I’ll tell you the God honest truth. The first time ‘JIK’ fell out of my mouth, I was whiskey drunk. My best friend and I were watching skate videos and cussin each-other out for fun.  I blurted out “YoU (effin) JiKfAcE!”, it felt like it hung in the air for a little while. “What were you trying to say??”, my friend asked. It was a mix of d*ck-head and jerk-face.. and I had drunkenly blurted out “JIKface”.

“What is a JIKface??” Soon followed by “What does JIK stand for?”

My buddy looked at me and said, “What about Just ILL Kids?”  I responded, “Naw bro, that’s corny.” haha but somehow, Just ILL Kids stuck like glue.

JIK became my obession.  It was mine.  I carried markers in my pockets and everywhere I went, I was tagging JIK.  I was a lil’ skateboarding street rat, selling drugs here and there but honestly only enough to get high for free.  I was living utterly reckless. I had rejected the religion of my parents, I rejected the american dream, I rejected the whole world and every pressure it put on me to be any certain way. I was going to live life by my rules and the only real rules I had were; have fun and don’t steal from anyone who didnt deserve it.  ..Oh, and don’t spray paint houses or cars!

I attracted a gang of kids that were all into the same stuff as I was and the JIK crew was formed.  I wouldn’t call us a real gang, we were more like the lost boys of neverland.  A dysfuntional sort of family that sold drugs, skateboarded and went to raves.  Fast forward about 6 years of this lifestyle, I started to get kind of sick of it.  I wanted more.  My friends only wanted to do drugs and get drunk but I had an appetite for something better.  I didnt know what it would be, but I needed a change.

This is where things really started to shift for me.  I had always been a thinker, trying to figure out what I believed ever since I rejected everything from my childhood.  I had come up with some beliefs at this time,

1. There is a God; I had done enough psychadelics to be sure that this world is definitely no accident.

2. Since there is a God (or Creator), then I am created and my ability to know right and wrong is something I was given.

3. I had done a good job of ignoring my inner compass and realized that all that did was earn myself (and my loved ones) suffering and pain.

I decided to change the path I was taking and start consulting my inner compass for the right way to go.. believing that I would be walking toward God, instead of walking away.. So, without any ‘Christian’ paradigm, I started ‘listening and obeying’ to the thing inside me that knew right and wrong.  This new path is what took me to Portland Oregon.

I left for Portland with $400 to my name and everything just kept supernaturally lining up.  I was being taken care of in miraculous ways.  I was being trained to listen to this part of me.  I remember I would go to burger king and they had a game on the french frie containers that was a 50/50 chance of getting free food when you peeled the right side.  I would ask my ‘inner compass’ and I seriously ate free burger king for weeks.. which was nice because I had no money.  My confidence in the ability to get good guidance was being established. Soon, my inner communications were no longer just ‘right or wrong’, ‘yes or no’ type answers.. I was getting full on messages and teachings from Creator.  I would receive topics into my awareness and then these topic would expand and unfold to teach me things I had no way of knowing. I was being taught. It’s hard to explain, but I felt pretty cool about being taught by the energy that created me and knew my thoughts.

Then one day, Creator wanted to talk about JIK.

I was in my room drawing when I felt in my spirit that Creator wanted to talk about JIK. I had an immediate reaction of pride and defensiveness because my whole identity was given to these three letters.. I had rejected the world and this is what I created to represent myself, the impact I was going to make on the world, my big F you to the world… “What can you tell me about JIK?? I am JIK, JIK is me!” It was like thunder in the deepest part of my soul when God responded, “JIK STANDS FOR JESUS IS KING. YOU REPRESENT ME NOW!”

Coming from semi ‘street life’, I took ‘representing’ something very seriously.  I wasn’t going to go half way.  I had a problem though, I hated organized religion.  I had rejected the world and ALL of it’s systems, and organized religion was part of that.  I was the hippie that felt like religion was just another way to control people (I still am, honestly).  So, how was I going to represent Jesus fully, while also protecting myself and the people I love from corrupt religion and sweet sounding manipulation?  I needed to know the Word of God for myself!  I started reading the Bible like a crazy person, 4-5 hours a day.

It was during this time that I started recognizing some deep disturbances in myself.  I couldn’t believe what the ‘Church’ had come to.. “How did we get THIS (pointing in disgust at the shattered Body of Christ) out of reading THIS! (gazing into the perfect Word of God)??”.  I had an issue with the Church from the very beginning.  Why can you go to any city in America and find handfuls of ‘churches’.. they all say they love Jesus, and they all read the same Book, but they wont get past their differences to work together to do what Jesus asked us to…?

I had a bad attitude, and God had to soften me.  He actually continually softens me and helps me love His children with the same love He has shown me.

I surrendered everything when I came to the Lord. I read Matthew 6:33 ‘Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and you will be taken care of.’  That was going to be my ticket!  Remember, I was a street kid with no plan, I was cursed to die at the age of 27 and I didnt want to live past that age anyways.   When Jesus called me to Himself, I clung to that hope with everything I had.  It was two years later that the Lord started sharing His heart with me about the current state of His people.  I literally cried for two months straight (no cap) and at the end of that time, the Lord birthed the vision for JIK.

He showed me how the thing that bothered me the most about Christianity, also bothered Him deeply.  He showed me that His people were stuck and deceived in many ways, not realizing the compromises that had become normal.  He also showed me how He had  planned from the beginning of time to use my life to be part of the correction.. He would raise up servants to shock His people back to Him.  He showed me how He was even in my drunken blurt that night JIK was created.  He showed me that the revelation that ‘Jesus Is King’ is the most foundational, unifying truth that we have as believers and that when we unite with that TRUTH, all the walls that seem* to divide us fall to the ground, powerless.  That was in 2012. 

The Lord told me to make and give away t-shirts in the summer of 2013.  I drove around everywhere handing out t-shirts from plastic drawers in my green Isuzu Rodeo, talking about unity and believing for the coming move of God that will bring the Body of Christ into the next stages of our maturity. Being the witness to the world that John 17 speaks of. 

The Lord has made it so clear to me that this company was birthed by the Spirit and that He uses the JIK logo to accomplish whatever He wants to accomplish.  I’ve heard COUNTLESS testimonies of ways He has moved through the symbol to encourage, convict, remind, deliver, and heal people in ways I can take NO credit for.

The Lord walked me through lots of trials and deep trainings, learning to walk by the Spirit, learning my spiritual gifts, learning spiritual warfare and deliverance.. So many invaluable lessons and stories to help me relate and minister His ways.. All preparation for what the Lord had planned next.  I was lead into buying a screen printing business in 2017 and have been learning all sorts of lessons as a business owner, networking and dealing with all sorts of other local business owners and community leaders. 

Life has been real and hard. I’ve felt derailed and even hopeless more times than I’d like to admit. BUT GOD is faithful and He continues to pick me up and encourage me to keep going. No matter what. I am going to follow Him and believe in the glimpses of how God wants to use my life. God’s not done.