I was raised in a very Non-Christian home. It seems my parents had a bad experience somewhere in their younger life and decided church was a bad thing, that being mom and dad’s point of view, my brother and I had little to say about the whole idea. I was raised in a horse show family that was the center of life. Every weekend and during the summer every week was spent someplace at a horse show. I can never remember God being mentioned unless it was a curse word. My father was a very abusive man both physically and verbally. As I grew into my teens I started to spend summers working away from home. I did not realize it then but the turmoil in our family was destroying me. I began to rodeo in the late 70’s and upon graduating I left home and started to rodeo full time. This was the first time I was introduced to Jesus in a positive way. There was a group of cowboys that would have church services on Sunday mornings and they talked me into going some. I was interested, but yet I thought I had better things to do, after all I had plans (little did I know).

In 1980 I was in an accident while at a rodeo breaking my back in several places. It took months of hospital stay before a surgery was planned and done. The doctors placed two Herrington Rods in my back which stabilized my spine. I spent six weeks in a body cast with several more cast and braces planned for the future. At the end of the first six weeks, I went to have x-rays made and receive a new cast. After looking at the x-ray the doctor gave me the unexpected news that my back was completely healed and he did not need to see me again, I was well. To this very day my back is 100%. I am as strong as I should be.

In just a few months I started competing again ( I never said I was very smart). Once back and going I had people that I did not even know tell me how they had prayed for my healing and they loved me. As I sat one day at a church service before a performance in Williamsport, P.A., for the first time in my life I heard someone talk about the love of God and the sacrifice Jesus made for my salvation. There was a large crowd that day, but the fellow preaching was just talking to me, or so I felt. I made no step that day, but a seed had been planted and was beginning to grow.

On December 3, 1982, I knelt by myself. I had no one with me and no one to lead me down the Roman Road or anything else. I simply cried our to God, “ I am a sinner Lord, and I know if I die right now I am going to hell. I have heard folks say if I ask Jesus into my heart and ask for forgiveness that I can go to heaven. So right now God, I’m sorry for what I have done and what I am. Lord, I ask you to come into my heart and my life.”

And that was the best day of the rest of my life. I also promised God if I could and he would save me I would serve Him some how some way.

On June 16^th, God blessed me with my wife Belinda. We both started going to church, we were both baptized together, and we went to work. We loved church. I found out quickly if you want to work, church is the place to be. I had a burning desire to learn more and talk about what I was learning. We were members of Woods Post Office Baptist Church in Tenaha, TX. I quickly became the youth Sunday school teacher and Sunday school director. One of the jobs I had was to give a short devotional each morning before Sunday school. It seemed my short talks were becoming long and deeper than they should have. I was just so in love with The Word that I loved to share it.

God placed a deep burden on my heart and my wife as well. I needed to preach. I ran from that thought. There was no way I could be a preacher. I had never been to seminary and I had only been a Christian for a short time. This could not be and for over a year I ran from God. I stayed in church and continued to teach but I was miserable. I lost my job due to cutbacks in the company and we were down to just getting by. I was still miserable and God was still calling. We were in revival when I broke. I shook through the whole sermon. I have no idea what the message was about. All I could hear was God calling me. On June 5^th 1988 I surrendered to the ministry life and life became a blur.

I was preaching supply in various churches the next week and it never stopped. God gave me a new job in Tyler, TX and put us in a new church. He shortly called us to our first pastorate, Antioch Baptist in Tyler, TX.  God has done nothing by bless us in our lives and ministry. We have seen so many people touched by the Grace and Mercy of the Father. I am still overwhelmed that God would choose me in any way. I am a blessed man. I have the assurance of salvation, the greatest gift of all. God gave me my wife Belinda, who is not only the love of my life, but puts up with me, and is the most patient woman alive. And then after over 20 years of prayer and asking God for a child, on April 20, 2004, God made me a dad. Why God would bless anyone as He has me I do not understand. All I know is I love Him more than life itself. I praise Him for breaking my back so that He could heal me up, so He could break my will and my heart so that I might see Him. I don’t serve the Lord because it’s a job. No, I do this because I love Him. Through all of this, my mother, father, and brother have all come to know Jesus as Lord and Savior. Belinda was saved in our living room and led to Christ by our Pastor and as a result, many of her family have been saved.

God called me to Midway Baptist Church in March 2016 and we have been faithfully serving Him here ever since.