My first language was Castilian Spanish. My father wasn’t in the picture. My mother raised me with one non-negotiable: words. English was my second language, and she made sure I learned it like a weapon.

I dropped out of high school at sixteen because I got my girlfriend pregnant. Got my GED at seventeen — scored high enough to receive a personal letter from the President of the United States. Earned an associate’s degree in advertising and design. Everything else, I taught myself. Three to five books a month, for years.

That girlfriend? I married her. Thirty-three years ago. Six children. The marriage survived job losses, business failures, health crises, and the kind of arguments that make the walls thin — because we both had a stubborn faith that the covenant meant something even when we didn’t feel like it did.

I’ve built companies across sign fabrication, vehicle wraps, marketing consulting, and software development. I invented The Bad Wrap™, the world’s leading vehicle wrap design software. I’ve consulted for organizations ranging from small shops to 3M. I’ve also been fired more times than I’d like to admit — not because I couldn’t do the work, but because I think in layers and most rooms don’t reward that.

I’m half Ashkenazi, half Sephardic — both streams of the Jewish Diaspora running through one person. DeSoto is a Sephardic name that carried Jewish blood through generations that had to hide it to stay alive. So when I say I’m a Jew who follows Yeshua, that’s not a theological position I adopted. It’s a homecoming.

B’Chavruta (בְחַבְרוּתָא) — “in partnership” — is the theological heart of my writing. It comes from the ancient Jewish tradition of studying Scripture in pairs: two people at a table, wrestling with the text as equals. No hierarchy. No pulpit.

I write because I want you to enjoy truth — not endure it. I want you to think for yourself. And I want you to see what I’ve seen: that when you read the Bible from its Hebraic perspective, it stops being a flat religious book. It becomes three-dimensional. Alive. A story so beautiful you wonder how you ever read it any other way.

The table has an empty chair. It’s yours if you want it.

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