I was born in Toronto and at the very young age of 2, my parents got divorced and my family was broken as a result. As time progressed living at home with my older brother and with custody split between my mom and dad, we were spending the majority of our time outside playing with our friends as children do.

For the next few years, we lived with my dad up until I was about 8 years old. When my dad had enough of our bad behavior, he packed our bags and took us to our mom’s home and said to her that he had enough of us and walked away and I did not see or hear from him for about 7 years after that.

My mother was a single parent and a stay-at-home mom and my relationship with my mom started to disintegrate fast and I resented her. As a result of my uncontrollable temper and disobedience, I was kicked out of the house many times, and with nowhere to go and no friend’s house to stay over I had to sleep on park benches and on coffee shop tables to pass the night. This got Children’s Aid Society involved and I spent about 2 years in a foster home before I found a way to moved back in with my mom. I knew there would be the least amount of accountability to deal with if I were there, which would give me the most amount of freedom to do whatever I wanted. So, I played the system to have my way.

As the next few years passed, I continued getting into the wrong crowds of friends and began shoplifting, lying, scamming people, stealing cars, in and out of prison, arrested frequently, selling drugs, and becoming more and more disrespectful towards authority and especially my own mother. As an adolescent growing up in the rough neighborhoods of Toronto, underprivileged and my family on welfare. We lived with less than enough food, less than enough money, less than enough everything that I was forced to make wrong decisions to survive the rough thug life, stay alive or out of prison, and make sure I had the most recent materialistic items to show off with.

On October 11th, 2003 I was at the peak of my rebellion and drug dealing career! I thought that life could not get any better, and then, I had an encounter with the Living God. Even though I was born and raised Catholic, I grew up to become a die-hard Atheist and hated everything that had to do with religion and God but, regardless of where I stood in my beliefs, this encounter led me to surrender my life and accept Jesus as Lord and Savior and I was given a second chance in life!!!

That very night, I began my journey with the Lord in a very dark place, but with a bright Light now living inside of me. I was in the midst of gangs, was an alcoholic for 3 years, addicted to pot for 4 years, and had smoked cigarettes for 9 years. I was well known throughout the streets of Toronto and was selling drugs between rival gangs, with nothing to lose and no one significant enough to stop me. But that night, the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ stopped me!

After my conversion, I turned 180 degrees from my old way of thinking, acting, and living, I had no money, no work experience, no job to earn a living, except this NEW heart beating inside of me that had a strong desire to know God personally. I quickly realized that my life needed a total transformation, spiritually and physically, I started reading the Bible and just could not put that book down, my faith started to grow stronger as my relationship with God began to grow in the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit.

I also started working for a living as an employee at the local factory doing general labor. Through the help of the Holy Spirit, God slowly began to teach me about the value of money and a job, relationships, generosity, putting others before me, learning other Christian godly principles, and with the help of God experiencing victory over addictions, greed, selfishness, anger, lying, stealing, etc. through the help of the Holy Spirit and by the grace of God!