This is an I-Heart podcast.

This is Lee Habib, and this is our American stories,

and we tell stories about everything here on this show,

from the arts to sports and from business to history, and we tell stories about everything here on this show, from the arts to sports

and from business to history and everything in between, including your stories. Send them to

Our American Stories.com. They're some of our favorites. James L. Johnson, he's a long-time pastor,

and he and his wife, Linda, have served together in Washington and California, among other

places. They have nine kids live in Rogers, Minnesota. Pastor Jim finds peculiar friends

wherever he goes, wherever he lives, wherever he travels in one form or another. This is the story

about one of those friends.

Here's Jim Johnson and the story of Everett Model.

Everett was a peculiar man in our town.

Smiling, awkward, and heavy-footed, he spoke with a backthroat lisp.

But he didn't talk much, not to most people, but

Everett would talk to me. I got the Lord of my life, Everett told me, not so long after he

started coming to our church in a small town in northern Minnesota. He cried when he said it.

Every time he said it, I think, Everett cried. Jesus is in my

heart, he would say. It was 25 years ago this Christmas, we sang our last Christmas Carol together.

I couldn't always understand his words, but I could always understand this much.

Everett Model, the peculiar old man who mowed four lawns a day with a broken-down mower for $5 a yard,

needed community, he needed to work, and he wanted you to know that he was a Christian.

Everybody knew whoever it was.

...