My story

• My story is simple yet long, ordinary yet messy. I don’t tell it often, but I believe it’s worth telling, because my life is living proof of the power, patience, and plans of God.

• Grew up very sheltered in a homeschool household to a loving father and mother who gave their absolute best. My brother and I were best friends, but wouldn’t know anyone our age until we were in our last years of high school. We didn’t watch TV, buy many toys, or eat sugar, dairy, or meat for most of my childhood (we were probably two steps from Amish).

• Our childhood was unconventional, but so much fun. I loved what we had and didn’t want it any other way. Our mom struggled with physical and mental health, but would fight on to teach and love my brother and me, and our dad worked long hours to provide for our needs.

• In my middle school years, we moved a couple of cities over to a nicer house, and it was at this time I put my faith in Jesus and was baptized in our pool during a thunderstorm at age 13, declaring, “I’ll die for Jesus.”

• Once I got saved, I had a burning desire in my heart to share God’s Word with others, so I started a blog to share about Jesus. Nobody saw it because I didn’t know anyone, but I loved doing it.

• At this same time, as God began to work in my heart, so did the Devil. I searched up explicit images online at age 13 when I heard our Christian radio station mention it. This led to a lust addiction for years. At the same time, my family went through health and financial crises that pushed me deeper into lust and gaming through my teens as a way to cope. I remember frequently asking myself, “Is this life a video game?” and I became so numb because it was too unbearable to deal with the worry, pain, and stress I was experiencing.

• In my late high school years, a lot changed for good and for bad. I began attending our church’s youth group, very awkwardly began meeting others my age, and got involved volunteering as the youth group’s intern’s intern. Also at this time, my parents separated, which led to a very divisive divorce. Our house went underwater to be repossessed by the bank. The only thing I knew for 17 years of my life was broken apart.

• This drove me deeper into serving at church. Even though I was only a one-day-a-week intern, I would begin serving over six days a week in the Youth Ministry. This left me homeless as a teenager, secretly living out of my 2000 Toyota 4Runner for a total of six years.

• During these years I slept parked outside run-down apartment complexes, used gas stations as bathrooms, Starbucks as my living room for Wi-Fi and to brush my teeth, and 24-Hour Fitness gyms to shower—all while hiding my situation from everyone. These days and nights were some of the hardest of my life, but it is in these days that God faithfully taught and transformed me with unstoppable power and unending patience.

• After five years, I was made the Jr. High Ministry Director and later Youth Pastor without a degree—completely unqualified, but called by God. I will forever be grateful to my Pastor who took a chance to trust that God could grow and use someone like me.

• While serving as a Pastor I met Jasmin. Little did I know that a DM from one of my student’s sisters to interview me for her blog would turn into meeting my first friend who would become my best friend, then girlfriend, and then my wife and the love of my life. I proposed to her at our church, and we were married there as well.

• Jasmin and I have been blessed with two children, Abide and Judah, who are our greatest gifts from God.

• I am living proof that God is better than we are bad. He is stronger than we are weak, wiser than we are foolish, more patient than we are slow. It is my hope and prayer that I might be a vessel that He can freely bless others through, as He has so freely blessed me.