When you hear the name “Mexico” ring into your ears, I’m willing to bet the first images that pop into your mind are (in no particular order):
Man wearing a sombrero playing guitar
Tacos
Border wall
Donald Trump (not even their president)
Drugs & Cartels
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure this is what the majority of Americans think about this place. Rightfully so, because that’s pretty much all we hear about.
I can’t think of one person who didn’t tell me to be safe when I told them I was coming to Mexico for a few months. I completely understand and appreciate their concerns, and I’m not oblivious to the risks involved in being in this country.
Before I started the program here in San Antonio del Mar, I had a chance to visit the campus. I saw how safe and protected the property was, so I really had no qualms about coming here. I have also visited Tijuana multiple times, as well as took a mini road trip down to Ensenada back in April. Because of my first-hand experience, I had no fear coming here, but I completely understand other people’s concern about my safety in the country of Mexico.
To some, it may seem like I am oblivious or simply ignorant to the threats of being in a country that is highly influenced by drug cartels. But that is not the case. I simply choose to believe that human beings are still human beings no matter where they live. I choose to give people the benefit of the doubt; and I choose to seek a full picture view, instead of listening only to what I’m told on a mass-media outlet.
This past week, I got the chance to encounter someone who was once a part of a drug cartel. Actually, I met him several weeks ago: a young guy my age, very welcoming, energetic, and clearly a leader. I never would have guessed his dark past if I didn’t get the opportunity to hear his story.
Don’t worry, I wasn’t wandering the streets of Tijuana and casually have a jaunt with an ex-narco.
The local outreach that I am a part of here take us to this rehab facility, kind of in the middle of nowhere, every Tuesday. It’s a safe haven; a place of refuge and healing for about 20-30 men. It’s a place where they can escape their normal patterns of life, get clean, and strengthen their relationship with God, if they so choose.
We have been going for the last 5 weeks, building relationships and aiming to instill encouragement and hope in the men. Now, after several weeks, we have built more trust and stronger relationships, so we are moving into the photo-storytelling aspect of the ministry. We want to ensure that we aren’t simply consuming and exploiting humans just for a good shot, or a story. The intention is relationship. The by-product of the relationship is empowerment, utilizing photography as the means to do so.
Actually, first we let them use our cameras. Some had no idea how to even hold them, and others took our cameras and started snapping away like paparazzi. The week after, we brought them prints of the images they took, and images we took of them. To be honest, I had no idea how much of an impact a simple photograph could make on someone. They were so happy and excited to see the prints. One man told me he was going to send a photo to his mom, who hasn’t come to see him in years.
The first 5 weeks at this place were very light-hearted, and fun getting to know the men, and also some of their children and wives who come and visit. I knew it was a drug rehab facility, but honestly it didn’t really feel like it. Most of my conversations were light-hearted, God-centered, or about trying to practice either Spanish or English.
But this week we dove into interviews. A more in-depth story of one person, who we are going to take photos of next week. The guy who we grabbed to interview I always saw as one of the most positive and brightest ones there.
The setting of our interview was in a little house-like building that didn’t have any lights on because they cannot afford the electricity bill. As the sun set, I lit the torch on my phone and angled it as best as I could to half-way light up his face in the dark.
He doesn’t speak any English, and we (myself and my partner, Anna) don’t speak Spanish. I can get by on basic Spanish, but definitely not story-telling Spanish. So we had one of our leaders there as a translator.
Anna and I had questions prepared for him, but only after about two questions, he decided that he was just going to explain his life story from the beginning. However, this was not an easy task for him. He said he still struggles to open up to people about his story and that only a few select people know it. We are lucky to have heard it. He said he believes God wants him to share it with us, and that he’s happy to have people who have the ability to lift up the voices of people like him: minorities.
To start, this man is 26 years old. We are the same age. It is crazy to me that we’ve spent the same amount of time on this earth, yet we have led completely, radically different lives. Yet, here we are sharing stories with each other.
He grew up poor, in a region of Mexico that is poverty-stricken and infamously known for being run by the cartel. His father worked for the cartel, and lost his life being a part of it. This, of course, shook the entire family; he said when his dad died, his entire family died.
His mother uprooted them to Tijuana, and eventually met another man. She had two more kids with this guy, but her new husband wanted nothing to do with a son that wasn’t his. The whole family dynamic was strained, and he felt completely unwanted. So one day, when he was tasked to go out and get tortillas for the family, he simply decided not to go back home. Nobody wanted him. He was 6 years old, and alone on the streets of Tijuana. His family never went looking for him, or at least didn’t make a strong attempt to do so.
At 8 years old, he began his career in the drug trafficking world. He was quick; he knew how to stay under the radar; he was good at his job. He moved up the ranks rapidly. By age 9, he was promoted to the title of gunman. Me? A gunman? I’m just me. Even he felt confused how this could happen.
This perplexity and disillusionment was directly linked to his drug abuse. He had started using drugs even before he was given access to guns, and the drugs started to take control of who he was. Subsequently, others began to take control over him, as well.
He was 9 years old the first time he killed someone. He put a bullet right through a man’s skull. His whole body shook from head to toe. He panicked and didn’t know what to do.
Can you remember what you were doing at 9 years old? What is that, 4thgrade? I remember my teacher telling me an idea of mine was “garbage” in front of the class, and that was about the worst thing that happened to me that year. #Firstworldproblems.
Unlike my tackily-decorated but curiously cozy 4thgrade classroom, the streets were his classroom. As I learned to critically read, do long division, and make fun of my teacher’s fat belly, he learned how to fight, rob and murder.
If you want to discuss parallel universes, this is one right here. Turns out, we don’t even need to look to another universe, we just need to start exploring our own planet and start inquiring people we wouldn’t normally talk to.
As I digress… the story of this guy’s life in the cartel was dark, and details are blurred due to difficulty in translations. By 25 years old, he was high up the ranks in the cartel world; he knew every street corner, and every person in Tijuana. He had people doing everything for him. At that point, he didn’t even need to carry a weapon for people to fear him.
Due to the circumstances and experiences of his life, unsurprisingly, he really hated people. Getting close to people was, and still is, a difficulty for him. Even now, when people draw close to him, he gets defensive and wants to fight. But I neverwould’ve thought that about him if I didn’t hear his story. He seemed very friendly and loving in my eyes.
At 26 years old, his ex-boss gave him a call and told him Jesus loves him. He thought that meant he was going to get murdered. He didn’t know who Jesus was. But he said that he had a safe place for him to stay and rest, so decided to go. He was brought to this rehab facility by a friend of his ex-boss. Despite having enough hope to get in the car to come, he was paranoid the entire car ride that he was going to get killed by this “friend” of a frenemy. Even after being shown the place in a peaceful, quiet valley in the mountain, and given a bed, he was distrustful and expecting to get murdered. Mercy and grace were foreign concepts to him.
He finally found rest at this place. Peace. Community. Family. Love. Not without its difficulties; every day is a new battle, and it’s not over. But, he said that he’s learned and changed more in the last 5 months than he has in all his 26 years of life.
Five months earlier he said nothing was important to him. His felt that his life was meaningless; that it had no value. He was in slavery; a slave to what the cartel told him to do. He believed that going to be jail would be better than living the life he was living.
But because the least suspecting person extended Jesus’ love to him, he is now living the opposite life he was living for the past 26 years. His life has been radically transformed. The way he talks. The way he acts. Thinks. The way he treats people. Does things.
Most importantly, now he values his life, and knows that God has a purpose for him. This is who Jesus is. He offers grace, mercy, peace, hope and purpose. He restores innocence. He heals.
I am in awe of how someone’s life can be so radically transformed. How someone can literally be plucked from the miserable, dark state that they’ve only ever known and be placed in a place of peace and opportunity for restoration. Only God can do this.
So, yes, cartels are very real and a part of Mexico and cause immeasurable devastation and destruction to individual lives and ruling bodies. But God loves the people who work in them. And we should, too.
UPDATE – Photos of Jesus
Candor Collective 
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