2. Growing Up

I don’t want to spend too much time talking about my childhood. For one reason, I don’t want to bore you with the details. But mostly, I just want to get to the reason I wrote this book: the kids. But every good story has to have background details. All of my friends know that I can’t tell a story without telling the background details first. So here we go…
I came into this world on November 7th, 1980. I grew up in a small southern town in the United States, called Cookeville, Tennessee.
I had a pretty average upbringing; nothing too out of the ordinary. We weren’t rich and we weren’t poor. Growing up, I was never in need, and I had much of the stuff that I wanted most of the time too. You know, like the coolest new toys, which at that time ranged all the way from He-man action figures, in my early years, to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles when I got a little older.
I grew up in a suburban neighborhood with a lot of kids around to play with. I had two loving parents, but more important to this story, I had grandparents who helped to instill within me from a young age a love to travel. We went on vacation every summer and we would see everything the destination had to offer!!
I had two brothers and my younger brother, Tanner, died when I was 12. Looking back, that was a landmark in my life. That is basically when I decided to become “hard” and not show my emotions. I went on without crying or showing much emotion for the next three years.
Another landmark in my life was when my parents divorced when I was 15. It was quite a surprise to me. In my lifetime, in our small town, I saw divorce go from being a really rare and strange thing to becoming just a part of every day life. I acted as though it didn’t faze me but deep down it really did. I struggled to get used to seeing my mom and dad with different partners.
As most teenagers do, I got into a bit of trouble. Nothing too crazy or rare though. That was when I started smoking, drinking, and then went on to smoke pot for a while.
I also enjoyed stealing. I never really stole stuff I needed, well except for cigarettes because they are hard to get for a minor, but I just enjoyed the rush of stealing stuff and getting away with it.
Anyway, when I was 16 years old I experienced another huge landmark in my life. This was definitely the biggest.
I hung out with my friend’s family at their house every single day and I was amazed at their compassion and love that they so freely showed towards me. I knew that they were Christians and they did not back down on their beliefs in front of me but at the same time, they never once forced it on me.
Finally, over a series of days I got into conversations with my friend’s spiritually mature, twelve year old younger sister and she told me stories and just shared different experiences that she had gone through. She led me to the Lord and I became a Christian.
My whole life I had gone to a more traditional kind of church and had never thought about God as being real. He always seemed like some sort of far off fairy tale to me and the Bible seemed like a storybook.
The stories that the little girl told me all seemed to center around God not only being real, but alive and active in the lives of people in this modern day that we live in. This was new and attractive to me.
I went to church with them the following Sunday and was amazed at how loving and accepting the people were. It was that day in May 1997 that I gave my heart to the Lord. The moment I did, I felt a warmth come over my whole body. It was almost like someone poured warm oil over my head. I felt a peace like I had never before experienced in my life. I began to uncontrollably cry. Needless to say, it felt good after a three year build up!
That day I quit smoking, drinking and smoking pot. I didn’t quit that stuff because I felt like I had to, but because I had found something better. I quit them because I found something to fill the emptiness I had been trying to fill with them, and I quit them because I wanted to. I worked on my foul language and lying and things like that along the way.
From that day on I got extremely involved with my church. In my junior year of high school I was in a Christian rock band called Manna. We had concerts almost every weekend that school year and it was a great experience for me.
I also got involved in the local government project areas and trailer park areas of my town. Some friends of mine and I would do free cookouts in those areas and build relationships with the people there. I really enjoyed it.
Somewhere in all of that both of my parents got remarried. I now have what you might consider an “average American family”: a mom, a dad, a step-mom, a step-dad, one blood brother, one stepbrother, one half-brother and one half-sister.
As westerners, we tend to complicate stuff like that. In Africa, they would ALL be considered brothers and sisters. Heck, my two first cousins who I grew up with would also be considered my brother and sister. So, in proper African style, I have four brothers and two sisters.