If you lived in Guatemala City, like I do, you’d know about Zona 3. It’s a volatile area with lots of violence, and a lot of kids involved with gangs. It’s actually easier for a young person to get a gun than to get a job. (You’re likely to get turned down for a job just based on where you live.) On top of that there’s alcoholism and drug addiction. The houses are made of tin, pieces of wood, or cardboard. Zona 3 is the area around the Guatemala City dump.
My family moved to the edge of the garbage dump when I was just a young boy. No one in my family had any idea how this move would impact my future: How I would eventually join a gang and try to escape my daily reality through drugs. How Jesus would rescue me out of that darkness and then call me back into the dump as a missionary.
My dad had begun spending all his money on alcohol. Mom had tried to provide the basic necessities for our survival by making tortillas, but you can’t earn much money that way. She began spending all day inside the dump, looking for things she could salvage. I helped her by finding recycling pieces to sell. Because my mom had a high value for education, I had to go to school. But from 3 pm on I’d help her in the dump. At first it was fun, but over time I began to suffer mentally and emotionally. My classmates were merciless and cruel to those of us who lived at the dump. “You’re from the dump!” they’d say. “You eat garbage! You live in the garbage!” It wounded me deeply.
It was in the dump that I first started hearing about Jesus. People came to the garbage dump to tell us, “Jesus loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life!” I couldn’t believe in this Jesus who supposedly loved me because of my situation. How could there be a God who loved us when we were living right in the garbage? I could never believe this business that God had a wonderful plan for me because there was no evidence of it anywhere. Everywhere I looked I saw the opposite; I saw violence and poverty.
The Christian workers would come every month with their message about Jesus, giving us food or clothes at the same time. I hated their message, but I learned to say what they wanted me to say. I even learned to cry. I gave them what they wanted so I could get what I wanted.
When I was 14 years old my dad died, and that’s when I joined the gang and started using drugs. I lost some of the best years of my life to that gang. At first they called me “Dreamer” because I kept thinking my life wouldn’t end up in the garbage dump. As time went on they changed my nickname to “Loco” (Crazy One), because I loved to be on drugs. The gang encouraged me to be violent. They fed off my gift for influencing young people, and I drew a lot of children and other young people into bad things along with me. I spent a number of years just trying to survive and was at the point of death three or four times. Many of the friends I had in that gang are now dead.
One day this guy started showing up to a place where gang members would hang out together. He came to gamble with us. “I love easy money!” he said. If we won, we would spend our money on drugs. If he won, he would invite us to get a coca-cola or something to eat. He got to know us. At one point, he asked me what my name was. I realized that nobody had asked me for my name in a very long time. They just knew me as the “Crazy One.” After that, he always called me by my real name, Hector.
About a year after his first appearance, this guy started speaking that same message I’d heard a million times growing up: “Jesus loves you.” I immediately stood up and walked out. But later I stuck around long enough to hear him share a scripture with us, Ecclesiastes 12:1: “Remember your Creator in your youth, before the evil days come to your life and don’t have any peace or contentment in them.” That was the first scripture verse that ever reached my heart. That very day I accepted Jesus.
A New Life
Immediately after leaving the gang I started working for an organization that provided services in the area around the garbage dump. The director of the program discovered I had a leadership gift and offered me a better job—one where I had to walk the streets of my community and connect with people. As a new Christian I’d made a lot of changes in my life—leaving the destructive relationships I was in and serving in the church. I was trying to be a better person. But I’d done so much damage to so many people in my home community—to families and their kids—that going back and working in the community really affected me. I had to ask forgiveness over and over. God had forgiven me, but it took much longer for me to forgive myself.
After four years working for that community organization, I became troubled with some dishonest practices that were going on. I’d recently gotten married (Nanci agreed to marry me after three years of persistence!) and it was hard to walk away from a paycheck. But after so many years of being dishonest myself, I couldn’t tolerate any wrong-doing. I decided to get a “regular job” and not worry about other people’s problems.
Three weeks later a guy called me up. He found out I was between jobs. “Well, would you like to be a volunteer with Young Life?” he asked. In reality, I had no interest in serving others in that way anymore. I was done. “Maybe I can help you out for a few months...just until I find a real job,” I said.
I think I was trying to avoid my calling. Years earlier, soon after I’d begun following Jesus, the Holy Spirit and I had had a deep conversation about my life purpose. I was attending a church service about missions, and in the middle of the service I felt the fire of the Holy Spirit. “God, I will go wherever you send me, wherever you want me!” I imagined I would go to China or Africa. I never imagined I would be sent on mission to the very community I’d been wanting to get away from all my life! And now here I was, years later, being asked to serve in the dump.
After a month of volunteering, I had coffee with the same guy from Young Life, and he offered me a two-year contract to work with young people in the dump. “Argh! This is not what I wanted.” God had a calling on my life that I couldn’t get away from!
From that point I started to live into all my potential to work with young people. It felt like when I was working for the gang, but now it made sense. Nanci and I started doing it together; she got involved with teen moms. Our ministry wasn’t about preaching Jesus. It was more like walking alongside of people in the community, showing them Jesus.
After ten years with Young Life, we went through some organizational changes that led us to partner with a different organization as missionaries. We finally found a place within InnerCHANGE—continuing the same work in the community with young people and families.
As we walk alongside people in the community, we’re offering the same truths that changed everything for our family. First, we want them to come to know Jesus—to know the Jesus who is here even in all that’s broken about life, even in the midst of poverty. Second, we want to create opportunities for young people to be able to continue their studies, to find jobs, and to find a way out of this context. We want them to experience the full life that Jesus offers! And finally, we want to show people that they can serve as well. Nobody is too poor to have something to offer to somebody else. We don’t have much ourselves, but Jesus shows us how to love.
I’m not trying to get away from Zona 3 anymore. I’m here because God has called me to be here. It’s where I want to be. The community’s very broken, and we’re in the middle of that. We hope the problems don’t affect our young family too much, that the violence doesn’t come to our door. But we believe Jesus is here. The light is not hidden. We can see it. And we are part of that light, holding it up high so it can illuminate the lives of others.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Fito (Hector) Sandoval and his wife Nanci have two daughters. They serve with InnerCHANGE, Novo’s order among the poor. In addition to their work with youth and families in the Guatemala City dump, they have an initiative to help local artists sell artwork made from upcycled garbage, and are also forming a collaborative network of organizations serving the community around the dump.