad and Mom again thought we needed more to do, so when the opportunity to do some painting in apartments came up, Dad thought it was a great chance to use our energy and keep us out of trouble. So at 16 for me, and 14 and 12 for my next brothers, we began our home business. Later another brother was also drafted into painting. Really, painting was great for us. We had a controlled environment for working (although a tyrant for a boss) and could always get off if we needed to. I guess homeschooling and home business make a good match.

During this time my interest in computers began after my grandfather bought us our first one. With some coaching from a man in our church, I was on my way to much of what keeps me busy now. At age 19, I branched out in our home business and started working on computers for a couple of businesses in the area where we now live. I kept adding until about two years ago I was working with about 50 businesses.

I have always wanted to find a business I could be involved in that would let me make a living and spend more time with my family, especially now that I am married and have four children of my own. In the beginning of 2005, I found that opportunity.

I received an invitation to a free Internet seminar, and I attended. There I was introduced to an exciting business concept containing the following ideas:

• Have or design a website where you sell a product.
• The product may be either of your own or someone else’s making.
• If possible, find a product someone else would stock and ship for you.

Our site sells unpopped popcorn, hulless popcorn, popcorn seasoning, popcorn oil, popcorn poppers, and popcorn gifts. When an order is placed at www.givemepopcorn.com, a copy of the order comes to me in my home and a copy goes to a farm that grows, packages, and ships the popcorn. Their business was also started at their home. I buy the popcorn at wholesale and mark it up to retail pricing. I market my site on all the major search engines for different keywords. I also started a popcorn blog at www.givemepopcorn.com/blog.

This year I hope to double my business and set up more websites using the same method. I would also like to help others do the same thing. I am working on several more sites as well as my business site, where I can work with individuals to design and market their own websites. I am not an HTML programmer. I have just found the right tools to use to design and market websites. I can be contacted at webmaster@givemepopcorn.com or on my website www.givemepopcorn.com for popcorn or more information. I guess all that labor and popcorn popping did serve some purpose.

Matthew Hon and his wife, Susan, live in Marion, Indiana, and were both homeschooled. Matthew enjoys working on the computer and with websites. Susan homeschools their oldest son at home. Matthew’s business website is www.honenterprises.com. Both are active in Matthew’s dad’s church in Marion.