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(names have been changed to protect those involved)
”My name is Johnny. I am a 19-year-old ex-gang member. I am going to tell you a little bit of my life of sin before I became a Christian. Before I was a Christian, I was living in a world of violence, drugs, gangs, alcoholism, abuse, paint sniffing and deaths. All by the age of 11 years old.
I lost my Father that year to alcoholism. It was hard but just knowing that I still had an older brother (who was 13 years old), I still had hope and it felt like he was my own father. But a year later, after my Father’s death, my brother was shot and killed in a gang incident. My life was going to turn for the worst. But I didn’t know about that then or how much it would affect me and scar me for life.
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My brother had two best friends before he died. Their names were Bobby and Mike. But that’s not what they called them in my neighborhood. Bobby was called Crow because he was small and skinny and just looked Crow. And Luis, they called him LeRoy Brown because he was big for his age and looked like he would scare you away. I would always see them around my house with my brother, getting high or drunk. But when my brother died, Crow told me that he saw my brother laying in an alley, with a big hole in his back, breathing for his last life’s breath. That was when Crow became my best friend.
LeRoy came over after my brother’s death and told me that he missed my brother. He would tell stories about things they had done together and get sad while telling them. These were the days when LeRoy also became my best friend. Crow was already down with gang violence with my brother. Crow and I, who they called Stumpy, were just wannabes, not supposed to be gangsters, just Christians. That was because we accepted Jesus Christ as our Savior when we were going to Kids Club. If I could remember, I was eight years old, and I think he was twelve years old. But when things happened to my brother, we started to run the streets. Crow was older than we were. I was twelve and LeRoy was fifteen. Crow was sixteen. I was the
youngest of them, but it didn’t matter to me because if my brother could live a life of gang violence then I could. But the truth was, I couldn’t. I had a heart for people, but when my heart showed weakness then I would just tell myself, my brother didn’t care, so why should I. I guess I just kept telling myself a lie. That was the way.
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 For me and my two best friends, life was getting harder for us in our neighborhood where there were drugs, gangs, prostitution, kids with guns, abuse, pregnant teen-agers, pregnant women strung-out on crack cocaine, abused children abandoned by their strung-out mothers or fathers, pain, loss of friends, people getting shot or killed, even by their own family members, or by their homeboys.
One day me and my homeboys were walking down the street telling each other,
“Later, man, we’ll meet up with each other in the Barrio, tomorrow, the same time. We’ll check you out man.” The next day came, and one of my homeboys was shot to death in front of his block. Then you start to wonder, what’s going on, what just happened? Last night I was just shaking my homeboy’s hand, telling him laters, but I guess it wasn’t laters, just goodbye. Things like that I didn’t understand, not at twelve years old, seeing someone one day and the next day, gone, just like that. I couldn’t understand that, at that age. After that, things like that happened all the time. It would have happened to you, too, if you lived in my neighborhood.
Things continued to get worse. I was going to experience the most life-changing event of my life, so far. At fourteen, I became a father, before I was even a man. It was a blessing from God, but I didn’t know about that then, until one day, when I got caught up for stealing a car, and went to juvenile hall. I repeated this, going in and out of Jail for probation and parole violations. I would seek the Lord and hear Him in jail, but when I got out, things were still the same. It even got worse. I abandoned my child for my homeboys and some girl. This went on until we celebrated my seventeenth birthday. That would be the last time we would all be together as one group of homeboys, still living for the old life.
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Then came the year of ‘98 when things started to change. I saw my best friend Crow getting sentenced to prison by the slam of a gavel, the judge gave him 3 and 1/2. I felt sad, lonely, and desperate with the loss of this friend. Yet, I still had my friend LeRoy until one day five months later. We were upset with our girlfriends, started to drink and decided to steal a car. This was the biggest mistake that we had ever made because it ended up costing my friend his life. I didn’t understand why so many bad things were happening to me but only now I can see that it was a wake up call to me from the Lord. I wanted to change because my girlfriend ended up getting pregnant
and I knew that I wanted to try to be a good father and not abandon my new baby like I had the first. But I didn’t know how to really change until nine months later when my newborn baby died. I was lost, confused, and didn’t care about anything and even tried to commit suicide. One night when I was drunk and angry I stole a car and found myself in the same situation as my best friend that had died. And that’s the way that I wanted to go out --like my friend.
My Youth Leader told me that everything was going to be alright for this baby that hadjust died, because babies never had a chance to sin so they make it to heaven. She also said that we’d meet up one day in heaven because I had asked the Lord to be my personal Savior and I was going to heaven. So the thought occurred in my head that I’d kill myself that night. I’d wake up in the morning in heaven shaking my best friend’s hand and even holding my baby. I didn’t die, the Lord saved me that day, just as He had so many times before. But this was going to be the incident that would bring me to my knees. This terrible night cost me my girl and my freedom. You can’t believe that life can get any worse, but it did. I went back to paint sniffing and all kinds of terrible things, even bringing the little homies into this lifestyle. It went on and on, beer runs, gang fights, gang shootings, robbing house, and drug selling. I was trapped, trapped in a world I was trying humanly to crawl out of. What I know now is that humanly I could not save myself. Actually, no human being could save me.
One day I got up, after drinking the night before, looked in the mirror and said to myself, “I’m a grown man, still trying to live the life of a twelve year old.” It felt gross and rotten. Several times I would repeatedly look at myself in the mirror and that feeling didn’t go away. What I know now is that I had been living for Satan. Another thought occurred in my mind, one of my homeboys is dead and the other is in prison, and these were my two best friends. There has to be a better life.
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She told me to pray, to talk to the Lord. So I tried it. I was amazed how I felt. It felt like I had just taken a drug. I prayed that the Lord would help me with these ups and downs that I was experiencing. I wanted a new life, I wanted the Lord to change me, to protect me, to forgive me for all my sins. I didn’t think it would work, until amazing things started to happen. I didn’t feel like the crummy person any more. I remembered a book I read, by Nicky Cruz. It related to me and influenced me. I was realizing that what God had done for Nicky Cruz he could do for me. Nicky Cruz was a leader of a gang, and I just ran with a gang. If he could change a leader, he could change me. I started remembering this and other times when the Lord had broken through and protected me in the past. I realized he had been working in my life for a
long time drawing me to Himself and catching me when I’d fall.
I would like to tell you what my life has been like since I’ve been walking with the Lord daily. First of all, I have my son back after abandoning him. One day I was holding him in my arms, so sad for what I had done. I love my boy to death, and now I am trying to bring my son to know Christ. This is an amazing blessing from our Father in heaven. I will never abandon him for anybody or anything ever again.
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I have also experienced forgiving my enemies. One time in particular is very powerful. One of my own homeboys shot at me several times. As I was upset and angry, and looking for revenge, I heard in our high school group that God wanted his children to forgive their enemies or they wouldn’t receive forgiveness. I wanted to be right with God. I prayed for help to have a change of heart. I didn’t expect that in the end that I would receive anything in return, maybe a changed heart. What happened was a miracle, peace in my heart. And then, a week later, I saw this guy in my neighborhood. He called me over. I went in the back and didn’t know what to do, while fixing my pants and shoes, maybe something would happen that was bad. He looked at me, and told me he was sorry, for what he had done. I looked at him with a straight, honest face. I told him, “I forgive you, man.” He looked at me with shock and surprise on his face, and told me he didn’t want my f---ing forgiveness. And I told him that’s OK I forgive you anyway, and I walked away. My heart has never looked back on that day, having to say those words to him or having revenge. My heart is done with that.
So as my heart moves to another stage, for the Lord’s love, I am getting involved as a leader in the same programs I grew up within, Kids Life and Kids Club. I see kids that used to be me when I was a kid. I don’t want these kids to go through the things I went through. There is incredible meaning for me, receiving hugs, respect, love. I love these kids like they were my own. I pray for them and their families, and myself.
Praying changes me and my heart. When life is difficult, with its ups and downs, I go to the Lord, riding my bike all around my old neighborhood. I think about the things I have done and how God has changed my heart. I am tempted to go back, but I can’t, that is not me anymore. I pray every day about some particular things. I still have some after affects of my past paint-sniffing --
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I attend church just about every time there is something going on with
Neighborhood Ministries. These people have become my new homeboys and homegirls, because they are my brothers and sisters in Christ.
And one of the last miracles of change that I will share today, is making it right with my babies’ mothers. They were like enemies, because they turned away from me to others. They needed to hear me say that I was wrong and sorry. I asked them to forgive me for abandoning them. They have forgiven me and that has given me peace in my heart.
I have hope and dreams of a future, now. I didn’t have this before when I was living for Satan. Like the scriptures say: For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, ... plans to give you hope and a future ... You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
One day I dream of having a family, having a car, a home, a wife and a job. I dream of being a godly man, who God will use in miraculous ways in other people’s lives. My greatest dream is that God would use me to write a book and share my testimony like Nicky Cruz, so that other young men in jail or on the streets, might hear that there is a way out, hope for their lives, in Christ.”
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