About this page: This was my first major experience in practicing faith and seeing God bless my life. Though it was hard to give up my profitable break-dancing and go serve God for a month, I managed to do it.   I had wanted to find Him.  Upon my return he blessed me many times over by connecting me with J.T. and Ale. We made over $6,000.00 in just three months, which is pretty good for being only 16 years old.

Putting Faith Before Talent

Since I was the lead vocal in the stage band at my school, I was able to incorporate "breakin" into our performances. After performing for the mayor, the local paper did a story on our band. That was how the area YMCA found out about me. They asked me to come and teach classes in their program. It did not take long to enroll over 70 students. That summer I was challenged by the "Young Life" area director to set aside my dancing for a month and choose to serve God by washing dishes at a place called "Frontier Ranch". The ranch was a mountainous resort outside of Denver Colorado. It was designed for the purpose of taking high school kids on a weeklong trip to have the time of their life while at the same time hearing the word of God. For me, the trip would consist of a month of washing dishes for ten hours a day. This would be a volunteer project. It was hard to make the decision. I would have to leave my "breakin" career at home. Nevertheless, I decided to do it. I was willing to go because I had been inspired to search for God. The trip was very difficult. Every Thursday night, the campers would have a dance. My work crew leader told me that it was not my place to "show off" while I was on this trip. He taught me to humble myself and to refrain. On the fourth and final week, he finally allowed me to dance. It was a good lesson in self-denial. Though the experience of serving God without material rewards helped me to better understand what servitude meant, I was not very excited about continuing the search for a relationship with God. I returned home to find that the guys that I had left in charge of my classes had quit. An oriental guy by the name of J.T. had stepped in and kept the classes together. I was very appreciative. J.T. and I went on to form a group we named "The Outrageous Duo" As a performing and teaching duo, we were able to do much more than I was doing before alone. When I started back for my junior year of High School, I met Alejandro Smith. Ale had just moved to Augusta. He had lived in California and in Brooklyn. He had belonged to a very successful break-dancing group, which had been hired to perform in the movie: Beat Street. A local agent developed our talent to form a singing and dance group called the "Outrageous Trio". She had managed Tom Sellick and the Osmond Brothers. It was easy for her to get us work in Augusta, Columbia, and Myrtle Beach. McDonald's hired us to perform for their large promotional events. We also placed 1st in the Star Search semi-finals. The Augusta Civic City Ballet gave me a full scholarship in dance. I studied Classical Ballet and Modern Dance for about a year and a half.