Mr.Isaiah Washington

Pain shot like electricity through Crazy Ike's legs as the 20-foot drop smashed him into the pavement. He'd escaped injury on a
three-story jump before, but luck was not with him this day – not the world's luck anyway.
The road leading him to the jump – which landed him in the hospital and the center of God's will – was a bumpy one.

"I lived a wild life in a Connecticut project, disciplined by older guys to be a thief, a booster (shoplifter) and a stickup artist," Ike remembers.

A heroin addict by age 15, he dropped out of school and left home at 16. Ike's first arrest came at age 17 for armed robbery. By the time he was 30, he had bounced in and out of jail and prison and had earned the nickname Crazy Ike.

He had one thing going for him, however: a mother who knew God. She never turned her back on me," Ike says. From her deathbed she told him, "Boy, you'll be saved one day."

Ike left the East Coast for Seattle – and soon found himself in prison again for drugs. Finishing up his time in a Christian work-release program, he decided to burglarize the ministry. When a security guard cornered him, he leaped two stories off the ledge, shattering the bones in his feet.

Still physically weak, he decided to "use" the Victory Outreach program "to get a rest for 30 days," he says. He'd been carrying their pamphlet in his pocket for six months.

But when Victory's pastor, Johnny Heredia, caught him sneaking out of the men's home to get "loaded", Ike was sure he would be kicked out. Instead, Heredia said he was going to pray for Ike.

"It tripped me out. I knew something was different about this place," Ike says. "I could have walked out, but I wanted to change. I learned to pray, 'God, You've got to help me because I can't do it."

The program was "the hardest thing" he'd ever done, Thats when it all started