Earnest Alexander started his life in1955 in Selma, Alabama.  That was a very turbulent time in our history in regards to race.  Earnest’s mother got a job in Connecticut and decided that perhaps her children would have a better opportunity there for education and fair play.  Life did provide better opportunities, and while there were still some challenges, their quality of life was greatly improved.  

Because of an excited music teacher, who was convinced that Earnest had a unique voice for a 12 -year-old, she talked to a scholarship committee at First Church of Christ, Wethersfield, CT. They decided to help him with voice lessons at Hart College at the University of Hartford.  Earnest was in middle school at that time.  He went on to have an exciting career in music in High School, under the tutelage of Jerry Jones, Marcelyn Brown, and of course, Elizabeth Martin.  

After graduating High School, he came to Kansas at the suggestion of one of his teachers at Weaver High School.  Jerry Jones knew that Earnest did not have the foundation he needed academically to perform well in college.  Mr. Jones had taught at a small school in Butler County and felt like they would help Earnest to establish a foundation that would allow him to be successful in obtaining a college degree, which he did.  After one year at Butler County Community College, he moved to Wichita to the music department at Friends University, and under the tutelage of Dr Cecil Riney, and the Singing Quakers, many doors were opened to him.  

However, Earnest always had a heart for, and a ministry to kids.  While trying to seek direction for his professional career, God reminded him of a prayer he had prayed as a little boy in Alabama, at the age of six.  After hearing the great gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, Earnest prayed, “God, if you give me a voice like that, I will use it for Your glory.”  Fast forward to 1979, graduating from Friends, he had the opportunity to sing for a great opera singer, Jerome Hines. Mr. Hines was impressed and felt he could introduce Earnest to some people in New York that might be able to further his career.  Earnest decided to pray about it overnight and talk to Mr Hines the next day.  While lying in bed that night, very excited, a still small voice spoke to his heart and asked the question, “Do you remember the prayer you prayed as a six year-old?”  Earnest remembered it, but was not happy to remember.  He felt that he wasn’t going to get to do what he wanted to, but to keep his word to God and do what he promised in that prayer. He knew that God had another plan that pertained to ministry.  The next day he disappointed a lot of people at Friends when he explained that God had a different plan for his life.  

So Earnest traveled around the world singing gospel music in quite a few countries, as well as the United States.  After returning from what was then the Soviet Union, he was invited to sing at North High School in Wichita.  After that concert, a group of sophomores who were all best friends found his contact information and looked him up.  Their lives had been turned upside down in a Fellowship of Christian Athletes meeting.  They were counseled by a powerful young man by the name of Robert Lang.   Mr. Lang, Mr. Terry Williams and Earnest met for supper one Friday evening and agreed to start a Bible study, ministering to these young men.  Over the next two years, they grew to a group of over 300 kids. These three men began to see the potential for spiritual awakening in our country through the lives of young people.   

Youth Horizons was formed as a Christian mentoring program, later adding a residential program for boys, and then a program for girls coming out of sex trafficking.  After retiring from Youth Horizons, Earnest became aware of the tremendous amount of children who either failed to be adopted, or were never adopted, and did not have extended families involved in their lives.  Many of them were contacting him, wanting to know where they could get help.  Hence, Life On Life was created.