My Family – Dad, Mom, older brother, me, 3 younger sisters. We were a dysfunctional family.
Mom’s Story- When my mom was 12 years old she went to Italy with her dad and mom visit relatives. While they were there my mom’s mother was killed in an automobile accident. This trauma was a major wound to my mom’s soul.
Responsibilities changed for her when got back home. She had to grow up fast. She had to start cleaning the house and helping with the cooking. Her mother was buried in Italy.

Dad’s Story- When my dad was 12 years old his parents separated. Shortly after the separation my dad’s mother was killed in a motorcycle accident. This trauma was a major wound to my dad’s soul.

When this happened, my grandfather who lived in Sonoma County shipped my dad off to Humboldt County to be raised by his grandmother. My dad’s younger brother stayed with my grandfather. My dad was rejected. Another soul trauma.

When we experience trauma in our lives our soul becomes wounded. (Our soul is our mind, will and emotions). Some people carry these huge wounds with them their entire lives.

My dad and mom were those people. They carried their wounded souls with them as they tried to raise five children. I recognized at an early age that I needed to figure things out on my own because I really could not go to my parents for help.

My dad became an alcoholic and was not a very pleasant person to be around. My dad used fear, anger, and intimidation as forms of control. Nothing I did was good enough for him. I knew I did not want to be like him.
When I was 15 years old my dad had an affair and then divorced my mother. My brother and I moved out with my dad. My sisters stayed with my mom. That was the day we met my dad’s lover.

When I was 22 years old my entire family experience more trauma when my brother was killed in a single car accident. I was taking classes at MJC when that happened and the day after my brother was killed I went to school. I was never taught how to deal with my emotions or express my feelings. I just moved forward and buried my feelings.
At the end of my senior year in high school and during my college years I started drinking, smoking pot, and snorting cocaine on occasion.

It was during that period that I met the girl who became my wife 5 or 6 years later. She invited me to go to church services with her at Calvary Temple in Modesto. I was still doing a lot of stupid things, but the Holy Spirit started working on me.

After my tenure at MJC I finished my degree at CSU, Chico. I worked hard to get my degree but just like most college students I drank a lot of beer on the weekends. I’m fortunate to have survived all the stupid things my friends and I did during that period.

After graduating from college, I went to work for a CPA firm in Redding, CA for a year. I then moved back to Modesto and went to work for a local CPA firm.

That was when I started going to church on my own because the Holy Spirit was reeling me in. I knew there was better way to live than the life I was living. I always knew there was a God, but I did not have a relationship with him.
One Monday night, my high school friends and I met at a friend’s house to play poker and watch Monday night football. It was that night that everything changed for me. I looked around the room and saw the same guys doing the same things we were doing three years ago when I left to go to college. I knew right then that they were on a dead-end road.

Shortly after that night I gave my life to the Lord and have never looked back.