Growing up in the Marcy Projects in Brooklyn, New York, Mike Morales was surrounded by aunts and uncles who were more like his brothers and sisters. His earliest memory is of an environment filled with drugs and violence. It didn’t seem unnatural to him; it was all he knew. Grinding poverty was his daily reality, and the streets held an allure for him that he would eventually give in to, just like so many who had gone before him. His teenage years saw a progression of behavior that would put him in front of law enforcement on more than one occasion.

            Believing that the stabilizing influence of having his father around would help him make better choices, he moved to Lancaster, PA to finish high school. The plan was effective for a time; Mike excelled at sports while living under the watchful eye of his Dad, but it did not last long. Soon, dealing drugs, robbery, and increasingly violent behavior were how Mike was living. The consequences were a lifestyle of going to jail, getting out for a time, only to return once more. As a young man, he never could have predicted that the cycle of addiction, violence and incarceration would consume twenty years of his life. Mike was once heard to say, “I’m going to die with a needle in my arm”, but God had other plans for his life.

           As he began to mature, the drugs, and the streets began to lose their pull. He grew weary of the revolving door of the jail cell. He soon became determined to never return and says he can trace the moment of that decision to when he received Christ while still behind bars. At this point he had not met Carmen.

        “You have to take care of yourself, you have two small children.” The words of Carmen’s mother rang in her ears, and she knew that it was true, but how could she pull herself together for her kids? Especially now. All she wanted to do was lay on her cot. She didn’t talk, couldn’t eat, and wondered if she’d ever be able to stop crying. It was only a few days before that they had come to her to tell her that her mother had died suddenly.  Numbness and grief swept over her. In a few short months, she’d be walking out of prison and into what? The one person she had relied upon to help her was gone. She had no money, no job, no husband, and now no support system.

           Growing up, life was not easy for Carmen and soon the impact of it all escalated to the point that it felt to her like a stone of hatred had replaced her heart.

           “My response to the world was to hate, get even, never trust anyone, and take care of myself cause no one else would. I never felt secure,” she recalls. As a young girl she would run away, get into trouble, return home only to take off again. Hanging out, getting high, and being with the wrong people was all she knew.

Coming out of prison, Carmen indulged in her old ways of living, but eventually, she began to see that her children were suffering right along with her. They needed a mother. She had grown up going to church, and there were people praying for her, but she knew that she was the one who had to turn to Him and ask for help. With nowhere else to go, and nothing to lose she called out to God. She asked Him to show her what to do, and where to go. She found herself at In the Light Ministries, and slowly began to turn her life around with the help of the church leadership. Through her own desire to change, God transformed Carmen’s life into something better than she had known.

One day, a woman she worked with was being picked up by her son. Carmen noticed him and suggested that the woman bring him to church so she could meet him. Both women attended In the Light Ministries. The woman’s son was our own Pastor Mike. Unfortunately, he did return to prison not long after they met, but she had grown to know his heart, and decided that he was worth any wait she would have to endure to be with him. Although she felt a certain closeness to him she wasn’t really expecting him to change so dramatically. It just didn’t seem possible.

“I remember when he told me that he was going to live for Jesus”, says Carmen. “I wanted desperately to believe him, but I had seen it too many times; people feeling remorse for their sins because all they have time to do in prison is think.”

Mike shares, “I understood why she felt that way, I had witnessed temporary change on numerous occasions myself, but I knew that I knew this time was going to be different.”

          And it has been different. Mike has been clean ever since he walked through those prison doors and into freedom. He became a member of In the Light Ministries and eventually he and Carmen married. The two gradually became known for their effectiveness at street evangelism and headed the Outreach Ministry for a time. Over the years they became licensed Ministers and eventually ordained Pastors with a church of their own.

After seeking the advice of another husband-and-wife team who preaches together, they successfully developed their own style of synchronized “tag team” preaching. It has proven to be a dynamic way to bring the Word to their congregation.