From Prison to Pulpit

I'm not the man I used to be — and that's the whole point.

There was a season of my life I don't hide from, because hiding it would rob it of its power. Addiction took years from me. I went to prison. I hit a bottom most people never see and live to talk about. For sixteen months I was homeless and on the run — I even bought a one-way ticket all the way to Guadalajara, Mexico, chasing what people in recovery call a "geographical cure," believing a new place could outrun an old pain.

It couldn't. You can change your zip code, but you can't change your heart. Only God can do that.

"He met me at the bottom — which, I've learned, is exactly where He does His best work."

By a grace I didn't earn and still can't fully explain, I made it back. I drank the water most people are warned about and I was kept. I walked through things that should have ended me, and here I am. That's not a boast. It's a testimony.

He didn't just save me — He sent me

God took a man the world had written off and put him to work. I was ordained through One Promise Ministry, and for a season I had the honor of pastoring Hillside Baptist Church in Grifton, North Carolina. From a prison cell to a pulpit. Only God writes stories like that.

Why I build

Today I build businesses — the Hahn family of companies — but not to chase money. I build so I have something to give. Every venture is a way to serve: clean water for the homeless, because I have been homeless. Help for people the system gave up on, because I was one of them. Hope for the forgotten, and a hand for children a world away in Pakistan who never had the chances I threw away and was given back.

Faith isn't a label I tack onto a business card. It's the operating system. Every site, every service, every bottle of water is meant to point back to the One who carried me home.

"If God can restore a man like me, He can restore anyone. That's not marketing. That's my life."