Hi everyone, my name is Rebekah, and I am the wife of Jacob Asuit the owner/operator of Very Good Knife Company LLC. I am starting this fundraiser to get us a new home for VGKC. Right now, VGKC is run out of the shop on the property we live on. This property has been Jacob’s childhood home, living here for almost 30 years. Hard times in the years following the fall masonry business has us moving back in here in 2012. From a young age Jacob had been working for his father’s masonry business, and when business went south with the economy, they turned to making knives for a living, and 2 Jake’s Knives was born. Though we intended the stay to be temporary, despite our readiness to leave on multiple occasions and solidify a life of our own we were talked into staying on the promise of ‘this place will be yours one day anyway, I did all this for you’. We later understood this tactic as ‘coercion’. So we stayed, we raised our 4 children in this home on this property and built a life on those “rock solid” words.

Fast forward to December 2021, Jacob had an accident that ripped in half one finger and crushed another. It should have been a relatively small ordeal, but negligence from a small town hospital ultimately developed into compartment syndrome and left Jacob on the verge of sepsis. A few more days and nights in a better hospital, another surgery and lots of meds meant recovery was more than it should have been leaving him out of the shop for a couple of months. Without the ability to do dirty shop work Jacob instead spent his down time building an entirely new website for the business. Several hundred hours worth of work. But in this time, some true colors were starting to show from the people we had been so loyal to (you find out who your friends/family are). With everything we already had going on, it put us into a bit of a downward spiral both mentally and emotionally. Desperate to understand why this was all happening, through seeking guidance we learned about narcissism and everything started to make sense for once. Jacob’s parents are narcissists, his father an ‘overt passive aggressive’, his mother a ‘covert passive aggressive’, they used methods such as triangulation, gaslighting, coercion, projection and more on Jacob, myself and our children, and more people that were involved with the business. When Jacob returned to the shop for work, the shop had become overrun with a mess. Even his own portion was overtaken. Rather than continue the fight, Jacob kept his head down and mouth shut doing what he had to do to provide for his family while we actively tried to find a home of our own. In March of 2022 we were preapproved for a home loan. We put in offers on several homes, none worked out and as a last ditch effort Jacob made his father on offer on this property. Buying out the property would mean he could retire, or continue traveling if he wished, but he laughed in his face and said, “This place is worth a million dollars.” We should have known then that this place would never be ours, but Jacob refused to give up on his father holding out hope that he was just crazy and this would all blow over.

Fast forward again to June 2022, we had just looked at a house that we had started a contract on, it was too small for us and we decided to pass on it, just didn’t feel right. Jacob had been in his head too much with everything going on and he had an accident that resulted in 2 broken/crushed ankles and a broken knee that landed him in the trauma unit for 2 weeks. The first text I got from his mother was 3 days after the accident, and it read, “I have a wheelchair if you need it.” Before Jacob ever even knew if he would ever walk again, his father came into the house and asked him, “You going to work for me next year?” They were more angry that he wouldn’t be working for them than wondering whether he was okay or not. So, of course, that was the end for Jacob emotionally, and he told him absolutely not, never again. By September, he was finally cleared to start putting pressure on his knees toward the floor, and several months later, he was able to finally take some steps. After months and months of physical therapy, he was finally to a point where he could walk and stand with a cane. 2023 rolls around and the time had come to get back to work and making knives is all he knew, we already had a separate shop to setup in, thus Very Good Knife Company LLC was born.

During the time of recovery, Jacob’s mother came down with brain cancer. She passed away in February of 2024, and we actually found out about her death through social media a week later. One major factor in our no contact relationship was the house, a tense unexpected visit brought upon a brief conversation with his mother about how we were scared that once she was gone his dad would sell the house and kick us to the curb. Then some time after her passing he came over, sat Jacob down and the first thing he told him was “I don’t want you to worry, son. This place is yours; it always has been and always will be.” Despite our differences, the two talked and he once again vowed to not sell it out from under us. That catches us up to date, VGKC is a year old and his father is not happy about his success. The day after Jacob posted a video about how great we were doing we just upgraded to a laser engraver, the whole lot… His father comes over randomly and tells him he is selling the house. With nobody to talk to at the time, Jacob reached out to his following for support where he discussed all of this in a video, then another video showing the mess of a shop that he had been driven to exhaustion in year after year. Exposing a narcissist can be devastating for the victim and he feared what would happen, but with nothing left to hold against him anymore (as the promise of his home dissolved) he decided telling the truth was more important than benefit. Once again, choosing morals over money or personal gain. When his father saw the videos, (confirming suspicion that he had indeed been up to date with our well being making his motive more clear than ever) he went berserk and sent Jacob the most hateful texts he could have ever sent, essentially disowning him. This can be seen in a video on the VGKC YouTube. He sent a letter telling us we have until the 31st of October to leave or he will evict us from the home and property. He knows if we don’t have a shop, we don’t have income. We are exhausting every option to find a solution to a shop but we don’t have much time left. We were going to put the shop in storage and just open back up when we can afford to, but we have had several requests to start a GoFundMe and let people help. Jacob is not one to ask for help from anyone for anything, his friends can attest. Every bit of ‘help’ he has taken from his father/family has been menacingly held over him despite his extreme loyalty and dedication to full repayment of every debt he has ever owed anyone. Even though he knows that not everyone that wants to help is going to do the same he has sadly been conditioned to letting himself drown before he asks for ANY help at all, so I am taking charge and starting this. Hopefully we can raise enough to at least get a down payment on an SBA loan for the business so Jacob can continue offering these knives at affordable prices and creating a legacy to hopefully pass down to our children.

I was probably all over the place, and there is just soooo much to the situation and details that we have even forgotten (Jacob voice and video recorded everything for several years because no one believed us) that we have recently come across. So I am sorry if there seem to be any gaps, I am so beyond stressed my brain only wants to work half the time.

We do have a website that has several blog posts written by Jacob himself about our story if you are interested. It is www.verygoodknifeco.com, and we also have most social media platforms, including YouTube, where you can find the latest updates on our current situation, and he will be adding more to it soon. Thank you, everyone, for your support, even if it is just a share.