Since I was eight years old I had two dreams of what God wanted me to become when I grew up! One was to become an owner of an restaurant because I love to eat and cook amazing food!! The other vision God gave to me was to become a pastor to preach the Gospel for many people to come to Jesus and to be eternally changed forever! As some of y'all know I went to Johnson and Wales University and I went for a Food Service Management Degree and graduated in 2010. I also worked in the food service industry for 11 years.
Some of y'all know also the time I was a youth leader assistant to the student pastor from 2003-2008 at Highland Baptist Church in Hickory, NC. I was a junior high guys leader, leader on several mission trips, went to Venezuela twice, and I preached occasionally to the youth on Sunday nights during Sunday Night Alive for 20-50 7th-12th grade guys and girls. On February 17th I had a really intense team time with BTX because God was uprooting out some things of my old life to the surface. This wasn't pretty in fact this sucked big time but was need for spiritual growth.
After team time I was hanging out with some of my friends on M-squad and a couple of my teammates talked to me about preaching at church on Tuesday night. In my mind I said no I shouldn't because more people are doing better on the squad with things than I was and I thought I would be better at preaching in Cambodia because I be the strong one in my group by month 5! This was wrong and selfish of me to think this way because Jesus uses the most ordinary and broken people to do great things for His glory! So I thought about this and I went to Stacy, one of my squad leaders about preaching for Tuesday night and she said sure Blake thanks so much! God opened the door and used me to preach even when I felt broken down and to be honest the weakest one on my team. Tuesday night God spoke through me and to about 100 people about being salt and light in this dark world!! Not even 18 hours later my team was out street evangelizing and Pastor Lionel asked for a couple of people to share our testimony on a street corner!! I was so nervous but a couple of my teammates pushed me into sharing my testimony on the street to be a light for Christ!
God can use us for anything if we are willing and ready!
