Thanks to all of you who have stood so faithfully with us this summer checking in on this prayer email and then praying -- many of you logged on to send a gift toward the gas needs and support needs.  You are indeed dear to us.  The Lord has gifted us an incredible summer.  Your role was so important.

I wanted to share the story the children heard on Tuesday night:

Marcos’s Story

My name is Marcos Marquez,

I’m 29 years old.  I was born and raised in downtown Phoenix.  I’ve lived around here for almost my entire life.  And today I just wanted to share a little bit of my story and let you guys know how God’s working in my life today.

My story pretty much starts off like every one else’s who are from the inner city.  I was brought up in a very dysfunctional family.  I’m the oldest of eight children who my mom tried to raise on her own.

My dad abandoned us at a very young age and at an important time in my life where I feel I needed him the most.  We moved around a lot in this neighborhood because of our “financial problems”.  Not having a father really affected me, I always wondered if I did something wrong to cause my parents to argue and eventually watching my mom get “socked up” for talking back!  A lot of mixed emotions always ran through my heart, but one of the most difficult things I ever had to endure growing up was feeling like a bastard!, felling like a reject!!  I always wonder, even to this day, what did I do that was so wrong?  Why couldn’t this man love me?  My dad eventually ended up in prison for seven years and as me and my sisters got older my mom began this crazy lifestyle of always going to dance halls.  It felt weird at times not having parents around.  But we weren’t alone, as my mother started getting more and more wild, my grandma decided to move in.  She was the “backbone” of my entire family.  She was a very beautiful person.  Unfortunately, she lost her life to cancer in 1994.Her death really affected me in ways I could not explain.  I just remember that for months after she died, I was in shock.  I went into a deep depression and started using drugs and alcohol to stay numb from everything that was happening around me. 

Me and my family had been involved with Neighborhood Ministries probably since the beginning!!  I knew Kit and a few others since I was about 8 years old and it was because of them now I knew who Jesus was at a very early age.  Still, the harsh realities of the neighborhood and what I was experiencing in my home was too much to have a sincere faith in God (especially at that age. I was a nervous wreck!!

By the time I was 14 years old I started gang banging and getting into a lot of “drama”, drama that cost the lives of good friends of mine.  Some ended up dead, some ended up doing double digits in prison.  It’s kind of weird … putting all of this into words, because you would think that due to all the crap I had experienced, why would a person continue to get themselves into “deeper crap”?  Truth is … I can’t answer that even to this day!!  What I did know was that I didn’t have anyone to show me how to be a man!  Even if my mom would have been around I still don’t think that she would have been capable of showing me what a man could be.  No one taught me to work hard, to earn something; I was taught that if you wanted something “you take it”.

My older homies became my role models; they molded me in their image.  They taught me “survival” which I thought was a very valuable lesson but they didn’t teach me survival trades of “the real world” … they prepared me for survival in their “world” as I got older.  I wanted to be like them perhaps even better!!  I wanted what they had in the neighborhood; I wanted the nice cars, the nice clothes, the cute little honeys from around the way.  I wanted acceptance, acknowledgment, and I wanted respect!!  I had so much anger in me – and a hell of an ego to go along with it that I honestly no longer cared about my own life let alone the lives of others. 

A terrible incident happened on the night of April 9^th, 1996.  I was involved in a fight that should have never really taken place, but it did.  And because of that awful mistake I almost took someone’s life, and ended up in prison for 8 years!!  Although I did have remorse for what I did, I don’t think I fully understood the impact I caused on a lot of people’s lives because of my actions.  While I was in prison, I began to feel shame, I know deep down inside, that no matter how bad things were for me out there, or how hurt I felt inside, that it couldn’t justify me taking a life or throwing mine away!!  I had so much potential and I feel that I threw that away because of the lifestyle I lived.  Then – bitterness began to fester in my heart and in my mind.  With no correspondence from the outside world, it was that much easier to get caught up in myself and in the madness that goes on in that place.  For years I blamed others for the consequences that I was left to suffer.  Only now that I’m a new man with a clean heart can I own up to my mistakes and fully understand that justice was only being served.

Anyhow, in 2004, I was released from prison.  I was out for a few months, and once again I was hooked on drugs mentally and emotionally.  I was falling apart and I knew I needed help.  I didn’t know how to get it, where to get it or even how to begin even asking for it!!  Weeks went by before I actually worked up the courage to come visit my old friends and family here at Neighborhood Ministries.  It was very hard for me to come back to a place where I once felt love, happiness and acceptance from the people who knew me since I was a child, especially after all that was said and done.  Anyhow, Kit and Victor prayed with me and pretty much welcomed me back, they assured me that God still loved me and had big plans for me.  It was a pretty good visit, but shortly after that I disappeared for about another year and a half.  I started getting really ill from my anxiety.  I stopped doing drugs, quit drinking and basically withdrew from the world, but the damage was already there.  I didn’t want anyone to see me so scared, and so helpless.  I began to pray because nothing else seemed to help.  I asked the Lord to please, please help me to please forgive me and help me hold on to my sanity.  I needed God to give me a reason why I was still alive because I could no longer answer that question by myself.  I decided that enough was enough – I was suffering from what was later diagnosed to me as post traumatic stress disorder due to my crazy life.  All the gang violence had stopped.  My debt to society was paid, but I was left haunted by my past!!  So one day, two and a half years ago, I decided that I wanted to come visit Kit again!!