Still Standing: Mario’s Brother, Leonardo

Hello again brave readers, and to our family, and friends…

It is a joy to be able to contact you again.

As usual, we have some good news and also some very hard news. We write to you again with our hearts undone, since after our last newsletter we’ve had to see yet another bloody, brutal death among the youth that we work with in the church neighborhood.

But at the same time we could not resist sharing with you the fruit of your prayers.

So, without further introduction, we will let you read the events below. (psss – Don’t miss the photos at the end!)

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“…I promise I’m going to try harder from now on.”

Leonardo’s eyes peered back at us from between steel prison bars. We could smell the stench of his jail cell even from where we were standing.

In response to his comment, all we said was, “We hope what you say is true.”

With that, we turned and left.

No bailing him out this time.

This was not the first weekend we had spent most of our time stopping by the foul-smelling prison center to visit youth from our neighborhood, many of whom tend to wind up in jail almost every Friday or Saturday night.

Leonardo in particular had been spiraling further and further out of control in terms of his hard drug use.

After losing one of his brothers to a violent gang stabbing some months before, this young man had been just barely hanging on. But when his other brother Mario was kidnapped at gunpoint by a truck full of hit-men from one of the area drug cartels, Leonardo had started going down fast, turning more and more to intense drug use to numb his pain.

…And when we were just beginning to wonder how we could possibly talk about the love of God to someone who’d been through so many things, tragedy struck again.

What we are about to say next is shocking, so we’ll just have to come out and say it: In May of this year, one of Leonardo’s closest cousins was killed.

… Luis Vazquez Triana was a very dear friend to us, and he will forever hold a special place in our hearts.

He was normally a very peaceful fellow, not the kind of guy who´d go looking for trouble… But unfortunately – and like so many other youth — he was caught one night off-guard, in the middle of the wrong neighborhood. At the wrong time.

… The gang fight was brutal and we will spare you the details. But again, the worst part was that this young man was not just like any normal cousin to Leonardo.

In a seemingly horrible coincidence, Luis was actually one of the two cousins whom Leonardo had grown up with.

He was the cousin who had been like a brother to him.

… And so it was.

After this last shocking incident, we tried to continue working with Leonardo, but to be honest we have to tell you that we had no words left.

And it wasn’t until this young man had pawned his mother’s stereo, our DVD player, stolen money from the offering, and even taken our camera in a desperate attempt to get more money for drugs that we realized we had only one recourse in order to continue touching his life…

… Prayer.

Larry told Leonardo that we could not continue seeing him until he showed a marked interest in change for himself — an interest which could only be demonstrated by paying back at least part of what he owed us from all he had stolen.

Leonardo seemed to feel bad and understood what we were saying, and yet he knew it would be hard for him to have any money at all in his hands without being tempted to spend it on drugs again… So not knowing what to do, we decided to stop seeing him entirely for a time.

But no one could stop us from praying.

…As it turned out, avoiding this young man was not as difficult as we had imagined. We noticed that after we talked to him, Leonardo stopped going to the gang site altogether. And though we were tempted to try and look for him, we thought it was better to follow through on what we had said, knowing that if anything serious was happening the family would let us know.

But that didn’t stop us from praying.

…When we finally called Leonardo’s mother it had been a couple of months since we had seen him. As always, we were afraid of what we might hear.

To our surprise, his mother responded calmly: “Leonardo is fine. We thought you might be worried since you haven’t seen him out on the park benches. I know you’re not going to believe this, but the honest truth is that since your last conversation with him, Leonardo has taken himself off of hard drugs… and he’s decided to spend more time with us as a family.”

And it was true. Since that time, we have had the chance to talk to Leonardo some, and we have both seen and heard that he is doing much better… So clearly, God works better in the lives of people than we do.

And as for us? Of course we feel completely humbled, and reminded again that the ministry we are taking on is much bigger than we can handle.

But even so, as we watch the life of Leonardo, we are learning.

In fact it is not at all stretching the truth to say we are learning more from him than he is from us.

Most of all, we are learning that in spite of the “mass” graves found here, that death, and mass killings, are not just something you can “get used to” over time.

Leonardo could certainly testify to that.

But yet like him, we ourselves can also promise that we are going to “try harder…” as we go forward.  And we know that as we keep trying, we are going to win some for our cause… even as we lose others.

The good thing is that Leonardo has taught us that it’s not as much about trying…

… As it is about praying.

 

Leonardo: Before …Drugged and confused See more photos: Leonardo History

Leonardo Now … At home with his family See the web album for more photos of Leonardo & His Family

Leonardo, Luis, and Mario

These three young men are pictured here in May of 2010.  They were in the car with us on the way to an evangelistic campaign, where Mario reaffirmed his faith and Luis prayed to receive Jesus in his heart. About 2 months afterwards, Mario was kidnapped and forced to work for the drug cartels… And within a year, Luis was killed.

For more photos of our friends from the gang at the evangelistic campaign, see the web album: Breakthrough – May 2010

Mario, Leonardo, and Luis

on Mario’s birthday, a month after the evangelistic campaign