Luis Lopez may have trouble finding work and putting food on his
family’s table but he doesn’t fret
– he prays instead and trusts that God will do the rest.
Gilroy
Luis Lopez may have trouble finding work and putting food on his family’s table but he doesn’t fret – he prays instead and trusts that God will do the rest.
“Sometimes it’s hard to keep the faith but Jesus changed my life,” Lopez said. “He came into my life at the perfect time.”
Sitting with his family and pastor in the modest sanctuary of Familias Para Cristo, a Christian church on Eigleberry Street, the 25-year-old unemployed plumber remembered growing up addicted to drugs and alcohol in Veracruz, Mexico.
“I lost myself to drugs and alcohol when I was 11,” he said. “I tried to quit but I couldn’t do it on my own.”
Even after almost overdosing when he was 13, he couldn’t get his life on track, he said. He moved to the United States about eight years ago, found work as a plumber, got married – acquiring two stepdaughters – and had a child of his own. Still battling his childhood addictions, he was laid off about 9 months ago and joined the ranks of about 11 million other unemployed Americans.
“My family was broken,” he said.
On the verge of falling apart, he received a knock on his door that changed his life, setting him on a path he never thought possible.
“Sometimes I see my life now and I don’t recognize me,” Lopez said.
The change came when Rosa and Pedro Zuno, pastors at Familias, reached out to the families living on Southgate Court in south Gilroy, a street where drive-by shootings are frequent, said Jackie Martinez, Lopez’s stepdaughter.
The Zunos opened Familias in 2002 and said the past few months have been hard on their congregation. The Zunos are not alone, as the role of the church in the community is changing due to the downturn in the economy. Churches, some of whom are seeing a rush of new members or a strengthening of their members’ faiths, are working to fill increased needs in their communities, which range from basic necessities like food and clothing to education in the form of financial planning classes.
At Familias, more people are coming in for food, and a box sitting near the front of the church has been filled with a stack of cards listing the names of parishioners’ relatives who need their prayers, Rosa Zuno said.
“This is the time the church needs to be spreading the good news,” Zuno said, pausing to shake hands and exchange greetings with people who walked into the church for Bible study Tuesday night. “We keep telling people that the Lord provides. Don’t get discouraged. We are a big family.”
The strength of the larger church family propped up Lopez’s family. His stepdaughters, Jackie, 17, and Hylenne, 13, were slipping into a gang lifestyle before the Zunos invited them to the church, Jackie Martinez said. Now they spend nearly every night at Familias. The sisters may not have everything they want, but the church and their family provide them with everything they need, they said.
“We help each other out,” Hylenne Martinez said.
“Everyone’s freaking out because they don’t know what’s coming next with the bad economy,” Jackie Martinez said. “But that’s here on earth. When you get a relationship with God, the economy’s not going to affect you.”
During an especially tight week, Lopez’s wife Maria was unlocking her door when the wind blew a money order for $100 across her shoes.
“All the miracles come to my life,” Maria Lopez said.
With a state unemployment rate approaching 10 percent and a foreclosed home around every corner, religious leaders like the Zunos prepared themselves for the crush of poor and weary they expected to turn to God in trying times.
But at St. Mary Catholic Parish, Father Dan Derry threw open the doors and no one came.
At least no one that hadn’t already been coming before the economy took a dive, he said.
“The financial problem hasn’t created spiritual awareness,” he said, at least not in the Catholic community.
But it has created an economic need in the community that St. Mary and its affiliate, St. Joseph’s Family Center, are working to meet, he said. Instead of turning to the church for spiritual guidance, those hit by unemployment, foreclosure and hunger are turning to the church for a hot meal.
Though Derry’s pews are no more crowded than usual and the collection plate is coming up about 10 percent short, St. Joseph’s attendance is up 30 percent from last year, Derry estimated. While the financial crisis hasn’t convinced more people to come to church, it has fortified faithful churchgoers’ relationship with God, Derry said.
“Those with faith have strengthened their faith,” he said.
A St. Joseph’s volunteer, Ruben Rangel, was recently released from San Quentin State Prison with nowhere to call home, no job and little money to his name. When one of Rangel’s friends took him in, Rangel realized he needed to do his part to make someone else’s life easier.
“I have a lot of free time on my hands so what better thing to do than help the homeless?” he said, pausing to embrace one of the men who made his way through the line of homeless and hungry that streamed in the door of the St. Mary School gym. “It’s hard seeing some of my friends come through the line.”
With work scarce, Sharron Burns, 56, relies on panhandling outside grocery stores to collect enough money for a cheap hotel for the night so she doesn’t have to sleep in her car.
“It’s not like I’m proud of it, but you do what you gotta do,” she said, hurrying to finish her pasta dinner so she could head out and finish gathering enough money for that night.
Although she was grateful to St. Joseph’s for providing a hot meal, she said she’s tried going to church in the past but it wasn’t for her.
At New Hope Community Church on Muraoka Drive in north Gilroy, Pastor Malcolm MacPhail and his staff are working to address the problem head on. Last year, the church offered worshipers a seminar on financial stewardship in an effort to help them reduce debt in their lives, MacPhail said.
Joe Grove, a New Hope parishoner and engineer who attended the seminar with his wife, learned not only how to eliminate debt but was also reminded that he is a steward of God’s money, he said.
“Everything comes from him,” Grove said. “And we were not managing what he gave to us very well.”
With more than $35,000 in credit card debt hanging over their heads going into the class, the Groves learned to cut the luxuries – like a housekeeper and a gardener – during the 10-week seminar. They have since whittled their credit card debt down to about $19,000, Grove said.
“We were literally out of control financially,” Grove said. “We’re not there yet but we’re making great progress.”
New Hope also recently launched a compassion center to distribute nonperishable food to community members.
“We want to be proactive,” MacPhail said. “Let’s start in the midst of difficult times. We don’t hide or shrink back. We don’t horde. We give. In history when the nation has gone through difficult times, it causes people to turn toward God. This is a great opportunity for the church to help serve people.”
Like its congregation, the church has been forced to cut back on expenses and is focussing more on providing services, rather than financial aid, MacPhail said. But as an institution that depends on donations to stay afloat, MacPhail encourages his congregation to keep giving.
“If we give our first 10 percent of income back to the church, He’s going to bless and stretch the remaining 90 percent,” he said.
Another change the Groves made was to kick their donations up from 1 or 2 percent of their income to 10 percent, even in the face of potential job loss, Grove said.
Within weeks of the change, Grove said his job was saved.
“We took a leap of faith,” he said, “and we’re so thankful that we did.”
