For over 14 ½ years – from October 1979 to March 1994 – while living in the United States of America, I lived in the “fast lane”. My life consisted of selling weed, cocaine and crack. To me, this was one of the fastest and quickest ways of making money in America. The Posse that I was involved with was the Shower Posse, a gang that sold a lot of weed and went to a lot of parties, smoking weed, sniffing cocaine and drinking. We would get high and then start to fire our guns at most parties we attended in a way which expressed our “niceness” and domination. After leaving the Shower Posse I went on my own and continued this lifestyle. I made a big mistake when I started to smoke crack. I never knew the effect it would have and soon became addicted to it, and so my life took a turn for the worse. I discovered that I was not taking care of myself the way I used to. I would neglect my responsibility as a father to my daughter and became a nobody. I thought to myself that I would die as a “crack-head”.

I was given an invitation by my brother-in-law to go to the North Carolina to sell crack with some of the guys and so I left New York and went. After being in North Carolina a few weeks, things started looking up. I had my own apartment and furniture. I started shopping again, buying a lot of clothes and having a lot of jewellery. I was now back on my feet but I was still smoking crack. I also got arrested a couple of times for drugs and guns and I got bailed both times. However, I got arrested on another occasion for having two shot guns in my possession and my bail bond this time was $100,000.00. There was no one to bail me as all my friends had abandoned me and I was all alone. I started to look back at my life: all the wars, all the shoot-outs and all the robberies. I considered myself lucky as I was still alive and I was not facing a big sentence. Most of my friends were dead and others were in prison serving long sentences.

It was there and then that God came to me and let me know that it was He who had been keeping me alive all this time. I realize that God was asking me to give up the only lifestyle I ever knew. I compared these things with God. I realized that if God did not create me I could not have come to love these things, and so I saw that there was nothing to compare with God. I was willing to give up this kind of life for Him. I accepted the Lord into my life, and so my life took another turn, this time form the worst to the best. Nevertheless, I got deported and I came to Jamaica with no material base but God was always there. God provided food, clothes, and shelter. He provided a job for me.

He has blessed me with a beautiful wife and my life in Jamaica is much better than when I was in America. I got baptized and was welcomed into the fellowship at Maranatha Gospel Hall, the Church I grew up in. And I am now actively involved in church work and Sunday School. I preach and teach the Word of God when I am given the opportunity to do so. The passage of Scripture that means so much to me is Jer. 29:11: I knew the plan I have for you, a plan to prosper you, to give you hope and a future. Today I see this verse of Scripture being fulfilled in me, and I thank the Lord for changing my life.