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Amari Has Been Found · HAVE FAITH LET IT BEGIN®

• 0:05
  Welcome to Half-Faith, Let It Begin. This is Ariel Santana.
• 0:10
  Can you believe I'm seven years old already? I'm old enough now to introduce my dad.
• 0:15
  Ladies and gentlemen, your host, my dad, Angel Santana.
• 0:22
  Two thousand came and the spark was lit. The testimony raw, it wouldn't quit.
• 0:27
  His mother's voice, the guiding thread.
• 0:55
  Good morning, everyone, and welcome to a special edition of Half-Faith, Let It Begin.
• 0:59
  My name is Angel Santana, and it is truly a beautiful and a grateful and inspiring
• 1:07
  day without a shadow of a doubt.
• 1:10
  And the reason why I say that is because if you have been following us,
• 1:14
  if you have been listening to
• 1:16
  yesterday's episode, you all know that my nephew, Amari, was missing and.
• 1:22
  And I would like to begin by welcoming everyone and saying, you know,
• 1:26
  that yesterday I came before all of you, not really as a podcast host,
• 1:32
  but more as an uncle and as a brother.
• 1:34
  My nephew, my sister's son, Amari was missing.
• 1:39
  And I asked all of you for one thing, prayer.
• 1:42
  I asked you to pray for Amari.
• 1:44
  I asked you to share his information. And I asked you to help our family get
• 1:49
  the word out so that we could bring him home.
• 1:52
  And this morning, I don't want to take up very much of your time.
• 1:56
  I simply want to come back before all of you and say thank you.
• 1:59
  Thank you for every single person who prayed.
• 2:02
  Thank you to everyone who reposted, everyone who reshared, everyone who reached
• 2:07
  out, everyone who offered words of encouragement and support to my sister and our family.
• 2:14
  Because this morning, it is with tremendous emotion, gratitude,
• 2:18
  and praise to God that And I'm able to tell you that Amari has been found.
• 2:23
  And today, instead of asking God to help find Amari, we get to thank God that he has been found.
• 2:30
  And I want to thank the community because before we pray, there are some people I need to recognize.
• 2:37
  To my sister's wife, Mercedes, my sister-in-law, thank you.
• 2:41
  Thank you for keeping it as simple as you can. Thank you for being calm, cool, and collective.
• 2:47
  I love you, and I'm proud of you.
• 2:50
  I want to thank you to all the law enforcement officers who responded and participated
• 2:55
  in bringing Amari home safely.
• 2:57
  I want to thank you to all the volunteers, to the mama's groups.
• 3:02
  To the church that was there with my sister, to the grit gang,
• 3:06
  to all the people that I saw that my sister was trying to thank.
• 3:09
  I wish I could have been in Florida to help. The best I could do was lead in
• 3:14
  prayer and repost, but you guys did the work. You did all the hard work.
• 3:20
  To everyone who participated in the search parties and every person who gave
• 3:23
  their time, energy to help search for my nephew, our family is truly thankful.
• 3:29
  Some of you know or knew our family personally, and some of you didn't know us at all.
• 3:35
  And yet you showed up, you searched, you shared, you reposted,
• 3:39
  you prayed, and you cared about bringing a young man home to his family.
• 3:44
  There really aren't enough words to express what that means to us,
• 3:48
  especially my mother and my father,
• 3:51
  who took the news very hard, and to everyone online who shared Amari's information, from the TikTokers,
• 3:58
  to the people all over social media who sent messages to the Channel 10 NBC
• 4:03
  News to the gentleman on the radio station, I think it's called Pineapolis.
• 4:07
  I'm sorry if I said that wrong.
• 4:09
  Those that sent messages, who offered encouragement, and who stopped whatever
• 4:15
  you were doing, even if just for a moment to say a prayer for Amari.
• 4:20
  Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
• 4:22
  Yesterday, our family needed a community, and you became the community for us.
• 4:26
  The prayer changes, and the prayer really, really can make an effect.
• 4:33
  A day without prayer is a day without power.
• 4:35
  And now I'd like to lead all of us in a formal prayer of thanksgiving.
• 4:41
  Yesterday, we prayed asking God for help. And today, as I always state,
• 4:45
  we need to thank God on the good days and on the bad days. Today's a good day.
• 4:50
  We pray to say thank you. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, this morning,
• 4:53
  we come before you with grateful hearts.
• 4:56
  Thank you that Amari has been found. Thank you for protecting him.
• 5:00
  Thank you for allowing my sister Leanne, our family, Mercedes,
• 5:04
  and everyone, who loves Amari, including, of course, Amiya, to receiving the
• 5:08
  news that we had been praying and hoping for.
• 5:12
  Heavenly Father, thank you for every person who helped us along the way and
• 5:16
  helped them along the way.
• 5:18
  Thank you again to Mercedes, the law enforcements, the first responders, the volunteers.
• 5:23
  Thank you to the mom groups. Thank you for the search parties.
• 5:26
  Thank you for every person who shared the post to the Channel 10 NBC News,
• 5:32
  who made phone calls on the tip line, offered assistance, searched,
• 5:36
  prayed, or simply refused to give us hope, give up on hope.
• 5:41
  Bless them, Lord. Even though it was the people out there that did the negative,
• 5:45
  you know, by putting out the negative stuff out there and saying that Mamari
• 5:48
  was found when he wasn't, you
• 5:50
  know, we're not going to get mad about that because that's what you want.
• 5:54
  And believe it or not, in one aspect or another, that negative feed and the
• 5:59
  horrible decision to do that only created more awareness.
• 6:03
  So it backfired on your end. So Lord, I bless them and I forgive them because
• 6:08
  they did not know what they did.
• 6:09
  And if they do, let's forgive them.
• 6:12
  Our family may never know every name that helped. We may never know every person who helped.
• 6:17
  But Father God, you know them. And today we're grateful for every single one of them.
• 6:22
  So Lord, continue to surround Amari with your protection. Give my sister and
• 6:26
  our entire family peace.
• 6:28
  Give us comfort. Give us strength. And give everyone involved the time and space
• 6:33
  that they need after everything that has happened.
• 6:36
  For the families still waiting for their other loved ones that are missing and
• 6:42
  they're dealing with it.
• 6:43
  Keep your faith, keep your faith, your hope and know that God is with you.
• 6:49
  And lastly, our father, as our family celebrates today, we also recognize something important.
• 6:55
  There are other families who woke up this morning who are still waiting.
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  There are mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, grandparents,
• 7:01
  aunts and uncles and friends who are still waiting for someone they love to come home.
• 7:06
  So today, while we thank you for Omari, we pray for them too.
• 7:09
  We pray for every single child that's missing, every missing person,
• 7:13
  and every family waiting for their phone call that says, we found them.
• 7:17
  Give those families strength in waiting, give wisdom, strength,
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  and protection to law enforcement, volunteers, search teams,
• 7:24
  and everyone working to bring their loved ones home, and help their communities
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  continue to surround them with love and support.
• 7:32
  Yesterday, Lord, we asked for help. Today, with grateful hearts,
• 7:37
  we simply say thank you, Lord.
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  Thank you for hearing our prayers. Thank you for carrying our family through
• 7:42
  these frightening and uncertain times and hours.
• 7:45
  And thank you that today we can finally say, Amari has been found.
• 7:49
  We ask you this in your precious name, in Jesus' name, amen. I close with this.
• 7:55
  From my sister, from our entire family, from their immediate family,
• 7:59
  from me personally, Thank you. Thank you for helping us. Thank you for praying
• 8:04
  for us, praying with us. And thank you for standing beside us.
• 8:08
  And thank you for being there for my sister.
• 8:10
  And thank you for helping us bring Amari home.
• 8:12
  Yesterday's message was a request for prayer. Today's message is simply one of gratitude.
• 8:17
  May we never forget how powerful it can be when community comes together for someone who needs them.
• 8:23
  This is Angel Santana, and the uncle of Amari, a proud uncle.
• 8:28
  With half faith, let it begin, because we deal with real people,
• 8:31
  real stories, real faith.
• 8:34
  And as always, remember that a little faith can change your entire day. So God bless you.
• 8:40
  God bless everyone who helped our family. And once again, welcome home to my nephew, Amari.
• 8:47
  And never forget, have faith.