Seyler's job provides health insurance for his family and free grade-school tuition for his kids, but big purchases still cause anxiety.

"It's an adventurous way to live," he says. "Paycheck to paycheck."

And yet the big-ticket items always seem to materialize. When the family outgrew its Ford Aerostar a few years back, a church member gave Seyler his barely driven Audi for free.

Someone left a new $950 Goalsetter basketball hoop and pole in boxes in Seyler's garage while the family was away on vacation.

And for a number of years around Christmas, someone has left an envelope with Seyler's name on it in the school office -- with $2,000 inside.

Seyler sees the gifts as proof that God is working in his family's life. He knows they also speak to how tight-knit the community is at Grandview Park Baptist.

Kim grew up in that church and graduated from its school in 1991. The Seylers see church members and Grandview Park students and Kim's former classmates everywhere. One night at Fazoli's, Kim catches up with old friends from high school, and Rob asks a pair of students if they're ready for another school year to begin.

His extended family is close-knit, too. On a recent Saturday, 27 relatives turned up for a party at the Seylers' rural split-level home to celebrate the family's six summer birthdays. The next day, 20 of those family members convene for dinner at Culver's, a Midwestern chain specializing in burgers and frozen custard. Before the food arrives and before the dinner prayer, the conversation turns to the presidential race.

None of the adults seated around four pushed-together tables rooted for Romney in the Republican primaries. "I was for Pawlenty, then Rick Perry, then Herman Cain and then Rick Santorum," says Seyler's sister-in-law, Becky Stoll, as a few of her relatives nod in agreement.

But Stoll's antipathy for Obama over the president's health care act, his support for gay marriage and a laundry list of other offenses makes Romney relatively easy to bear.

"I think part of the reason the economy is so bad is because the Lord is not blessing us anymore because we've killed so many unborn babies" under Obama, Stoll says.

"I don't like the fact that Romney's a Mormon," she adds, "but I don't think Obama is a Christian, so that takes that part out of the equation."

Seyler's father-in-law, Archie, volunteers that he heard Obama might be Muslim. It's a misconception that 17% of the population shares, according to Pew, despite Obama's repeated assertion that he is Christian.

Seyler, whose 2-year-old son, Ezra, is asleep on his shoulder, isn't in the mood to pick a fight with his in-laws over Obama's faith -- or Romney's. It's late, the food hasn't arrived, and Seyler's outnumbered, the only one in the group who isn't pledging support for the Republican nominee.

Victory in this state, and in the nation's other battlegrounds, may well ride on who -- if anyone -- wins over such evangelical renegades.