“Where am I?” wheezed Juan, as he tried opening his red, swollen eyes. The dim light from the overhead lamppost outlined a dark street dotted with small houses. He could just make out a lop-sided sign screwed to one of the houses, and a scrawny dog, jumping up and down on the other side of a nearby fence, yelping wildly. As Juan tried taking in his surroundings, he wished he hadn’t opened his eyes. It only made his headache that much worse. Besides, he was in no shape to get himself home, even if he knew which direction home was. How long had it been since his soccer buddies had left him? Three hours? Four? Maybe more. Juan had no way of knowing, nor did he care. He was used to this kind of lifestyle. He tried lifting the beer bottle lying in the ditch next to him, to see if perhaps there was one swig left. The houses started spinning around him and the barking of the scrawny dog grew almost inaudible. Juan felt terribly dizzy as he let his head fall back on the hard concrete sidewalk. Finally, even the last ray of light from the lamppost was swallowed up as everything went black.
And that was a very real image of Juan’s whole life. Even the last rays of hope seemed to have been snuffed from his heart.
___________________________
“Time for lunch!” called Elia as she stood outside her brother’s bedroom door. “Ohhh…” groaned Juan as he heaved his groggy self out of bed and stumbled toward the bathroom. Lunch? he thought to himself. What time is it anyway? As he washed his hands, Juan stared at the man looking back at him in the mirror. With swollen, bloodshot eyes and a flushed face, there was no mistaking the toll alcohol had taken. Was that really who he had become? It certainly was not who he wanted to be.
Far from lacking opportunity in education, Juan had excelled in his studies since his youth and had gone on to take courses in higher education in the nearby city of Morelia. Besides his love for academics, Juan came to be absorbed in sports, specifically soccer, in which he also excelled. However, this became his downfall. His soccer buddies had a routine after every game: If they lost, they would drink to drown their sorrows. If they won, they would drink to celebrate.
Some of his companions seemed able to stop drinking when they needed to, but Juan felt totally helpless to resist the power of the bottle. And worse yet, he had not found anyone who could help him overcome this slavery. He had tried Alcoholics Anonymous but to no avail. He had tried making solemn promises to never drink again, but it hadn’t worked. He was sick of living with this burden, which people told him was an illness, but with nowhere to go, he sunk deeper and deeper, until he became known as the town drunk.
BUT THEN CAME JESUS…
One day as Juan was approaching his home, he heard voices from inside. “The Bible says, ‘For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,’” a female voice spoke. “None of us are good enough to get to Heaven through our own works,” continued the woman.
“Only through Jesus’ finished work on the cross can we get into Heaven. It’s through His merits, not our own.” added a second voice. He heard his mother’s grunt of approval coming from the other side of the room.
What on earth? thought Juan as he managed to sneak in quietly through the side door and make a break for the privacy of his room. He knew his mother was strongly Catholic, and from the sound of it, these people, whom she had apparently invited into her home, didn’t sound very Catholic. After they had left, Juan inquired from his sister who the ladies were. She informed him that they were Christians who lived at the camp which the “gringo” had started. Juan had heard about the gringo many times, but he had never met him face to face, and these young ladies who had come to visit his mother were the first people Juan had ever heard talk about the Bible in such a way.
The young women kept on coming to Juan’s house to teach his mother and sister the Bible. After some time, Juan started noticing a change in their lives. His mother had always been so involved in the Catholic church and now she refrained from even attending their gatherings and rituals. Something had happened in their lives to bring about the many changes Juan was seeing, and he had a feeling it had to do with those ladies who came every week with their message from the Bible. Maybe, just maybe, the Bible held answers for Juan as well. Could there still be a slight chance that there was hope for this miserable wretch? Juan was desperate to find out the answer to that question, so he told the young women he wanted to study the Bible too.
The Bible studies with Ted Clark began soon after. As Juan pondered Bible truths, he was confronted with his real condition before God. He began to grasp who God was, and who he was. He realized that he was even worse than he had thought, and that alcoholism wasn’t a sickness like everyone had told him; it was sin. His problem wasn’t alcohol, it was sin. He noted that he had been right in one thing—he couldn’t stop drinking on his own. Only Jesus could free him from the power of the bottle and from all his other sin which he now saw was just as evil in God’s sight as drunkenness. But would God want to? Would the Judge whom Juan had offended really be willing to forgive him for all the sin he had committed against that very Judge?
“But God demonstrates His own love toward us,” read Juan slowly, “in that while we were yet sinners,” he paused, “Christ died for us.” He finished the sentence, his voice etched with emotion and excitement, as the truth and full weight of those words sunk into his innermost being. “My ‘friends’ would always abandon me in my moments of crisis,” he later recalled, “But I realized that God was extending His hand of forgiveness to me in my greatest need of all.”
That afternoon in the Fall of 2002, Juan decided to receive the free gift of God. He realized that he was a great sinner, but that Jesus was a great Savior. A peace and joy flooded Juan’s soul that day as the burden of sin rolled away and his heart was washed clean in the blood of Jesus. He wept tears of jubilation that night as he experienced the freedom from the burden which had enslaved him for so long. Nothing could compare with the happiness he felt, and Juan declares that this joy has continued undiminished to this very day. He never seems to exhaust his expressions of gratitude for His blessed Savior, who did for him what no other man could do.
Epilogue:
Several years later, Juan married Bertha, (one of the young ladies who was part of the discipleship group at the camp during the time the Word of God first came to Juan’s household–in fact, Bertha was one of the girls who had taken the gospel to his mother and sister). Bertha was a joyful, energetic, and faithful follower of Christ who never missed an opportunity to share the gospel or encourage other believers. They were a happy couple, and the Lord gave them a beautiful daughter. After Lidia’s birth, Bertha suffered postpartum preeclampsia, and came dangerously close to death. As they faced this trial, Juan commented to Ted, “I’ve never confronted anything like this without recurring to alcohol.” The believers encouraged Juan and prayed that he might stand firm. Through it all, Juan refused to return to his previous master, which had enslaved him for so long, but rather found in his new Master all he needed.
Bertha recovered, and they enjoyed a blessed marriage, serving the Lord together for exactly 12 years. On the day of their 12th anniversary in 2017, Bertha was called into the Lord’s presence, having succumbed to pneumonia. This was a grievous blow for Juan and eleven-year-old Lidia. But in the midst of this time, they saw God’s loving care. They did not deny their Lord while going through tremendous pain and loss, but instead clung to Him and found a shelter in the time of storm.
Juan presently serves as a leader in the Camp Berea church. Formerly known as the town drunk, he is now a respected citizen whom everyone in the village looks up to as an example. Neighbors trust him fully, and many illiterate people in the village turn to Juan for help in reading and for counsel concerning legal documents. Jesus came to Juan’s life, and he is a changed man. He is disciplined and faithful. His new love and devotion is to Christ and the Scriptures. His family and neighbors cannot deny the amazing transformation! “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, this person is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” (1 Corinthians 5:17).