Jonathan Fredin/For the Post-Gazette Last month, Victor-LaMonte Lane was chosen to lead his first church, Miles Chapel Baptist, near Durham, N.C. Click photo for larger image. Listen In Victor-LaMonte Lane talks about his journey from a life of drugs and crime in Pittsburgh to earning college degrees and embarking on a career in the ministry. "I spent all of my life growing up in the projects" "One day I found myself laying on the floor crying" The Rev. Jason A. Barr "opened my eyes to new ... levels of living" "The life that I'm living ... is so radically different"

Nine years ago, Sunday morning came to the Hill District. Just like it always does. And the warm, sweet sounds of gospel music drifted through a window in Bedford Dwellings, a low-income housing development in the Hill.

The music caught the ear of Victor-LaMonte Lane and led him to take his first steps away from a misspent youth of selling drugs, gang activity and struggling with an identity as someone who could not succeed.

Mr. Lane, 31, calls what happened to him that day a miracle. But he also credits a spiritual connection to a strong mentor he found in the Macedonia Church. A man who helped to turn his life around.

It did not happen immediately, but it did happen.

And the outcome is a testimony to what can happen when confused, street-wise young black men are taken under the wings of caring older men. Against all odds, Mr. Lane survived. He is a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Pittsburgh and a few weeks ago received a master's of divinity from Duke University.

About a month ago, he was chosen to lead his first church, Miles Chapel Baptist, near Durham, N.C. He gets married in August.

Mr. Lane was 12 when his father remarried and left the family, severing a relationship with his son that had been involved and compassionate.

In the aftermath, Mr. Lane had run-ins with the law and was arrested three times. His life was a mess.

Photo courtesy of Victor-LaMonte Lane The Rev. Jason Barr, of Macedonia Church in the Hill District, with Victor-LaMonte Lane. Click photo for larger image.

By 22, he had bounced from Community College of Allegheny County to Pitt, where he dropped out because he could not afford the tuition and was clueless about applying for financial aid.

Crushed by debt, he went back on the streets and fell into his old habits.

He smoked weed and drank alcohol.

His so-called friends, angry at his attempts to sell drugs to a clientele outside of the neighborhood, began to threaten him. He was robbed and the target of gun violence. In one incident, the bullet whizzed so close, the force of it knocked him down.

His life was crumbling all over.

"It was to the point where I had mental delusions," he said. He was extremely paranoid and was hearing voices.

"I now know I was going down the road to suicide. I found myself on the floor, in a pool of tears at 4 in the morning. I called out to God 'that if you don't do something, this will end in death.' "

Then he heard the Sunday-morning music from Macedonia and followed it into the church.

	Jonathan Fredin/For the Post-Gazette Mr. Lane leads a Bible study last week at his new church. Click photo for larger image.

The man in the pulpit who touched Mr. Lane was the Rev. Jason Barr, lead pastor of Macedonia for 19 years.

"It was just something about his spirit," said Mr. Lane.

It was clear, said the Rev. Barr, that Mr. Lane was "hungry for a spiritual father." The pastor said he could relate to the longing because it was something he desired in his own life.

"He reminded me of myself, and it caused me to reach out," the pastor said.

Admiration turned into trust. Trust turned into a relationship.

Mr. Lane washed and gassed up the pastor's car, a white Lexus SUV. In the winter, he cleaned the ice from the windows.

Mr. Lane became the church custodian in 2001, and the mentorship quietly deepened.

As he cleaned the church toilets, the pastor would always say, "I see more in you."

In between, at Bible study, would come words of encouragement.

Eventually, their conversations about family and struggles would take place at restaurants. He would visit the pastor's home, and the pastor pulled out sweaters he'd never worn: "Take what you want," he'd say.

Mr. Lane, whose hopes of being a filmmaker died in the streets, began to dream again.

He now wanted to be a pastor and joined the church's minister-in-training program.

The Rev. Barr told him to go back to school. And so he did. Sometimes he worked a semester to save money, then he'd go to school a semester. Eventually, he finished, graduating from Pitt in 2004 with a degree in psychology.

Now, the pastor told him, "Get out of town. . . . Go somewhere to stretch your independence."

Mr. Lane decided on Duke, following in the footsteps of his mentor, a man who commuted 400 miles roundtrip to finish his last two years of graduate school at the North Carolina university.

Though the Rev. Barr grew up in a nuclear working-class family and was never on the streets as Mr. Lane was, their personalities were in lockstep. They both were analytical, determined and sensitive about their weight.

Mr. Lane searches himself to express why he was so ready to listen and receive the minister's counsel.

"I was at a place where I wanted better for my life and looking at him, I could see that I could have it," he said. "Young cats must see that there is better way that exists. I have always had big dreams, I just never knew how to tap into them."