Sometimes you hear stories that spark the imagination and cultivate your faith about unshakable men and women doing extraordinary things. I can recall a time or two hearing this kind of lore regarding characters on the other side of the world. “If only that kind of thing could happen here,” may cross our minds when we hear such tales. It can. And it does.

Summer 1967, North Minneapolis

Mothers hurried their children into houses from games in the front yard.

As the summer sun beat down on the blacktop, the heat rose in the atmosphere; physically and otherwise. First, threats and heavy words were hurled, followed by stones and bottles with flaming rags. Everywhere, the sounds of screaming and smashing glass filled the air. Businesses were trampled and looted. The community became a mini war zone centered at Penn & Plymouth. Sirens descended upon the scene, but they were too late. The riots were out of control.

Since the early twentieth century, citizens of North Minneapolis, mostly Jewish and African Americans, had been marginalized and steeply discriminated against. Whether from restrictive land grant agreements prior to WWII or racist practices in distributing federal housing loans after it, anger and frustration had been building between and amongst these two ethnic groups. They felt trapped, repressed and they resented it.

The rioting and destruction only helped a community struggling with identity, poverty, and oppression turn against itself. The streets weren’t safe. Kids with classes on the North Side had to hurry or leave school early, fearing a knifi ng or beating on a simple walk home. A similar climate remained for years after.

Already on their way out, the riots hastened the departure of many Jewish residents and business owners. The departure of so many area residents in such a short period of time, along with their businesses, only served to heighten the already formidable economic woes of the community. The area fell apart.

A Calling

Throughout the turmoil of North Minneapolis in the late sixties, a determined mother made the weekly commute to church, children in tow, with the hopes of raising them right. As spirited gospel music and shouts of praise came to a fever pitch, the Lord met a 4-year-old girl in the predominantly African American congregation of the First Church of God In Christ. Though her young mind did not fully comprehend the full scope of the encounter, God had very special plans for her.

By the time Melanie was a fi ery teenager, she knew that her life’s purpose was to serve God through full-time ministry. As she completed high school, she could still feel that call, and still felt the impact of the area’s history during visits with her family.

Initially, Melanie felt called to be a Spanish Speaking Missionary to Latin America, enrolling at North Central University and Christ For The Nations Institute. During her training, she had the opportunity to evangelize on the streets of Minneapolis, but it was a outreach trip to the French Quarter in New Orleans that stands out in her mind. “It broke my heart for urban America,” she remembers.

While doors were not opening for her to move to Latin America she found herself following the Holy Spirit’s prompting to lead teams and equip the Body of Christ for evangelism in the Twin Cities. For the next several years, Melanie worked with at-risk and counter-culture youth in the city, but she remembers a cousin asking her when she was going to minister to “her people.” “I told him ‘I have to obey the Lord, and go where he sends me,’” she recalls. She did.

A Reconciliation

Fast forward to 2007. Melanie and her husband John had long been serving God in the Twin Cities, and were heavily involved with statewide prayer initiatives. While attending a conference with a focus on prayer for North Minneapolis, she remembers the congregation acknowledging that it was the 40-year anniversary of the North Minneapolis riots.

Messianic Rabbi Ed and Rebbetzen Alberta Rothman were in attendance and were called to the front of the conference to receive and lead out prayer for healing on behalf of the adversely aff ected Jewish population. Melanie could feel a tug at her heartstrings. During the prayer with the Rabbis, an overwhelming sense came over her that something more needed to be done. Prayer was good and necessary, but a deeper conviction to repent on behalf of the African American community brought Melanie to action. “I felt like God was showing me what I was supposed to do.”

Through experiences and blessings throughout her life, Melanie knew to listen and follow through when she was lead by the Holy Spirit to do something. In faith, she stepped forward.

“As I came and knelt before the Rothmans, generational repentance flooded me. We had been friends prior to this, but something happened as we stood in the gap for the past sins of our ethnic groups.” A weeping embrace opened the floodgates of reconciliation between the two groups. In an instant I recalled multiple dreams that the Lord had given to me about North Minneapolis over the previous years. One of them even involved the receiving of a ‘Macedonian call!’ I understood that they were God’s way of calling me to serve the community. It was an amazing encounter!” “Within weeks the Lord started to unveil to me His strategy of service,” she says. “There was an awakening that took place within me!”

Melanie has taken the momentum from that very moment and run with it. “What the Lord showed me in the summer of 2007 was to develop a program that serves every generation; children to senior citizens. It will impart to them wholeness in spirit, soul, and body, give them life skills, freedom, hope and dignity, and equip them with Kingdom dynamics. This will empower them to fulfi ll God’s purpose for them as individuals and as a community in every area of their life. People are longing to see their hearts’ desires become a reality, and in the words of Ed Silvoso, “It’s God’s Time for North Minneapolis!”

Melanie’s ministry, M.A.R.C.H. (Mobilizing And Releasing Caring Hearts, Inc.), is a non-profi t organization dedicated to the transformation of lives and communities. Her vision for reaching North Minneapolis focuses on three primary initiatives that anyone can get involved with: Global Day of Prayer, Community Renewal Greater Twin Cities and Kingdom Community.

Some ways you and/your subgroup can get involved:

Global Day of Prayer (GDOP)

Global Day of Prayer (GDOP) is more than an event. It’s a movement. GDOP began in Africa 10 years ago and last year 220 nations participated! The movement is realized in North Minneapolis through prayer meetings, citywide gatherings, prayer walks, outreach and service projects. Some of you might be asking yourself, “What is a prayer walk?” Prayer walking is a time of connecting with neighborhoods, knocking on doors, and offering prayer to residents. In North Minneapolis, the movement has undeniably changed lives. Last year, crime dropped dramatically in the neighborhoods in which we held prayer walks. It was unbelievable to see how God answered our prayers.

Ten Days of Constant Prayer: May 13th through 22nd

Beginning on Ascension Day, May 13, millions of Christians around the world will find ways to pray, night and day, throughout the ten days leading to Pentecost. Ways you can participate include: Attend a prayer meeting/room or Host a prayer meeting/room.

One Day Citywide Prayer Gathering: May 23rd, 5-8 PM

On the afternoon of Pentecost, we will gather at Roy Wilkins Auditorium at the River-Centre in St Paul. We will worship God openly in Christ’s name and pray for healing and blessings for our city, our nation and the nations of the world. Last year, 220 nations participated for the first time ever! Ways you can participate include: Volunteer, Attend

Ninety Days of Blessing: May 24th – August 21st

We will be answers to our own prayers, becoming servants who bring practical, transformational blessings to the Twin Cities. Ways you can participate include: Service Projects, Prayer Walks/Meetings and Outreach Opportunities.

Find out more at www.globaldayofprayermn.com

Community Renewal Greater Twin Cities

Community Renewal Greater Twin Cities is in partnership with Community Renewal International (CRI) and replicates CRI’s systematic strategy that grows and sustains safe and caring communities with concrete, measurable results. This faith-based organization is very inclusive and welcoming to everyone in the community that seeks to disciple individuals. Its three initiatives include:

1. The “We Care” Team: This team brings together everyone in the city based on a common capacity to care for each other.

2. Haven Houses: Volunteers are trained to reach out to their neighbors, restoring the relational foundation on the blocks where they live.

3. Friendship House: Volunteers and key partners use a house with a large “community room” in low-income and high-crime areas to help care for the resident children, youth, and adults.

Some ways you and/or your subgroup can get involved:

Join the “We Care” Team/Invite a friend to a Community Renewal event | Provide refreshments for an event | Mentor a student | Arrange for a speaking engagement | Provide general administrative support | Volunteer as a tutor at a Friendship House | Teach a special skill to children, youth, or adults | Participate on a planning team for an event | Teach a life skills class | Provide financial support | Become a Haven House leader

Find out more at: www.wecaretwincities.com

Kingdom Community

Kingdom Community is a sister ministry of Community Renewal Greater Twin Cities that focuses on long-term discipleship. It is a transgenerational ministry that empowers and strengthens the community by equipping believers. Each element of the Kingdom Community builds upon the previous one. All ages hear the gospel message, receive personal prayer, gain life skills and have opportunities to minister.

Volunteers are needed to teach in the areas of the Bible, house maintenance & car repair, sewing, cooking, dietary and other life skills, and the arts. Volunteers are also needed to mentor, pray & intercede on behalf of the people of North Minneapolis.

If you are interested in partnering with Melanie in this initiative, please contact her at wecaretwincities@aol.com

 Enter Omot Aganya.

After drawing the curtain on twelve years of school, Omot, a native of the state of Gambella in the country of Ethiopia, longed to pursue a postsecondary education. The abusive environment and guerilla soldier encampments in the villages around him meant college was not an option. This prompted him to exit stage south to Kenya. His relocation in no way mirrored a western teenager’s transition to collegiate life. There was no dorm room with furniture from Ikea, no weekend visits to his parents’ home with the requisite load of dirty laundry. Omot was twenty years old, forced to leave home and live in a foreign country. His college degree dream would have to stay in dreamland.

Jesus, Please Speak to Me in Anuak

At the refugee camp Omot did not have access to books or entertainment of any kind. The next part of his life’s script found him borrowing a Bible from a friend. He began to read it “for fun.” In his quest for a diversion, the “fun” in the Bible led to truth-seeking and transforming times with God. One evening in the Walda Refugee Camp, his sleep was interrupted with a very personal encounter with Jesus. The discussion was difficult because Jesus’ words were in English. Omot had God’s boldness in him and asked Jesus to translate into Anuak, his native dialect. With more precision than a U. N. Translator, Jesus spoke to Omot in Anuak about many things. He quoted the letter found in the Bible written by Paul to Timothy telling him that the love of money is the root of all evil1 . The conversation also included Jesus telling Omot that he would someday relocate to study and learn about the Bible. Within one month this came true as Omot began the process with the American Embassy towards becoming a permanent resident in the U.S.

 In 1992 the scenery in Omot’s world shifted dramatically as he moved from Kenya to the United States. He lived for nine months each in Atlanta, Georgia and Sioux Falls, South Dakota before relocating to Minnesota.

Once in Minneapolis, Omot began his studies at North Central University. Meanwhile Omot was ministering to a group of emigrants living back in Sioux Falls. These Ethiopian, Kenyan and Sudanese people were adjusting to the many changes they were facing with their new lives in the United States. It followed that Omot had to make an adjustment of his own: from Mr. Omot to Pastor Omot. The group he had been mentoring became his first church plant. Pastor Omot continued to equip the men and women in his congregation to live their lives for Christ.

The dream-only version of a diploma was exchanged for the real thing when Pastor Omot completed his undergraduate work in 2001. In 2004 he attained his Master of Arts in Christian Ministry. Jesus’ words had come to pass. The scenery had changed, the character of Pastor Omot had developed and the major climax of his life’s story was about to be revealed. The revealing was more of a shove.

 No One is ‘Playing’ the Martyr

Pastor Omot’s life’s story now included the casting of his leading lady, Hannah. Hannah knew Omot from Gambella High School. Pastor Omot then became the interim pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in Roseville, MN. At Calvary they worshipped in his native dialect of Anuak yet he yearned to reach more people. He made five trips back to Gambella, Ethiopia to preach and plant churches. He conducted seminars, leadership and pastoral trainings and taught the Gospel. He often noticed, “my heart is there even though I am here.” During his visits he worked alongside his wife’s father who had been a pastor and a church planter for over 35 years. Both men passionately loved preaching the word of God. As Pastor Omot stated, “Jesus Christ is the only Way, Truth and Life. I am not ashamed to be His servant. In Him I live!” Pastor Omot’s fatherin-law also drew his wisdom, energy and direction from Christ. In Him he lived too.

And in Him he died.

The stage of Pastor Omot’s set faded to black when his father-in-law was martyred for his faith in Christ. His father-in-law’s church had begun in his home. He was murdered because his church was Spirit-filled and because it had grown very rapidly. The accelerated expansion was seen as a threat to the local Churches and it also fueled the already divisive conflict between some of the tribes in the area. A total of 422 men were killed, including Hannah’s father, in one three day weekend.

Hannah had lost her pastor, her mentor, her father, her friend. Omot’s three sons and one daughter had lost their grandfather. The churches he planted had lost their leader. The atrocities of Christian persecution were not geographically or chronologically distant for the Aganya family. Pastor Omot’s father-in-law wasn’t ‘teased’ for his faith; he was murdered because of it. Images of the horrific torture and abuse that Pastor Omot had fled as a young person came flashing back.

While Pastor Omot and his family processed their grief they came to a time of decision. Should they step back and reassess the goodness of God? Should they be like most others and distance themselves from people in order to nurse their own wounds? Should they just change the channel? It would be easier.

Again the words of the Apostle Paul came to Pastor Omot. Paul was also unashamed of Jesus. Paul was also martyred for his faith. In one letter Paul wrote to the believers in Rome. Pastor Omot, nearly 2000 years after they were written, drank them in: “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.2” For Pastor Omot reading these words was not enough. He needed to act them out.

 I Will Not Miss the Call

Pastor Omot now has an even clearer vision for the next scene of his life. He has been given a desire to not love money. He needs those words to leave the abundance of the United States. He has been given a desire to bless those who have persecuted him. He needs these words to return to Ethiopia. Hannah Aganya is convinced that “the seeds planted in me, and others, by my dad, are still alive. He was my mentor, my pastor, my dad and my friend. He is not here physically but the mentoring he poured out is still here.” Her vision is to follow her passion as her father’s understudy while mentoring Ethiopian young women.

Ethiopia, the country of their childhood, is categorized by Voice of the Martyr’s as a “hostile nation” towards Christians.3 The countries that border Ethiopia to the north, east and west are all considered “restricted” nations. The statistics of murder, wrongful incarceration and indescribable human abuse in Ethiopia, and the surrounding countries of Sudan, Somalia and Eritrea are horrific to imagine. This is especially true in light of the fact that the men who killed Hannah’s father are still in Ethiopia. How can they bite past the gnawing fear of reentering this region? “What I can say is this, it is a call. If you know that you are called you are not afraid of anything. We are not doing this by ourselves. I know that God will protect me. He knows how He will protect me.” Pastor Omot knows that “many people are called to go or called to help, but many miss the call.” Pastor Omot and Hannah are following the role model

The churches planted in previous visits will be encouraged to see them because it is almost unheard of for someone to return to an African nation after having come to the United States. In Pastor Omot’s words, “most Africans come here to follow the American Dream.” The Aganya’s are following God’s dream. The other part of Pastor Omot and Hannah’s vision is to plant a church in the capital city of Addis Ababa. When they go back their suitcases will be heavy.

They carry with them the encouragement and lessons learned from the teachings and subgroups at Substance Church. In Ethiopia people will wonder “what if church were different?” When they meet the Aganya’s, they will discover that church can be incredibly passionate, tenaciously relevant and surprisingly fun. They will not “do church” exactly as Minnesotans do, but they will be changed forever because one man and his family decided not to change the channel. Pastor Omot and Hannah are not looking for a fictitious “happily ever after” ending to the script. In fact, they are aware that “We share in the terrible sufferings of Christ, but also in the wonderful comfort he gives.5”

This is the end of their beginning. Pastor Omot, Hannah and their four children are grateful that Pastor Peter Haas and others from Substance Church have a heart for missions. During his time at Substance Church, Pastor Omot has learned that “humility and servant leadership are the secrets of a successful leader.” Pastor Omot hopes to create churches in Ethiopia that have the same “enthusiasm and authenticity” as Substance Church.

Pastor Omot is not like many humans, the moral of his life’s story is ‘I should face the pain in order that I might bring others close to God.’ The aforementioned Nehemiah took others with him and the Aganya family is in need of some “others.” Their needs are for prayer, for finances and for partners to follow their hearts to Ethiopia where the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.6 If you think you might be one of the “others” who will join the Aganya’s please contact Pastor Omot at his email address: aganyaomot@yahoo.com. The Assemblies of God denomination has agreed to support them and Substance is contributing over $30,000 to help them with their church plant in Addis Ababa. One last thought before the curtain goes down, Pastor Omot knows that “some of you will come there one day.”

Footnote: From 2005 to 2009 Substance Church has assisted in planting over 50 churches in the U.S. More than fifteen percent of the tithes and offerings received at Substance are used to support church plants and missionaries in hostile nations and restricted countries like the ones mentioned in this article. Please consider clicking around the two websites for Substance Church (www.substancechurch.com and www.beingsubstance.com). Here you will find detailed information on how we do church a little differently including detailed subgroup information, Pastor Peter’s Backstage Pass essays and a free virtual visit.

1 From the Apostle Paul’s first letter to Timothy chapter 6 verse 10

2From the Apostle Paul’s one and only letter to the Romans, chapter 12, verse 14 thru 16

3 Visit www.persecution.com to read more about believers today around the world who face ongoing persecution

4 Nehemiah wanted to rebuild the city of his fathers. He asked for and received help because God’s favor was upon him. See the Old Testament book of Nehemiah starting at chapter 2 to read more.

5 From the Apostle Paul’s second letter to the people living in Corinth, chapter 1, verse 5 the book is AKA I Corinthians

6 These are Jesus’ words to his disciples recorded in two places: Luke chapter 10 verse 2 and also Matthew chapter 9 verse 37.

Summer, 1999
“Look guys, what we got here is family” said Armin, as he looked around at his diverse, tight-knit crew. These were the boys he grew up with, fought with, and did everything with. They were all at the same place in life.  They always backed each other up. After watching his real family turn their backs on him, these guys had become his new family.

As they sat there at barely the age of 19, Armin was extending an invitation to his new family. It was an idea far beyond his years, and it was brilliant. “Look guys, it’s simple, we all come from different backgrounds, and throughout history, we’ve followed our families in their businesses. But why do we gotta’ follow their lead? I spend more time with all of you than I do with my own family, and I know you spend more time with me than you do with your family. So why don’t we bring our connects to the table, why don’t we open doors and opportunities to each other, come together as a family, and come up in this world as a family?!” Sure, they had been doing little stuff to make money for years; buying and selling drugs, buying stolen property and selling it, but what he was talking about was big. “Let’s get this money, get our girls, and get this power, but do it together as a family,” he said. They loved the idea, and they ran with it.

1999 – 2006
It didn’t take long for everything to come together. Within a year or two they were bringing in hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. The money was pouring in from everywhere, and the lifestyle was crazy. Money, girls, drugs, power… they had gotten it all. Heading to Vegas and dropping hundreds of thousands of dollars in one night.  Partying with pro athletes, music stars and the like. “The money was jus’ coming in from everywhere” Armin says. “The life was fun… It was fun for a long time. For the power, vacations and the family that we had…”

For years he ran the show, but at the age of 26, the lifestyle caught up with him. “You’re just chasin’… Just chasin’… That high… that sex, that money. You can have it all… but that high only lasts for so long… and then you crash.”

Armin describes it as a strategic game of chess. “I constantly had to know: where do I place my people? Where do I place myself? It was constant vendetta, it was exhausting. “I’d either sleep three hours a night, or if I could get a day off, I’d jus’ sleep all day. I was so drained, and jus’ constantly playin’ catch-up,” he says. “People would say: ‘Oh, you’re making the easy money Armin. An’ I’d look at them thinkin’ ‘Man, you have NOOO idea what you’re talkin’ about! Yeah, this money is fast, but it’s far from easy.’” He could see his life was going nowhere. He could see that nothing was coming from it. He was tired. “All I had on my hands was sin, and all I had in my pockets was money,” he says. The family that he had started this whole game with, was no longer family. It was a business: just hundreds of people making money off of each other.

Tired of a life of constant racketeering and the overwhelming burden of his sinful life… He went to all of his high-ranking connections and said “I’m done with this life. If you wanna take me out, then take me out.  I don’t care if you kill me. I’m already dead on the inside. You can have the money and the power. You can have what this life gives you…” His life had been threatened more times than he can remember. He was sick of his life. He wanted to be honestly happy from the inside.  He wanted to experience true joy. He walked out and they didn’t kill him.  Armin dropped that life and never looked back. “From the depths of my soul, I gave myself to God.”

“At one point I was on my knees in tears: God, I don’t know you… I jus’ can’t do this anymore. Show me you’re real. Talk to me. Do somethin’! Show me Your face. This life ain’t worth livin’. Please God, I can’t do this on my own. I don’t have the answers. I got nothin’… I got nobody… I got nothin’ but you to turn too!”

Armin started going to churches and seeking God out.  “A woman who was like a mother to me would talk life to me. She read me scripture and gave me scripture to read. It was redeeming. ‘God loves you. God forgives you. He is your second chance,’ she would say. Everything she had me read made me think, God really DOES love me. God really does care for me, no matter how much I screwed up. She knew I was involved in stuff, but she NEVER judged me. She never shook her head at me.  She never stopped loving me. She jus’ loved me more.”  Armin knew that God was now a part of his life.

After getting out of the business, he began mending relationships that were broken from his past choices.  He was seeking out God and getting peace in his own life.  Three months later, his past caught up with him and there they were, US Marshals knocking at Armin’s door…

January, 2007 – Minneapolis, MN
As Armin hung up the phone, his eyes told the story. “There are 16 US Marshals waiting for me at my parent’s house” he told his girlfriend. Another friend or two stared on in disbelief. He had been smart, never listing anything in his name, always choosing instead to have his girlfriend’s name listed on leases and such. It had worked in this case. The US Marshals were visiting his parent’s home looking for him. A home he hadn’t visited in months, a home that wasn’t home, and a family he barely knew.

They “cleaned out” the apartment, just in case. Drugs, money and other paraphernalia moved to a safe place.

As his friend drove him, Armin had an idea of what was ahead of him. Although he had recently walked away from a life of organized crime, he had a past, and it was catching up to him. He would face indictments from 13 federal agencies including the FBI, ATF, DEA and ICE, although he didn’t know it at the time.

As they pulled up to his parent’s house, he saw that it was a less than perfect night for this to go down. His parents were hosting a large party, with close friends and family in attendance. The Marshals had left, although he knew they were watching. Armin got out of the car and in surrender raised his hands in the air. The Marshals were on him immediately. “Let’s go inside” they said.  They just wanted to “talk.”

Following a meager good cop/bad cop routine and a fiery phone call with his lawyer they ended up taking him. After 2 nights in jail he was out on bail. They had him on manufacturing with the intent to distribute, money laundering (over $2.3 million), wire fraud and 10 other counts. And they didn’t even know the half of it.

2007-2008
Throughout his legal proceedings, Armin was constantly seeking God, but it wasn’t always easy. “After I got indicted, that’s when people started talking,” he says. “People would say: ‘Leave the money, the power… leave all that stuff behind to be broke, and pursue some fake guy who doesn’t exist with white hair and a big white robe. Have fun in prison. That’s your God. That’s what he does for you…’ It was tough man.”

After attending a large number of churches, Armin came across Sanctuary Covenant in Minneapolis. This was the first church that he went to where he could truly say: “This is God, I believe this.” He made Sanctuary his first church home, and went there for over a month.

He can remember very clearly a call he got from Chris Rush, a believer from Sanctuary at around 6:00 one night. Chris said: “I have no idea why I’m calling you so late, but there’s this group of guys that get together on Thursday nights called Men of the City. We’re meeting tonight at 9:00, and I really think it’d be great if you could come out.” Armin doesn’t even remember filling out the prayer request card the Sunday before. Chris was answering his card. Armin went.

The meeting started at 9:00. He can recall seeing Mark Mellen and Chris, playing pool, getting to know each other. “I was playing the role, I’m a nobody and there’s nothing interesting about me,” he says. Although he was cautious at first, Armin was impressed with this group of guys. They were real. They shared their lives with each other in a way that he had NEVER seen. They LOVED each other, and without hesitating, they loved him. He had not experienced this kind of love in a very long time, and he had a true sense that it was God loving him through this group of guys. “I couldn’t believe how real these cats were,” he says. He began attending the group regularly.

A few weeks later, Chris and Mark invited him to join them at Overflow Café. “Just come on out and hang out,” they said. As Armin sat with them he recalls: “Even as I went out to join those guys, something that had started in me the night before was telling me, confess to them. I had been dying inside with the burden of not telling anyone what was going on in my life… what I’d done. ‘God, I just need to let this out…’ I remember saying to myself.” The problem was: he was knee deep in his legal situation, and confessing to guys he barely new was a potentially horrible idea. After an hour of hanging out, they looked at him and said simply “whatever you need to talk about, whatever it is… you can tell us. You’re safe. We’re here for you.” Armin just about got up and walked away. Instead they moved to a more secluded area of the café and he spewed out his life story. It was tough because the whole time he was thinking to himself: “Stop, you’re a moron for telling these guys your story. Stop!” It was a constant battle.

Armin describes the feeling of confessing his story: “The feeling was nearly inexplicable. It felt like someone picked a tree off my back. I was walking lighter, and my sigh of relief felt like it was 3 minutes long. It was like I hadn’t taken a breath in 10 years. It was my first taste of oxygen. It felt amazingly good. It felt like I was floating.” The confession was life changing.

Not long after, Armin attended Substance Church for the first time. He described the experience as follows: “I said ‘alright, I will go check out Substance Church.’ and I came to Substance and I walked in and immediately thought to myself ‘what is this, a youth ministry?’ I looked around and there were smiling faces – There was so much life. The body language was just people loving each other. There were no hands in pocket, no arms crossed. Everyone was WIDE OPEN to each other… it was crazy… there was love in that room… and it was a high school! (Laughs) So I followed the music into the auditorium and saw the band jamming out, and their hands were in the air, but they weren’t performing – I could just tell that it was authentic worship. I sat there and watched it and I loved it, thinking ‘that’s what I’m talking about!’ Then Pastor Haas gets on stage and I was like ‘what is this guy?’ He was just so chipper, and had the biggest smile I had ever seen… you could just tell that he had so much joy in his life. Then the first thing Pastor Peter said was: ‘Man, what a beautiful bunch of people! I love you guys!’ with this huge smile on his face, and it was so genuine.  He truly loved everyone there. He said it and he showed it. I remember thinking to myself: THIS IS MY HOME HERE… everything I saw…”

Over the next 10 months, Armin immersed himself in Substance. He continued to meet with Men of the City and even joined and led the load-out team! On top of it all, he kept getting good news on his case. His potential sentence started out at 15 years to life in prison. Then it became minimum mandatory 10 years, then 5, and as he prepared to walk into his sentencing hearing in Sioux City Iowa, he was looking at a minimum mandatory year and a day in prison.

July 11, 2008 – Federal District Court, Sioux City, IA
Armin still couldn’t believe what was happening. The day had been such a blur. The federal courtroom had seen more random events during that two and a half hour hearing than he can remember. He remembers it like this.

“The judge maybe spent 10 minutes in his chambers making his sentencing decision, which is typically not a good thing. After, he walked to his seat and began the sentencing. He started it out with No prison time, and I just started crying. I ended up getting an unheard of 15 weekends in jail. At the time I thought he meant 15 weeks… but he meant 15 weekends… and I got a year of house arrest and 5 years probation. Then in another unbelievable motion, the judge said: ‘Armin, if you do what I think you’re going to do, which is doing really well during this probation time. I’ll personally take you off probation in 3 years…’ Smack, the gavel strikes and he makes it final. My head dropped, and I realized that I had to thank the judge. I looked up and he was walking towards me. I couldn’t fathom what was happening because judges never do this. He walked directly towards me, reached out his hand, shook my hand and said ‘Armin, it was a pleasure and an honor to have met you. Take this, run with it.’ Then he shook my lawyer’s hand and said: ‘You did a great job. You have a great client.’ It was unbelievable.”

Today
The change in Armin’s life today is evident. He can’t talk enough about God’s love for him; how God continues to call him to his knee, to sit and be in His presence. The change comes from wanting to change because God loves him so much, not because he is trying to “be perfect” for God. Armin sums it up like this: “I just feel constant joy. Constant security. When I’m scared, He’s there.  When I’m lost, He finds me. He takes my worries, my anxiety… He takes them away. He’s always there.”