Here I am guys I hope that this testimony will open your eyes to see the greatness of our Lord as well as the roots that I come from. I was born November 21, 1976 in Miami Florida my parents moved us to Orlando a week after I was born. I grew up in a small 3 bedroom 2 bath house where we lived until I was 20. During the early years I was a happy kid loved playing outside with the kids on my street. My family attended a Catholic Church about a mile down the road where I was the alter boy for many years (I had to do something due to the fact that I was bored out of my mind sitting in the pews). At about the age of 13 we had a decision to make if we wanted to keep going to church we could or we didn't have to if we didn't want to except for holidays...and my answer was very easy to that question "heck no I am not going any more". I was actually so happy I was thanking God. Well after that is when I started my decent into the world and I lived there for 10 years.
It was at the age of 13 in middle school I started to get hooked up with the friends every parent now-a-days tells you to stay away from. We formed a little posse and did what ever we wanted and lied about everything. It was at that ripe age of 13 when I got my next door neighbor friend which was much older then I was to buy us boys some alcohol. Every weekend we stayed the night at one of our friends houses whose parents didn't care what we where doing or how late we wandered the streets at night. Needless to say we drank our little hearts out there on the streets in that prestige neighborhood. The summer of my 13th year of life some of the posse wanted to try something new...smoking some weed and of course I was in. So that summer I got wasted and as high as I wanted to and to keep this blog as short as possible we found some girls who where as risky as us and we all would hook up and do all sorts of sexual experimentations.
Now moving on to High School...this is where it gets really hairy. My first two years were okay I got into playing basketball and made the high school JV team and played really well. I kind of left my old posse from middle school even though we kind of kept in touch but we went our separate ways for the most part. I partied a little bit my first two years and skipped school every now and then. It was that junior year that the devil really got me. I made the varsity basketball team as a practice player and was so disappointed that I didn't even go to one practice. It was then I said to myself if I can't play basket ball then partying is what I am going to do! So through that year I made it a must to know all the people who where the partiers and I did some younger some older but nonetheless they partied so I wanted to know them. I got in and because I have a very extreme personality I went all out drinking, smoking, and smoking dope. Then I was lead to LSD and that became my drug of choice. I loved to trip and I wanted everyone to do it with me so I found the guys who where as extreme as me and we did as much LSD as we could along with mushrooms. If it made you hallucinate I wanted it. So for the last two years of high school I went to every keg party, smoked as much dope as possible and ate as much LSD as I could find. Some how through all this I graduated thank God.
Now after high school I went on to Community College where I lasted a semester passing only my public speaking class (imagine that one...God are you telling me something...). During the next five years or so I went to the bars with my fake ID and bought a cool car to show off in. I met tons of women and had countless encounters with them (if you know what I mean). I also discovered cocaine and became very fond of that drug. Why? Because it gave me so much false confidence that I would talk about anything to anyone with out an ounce of insecurity and fear. I came to a place where inside I knew there was more to life then all this. I was driving home one night wanted of course and I passed that old church where I used to be an alter boy something inside of me said turn around go back...so I did. I went to over to then little culvert where some statues of Jesus where as a little boy and I remembered play around them as a child I looked a Jesus and I put my hands on his shoulders and said to him as tears fell down my face "If there is any way to get me out of this please get me out...I don't want to live like this anymore" and I sat there crying for a little while...mind you this is at about 3am. I left there that night and didn't even remember that event happening...it didn't even come back to my memory until after I was saved and I was on a missions trip in South Africa...okay on with the story. I went on partying for three more months until I blew up at work where I was stealing from to buy by drugs...I said out load...I HATE MY LIFE... and a young Christian girl heard me and said why do you hate your life and I responded because I have no purpose all I do it party I am doing nothing with myself. She then invited me to hang out with her after work and so I did and there she invite my to a youth group where I was like I don't know I am 23 not a high schooler and she reassured me that is was for my age as well...so that next Wednesday night we went. It was that night at Xstream Youth Church where God delivered me from all my drug addictions and drinking I smoked cigarettes for 3 more weeks and then stopped that. It was October 23rd, 1999 when I got saved and from then on I was in ministry finding ways to grow and to share this amazing love and power that came to me. Even now as I write I feel the spirit of the Lord touching me reminding me of all that he protected me from in those dark days. . . Thank you Lord I Love You with all my heart.
I hope to find you touched by god right now and I also hope for the opportunity to come and enjoy and evening with your youth and/or your congregation there is so much more to this then a short story. I just want everyone to know how blessed I was and I am to have survived this to talk about it. I now have a beautiful wife who I love so much along with two amazing boys Elijah & Zion who inspire me daily.
Email me or Contact me today so we can talk and create relationship within this amazing body we call Christ.
Also if you are struggling with these issues I would love to help you contact me so we can talk and see God deliver you from these devises as well...Much Love...In Him,
