A Little Bit of Ugly
The man was well-dressed and attractive. After first handing out carsick bags to the rows of passengers on the bus and quoting raucously from several parts of the bible, he unbuttoned his shirt, causing his audience to draw a collective gasp. We were given a glimpse of his well-toned abs, with a gruesome picture that barely registered in my mind due to the chilling words “Mara Salvatrucha” inked across them in rolling blue script. Mara Salvatrucha is one of the biggest and most ruthless gangs in Central America; supposedly the only way to leave it is to switch gangs or to die. The gang originated in Los Angeles with Salvadoran immigrants in the 80’s. As they were deported, the gangs took root in Central American countries, becoming highly involved in drugs and armed theft. One of Honduras’s heavy-handed former presidents took a stab at crime; among other things making it illegal to have any sort of tattoos and over-stuffing the jails with anyone remotely associated with the gang activity. These days the gangs are still thriving. I prepared to have to give up all of my belongings to this gang member.

But this man said he had found God and renounced his former lifestyle, and was asking our help with building a rehabilitation center for former gang-members. Many of those on the bus were touched enough to hand him a few bills.

This is the second testimonial I’ve witnessed in Honduras by a former gang member. The other was a friend of a friend, who grew up neglected in a poor neighborhood, where drugs were hawked like candy on the playground. Soon his only friend was crack, his allies solely pawns in acquiring more of it. Unspeakable crimes were the only way to feed the addiction. As he was on the brink of death, a mere skeleton sleeping in the streets, using all his stolen money on drugs, passing in and out of consciousness, his mother returned from the US and forced him into an intensive rehabilitation program. We saw him a year after “graduating,” clean and healthy-looking, praising God for saving him. I just hope it sticks.