He wanted to be a pro baseball player, think Derek Jeter, but with brown eyes. I’ll never forget this about Lamar, and I’ll never forget where we were when I heard him say it. The chickenpox had kept Lamar, along with me, from participating in the real kindergarten graduation with the rest of our class. The school set up a special service for us in the cafeteria; it was here that he proclaimed his dreams for the future. This was not the first ordeal we went through together, and it wouldn’t be the last. Our entire lives Lamar and I have been going through tough times together, from chickenpox to losing basketball games to getting in trouble at school and even dealing with the death of loved ones. Lamar may not have fulfilled his childhood dream of making the major leagues, but the story of his journey and what he has actually become, is just as remarkable as if he had become a professional athlete.

Lamar has always been a cool customer, a cat as cool as the other side of the pillow. He was so smooth that our junior high basketball coach nicknamed him “silk” because of his laid-back demeanor. In fact, while most people are confined to simply walk with choppy, individual steps, Lamar appeared to practically glide as he strolled towards his destination.

He was quiet and reserved but when something made him laugh his cheeks would ball up to reveal a warm and permeating smile. He had an ear-to-ear smile that he often used. But behind the cool demeanor and the warm infectious smile, years of secret hurts and scars were hiding. Even before we participated in our kindergarten graduation service he had endured sexual abuse from someone close to him. The pain began to take a toll on him immediately.

Fast-forward to high school and Lamar was still cool, still smiling, still hurting and it was getting worse. The scars he had from childhood abuse had turned into practically paralyzing insecurities, which were compounded by another insecurity that had sprung up during his teenage years. Lamar is mixed. Half-black, half-white. He didn’t feel black enough for the black kids, or white enough for the white kids. He felt like he didn’t fit in with either race. Often times he found himself simply dressing, talking, and acting like his closest friends, who happened to be white. But simply disguising himself like them didn’t make him them; he was haunted by the fact that he was different.

These insecurities and scars took a toll on Lamar’s self-image and self-confidence. He began to be seen as shy and timid by others at school. Late in his high school career Lamar found something that seemed to help boost his self-confidence and help him cope with his insecurities and hurts: clubbing. The flashing lights, the girls and the music became an escape for him. Best of all nobody there knew him as the shy, timid Lamar. While he was clubbing, he felt free from his reputation at school. Beyond that, girls at the club were showing interest in him, something he didn’t experience at school. He was hooked immediately.

Clubbing was the beginning of a downward spiral for Lamar. He went from clubbing sober, to clubbing and drinking, to going to house parties. Eventually, Lamar was getting high every day, doing ecstasy every weekend and even trying acid. This downward spiral dropped him in the hospital after an alcohol overdose. He was kicked out of high school during his senior year and had to watch graduation from the front row, while the rest of the class was on stage. He racked up thousands of dollars in credit card debt, flunked out of technical school and eventually, after a mental breakdown from dropping acid, hit rock bottom.

Though Lamar seemed to have no hope, a few things were with him through all of this: God, the church and a mentor named Pete Morse. In a conversation with him in October, we talked about his transformation since he rediscovered Christ.

Daniel: When you think back on everything you’ve been through, where would you say God was during all of it?

Lamar: [He was] waiting patiently for me; tugging at me every once in a while, dropping little signs.

D: Like what? What were some of these signs?

L: Well, there was the time Pastor Nick came up to me one Sunday and told me that God had put me on his heart, and I don’t remember exactly what he said, but at this point I was back and forth between the party scene and church. Anytime I would go to church I could feel Him tugging at me but I was too prideful to respond. I was more worried about keeping some image than I was about my relationship with God. There was the time when I was tripping and my mind was racing and it was kind of a crazy night and it was weird because I went to my car to listen to KTIS because I felt like it would bring me some peace.

D: So when was the turning point for you?

L: Memorial day 2008, it was 2:30 in the morning. I was lying in bed high and trying to fall asleep; and it was just like God came into the midst of my restlessness and anxiety and pierced through all of it and made it clear that I was living in rebellion and had been ignoring him for an extremely long time. I could sense so clearly at that moment that I was at a fork in the road and there were only two choices: obey or die.

D: How did you respond?

L: I got up and went to my mom’s room and told her what I had been doing.

D: What all did you tell her?

L: Well, she knew about the drinking from times I had gotten caught in high school, but that night I told her how I had been using harder drugs like ecstasy and hallucinogens.

D: So you woke your mom up and dropped this bomb on her about how you had been using drugs, how did she react?

L: She didn’t know what to do, I mean I woke her up out of her sleep to tell her, you know “I’m on drugs.” So she called someone who had a better idea of what to do, someone who had dealt with that kind of stuff before; she called Pete Morse. Pete didn’t pick up, so she drove [me] to his house.

D: She drove you to his house at three AM?

L: Ya! And we started ringing the doorbell trying to get him to wake up so we could talk. I couldn’t really wait until later because I felt like I was literally going crazy.

D: Did he answer?

L: After a while. We were actually on our way back to the car by the time he answered the door, so we went back and he let us in and we sat down with him and his wife Missy.

D: Did you have a close relationship with him? I mean I would have to be pretty close with someone to let them in my house at 3 am!

L: I’d say ya. He was the dean of students at my high school. But even more than that he led a Bible study that I went to my senior year so he knew a lot of the hurts I went through when I was younger; and was basically like a mentor and a second dad to me during my last two years of high school.

D: He lets you in, you sit down to talk, and then what?

L: Honestly it’s kind of fuzzy for me…maybe we should let Pete answer that.

We go to find Pete…

D: First off, what was going through your mind when you heard Lamar and his mom knocking on your door?

Pete: At this point it had been months since I’d talked to Lamar and I knew the less I heard from Lamar the more reason I had to be concerned, so I knew things had to be bad. Lamar sat on the couch and just poured out his guts for at least forty-five minutes. The drugs were still so much in Lamar’s system that some of the stuff he was saying didn’t even make sense. This all the more proved that he needed some intense help. The sad reality of his situation was that nobody close to Lamar really thought he needed help, nobody knew how deep the trouble he had gotten himself into was. But the cool part of it all was Lamar knew that he didn’t need to just stop doing drugs, he needed to have a relationship with God again. And while all of his friends at the time thought he just smoked pot a lot and it wasn’t a big deal, Lamar knew that this could be his last chance to get his relationship with God back.

D: How did the night end?

P: The night ended with Missy and me recommending Minnesota Teen Challenge to him. We knew that he needed a completely new environment, and time away from his current one, in order to get his life right.

D: Lamar described your relationship to him as a kind of second father, do you agree with that?

P: Totally, I absolutely agree with Lamar on that. I was very protective of Lamar along with six other guys from Maranatha Christian Academy. He was one of those guys that could have my time no matter what and no matter when. I will always be on Lamar’s cheering squad, because Lamar is a guy who is willing to truly face the music. When tough times come Lamar has always squared his shoulders and faced up to it. I would even go so far as to say that Lamar is definitely the kind of son I would want to have, because even in his most down time he always remained humble and was willing to face the consequences.

Back to Lamar…

D: Did you end up taking Pastor Pete’s recommendation about Minnesota Teen Challenge?

L: Ya. Two days later I was in the program and I signed up to be there for 13 months. It happened so fast I knew it was a God thing. Normally getting into Minnesota Teen Challenge can be a lengthy process because of paper work and such, but they let me in right away. It happened so fast!

D: Do you feel like it needed to happen that fast?

L: Yes! I was nuts, and not in like a funny way, I actually felt insane. While we [he and his mom] were at Walmart shopping to get my stuff for Minnesota Teen Challenge I honestly thought someone was following me. We would walk around corners and I felt like someone would be closely shadowing me to keep an eye on me. I honestly thought that! You would not believe some of the stuff that was going through my mind!

D: How did Minnesota Teen Challenge help you?

L: It fed me spiritually every day. It gave me discipline and order in my life. It gave me accountability and it put leadership over me; and I hadn’t had that in a while. I tried to run my own life and it didn’t work out well. I needed to be under leadership that could show me how to walk life out.

D: What about Substance Church? Where did Substance come in?

L: Before Minnesota Teen Challenge I attended Substance halfheartedly. After I graduated the program, I returned to Substance.

D: What was different about your experience at Substance after MNTC?

L: Before, I just wanted to be a face in the crowd. I wanted to come in, punch my time card, and leave. The second time around I actually had a desire to be involved and to serve. And that’s where you [Daniel] came in and gave me an opportunity to get involved with Verve. Church changed from being something I did to please my parents, and as a religious duty, to actually being a part of my life. For the first time I actually became part of the body instead of just a spectator.

D: If you had the chance, and you could go back in time to when you first were attending Substance, before the breakdown and before MNTC, what would you tell yourself?

L: Wow! I have never thought of that before… Oh man, I would tell myself not to isolate, but instead to humble yourself, and get connected. I wish I would’ve let people in, and let them love me. I kept myself in such a small bubble. I wanted to keep an image [at church] of “oh he’s not a bad kid.” I wish I would’ve not been so afraid of getting to know new people. I would tell myself to get involved in this place instead of just coming in, not meeting anyone, and leaving.

D: If you had to sum up everything you’ve learned through this experience into one phrase, what would it be?

L: God will never leave you nor forsake you, and nothing can separate you from His love.

D: Thanks bud

L: Love ya bro