TESTIMONy "1 CORINTHIANS 9:20-22"

Our story did not begin in a church. It began during the Great Depression. When my great-grandfather abandoned his wife and four daughters, my great-grandmother did what she believed she had to do to keep her family alive. She opened a brothel in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she and her daughters worked so they could eat, survive, and keep a roof over their heads during one of the hardest economic periods in American history. My grandmother was 12 years old.

Growing up in that environment, my grandmother came to know Richard Mellon, who was among the wealthiest men in the world at the time. How and why, I do not know. I have one photograph of her and Richard Mellon. My family often talked about him throughout my entire life, so he was someone very important to our family, although the reason was never revealed. That was a secret that only the sisters knew.

Through those years, she learned banking and financial matters that would later become part of our family’s business knowledge, eventually leading to her opening the Blue Spruce Motel with an Olympic-sized outdoor pool in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, something that was unheard of at the time. She funded the entire project, giving the money to my grandfather, who later took away all of the wealth she had secured for the family. She eventually accepted 100% responsibility for the federal crime involving the brothel house and served time in a federal penitentiary so that her own mother would not have to.

The organized crime connections that once surrounded parts of my family’s world disappeared long before I was born, but the mentality remained. We were taught to honor the family, never show weakness, protect our own, and never bring shame upon the family name. Behind closed doors, however, life was a very different game.

Below is a picture of Richard Mellon (top right) and my grandmother in black (lower right) with the rest of the family at that time. Why was Mr Mellon the 8th richest man of the world, declared by Forbes Magazine attending dinner with my grandmothers family who was poor?. 

The second picture is of the hotel she financed and built that my grandfather took away from her! Who at the time of his death was worth 33 million plus assets.

Raised in Las Vegas with that mindset, I entered a life of crime and repeated legal trouble before I was sixteen years old. All criminal activity disclosed is a part of public record within the legal system.. At that time,I had a lawyer represent me in juvenile court who only represented mobsters facing death penalty murder charges. That lawyer actually became the District Attorney of Las Vegas, Nevada. 

He was an incredible gentleman who was later there for me when I ran someone over and was possibly facing charges. I ran him over because he refused to sign the divorce papers so I could marry his soon-to-be ex-wife. He was going to ail me out if arrested for it, without asking for a single dollar because he respected my family. Years later, my criminal history even resulted in me being kicked out of an entire country called “Canada”.

Eventually, I entered California’s medical cannabis industry during the SB 420 era, where we operated a dispensary twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, including holidays. Organizations such as NORML helped support the early medical cannabis movement by sending us an attorney to prepare our legal paperwork, and we considered ourselves part of advancing compassionate access for patients during those pioneering years. Our dispensary was raided more than once, felony charges followed, and life continued down a path that seemed impossible to escape. From the outside, my future looked predictable. No one would have expected Jesus to rewrite my story. 🙏

After many years of rebuilding my life, returning to legitimate work, raising a family, and trying to become a productive member of society, every career I had built eventually came to an end. Looking back now, I believe every experience, both the successes and the failures, prepared me to understand people who were living the same life I once lived. Much like the transformation of Saul into Paul, I believe God redirected my past instead of erasing it. The same determination, experiences, and understanding that once led me away from God would eventually become tools to help others find Jesus.

My family then sold our home and invested nearly everything we had to open what we believe became America’s first federally tax-exempt Christian church operating alongside a federally legal hemp dispensary. We were recognized as a 508(c)(1)(A) church with an established doctrine, pastoral leadership, and a ministry centered on Jesus. We were never trying to build a business. We were trying to create a place where people who would never walk into a traditional church might feel comfortable asking questions about Jesus. People came expecting to grab something from the dispensary. They were also handed a Bible. 📖

Because of the unusual nature of the ministry, people from every background walked through our doors simply to see if such a place could actually exist. What began as handing out Bibles quickly became something none of us expected. One day, a woman walked in asking for prayer because she had been raped only days earlier. Standing there with nothing but my Bible in my hands, I realized we were completely unequipped for moments like this. Instead of relying on ourselves, we prayed and depended on the Holy Spirit. That encounter changed everything. From that day forward, our ministry no longer functioned simply as a storefront with Christian conversations. It became a church centered on one-on-one discipleship, prayer, and walking with people through the darkest moments of their lives. ❤️‍🩹

As the ministry continued, we discovered that many of the people walking through our doors struggled with addiction, homelessness, trauma, mental illness, loneliness, and hopelessness. Rather than avoiding those who had been rejected by society, we found ourselves surrounded by people who desperately wanted love. ❤️

Our ministry expanded beyond Bible distribution into serving our community in practical ways. We partnered with the local fire department to distribute Thanksgiving turkeys to families in need, provided an entire fourth-grade class from a low-income elementary school with a field trip to play miniature golf, and continually looked for opportunities to bless our neighborhood. 🤝

One memory I will never forget was confronting drug dealers and people openly using drugs across the street at a laundromat called Mr. Bubbles, where families and children witnessed this activity while doing their laundry. As of today, the police department has cleaned that area up! 

As our understanding of Scripture continued to grow through thousands of conversations, years of study, and countless life experiences, we began producing pamphlets and eventually a series of Christian self-help books designed to explain Scripture in a clear, practical, and understandable way. These books replaced our earlier pamphlets as our teaching matured. Everything we experienced eventually pointed us toward one central question that became the foundation of our continued study:

❓ The Knowledge of Good & Evil Removed Us from Eden. Can You Enter Heaven While Continuing to Use It Every Day?

Whether people ultimately agreed with our conclusions or not, this question became the driving force behind our continued search to understand Jesus’ commands, His only documented sermon, and how they apply to everyday life.

Then everything changed once again. With federal hemp laws changing and scheduled to take effect on November 12, 2026, we believed our season in Pensacola had come to an end. Although the laws can still change at the last hour, we chose to close our ministry months early because we believed Jesus was closing one door and opening another. 🚪

The ministry was never about selling hemp. Jesus always came first. Anyone who disrespected Jesus or the church was lovingly corrected because our mission had never changed. It was always about introducing people to Jesus.

When we closed our doors, we did not sell the ministry, cash out, or build a financial safety net. We gave away what we could and sold all the valuables we could not afford to take along on this journey. Why? Because we believed our calling was greater than our possessions.

In August, after nearly two years of ministry, we decided to leave everything our family as worldly and fleshly comfortable with And to replant the ministry with what was approximately $5,000. Those funds had to cover relocating across the country from Florida to Northern California, which would be needed to secure housing, feed our family, transportation, and trusting God for our daily provision while we replant this ministry from the ground up. 🚗🛣️

🔥 RIGHT NOW, we are documenting every step of this journey. This is not a scripted production, a reality television show, or a fictional story.

This is our family’s real life as we attempt to replant our ministry and continue serving people struggling with addiction, mental illness, trauma, homelessness, and hopelessness, following what we believe is Paul’s example in 1 Corinthians 9:20–21 of meeting people where they are so they might come to know Jesus.

Along the way, you’ll witness every victory, every disappointment, every prayer, every setback, every unexpected blessing, every person Jesus places in our path, and every impacting opportunity to share the Gospel. 🙏 Come walk the journey with us, because the greatest stories are not written before they happen. 

We are documenting our entire experience for our Pray, Fast, and Watch self help mini book for others to increase the strength of their prayer life.