Kevin spent the next 6 years consumed in the scene. "At the point in my life where I started going to raves, I was searching for acceptance, friendship, and a place to fit in. I tried to fill this void in my life with drugs, sex, and being a raver. I started out in the scene with drugs and the music. I instantly fell in love with electronic music. My heavy drug abuse turned me to dealing. Once I began selling pills at parties, the next logical step was throwing parties. The crew that I rolled with started throwing parties in the summer of ’96. Our first event E-Sensuality was a huge success. We made thousands of dollars and I sold a ton of pills.”

The fun soon turned sour. “At this point, the fun of raving seemed to stop and I became trapped in the scene. I felt like unless you had been to a party and rolled, you hadn’t really experienced life. We continued to throw parties every few months. Some parties were good and others weren’t so good. I had done every drug there was to its limit. I sold and used whatever I could get a good deal on. I went from girl to girl and from drug to drug always trying to be cool and be accepted. Everyone I met, I tried to get to come to a party or to buy pills from me. It seemed that everything that I said was either exaggerated or a lie. I felt inside that I didn’t even really know who I was.”

There was a light at the end of the tunnel. “After years of partying, I decided that it was time for me to concentrate on spinning records. I started to date a girl who was a straight edge raver. She loved the music and to dance, but she didn’t party at all. For the next few months, I tried to keep clean of drugs. I started going to parties clean and dancing the entire night instead of selling pills and getting messed up. I really started watching the DJ’s and learning the art of working a crowd. Even though I thought that I had control over my drug addiction, I was wrong. It seemed as every time I quit and then went back, my addiction got deeper."

I was on one of my clean times when everything changed. "I met my buddy up at Bilbo’s in East Lansing for last call. The second I walked in, I saw the most amazing woman that I had ever seen in my life. We ended up hooking up and totally getting into each other. I was trying to get clean and she was in the middle of a party phase. We both took each other’s addictions deeper than either of us had ever been before. It was like we fed off of each other’s vises. I respected Shyla because she would stand up for what she believed in. She was brutally honest. I was not used to people who did not put on any fronts and was themselves all the time. I was raised to put on your game face when you played the game.”

Kevin’s life was forever changed. “When Shy and I were coming down from partying, she would begin to tell me about God and His love. I would tell her, I have heard about the Bible and the stories in it. I also told her that I had read the 3 Little Pigs as well. I thought that the Bible was just a book of stories and fairy tales that were written to give people morals, and had about as much truth in them as any other story, myth or fable. But when Shy would tell me about God, she really, really believed what she was saying like it was truth, not fiction. Since I had such a respect for her honesty and intentions, I started to ponder the idea that some of this was possibly true.”

Our relationship got deeper and deeper. “We kept getting messed up and she kept telling me about Jesus. I kept telling her to shut up and  talk about something else with me. I thought that I was in control of my addictions, but they kept getting worse.”

Shyla’s family lived in Lansing and we lived in Detroit. Whenever Shy’s family would have a family party they would have them on Sundays. Her entire family attended Mt Hope Church in Lansing, so the party would always start after the Mt Hope third service. So when Shy and I would come up for the party’s we would always end up at Mt Hope for third service. Mt Hope was a huge church full of love and joy. It seemed like everyone that we met was always smiling and happy.

We would always show up late for service because we lived so far away and I would always put up a huge fight not to go. The pastor was interesting to listen to. He could talk about anything and it would be humorous and interesting. I thought that this church was OK; it seemed different that any I had been to before and it was decent enough. I still hated going anyways.

"Our selling of drugs got deeper by the month. I was still dealing to my people and she was still dealing to hers, only now, we could buy more drugs at a cheaper price because our money pot was deeper. One of the last big deals almost put us in jail. I went to Chicago with a buddy to buy a large amount of glass (Crystal Meth). We ended up partying while we were there and on the entire way home. When I got home to Shyla, we made our phone calls and set up our deals. We drove to Lansing to make one of our larger drops. When we arrived home, there were a bunch of cop cars sitting outside of our apartment. We knew that we had been set up. We quickly went inside and flushed thousands of dollars worth of glass down the toilet. We went to our neighbor’s house and had him take us to a hotel. We ran from the cops for a week or so living in hotels and trying to stay out of trouble. At one point in time, I remember driving around and Shyla prayed to God. She asked him to save us from trouble, and she would turn her life around if we didn’t go to jail. I thought that she was weird, but I would take any help that I could get. We ended up not getting busted. I trashed all of our drug paraphernalia and stuff that I thought would get us in trouble with the law. After a few weeks of paranoia our life finally got back to normal. We started partying again, but kept our dealing to a minimum.”

Kevin’s life then changed forever. “It was a Sunday morning early in the spring. It was the first nice and sunny day that we had since before winter. We had to go Lansing for a family party and church. I remember that I had put up a huge fight this day, and that it seemed like things were kind of weird that day. I was very emotional and really stubborn about not going to see her family. When we arrived late for church, I was happy that the singing was almost over. When Pastor Dave started talking it seemed as if everything that he said was what was going on in my life. It was like he was talking directly to me. I was sitting in the balcony and really getting touched by the sermon. The Jesus that he talked about was not the one that I had heard of before. This Jesus came for the sinners and not the religious church people. He came to save people so that they may have eternal life. He hung out with prostitutes, tax collectors, and sinners. I knew that somehow Pastor Dave was preaching into my life for me. I knew at that point that something that I couldn’t explain was going on.”

At the end of the service, Pastor Dave asked the church that if anyone wanted to stop living for themselves and start living for Jesus to stand up. I had no idea what an altar call was or even what it meant to be saved. I stood up from my space in the balcony. Then he said that the next step was to come out of our chairs and come down to the front of the church. I had no idea what I was doing, but I made my way to the front. I remember getting to the front of the church, closing my eyes, and tears running down my face. I prayed the prayer of salvation with Pastor Dave that day at the altar in the front of Mt Hope Church in Lansing, Michigan. All I did was tell God that I was a sinner. I told Him that I believed that He died on the cross for me so that my sins could be forgiven. I asked him to come into my heart and help me with everything that I do. I had no idea what getting saved had in store for my life. At this point in my life, I did not stop sinning, I still had stuff that I struggled with, but I knew that I was going to heaven and that from this point on, I had someone with me to help me out with everything.

Not long after I got saved, I found out that it was hard to hang out with my old buddies and do the old stuff that I used to do. It all seemed so empty and fake to me. I ended up giving up the rave scene and spinning records. They both lead to my past and it was time in my life for a change to occur. During the next few months, Shyla and I dove into the Bible, church and God. We listened to pastor’s tape all the time. I was so hungry for the Word of God that it was like my spirit was eating it up. I wanted to know everything that I could about the Lord. I started to get a desire to tell all of my old buddies about Jesus. I wanted to tell everyone that I knew about this new life that God was building for me. There was so much love in me that it began to boil over.

After a couple years of walking with the Lord, my wife started to have visions of us giving our testimony to large groups of people. But the people weren’t church people; they were ravers and people who were messed up on drugs like we used to be. She saw large dance events where Jesus showed up and people’s lives were changed forever. I also had a desire to help raver kids find God. We began to pray about it and seek for God to show us how we could get His message to people who were like the old Kevin and Shyla.

One day at church, the youth pastor pulled Shyla aside. She told Shy that she had a dream of a dance/club type outreach where Shyla was telling her testimony to the kids. Shy was so excited to tell me about what God was preparing to do. We ended up putting together a rave outreach event at the church. We flew in DJ’s and Christian Live PA artists from all over the US and Canada. We had artists from Oklahoma City, Minnesota, Toronto, New York, New Jersey, and Detroit. At this point in our lives Shyla and I were helping to teach the high school kids at our church. Shyla and two other people gave their testimony to the youth group one Wednesday night. There was not a dry eye in the place. God moved in a large way. Next, we asked the kids if they had friends who needed to hear the good new of Jesus. The Commission went out to the kids to bring their friends to this Christian rave event so they could hear about how Jesus saved people from their sins. As a youth group we fasted together and prayed for the event and for God’s spirit to move in a huge way. God showed up something huge. We had over 200 people show up for the event. Lives were changed and God’s name was exalted.