My name is Andrew Lowden, I grew up in MA and moved out to AZ before high school. I grew up Catholic but had never heard the Gospel. MY parents got a divorce right as I started high school and my brother sister and I were left to raise ourselves since our parents were never around. Through this I had learned that "I" had to determine who I was, what I was good at and how people would know me. I turned to partying and pursuing girls to find security and escape...

My freshman year of college (through God's grace I did well in school) at the University of Arizona one of my best party friends disappeared. Finally I heard the news: All Ethan did now was read the Bible and he wasn't going to live as he did! This was amazing as he was THE biggest partier I knew. We would joke how he even got into school, yet there he was, always partying and doing crazy things.... all that was gone...

When I ran into him again it was amazing, he was a different person, yet the same. He genuinely cared about me and wanted to hang out and see how i was. He'd always ask if I needed anything and have amazingly positive things to say. The other side was that he never once came at me telling me I needed to change and that I was terrible and awful, yet I would realize the way I lived didn’t belong around him. I would feel something about him that made me see past the way I lived...

A number of years later I had graduated from the U and worked with all my friends in the Hills in LA and worked in Beverly Hills and partied on Sunset and lived at the bars. I had just continued living the college party life even while working full-time. Right in the middle of the year 2000 I suddenly felt empty. I felt like i had to go back to Tucson and I didn’t like being in LA and just needed to leave ASAP. Out of nowhere I got a job offer from someone I knew well who was desperate to hire me. I took the offer on the spot and moved out...

In early 2001 one of my employees, who was a U of A student, came to me and asked if I knew Ethan. She knew what fraternity I was in and that he was in that one too. She then told me he was getting married!! I couldn't believe that ANY woman would ever have married him, but then I knew and I saw: God had blessed him and changed him so much that he was an incredibly responsible man (and will be mayor of Tucson someday, trust me!)...

looooong story short that day I said in my heart "God is really doing something in that church and i will go there someday." It took me many months and things like the events of 9/11/01 to get me thinking about eternity and the futility of living in my strength. The week of January 27^th 2002 I went to her and asked where they met for church and when. On Sunday, the 27^th I walked into the church, which met in the largest classroom at the U, seating about 535 students. Incredibly it was almost full and all with young people. I was 27 at the time and most were younger than I. I also noticed the worship which consisted of a band, like guitars, drums, violins, horns everything. I dint know that worship existed…

Needless to say I just found Ethan, much t his amazement, sat by him and then worship started. All of these students stood to their feet and lifted their hands and worshipped… I was amazed. Then, suddenly, like the sun bursting through the clouds I felt God’s presence. I KNEW it was Him, He spoke to my heart right there simply saying, “Andrew, you have been trying to find yourself in your own strength and tried to get everything you need….. How would you like to live in My Strength and trust Me for everything?” Now I KNEW this was His voice and my only reaction was “Over! My life is over, You are God, what could I have that I could even try to hold onto rather than You??!?!” And at the moment I felt the weight of sin lift off of me and felt His presence as He just loved me… I knew He saved me and redeemed me! Me, of all sinners, me!!!??