He would hang out with the Crea guys.
The past few weeks my team and I have had the honor of serving at Hogar Crea, a residential drug rehabilitation facility. The men range from ages 18-50 and while some are there voluntarily, most are court ordered to serve time in the program.
We started 3 weeks ago with the instructions of follow the schedule in place, help clean, and attend the therapy sessions. By the end of this week we were told, the schedule doesn’t matter, you are in charge, and do whatever you want with the guys. While a daunting task and one that took a lot of planning, the past few weeks have been nothing short of a miracle.
These men are what society would consider “lost souls.” They are drug addicts, drug dealers, thieves, liars, cheaters, and whatever other labels you want to put on them. Most are covered in tattoos, use very colorful language, and have hard exteriors. On paper they aren’t most warm & fuzzy kind of guys.
But, I just see them as brothers and more importantly the Lord calls them sons. They aren’t defined by the mistakes they’ve made and shouldn’t be counted out because they are a little rough around the edges. The Lord loves people like these guys, regardless of what others may feel about them. Being with these men, gave me a glimpse of how Christ see us. Even though we are sinners and certainly don’t deserve His love, he gives it anyway. He looks beyond our past and the hard exterior and sees our heart. He loves without labels.
Each of the men have such different stories and life events that brought them to CREA. However, when talking with them some common themes have come up: abandonment, loss, abuse, and despair. I have been blown away with how open they have been with us about their stories, struggles, and desires. They have asked deep questions and have been vulnerable in such a short time.
We haven’t done anything extravagant with them; basically we show up around 9 and “do life.” We sometimes help with chores, one particular day I spent in the kitchen learning to cook Puerto Rican rice & Spam. We play Uno, do Bible studies, sing, have small group discussion time, and we performed a drama about how Jesus fights for us when the enemy attacks us. We have had some great things come out of the planned activities, many guys expressed their desire to know more about God, some men broke down in tears sharing their testimonies, and we had a lot of good dialogue. However, my favorite part has been just talking with the men. No agenda, just spending time together.
My team and I have gotten pretty attached to many of the guys. They have shared some of their most intimate stories with us and we’ve been able to share our stories as well. It’s been amazing to see how God orchestrates everything. He has placed the right team member with the right person at the right time. We have had so many divine appointments and “Jesus moments.”
I entitled this blog WWJD (What would Jesus do) because I feel like I got to live a life Jesus would have this month. I got to invest in people that otherwise would have been forgotten. I got to be intentional with my conversations and listen to the struggles of my brothers. I was able to pray for men that were broken and see the Lord restore them. I had the opportunity to talk about the Love of Christ each day to men who haven’t always been shown love. I got to do what Jesus would do….and I really loved it.
