Jorge Hernandez crossed the border into California when he was young. His mother worked hard to provide for him and his brother, but they were still poor.
Jorge, or as most people know him, “Little Gee,” remembers getting his first pair of decent shoes from one of his homeboys. He remembers how that feeling of fulfillment quickly led him to involvement in gang life and crime.
Ultimately, he remembers how God showed up in an unlikely place to turn his life around.
“God used a ‘lifer’ in the prison cell next to mine,” Little Gee remembers. “This was a man who had just been sentenced to life in prison, and he was talking about love and grace. That shook me.”
Little Gee’s life didn’t turn around automatically after that. In fact, he used the opening pages of the Bible the inmate gave him not for its message but for rolling joints. Slowly, however, Little Gee started to wonder more about what the Bible said.
Today Little Gee serves as a pastor, and he is just one part of a growing network of Christian leaders in Guatemala City.
Christian Reformed World Missions missionary Joel Van Dyke founded the Center for Transforming Mission (CTM) Guatemala to help train and support leaders like Little Gee in their various outreach programs.
With help from CTM, Little Gee’s ministry has become a part of a larger ministry to current gang members, residents of an abandoned nursing home, and a daycare ministry.
About the Author
Brian Clark, ReFrame Ministries
