SpeakLifeAZ
The testimony of Jesus in, with, and through everyday people like us. A father and son who were addicts for over 20 yrs. You name it, WE DID IT, TOGETHER!!!! we used to use drugs together now we share about what God Has done for us to encourage the body of Christ and anyone else who may listen to this that is feeling hopeless and empty. LISTEN TO OUR STORY...and the testimony of others who feel led to share with you.... GOD BLESS YOU....TODAY WE CHOOSE TO SPEAK LIFE AZ!!!!!!!!!!
SpeakLifeAZ
Kreg G. Testimony
What happens when you've hit absolute rock bottom and have nothing left to lose? For Kreg, it was a desperate prayer at a Circle K that changed everything.
Kreg's journey takes us from his early years in California through a 15-year battle with addiction that included overdoses, homelessness, and incarceration. Despite having family who loved him, his addiction progressively worsened until he found himself injecting vodka into his veins and facing the very real possibility of death.
The turning point came in 2016 with a simple prayer: "God, if you have anything different for me than what I'm doing now, just show me and I'll be willing to do it." What followed was a transformation that defies explanation – from addiction to ministry, from hopelessness to purpose.
Today, Kreg and his wife run "Heart for the Hood," a ministry dedicated to helping people experiencing homelessness and addiction find resources, recovery, and spiritual healing. Their 24/7 hotline (623-444-4155) has become a lifeline for countless individuals in crisis.
This raw, unfiltered conversation reveals how God works in the darkest moments of our lives and how our deepest struggles often prepare us to help others facing similar battles. Kreg's testimony reminds us that no matter how far we've fallen, redemption is always possible.
Whether you're struggling with addiction yourself, love someone who is, or simply need evidence that second chances are real, this episode will restore your hope in the power of transformation.
all right, everybody. Welcome back to the speak life az podcast testimony of jesus and everyday people. I'm your host, eddie, and always with me is my son, rowdy jesus what's up, bro, man dude, yeah, uh, I got up at 5 am.
Speaker 2:Amen, obedience. Oh praise god man. I'm telling you after cr last night, 5 am, alarm came quick yeah I did.
Speaker 1:I actually slept till my six o'clock one, and I normally don't. Oh nice dude.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it was good man, good day man it was good I went and saw eric man talked to uh joel joel's back in town bro. Yeah, man man helping move tomorrow. You know who your real friends are when they call that.
Speaker 4:Hey, can you help me move, bro?
Speaker 1:I got you dude how was your day busy, all right. No, we did like I don't know. We sat around for the last couple hours. I think I took a nap again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, getting paid to sleep but amen, dude, I'd rather be busy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know you are, you're a worker, being slow makes me more tired than being busy, so yeah, yeah, I'm excited for this man me too, brother who'd you?
Speaker 2:bring with you man dude, we got my brother craig. What's up, craig?
Speaker 4:hey everybody, god bless you. Craig, how brother Good good.
Speaker 1:God made it very clear to us when we started doing Video man to honor his children, brother, because over the last couple months or so he's been showing me that time is a commodity that we don't have much of. We can't get more of it. There's not more to have. There's 24 hours in a day, brother, so when his children are willing to sacrifice a few hours of their day to come share their story of what god has done in their life, uh, to me that's has immense value that we can't put on it. So we honor you and we thank you for your time, brother, and we pray that god just blesses you and that you get this back somehow. You know, I mean, we thank you for that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, craig, it's uh, it's cool how god works, man. Um, I actually uh, I met you at the first summit I had ever been to for celebrate recovery out at the, uh, the west one, the, the big one, uh, saddleback church that was my first, also, that was your first, also our first, but amen but wasn't that an experience, man?
Speaker 2:amazing man. If you're involved with celebrate recovery and you've never been to a summit out there at Saddleback, you've got to go experience. It's the biggest recovery party in the world, man, definitely, but it's just cool. How, in God, how many people were there, bro? Six, 7,000 people, dude, so many. The Lord connected us, dude, amen, because he knows, he knows, he knows man, and I'm excited for this man, especially when we don't know the people a lot, because a lot of people that we have on are people we're doing life with, with you, man, I just know a little bit about you, not much Know you're connected with Urban Outreach Zippy. We've actually had Nathaniel Zippy on this before. If you want to go back and watch that, you can that in the uh, the podcast reels. Uh, are the uh show library? There we go looking for the wrong word, um, but let me, uh, let me pray real quick, man, and we'll kind of just get into this. Thank you, lord man, holy spirit, thank you god thank you, god lord, thank you for this day.
Speaker 2:God, you knew your son, god, was going to come and share his testimony. God, I thank you for his life. I thank you for what you have done with him, in him, through him. Now he's in a place, god, where he's able to help others. But I know there's taken some time and it's been a process to get where he is today. So I just thank you for what he's going to share. Holy Spirit, right now, just come, just fill him, rest on him. I pray you just use his words. Holy Spirit, share your story, because he's your son and he's been the pen in your hand this whole time. God, you've been writing this book. So I thank you for just clarity. If there's any nerves or anxiety, just fall away in Jesus' name. This is a safe place. This is a holy moment, god, for you to pour out your spirit through this podcast. So we thank you for what you're going to do In Jesus' name, amen.
Speaker 3:Amen.
Speaker 2:When God gave this to us, craig, it was a 2020 and COVID. It seemed like God gave a lot of people podcasting COVID At first. For the first two, three years, man, we were not obedient to what God told us to do.
Speaker 2:We were setting up in my bedroom and preaching messages on Facebook and studio in my room, god's like when are you going to do what I told you to do, man? And what that is is the speak life AZ podcast. Um, it's the testimony of Jesus and everyday people. Um, and, and it's we're all everyday people. Man, it doesn't matter if you're like yourself and in full-time ministry and helping people and serving God, or like myself and working at a church on staff cleaning windows and floors. Man are like dad down in the muffler shop working on cars and cutting up mufflers and exhaust all day.
Speaker 2:We all, we all got a testimony, definitely, we've all come from somewhere and and a lot of times. Man, I don't know about you or how you grew up and getting ready to find out, but for myself, I grew up in a Baptist church and I remember in services on Sundays, people were I want to testify and they'd get up and they'd share a little testimony of their son or a family member, a financial breakthrough or something, and you don't see testimonies very often anymore in the church, um, and so we really believe that god's given us this platform so that his sons and daughters can take back their power in life and share. Share what the lord's done with them, on what revelations? 12, 11 we overcome the enemy by the blood of the lamb, the word of our testimony, and not loving our life unto death. So this is just part of kicking the devil in the face, man, I love giving the devil a black eye dude because how much stuff do we go through, bro, that we we don't talk?
Speaker 2:there was stuff that I've done, craig, that I told myself I'm taking that to the grave, right, nobody's gonna know that I did that. Those were those deep, dark secrets that in my first step study I had to start opening up and sharing with my sponsor, man and getting real so that I could get healed. And now I'm at a place where I can talk about stuff. So it's just cool, man. But basically we just want to know who Craig is. We want to know where you were born, what life was like for you growing up man, brothers and sisters, relationship with mom and dad, family um, god, was god in the home when you were growing up, and what? What did that look like? Because, um, a lot of times, man, at least back in the days, church was we're going to church what we're doing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you ain't got no choice. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but so what your relationship with God look like, if there was one? But the most important thing we want to get today is your encounter with Jesus. Yeah, because your encounter with God is so personal. Yeah, my encounter when he met me at Teen Challenge in Phoenix, when he met Dad in a prison cell. God finds us and draws us to him at just the right time, in just the right way. He does Because he knows.
Speaker 1:And it shows that he's a personal guy Personal.
Speaker 3:He's not some cosmic thing that, he's a personal guy.
Speaker 2:Far off in the God. You know what I mean. He knows the hairs on our hair. Oh my God, there's the hair. God, you know what.
Speaker 1:I mean, he knows the hairs on our hair.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, those hairs, brother, I can see them. I love you, brother.
Speaker 1:Let's just get a little thin.
Speaker 2:But he knows us, man, and he knows what we need. So we really want your encounter, yeah, and a lot of times, well, read that Bible right there people, and any time people in there, would meet Jesus or get touched by Jesus or have an encounter with Jesus. Things change, so we want to know how your life changed after your encounter with God. And then, at the very end, man, we want to know you're still young, you got a lot of life left ahead of you, brother. We want to know what God has put in your heart, what he's put in your spirit that maybe hasn't manifested yet on earth. That you really want to do, um, because we want to pray for you, but we've got listeners and people that watch and subscribe and follow that. They want to pray for you as well, man, um, so if you're watching on youtube, if you could please, uh, subscribe to the channel. Man, we can use all the help we can get. We're Apple, spotify, speak, life, az. All one word Check us out, man.
Speaker 4:Hit the bell notification yeah.
Speaker 3:You want all the new episodes, man brother.
Speaker 1:so what was it like growing up, craig bro?
Speaker 4:Well, so I was born in Downey, california, that's LA.
Speaker 3:County.
Speaker 1:All right.
Speaker 4:And in a little home off of Rosecrans and Clark, if you guys know where that's at.
Speaker 2:I've literally fundraised on Rosecrans before with boxes of chocolates. Bro down the businesses. Wow yeah, there's a pretty good route.
Speaker 3:The Downey route bro it certainly is Wow.
Speaker 4:I've been through ministry doing routes, places, but yeah, so I was born there in a small home right there off of Rosecrans and Clark, right next to the Kaiser Hospital Okay, a Bruise's Pizza, all those little things right there and you know, I was growing up with my granny right and my mother and my brother and siblings just kind of around, but it was very tight, uh.
Speaker 4:When I mean when I say that, I mean that my grandmother's house on my father's side was just like a block over. Uh, uncles are very close, the neighborhood it was just my family family in that.
Speaker 2:That's cool man and um.
Speaker 4:At a certain point I think it's about second grade that uh, we kind of picked up and moved to um over by bakersfield an hour north of bakersfield, the little town called porterville okay farm country.
Speaker 4:Out there, out there in the sticks and uh so we moved there and life really kind of got different for me from what I knew was normal. Church was not something that was a normal thing. In fact, I, we, you know, we didn't go, we didn't really talk about my family, wasn't like when you were like when you were living with granny at the first part of your life. There was no church. So there wasn. There was, there was like um, saint bosco, saint bon, josh bosco, it's like a catholic school okay, like a summer camp and
Speaker 4:stuff, but I nothing made sense that was your exposure, that was it yeah okay and uh, and it was great, I I liked it, but, um, but I just really wasn't grasping the concept of what they're. Um, you know, I remember going to the communion, uh, part of of summer camp, and and priest said have you taken the first communion? And I was just so nervous, I'm like I don't know if I did or not.
Speaker 2:You know, I don't know.
Speaker 4:Yeah yeah, did I just lie in church? I'm not sure.
Speaker 2:So I didn't know you know Ignorance, but it was great. It was great.
Speaker 4:I loved it and it was awesome, so it was from there into Porterville.
Speaker 2:Can I ask you real quick? Sure how many brothers and sisters did you have?
Speaker 4:So I have one blood brother, his name is Tim. Okay, Great guy. He's served in the military full career master sergeant, Currently finishing his PTSD camp right now, oh wow. He'll be out in service too, Finishing his PTSD camp right now.
Speaker 3:Oh, wow.
Speaker 4:He'll be out in November. Okay, you know he's highly decorated, amen.
Speaker 2:Seen some battle.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:And you know, just really, really grateful for him. He's hoping to come out this way and join ministry when he gets out Come on, man, that's big, that's huge yeah. Yeah so oh man, that's huge. Yeah, yeah, so, um, wow, okay, so it's you and your brother, and then grandma and mom, grandma, mom, um, you know, my mother and and my father.
Speaker 1:They split. Okay, you know they split.
Speaker 4:They were really young and um you know, just things didn't work out however yeah, um, but both really great people. Today actually is the fourth year. Uh, four years ago, my father passed away from covid. Oh man, you know and and, but uh, but really great, great father, great mother. My mom's still alive and she's, she's an amazing woman of god.
Speaker 3:It's great really come on, it didn't start that way. It's not how you start it's how you finish, Pastor Gus baby.
Speaker 4:So as far as I can remember and in retrospect looking back at this kind of stuff, this is behavior that maybe kind of you know. I just remember crawling not crawling but climbing up onto the kitchen counter and getting into the medicine cabinet and looking. If you guys remember those Flintstone vitamins that were in there. And I thought, if I could just take enough of these, I'll be as strong as Fred.
Speaker 1:Flintstone.
Speaker 4:You know, and I know now for that to not really be a good behavior, to think. And it was even back then. I was just looking, you were a kid, I was a kid and I was just looking for something to make me better and stronger and different.
Speaker 1:Remember the Tums, the big round.
Speaker 4:Tums.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I used to think they were candies in the medicine cabinet, oh Jesus.
Speaker 1:So I would like get a couple and I thought they were like well, remember the sweet tarts? Yeah, I thought they were like sweet tarts, so I would eat them.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so that was out there in Porterville and you know life was life and you know I was one of those kids that you know, if we were, whatever was going on, I was doing it. You know, if we're outside playing or you know things like that, at a young age I didn't really pay much attention to what was going around. You know, later kind of realized that there were kind of some family problems. Every family has it's, it's uh, you know it has its, its battles, it does and things and, um, you know, just not really knowing how to process that, but continued to be, um, you know, outgoing and and being a kid and you know, climb rocks and trees and all those things.
Speaker 2:So you were surrounded by your family in Downey, and then you moved to Porterville and it's just you and your mama and your brother and my granny yes, and your granny.
Speaker 4:And so I had another grandmother that lived very close by and very close to the Thule Indian Reservation and we would go and spend time with her.
Speaker 4:And something happened to where you know just we suddenly, you know, my grandmother was gone, my mom had went to school and, you know, everyone just kind of got split up, except for my brother and I, and we ended up back into that little house in downey with my granny oh okay, so, uh, my granny was was an elderly lady, yeah, and uh, you know, my brother and I were were total saints as far as as being home um, and you guys were boys, ma'am, but you know what I mean, but but also when you know heathens at that when granny wasn't, but you know what I mean.
Speaker 3:But also when heathens, when Granny wasn't by.
Speaker 4:I don't think she really ever had to get honest about anything. But we were kids.
Speaker 2:We were kids. Your brother's older than you. He is, he's two years older than me. Okay, all right.
Speaker 4:And yeah, so we lived with my Granny for a minute and then wound up back into Porterville.
Speaker 1:Okay, and you know what was in porterville, that I mean, if your family was there. What was important? What was the reason you moved to porterville?
Speaker 4:you know, I'm not really sure. Uh, I know that my grandmother she, she lived out there um and and that was that kind of where she grew up, kind of thing you know, I don't think so. I think she grew up in la also, but that's just you know, maybe just kind of wanted to.
Speaker 4:Maybe some things weren't going right with the and they're like get them out of the city, something, so I know my mom was becoming a teacher okay at that time it's about third grade and uh, you know, just just living my, my life as a kid just uh you know it was beautiful. I, even still today, love the country out there.
Speaker 2:How was school for you?
Speaker 4:School was it was difficult, you know, have dyslexia diagnosed with that in the second grade, oh wow and really didn't like just really kind of learn how to cope with that and overcome. So school was hard and socially at that time there was kind of a really big thing happening where it was like, especially out there I don't know how it was here but um what time are we?
Speaker 2:when were you born, bro? So I was born in 83, okay, so this would have been in the 90s, okay, or?
Speaker 4:so right um and uh, and it was like uh, you could be this group or this group or this group, and it was kind of a racial thing which is funny to say Not funny, but it's strange to say that you could have either been the Cowboys or you could have been the Hispanics, but every name was you know, I didn't want to be any of these names you know, and being part Hispanic and part white, I just never knew exactly which group to go into.
Speaker 2:So it was like play soccer.
Speaker 4:They're like what are you doing over here, gomez? Or playing baseball. They're like what are you doing over here, craig? And so it was just not really knowing where to go and I was like I'm going to skateboard. So I'm going to skateboard and that was kind of my, my.
Speaker 1:Did that ever affect you Not being able to decipher? Because I know, a lot of times, you know, unfortunately we kind of congregate to our own, yeah.
Speaker 2:Having our people. You know what I mean, yeah.
Speaker 1:And did it kind of affect you at all? Because you're a little bit of both, so you're like torn between the two.
Speaker 4:It was. You know I don't speak Spanish, yeah, and you know I never, I didn't even eat a tamale until I was in my teenage year. Really, and so identifying with the really Hispanic culture, it just wasn't I didn't fit.
Speaker 1:Do you mind if I ask was it your mom or your dad that was Hispanic? It was my father.
Speaker 4:All right okay.
Speaker 1:And so.
Speaker 4:I'm like three, you know.
Speaker 1:I'm a part in.
Speaker 2:Hispanic 25% or something, and mom's white and mom's white and mom was living with her mom and she's white Right. Okay, All right.
Speaker 4:And so it was kind of confusing and certainly didn't want to be a burnout. You know, there was different groups that you could have joined.
Speaker 2:That's yeah.
Speaker 4:He had the jocks, he had the gangster he had the yeah, it was, it was, and and any none of the names sounded appealing to me, you know? Yeah, so it was skateboarding I was a skater. You know, and that was that, was that, and, um, you know, along with becoming a skater of, of course.
Speaker 1:She had a little rebellion in you. It's rebellion and punk rock.
Speaker 2:Oh okay, all right, we even played in a little.
Speaker 4:The garage band was at my mom's house there in. Porto in the garage and we played music.
Speaker 1:Deftones and Dead Kennedys and Noah Fax I think being a skater was a kid's way of kind of flipping the bird to all the popular groups.
Speaker 2:It was the hippies of the 60s. Screw you, screw you.
Speaker 1:I'm going to be just this over here and you all can just. You know what I mean. I was a skater too, bro, so I get it. I tried to be a jock, but I couldn't stand them.
Speaker 2:I tried skating, but I couldn't skate man, so I became a blader.
Speaker 1:Oh no, skating, but I couldn't skate man.
Speaker 3:So I became a blader.
Speaker 2:I know, that's all everybody, you're, I can grind on four wheels, all right, so you're skating um.
Speaker 4:In middle school you start yeah, so it was about middle school. Um, at that time, you know, I wasn't sure, um sure, if I was wanting to move to my dad's. He lived in Huntington Beach and that seemed like a really appealing place to be, it's a nice area yeah. And that kind of became an option that was presenting itself. At the time I was starting to kind of really not you know, in that age I was just angry yeah, kind of really not you know, in that age I was.
Speaker 4:I was just angry um, at you know angry at at you know who I was or who friends were, who, who? You know, uh, angry at everybody yeah, and feeling rebellious, you know starting to run away, yeah, and, um, you know, with with that, that time it was, you know I remember uh being at school and uh, you know someone having marijuana and it rolled up in paper, yeah, and so we ate it, because I didn't know how.
Speaker 2:Nice, I just ate it.
Speaker 4:And it was okay. Well, we did that, you know. Next thing it used to be before it was meth, it was called crank, yeah, and somebody had like a little flattened piece of paper with crank and so we did a little flattened piece of paper with, with crank, and, and so we did a little bit of that. Oh, biker, dope and um, and, and it started to to make me feel like you know how old were you so this was probably um 12 13 yeah area somewhere right in there.
Speaker 4:Fairly young yeah and um, and you know I I couldn't really uh express this to family and um you know.
Speaker 2:So none of none of your immediate family was involved in in drugs or any of that that you remember so it was.
Speaker 4:They were it too, from what I understand okay and there was. There was stuff going around in the background, but, like I said, I never really paid attention it wasn't until I got older that I kind of now I know, okay, that something was going on, but not with my mom or my dad and never around me, sort of thing.
Speaker 2:The reason I ask that man is me and my mom and my dad, like we used to get high together, bro, and so it's a whole.
Speaker 4:it was a whole thing that set me off into a bad bunch of bad choices.
Speaker 2:Man, I do not recommend getting high with your kids, okay, um, but that's that's why I was wondering, because sometimes families like if you're gonna do it, you do it at home, so we know you're safe. You know what I mean it certainly wasn't.
Speaker 4:It wasn't that it was something you were hiding but there was some, you know, issues that we had that in the family, that that created some some turbulence and and you know, stuff like that caused me and my brother to kind of move away yeah, yeah, you know. You said you're running away as a teenager and so, yeah, it was, it was, um, it was, you know, starting to, to use and to really feel like that this is what I needed.
Speaker 4:This is what I needed to feel okay with who I was and to escape the family.
Speaker 1:that was around you? Was it predominantly white that you were living with or Hispanic.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it was. Was there any?
Speaker 1:confrontation between that. As far as you being your dad being Hispanic, were they upset about that? No, no, not at all. Your dad being Hispanic, were they upset about?
Speaker 4:that? No, not at all. You know, even though that they were separated, you know, communication was pretty good between them and also with my grandmother and my grandfather on their side. I'd go to visit a lot.
Speaker 1:So you had a relationship with your dad still, yes, so we'd go visit him, he'd pick us up or we'd meet in Gorman. The halfway point Were mom and dad kosher with each other and yeah, so so they were.
Speaker 4:Um, I know, sometimes when parents separate, there's a it's weird. Your dad or your mom right well I mean of course in in any kind of split parenting there's going to be.
Speaker 1:Well, we want him to to be I know with his biological dad and my wife they're feeding my ears full of stuff.
Speaker 2:He did that. She did that there's a few times.
Speaker 1:I had to tell my wife don't talk like that in front of the kids, man wait till they leave, and then you can bash them all you want, you know it's really like don't buy him that toy or don't you know, don't wow.
Speaker 2:So you, you all in all, you grew up in a good home.
Speaker 4:Pretty good. I have to say pretty good, no abuse or anything like that, I felt loved and there was with my cousins and aunts and uncles. We were all about the same age and we would live or we were at this property out there at my grandparents' house.
Speaker 2:In Porterville.
Speaker 4:In Porterville.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:And it was this great big property granite, rocks and stuff and we'd go out and play by the pond and everything. And we were really out there and sometimes forget we're making bows and arrows and stuff like that. But we would forget that we were just playing and we would end up really, you know, trying to hurt each other. And it was like a lord of the flies thing, where we'd go down there like in the morning to play and then we're coming back like holding our foreheads and just these, these war games that you know, and then from that was, you know, uh, my, my grandmother's husband.
Speaker 4:He was like a no mess around kind of guy and and so we would, you know. So there's a little bit of physical abuse I was scared to death of the guy you know I ended up, you know, working for him and his company later, but as a kid like we, that we feared that we really did and so that was that was.
Speaker 4:If there was any kind of abuse, it would have been right there, but the majority of it just really loved. You know, like I said, you know my mother she was a teacher and very caring. My granny, the total saint, total saint, you know, she died at 83, when I was in high school, and that was kind of what really kicked off. Um, I think my addiction was just dealing with that, that loss and um not knowing how to process, not knowing how to process it was teenager, you know had a girl from seventh grade to them.
Speaker 1:Were you just like dabbling and playing around or so?
Speaker 4:so, yes, I, you know I would, um you would continue to smoke marijuana.
Speaker 1:Getting in trouble at all.
Speaker 4:It was getting worse. I think so.
Speaker 1:Any arrest or running with the cops because of drugs or anything as a kid.
Speaker 4:So in junior high, when I moved to my dad's eventually my addiction really kicked off.
Speaker 1:Oh wow, it really did.
Speaker 4:And it wasn't anything against my dad um I was huntington beach.
Speaker 2:I was at the beach, yeah, everybody everybody had a skateboard and I could.
Speaker 4:I could speak the same language. You know kickflip this and and punk rock that you finally found your people and, and, and and it. It certainly felt like that you know and I was, I was accepted, but I still had this, this issue within myself where.
Speaker 3:I were nothing with you with myself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I I.
Speaker 4:I felt strange. I didn't, you know, I just you just never really um, but I was happy with the people around me. Okay, and as soon as, um, as soon as I found out you know where, where to get it and and how to to do it and and certainly had time to to be around it, those friends that were my buddies started to kind of fade away from me a little. I was pushing people away. I had overdosed on some pills that I had gotten for somebody or something and somewhere.
Speaker 2:Is that the first time that you?
Speaker 4:First time I overdosed.
Speaker 2:And it's like it's almost remember how, when you were a kid and you were talking about the Flintstones thing, man, if I take enough of these, I'll be strong. So it's like what, if I take fricking eight of these things and I'll be real high.
Speaker 4:I'll worry, and eight of these things. Now I'll be real high. How old were you? It was, um, this was the summer between eighth grade and my freshman year. Right in there I'll say you're, and 14 maybe, yeah, and so, and it was, it was, um, you know, really needing help, really needing help. Uh, I knew it, uh, you know I, I think you know, my parents really started at that time. They all knew that they had to do something. Yeah, and this is the 90s and um, so, so I'm at the hospital and they, they recommend that I get some counseling right and see a therapist and talk to somebody and go see a therapist a little program outpatient and we started to go.
Speaker 4:We started to go um and and I remember going to these groups and they would, they would you know a lot of stuff about you know how was, how'd you do growing up and all these things and and other people. I'm looking in the groups. I'm like man, these people, they don't, they don't really look. They like, look like they need to be here.
Speaker 4:Yeah I don't I don't feel like I, you know, but I I know I need to be here, but I don't feel I. I look like this People's hands shaking and these people were bad really bad homes and stuff you know, and the counselor had this program and I still, to this day, don't understand it.
Speaker 4:But they said, well, we've been drug testing him and we've come out with a plan for you guys. And so he told my mom and his wife no, my dad and his wife, I'm sorry, um, if he comes home, hi take his door off of his room.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'm like, man, that's, that's not gonna be cool no privacy, but I understand that's a normal thing, you know, yeah and it was.
Speaker 4:It was just just like that boom, you know, maybe I was testing it. I mean, I didn't, you know, I still was living the way I was living, right. Um went to counseling the next week and they said well, we took his door off. He came home high again oh, they were your.
Speaker 2:Your. Your dad and your stepmom were drug testing. You know that the counseling program, but reporting to my parents, which were still going, okay they have their own little group or something.
Speaker 4:Okay, sometimes I'd sit in the front and they say, okay, well, next time that he does this, since his door was a privilege, take the stuff out of his room and just give him a wow and and um, it was a tough love method and I was thinking I'm like man, that's, that's really gonna be terrible yeah but um you ain't got high, it wasn't enough as soon as I went and at that time, um you know, lunch money, $5 was enough to buy a hit of acid and I would take it and sometimes think that I was.
Speaker 4:you know, hours later, that I'm never going to be the same. I'm stuck like this. I remember those nights and go to counseling and they said, well, next time he does this, kick him out of the room and make him live in the garage. And I'm like what? This is getting crazy. You know this doesn't seem to make sense, but, like I said just before, you know, the very next week it came home and I'm like how much worse can this get?
Speaker 2:you know, Something's telling me you're gonna find out.
Speaker 4:It's getting, it's getting worse, yeah so the next one, from the the garage, was to to live in. Live in the backyard in a tent, oh wow. And only be allowed in the house when they're home, oh wow, because I can't be trusted and I'm and so um, so I'm in a tent in the backyard. This is during El Nino in Huntington Beach in the 90s.
Speaker 2:It's raining and all this stuff.
Speaker 4:Tent got flooded. I'm mad and I'm under the influence and now I'm really upset with dad and all those people In paradise in Huntington Beach right. And how could I mess this up?
Speaker 4:But I was, and just when I didn't think it could have got any worse. Um, my father, he was a truck driver, so he would always be gone at nights and, and you know, day day he'd be sleeping. Gone for two days and and so went to counseling. They said, okay, well, since he's not changing, um, don't let him allow. Don't allow him to be on the property only from one hour a day and we were there so he could shower and change and go.
Speaker 4:Yeah and um and even think like I want to call this place now and be like, hey, what were you guys thinking? You know? Yeah, but really yeah I have to think of my own actions right and um, how old so you were I was a kid.
Speaker 2:You were 14, 15.
Speaker 4:I hadn't I hadn't even started my freshman year of high school yet. I think it was about orientation, all that stuff was coming up.
Speaker 1:He's like 14.
Speaker 2:Up to this point. It's not like you really had a lot of structure or learning or mentors or people teaching, learning or mentors or people teaching, and there's I don't hear any god or church. So there's no, none of the lord's goodness you know what I mean and there's no man and school's hard for you and you can't find a place so it's like a lot of free reign, just to do whatever you wanted, and you're in huntington now.
Speaker 2:you're in Huntington, now you're in Huntington Beach, yeah, and so it's like I'm free. I got this freedom. Yes, but in that freedom it's literally the flesh just wanting what the flesh wants and never satisfied.
Speaker 4:So, even though the living situation is just literally going to hell right before you because of my, your choices, right, yes, yeah it was still not enough to wake you up right, yeah, and you know in retrospect that's any of those things maybe would would jar a teenager to be like man I want to be home, I want to you know, uh, but it was like the excitement of the thrill and and and it and it almost you know, at that point it didn't seem like a punishment. I was just like.
Speaker 1:I have no way to do whatever I want. I'm an adult, you know.
Speaker 4:Tom Hanks like the big movie, you know but it was, but it was. You know, it wasn't, it wasn't that it wasn't that you know, and Were you okay?
Speaker 2:So you're like 14 14 it's the summer before high school and you're getting kicked out and moot and, like, you know where to get the dope and you know where to get high from. Did you have friends, couches, was there other people? Were you just or were you on the streets?
Speaker 4:so I I fortunately had friends houses I had places to go um and in huntington beach you know it was uh easy to make friends that were kind of kids doing the same thing, yeah sleep on the beach.
Speaker 1:Sleep on the beach, or, uh, you know were you ever stealing from your parents?
Speaker 4:so it it came to. It came to that it came it came to that um that's the last straw and it was yeah, yeah, you're stealing from us. You're right, yeah and it was a day, it was my time to go home, to shower and change and get ready, get my things oh, for that one hour for that one hour and I missed it because I'm not good at time frames I'm a teenager getting hot yeah, dude, and I missed it, and so I'm like well, I'll just wait till they're gone and then go and break it.
Speaker 4:Oh, yeah, yeah yeah, and I did, and I meant to just kind of slide a window over and I cracked it. Oh no, and so now it's like there's no hiding that you were there. You broke a window, so I'm like well, there's a thing with some change in it over here. I'm going to help myself to some change.
Speaker 1:Oh, you just made it worse and got my stuff and got out and and felt totally justified by all of this. Oh, yeah, we'll lie to ourselves and tell ourselves all kinds of stuff to make it all right and um, I robbed my dad blind and justified it all I did, I did, and so that that, of course, led to you know what just you know stay away.
Speaker 4:We don't want you here anymore and it was, you know, nothing against my, my dad and his wife. I believe that they, they were just really just waiting for me to to hit bottom, you know, and it, it took.
Speaker 1:They probably didn't know what to do either. They didn't know how to deal with that. It took.
Speaker 4:Uh, you know my mother she would. She was calling and saying, hey, when's craig gonna be home? I want to go down there and visit him. And they would say, well, he's not here right now. You know, and, and you know my brother kind of protecting you they were. Well they were. I don't know if they were kind of like afraid of of like man. We're gonna tell her and she's gonna freak out, you know and that he's not here.
Speaker 4:We haven't seen him, yeah, and finally, she had said um, I'm coming down there this weekend and just make sure he's there when I get there yeah and they said look, we haven't seen him, he's been gone. He's a run around town.
Speaker 2:He's high and um your brother's there with you during this time he had left.
Speaker 4:He had left at some point back to my with my mom right, okay, oh well to porterville okay, so um, just he was having problems and and stuff in his own way.
Speaker 2:Never drugs or anything like that, it was just more of obedience, I think.
Speaker 4:And so he went up, and so my mom drove from Porterville to Huntington Beach with no leads on where I was at, where I was hanging, and she was going around putting up these posters of me Like a missing kid.
Speaker 2:Oh my God bro.
Speaker 4:And my friends are like hey we see this poster and the cops are coming after you, and all this stuff. You don't come over to our house. Oh wow, and now you start losing all your weight. And so I'm walking around and just, uh, really, just, you know, falling deeper into. I gotta hide, I gotta really lay low I, I gotta none of that time.
Speaker 1:Did it ever cross your mind to go to your mom's? I was, I I just didn't want to yeah I I was at the freedom
Speaker 2:I was like doing what you wanted to do paranoid of of you, of, you know, the police.
Speaker 4:I was paranoid that I was going to get in trouble, more trouble than I was in. What are they going to do now? You know? And she went to the school, she went to all my friends' houses and just one night I was sleeping on the carpet of this kid's house. And this kid, you know, wherever he's man, I, wherever he's at, I, I, you know, I just pray for him too, cause he was going through a lot of stuff and this room was a mess and, and you know, trash all over the floor and graffiti on the walls.
Speaker 4:And I'm laying sleeping on the floor and I, just I wake up on the floor. There's a window that's open behind me and my mom was standing there and she says Craig, you're either coming home with me or the police are going to take you right now. Wow. And I looked up at the window to see how high it was from the floor, to see if I could jump out and run, and then just realizing, like it's morning, I'm not feeling good, I'm too weak to run, I'm just going to surrender. So I went home feeling good, I'm too weak to run, I'm just going to surrender. So I went home with mom. I went home with mom.
Speaker 2:To Porterville, to Porterville.
Speaker 4:Okay, started going to school.
Speaker 1:You think your brother? When he went home he was like Craig's off the chain over there. Yeah, oh yeah, he used to over the phone.
Speaker 4:He'd be like I can tell by the sound in your voice you know he'd be like it's. You know you're on something you know and he was right. He was right. Wow, he was right.
Speaker 2:Did you enjoy just being high? Is that what it was, the feeling it made you feel, or how you didn't have to feel?
Speaker 4:You know, I think you know, honestly, at that point I was more afraid of my addiction and knowing that it was out of control oh wow, and you knew you were in a bad place. I knew that there was no future in that I I knew that, but I just didn't know how to get out wow, just nothing seemed like.
Speaker 1:Was it just? Was it just meth and and acid, or did you get into heroin or so.
Speaker 4:So it was at that time. It was marijuana, meth, cocaine, lsd, and there there's a lot of variety of things, oh yeah, especially on the beach, and there was a variety of things in it and it was that Okay. But I went home to mom's and went to school and they had like a drug prevention class.
Speaker 2:Dare.
Speaker 4:And where they would take us out of a one period a week or something and be in a room and it was good, it was helping me. It was helping me, um, you know we were. We were talking a lot about addiction and and things and and my mom kind of understood, you know it was a problem. I was addicted to cigarettes, cigarettes and she was like man, like this kid smokes cigarettes.
Speaker 2:He's 15.
Speaker 4:Not like hey, I would like to puff a cigarette, but this kid smokes like an adult smokes, you know, and my mom was just like what do we do? And I thought that if I when are you getting money from?
Speaker 2:How are you getting high? Robbing and stealing.
Speaker 4:I think cigarettes are like two bucks a pack. Back then yeah. Or were you like bumming change and stuff, and so you know, I really I don't really remember exactly how just money would, and even if you had stuff, things was, currency was all different kinds.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah. You know, you got bicycles, bicycles, you got skateboards, you got wheels all these things like that um and so that bartering system, or however it was um and people, just you know, seemed like you know, misery loves company.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, that's real there bud and yeah and um. So I was there in high school and and started to do good and and so when you're going to that drug class, you have quit getting high. No, okay but I was, but I was, I was feeling, feeling some, some healing.
Speaker 3:I was feeling something changing yeah, okay um, I was.
Speaker 4:I was feeling some sort of like I could these people that I'm talking to understand yeah, the battle within.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know that's real bud and you know.
Speaker 4:I would like to say that that was the end of it, you know. But my addiction goes all the way till I was 33 years old. Wow, and um prison and and like you name it it was. It was bad, it got, just got worse and worse and worse did you graduate high school?
Speaker 2:yeah, I did, you did graduate high school. So yeah, I did, you did graduate high school, so you graduated okay.
Speaker 4:Yeah, with the help of, you know, my teacher.
Speaker 2:Aids and everybody just getting ready, Staying after class and putting in the work. Man.
Speaker 4:Night school, the whole thing. Oh yeah, buddy, and I didn't think I wanted it, you know, but I'm glad, really glad, I did.
Speaker 2:What did you do after high school?
Speaker 4:So I graduated in 2001 and um and I ran away again.
Speaker 2:I ran away up towards fresno and I got hooked on on heroin and, yeah, up north man yeah, so I was over in stockton for a minute doing ministry, bro, and it's just, it's bad up there dude yeah and so I wound up in a drug home in Visalia. Oh God.
Speaker 4:And you know, I was young, I looked innocent, I was good at going and stealing and everything so. I was a value to that drug home and so I had the phone number to call the guy. I had you know, and I'm sitting there um one morning and the police came and they just took everybody there. You know there was prostitution going on there there was.
Speaker 4:There was drugs and people would come over and they'd purchase and they would stay. Uh, but the people that lived there? The police came and they just took everybody. Wow, and I was just there oh, they left you they just. I was just, it was just me at this place. And so people would come and they would knock on the door. I'd let them in. I'd call the phone number you started running the house.
Speaker 2:I didn't know, you didn't know what you were doing. Everyone's gone. These people are coming over. They're wanting dope.
Speaker 4:I got the number and so just I couldn't even, I don't even really want to go into you know the things that were going on there. But just one day, my, my family just came and burst in the door. It was my uncles. My dad was there, Uh, and they, they they, they, they grabbed, they they it was you're up in fresno so I had called my mom to help with like a bill, like a water bill or something, because there was, they were. I wasn't gonna pay. I didn't know how to pay bills wow and so she saw and she did.
Speaker 4:She's just like I'm just gonna call you know, his, his dad and his uncles, and we're gonna have them go up there and get him do something, wow, dude. And so I'm there, um, really just jaundice. I had hepatitis c, wow um. Which the lord delivered me from.
Speaker 4:He cured me from that same with me, bro, everybody yes um, and so foreheads yellow, just really skinny and and messed up. Um, I would say, you know, uh, when I say there's no future in this, there's, there's not, you know no at this, at this point where you are craig, you have no hope, yeah, you have literally.
Speaker 2:The life you're living isn't life, it's, it's death. There's nothing good in it. The the dope that you're doing, it's literally. It gets to a point where you're just getting high just so I can deal with the craziness that's going on around me. That's really what that is and it just it's an end road. It's a dead end road man.
Speaker 1:It's hard to see, though, when you're in it.
Speaker 2:When you're in it, yeah, it's hard to see that it's going nowhere.
Speaker 4:You can't see it. So they came down the alley and came in and I just saw people kind of running before they got there, a couple people running. They were scared it was the cops or who it was, and it was my dad and my uncles, and they grabbed me by my skinny arms. They grabbed my arms and they said you're coming with us. And just the first thought to my mind was like this is my house, this is where I live.
Speaker 4:you guys can't take me from here wow but as soon as they got me in the truck I'm like okay, that's, that's over yeah, and the fear of like I'm gonna. I'm addicted to opiates um intravenous drugs. I'm, I'm gonna. I'm gonna start feeling withdrawals and they didn't know where, where they were going. They just knew they were going to pick me up. So they're calling, you know, like Betty Ford and Teen. Challenge and all these places.
Speaker 2:Dude, you had family that loved you bro.
Speaker 4:And so I just remember sitting there in the truck and they're just kind of talking low like okay, well, don't you think it's a good time that, like, if it's we have to take them to, you know, let's take them and let's get them in a good place, let's get them, let's get them somewhere good.
Speaker 4:And uh, and they did they. I went to Hogue hospital and I I detoxed um October of 2002, I believe it was my first detox at Hogue hospital, newport beach, california, and um after that I went to a place called sober, living by the sea, wow.
Speaker 2:And before you get to the beach, part of it right Red flag beach park.
Speaker 4:Um, you have to go to the sunrise ranch where you spend some time there, kind of pre-programming. They think you're a little squirrely and I knew it probably cost a fortune and I know it did. I know it did.
Speaker 1:Especially at Newport. That's a nice neighborhood.
Speaker 4:And so the ranch was in Riverside California. But if you did good on the ranch they would send you to the beach part where you got a beach cruiser and a list of meetings to hit and just went into all your 12-step meetings and came back and reported and so I get to this recovery, home or no to this program. And I was there and started to hear about the Lord. I started to. They actually took us to church.
Speaker 1:So it was a Christ-centered program.
Speaker 4:I think it was an option.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, it was like it was still kind of like whatever you want. Yeah, so it wasn't like Teen Challenge where it's Christ-centered. No, all right.
Speaker 4:It was. They gave you a choice, but the. Lord. I believe the Lord, like he even told. You know he's guiding me to truth.
Speaker 2:The Spirit leads all truth right.
Speaker 4:And so we went to church. I felt the power of God.
Speaker 1:I felt the presence of God there, right and about 19 years old. Was it at the center or did they take you to specific?
Speaker 4:churches. We went out to a church, do you?
Speaker 1:remember what church it was.
Speaker 4:I don't oh dang.
Speaker 1:I'd love to know that.
Speaker 4:And I remember feeling the power of God there and just crying and and went back to the thing and so I realized there that, like I'm I'm here, my family spent a fortune for me to get right, I'm running from from me and and I need I need something in my life that's going to help.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Sorry, I was in the restroom. Where are you at?
Speaker 4:right here. So, um, so, my parents, they, they, they took me to like a place, um, um, a rehab in newport beach that was sober, living by sea, and it's like betty ford type you know really expensive. But to be there to do their program you have to go to um, you know the the sunrise ranch which is in in riverside, and do pre-programming before they just kind of cut you loose on the newport beach with a bike and making meetings and getting sponsor and stuff.
Speaker 2:It's the first phase because I was young.
Speaker 4:I was 19 and I was dying like they were. Like this kid's gonna die, wow.
Speaker 1:And so when you got to the, when you got to the detox center, did they address your jaundice and your?
Speaker 4:hep c. Yes, they said that if it had been any more time that I would have died. My liver enzymes were through the roof.
Speaker 1:So I know for me. God healed me through medicine of Hep C. Was it the same for you or was it miraculous?
Speaker 4:No, you know, it was in 2016. I never took the medicines for it because I had continued to use for so many years even after that they were like why give you the medicine if you're going to keep doing it?
Speaker 2:I wasn't at the time.
Speaker 2:So I quit using and I go to California. Like I was telling you, while I was out in California I took Harvoni and Harvoni healed me of hep C. I'm good, nothing. But like I said, I screwed up God, messed up God and went back into addiction messing with people. I shouldn't have been and caught it again.
Speaker 2:But here in 24, pastor does a little right in the middle of worship. I don't know why, but there's somebody here that it's your blood. God's going to touch your blood today and there was a few people that stood up and went to the altar. I went right up to my prayer guy and pray for me, bro Hep C. He lit me up, dude, and when he was done praying I was soaked in sweat, he was hot and he's like bro, I don't know what I was like. God just healed me. There's a paper sitting on pastor's desk right now. I literally there's a paper sitting on pastor's desk right now Hep C negative. Yeah, I got that paper, isn't it cool, bro? God is still. If you're struggling and you got a blood disease or a sickness or cancers, god can heal you. There's power in prayer.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, man. And so I think even uh at that place, that um at the ranch they had said like hey, you, you've been exposed to hepatitis c, but it's we don't even detect it right now, wow. And so I'm like I've been healed, all right, very good. But I didn't know the lord back then, like he was even faithful back then to me, for real. And then for years, you know, I went and exposed myself to the virus even more, and you know that how it goes. It's just, you're just there and everybody.
Speaker 2:Yeah and and um. So are you intravenously getting high? Yes, You're using needles for 10.
Speaker 4:From, I think, 18, 19 years old. I was an intravenous drug user.
Speaker 2:Until 33, 15 years of it, bro, for people that don't a lot of people don't know, for people that don't know getting using needles, it can literally that becomes the addiction, that becomes the, the, the thing and the draw and just getting high like regular people. It won't do it for you, no more. That's. This is the only way I can get high, yeah, and it just. It's complete darkness, totally demonic. And it's just where you've listened, you've listened to this whole story and it's just how addiction works, how darkness just transpires in a young man's life that it has. No, we don't know. Yeah, you only know what you know. Man, so up to this point, until you get into this place right, this is real outside of the kids thing at the, the catholic summer camp that you went to and had a little, this is really your first encounter with god at this place, this rehab yeah, yeah, this ranch and and the thing is like I, I felt the lord like when I went to that church.
Speaker 4:I remember, like the tears, I remember come on, buddy because I could feel the presence of god, but but I didn't know about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 2:I didn't know that.
Speaker 4:I didn't pick it up. I mean it wasn't God's timing for me and, sad to say, I stayed my full program at that ranch because I knew if I went to the beach it was all over, yeah.
Speaker 2:And it was you know, I was you know, I was oh, you had an opportunity to go from the ranch to newport and be like the normal, every other one, and you're like no I can't, don't send me there wow, craig. So you knew yourself. At this point, bud, I knew, I knew that it was.
Speaker 4:It was gonna be bad how long was your?
Speaker 2:how long was your program?
Speaker 4:it was like 90 days okay, and then. So here I am, you know hepatitis c. I graduate my program, they put me in a sober living home and they want me to go take a liver biopsy test at the hospital. Um, it's like the first week I have my bus ticket to go get my liver.
Speaker 4:They're gonna take this, this needle, and punch it into my liver, yeah, lay down yeah, and I'm on the bus and I and just just there's some sort of gravity inside and says how about you don't go Because that's going to be scary. You don't know how. If it's going to hurt, just stop at this park right here, damn, and I'm like it's on.
Speaker 2:It's on.
Speaker 4:And so you knew so something just as easy as just going and there's no accountability. Partner.
Speaker 3:It was. I'm sober living.
Speaker 4:And so I got this bus ticket. I'm in a new area, the it's just it like that that sin gravity. I don't know if, if anybody knows what I'm talking about, there's just like a uh, um, you know, it's flesh bro and it's the inner dialogue, and so it was. It was. So I wind, I wind up um at this park and and I and I couldn't find drugs and I think I might have got like just a little bit of something somewhere at the park.
Speaker 2:You trade your bus ticket for something and who knows?
Speaker 4:But I wound up with this syringe Damn and a bottle of vodka.
Speaker 2:And so I sat at the park, took a shot of vodka and I started shooting vodka just to get that feeling away from me. Yeah, and that's real dude that's dangerous.
Speaker 4:and um, next thing, you know I'm in a hospital and um, it just so happened that that someone was driving by, from that, that, um, just by miracle, that someone from that program no way. Drove by and they're like this dude is standing out here in traffic and I'm challenging people Hit me. And you know, because I was like in my mind I'm like I just blew all my family's money and you know all this stuff.
Speaker 1:Without alcohol going through your body and your liver and your kidneys and stuff. It'll literally kill you, dude.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, yeah, and so.
Speaker 2:You're just beating yourself up, you're totally. You're basically at the place where you're like F it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, I got to ask you a question. Damn what? Because something you keep talking about, this inner self, right, what is it you're trying to run from? What is it you're trying? I mean, I know you're trying to escape yourself, but what is it within you that you're trying to get away from? You know, I don't. Did you ever find out what that?
Speaker 4:was, you know, that peace that I have today only? Came from jesus, yeah and it was um, you know, I think it was just a lot of it just being once I started to mess up shame like an ocean of guilt well, you said it, I just wasted all my parents money.
Speaker 2:You yourself did good because you did good in the program, you weren't getting high at the ranch. So this is the first 90 days you'd been clean.
Speaker 1:And he said he felt God when he was there, so he already had this encounter of the feeling of God.
Speaker 2:You felt new Dang bro.
Speaker 4:And so you know guilt man, that'll put a root, if any of you guys experience guilt you know, go to the Lord Jeez. I thank the Lord for having that altar. You know, even just you know, lord, just forgive me right now.
Speaker 1:And even apologizing and making men's and daily inventory, that stuff keeps you, keeps you right Keeps you right, it sure does, bud, but yeah, we have this saying at our CR and it's You've got to feel it to heal it.
Speaker 2:You've got to feel it to heal it. Bud, Shame hurts.
Speaker 1:Shame and guilt. It's the worst feeling in the world, but if you will allow it to have its place, because that shame and the guilt is like a check engine light.
Speaker 2:It's an indicator that something is not okay.
Speaker 1:But we don't see it that way. We feel it as a way to drive us deeper into. I've got to hide this. I can't tell nobody. See it that way, we feel it as a as a way to drive us deeper into.
Speaker 2:I gotta hide this. I gotta hide this.
Speaker 1:I don't want to feel this but in reality it's a check engine light to say hey, your motor is not running right, ding ding let's do something different. You know what I mean so if we have that I mean if there's somebody listening who's dealing with that that's not a bad thing.
Speaker 2:It's a check engine light to say god's highlighting it for're doing is not of a benefit for you.
Speaker 1:It's time to turn and do something different. You know what I mean. Thank you. But a lot of times it pushes us deeper into addiction, deeper into alcohol.
Speaker 2:Isolation Yep.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and so from there, I Thanks for sharing that. By the way, no thanks for when you asked like well, what was it?
Speaker 1:And I was like man shame.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like that just feeling just of of freedom came over me again, of like man god is is. It's a. It's a real feeling, so awesome. You guys probably saw that feel. I felt I could see it. Yeah, I was like man trying to hold back a tear.
Speaker 4:Right there we have this really good friend who's?
Speaker 1:still trapped in addiction and because I believe every time he gets clean he lost two two boys to the system because he couldn't get clean. Yeah, and I think every time he gets clean he feels that shame and that guilt of what he did to those kids and it pushes them right back into addiction to it and we've tried.
Speaker 2:I mean we can't, we can't help, we can't help nobody.
Speaker 1:Only god can, but we try to point them in the right direction or help them get to the right places, yeah, but that shame and guilt is Keeps them stuck. It's a driving force behind darkness. Dude, it really is.
Speaker 4:And I'm sure there's some fear there too, and the enemy likes to play off of all that stuff. Oh yeah, man, and I was weak, you know, because all this programming, but without really like, I went to church and I experienced the, the presence of god, yeah, but I wasn't. You know, like I said, I didn't have that indwelling of the spirit yeah and so like that's, that's just like a target right a lot of times.
Speaker 2:That's how god will meet somebody yeah is literally let them feel him. Yeah, but that's why a lot of pastors and leaders and people say you can't walk by feelings in this, because God will let you feel him, but then you will start feeling a bunch of other stuff and then we make choices on how we. It's just, but that's a lot like dad.
Speaker 1:And then we start searching that feeling, the feeling, the experience of that feeling, instead. Of searching God. You know what I mean. There's people who will church hop trying to find that feeling.
Speaker 2:I've done it, I've got to go find where the Spirit is. They're chasing revivals, you know what I mean?
Speaker 4:He's right here, right now.
Speaker 2:Amen.
Speaker 4:It's just when we become aware of his presence. It's happening, he's everywhere.
Speaker 1:The best thing God ever did for me was to understand that I can have his presence anywhere. Yeah, it's not a church, it's not a certain pastor, it's not a certain worship song. Yeah, if I'm literally in my filled with his spirit. Yeah, his presence is always with me. Yeah, I just have to like tap into it.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean tap in but for the longest time I would do that with church hop looking for that next experience of holy spirit, because he's somewhere pastor gus, fire and water was one that we would drive from way out in queen creek all the way to phoenix so we could feel god, because pastor gus brings it, bro. He brings fire, man. You leave that place like man, god was God?
Speaker 1:was there, dude? We used to get people off the streets, bro, and that was the first place we would take them.
Speaker 2:Fire and water Fire and water.
Speaker 1:You need to come here and experience this, because you're going to feel God yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay. So you're in the park, you're shooting up vodka Right, and somebody from the freaking Newport home sees you, yeah, and knows you because you've been in the program and picks you up because you're going crazy in the streets Right, and so I'm at this hospital and, you know, depressed and they're like doing like a psyche valve, because who does that?
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 4:And I'm just like thinking to myself who does that? Yeah, and I don't.
Speaker 3:I don't see a way out.
Speaker 2:I don't know where how even up is going to start.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but you know it's real and um, so so they, they start calling. I, I think my parents started calling again. They're like hey, they even called the, the, that ranch, the program. Like hey, this is our son.
Speaker 2:Like you trying to get you back in. Could you take him back?
Speaker 4:and they're like well, you know it's, we kind of operate off of money you know, and, and I don't think they even had it right, you know, at that time, you know um because it was expensive bro, it's newport and so one of the guys that was just like a leader or a brother there, um, just got his license and and he's I still contacted him today.
Speaker 4:really, he's a truck driver in LA and he had a testimony. You know his family growing up through gangs and stuff and Brother Ralph, if you watch this you know and he left.
Speaker 1:Get a hold of us. Yeah, brother, we want to get your testimony.
Speaker 2:Come and stay with Craig man? Certainly yeah.
Speaker 4:So he pulls up in a little honda car or something. He says look, I know this place in santa ana and they, they give real knuckleheads a chance over there. And he's like if you mess this up, you know.
Speaker 4:And uh, he's like but I'm gonna drive you there and this is this is like, uh, from riverside to santa ana is a good, it's a good drive, you know something like that, down the 91 and we're driving and and we're not even sure that they're gonna take me, yeah, and he's just by faith, because he's like man, you know he wants, he wants to do that 12 step.
Speaker 4:He wants to hand, you know. So we're driving and we get to this house, uh, it's the pat moore foundation in in santa ana and they're like, yeah, what? Yeah, what's wrong with you? And he's like, look, this kid is like a mess, you know. And so and it was kind of a joke for the guy who, phil Allen, was the director there at that time- who did your intake? And he was like I love this kid you know he's like I love it. He's like well, you're going to start answering phones.
Speaker 4:You're going to do people's intakes. You're going to sit in on groups and we would get on these groups and he'd be like you see, this guy right here he's like this is a real addict, right here, you know. He would say like you guys are like weekend warriors or something.
Speaker 2:He's like this guy has has really been through the ringer and you know, look what he's doing and he would like point me out and point me out and, uh, you know, just that alone, just that alone for somebody that's coming out of what you've came out of it. Actually, some people may look at that like well, why would they do that to you?
Speaker 2:but it's actually a good thing for us because it lets us know like, oh wow, what I'm doing is actually good and maybe I'm able to help some people I can help some, yeah, and service was like a huge game changer for me at that point in life. Was the Pat Moore or the rant? Were either of these 12 steps?
Speaker 4:Okay, so the ranch was 12 step. Okay, pat Moore was With God, with.
Speaker 2:God, it was optional. So the ranch was 12 step. Okay, pat Moore, with God, with God, it was optional.
Speaker 1:Just one counselor. He took us to church one day. It wasn't like Teen Challenge, oh, okay, it was hey, who wants to go to church this Sunday?
Speaker 4:I raised my hand yeah, I wanted to get off campus and check it out right.
Speaker 2:That's what we did, and I was like whoa, you know.
Speaker 4:And so, but the Pat Moore Foundation was a Christian based program, gotcha, but, but there was there, was it really like? It was like kind of like a worldly Christian. We went to CR or something, okay.
Speaker 2:And, but they really Way back then.
Speaker 4:They didn't, they didn't push it Okay, Like that. And and I was Because right now we're talking.
Speaker 2:You're born in 83,. You're in your twenties.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so this is beginning of early 2000s, so my, my twenties to about 25 in Santa Ana. Okay, um ran it managed, ended up managing a sober living home for the foundation Sneaking out.
Speaker 2:Oh, I was getting just getting ready to ask Are you sober?
Speaker 4:And and doing my best. Um, every Just getting ready to ask Are you sober? And doing my best? You know I would do really good, really good. I had a sponsor and his name is Roy. I still haven't been able to find him now, but he would make me Craig. You're going to sell donuts at church. You're going to come to church, we're going to do these classes, and you're going to what classes? And you're going to clean the fridge.
Speaker 2:Roy wasn't a motorcycle rider, was he no?
Speaker 4:So he would. When I was in his house, I'd be up in my room windows drawn, door shut, worldly music on the radio, laying in the dark just trying to hang on from leaving, and he would go up into the stairs and I could hear him and he would knock on the radio, laying in the dark just trying to hang on from leaving. And he would go up into the stairs and I could hear him and he would knock on the door and he'd be like Craig, and I'd be like yes, and he'd be like it's time to scour the sink. And I'm like scour the sink. What does that mean? You know what? And he'd go downstairs and he'd show me how to do it and he'd be like, now, this is how you. It just means scrub it really hard.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I didn't know time to clean man and so he's showing me how to scour the sink. And he didn't like pick on anybody else to do this stuff. But you know, I was first to volunteer for these things. And he'd say and I guarantee, while you're doing this you're gonna stay sober Right.
Speaker 2:And I would do it. I would do it, I would scrub it. I'm staying sober, all right, you know, and I'd go, he's getting you out of your head.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I'd go up to my room and I'd close the door, turn on the radio, shut the blinds and I'd just try to hold on you door and say, craig, it's time to clean out the refrigerator. And he really taught me about being of service and I would go to this church.
Speaker 4:It's the cross crossroads church in Newport beach uh, Costa Mesa borderline right there, Um, and I'd go to this church and I'd sell donuts, I could feel the power of God and and it was like a mega church so I could kind of sit in the back and just watch and I liked the music and I loved that tingly feeling, the atmosphere shift and where I was out in the world just trying to hang on for dear life being in the church, and I'm like this is what's up, right here yeah, bud.
Speaker 4:But then after church I'm selling donuts and I'm looking at the money and I'm looking how far I can run. And if I can get away from Roy like that, you know that feeling.
Speaker 2:And it's like a double minded. So what I've heard a couple of times, it's literally a self sabotage and a self destruction. Yeah, you do good for so long and then, right Almost, it's literally it's for me, I, I went, I went through this for me. It was a fear of success, almost. Yeah, we're so used to failure, we're so used to bad, having nothing and being nothing and worthless, and that that when we start to do good, it actually opportunities come. Yeah, people start looking at a responsibility. Yeah, and it's like we don't know what we're getting ourselves into. So we go back to us.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of times. When we start to get that success, we start to think well, the fall's coming yeah, that shoe's gonna drop. So let's just go do it now and get it out of the way, because it's coming, and so, instead of waiting for it to happen, we make it happen yeah, and I'd be.
Speaker 4:And then I you know, I you know this, this, this man roy, he nothing, I mean, he was just uh, you know um, he was just a.
Speaker 2:Christian.
Speaker 4:He knew God Very, yeah, christian man Um very monotone, nothing really kind of worked, a normal job.
Speaker 1:This time, and I seem pretty good, though, but what's that? His timing always seemed pretty good.
Speaker 4:Yes, yeah, he was, he was, uh, he was really looking out for me you know, and in your head that he would come and knock on the door. Yeah, and and isolation. He knew every time you went to your room, you, what you were doing. He's like I gotta go get this kid out of there and so I'm I'm working at the the center during the day, I'm going home at his house at night and we're doing like prayer in the morning and oh, you're working at the pat ford foundation.
Speaker 2:I'm, I'm, I'm doing intakes I'm are they paying?
Speaker 4:you, uh, they. I don't think they were paying me Okay.
Speaker 2:At some point.
Speaker 4:They'd give me a couple bucks, but they didn't want me to have cash.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this guy right here, you know. So they're like this guy, they say he's the real addict.
Speaker 1:Right yeah, so I'm there.
Speaker 4:You ever take the donut money no no but. I remember someone would give me a 20. I'm like I'm selling 50 cents of donuts right now. So figuring change and then feeling really embarrassed that I'm going to go too slow or have to think it too hard. These people are just trying to get a cup of coffee and a donut. They're not tripping on me.
Speaker 2:During this time, because it sounded like you're there for a few years.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Were you ever needy? Did you ever needy? Did you ever need anything? Or did you? Were you at a place where you literally were provided for and had food and had clothes and no, had a bet? You had everything you needed. I did really you know, that they.
Speaker 4:They took really good care of me and even I would fall and I would disappear and, and when, when, when I would come back. They're like there's a room right there.
Speaker 2:No way, and this was a place that they scholarship me to this place?
Speaker 1:No way, bro. Would you come back on your own, or would somebody have to come get you?
Speaker 4:It was pretty much on my own Wow.
Speaker 1:It was pretty much on my own, so you knew you had a good thing there.
Speaker 4:Yeah, wow, that was home, that was home for me Wow, I, I, it was, that was home, that was home for me. Wow, and um, you know, and they never really, they never really like beat me over the head Like hey, they're just like hey um they were just loving you, that's all.
Speaker 2:You were used to that. They were like you were waiting to get kicked out or dismissed. That's all you know. It's like you've lived with it with your father.
Speaker 4:They showed me the love of christ. Come on buddy and um, and but still like the, the indwelling is what I was missing. I was the part to where I was.
Speaker 4:Like jesus, be lord of my life yeah let's go to god's house and and go hang out for a little bit and feel good, and then you know, go and you know live like hell. You know it's real bro and but uh, but I I at one point pulled together about a year of sobriety and anything I'd kind of build up if there's. It all just came kind of shaking down like the spinning plates kind of thing, because I didn't. I didn't have the counselor.
Speaker 4:I didn't have the Lord like that, and I would love to sit here and look you guys in the eye and say that that's where it happened, but it didn't. It did not happen there in my life you know I had a whole nother season of of crime and and, and, uh, you know I through a divorce and and all the stuff.
Speaker 2:You know I have a daughter oh, you had kids at this point. Well, there was a girl later on, okay, later later on, okay this is.
Speaker 4:This is where okay you know, I I got married and I I had a daughter. I was kind of like subduing my addiction through drinking and you know, just trying to.
Speaker 2:Is this while you're at the Ford Center? No, pat Moore.
Speaker 4:So I left Pat Moore Okay.
Speaker 1:How long were you there? What total? So I was?
Speaker 4:thinking about 25, probably about right there 25 years old so 18 to 25?
Speaker 3:So about 20 to 25 five years I think it gets a little blurry, oh yeah I'm right in the zone yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:And because I do remember my 21st birthday, when it was, I was able to drink and I was in a sober place and, and you know, I remember thinking, well, I've never been to a bar before. Maybe go try that out you know and then thinking like, hey, I want to buy a drink and I had $7. They're like you can't buy a drink with that and I was like.
Speaker 1:Well, whoever I was, you know.
Speaker 4:But, like I said, I wish I could say it ended there. But I wound up at the Santa Ana Mission, which it's longer there. Yeah they, I went by there just to see it and I was the youngest kid out there, the youngest person out there. These are grown men, been on the streets all this for years the mission is where the homeless are, and yeah yeah, and you can.
Speaker 4:You can get a. Um, you can get a ticket in the morning. It goes by number and by that number they'll let you in the shower and get you some clothes, wow, and so I'm out in the streets. You know, 24 making plays, the best I knew how. I'm learning the stuff that nobody should learn, yeah, from people that you shouldn't trust and learning the hard way and um and get these shower tickets and and they let you in and at night you get your.
Speaker 4:You know your entry to this mission and there's a bunch of beds on the floor and the people that were running this mission, they would stop me and they're like, how old are you? And I would tell them. They're like, what are you doing out here? And I'm like, well, you know, and I would give them some story that I had to be out there or something like that.
Speaker 4:They say we have cameras outside and we see what you're doing and we see who you're hanging out with and if you're like this tomorrow, we're not going to let you in.
Speaker 2:And I'm like yeah, right.
Speaker 4:You know, and, and it came to a point to where, um, where I'm there, going in, they stay like wait, you, you, you smell like you've been drinking. You know, and, and, and I would say, well, half the people here have been drinking, I'm sure, and they said no, but we told you, if you were hanging out with these people and doing this, we're going to let you in, wow, and then, so I'm like even more people bud that cared, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, and I feel like I'm like burning the spot.
Speaker 4:You know, yeah, for me to be able to go in there. And um, my, my dad pulled up. It was december and um, and I hadn't, I hadn't used anything that morning, but I had something in my pocket. And he pulls up, uh, with with his wife at the time and he, he, I could just see like the, the hurts, I see like the confusion, I see the pain on his face. My dad, he wore every emotion on his face, you can see it. And he's like well, it's coming up to christmas. He's like do you want to spend christmas indoors at my house or do you want to be out here? And he's like, you know, like, and um, wow. And I said like, you know, know, I'll go with you.
Speaker 4:I guess, wow, you know, but he lived in Yuma at that time, oh, wow.
Speaker 2:And so we're not in Huntington Beach anymore.
Speaker 4:No, no, he had moved, you know, for he was a truck driver. He took a different route and got a house and stuff, and so I, so we were, we go to watch a movie, go to eat something. And he, I hadn't.
Speaker 4:I hadn't used anything at that point, but I had something in your pocket and, and I didn't even really know what it was, and um, and I just knew it was some sort of pills. And so we go to watch this movie and I get up to go to the restroom. I take these pills. Why?
Speaker 2:just because, like they were in like what am I supposed to do at that?
Speaker 4:point.
Speaker 4:You know, it was just that that thing and and and maybe I was expecting that. He was gonna be like get out of the car, you know. So I'm coming out of the movie and he looks at me and he's like. He's like, are you okay? Like what you know I'm? I'm just really tired. And we drove that drive from Santa Ana, california, to Yuma, arizona, and he's like look, you're going to stay in my house, you're not going to leave anywhere. And it was Yuma. I don't know if you guys have ever been to Yuma.
Speaker 4:It's like and I'm in the foothills so you're not really walking anywhere there's nothing out there. He's like you're going to stay here 30 days inside the house watch TV, you know.
Speaker 2:Eat, sleep, just chill and.
Speaker 4:I did, I did. He had a little computer in his spare bedroom and you know I'm on like MySpace and you know stuff like that Kind of burning some of the time off, and you know I had a couple rebellious moments. I took his truck to buy cigarettes or you know something like that, and I think he was more concerned about me just leaving and disappearing than anything, because this is the same guy that came with his brothers to get you out of Fresno.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and you know, like I said even back then, I wish I could tell you all that that was the end of it there, you know, but it wasn't, you know.
Speaker 2:If you have any shame or guilt or remorse or any of that, because it's taken you all these times to get, don't let that. Don't listen to that lying devil bro, this guy right here.
Speaker 1:The Lord came to me. The Lord came to me in 96. In prison right, and I didn't surrender until 2005, 2006. So almost 10 years I wrestled with.
Speaker 2:God. But that was salvation, I think, real surrender until just this past couple years bud, so it takes people time, dude, I'm jealous of people that have burning bush moments where it's an instant transformation and life just changes for them.
Speaker 1:For some of us it's a process, bro. You know me it's stinking thinking bud this damn thing right here, it takes time to transform. I had this session last night with some people and they were talking about, uh, the programming, you know? I mean, our minds are literally like a computer dude, we get programmed, yeah, and unfortunately you can't just go in and rewrite a program in your mind like you can a computer. It takes time to really just rewire, remove what was programmed.
Speaker 1:Replace it with. You know the word of god. It takes time to get that rewiring and that process changed. Um, so it does take time, brother, you know I mean yeah what is it?
Speaker 2:the renewing of the mind. It's how he transforms us in a new creature. It's all through our thoughts. Yeah, okay, so you're.
Speaker 4:You're in your late 20s and, um, you know it comes time. You know, hey, I want to, I want to get a job, I want to work, and I think he was kind of welcoming it that at that point, you know, and uh, and I lied on my resume and got a job as a cook okay, I'm just barely in the kitchen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm just barely learning how to cook.
Speaker 4:Now, yeah, and I love you, buddy, and so I I get in this kitchen and it's for an um, an elderly, senior citizen. I don't remember how many residents were there, but it was a bunch oh, wow.
Speaker 2:And you're preparing large meals, so big meals.
Speaker 4:Wow, you gotta be on time, and I don't I never I mean like this, this is not all on you, though it's so I get there and the lady who hired me she's like okay, so this is the menu and and here's a clipboard go around and ask everybody there's two options on each meal, what you want you have the burger or the sandwich, or you have the yeah and um, and so I go into the rooms and and uh, and she's remember to speak loud because these are so I go there like hey you know and um I got perfect for you still now, I love meeting people.
Speaker 2:I love you, know all that stuff and so um.
Speaker 4:So I was getting a kick out of it and and so I would take everybody's order and and and meet these people and did?
Speaker 2:did the fact that it was with older people did that? Because you spent a lot of your earlier life with older people, grandma, so did that was that kind of maybe healing for you?
Speaker 4:you know the fact that it was I think I've just always had that reverence, yeah, because of my granny. Uh, for um, for, for elderly people and even today still, like you know, I, I just uh, you know, I, you know bro, you just told me you're trying to help an 84 year old man, yeah, so I could I see that that's, it's your heart for the elderly bro so, um so.
Speaker 4:So this lady, she was there, and just one day it wasn't very long since I'd been there she's like look, um, I'm moving out of state and and you, you got it from here, buddy, and and I remember going, going to work early in the morning to cook this breakfast and I'm, and I'm still learning, like where's the spatulas being kept at um? Stainless steel freezers all down, where is this? How? Do I defrost a roast.
Speaker 2:Yeah, buddy, you know all these things.
Speaker 4:And I'm looking at this cookbook and I'm like I'm going to defer from the menu, you know. And so I'm cooking these things the best I can. I'm putting olives in soup and weird stuff, but the people were loving it At least they were telling me they were loving it. I don't know if they had back there, like this guy really can't cook who changed out to cook man.
Speaker 4:And so at this time I'm earning some money and obviously I'm sure the people there knew that this dude's probably in recovery or something and he's just cooking away. But the community loves him and they like him, so we'll keep him on.
Speaker 2:So you're living at Dad's and you're working at this place.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And you're showing up to this place early in the morning and you're probably there all day.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'd be there for two meals a day, either breakfast or lunch or lunch and dinner, and they had another cook. That would come when I wasn't there and riding my dad's little Honda Elite scooter.
Speaker 2:It was just a little tiny Honda scooter. Yeah moped, yeah moped.
Speaker 4:Maybe a mile and a half to this place, so it was close by it worked out good.
Speaker 2:At least you didn't have to walk.
Speaker 4:Yeah yeah, and so from there, you know, I met my ex-wife. Oh, so this is where the girl came in, she lived in the neighborhood there, close by, and it was easy to visit.
Speaker 2:By the center or by dad, by my dad's, okay.
Speaker 4:And she was from California and you know, and we got along really well. The problem was that you know, I have this really bad drug problem and you know, I know that there was drinking and drugs going on in her circle and stuff and she would smoke and it wasn't long till that.
Speaker 2:I just you know. Hey, Join the party, Join the party. Yeah, buddy.
Speaker 4:You know, and nothing against her whatsoever. You know, it wasn't her deal, it was me.
Speaker 2:We make our choices.
Speaker 4:It was me, so I'm not trying to put my blame on any of that, I'm on them, amen. And in fact I tried to hide that side of me. I would try to do in moderation and not because the last thing I want to do is find out.
Speaker 2:Do in moderation and and not the last thing I want to do is find out. Hey, this dude likes to end up at the mission, or you know, this is this is yeah, and.
Speaker 4:But she knew. She knew um kind of a little bit that I had a past in it. It's uh, it wasn't short. After that I took my money from cooking at the kitchen and got my own place there in the foothills, rented a little home. She moved in, we got married and the gravity.
Speaker 2:How long, how quick was that? Were you talking a year.
Speaker 4:So sober for 30 days, probably at about a year of that, I was, you know, making my moves to kind of exit dad's house and kind of wanted to have freedom.
Speaker 1:Up until the girl, were you sober Outside of drinking?
Speaker 4:I think so. I'm pretty sure I was. I'm like 100% sure I was up until then and because I was like at home base.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're at dad's man.
Speaker 4:And you know I went through a dating period where I was dating. You know um dating girls and and is that?
Speaker 2:is dad the one that paid for you to go to the rehab center?
Speaker 4:uh, he, I'm sure he he definitely ponied up a lot of his portion of it took. It took multiple family members to pay them wow and um. You know what we? We got that place, um got married and you know it wasn't very long for the job that I was working and um, um selling marijuana. All you know like, not just like the little bits yeah like it would show up at the house at jimmy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it would show up at the house. That's you, my bud.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it would show up at the house and it was gone before it got there and, um, people just come and pick it up and yeah, it was just like what is going on in my life already. Again some more and um damn now.
Speaker 2:The house that you're owning with your wife is now a drug, you know having having a roommate, come and have to.
Speaker 3:Hey, where's the money for rent?
Speaker 4:And and stuff just happened out there that you know where I was. I was getting into crime and it's a small neighborhood and it wasn't long till small town, so yeah, there ain't many opportunities. Things were were you know coming back to to, um, you know consequences coming back. People knew I was out there doing you know coming back to. You know consequences coming back. People knew I was out there doing you know doing some dirt.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:You know, and Robbing robbing houses.
Speaker 2:So yeah, so.
Speaker 4:I got hit soon after that. After you know people find out hey, this guy's getting stuff. Yeah, he's going places, yeah, doing things, and so that was kind of a huge hit for me that you know I wasn't having a bank account and all that stuff, and so you know, rent money's gone, um, you know I'm not working, the drugs were gone and um, so we, we were just trying to figure out what to do from there.
Speaker 4:And it kind of went a couple. You know, I worked at a golf course and moved in with her mom for a bit and then we wound up back in California. My daughter was born.
Speaker 2:And really trying to make it work trying to figure out some way to where.
Speaker 4:I wanted a family At that point. It's time to grow up, have a family obviously you know and you're 28 yeah and um, I might have been. I don't, I don't really this part. You know I'm not too sure okay but somewhere probably right in there and and so so I get this job at um working aerospace whoa um making government jet engine houses. A family member of my ex-wife at the time, or my wife at the time. Her family worked there. They got me this job.
Speaker 2:It's amazing job yeah, I'm like how the hell did you get that? And I'm the guy that just was pretending to cook.
Speaker 4:Now I'm making right you know, yeah, and so just making it happen. Wow, got a, got a car. You know, got tax money came, put it down on a car, making a car, putting stuff together. And as soon as I would come home from work, um, at the place we're staying, it was just like you know, uh, hard liquor drinking contest and uh, what's that game with the little guitar?
Speaker 2:yeah, um, I forget what remember the one that kade used to play the colored guitar. Yeah, dude, and so people are doing that, people crashing on the floor.
Speaker 4:It wasn't my place you know, and it was not very long after that that I, you know, started taking pills and drinking, and it was just you know.
Speaker 2:When you say taking pills because the pills nowadays are way different than the pills, back then, yeah, it wasn't that. When you say taking pills because the pills nowadays are way different than the pills, back then yeah, it wasn't that. It wasn't that, it was like the Oxys, it was.
Speaker 3:Perks probably. Yeah, it was yeah, Percocets things like that.
Speaker 4:And that and drinking wasn't good and I was really just trying to keep the beast, the dope, you know from going to the big stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, buddy, I know stuff.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I know, yeah, uh, you know, because I didn't. I didn't want anybody to to see that I didn't want to be, you know, but I'm so I'm just trying to to kind of like you know, and it wasn't yeah it wasn't long that you know a marriage not centered in christ is is not gonna not gonna work you know, and it didn't
Speaker 4:unless he wanted to drink and stop involved man and so she left with my daughter and she went to move back to Yuma with her mother and, um, I was at a point in my life I'm like, well, I got this job, I, you know, I have this car, I can't, um, you know, I can't go out there, you know, and, and so I tried to do the car and the job and, uh, lost the job and got another job at fedex, um, fedex freight and and still, you know, couldn't keep that together and and dating and all this stuff. Um, to where I was, at a point where I was, I was like, what am I? What am I doing? This for it's I don't, and my daughter's gone. I'm not married anymore. I'm an adult. Um, you, it's time for me to do, do what I do. And I, I just took a dive, took a big dive and another effort.
Speaker 4:It was like anything goes anything anything goes and and whatever happens happens and, um, you know, I, I, um, I just, I just took as as much drugs one night as I could possibly do and I got in my car and I just started driving and I started driving faster. I started driving faster and in my mind I'm like seeing technicolor and nothing's real. I'm thinking people's chasing me and I have to. You know, um, I even thought that I was. You know, it was just really, uh, what they call like drug-induced psychosis, running people off the car, off the road.
Speaker 4:And this is in, uh, ukaipa, california, on my way to hemet, and I'm on the lambs canyon. There's a canyon right there. I'm going like uphill, over 100 miles an hour in a car that one of my cousins gave me I didn't even put in my name yet because I'm a bonehead and I lost control and spun out and thank god I didn't hit anybody, but I was going towards that edge that goes off the cliff into the into the thing and I'm like this is it, I am dead.
Speaker 4:I I'm this is it? This is the moment I remember even saying like well, this is it, something like that, right. And I hit the, the embankment. It's got that metal guardrail and the wood, the big chunks of wood, and I'm thinking I'm going up and over and I hit that thing and spun out and everybody stops and everybody that was like around that see me coming through. They're like this dude's dead, this guy's dead, and um, and I get out of the car and I'm holding my head uh, no t-shirt, maybe 130 pounds maybe um t-shirt, board shorts, sandals.
Speaker 4:Um holding my head bleeding and I'm like directing traffic and not thinking like this is abnormal and it wasn't shortly at the sheriff pulls up yeah and they're like this guy you know, I opened the door and I I got in the back of his car and he's like get out, like what are you doing in my car?
Speaker 4:I just knew I was going to jail, yeah, and fire yeah and so they, they took me to jail, dui, and um they released me and um, I had to come back. So I went back, I went to yuma and stayed with a friend that I had there and um, you know, he gave me uh, there was a little trailer on the back of his property. We're out there in the sand, in the foothills again.
Speaker 4:You're in the fifth wheel and I'm just like no hope, Damn bro and just trying to act like I'm happy and seeing anybody is not in the picture. But I ended up having to go back and do do my my time for dui in california and, uh, that was my first kind of jail experience, to where it's like I need to grow up and learn how to grow up. How much time did you have to do? Um? So I got fed, kicked there because it over population.
Speaker 4:This was a banning road camp. It was a giant airplane hangar and there was just bunks all through it and there was separated by race and and, uh, I did 30 days before they fed, kicked me out, wow, and, and I was released on probation and I had classes and stuff and I knew I was never going to make that and it was. I'll just go back to human, figure it out later. They catch me, they catch me and um, and, and so, yeah, so I had that little bit of experience, but you know, um still was on my downward spiral and continued to go to jail, continued to to you had no hope, man yeah, you had nothing.
Speaker 4:And in that time in Yuma it was. If you look at my, my police record, it's like Yuma, yuma, yuma.
Speaker 3:Yuma, it was just it was just, I was you know, they knew you.
Speaker 4:It was. They knew you, it was getting bad.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:It was getting bad and Assault stolen bad and um assault, stolen vehicles and being in jail was no longer the fear of like oh, what's jail gonna?
Speaker 2:be scary it was it was like it wasn't that big a deal.
Speaker 4:It's a rest period right and and so I was doing these things and and, um, you know, I'm not proud of any of those, any of those things, and they're still on my record today and I still, every time I'm doing something in a background check, they got it. They're like well, what were you doing? And you, know, like you, have to say this is what I was doing, and you know, and, and if you know it's, it's, it's there and and um, but god is.
Speaker 4:God is faithful he's good, he's faithful, faithful, yeah, and uh. So it was a point there where the the judge, judge Stewart, in that little jail in in in Yuma, downtown Yuma, had got pretty much tired of seeing me. I'm sure I was doing like every time I'd go there it would be like 11 months just just to just keep me there, keep me out of trouble. I get out and I'd come right back and he's like I think you've done enough time on this stuff. Here we're going to let you out and determining how you act on pre-trial services, because I never would sign. I would like want to take a trial for little stuff and all that stuff and make a big deal about it.
Speaker 4:I didn't do it and depending on how you act on pretrial services will depend on your sentencing will determine your sentence.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:And I got up and got out. I went across the street and just started right back up again and thought that getting on a Greyhound bus to Minnesota, you know, run away up again and thought that getting on a Greyhound bus to Minnesota, um, and I just get a, get a you know a good, good amount of drugs with me and and start an empire or something I don't know what I was thinking, but you know, I I got on the Greyhound bus and I I made it to Dallas, texas, and all I had to do is just sit there and just hang out and wait for the next bus.
Speaker 4:But you know, I was there, I was paranoid and I was trying to steal luggage from Greyhound. That people you know.
Speaker 2:I don't know why.
Speaker 3:Cheap thrills maybe.
Speaker 4:And I ran from what I thought was the police. There was a helicopter and I wound up. Um, this is like december 4th or december 2nd or something. In downtown dallas. There was the hands up, don't shoot. Black lives matters uh, protest huge. There was thousands of people just going down the street. That's why the helicopter was there and I was all freaked out. And what better way to run from the cops than to join the protest? And people are throwing stuff and shouting.
Speaker 4:I I didn't even know where I was, what was going on, and um, and people are shaking cars. I'm shaking cars.
Speaker 4:I'm just, I'm just you know trying to be one of them, so they don't think I was the guy running and only like four people got arrested there, and I ended up being one of those four for obstructing a highway and, and you know, I was completely out of my mind and, you know, lost my luggage, my own luggage yeah, with the dope and drugs and all that stuff, jesus and, uh, I remember the phone, getting on the phone in in d Texas and calling my dad. I'm like Dad, I'm in jail in Dallas, texas. You got to help me and I wasn't really one to call and be like, hey, help me. I'm in jail, but I was like Dad.
Speaker 2:I don't know what the hell to do, man yeah.
Speaker 4:And the jail population there. They called me Snowflake. I was like the only one there wasn't a lot of k towers was the place and I was like dad, I don't, I don't really, you know, I don't really know what's going on. I don't know, I'm not even sure what's reality, but I know I'm in jail. And he said, son, I didn't even know you were out of jail in yuma, let alone to get arrested and put in jail in texas. What are you doing there?
Speaker 4:you know, damn, and um and so, um, it was your dad was a trooper huh he was he loved you, buddy and and, um, and, and you know it's just uh calling that pay phone, it's there. You could, you can call. And so I called mom and just tried to let everybody know where I was. But when I went back to yuma, judge stewart said depending on your behavior, what? What was that all about? Yeah, you know and so gavel uh, go to prison, uh, douglas prison on that douglas dad.
Speaker 2:Dad did some time in douglas and, uh, I was on the. When were you?
Speaker 1:over there. You were on the two yard. I was at the crack shack.
Speaker 4:I was at mojave 24.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay that was three yard. I was on the Hila. When were you over there? Hila, hila. You were on the two yard. I was at the Crack Shack. I was at Mojave 24. You were on Mojave, yeah, okay, that was three yard.
Speaker 4:I was on the softball side there.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And Now you're in the big boys and yeah, so it was, it was, and wound up in. I hear my cell phone.
Speaker 4:Right, which one of you got my?
Speaker 1:Vendover, and so so.
Speaker 4:I had like a bunch of back time already served from serving time there. So I wasn't there too incredibly long and before they let me out. And so what year was that? This had to have been like 2014, 13, somewhere around there, something like that. And um, and I got out, um, they definitely didn't want me to go back to Yuma, and so they're like there's no parole office in Yuma, you got to go to Phoenix.
Speaker 2:And uh, they wanted to make sure that I was not going. No friends or family in Phoenix.
Speaker 4:And that I was not going to you. No friends or family in Phoenix, yeah and um, and so they're like you're gonna get out and you're gonna go to this place and um, you now have an address to go to and this is where you're gonna go.
Speaker 4:Oh, so you're getting probated there, and so now you're on paper at this address, halfway house they put me at a halfway house I don't remember the name of it and I really wanted to do good and I think I got there, got my little car, took the bus, the shuttle bus, from Douglas to Tucson to Phoenix walked down in Van Buren and found this place somewhere in Glendale, literally walking through the heart of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah'm, but you like you said you wanted to do good it was.
Speaker 4:It was um I get there to my room and and did your time in prison get you sobered up? Yeah, I, I, I was straight um, you know, in prison. I did a lot of drawing really um um, you know, there was, there was. It was then again there kim's to play that. You know that race thing where I'm hispanic but I'm also white.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you guys don't play and then so people are like well, what, where are you going, you know? And I'm like well, I think I'm, I'm white, so I'm gonna, I'll go here, but I didn't really yeah you know um like politic and my best friend is a white dude named hernandez and um, so it was. It was. Sometimes you just catch a little bit of I have. I have my last name, just like blasted over my stomach.
Speaker 2:So you're hanging out with the white boys, with Gomez.
Speaker 4:So that got me into some fights, while you know, and I can't say I want them all cause there's some big people there. And I was, um, but, uh, but so that was my experience with that. You know it was a real thing and you know Douglas said there's harder prisons to go to.
Speaker 3:It was.
Speaker 4:I can't say that it was a total nightmare, because there's good people there and a lot of the people that I was running around with and stuff that I didn't know what happened to them. That's where they were. You know, they were there and and and then again you'll always meet somebody from that world in there.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and then we're on the yard and and, and you could hear people shouting, shouting and shouting and I'm like, oh no, what's this? You know, and, and you're supposed to always have somebody with you at all times, just to have your back.
Speaker 4:And so we go across to the spine where there's another field, and these people are shouting glory, glory, hallelujah. And then they're saying glory, glory, hallelujah, how wonderful you are. And so there's just like this cadence song that's going on. I'm like wow, I just kind of felt tears and you know, once again I, I'm feeling even though I'm there his presence.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but didn't have the indwelling in prison in prison, man. Is that, is that crazy, or what? No and I didn't attend or anything, but I knew, I knew like I was like whoa, that's that feeling, that's that's the lord I remember that and I remembered that, yeah that was the first place I ever felt the lord brother was in prison.
Speaker 1:The.
Speaker 4:Lord brother was in prison. Yeah, yeah, and you know, in prison, even when I was in jail, there was a time that somebody had hung himself in just a tier above me and they locked everything down, they investigated the whole place and who did walks and all that stuff. We were locked up 22 hours of the day, an hour to get out and shower, maybe clean. Clean your cell I was in a cell by myself, just because normally they would let you out, uh, during like social times or something but they weren't doing that and it was in in that cell, right there too.
Speaker 4:That, um, I found out like what, uh, like jail correspondence letters were and stuff, and not always like, oh, I jail correspondence letters were and stuff, and not always like, oh, I'm going to do this and do it and I'm going to read this. But I could like then again, I would, I would read or I'll do this, and it sounded really nice and good, but I didn't have any understanding. It says like the word of God is. It seems foolish to those that are perishing.
Speaker 4:You know it just wasn't my time, I think, but still I knew.
Speaker 2:I knew that that you know god existed, yeah so you put in a correspondence and ask for a bible.
Speaker 4:And got a bible and start reading you know back back in and this was numa, but in, in, in prison.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was just like everybody was was talking about jesus everybody gets saved in jail bud, it's because they want to be good. Get me out of this and I'll be good.
Speaker 4:God and you know there is a, you know the church is there.
Speaker 2:It's real.
Speaker 4:In prison. But, like I said, it just seemed foolish, you know.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 4:I might have even thought I was saved at that time.
Speaker 1:If you asked me.
Speaker 4:I probably said yeah, I'm saved. And it was, you know, being released from there and and when I got out I had my little list of phone numbers of people I thought might be my friend in phoenix when I got there. And I got there and it was just an incredible list of things I could do to hustle money and and, and you know, back at the halfway house. You mean, no, the halfway house. I lasted there like two nights because my roommates were already using they had the whole set up.
Speaker 2:It's real bud.
Speaker 4:And I ended up using and then not wanting to come back. I missed, like the mandatory meeting.
Speaker 3:And then they knew, like this dude's got to be high because he missed the meeting.
Speaker 4:And then they knew like this dude's got to be high because he missed the meeting, and then so I was out, you know, van Buren, you know, not really, and under the influence already of methamphetamine, and looking, you know, and looking for what I called that little list. I'm looking for for what I called that little list and um, and if I would, I can't say friend, but somebody on that list acquaintance gave me a place to stay at a Winnebago off of like 37th Avenue and Van Buren that little fish and chips place.
Speaker 4:Um, stay here, you can work for us, we'll, we'll take care of you, you know. And it didn't get any better, it just got worse.
Speaker 4:It got worse and I'm wasting time, I'm burning. You know I'm burning these times. Church on the street has that little mission home right there very close to where that was, and someone there in that circle in that Winnebago is like, hey, I know this place, we'll go in there and we'll get some food and those guys will give us clothes, and so I would go in there every now and then and get some food and it had to be like those times.
Speaker 4:I was really tired or just really kind of worn out, and there was a guy in there and he's like. He's like whenever you're ready, he's like there's, there's something here for you. God's got a plan for your life. And I'm thinking this joker don't even know me.
Speaker 4:He doesn't even know that, you know, he doesn't know where I'm going or what I've been doing, and and I didn't back there and they would kind of speak life over to me and it never clicked into my mind. I met with Pastor Walt last year, I think it was, and I told him like hey, you know, I'm like this is where I used to go and thanks for that place, because this is and your guys are speaking life into me. And he's like amen, you know.
Speaker 4:But, God would put people in my life throughout my addiction men of God.
Speaker 4:And I listened to them and I didn't really know about the seed being planted, but it was the godly character in their life that always, like I call it like a bookmark in my mind, like I put a little bookmark in my memory. And when people say a saying and like what's a saying, it, uh, like what's a saying? It's like fool's names and fool's faces are always seen in public places. Right, that's like a saying. You remember it, I remember it now. But there's these sayings that they would say that I would remember it I remember now like just you know god's got a plan.
Speaker 4:You're a leader you know, you get more than overcomer all this stuff.
Speaker 2:So it doesn't matter how you start, it was always it was always in his plan for me to come to salvation.
Speaker 4:But, I just man, I just, I just didn't, I just didn't walk the path he had set out for me, I was. I was living the flesh, like I said, and you know my, my hand was beginning to rot off my arm. I have this big scar right here and um, like hand was beginning to rot off my arm.
Speaker 3:damn, I have this big scar right here and like sepsis or something so it was shooting dope in your hand, it was.
Speaker 4:It was um damn or I injured it um.
Speaker 4:You know, I don't I, I was doing something yeah, it's unclean out there and yeah, and so it happened, it started to get infected, but I I was, I didn't want to go to the hospital because I'm like running from probation, from parole, from all this stuff and and really not living a good life. Yeah, and it got to the part to where, you know, one of one of the people that I was hanging out with was, uh was like you need to go to the hospital because the way your hand looks, he's like I had a friend that had a finger like that and he lost his finger. Yeah, and um, you know, at that time I felt like I kind of landed in a place to where, um, you know, I had this, this, um, shipping container. It was like a, like a, like a c train thing that was behind a mechanic shop that was abandoned. I cut the lock on on it, I had all my stolen stuff in there and that was like my treasure room, to where, like, I'd go in there and I'd look at this stuff that I'd stolen and I thought that it made me feel better.
Speaker 4:You know, and this is where my secret place was. I was living at a drug house in Tempe. It's now, you know, the place is burnt now to the ground and the guy that, um, it was a. You guys might remember from the news, in tempe there was a shooting, uh, drug deal gone bad. A bunch of people shot in the face and um, police seized the property and all that stuff I was running amok in la victoria, so and and so this is there, but this is like uh, like apache and price yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2:Right there by the train tracks, yeah there's a.
Speaker 4:There's a. There was a house there, right it's not there anymore, and so all this stuff's going on, people dying, um, just just weird stuff going on. Weird, weird stuff going on and I wind up going to the Well. Now seems like a good time to go. You know I would go to my little storage area and nothing made me happy. I knew I didn't earn any of that stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, lost its luster.
Speaker 4:And yeah, and I felt like, well, I have nice shoes, I have nice things, and this is a, but nothing was fulfilling me, not even you know, the drugs.
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 4:You know the women? None of that stuff was, it was um. You know, it was nothing, it was just, it was time you know, I thought, I thought you know it was, it was the whole place and all that stuff, but it was me. You know it was me, like I. So I went to the hospital and they're like we're gonna have to cut off your hand, the, the. They said it was, they didn't.
Speaker 4:I didn't wait in the emergency room, they took me straight back oh, it was bad and um, and so they, they did a surgery, two surgeries on me, and I woke up. My hand was still there, but it was wrapped up and I didn't know. I didn't know if I was, how much of my hand was there yeah the infection was to the bone so they had to take out like some pieces of my out of the muscle and and um, and I'll here, I'll take off my watch so you guys could see.
Speaker 4:But for you, those watching online, uh, you know, it goes from the top of my knuckles, um, all the way up to back where your watch sits yeah, just hold right here and um, I went to, uh, um, like a, a center for, you know, people that are dying yeah like a like a home for like like a hospice, like, not like a hospice, but kind of like, for there's a bunch of old, older people yeah, infection in your blood yeah and and so I'm getting like uh, vanconiacin into my system oh, you need to care.
Speaker 2:You need to go to a care facility so they could care for you I needed like and not the hospital, but like um but like a hospital I remember what it was called.
Speaker 4:Maybe it might have been like a hospice, but I don't uh, but it was called. Shea park is the place and there's nurses that come yeah, they're clean.
Speaker 2:I had I had to go, so I got in a car accident and I had rods and screws in my legs and they're like I didn't have nobody to go to and so they had to send me to a rehab and well, that's what I was, that was for. It was, uh, california, the I had sepsis.
Speaker 2:Yeah, dude, it was literally a pimple on my knee that I popped in a men's home. Yeah, but because I popped it, the thing got inside me and I had sepsis and they cut me open knee open, like this it was crazy, bro, because they had a thing and I was supposed to be asleep, but I ended up waking up and I'm like what are you guys doing down there, dude? And they pull the blue thing around and I look at my knee and it's laid open.
Speaker 2:I'm like, can I have a picture of that please? No, yeah, I took a picture of it, dude, but yeah, no, we okay, so you got to go get cared for so even even then, in in that place, um, you know, there was a lady that would come and clean my hand.
Speaker 4:She's like hey, you're a leader, um, and and hey you're, you got as a plan for your life, oh, wow, and and more seeds it's.
Speaker 2:It's a miracle that you still have your hand so you had a godly nurse.
Speaker 3:And yeah, wow.
Speaker 4:And I still I'm just like okay, you know, and I was having visitors like my friends from the drug house that they were coming over and visitors that wanted to stay and then stay the night, and they're like hey, we have to cut your visits.
Speaker 2:And it was just a mess.
Speaker 4:I was probably like the worst patient and they gave me a list of places that I can go because they knew obviously I was a drug addict because I had a PICC line.
Speaker 2:People are coming over to visit and getting high Right.
Speaker 4:And misery loves company, and so I have this list of rehabs and they say anywhere you want to go after you're here, we're going to make sure we'll get you a taxi to go there. And you're here in the Valley yeah, I was in, like Scottsdale or something.
Speaker 1:I'm at this place and I'm there until I'm better. Like Johnson, lincoln or something.
Speaker 4:And so it's time to go. You know, I'm, I'm there, I'm I'm healthy. They were giving me percocets to for the pain, but I already said, I already told them, like, hey, like, don't let me leave with those things, you know I know myself, yeah, I know I know myself, yeah, and they're like, okay, well, today's the day, it's time to go where.
Speaker 4:just put on this paper the address you want to go to, to what program you want, and I don't know why. Just maybe because I wanted to go back and maybe see my stuff one more time, or I wanted to see, like, what was going on, what was going on in the neighborhood or something. Is I put the hotel right there on Apache and River? There's a hotel there on Apache and River? There's a hotel.
Speaker 2:There's a couple of hotels, bro, right there yeah.
Speaker 4:I put that address right there and the lady just kind of like shook her head and she knew she knew that like. I wasn't going to get help, I was going to the hotel right there.
Speaker 2:And the house I robbed and went to prison is right there at College in Apache. Oh OK, yeah, bro.
Speaker 4:Yeah, prisons right there at college in apache.
Speaker 2:Oh okay, yeah, bro, yeah and um so so I was going back to that area and at that time you know that that place was just, that place was all bad, all bad and um, and so I get there and and and everything's different.
Speaker 4:And you know, I get my welcoming hey, here's this and here's that, and welcome back, let's see your hand. And I was trying to still kind of like make my plays and do my thing, but I had like this feeling inside of me like you're not meant for this anymore. Wow, and nothing was really kind of connecting Right and and, like I said, my stuff wasn't, I wasn't happy with my stuff, or you know the, the people. And so I went to the, I went to the circle K on Alma school in Maine, just to just to I still I think I needed a couple more surgeries at the time, right, but I went to the Alma school in Maine and that's not really like my normal go-to spot. I'll just kind of try and like get away a little bit, just far enough.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's out of the way a little bit, you know, just want to go just far enough to where I'm not seeing anybody over there, yeah, Jumped on the light rail and then you see everybody, you see, jump off, let's go hang out. And um, and I'm sitting there and I'm looking at my my hand and it's all wrapped up, and I'm thinking about my life and I just looked up to the sky uh, 2016, uh, july 2016. And I look up to the sky and I said, god, if you have anything different for me than what I'm doing now, if you have anything different, anything better for me than what I'm doing now, just show me and I'll be willing to do it. And I was crying out to the Lord like for reals.
Speaker 2:Honestly, I was crying. This is the first time, the first time that you know You're at your end.
Speaker 4:It's now not looking for like just that God feeling. I'm like asking God, you know, I want if he could hear me. Yeah, if you're real Deep in my sin, yeah bud Deep in my sin and at my time of where you don't think some people would think, well, god's not going to hear me. Yeah, where you don't think some people would think, well, god's not going to hear me.
Speaker 2:He did, he did he really did.
Speaker 4:And I said, god, just show me what to do and I'll do it. And then this feeling came over me to where I stood up, and it was just like I felt something kind of break off of me. The chains of that neighborhood or that place and I got up and I I walked away from the people I was hanging with, uh, away from the drugs I was doing, away from the places I was living and going and all the things I was doing and I was. I was freed where'd you go?
Speaker 4:and so. So that's the thing is, I I didn't know where I was going, I just knew that my life was changing. Yeah, yeah, my life was changing, yeah, and so, but I still have, I still have drugs and and you know, a weapon and all sorts of things. And and I get on, get onto the light rail and I'm heading towards Phoenix. And I'm on on the light rail to Phoenix and a girl gets on that that knew me and she says, hey, um, where are you going? And and you know, do you have anything? And and I say, yeah, I do, but but I'm actually going somewhere now.
Speaker 2:And I'm, and normally I would have went, I would have went and did it.
Speaker 4:Yeah and um and so so I made it past that stop and she had got off and I kept going I'm, this is really weird, I'm really, I'm really going somewhere. Wow, and I knew it wasn't just some like drug psychosis or something because, I wasn't um, I wasn't like absolutely like that crazy at that time.
Speaker 1:You know, I just, I, just I just knew you had clarity that you were going somewhere and I I get to Van Buren you went to church on the streets, didn't you and I? I got off.
Speaker 4:I got off the light rail and I got on the bus and if I probably kind of knew the directions a little bit, better or maybe I didn't, maybe it didn't. I just wanted something different. You know, I wanted something different. And I'm on the bus and I what what's called CBI, right?
Speaker 2:But I I.
Speaker 4:I went there once in my addiction and I stepped in there. Somebody said that you can go there and and um, they'll give you know whatever I thought. And I stepped in there and sat down for a minute, not really know what I was there for. It wasn't to get sober, right. Um, somebody came in I think the police or somebody were holding this guy and he had like a from spice spice was like a huge epidemic back then.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and he was like convulsing from spice. He hit the ground and died and I was like that's it, I'm out of here, right. I stepped over guy laying on the ground and I I'm never going back there. But I was going back there and ran into somebody else on the bus and she said hey, do you have anything? Where are you going? And I said I think I'm going to detox right now. And and you know, but I do have something. Well, since you're going to detox, do you want to give it to me? I'm like, no, I don't think so. Let me get there first and see what happens.
Speaker 4:And I, I wind up at CBI and, um, my first attempt of of being there. You know they, you know there's a lot of people that are addicted and and they're trading stuff. And I had stuff and they, they're like you're gonna have to leave because you're not clearly not detoxing, um and and uh, but come back later or something. And I was like man, like just give me my stuff. And and I'm out of here and and knowing in my heart like I'm supposed to be changing right now, I know my life's changing right now. Why, why, why am I even here? And somebody stopped me and says hey, but don't you, don't you need housing? And I said yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, I want housing. And he says are you cool with a Christian program?
Speaker 4:And I'm thinking like something like the Pat Moore Foundation that gave me a job right away and you know keys and stuff. I'm like, yeah, send me there. And I went to this small men's home very similar to like Teen Challenge or Victory Outreach. They took me that night. They on the phone, I did an intake. They're like if you could walk a mile and hold a bucket. And uh, hold a bucket, pass out flyers, you're in candy and I'm like sure, whatever, whatever it is just just get me there and I I got there, phoenix community center and um, it was it was in maryville, it was uh phoenix restoration.
Speaker 2:Ravel, it was Phoenix Restoration Church. Phoenix Restoration Church. I think I may have seen you one time. I love seeing those dudes.
Speaker 4:So I get there.
Speaker 1:You get like three days grace.
Speaker 4:I'm in my room, I'm detoxing from heroin, I'm detoxing from hard drugs, and I don't want to come out of my room because if they know who they let in there, they're going to kick me right out. I'm going to say something, because if they know who they let in there, they're going to kick me right out. I'm going to say something these are church people.
Speaker 4:Now, I didn't know if there was politics there or what was going on but, I, knew that it was ran by the church and it would be similar to what I thought was like when I was in my 20s or teenage years and I didn't know if I was even helpable. But I would be there and I'd't know if that was, if I was even you know helpable but, I would be there and I'd lay in bed and they'd have this prayer time.
Speaker 4:They'd play music and you could hear people my age, problems, like mine, I didn't know at the time, but you could feel that presence that I was talking about.
Speaker 2:They're playing loud music, they're praying, people are you know, really praying, praying out loud, yeah, praying and warning.
Speaker 4:And I'm hearing they're like you are, you know, really praying, praying out loud, yeah, praying and warring, and I'm hearing they're like you know, and I'm like whoa, that is that is not for me like I don't know.
Speaker 2:I'm like where did I go? I didn't know.
Speaker 4:These people are all drunk and uh drunk in the spirit and it was, it was, it was, uh, it was, it was like okay, well, I'm better, I go, I really definitely I'm gonna stay in here as long as I can. Yeah, and people would go in there and like these were people that had been there for a couple you know months or so. They're like hey, god bless you, brother, you feeling, okay, how you doing checking on you, bro, and yeah and um, and I'm like I'm good, I'm, I'm all right and I would wait till everybody's asleep and I'd get out of my bed.
Speaker 4:I'm still sneaky, you know and um, because I'm hungry now and I'm I'm looking looking for like something to eat. I don't want to run into anybody, so I'm not going to the meals and all that stuff. And the home director at that time sees me up at night and he's like we don't let people just kind of walk around at night here. You got to go back to bed. He's like you don't have to go to sleep, but you have to go to your bed. I'm like, okay, I'll go to bed. And the next day he's like if you're good enough to be up at night, like that you can come to prayer. And they had these chairs kind of set up in these rows in the living room and they're like this is the sanctuary and I'm like it's the sanctuary, I'm learning these words and you know everything's. Hey, God bless you and my language was bad. And they're like you can't talk like that. You stop telling that story. No one wants to hear that story.
Speaker 2:Talking about worldly things and all these things was like a rebuke and I've never really seen this kind of structure before.
Speaker 3:Like there's prison, but it, but it was different prison.
Speaker 4:You could say whatever this is a good structure. So I'm there and it's prayer time and this battle starts happening. You know, might have been the first time in prayer, a second time, but I'm sitting next to a guy. He passed, this guy passed away, and God bless him too. Um, but he, he looks at me. He's like hey, we're going into prayer time. This is, you know, explain to me, this is between you and god. It's like we're a whole army, we're lining up right here on a battleground. You can't see it, but this is like a battleground and we're gonna, and, and so I'm like, I'm like, okay, you know, I'm just going, I'm just going along, I just don't want to be the weird guy, that's not doing what they're doing.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, yeah and um, and, but I knew I was sober and I made it through this, this detox, and and I'm not, you know and and and um. And it starts to happen where I'm thinking like, hey, you only have the clothes that you're wearing right now. You need to tell them that you need to leave and go back home and get your stuff. Yeah, because I was still like vain, like where I wanted to have my nice clothes.
Speaker 4:I need my shoes, my sunglasses, all the stuff that I had in that little lock away stolen place which was probably gone already. Yeah, uh, and that was the other thing. I'm like they're stealing my bikes, they're taking my stuff. You know, I'm gone, I've been gone for this long already and I wanted and I I'm thinking, if I go back there, I'm not, I'm not gonna come back no, you wouldn't have, and so he's like just you know it's between you, you and god, just say say what you have to say.
Speaker 4:And and I'm trying to listen to what other people are saying and and people are praying in tongues and that was really kind of like it's new to me yeah and so I'm, I'm praying and I said, god, if, if you know, I know, I know you heard my prayer and I, I, if you could hear my prayer, I I don't want to go back to where I was, I don't want to go back to what I was doing, and you brought me here, if, if, if, you could just bring me some clothes. Um, you know, that would be, that'd be cool, because they but like they were either too big or too small.
Speaker 4:And I'm still like all messed up. And so we prayed for like an hour and I think I was. I didn't pray the whole hour because I didn't know what to say. Now I can pray. You know, you pray forever and continuously. They say to pray, and after prayer time there was a bible study and after that someone knocks on the door and and, and I can look, you guys both in the eye, I know that there was somebody there holding two trash bags full of clothes and says I have these clothes I would like to donate.
Speaker 4:And what size is this guy right here? Because I I must've looked really bad. You know, I'm wearing like SRH board shorts and and a motorcycle t-shirt. Yeah, but you're just the size for the clothes, just the size, and and and I was like, okay, prayer is real. God he listens to me. At least I know he's listening to me.
Speaker 2:I don't know, I know, come on, buddy.
Speaker 4:So the next time it's prayer time, I'm ready. I'm like I have some things I need to say. I have a lot of stuff I need. I got in there. I'm like, lord, I need my license back.
Speaker 3:I need some money, I need you to, and All the wrong things for the wrong reasons you know, and.
Speaker 4:I come to find out that prayer doesn't really work like that you know, he gives you enough to he gives you what you need what you need to get you ready, you know. And that lamp, that light, the word, it's going to shine the path that's in front of you, but not all the way down the street.
Speaker 2:He doesn't want me to see what's going on way later, just in that moment.
Speaker 4:little like even those lamps back in the day, like in the bible times, those lamps, they only lit up a little right around you enough for you to take a step so the word was like lighting up this lamp.
Speaker 4:Like I need to be here, I can't leave did horrible in school and um, and, and now I have this, this, this bible, and it's, it's starting to make sense and um, so I, I did the program and they're like, okay, you're, you're good enough, you, you're, you're, you're, you're sober. Um, it's six months. Right, I know it was, it was 30 days, but but I, I told them ahead of time, uh, before it was for my time to actually go fundraising, um, that I was good, I'm ready, you want me to go fundraise, I'll go, yeah, and but that that whole, like 28 days or whatever it was, that was there. I was separated from sin and um, and in this, this sanctuary, in this, this, this home, and with some people, I came against the leadership. My language was bad.
Speaker 2:I fought in that house.
Speaker 4:They had everything that could have got somebody kicked out.
Speaker 2:You had every reason to remove you Because I was mean, I was mean, and just like how you're saying it's a process, right?
Speaker 4:You know, when I asked God to just show me what it is to do, like a lot of stuff broke from me. I was delivered from drug addiction that day, but there was still a lot of stuff that needed to, needed to happen there and, um, I was, I was, I was, I was there and and and still really rebellious. But I would go and fundraise and they'd say, take these flyers and hand them out to everybody you can and tell them your testimony if they want to listen or not, and then afterwards ask them for a donation because we're a small, small church, yeah, and, and we don't have a congregation other than the men's home and the women's home. Um, so we have to make it happen, that's right.
Speaker 2:And so I went out man you, so you understand everything I was telling you.
Speaker 4:I know you know, bro, that you know so trip, trip out on this is that I'm there and making it happen and I'm sharing my testimony and I'm hitting my goal. And then I ended up doing my program there and with that particular program their exit program isn't like they kind of want. You're supposed to be in training to become a pastor and they're going to launch you, you know, wow.
Speaker 4:And so I was like at the end of my year going to launch you, you know, and um wow. And so I was like, at the end of my year I'm like you know, I'm not really digging fundraising so much anymore, cause we did it a lot a lot, a lot it was like it was other than the Bible study in church. I'm just like in the store at Walmart and stuff and I see somebody. I automatically want to give them my testimony and fundraise them just out of instinct.
Speaker 2:That's how much I've been, you know and um, which, like, isn't bad.
Speaker 4:You know um, it isn't, it isn't. It isn't bad, it it's it. Taught me how to structure. Um, it me a lot of things and, um, I'm telling them at the home. I told the pastor I'm like I think I want to leave. They're like where are you gonna go? I'm like I don't really know where where do people go when they graduate?
Speaker 4:and he says, well, everyone, just kind of god, will open the door for you when it's time to go wow and then um, so I stayed and I was resentful, but I I thought like, okay, well, I'm gonna do another year, but instead of just praying during prayer time, I'm going to pray even when it's not prayer time.
Speaker 2:Let's go bud.
Speaker 4:And even when it's not Bible reading time I'm going to read.
Speaker 2:I'm going to read my Bible. Let's go, bro.
Speaker 4:And then it's like, even when the new guy comes in, I'm going to wash his clothes and make his bed.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, and oh my.
Speaker 4:God and started to like step it up and then started doing the fundraising at the same time. But I'm like struggling with fundraising because I'm tired of it, even though I could do it, and I was just like losing my vision on the goal because I'm more focused on like stuff going in the home. Yeah, and I'm like, well, I was battling on what my ministry was at that time it's real man.
Speaker 2:What my ministry?
Speaker 4:was at that time. It's real man. And at the end of that year they're like hey, would you like to be the assistant director of the men's home right here? They had other homes, but this was like they called it, the Malia home, which means like sick, you know, and I said yes.
Speaker 2:It's like where the hard cases go, yeah so I'll stay.
Speaker 4:And there's people being dropped off in the middle of the night knocking on the door. Hey, let me stay. And I remembered what the mission church on the street was like and they would you know, let me go in there, excuse me. And so I started taking care of people, and people would knock and I would let them in. And there was like, even if they're too old, don don't let them in. If they're too crazy, don't let them in. You know, because you got to protect the home you got to protect the brothers and um and the dynamics will change really quick, if you get somebody in there
Speaker 4:especially if someone's super toxic, yeah and. But I'm like man, this guy, I'm gonna give him a chance, I'm gonna, I'm gonna let him in, you know, and, um, I'm gonna give this guy. It doesn't really meet the requirement, I'm gonna let him in. And we started giving people chances and the that prayer room. We're laying hands on people. My prayer life was like on fire. I'm on the worship team and, um, you know, shaking off the, the rebelliousness god was still working on on my life then and uh, but I always had my mind on like, what's my exit? What's my exit? Am I going to plant a church here? Are they going to send me? And I ended up staying there. I ended up becoming the director of that men's program.
Speaker 2:Isn't that crazy, bro, that while we're literally come out of a hell and we're in like the best thing that we've experienced for years, we're literally think about leaving. Yeah, isn't that a trip, dude? I'm in team challenge bud and literally was living my best life. These guys would come and see me, or, like he would tell me, I want to come, stay here and it and the whole time.
Speaker 2:We're there in this good thing that god is just changing us and growing us and mature. We're thinking about leaving, yeah, because we're there in this good thing that god is just changing us and growing us and mature. We're thinking about leaving, yeah, because we're it's just a trip it was.
Speaker 4:It was really like even even the people that I've met in the home and and the guys, a lot of the guys, that are still doing good or maybe kind of had some bumps in the road and still doing it out. Like I talked to those guys, even to today. It's great and and some of those guys that I met there that they they live with me at my home and and they're they're good, they're doing their own, um, you know, walk and finding out where they belong and and um, but I stayed there for six years, wow, wow, and I ended up saying six years and and I was, I was running a missions team and going out of state and uh, with, just take the van, take the guys and fundraise, fundraise your hotel fundraise for food and yeah, and and all that stuff, and when you get there, we'll put you in that city and you could start your own church and um, and I was.
Speaker 4:I was like this is this, is it, this is what I'm gonna do. Come on, guys, let let's go. And they would say, well, take this guy with you, this guy's rebellious. Well, just get him out of you know, because summers are hot. Just take him, work with him, work with him, and I'd end up with these really rebellious, hard-case teams. Great, great bunch of guys. Just you just got to watch them, you know.
Speaker 2:And I'd see myself in a lot of all the stuff I see myself in them.
Speaker 4:So I'm like, hey, you know, um, instead of dropping you off today, you're gonna come with me and I end up with this big team. We're like mobbing through down routes in like el paso texas and uh with this big group of guys holding an entourage you're supposed to like drop this guy off here and that guy and then just hope that they make it. I couldn't do that.
Speaker 2:You couldn't do it because you cared, man, because you knew. You knew how you were.
Speaker 4:Sometimes I could make my goal and then help them out. We would wake up early and earlier than normal and I'd be like, look, let's do this After we're done fundraising, let's go to a shelter and pray for somebody. And that was the incentive, because there were like missionaries to the drug addicts and you know, instead of just fundraising, which is a full-time ministry- it really is. I'm like hey, you guys want to go do some missionary?
Speaker 2:type stuff. Let's go. Let's go to the missions Some ministry, some ministry.
Speaker 4:And these guys were lit up for the Lord to do this. They wanted to see, they wanted to travel, and we were doing good, we were doing good, and so of course you know, at this program or at programs, that the men's home is not supposed to talk to the women's home Right You're laughing so I think you understand.
Speaker 2:And so the men's home is not supposed to you, can't even look at them, and you?
Speaker 4:can't even look in that direction. Discipline buddy. And I really, really thought that if I were to be disobedient to the pastor and if I were to look and even see that God was going to punish me or that I was, you know because Romans 15.
Speaker 2:Wow, so you were straight on, straight and narrow.
Speaker 4:And I wanted to, like I you know, coming up in the leadership there, there were some leaders there that like kind of were good examples of how not to be a leader.
Speaker 2:Come on, buddy.
Speaker 4:And it was.
Speaker 2:God was letting you see stuff.
Speaker 4:Yeah, oh, that's not, and it's like, don't look to the left or the right, and there's, there's a lot of these things that you know that that kept me there. That kept me there, yeah, um, and and on the on the path not saying I was perfect because, like I said, I fought and I was angry and all these things, um. And so I'm on the worship team, um, and there's a lady there playing violin and I was on a fundraising route where a guy in South Phoenix I had asked him if you know, hey, I told my testimony, he's sitting at Starbucks. I told my testimony, gave him a flyer and I was like, hey, would you like to help me? I'm in hopes of hitting my goal today. And he told me no, he's like no, and he came up to me a few minutes later.
Speaker 4:He says look, I'm a pastor, I preach all over the world and that's good what you're doing, but let me prophesy over your life. And he put his hand on me and he says I see you in South Africa or South America, I'm not sure where he said, but he says he sees, you know black ladies and and dresses and hats and you know, dressed in nice clothing. And he says I see a woman, a worshiper and she's holding an instrument. He was going like this and and I know that's probably a violin and so he's prophesying he said he said some, um, some other things about you know, um, about what now is my ministry. This guy was this guy, but I didn't, I didn't, you know, I didn't really know about yeah like true prophecy and a prophet, yeah and this guy.
Speaker 4:He was saying these things and in that point in my life none of this stuff even seemed like it was possibility and real, but when? But when I heard, uh, the new sister at the church, because you dare not look right um at the church with a violin on the worship team, I was like, oh no, like this might be possibly my wife, you know, and I'm like don't say anything to anybody, don't talk about it, don't even look in that direction. Wow, don't even act like you you've been told that I didn't tell anybody for years so you didn't do the joseph thing.
Speaker 4:No, no, so I'm I'm uh, you know, I'm playing guitar, I'm looking straight ahead at the men's home, not even like angled this way to to, you know, to to look at the women's home, and everybody would come to the altar and and and you know, dance and and really put their hands up and and it was a vibe, it was nice. It was the Lord, the Spirit was moving, everybody was really looking for their miracle there you know, yeah, bud.
Speaker 4:And you know, like ministries sometimes like that, they have their problems, their inner things, of course, and so, but I knew that the Spirit was moving in my life, god was healing the brothers I was growing up in the Lord with.
Speaker 1:Do you want to tell me church people aren't perfect?
Speaker 4:I'm just kidding.
Speaker 3:It's real.
Speaker 1:It's real, it is man.
Speaker 4:But that could make some people kind of go off track to see that it can. It's really important.
Speaker 2:Because the people look to the leaders and the pastors like Jesus, almost.
Speaker 4:And so it's important to know that even for us today, us sitting here, that we have to really kind of uphold a standard. Come on, buddy, people are watching man, so all this stuff's going on and you know, years later I told the pastor. I said, hey, Years later, Years later, I stayed there for six years.
Speaker 2:So this is a big part of my, how long were you there when the violin was there? I think I was there a couple of years um, I think only one, one or two years before, uh, the violin was there and then a four, another four with I didn't, I didn't say anything about it until 2020, during covid wow, yeah, for four years you sat there worshiping the lord and watching these people come and dance and hearing this violin, but looking and doing what you know you were supposed to do, right, well, I mean?
Speaker 4:I mean, at that time I didn't even know if it was just coincidence.
Speaker 2:Well, it was the prophecy you didn't know, but you had this word, you had this word in your heart from this guy who traveled the world that she's going to play a violin.
Speaker 4:Wow. And so I told the pastor like, look, I don't want to be disobedient, A weirdo.
Speaker 2:I don't want to be like disobedient, a weirdo and I don't.
Speaker 4:You know I don't know what to say, Like I don't know if I'm going to get, because you'd get in trouble. You have to write scriptures, yeah bud. I had like backup notebooks of scriptures.
Speaker 2:Already written out I love you, dude. So I didn See they would assign you verses. They never collected them from me.
Speaker 4:And then you know, but it was after writing scriptures and then, like thank God, learning scriptures.
Speaker 2:I could write them faster. Come on, buddy.
Speaker 4:And I would look for like the best translation.
Speaker 2:That would be like not the Amplified yeah, yeah, but how much word you got in your spirit, how much word do you have in your heart?
Speaker 4:it was, I was so much bro merged in it and and it was, it was, it was really. It was life-changing for me to be there and I would lay on the tile floor excuse me, lay on the tile floor and I began to to read the old testament and I was all these stories in Genesis that I never even knew were there, like you know, like Noah and Adam and Eve, and these are all stories that, like you, just kind of absorb just from being, you know, in a person. But there's, like you know, lot and his wife and all these other things I'm reading. I'm like this is amazing, that's just Genesis Exodus. I was like whoa you, this is amazing, just Genesis Exodus.
Speaker 2:I was like whoa, You're falling in love with his word.
Speaker 4:I'm like I'm learning who God really is and the. God I cried out to, isn't really he doesn't think the way that I thought he thought? He's not like, hey, look away, God, I'm going to take this. You know I need this right now, so you don't have to. No, but God, I was learning who he was in the Old Testament and I was doing these. My mom got saved. My mom got saved back like years before that, and her church was praying for me and she was praying for me.
Speaker 4:And she would send these like books, booklets on, like Bible studies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, buddy, and.
Speaker 3:I was doing them. Like after john at late at night, I'm staying up with a couple guys there and we're like going and they knew the bible and I was only and I'm like, okay, so what?
Speaker 4:what's this and what's that? You know? They're like you don't know this. I'm like I'm reading it, I don't even know, you know, and so I'm I'm learning all this stuff and I started to read the new testament. I found out who out, who Jesus is.
Speaker 2:My Old.
Speaker 4:Testament told me about God, and I didn't know about the foreshadowing of Jesus yet because I was still new. I started learning the New Testament. I'm like when people tell you Jesus loves you. I then understood what that meant, because before it didn't make any sense Jesus loves you.
Speaker 4:I'm like okay, but now I knew what it meant and all this stuff that I was feeling, the way that I was acting, the renewance in my life was making sense, that it was like the word was changing me. That the spirit was. You know he'll put a new spirit in you a new creation you know, it's like a, it was all this.
Speaker 4:And so the pastor tells me he's like look, um, you know you've been here for long enough and and she's been here long enough, we'll, we'll talk to her and and see if if you guys want to have dinner at our house and and meet. And I was like, oh man, like I'm like I don't even, I'm like thinking I'm casanova before I got in there and now I'm like I don't even I'm like thinking I'm Casanova before I got in there and now I'm like man, I'm going to talk to a girl.
Speaker 2:I love you, I love you, buddy, I love you bro.
Speaker 4:It was like the craziest thing. I think it was a couple of weeks. We get there and I know that most. When I tell people this part about my story, people just trip. They're like how did you guys meet? Because it wasn't like we would go on dates, like we were supervised and we were at the pastor's chaperone on the couch and they're like like I'm sitting on the couch and they're in the kitchen behind me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they're ear hustling here and everything you guys are talking about and making sure that I'm saying Everything you guys are talking about, bro, and making sure that it's you, ain't getting crazy and no holding hands.
Speaker 4:And I was you just talk? I was just, I was like I was so nervous like even going there to meet her. I was like I was. I was like man, like this is the violin lady, you know, and what's? You know what's going to happen? Am I going to? I'm going to go here. These people are going to kill me. This is weird, you know. I just thought everything, you know it, just I didn't know.
Speaker 2:You didn't know.
Speaker 4:It was just like, but my life was changing. I knew.
Speaker 4:God was changing my life. And we get there and we sat down and and he's like the pastor's like we read some scriptures and um on purity, and yeah, we know what I mean. Yeah and um, he's like, look, you know, relationship gave the talk about relationships, godly relationships and um. And then they kind of fade back a few feet to let us talk and um, and it was like, even though we had never spoken before, we were so used to being on the worship team like four or five feet away from each other, you know, doing conferences and all these things that we were kind of.
Speaker 4:You know, we just started talking like we've known each other for a long time, but we didn't we didn't, and we were just talking and we talked like the whole visit, and you know just whole visit and and you know just about stuff, and you know and in life and just really kind of be like, okay, what, how bad was it? Like, because we don't know each other and and at that point, like if you're going into like that kind of courtship, like you're already thinking like we, we're, we got to get married.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:But I wasn't going to be like, well, you marry me or anything like that, and um, and I know how weird it sounds and everything and and but it's and not like traditional today. It's people, they just, they don't even know each other and they start, you know, uh, fornication and all that stuff. It was they, they. They kind of protected us. Amen, it's so good, and um, and and and. A lot of people you know say how strange that is and and we really didn't really strange at all, brother.
Speaker 2:It's according to the world and the culture we live in in the society that's strange, but in god's house that's beautiful and that's bro.
Speaker 4:So we courted for a long time.
Speaker 1:There's two couples at our church that are married now that had similar experiences as that. Just like that. And they would meet at Pastor's house. That's good, and Pastor would watch and oversee it.
Speaker 4:I have to say you know 100%. God has honored every bit of that and he really hooked me up.
Speaker 3:He hooked us up for real yeah bit of that.
Speaker 4:Yeah and he, he really hooked me up, he hooked us up for real. Yeah and um, we, we, I got engaged we're at this huge conference and it was all about.
Speaker 1:I had a ring.
Speaker 4:Uh, we're at like bethel in the hills up in, up in gorman, um, you know, there's all these churches there and the thing was like we were supposed to go up there as a courting couple at all the churches. We're supposed to know this and give our testimony, and that was going to be it. And so she gives her testimony. I'm up in front of hundreds of people, hundreds of people just like me, men's homes, women's home, just like me, and um, your people, yeah and um. So we're up there and I, I get down after I tell my testimony, I turn to her and I get down on one knee oh my god. And, and I'm holding up this. And I get down After I tell my testimony, I turn to her and I get down on one knee, oh my God.
Speaker 4:And I'm holding up this ring and I asked her hey, will you marry me? And at the same time that I said this, I realized that the same very spot that I'm on one knee at this conference is the same very spot that a couple years ago in the conference, I brought an amplifier, just just in case anybody needed an amplifier. Uh, and it ended up needed. She needed an amplifier for her violin and I was in that same spot on my knee adjusting the amplifier and it was like the first time I kind of looked up at her like this is the power button and stuff like that.
Speaker 4:And so years later I'm sitting there on my oh my god it strikes me that this is the same Neal space. No amplifier, but I'm holding a ring, yeah, and I'm like Lord. Only you know this stuff.
Speaker 2:Come on.
Speaker 4:And I'm there for a month, my heart's like dun, dun, dun, dun dun. And she waits, she says she said yes right away. I didn't hear it. There was people like screaming and cheering and stuff, and I'm like waiting, and she, and then she finally said yes, I'm like, oh man, like wow, you know and we ended up getting engaged.
Speaker 4:And then I think we waited like another year or so before we got married there at the church and and I went from the men's home. I had a. I had a successful men's home that the Lord was using me to disciple these men and it was fruitful that there was leaders growing up and it was good, but now that I'm married, I was learning how to co-direct a women's home, and a men's home is completely different than a women's home Completely different.
Speaker 4:You walk out of the room room one minute. You come back in like they're crying or you know they're fragile.
Speaker 2:It's different.
Speaker 4:It's different and I didn't know yeah, um, but my wife was, when she got there, it was only two women, her and another sister besides the, the lady who ran the home and my wife, uh, stayed there and the house grew and and she was ran the home and my wife stayed there and the house grew and she was running the home and it was full and it was fruitful, and we really didn't know each other. We were married but we just knew that we're in ministry together and you know God, we're doing ministry together and it was. You know it was good.
Speaker 4:And I just started just kind of like butting heads and like little things with the, with the pastor, or um, with my leaders there, and and it was, you know, it was like man, what's what's going on? And you know, am I being rebellious? Am I am, I is, this, is this, what is this? And lots of prayer and discipline, and, and I was, I was she was living with the women and you're with the men. No, I'm living with the women.
Speaker 4:We had our own room and there was a women's home there and there was a duplex with another group of women behind her. And so so I'm, I'm starting to to to you know, pray like lord, like when is it time for for me to go? Yeah, and, and it's like the pillar of smoke was lifting and the the pillar of fire was moving and release me, and it was time to go yeah and in those places, when you leave, it's like you gotta go okay if you're leaving you're you're not.
Speaker 3:You're either in or you're out.
Speaker 4:Yeah, sad to say it's, it's real and um, and, and I didn't know, I didn't know how to do it, I didn't know how to tell my wife that, like, hey, we, we're leaving, we have to go, and um, so I finally told her hey, it's time to go. And she's like where are we going to go? I told her I really don't know, I don't know, but I believe that if we go, that God's going to do something. Wow, and I'm telling you it was terrifying.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 4:Not just that, but like the chemistry it was, it was I knew it was really time to go because just just I couldn't get along, you know, and I didn't want to argue and and you know when it's time to go like God's going to make it kind of uncomfortable and I think a lot of times on ministry.
Speaker 1:We, we think that ministry is all. Oh, this is life, this is what it's gonna be.
Speaker 4:Sometimes it's just seasonal. Yeah, man, and, and you know, and and I I regrettably now you know, I, um, you know gave a hard time to the pastor that's there and probably the hardest time that anybody that's ever been there had given him you know, and and I, I love the guy, even till today yeah, um you know, uh, we we don't really talk so much anymore, um and that's that's totally okay, bro. Yeah, that's totally okay um, it's just because it's a new season.
Speaker 2:A new season, yeah, and I have that same thing right now with where I am with the guy I was with in californ. He's here and I just I'm in a new season, he's in a new season.
Speaker 4:And so this you know this whole time that this is all going on, and before I was married and while I was still unengaged, I would take these team of guys out to the streets late at night, and these guys love to go out at night.
Speaker 2:That's the best you know and just go evangelize yeah, because nobody's out there doing it at night.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and so we would go out to the streets and you know we'd do like street rally stuff and we'd go. And what started to me, I didn't know really it was evangelizing at first. It started to me like I'm going to recruit somebody into this house.
Speaker 2:You know, I want to fill beds.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I got four empty beds and I want to fill them on a fill.
Speaker 3:Yep, let's go find a guy tonight.
Speaker 4:We want to get some people off the streets yeah, and so we would go and we wind up these places and we'd get, sometimes, you know, fill the beds and yeah, run. You know. Hey, stand in line, take a shower, go to bed, we'll figure it out in the morning. Do some paperwork, um and and just whatever happens happens right a lot of times they'd wake up, cuss me out and they'd slam the door or want to take everything that I gave them with them, you know.
Speaker 2:Hey, bud, you came here with nothing, yeah.
Speaker 4:And one of the times I was out there, I was down at Cass, in the streets of Cass, and there was tents everywhere.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 4:And we're I don't even know what we're giving out at the time, and we're.
Speaker 2:I don't even know what we're giving out at the time. Are we talking like 2022,?
Speaker 4:2023? This is probably about 20. This is 20.
Speaker 2:Well, I want to say After COVID a little bit of time, I want to say 2019. Oh, right before. Okay, so this is just Okay.
Speaker 4:And so I'm taking the team and all this stuff. And it was yeah, it was before COVID, I'm not sure, but it was the the, it was right when, uh, nathaniel dirks when zippy first came from kentucky right and so I'm there at cass and this bus pulls up. It says I love my church on it and all these people get out of this bus. And from this side of the corner I see another guy that's playing guitar. He's singing worship music. I see, uh, my friend john hambachombach, right. Fire and water.
Speaker 2:He gets off of this bus. I love you, John.
Speaker 4:Some other people come out and and my guys are like and and and I kind of know John because he used to bring guys to my home all the time- you know, and I'd see guys that have drunk so from doing the same thing, and John John says to meet these people.
Speaker 4:they're the greatest people and and someone gets off like hey, we got sandwiches and we're in like the darkest time of cast and people are dying and fighting and there's rape and all this stuff and and the spirit shifted and we're playing guitar out there and people are eating and people are happy. These are people that are that you don't, you wouldn't expect them to be happy, you know and um, and and that's when I, when I met Zippy and we prayed right there together in the street and we just kind of knew at that time but we didn't know when or how that we were going to end up doing ministry together.
Speaker 2:Come on, man. We just knew that it was like a divine appointment.
Speaker 4:And so when it was time to leave the home, you know I called Zippy and I was like hey that, you know I have to go. You know I don't know where I'm going to go, I don't know what it's going to do, but you know I don't want to stop doing what I'm doing. You know, could I do what you're doing? You know, whatever that we're doing and I had already kind of started some schooling, some school schooling with a Berean school, the Bible global- university Okay.
Speaker 4:Um for um, for my, my credentials and assemblies of God. But just, I was just just doing it to learn. And and you know, and he said, well, when that time comes, you know, call me and we'll figure something out. You're not going to be on the streets, right. And so I hung on as long as long probably longer than I should have. I should have moved sooner. And just one day it was like a big ugly thing, um, and and they, they, they said we heard you guys are leaving. I said, yeah, we're, we're leaving. And they're like, well, you have to go.
Speaker 2:Wow, and so I, I are leaving.
Speaker 4:I said yeah, we're, we're leaving and they're like, well, you have to go, wow. And so I, yeah, I called that's how they are. I called zippy and I said, hey, we're, we're, uh, we're leaving, and it's, it's. It's sooner than we thought and it's a little sudden, but like, where, where can we go? And and I'm not kidding you guys, um pastor eugene showed up in the urban outreach van.
Speaker 2:Yeah, gene moore and and it was.
Speaker 4:It was an ugly scene. I said Pastor Eugene, well, it was before he was a pastor. Then I said, eugene, you pulled up to kind of an ugly because feelings were involved.
Speaker 4:I was like the leader in the church and it was just like there was feelings and I felt like I was abandoning my guys because I knew I wouldn't be able to see them after that and yeah, and all this stuff. And I said this is an ugly thing. And he's like look, praise the lord. He said praise the lord, just let's get your stuff and and go and um, and we left and we went to zippy's house and he opened his doors to me and my wife Wow, and we lived with him.
Speaker 2:And his wife and his kids yes, his wife and his kids in his living room.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 4:And he would get up to go to the gym. I'd get up and go to the gym. I had no idea how to live outside of the men's home structure of one cup of coffee. Prayer time, bible time it's real.
Speaker 4:I'm still living my shift of, like you know, pray, pray on my knees, for you know all that stuff and which is all good stuff that we need to do, yeah, right, but like programmed and um, and I would call him and I'd be like hey, we're gonna go to the library and you know work on school. And he'd be like okay. And I would call him like hey, we're just down the street, you know I'm gonna be right there. He's like okay, and he's like hey, why you call me like 10 times a day? Why are you calling me seven?
Speaker 4:check in I'm just trying to be accountable yeah accountable. He's like it's good to be accountable, but you don't have to call me that much. Yeah and uh, I was like okay, you know okay, and um, I realized that that was kind of maybe not normal, but I think it was because I was afraid that someone was going to think that I was doing something or being bad, you know, and my wife was like where are we at?
Speaker 4:I don't even know these people. Wow, I don't even know what you're doing, I don't know where we're going. And my wife was like, was like just trusting in the Lord and trusting that what I was doing we didn't know, and and so I think it was about we we just so you know, we are gonna have to get your wife scheduled, yeah, for 2026.
Speaker 2:We got to get your side. She's got a great a powerful testimony.
Speaker 4:And and it turns out, it turned out that we, uh tippy was, was leasing that house there and um, you know he, he helped take care of us. Why we like adjusted yeah, um because there's like a level of like I don't want to say institutionalization no, but it's real.
Speaker 2:But there's a real. There was a. You're in a safety bubble when you're in that play in those kinds of places.
Speaker 4:I have to say there's a real need, even to today, that if you're in a program and it's good, it's good to be there, it's good to be in a, in a discipleship home, but the the exit plan is and people that are programmed after.
Speaker 1:care is gotta be number one and a lot of people don't get it, they don't get it right and they and they and they end up messing up, and I've even known people that have left and died.
Speaker 3:You know, sad to say, we go from the strict structure to 100 freedom. That you're like. I don't know what to do and so I'm used to this.
Speaker 1:And now, what do I do?
Speaker 4:right, god, he, he. He allowed us to be there with Zippy as we made that adjustment and took care of us, and you know he really did a great thing.
Speaker 4:I'll never, forget it, never forget it and he said well, we're moving to our, we're getting a house and you guys are going to take the lease over on this place and this is going to be your house and we're going to move and you're going to, you're going to do ministry. And it was that same time and I didn't know how it was going to work or what was going to happen, but it was the same time that we went to the church, church I'm now going to. I went there as zippy and and, uh, pastor antoine anderson, at 210 church and they're like hey, we want to do an outreach ministry, an urban outreach thing here. And zippy's talking about it with pastor antoine. And then he looks to me, he's like, well, don't ask me what day it's going to be at, he's going to be the one running it. And like I didn't want to act, like I didn't know z Zippy told you that.
Speaker 4:He told that to Pastor Antoine.
Speaker 3:I'm sitting right there. I'm thinking this is all like Zippy business Stuff they're doing.
Speaker 4:And then he's like well, he's going to be the one running it. And then I didn't want to be like the one not knowing. Like oh, what I'm like yeah, we could do it Thursday.
Speaker 3:Are you? Yeah, I was like, hey, like we're going to do this.
Speaker 4:And he's like, yeah, let's do this. And you know so. For three years now my wife and I have been in full-time ministry at 210 Church doing street ministry and, you know, helping people off of the streets. We have our hotline where people could call at any hour of the day and we'll we'll help them. Either either get the number to the resource they need or, you know, my wife's picked up women in domestic situations and brought them to safety can you please?
Speaker 2:can you please share that phone number right now? Sure, yeah, is that something? That's okay? So the name of the, the hotline number.
Speaker 4:It's it's heart, for the Hood is what we call it. Oh, that's great and it's 602, I mean, I'm sorry it's 623-444-4155 is the number and it either goes to my phone or my wife's phone. But we've built a network around the valley that if we get a call and we don't know what to do, we have someone to call or someone to connect somebody with so good.
Speaker 4:And we've been able to help a lot of people, an amazing amount of people. It rings every day. It could be ringing any minute now. And where is 210 Church located at? It's on 7th Street and Baseline in South Phoenix, and Pastor Antoine Anderson, the senior pastor there amazing. You know, if somebody's got a Sunday, want to come check it out. You know, certainly stay at your home church if that's where God placed you.
Speaker 4:But um, there's, there's, there's a an on time word there and it's very but if you know somebody that's in the area, that needs a home church or needs help man uh obviously you have home um, we, we were. We're on a missionary's budget now we're. You know, the assemblies of god picked us up.
Speaker 2:Nice, um, as as uh oh so you're all fundraised on donations.
Speaker 4:That's, that's all you guys do well, it's a little different I can't go out there with a bucket and and fundraise it's just not how they. It's not, it's um it's different with the assemblies to god. It's a little bit more formal and we see it with Carrie Bradford. I'm not saying it's bad. I'm not saying that the bucket list is bad.
Speaker 2:Oh, you got into the churches. You do a presentation, taking a love offering.
Speaker 4:So at that time we were very new and our account just barely opened at that time.
Speaker 2:And just getting our? What if somebody's watching or listening and they want to sow a seed? Yeah, how can they do?
Speaker 4:that we're 73% funded now and we need to be fully funded by December. They say that they're going to continue to let me do it. I'm a missions associate now in school to get get licensed. I'm a licensed, I'm a certified minister through assemblies of God, but I'd like to be um a fully appointed missionary to continue to do what I'm doing. Yeah, that's 73 percent funded and and needing monthly support, um and so there there's a website. It's our website. It's a heartforthehoodcom. There's a website. It's our website. It's heartforthehoodcom. There's a link at the very bottom to where people could give to our missions account. It's very much needed. We're at a point to where we're ministering to more people than I ever thought I would have known, not just people in the streets, but we're going into the shelter, not outside Cass anymore.
Speaker 4:They let me in there as like a volunteer chaplain and I'm doing services there and um I I go to teen challenge. This third second Thursday of every month. We've been going over the gifts of the spirit there.
Speaker 2:And just let me know, the next time you're going I will come and join you, bud, go on this Thursday.
Speaker 4:Really, yeah and I'm, I'm. This is the last installment, the last of the series of the gifts the nine gifts Holy spirit it's going to be on tongues and interpretation of tongues and prophecy. The vocal gifts yeah and um, we've been not just talking about it but practicing the gifts. So it's cool, you know, and it's important to know those things. But, yeah, so we're at a point that we're, you know, we're needing the support, but we're still trusting in God and, like I tell everybody, we're going to do what God's called us to do with the AG Missions account or not.
Speaker 2:Well come on family man Come on, man, let's show up and get this funded man, heartforthehoodcom, you're literally the.
Speaker 1:You're literally the fourth person we've had on here, brother, who is involved some way shape or form with getting people off the streets, and if you want to go listen to them, they're all in our library. You got cleo lewis, yeah you got zippy yeah yeah, carrie bradley, and now you, brother, yeah, and we're all like you, that same yeah, we've been working together for y'all.
Speaker 4:We're are a team man, since I don't even for a long time. There was a a little church on 59th and glendale. We would all meet as a bunch of pastors and outreach teams and it was like it was a big. It was just like a big boom, like everybody that was and that's how we've all kind of connected was from that little place.
Speaker 1:I think the beauty of it is, brother, is that the four of you have truly shown that God takes what the enemy intended for evil and to destroy us, and he takes us and he redeems us and he restores us and he puts us back in the same situation. Because I tell people all the time whatever it is you're going through, when God gets you out of it, be prepared to go back and get somebody else out of it. Yeah, because what you're literally going through is training ground. Yeah, so our addiction, all the things that we went through, is training ground. Yeah, for when God finally gets us and calls us out of darkness, he's going to send us back. Yeah, darkness he's gonna send us back. Yeah, we were in prison, we used to do jail ministry, we used to go out and do park outreaches and stuff like that too.
Speaker 2:That's what god does bro. We're in addiction for 20 years now. What do we do?
Speaker 4:we serve in a recovery ministry, yeah you know, even back to I was talking about um roy, my old sponsor yeah and he's teaching me how to serve. Yeah, I didn't really get it right then. Yeah, but that training back then. Yeah, you know that servant's heart of like hey, I'm doing this, I'm gonna, I guarantee I'll stay sober, but now it's, it's like I I'm. I'm not doing it because I know I'm gonna stay sober, because I'm. My life has changed, yeah, but I'm doing it because I know that somebody else is gonna get sober through it.
Speaker 1:You know it's so rewarding to see brother and um.
Speaker 4:So yeah, but we um. It was our second year at 210 church and pastor antoine anderson said hey would you like to run a cr?
Speaker 2:come on, friday nights, come on, and uh and the they sent us to training uh at the summit and I was there for training and and uh, and so we're in our second year of cr.
Speaker 4:Um, we do a Friday night one. We do a Friday night. Come check it out man. It's really small. It's basically just our outreach team. That comes so far, but sometimes we're in the registry.
Speaker 2:People come yeah, you'll get the calls and they'll come, they'll pop in.
Speaker 4:They come and visit, or some people come and we're kind of at a point now where people, um, that we've never met before will come and show up just needing a meeting yeah, we're able to be there in their, in their time.
Speaker 1:We're we're in our third year of cr here at this church and what I've learned, brother, is is we started out small and we grew almost to 40 people, bro, wow. And then there was this shift, and now we're back down to you know in their in the teens 20, you know what I mean. Cr is hard to keep a core group of people.
Speaker 2:You have your leaders and your couple that are faithful, but that's different from the recovery people People, always come in and out.
Speaker 1:in and out CR is not a I mean, unless you're Sun Valley and they just have massive ones for some reason. But most CRs seem to be kind of a small group where people come in and out.
Speaker 2:They come to a meeting and they eat it.
Speaker 1:Some people will find home there and they'll plant themselves there. But, like you said, a lot of it is. Hey, I found you on the website. I needed a meeting, so I'm here. You know what I mean.
Speaker 4:And it's hard to do that. So my wife and I would take turns giving the main messages like the men's teachings uh, open share. Yeah, she does the women's open share and you know, like I said, we we don't have a whole lot of people, but when's your guys's anniversaries?
Speaker 2:When's your like?
Speaker 4:when? So this is your second year you're in yeah, When's your third three year anniversary? So it's like December I'll have to get back to you on that one. Okay, uh, but I don't remember exactly when it when it is um, but it's somewhere right there december or so, like this december will be your three years, or this december will be your two years, we've been at 210 church for three years.
Speaker 4:I think we've been doing cr for two years of that three years okay, and um, and so it's, it's, um, it's, it's helped our team even even myself.
Speaker 2:yeah, I'm like I can be myself I can say some stuff. It's that safe place that we never, had dude. It's a safe place.
Speaker 4:And sometimes if it's a Sunday and even though you should be able to feel comfortable to go to the altar anytime if. I, for, for some reason, don't go on that sunday. Uh, when I'm at cr I'm like we're. Our men's open share is at the altar, like right there yeah, it's, it's like there's it's like an anointing right there that's funny, so is ours really, yeah, right in front of our altar.
Speaker 1:our altar is like this and our men's group is literally right here in the corner next to the altar. That's awesome, yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so that's you know. That's where we're at. Today is I've been sober and set free for eight years Come on man, come on Craig. And when I was sitting at that rock in front of the Circle K on Alma School in Maine. If you've been there then you know.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, kitty corner've been there, then you know. Oh yeah, kitty Corner from McDonald's bud.
Speaker 4:It was the power of the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 2:Got you up.
Speaker 4:That got me up and got me out of there and after being in that prayer environment, like I was saying, with those chairs, I was in that room and I didn't know how to pray for an hour, I just started saying thank you Jesus. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then tears came. This tears started to come and then I'm not, I'm not kidding you guys tears started to come and then, and then out came like like bubbling water.
Speaker 4:The tongues you know, I started speaking in tongues and and and uh and like I heard it from other people before, but I didn't think and I, even before that would would try to mimic tongues, just to just to try it out.
Speaker 3:You got to try to make it happen.
Speaker 4:God wants to use your little voice. And and but when this certain time happened, it was like if you've ever played sports and like you're in the zone, if you're a skateboarder or or anything like you could do any trek and you land it, you can make any shot and and it goes in the hoop.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it was like I was praying and it was like a connection that might the tongues of of of prayer yeah um, and it was, and I and I, I knew that the that was the indwelling of the holy spirit, and and my life has never been the same, I'm telling you guys you guys know, yeah, you guys, there's a joy and a hope in life that comes with it.
Speaker 2:It just yeah.
Speaker 4:So there was like a baptism of the Holy spirit and and the indwelling and those things that were key that I needed in my life, that that, all these times of going to church and and liking the feeling of the presence of God, you know, but it took me asking him and believing in him and trusting and faith. It sounds like a lot of things as I'm saying it, but it all came by seeking him. You know, by seeking him, and Matthew 6.33 says to seek ye first, the kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be added unto you. And anything I ever tried to accomplish in life that never really came to pass, you know once that I gave my life to the Lord. You know my life is changing. I still have life up and downs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, life, life. I still have life up and downs, yeah life, life.
Speaker 4:The home that we ended up taking over the lease there, and the guy who owns that house is an amazing man of God. We've subleased our rooms to men that have been through programs and needed. Well, I don't want to say needed, because we could have went somewhere. We have our, our home and and they, they live there and um, they're doing good, wow, and and we're keeping each other accountable. Come on it's not like. I'm like a home director or anything.
Speaker 4:We just we're doing life, doing life together, yeah you know um similar to how zippy was not, as not as much as how zippy was was, because I needed. I needed some guidance these guys they're, they're um. You know they have their their jobs. Yeah um.
Speaker 2:One brother got his license isn't that cool to watch these guys come back to life and it's and it's not like um, and we're just all equal yeah, that's good and it's that's healthy you know it's not, and then we've all kind of been programmed, so we know how to be proper.
Speaker 3:You know we're not you know we're not.
Speaker 4:People live together and without the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 2:It would never happen. Amen, amen, those guys will rub your arm.
Speaker 4:But no a good. You know good brothers and you know my wife's there.
Speaker 2:It's very good that you did it with men, because it just would have got with women.
Speaker 4:It's just different with women, and you know these are men that I was confident.
Speaker 2:Come on, buddy, you prayed about and talked to your wife.
Speaker 4:As much as I would just like to let just anybody it's your art.
Speaker 2:And people call and they really need it you know, you've got numbers, and you've got connections, and you've got resources.
Speaker 4:Home is home.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:You know, I have a good fellowship of brothers there, amen.
Speaker 2:You know, and it's great, I have a good fellowship of brothers there, amen, um, you know and it's, it's great, I have a dog of my dog, this group of men that is are there. I literally feel like they're going to be like some of your first pastors.
Speaker 4:Yeah, Well, it's it's not a group, you know. You know it's not like a lot there's. There's two guys.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 4:You know, but yeah, they're in their walk you know and they're sober, and they're with the Lord. Come on man. You got a couple of disciples and you know the funny thing is, sometimes they end up discipling me.
Speaker 2:It's so good, wow, it's so good. Iron on iron.
Speaker 4:They're like hey, pastor, you know. They're like you're a pastor and they're like what your pastor and and you're watching what now I'm like, I know I know, I was thinking it too I needed to change it.
Speaker 1:Thanks, man. So you're a young man, you're still in your early 40s man. What god's got something on your heart, brother? He's been, he's been planting something there for a while that you've been kind of just holding on to. What do you believe in God for in the future, man Well?
Speaker 2:go big man. So the dream is this If you had unlimited finance and the money and the men and everything was there what are you believing for, bro?
Speaker 4:The dream is this that for a place in the inner city that people could go, anybody can go, um and and get a sandwich, a cup of coffee, um, and while they're there, um, you know, just have other volunteers or churches, uh, come and maybe preach or lead worship or do a study. So why people are there, um, in a safe environment? Because the streets down downtown you guys are not safe, yeah but someplace where people can go.
Speaker 4:There's just going to be resources there a clothing closet, oh yeah, and um and and food, you know not just a soup kitchen, but I'm talking like, um, like a good cup of coffee nothing wrong so I go to the soup kitchen all the time and the Burnish Soup Kitchen. I'm there and it's a great place.
Speaker 4:They serve over 200 people there a day and it's a huge place If you want to minister to people go check that out, you know, but I mean a place that's just centered in Christ, and so people know that, no matter you you know how hot it is outside or how cold it is um, that there's a door that will be open, where, where they'll be safe and if they want help they can find it. You know, and, um, I know that takes that, takes finances, I know it takes a team, but I believe that that even people in the community, and possibly even the homeless community, would volunteer their time to clean the tables or wash the dishes and and and things like that, to a hub, a place where you know, and I don't know if that's going to be centered around well, definitely centered around Christ, but I would like for it to be a coffee place and a sandwich place, somewhere where they could feel, because I remember in some days, where it was rough for me.
Speaker 4:I didn't feel like I could just go sit in Denny's Like people would be looking at me.
Speaker 2:Weird, you know.
Speaker 4:But a place that you know they could. They could be weird and come as they are. And then we hit them in the head of the Bible but we but we just show them the love of Christ. And, and I would, I would, I would love for that to happen and to be a part of that. And you know, anything else that we're doing along the way. We do like the Angel Tree. We did that last year and that was a big thing.
Speaker 2:Is that the?
Speaker 4:shoeboxes. Angel Tree is where parents that are incarcerated find out what their kids want for Christmas, and then they tell us what their kids want for Christmas.
Speaker 1:Oh man, you guys got that one time when I was in prison.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and then we get them the toys and wrap them up from mom and dad, excuse me and from mom and dad, the congregation 210 last year they helped us with. I was like man on paper it looked impossible. You know, my wife's like we were at CR Summit and she's like we signed up for 30 kids Angel Tree. I'm like what's Angel Tree? And I'm like that's going to take us out Like we're on a tight budget.
Speaker 1:How do you sign up for?
Speaker 4:that there was a kiosk at the cr. My wife went and she was looking at booths.
Speaker 2:I was looking at booths and and and I love your wife dude 30, not five, not two and she's like 30.
Speaker 4:We signed up for 30 kids. I was like I wanted to be mad but I was like, oh, okay let's let's do it. But inside I was like god help me, you know.
Speaker 4:And then, right when I thought I was okay with it, she came back. She's like Craig, we signed up for another 30 kids, oh wow. And I was like, are you crazy? You know 60 kids. And she said well, you know, they say that you'll get this many kids in your thing, but a lot of them will move or you lose contact and they won't all show up. And so we did everything we could to get toys and the church was great in helping with that. People in the community was great with that. We threw them the party and the party was cracking Like. We had toys in little sulfane bags of toys, you know, rubber balls and candy and stuff like that, and these kids were happy with the games and the toys and they forgot all about presents. Wow. Until we got their card and got the wagon and brought out the presents and these kids were like just blown away, I know the kids that were there last year that we got this year.
Speaker 4:They're already like I can't wait, you know. And so, like Dang bro, there's like You're giving kids.
Speaker 2:Christmases that they never could have gotten themselves.
Speaker 4:Well, it's the Lord, it's the Lord, but you know I get to walk it out with you know, come on, man, and so. Oh God, to walk it out with. You know, man, and so um, so it's, it's, it's amazing to just be available to do these like they're not really side quests, you know. Um, it's just to meet the needs of the community, yeah, and to love people is really it, you know so it's, it's, um, it's amazing, it's, it's, uh, it's, it's a, it's a full-time thing.
Speaker 2:It's difficult sometimes and you've got to really have faith.
Speaker 4:But I wouldn't have it any other way. Amen. But yeah, I'm tearing up right now, but life is beautiful.
Speaker 3:It's crazy what God can do, huh, who would have thought?
Speaker 4:A sinner like me. You know what I mean. I was at the park with a you know a shooting up of vodka and then he pulls me into a life, of just life in abundance you know, just we get to go, we get to go to churches.
Speaker 4:Sometimes we'll invite us and we'll share our story or testimony or get to go. We get to go to um, that's our god churches. Sometimes we'll invite us and we'll share our story or testimony or get to speak and um gets reach people um that are not in the streets, even people that you know and and that's you know. It taught me that it's you know, every person.
Speaker 4:It's good as a soul not just not just the kid at Circle K, not just the dude with the briefcase and just like the here's a bucket and some flyers and tell your testimony to everybody. It's like still today. If you give me 10 seconds, I'm going to tell you a testimony.
Speaker 2:It's just I got to tell you what God's done in my life.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and sometimes people they'll be like, oh cool. I called a guy yesterday. I was like, hey, God bless you.
Speaker 3:He's like, okay, I'm like all right, he wasn't feeling it, but just throw that out there.
Speaker 4:God bless you.
Speaker 1:I used to get these phone calls because my number was one digit off of a Zoom thing right. So I'd get these random phone calls.
Speaker 2:Of how I'm here for this meeting and I'm like wrong number.
Speaker 1:And I would get them all the time right, and God said opportunity. It pissed him off and so I'd answer hello. And they're like hey, we're here for the zoom meeting. I'm like man, I'm sorry, but god bless you. Man, good luck and good luck in your meeting. And, uh, I really hope everything goes good for you. And I, and you'd hear him say wow, did you hear what he? Just you know what I mean. And you could hear them like, as they're hanging up, he just said god bless.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean and I turned it into an opportunity to who knows what they were going through that day.
Speaker 2:Who knows what that meeting was for.
Speaker 1:But it was an opportunity to say, hey, god bless you, I hope your meeting goes great for you, I hope you have a wonderful day. And it just was pissing me off. I turned it into an opportunity just to be a light for somebody, and somewhere along the line I quit getting those phone calls.
Speaker 3:You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, line, I quit getting those phone calls. You know what I mean.
Speaker 4:Yeah well, yeah, yeah, thank you so much, really, it's I know it's a it's a long.
Speaker 2:Oh no, you're one of the shorter one, but oh really, oh yeah we've got five.
Speaker 1:Six hour lights are still on, brother.
Speaker 4:Yeah, okay, we were here one time, well thank you guys for hanging in there through all that. And you know, and I I came in here with the, I was praying with a friend on the way over here and and like anybody that's encouraged, or or or, if you even know anybody that that needs, you know, um, you know, I just I just pray that somebody hears that testimony and is encouraged that you're never too far gone.
Speaker 4:yeah, I see parents and people today where they're like man, there's no helping my son. There's no helping my son, there's no helping my husband, there's no helping and I tell them well, just continue to pray for them. You know I had a mother that that prayed for me, her church prayed for me. I get to go to her church and and um and go speak and say thank you now.
Speaker 4:And you know, they prayed for me, you know, for for years, even when I didn't even know what was going on. So if you're, if you're watching and you have a loved one, someone that that you, you might feel that it's too late or too far gone. Yeah, uh, as long as we're still breathing at breath it's there's time god's not done and and yeah, it's, if he could do it for me. It's, it's really it's possible for anybody that there's god, he's he's god.
Speaker 1:If he could do it for me, it's really possible for anybody, God he's. God, he could you know. When you're done trying, let God try. So, before I pray for you, brother man, once again, heart for the Hood 210 Church man, heartforthehoodcom. If you want, I feel like you can sow a seed into their ministry man.
Speaker 2:Um, if you know somebody who's struggling and needs help now, six, two, three, four, four, four, four, one, five, five. I was going to read it, but I couldn't see it.
Speaker 4:I saw you buddy man.
Speaker 1:just come on, fam, let's come together, let's, let's help these people with their ministry man, and see what we can't do let's fully fund them and come on let's see the hand of god move, uh, thank you no, thank you guys I'd love seeing lives transformed, man all right, we're, we're.
Speaker 2:God has a lot for us ahead, and businesses, homes, um. I believe that's why I went through. Everything I've went through is so that I'm able to do that for others. Yeah, all in his timing. He's just preparing us for it. We're in a waiting season.
Speaker 1:We're in a waiting season and I can't wait I'm like come on, god, let's go open the door.
Speaker 2:man man, let us run.
Speaker 1:I'm a runner. When God gives me something, I'll take off running and then I get ahead of God.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we run ahead of him In this season.
Speaker 1:He's literally like you're going to have to wait.
Speaker 2:Just wait until I do it.
Speaker 1:I need to make sure that you can wait until I tell you it's time.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:He says you can take off and I'll be there, be what you think it should be.
Speaker 3:You know what?
Speaker 1:I mean. So we're in a waiting season, man, but let me pray for you, brother.
Speaker 2:All right.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh, man, Thank you God.
Speaker 1:Man, father, these stories and the way that you operate, lord, god, the way that you see the broken, the way that you see the broken, those people, lord, that the world sees and casts away as nothing, god, those are your treasures hidden in darkness, lord. So, father, I praise you for your son, craig. Thank you for his story, his testimony, lord, god. You were in it, through it, even at the beginning, god, you tried when he was a boy, to get him to go to those things, god, and he just didn't understand it at the time. But you were always there, drawing him to you, god. So, lord, I thank you that you found the mercy and the grace to uh, redeem his life, god, to restore it back to what you originally intended it for. So, father, god, I thank you for the amazing man of God he is today. Lord, god, lord, I thank you for this central hub in downtown Phoenix, god.
Speaker 3:Yeah, god Lord.
Speaker 1:I thank you for his heart for those who are lost and broken, just like he was. God. There's only someone who's been through what Craig has been through God can truly understand the compassion and the heart and the grace and the mercy it takes. So, lord, we're praying for finances right now. In Jesus' name, lord, god, we're praying that there's a building in downtown Phoenix. That's already there, god, because your word says that you own a cattle on a thousand hills and mansions that you didn't build, god.
Speaker 1:So there's a building already there in downtown Phoenix that you have in mind, god. Thank you, Lord, that you didn't build. Somebody else built it for their profit, god, but you're going to redeem and restore it and you're going to turn it into a hub where the lost and the broken can come and feel safe.
Speaker 1:Get a cup of coffee, a sandwich and some clothes, god, but most of all, they can hear about your son, jesus. So, lord, I pray you right now, father, god, in the name of Jesus, that you're moving the pieces. You're behind the scenes, working, you're speaking to the people who need to be spoken to God to make this happen, lord, Because your heart, god, that you've given us, is your heart to line up with these broken people. God to help these people be pulled out of the mud. God to be redeemed and restored, because that is who you are. You are a God who redeems the broken, you are a God who finds the lost and you are a God who restores. So, lord, I just thank you for 210 Church, lord, I thank you for their ministry, I thank you for their church God, lord, I thank you that wherever that church 7th Avenue and what Broadway 7th Street and Baseline.
Speaker 4:7th Street and Baseline 7th Street and Baseline.
Speaker 1:God, that right there you're going to be drawing people from that neighborhood to that location. God, yes, that that is a lighthouse for South Phoenix. God, that you're going to be able to draw people there because your word says that if we lift up the name of Jesus, you will draw them in Jesus. So I thank you, lord, that, as 210 Church is lifting up the name of Jesus, those people who are lost and broken around that church, god, are going to be drawn in because they're going to feel something tugging them that way and they don't know why. But they're just going to walk through those doors one day and, just like he did, god, they will feel your presence.
Speaker 1:So I pray blessings over the pastor, lord. I pray blessings over the congregation, lord. I pray blessings over that neighborhood, lord, god, lord, I thank you for this marriage, lord. I thank you for his wife. God, I thank you, lord, just that powerhouse couple that they are, god, thank you, God. So I pray blessings over their marriage, god, I pray that it is sanctified and holy in Jesus' name. God, lord, we just give you praise, honor and glory for what you're doing. God, I thank you for the finances for the ministry that my brother's involved in, the homes. God, all those things that needs financing. God, you are the resource. Speak to your people who need to be spoken to God to sow seeds into this ministry.
Speaker 2:Thank you, god, heart for the hood.
Speaker 1:So I thank you, lord, for what you're doing. We love you, father, we glorify your name and we give you praise, honor and glory in Jesus' name Amen.
Speaker 2:Hey Craig, can you do us a favor? Man and pray for Speak Life.
Speaker 4:Yeah, absolutely yeah. We're just going to say, heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus. Lord, we just want to thank you for this place here. As I walked in here, lord, I felt your presence and I'm aware that this is somewhere that your spirit rests and dwells, here at these tables, and that testimonies come through these microphones and through the equipment and it goes all over into the Internet and to all these different places and into people's homes, lord, and I pray over this ministry right here for Speak Life, az. Lord, I pray for everybody that hears it. They hear Jesus through this.
Speaker 4:Thank you, lord, that every person, every individual that comes to share their testimony, they could see and they could hear the fingerprints of you, lord, all over this. That you bless the hands that you have chosen, uh, that you've called them by your name, lord, that you continue, uh to to shine and uh, shine their shields, to brighten their shields up and and sharpen their swords, lord, that they're here. They say yes, lord, here we are, that that we're here, we're available by your spirit. Use us, god. That you continue to use them in great and mighty ways. And that many people that hear these stories, that they hear this testimony, that they could identify, they could find hope, they could find freedom. Thank you, lord, and it's all because of you.
Speaker 4:Jesus and the servants that are saying yes. Right here, next to me. Now we pray this in Jesus' mighty name Amen.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, bro. Jesus, hey, I don't know where you're watching from or listening from, man, but if you could, please follow, subscribe to the channel YouTube, man, click the little bell. You'll get all the notifications of all our future episodes coming up. Thank you, lord. Do me a favor, man, go ahead and comment on whatever episode or whatever platform you're on. Even just type one word, jesus. It helps so much with the algorithms and the stuff in the background for being seen.
Speaker 2:Um, if you can, man and god's blessed your life and you're able to support the show and sow a seed into the ministry, um, you can. There should be a little place where able to support the show and sow a seed into the ministry. There should be a little place where you can support the show on Apple, spotify, buzzsprout. Speak Life AZ. All one word. Maybe you yourself know somebody who has a really good testimony and you want to come in and share. You can reach out through Facebook or Instagram. Speak Life AZ. All one word. Go ahead, send us a message and we'll get back to you and we'll get you on the schedule to come in and share, but until next time, we're going to continue to Speak Life AZ. God bless you. God bless you, jesus. I did it earlier you.