I was born and raised in the Bronx West Farms area in New York City. My parents were born in Puerto Rico and met when they came to New York to find work as young adults. They were not devoted Catholics but were loving parents to three boys. We didn’t attend church except for weddings and perhaps a funeral or two. I didn’t really know very much about God. All I knew was that we observed the traditional religious holidays during the year like Christmas, Good Friday and Easter. They also played Christian movies on TV like the Ten Commandments which I enjoyed watching as well as Hercules, Sinbad and other Roman type movies.
My grandfather, who lived with us during my teen years, was the only person in the family who read the Bible occasionally to himself. Jesus and salvation were not shared; there was just nothing “Christian” about my childhood other than religious holidays. As a matter of fact, some of our family members in Puerto Rico mixed other religions and cults like Buddhism and a bit of Voodoo with God.
After high school, I tried to enlist in the Marines in the Aviation field. Some recruiters had come to school to talk to us before graduation, and I decided that was the path to take because I didn’t know what else I wanted to do. For sure I didn’t want to be a burden to my parents. Unfortunately, I didn’t score well enough on the initial test for Aviation, and they told me to come back in a couple of weeks and try again. The recruiter explained that many people came back and scored higher the second time around.
Not wanting to wait and determined to be in the military, I went next door to the Navy recruiting office. I took their test and it was like the one I’d just taken for the Marines. Sure enough, I improved my test score enough to be assigned to Aviation. I entered the Navy as an Aviation Boson’s Mate and that meant I would work the flight deck. Even though it wasn’t my first choice, the Navy was where I was supposed to be.
My first official trip in the military was in 1978. The flight to boot camp from New York to Illinois was uneventful except for one thing. Before the late-night flight all of us had been given boxed lunches which also contained a Gideon Bible. After eating, I wanted to throw the box away with the Bible still in it. Just as I was about to throw the box away something inside my head told me, “Don’t throw the Bible away.” So I took the Bible out.
I put the little Bible in my bag, finished boot camp and flew to San Diego to join the rest of the crew. Next we flew to Pascagoula, Mississippi to pick up the new ship – the USS Belleau Wood (LHA3). This landing assault ship had been commissioned the same year I joined the Navy, 1978. She was the third of five ships in a new class (Tarawa class) of general-purpose amphibious assault ships. We sailed to her new home port in San Diego, California.
Once on board, I stowed all my gear and put the Bible in my locker. It stayed in that locker for almost two years. During the ship’s test trials, I traveled up and down the West Coast visiting different cities and states, including Hawaii. The Navy took care of my room and board. Even though I sent half of my pay home to my parents, I still had plenty of money to enjoy all the appetites the world had to offer, and I indulged myself to the fullest for the next two years. I did my Navy job, worked out a lot, and went to clubs and met girls.
Then the emptiness set in and I started questioning if there was more to living than this. I was tired of the same old thing. One day I decided to stay on board the ship. Cleaning out my locker, I found the Bible I had stored two years earlier. Once I left high school, if it wasn’t required reading of military manuals or instructions or comic books – I wouldn’t read it; no books, not even newspapers. But for some reason, I decided to read this Bible. It took me about two months or so and I read it from cover to cover. I didn’t understand anything except for the things that had to do with salvation. The Lord made that very clear to me. I felt convicted.
At the end of the Gideon Bible there is a prayer for salvation. I recalled from my childhood that when we went to church for weddings people kneeled, so I went into a bathroom, knelt and accepted Jesus Christ as the Lord of my life. I felt different. I couldn’t explain it. I still can’t explain it today. I do know that it was the Holy Spirit who filled my heart. I decided to read that Bible again. This time as I read it anything that had to do with sexual immorality (in all its forms) really stuck out. None of this had bothered me the first time I read the Bible. This time it was different. Those words were eating at me and I know the Lord was talking to my heart because I was seeing a married woman at that time. I explained to her that I had met the Lord and I ended the relationship.
When the ship was in port in San Diego, I started visiting churches to learn more. I didn’t even know what the word “denomination” meant at the time and went to all kinds of churches - Baptist, Pentecostal, Charismatic and others. Eventually I found a non-denominational church that held services in a converted old theater. I started talking to my friends about Christ. They didn’t understand the change. I had to let those friends go and God provided Christian friends aboard ship.
Eager to learn, I started buying books to understand more about the various religions and why they were different. The more I learned, the more I decided to stay at this non-denominational church because they appeared to teach straight out of the Bible. The Lord seemed to tell me that it was my responsibility to dig into His Word and to get to know Him. I also felt the warning to beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing that might sway me from what I knew to be true – that Jesus died on the cross for me.
In 1981, I made my first trip to Houston to visit my parents. They had already moved to Houston to be near my uncle in 1979, while I was serving in the Navy. That’s when they bought the house on Sagehill Street. So when I left the Navy in 1982, I came back to Houston because that’s where my family was now. I’d decided I wanted to get married but not while I was still in the Navy. There were six-month deployments every year. I’d already seen what that did to others who were married and it wasn’t the life for me. After active duty I attended San Jacinto College, joined the Houston Police Department and stayed in the Navy Active Reserve for another six years until 1989.
When I left the Navy, two shipmates who had mentored me during my active duty tour admonished me to find a church home as soon as possible because I had been a Christian for only a year. I didn’t follow my shipmates’ advice to look for a church home. I was too busy with school, my job and trying to find a wife – again, of course, in all the wrong places. I met one woman and we dated for 7-8 years but nothing was working out and I hit rock bottom. About 1990 I started questioning what I’d done wrong. Finally, the scripture that came into my head was, “you have forsaken ME.” And I agreed with the Lord. Right then I promised not to look for a wife for a year and asked the Lord to help me find a church home. I’d been doing everything on my own and not seeking Him.
Every day on my way to work I passed Sagemont Baptist Church. Some weeks had gone by and I still had not found a church. I thought the Lord would have let a light bulb go off by now or given something to point me in the direction of the church he wanted me to attend. But every time I passed Sagemont Church I heard the Lord saying, “I want you to go there.” I didn’t want to go to a Baptist church because of the unpleasant experience I’d had with that type of church in San Diego. One of the things I remembered from that time was that they taught that you had to be baptized to be saved. And I knew that not to be true – because the thief on the cross didn’t have time to be baptized. I wanted a non-denominational church.
For a month I resisted the urge to come to Sagemont Baptist Church. One Sunday I could no longer resist. I woke up and heard, “You will go to that church.” “Okay, Lord, I’ll go.” I didn’t really want to go so I figured that I could outsmart the Lord. My plan was to go dressed in a sweat shirt and sweat pants so they wouldn’t welcome me at the door. Since I did not know when the service started, the second part of the plan was to walk to church instead of driving, I figured I would miss the service altogether. If all went as planned, I could tell the Lord that I tried. I got ready. I arrived at the front door to be greeted with big smiling faces, and it didn’t matter how I was dressed. I could see it in their faces and felt it in their handshakes, I was welcomed. I was on time too – still 10 minutes before service started. My plan hadn’t worked.
I sat in the back, listened to the songs and then Brother John started to preach. He preached on the carnal mind. I was so spanked by the Lord. I knew this was my place and where I needed to be because I had been given a good spanking by my Father in Heaven. I was baptized here and became a member on September 21, 1991. What changed my mind about baptism? I learned early on here at Sagemont Church that it’s a proclamation of your faith - not that you have to do it for salvation.
As a new member, I attended the singles class. During a singles event at Roundtop, TX, Denise, who was the head of hospitality, was there to serve the group. We spent the whole night talking and we hit it off. The funny thing is we had met before at the Singles Building but I never noticed her until Roundtop. When I thought about it later, the Roundtop event was a year after I’d made that promise to God. God opened my eyes and heart that night to Denise and she became my wife. She had two children already and we had three more together.
My wife Denise is the prayer warrior and I’m stronger on the faith side. I can go through anything because I have God on my side. Whether they are good times or bad, my God is always with me. I believe that’s why John 3:16 will always be my favorite scripture – “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” All the other scriptures are encouraging or explaining, or correcting or loving and telling us how we should live – but this one sums everything up. It says it all.
I was crazy to think I could outsmart our Heavenly Father. Father knows best. I still have that Gideon Bible somewhere. I know it’s in a box but not destined to be thrown away this time. And it’s changed just a little bit over the years too because it now has the date within its covers of when I accepted the Lord in 1981.