From Deep Waters to Higher Ground
I was raised in a loving, Christ-centered home. We had stability, support, and every opportunity to live a good life. But everything changed in 2006 when my mom passed away after a lengthy battle with cancer. That loss shattered something in me — and it became the doorway to addiction.
I fell deep into drug addiction — opiates, heroin, and eventually IV drug use. I became homeless, broken, and completely lost. I overdosed more than once, coming dangerously close to death. In 2011, I was arrested and spent time in jail, where I got clean from heroin — but quickly replaced it with meth. My life became a cycle of destruction: arrests, failed programs, relapses, and more loss.
I was given chance after chance — and I kept throwing them away. At one point, I was facing years in prison. By what I can only describe as divine intervention, I was given an opportunity through community corrections instead. I got sober and stayed clean for a season — but when life hit again, I went right back into addiction. I lost everything. Again.
But on May 10, 2015, something changed. I woke up and decided I was done. I threw everything away and walked away from drugs. That decision marked the beginning of sobriety — but not yet surrender.
Just one month into sobriety, I got a call that my sister had died from an overdose. Years later, my brother would die the same way. Addiction had taken both of them. Those were some of the hardest moments of my life — but by the grace of God, I stayed sober through it all.
Then in 2025, through what seemed like a simple moment — my daughter becoming curious about church — God met me in a way I cannot fully explain. In that moment, I realized the truth — I had been running from the very God who had been pursuing me my entire life. And I came home.
Not long after, my daughter and I were baptized together. My wife gave her life to Christ. My son followed. God did not just restore me — He restored my entire family.
In September of 2025, God called me to leave behind the only career I had ever known and step fully into ministry. By November, we closed our business — and 18:16 Ministries was born.
and pulls people out of deep waters.
