It is the 1st Saturday in May. My King is having me witness to three gangs from Pueblo that are moving to take territory in Commerce City. I am to be eliminated if I interfere and I don’t even know who they are. They have heard of me from other gangs but have not visually seen me. When I arrived, two of the gangs were already there. I had homemade burritos for them along with Dr. Pepper and water. As I started to get the supplies out of my pickup, both gangs came up to me with their pistols drawn. They looked over my pickup and noticed my name on it. They said, “You must be that Sonny we have heard about. We do not I want you to tell us anything about Jesus Christ. If you even mention Jesus Christ, we are going to shoot you. We don’t want to hear his name at all. We know that you minister to gangs around here but we don’t want you to minister it to us at all.” One leader began waving his pistol at me. He then said, “Just try it and I will shoot you.”
I said, “Before you shoot me, let me pray for you guys before you shoot me. I am doing what God has asked me to do. No matter what I win because I have either done what my Father has told me to do or I get to go and see him.” The gang leader replied, “We are like pirates right now. We are doing whatever we want. We don’t care about Jesus at all. We just want to have our fun.”
I said, “That is a funny thing that you would mention that because one of these days you will see my King and you will not be able to tell him that nobody has talked to you about Jesus Christ.” I paused briefly then said, “Jesus Christ wants your heart today. He does not want them broken as they are right now.” The gang leader said, “You know nothing about our hearts.”
I said, “Your dad was an alcoholic. He used to beat you, your mom, brother and little sister up all the time. Is that true?” The gang leader said, “How do you know that?”
I said, “My King showed me this. I am sorry that this happened to you. I know that you’re broken. That’s not fun.” The gang leader asked, “What else do you know.”
I said, “I know that you walked from your family when you were 14 years old and today you’re almost 20 years old. The gang leader asked, “Who in the world is telling you all this?”
I said, “It is my God. He wants to bring healing to you.” He looked intently at me and said, “I am done talking to you.” He then left my presence to keep from getting shot by his own men. I looked toward his men and asked, “Before you shoot me, does anybody have a prayer request. I will pray for you, your family or whatever you need.” I did not have to wait long. One of the gang members came up and asked, “Can you pray for my dad? He is also an alcoholic.” I then asked, “What is his name?” He replied, “His name is Roberto.”
I said, “Let’s pray for him right now. Can you call him on the phone?” He began the process of calling home. Immediately, another gang member stepped up and asked, “Can you pray for my mom? She is not feeling well.”
I said, “Let’s call her.” He replied, “Well, normally I don’t call her more than once a month.”
I said, “Don’t you remember. You said that you’re going to shoot me. We need to call her now while I’m still alive. This is the only time she’s going to have anybody praying for her.” He said, “Okay.” and proceeded to call her. Could you imagine these gangs were here to shoot me. And now they are all beginning to ask me for prayer. His mom quickly answered the phone and he began telling her about me. She asked him to let me speak to her. He passed his phone to me. She said, “So, you are speaking to my son about Jesus Christ.”
I said, “Yes, my King loves him and has a different plan for his life than what he is doing now.” She said, “Wow Sonny! You are amazing. Do you know I am sick? I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
I said, “My King said that you need tell the nurse to cut up a bunch of lemons and mix it in a glass of water. God has shown me that that there is something wrong with your stomach. Am I right?” She said, “Yes and I cannot use the bathroom. But the nurses will never allow me to do that.” There was a Christian nurse standing right by her at that time. Since the phone was on speaker, the nurse heard everything that I was saying. She said, “I will do it.” so she proceeded to do as I requested. They were about to put some machine down her to try to fix the problem. Soon the nurse brought the lemon water concoction to her that I requested. She consumed the whole glass. The nurse said, “I have to go now. They want to run more tests.” After the nurse left, I said, “I am going to pray for you and I want you to expect a miracle.”
I then hung up and talked to the gang members father Roberto. I then finished the call by praying with him over the phone. Roberto said, “Are you actually talking to my son about Jesus Christ?” I said, “Yes I am.” Roberto asked, “Did he tell you that I was an alcoholic?”
I said, “Yes. My King can deliver you from that bondage. He can set you free.” Roberto asked, “Where are you guys at?”
I said, “We are in the park over here by Commerce City.” Roberto said, “I will be right there.” Then his son said, “Are you really coming here Dad.” Roberto said, “I want to meet this guy. I want to have him pray for me in person.” Just as Thomas had to see the nail marks in Jesus’s hands, some people have to see me to believe it is real. Which is okay even for me. After these prayer events happened, they all started opening up. One said, “Can you pray for my grandma? She is very sick.” Another one asked, “Pray for my parents because they are mad at me for running away.” I began praying for all of them every one of them had an issue that needed to be prayed for.
About this time the third gang showed up. Their plan was to combine forces and take over the entire East Side. If they would have combined, the gang would consist of 62 men. The leader of the third gang asked, “What’s going on.” The other gangs introduce me and began telling them what they were doing. The leader asked, “Why have you not shot him by now.” They replied, “He just asked if he could pray for all of us and our families before we shot him.” In disbelief, the gang leader looked at me intently and said, “You’re going to pray for all of us before we shoot you.”
I said, “I am doing what I was supposed to do. Do you have anything that you want me to pray about for you?” That gang leader paused then asked, “I lost my dad five years ago and my mom is all messed up. She is on drugs and it’s taking a toll on her. I don’t even want to be around her.”
I said, “We should call her and talk to her.” He then silently left for a minute and came back with her connected. I asked him, “What is her name?” He said, “Rosalinda.” I took his phone and said, “Rosalinda, I want to pray for you.” She replied, “Why do you want to pray for me?”
I said, “Jesus wants to heal your heart.” She immediately began to cry. I prayed and handed the phone back to the gang leader. He must have talked to his mom for 30 minutes until she decided to come to us. Soon she arrived at the park along with Roberto. I begin to notice that all the gang members were on their phones. I began to realize if they were all calling people they knew so that I could pray for them. It all started out that the three gangs were here to kill me and now they’re bringing their families and the people they care about to me to pray for them. I began praising God as all kinds of people started showing up. I have no idea how many people were here at this time. Even up to this special moment, many of the gang members still had their pistols on me. But as more and more of family members showed up they began to put their pistols away. I asked what needs that everyone needed me to pray for. Most of the parents requested that they just wanted their sons back. I said, “I am praying that Jesus Christ will do that.” As the Holy Spirit began to move, almost everybody in those three gangs were beginning to cry. Because the crowd was so large I had to stand in the back of my truck in order to talk to everyone. I asked anyone that wanted their names written in the Lamb’s Book of Life to come over here. I immediately read John 3:16 and Jeremiah 29:11 to them because it talks about their future. They all raise their hands and came forward. This is the largest group of gang members here in Colorado that I’ve ever witnessed to that gave their hearts to Jesus Christ. I have seen larger ones in other cities but those gangs we’re already set up to be there. There definitely was a lot of crying going on. What was interesting about this is that almost all the parents of the boys lived in Denver. Almost every one of them ran away from home and headed to Pueblo.
Later this afternoon the mom of the first gang leader called and said, “After I drink that lemon water everything opened up in my system. I am now back to normal. That acid in the lemon did something and I told everyone to get out of the way. I need to go to the restroom bad. The doctors began telling me that they found out I ate a piece of steak and swallowed that hard piece that it got lodged someplace and the acid from the lemons loosened it up to the point where I could go to the restroom again.” This is the second time that my King has used this method to do a healing. We all know he’s powerful enough to heal anyone who has a problem without using lemons but we serve a creative God. She was released to go home the next day. It was getting late and I told everyone that I would be back tomorrow afternoon to talk to everybody here again. I knew there were a lot more questions that needed to be answered.
Sunday, I went back down to talk to the gangs again. They even brought more aunts and uncles with them. I was kept busy this afternoon praying and talking to everyone there. Their biggest request was “Families in conflict. We always seem to fight as families.” They wanted to be released from that and to be able to live a life together in harmony. They said, “We are families and we want this type of behavior to stop.” I began turning this request over to our King.
While I was praying and talking about Jesus Christ to everybody, I noticed that three food trucks showed up. I said to myself that this is what is considered a dangerous part of the city and this is not normal for those guys to show up here. I found out later that the parents from the previous day requested that these guys show up to make burritos for everybody because they knew that there would be a large crowd here today. The food truck drivers were curious and asked, “What is going on here?”
I said, “All of these people here have given their lives to Jesus Christ.” One of the drivers replied, “I have been running from God for a long time and I am tired of this. I just don’t know what to do.” I said, “You have come to the right place because Jesus loves you right where you are at. Your family may have abandoned you. But your King will never abandon you because he loves you.” He said, “I do not know why I am crying but I need for you to pray for me.” He began turning his heart to Jesus Christ. The other two drivers came over and asked, “Why are you crying, Essay.” He said, “I have rededicated my life over to Jesus Christ again. I am tired of running from God.” The other drivers asked, “Is it really that easy to accept Jesus Christ? I have done a lot of bad things. In fact, I am still doing bad things.” I said, “You need just to ask forgiveness of your sins and turn your heart and your life over to Jesus Christ.” One of the men said, “I’m ready to give it a try.” Soon both of them were giving their hearts and life over to Jesus Christ.
I am sure glad that I did what my King told me to do because many gave their lives over to Jesus this weekend. My King gets the Glory and the Victory and I got to see it all.