1 / Brother Caligallo
If it’s true that street crime hits in waves, then Venezuela has been struck by a tsunami-like ocean torrent. Some believe the quake behind this began in earnest with the people’s uprising in February 1989, when an IMF-pressured austerity package forced then-President Carlos Andrés Pérez to abruptly and dramatically raise basic commodity prices, including bus fares. In a knee-jerk reaction, thousands from Caracas’ hillside slums took to the streets in violent protest. More than one thousand lives were lost in three days of bloody bedlam in the capital city. One researcher coined a shift in the modus operandi among streets criminals as a move from “I will rob you” to the more sinister “I will rob and kill you.” He believes this change took root at this moment in the country’s history.1
In spite of efforts from opposition groups to blame President Chavez for the growing murder rate, no one disputes that the problem known as inseguridad (lack of safety in the streets) topped the populace’s list of most pressing issues prior to Chavez’s ascendance to the nation’s highest office.
Even in the face of widespread danger and violence, our approach to mission in the turbulent slums has been anything but a big splash. Venezuelans have at various times described our work as that of ants (hormigas). We serve unassumingly, without drawing attention to ourselves. We’re small in number, a relative drop in the bucket, yet hardworking and united in effort. At first glance little seems to be accomplished. Yet in the end, no one with eyes to see can deny the profound impact of our consistency.
My wife and I arrived in Caracas with our three children and two teammates in November 2001, two years after a political tsunami brought the larger-than-life populist Hugo Chavez to the presidency. Our teammates returned to the United States in 2004. They were replaced by two others, and then another. These co-workers also left after a three-year period of service.
Caracas street crime didn’t become personal to me in the first year or even the second. When the wave finally hit, it hit hard, as I wrote in the introduction. The two stories that follow come from two teammates that lived through this particularly hot season when the pressing issue of inseguridad in the streets began to burn in our hearts. Corrie Long, a recent graduate from Wheaton College, served on our team from 2004–2007. Ryan Mathis, a young man in his early twenties who penned the second story, worked with us from 2006–2008.
John’s neighborhood
A Letter from the Slums
Several months ago, I [Corrie] asked you to pray for the surge in violence we were experiencing here. At that time, I was held up by two young street thugs who tried to take the gold ring off my finger. They got the purse off my shoulder, but I put up a fight with the ring and the guy couldn’t get it off. The ring itself is inexpensive, but it was a gift from my parents and I’ve worn it since I was thirteen! I got a bit roughed up and scared, as you can imagine. In my nearly three years in the barrios (“slums” and “barrios” are used interchangeably), this was the first time I got held up. Now I want to tell you about an answer to prayer that came out of the experience.
Several weeks ago I found out that one of the malandros in the neighborhood was recovering in a nearby hospital after getting shot. The young man’s name was Caligallo—the very guy who tried to steal my ring. Since that time, Caligallo had been terrorizing the neighborhood. The more I heard, the more I learned of his story.
Caligallo grew up in the neighborhood as an orphan. His brothers are in jail or dead. His sister sells herself up the road from me. With nothing to hope for and no life to believe in, Caligallo fell into what surrounded him: the drugs and violence of the streets. Our neighbors watched him grow up, fed him, and even tried to help him along the way. Since choosing this path as an adolescent, they seem to be waiting for him to be killed off. No one has hope for him. “May God forgive him,” they say, “because we won’t.”
News of Caligallo’s situation arrived on a Friday afternoon. My friend from the street, Diana, invited us to visit him in the hospital. When we arrived at his bedside, my team leader John, my teammate Ryan, and I (all of whom Caligallo has robbed) just stood there a little awkwardly, and perhaps a little fearfully. Yet soon we were talking, laughing, even holding his hand. We prayed for him and over him—simple prayers, thanking God for his life. We shared smiles and jokes. We told him that our team was praying for God to spare his life and that this was an answer to our prayers. We told him that we cared about him and his life. The forgiveness in the room came alive, as if God walked among us. We stood there on holy ground, a living demonstration of Christ’s pardon to our wounded offender.
As we parted, he reached out and held my hand, the same hand from which he tried to rip my promise ring. Yet because God is good, there we were again. With a glance I told him that he was forgiven . . . in the deepest sense of the word. When I felt Caligallo holding my hand in such a different way, looking me in the eye and saying, “Gracias, Corrie,” I was overcome by the beauty of God’s gift.
Corrie
We didn’t know if Caligallo would die in that hospital bed or once he hit the streets. Now he is back in the neighborhood, though in hiding. My teammate Ryan has become his friend and seeks him out.
Visiting the sick and loving my enemy—the guy who makes me fear walking to the team office every day—humbles me. Yet this is why I want to be here. Isn’t this what Jesus’ kingdom is all about, redeeming the awfulness through forgiveness? I’m not saying our visit changed his whole perspective on everything and that his life will be different. I think there was part of Caligallo that was proud to be lying there like a wounded street soldier. Change comes so hard, if he even wants it.
In Ryan’s Words
A friend and I had the opportunity to minister God’s radical love to one of my neighborhood’s most infamous outcasts, Caligallo. I felt an impression from God urging my friend Chris and I to bless Caligallo and pray over him. I felt comfortable with this divine nudging because Caligallo and I had been developing a friendship ever since he was hospitalized after a rival street criminal shot him on my street corner. I had already prayed for him a couple of times before our visit that day, and he had always been very receptive. It was obvious that he respected my concern for his life, and I always tried to treat him with dignity.
It was a Thursday when we went to his house. We made small talk for a while, and then I told him that we had come wanting to pray God’s blessing over him. I asked him if that was alright. He said, “Of course.” Before we prayed over him I told Caligallo that I had a gift for him. I handed him a poster of Jesus’ face. I liked this poster because Jesus’ eyes are defiant, like he’s determined to change things (unlike the more common images of him as a helpless victim). I told him gently, “I know you steal, because that’s what life has come to. I know you take things from others. But this is something that I want to give you. It symbolizes all the good gifts that the God who loves you wants to give you without you having to steal them.” Then I spoke the words that had been running through my head all week whenever I thought of Caligallo, words that I believe were a message from God for him. “All week I have held the words ‘God is for you, God is on your side’ in my mind and heart. I think they are words for you. Even though I am saying them, I hope you can take them as the words of God himself being spoken over you. ‘Caligallo, I am for you.’” Then I prayed for him, speaking God’s
