Our Story
It all started with a Dream: It was September 2019, and before my trip to London, my armor-bearer shared that she had a dream about me. As we stood in the parking lot of the Piggly Wiggly grocery store, she shared the dream with me. The Dream: According to her, I had done something big, no, something huge like creating a cure for cancer or something. It was so huge that it was worldwide! In the dream, there was also an unidentified man who was trying to find out what I was doing, but it was a secret, so no one would tell him. My Response: I will not be creating a cure for cancer because that is not my field of expertise however, if God has something that he wants me to do, I will do it!
In December 2019, my family realized it had been almost eighteen years since we had done a family portrait. Because we are spread out across the country, I proceeded to try to make plans to coordinate our schedules to come together and make it happen. Boy was it a task. At the time, our son Caleb played college football at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, TN, our daughter Danielle lives in CA, Kierra and Deron live in Atlanta, and April lives in AL. Well, unfortunately as life would have it, different schedules and geographical locations made it impossible. I was so disappointed that once again, we were not going to be able to get together for a family portrait. I thought, one day soon, and thought nothing else of it.
You don’t have to be present, GROUPIXX will bring everyone together!
Now it is March 2020, and we are stricken with the most devasting thing to happen in my lifetime, the COVID-19 pandemic! Everyone was required to stay home, and like most people, I was glued to the television watching the news about the multitude of cases and overwhelming deaths caused by this horrible disease. One day while strolling through the channel guide, I saw another Alabama native, Charles Barkley, on a show called Shark Tank. I had never seen the show and thought it was about sharks. Because Charles was on it, I watched it and quickly became addicted to it as my daughter April pointed out. I had to admit that I love the show and would often cry when someone got a deal. At the time, I did not understand why I was so addicted to this show, one in which everyday people presented their ideas of a business to five titans who had turned their own ideas into lucrative empires. Well shortly afterward, I began to understand. But God… He had a plan!
Even though we were in the midst of a pandemic, as a pastor, I still had the responsibility of my ministry work to carry out. Still as dedicated as ever to my prayer time early each morning, on Tuesday, July 14th, I went into my prayer room to pray. That day was different. While in prayer, I fell into a deep sleep and God went to work. He put this creative idea into my mind and when I finally awoke, I realized what had happened. I quickly got up, grabbed my tablet, and began to jot down what I remembered of the dream that God had given me. As I began writing, the Holy Spirit spoke to me saying, remember the dream that was spoken to you. That is when I knew! I began to cry because I knew it was God. I finally connected the dream to the idea that God had given me.
As this dream and the creative idea merged and are slowly coming to fruition, I constantly ask myself, why did God give this idea of a technological nature to me when I am not a technical person? Well, it is not a secret! God never gives us something that we can do on our own, why would we need Him if He did? He purposely gives up things that are too hard for us to accomplish on our own so that we must depend on and have faith in Him. I did just that, depend on and have faith in Him! Fast forward, to May 2021, after the passing of my beloved father, the dream is real. I have begun my new journey, welcome to GrouPixx! This is my story, and I’m sticking to it…