CONWAY — Joe Snyder said his two biggest passions in life are his heavenly father and being a dad.
The 28-year-old Snyder sat calmly in the living room of his Conway home while one by one, his four children — two biological and two foster children — woke up and introduced their personalities into the room. The baby and Snyder’s 4-year-old son alternately sat on Snyder’s lap during the interview, and his 2 1/2-year-old daughter sang a little song. The oldest curled up on the couch next to Snyder, then whispered Father’s Day secrets to his wife, Lindsey.
Snyder took it all in stride, simultaneously talking about his life and pulling a shirt over the baby’s head, or pausing to ask his son why he was crying.
“There’s nothing I feel more compelled to do and more comfortable with than being a father to these kids,” Snyder said. “There’s nothing more sacrificial that impacts your life than to be a father or mother the way God intended. God chooses to call himself a father — of all the titles, that’s the one he chooses the most.”
Snyder is the online pastor for City Church in Conway, which is what brought him to the city, and a global-sales manager for Hewlett-Packard in Conway.
He grew up in Cave City, “home of the sweetest watermelons in the world,” he said. Snyder said he was influenced by the people and pastors in the small church he attended. When his family was going through a rough patch — his parents are divorced — he said people in his church were there to help.
“I believe everybody needs a true sense of community. Our church was that for us,” he said. Snyder said he admired members and pastors in his church, and he knew he wanted to make a difference in the world, too.
He went to seminary in Benton at the same time he was attending his first semester at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway on an academic scholarship. It was far from an ideal situation.
“It was nuts,” he said with a laugh. Snyder’s perfectionism made him choose one to do well, so he decided to focus on seminary. He graduated from the Central Arkansas Baptist Bible Institute with a bachelor’s degree in youth ministry in 2008 and married Lindsey — whom he’d met at church camp at Greers Ferry Lake — the same year.
Snyder’s first job was as a youth pastor at a Baptist church in Benton, where he stayed for 3 1/2 years. In 2011, he took a youth pastor’s position at a church in Woodlawn, between Pine Bluff and Warren.
Snyder said friends of theirs were starting City Church in Conway, and they invited him to join them. The church started in August 2013.
Lindsey and he were always lacking “true community,” he said. “Our relationship with Christ is the biggest thing in our lives,” he said. They found a group of people they could laugh and cry with, go on vacation with and just be themselves with, he said.
As online pastor, Snyder is available during the live internet-streaming services to pray with people or talk with them through a chat feature.
“We started out with a GoPro and a Macbook,” he said.
About 70 to 80 people each week watch the live services, but when the sermons are placed online, each one gets about 1,000 views a week and has reached 90 countries in a year.
“It’s something so much bigger than us,” he said. “That’s why we call it an online campus.”
He also is City Church’s representative for The CALL, Children of Arkansas Loved for a Lifetime, a faith-based nonprofit organization with county affiliates. It recruits, trains and supports Christian families to be foster parents.
Snyder said that when his wife and he talked about getting married, he let her know right away that he felt led to adopt later in life.
“She started crying,” he said, because she also wanted to adopt.
As they looked into adoption, they were introduced to The CALL.
“Our hearts were really pushed toward fostering,” he said. As of last week in Arkansas, 4,970 children were in foster care, said state Rep. David Meeks, R-Greenbrier.
“Their homes have been destroyed by crime or drugs or neglect, … and we can help with that,” Snyder said.
The Snyders have had a sibling pair for a few months, and the case plan calls for reuniting the children with their family.
“We’re going to follow the case plan but be the best parents [to them] we can be — if that’s till we die, or another three years,” he said. “We might not be their forever home, but we’re going to be their mom and dad as long as they need us.”
Joe Snyder also has a new role through The CALL, which partners with the Department of Human Services, as a trainer for other potential foster parents.
“If you can’t be a foster parent right now [that] doesn’t mean you can’t be involved,” he said. From taking a plate of cookies to the Department of Human Services to thank the employees, to providing respite care for a child, there are other ways to help, Snyder said.
Being too busy to be a foster parent is an excuse that probably wouldn’t fly with Snyder.
He also has his Monday-through-Friday job at Hewlett-Packard, where he started in 2014 and was
promoted in March to global sales manager. His clients are two iconic corporations — Disney and Nestlé.
He’s also an entrepreneur.
Snyder’s father is a mechanical engineer in Stuttgart, and Snyder inherited those same problem-solving skills. He said he grew up taking things apart and “sometimes” putting them back together.
“I’ve always been a tinkerer,”
he said. If it needs to be fixed, Snyder can do it.
When he wanted more attractive computer speakers in his office, he took an old Spirit of St. Louis radio and retrofitted it to use as the speakers. He searched online to find out how to do it, and he couldn’t find a thing.
“I like to give modern functionality to old things,” he said.
His “tinkering” morphed into a part-time online business — Retrophile. Snyder takes vintage radios and makes them Bluetooth-compatible.
“I bought a couple of Bluetooth speakers and tore them apart,” he said.
Retrofitted radios from different decades are tucked into the bookshelves of his home. The oldest radio he’s transformed is a 1943 Philco.
“I just did one for a man in Little Rock that was from the ’80s,” Snyder said.
He showed one that he restored for his father. It was a 1960s Nobility radio in its original Bakelite case.
“This sat on his nightstand as a kid. He’d listen to the Cardinals and get in trouble,” Snyder said.
Snyder showed a small chip that he made, which has a battery that can be charged.
“[The chip is] a Bluetooth receiver with an amplifier and lithium ion battery,” he said.
“Now it’s a portable Bluetooth speaker. It’s all original knobs. It still has a little bit of the old sound,” he said. “I try to keep them as original as possible.”
He buys the radios at flea markets and online, but he will also transform radios for people.
“The cool thing is, they don’t have to work,” he said.
One man had his grandfather’s old radio, which his grandfather used in the back of his truck when he was working with cattle. After Snyder got his hands on it, the old radio sits on the grandson’s mantel “so he can use it if people are coming over, to entertain guests. … He’s listening to the same radio, even though it’s a different feed, that his grandpa listened to, and that’s big.”
Snyder doesn’t expect to get rich with the business.
“If nothing ever comes of it, it’s fine. I’m having fun doing it,” he said.
Snyder said the only thing he wants for Father’s Day — other than a homemade breakfast with lots of bacon just for him — is to spend time with his children.
Lindsey said she sees daily the wonderful qualities her husband has as a father.
“He always amazes me with his kindness and patience,” she said. “With the understanding of how much God loves him, he pours that into his children. He sacrifices, and he never complains.”
Snyder said he is content with all aspects of his life.
“We are loving life right now. We are fulfilled and really enjoying the season,” he said.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.