First and foremost we give all glory to God and thank him for all that he does for us. My name is Mike, and wife, Julia, and I moved from San Francisco to Olympia in 2013. Our family moved from the Bay Area because life was so dark and it had started to grow hard on our family.

     I had done over 10 years in the prison system, but was blessed to come home to my beautiful wife, Julia, and our first son, Giovanni. Over time I started to slide back into my past life of addiction, and knew I had to pick up and move in order to get away from that old life. We began our journey to Washington with no place to live, no jobs, and Julia being pregnant with our second child, Malakai. 

     Once settled in Olympia, we prayed hard to find a church that would best fit our family. Sure enough, God answered our prayers and we ended up meeting the Pulleys on the baseball field. Julia found herself talking to Lindsey while I was talking with Patrick in a different area of the field. We both mentioned our desire to find a church and we got an invite to Olympia City Church.

We had already tried out several other churches in the area and it was not working out. I had this fear that with my past life I was going to be judged or looked at differently.

     But despite our anxieties and reservations, our church family has been there in every way that we had hoped and prayed for. We have received one-on-one time with help from the pastors,  and brothers and sisters of OCC have gone out of their way to reach out to us and give us their love, prayers, and time.

     Since we joined Olympia City Church, our family has been highly blessed with a new family that loves and cares for us unconditionally and accepts us for who we are. We are very thankful for everything that our church has done with growing Bible studies outside of a church "gathering", whether through the men's and women’s fight clubs, the kids’ ministry, and so much more.

     I thank the Lord for how he has shown his everlasting love and amazing grace to us through Olympia City Church.