Category: Faith

 

I was born July 16, 1956, 6:32AM sin city Las Vegas, Nevada. My natural father had very little faith, perhaps he had had more but they say the war in Korea changed his life. He stayed around until I was three, never to here from again. I’m sure that my mother was very happy to give life to me in the natural; our Father in Heaven had put His plan in motion for me on this wonderful made earth as stated in Jer 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.” NKJV I was about four or five years old, my mother sent me to live in California with an aunt and uncle. I attended kindergarten class with Miss Anderson and a short time after starting school my attention became so vague learning was very difficult, the other children began to make fun. My aunt and uncle would make the once or twice a year parent teacher conference almost a weekly meeting. My uncle would say some awful statements concerning God. My friend Rick next door would invite me to catechism with his family on Wednesdays nights. After coming home Brownie (uncle) would say how his father back in the Ozarks would catch the preacher sleeping with the female congregation and how the church was nothing but money hungry Hippocrates. Weekly, his statement was about the same story about church. Brownie and I became involved in an auto accident. Those days we did not use seat belts and I was sitting in the front seat of a ‘51 Ford. I lunged forward and hit the huge metal dash board. I had suffered a concussion with two black eyes until I was about 12 or 13, the other person suffered very little because he was drunk.

After first grade my mother wanted me back in Las Vegas. My mother had remarried to a man she met in a bar that my grandparents had owned. Dave (stepfather) was a cruel man. My parents had bought a home on the west side of Vegas. I attended school and remembered standing on the school field wondering where God was in all this; then the bell would ring for all to come in from recess. I would remember being back in California attending catechism with my friend Rick and I would remember the Jesus that was peaceful and any pain I had experienced nothing could touch me. My parents would fight and argue over other family issues including me. I sensed my mother wanted to place me in church somewhere. I can remember going to church during the week and my mom picking me up after her work. Time seemed to vanish and before I knew anything more, I was staying with my grandmother in Henderson with my mom, she as we know it was hiding from my stepfather.

My grandmother was a Godly lady so I thought and she had a lighted picture of Jesus in her living room. I would ask each night if I could turn the light on. Mother worked close by in the casino her parents owned. The daylight hours were filled with people coming to my grandmother’s home. I would look through her window from the outside, and she was reading and telling peoples fortunes using playing cards. I found myself sitting on the curb (Boulder Highway) wanting to run across the busy highway. Mother became worried I would try and cross the busy highway. Before I knew it I was back in Hayward, California with my aunt and uncle.

I began 4^th grade with Mrs. Hansen and again I was fighting off demons and really starting to wonder why I was here. Now, back in California wondering why my mother had sent me here, thinking about my friend Rick and being with God and not to worry about anything. 4^th grade, 5^th grade and now 6^th grade was fast approaching, little contact with my mom in Vegas, latter hearing she gave birth to a son named Kevin.

Now thinking I will be attending 7^th grade in California, the battle has begun as two weeks before class was to commence, my mother wants me back in Nevada. Dave, my stepfather has been taking classes to become a high power attorney and wants to sue my aunt and uncle for non release. Sad to say I’m back in Vegas and my mother knows I was attending some form of church and she wants to keep the tradition going and now we are attending the Mormon Church. Months went by and he (daddy Dave) became an elder. The summers are hot and after church Dave would send my mom, brother and I to the hot car with no air conditioning while he was inside the Mormon Church counting the money. He would later return drunk and my mom would have to drive home. I would ask myself where God is and why I’m living in this hell.

Time waits for no one, going into 9^th grade; my mother decides she had enough of the Mormon crap…. And we start attending a Baptist Church. I begin to prosper, join the youth groups and attend summer bible school as the stuff at home seems a distant memory, and Jesus is fast becoming my father. I met my first real girl friend and on November 22, 1970, my mom, brother, Jennie Smith and I are baptized in the name of our Lord and Savior. During the summer months the youth would travel to Mt. Charleston outside Las Vegas and spend a week worshipping. We would stay in an old U.S. Army Ranger camp and there were several cabins with different Indian names on them. I remember the guys stayed in Cherokee cabin and I found myself going back to the cabin alone one afternoon, climbed up on my bunk feeling a little low and wanting to rest when I heard the voice of God telling me He wanted me to be in the ministry. He wanted me to share my faith and testimony with others. I looked around the cabin and saw no one visible. I refused God’s appointment on my life as I was 13 at the time. I finished 9^th and 10^th , 11^th grades still attending the church. As I entered 12^th  grade I began to slip away from Christianity, growing my hair long, playing drums, listening to rock and roll music, smoking, starting a several year career in doing drugs. I was active working in the audio business mixing music, attending UNLV for theater and audio training. I was feeling so low as a human being and empty inside so I packed up and moved back to California in 1977 hoping for a new start in life.

In 1982 I married and in 1985 we had a beautiful little girl named Shanna Marie Wood. My family and I were attending a Methodist Church in Hayward and serving God, but I found myself still living a dual life. I had quit the drug life back in 1982 but I just didn’t feel the connection that I had years before in my youth. December 1987 we divorced and I began a total spiral towards hell and became suicidal, hateful, and hurtful towards others. I felt like Raider man and nothing could stop me, going to Raider games, drinking and yes back doing drugs. From 1987 through 1991 I was living in total dismay. I got down on my knees and began to pray and my life slowly began to change, new career direction, stock brokers school and working part time with AG Edwards in Walnut Creek.

I enjoyed my new direction and met the love of my life, her name is Nancy. We met in 1991 at AG Edwards where she worked and found we quickly had a lot in common. Nancy came from Italian Catholic background and we discussed how we liked helping people and walking with the Lord. We began attending the Catholic Church off and on for several years with complete emptiness. As Nancy was a still a Catholic, we choose to marry in the church. After speaking to the pastor about marrying in the Catholic Church, I was told  I had to denounce my previous marriage and child before I could be married in the church. I knew there was something wrong.

Some years had past and I met with an old friend and she told me she was attending a non-denominational church in San Ramon. Nancy and I began to attend and found the church was spiritually dead. Pastor Adel came from Jordan and was an ex-Catholic.

At this time, we were watching football on Sundays instead of finding another church. Both of us loved football and decided that was our new religion. After the Super Bowl one year, Nancy was watching KTLN and the Hope of Glory. Pastor Napoleon  mentioned he was starting a church and I called the following day. Minister Jennifer Case called us back and we went the first day. As Nancy and I were both accustomed to traditional churches, we decided we were not going back to The Well with all the people falling out on the alter, hour long worshipping and talk of raising the dead. If, anything we needed to be raised from the dead. The Holy Spirit had brought us back and we began serving in various ministries. Pastor Napoleon married us Jan. 17^th 2004, and we were the first to be married at The Well.

In closing I received a prophetic word in 2007 about my stepfather that he would receive Jesus on his death bed and would enter the kingdom. He died Feb. 17^th 2009