Hi. My name is Jacob, some of my earliest memories as a small child were of my dad leaving for work in his uniform. His service revolver and shiny badge would always capture my mind with thoughts of being just like him one day "when I grow up". 

I can remember things being very hostile in my home when I was about 6 years old I guess. There were things being thrown across the house and breaking, yelling, and screaming. I could remember my dad saying he was going away for awhile.. and he would come back again, but I didn't know why and I remember him telling me before he left, to promise him that I would never do drugs. I remember feeling confused I didn't even know what drugs were but I said I promise anyways. I just couldn't comprehend why he was leaving. 

As years went by and he never returned I became angry and I felt different than everyone else, this anger resulted in behavior in school that lead to disciplinary action regularly as they don't take kind to fighting, bad attitude, disrespect, and disruptive behavior in class but life went on and he still never returned. 

I must've been 12 or 13 when the fellas in the neighborhood seemed so cool, they were older, taller, tougher, in gangs, and had all the girls. I remember being in an abandoned house in the neighborhood and we were tagging, smoking weed, and meth, and jumping each other in.. and I never felt so accepted in my life. I was arrested for the first time in sixth grade for arson, petty theft. graffiti, and vandalism. 

In the back of my mind I think today that I was striving for attention, knowing my dad might come home and father me again because I was in so much trouble, but he didn't. This mentality continued to progress as the years went by. 

In my 9th grade summer I began smoking crank every day, and stealing, or selling, or doing whatever it took to get more drugs, respect, and acceptance. On the way through my high school campus to shoot somebody with a CO2 pistol I was arrested, with possession as the officer was looking for me because dispatch said a teenager in a 49ers jersey was shooting out someone's windows. I was expelled from high school. 

My new-found school worked pretty well with my current schedule. I would smoke crank and run a muck all night and Mr. Morris (a recovered alcoholic) had some sort of compassion for me and would allow me to sleep in his class all day until the bell rang to go home. Another teacher of mine fixed the assessment test and I was soon a continuation high school graduate in 2001. This is when me and my closest friends lived life like every day could be our last, stealing cars, burglary, armed robbery, meth labs, and extortion, was a way of life. I was finally feeling like I made something of myself if only I could transition from an inmate to a convict I would be complete in life, after all, the most time I ever did was a few nights in San Andreas and a County Bullet in San Joaquin. 

When I got out in 2008 I met my wife, who wasn't a drug addict like me and I proceeded to hold it down for a few years and keep a job and live productive, but we started partying in bars and eventually I was back on drugs and my true colors shown through and my wife saw first-hand the beast of addiction that had been sleeping inside of me, she was ready for a divorce. 

I kept thinking about the encounter that I had with God, while I was in the hole for putting hands on someone, everything was stripped away from me, except a toothbrush. a blanket. and a bible. Something would happen to me as I read Gods word. Out of the blue, my father called to meet with me. I didn't know it at the time but God was working behind the scenes and His timing is always perfect. My Dad said I know I didn't give you much as a kid growing up, and I can't change that but what I have in my hand is worth more than anything I could ever give you, as he handed me a gospel tract of the book of John I had a spiritual breakthrough that was overwhelming, and I accepted Christ as my savior. You see my mother had always tried to raise me a good christian man and she loved the Lord Jesus, but my father had always shown bitterness toward God. 

From that day in 2012 my love for God began to grow little by little God started changing my heart and the way I was living in the last 8 years it has been rocky i have gone towards God and veered a little in my christian journey and today I am a very zealous christian. This zeal for God has always caused me to feel like I could do more for God than just plain church on Sunday and living like the rest of the world all week. 

I'll never forget where I came from and I want to be there for the next man that doesn't know the way out. When a brother invited me to Soldiers of the Cross I knew right away that I wanted to become a member, today I am a proud father of 3 wonderful girls and have a son on the way. Thanks be to God who always leads me into triumph! My vision is to serve God wholeheartedly and spread the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and be that example of a God-fearing man to my wife and children.