I was born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, but was raised in the inner city of Watts, California. I met this inner-city ministry called World Impact, which came into the Imperial Courts Housing Projects each week, beginning shortly after the Watts riots of 1965, to minister to children and families. I gave my life to Christ that first week in LA. But the Crips and Blood gangs had grown widespread across Los Angeles by that time, and due to that pressure and others, I soon came to believe that God didn't care about me, resulting from all my unanswered questions and being physically abused by my peers. Authority became negative to me, and I soon rebelled against my stepfather's authority-and God's.I joined the Grape Street Watts Crips gang at age twelve and co-founded a clique within Grape called the Watts Baby Loc's with my best friend Edward Robinson, who is now with the Lord. After eight years in that lifestyle, God saw fit to rescue me from suicide, and I committed my life to Jesus Christ. After a year of discipleship through World Impact, I accepted an opportunity to join World Impact's Christian Leadership Training Center in their two-year program, in Florence, Kansas. After graduating from there, I joined World Impact staff in Wichita, Kansas, where I would meet my wife, Andrea, a math teacher. God blessed us with two children, Ashley and Isaiah West, and Ashley gave us four beautiful grandchildren, Jackson, Jetson, Jameson, and one granddaughter Jasmine.I work at Central Christian Church in maintenance for the last twenty-six years. I wrote my autobiography From Crip To Christ and have been featured on Pacific Garden Missions radio drama program UNSHACKLED. God has made me a mentor to young men, which has been an honor for me."But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea." {Matt.18:6, NKJV)