From Satanist to Pastor

"I was a Satanist.  They tried to lynch me."  That was how Ezequiel began his story.  I have to admit that he caught my attention with that; after all, he had been one of my quietest, sweetest seminary students.  I never would have guessed his background. 

We had arrived in his hometown of San Sebastian Coatan, a gorgeous little community way up in the Cuchumatanes Mountains where the clouds never completely lift.  He and his friend Luis, another one of my students, were giving Linda and me the grand tour of their village.  It didn't take long.  At the end, they took us up to see a Mayan altar at the very top of an enormous gorge.  Ezequiel and I wandered over to the edge and just stared at the expanse of rippled mountains in front of us.  After a while, he started talking. 

"I was a Satanist.  They tried to lynch me."  And he went on to tell me what a rough childhood he'd had.  His father had fought in Guatemala's Civil War, during the course of which he'd killed well over 20 people.  That takes a toll on a man.  He started drinking and taking his rage out on his wife and kids.  Ezequiel was so angry with his father and so desperate to protect his mother that he was willing to do anything.  He'd heard that Satan was powerful and wanted to see that power for himself, so he joined a small group of other young people, and together they set out to worship the devil.  One afternoon they went out to the pinnacle of a jagged, oval shaped boulder embedded in the side of the cliff to perform some rituals.  Ezequiel pointed out the spot to me as he talked. "One of my friends fell to his death right in front of me that day," he said. When the villagers heard what had happened, they blamed Ezequiel just because he had been there.  They grabbed him, tore his clothes, and beat him.  This is the beginning of the lynching process here.  Once the victim (or perpetrator as the case may be) has been beaten to the point that they are unable to fight back, they are doused with gasoline and burned alive.  Fortunately, the crowd did not get that far with Ezequiel.  The police showed up, pulled him from the middle of the mob, and took him to jail.  There is no such thing here as "innocent until proven guilty."  Ezequiel spent quite a bit of time incarcerated. 

"It was there that the devil marked me.  Want to see the scar?"  He lifted his shirt to reveal a series of slashes on his mid back.  "Satan came to me while I was sleeping and attacked me with claws like razors. It was then that I decided I didn't want anything more to do with Satan, and I gave my life to Christ."  When Ezequiel got out of jail, he immediately set out to learn more about God's Word.  He figured the best place to do that was in seminary, so he did some research and found Instituto Biblico Berea.  In order to get in, he needed to be a baptized believer with a letter of reference from a church, so he found a Christian church and asked the pastor to baptize him and give him a letter.  Thank God this pastor was a discerning man and took a chance on him! He was baptized immediately because that's the biblical model: "Get saved, get baptized," the pastor said, and then he wrote Ezequiel a letter of reference so he could apply.  I would love to meet that pastor someday and shake his hand!

This is how Ezequiel ended up in my classroom studying the book of Romans two weeks ago.  It gave me goosebumps when he looked at me and said, "It really made an impact on me when you taught us about the doctrine of imputation...how God not only wipes our slates clean, but He gives us all the righteousness of Christ.  What a gift!"  It still gives me shivers just to write it out. To me, the doctrine of imputation is one of the most amazing things in the whole Bible, and not only did I receive Christ's righteousness myself, but now I get to teach others about it!

After five years of study, Ezequiel will graduate next month.  I am so incredibly proud of how far he's come!  He is already pastoring in the jungle, six hours away from his hometown.  I asked him if he liked the heat of the jungle, especially after having grown up in a cool mountain climate. He answered, "I don't really like the heat, but I told God to use me however He sees fit.  I will go anywhere He sends me." 

Several of these Mayan altars have been erected in the area as a direct result what happened with Ezequiel and his friends that fateful day.  The villagers perform yearly rituals to the gods to ask for their blessing and protection from harm.  How very sad that they are literally asking the devil to protect them from the devil, and they don't even realize it. 

A Way Out

Imagine you are a 9 year old girl living with your paternal grandparents, your big sister, your dad, and your mom who is several months pregnant with your little brother.  Life is good.  You are happy.  One day your dad gets a bad headache and goes to lay down.  The headache never goes away, but your family has no money to take him to the doctor.  Less than 2 weeks later, he dies.  As is customary, you leave your paternal grandparent’s home to move in with your mom’s parents.  This other grandfather is not loving and kind; he is strict and mean, sometimes beating you over trivial things.  You try your best to stay out of his way; that’s easier since you’re in school.  Eventually you finish 6^th grade though and you know no one has the money for you to keep studying.  Then a miracle happens—a lady your mom knows offers to pay for you to finish school!  It’s a FULL scholarship—she’ll even give you money so you don’t have to skip lunch!  You are so happy you can’t contain your huge smile!  But it doesn’t take long for it to all fall apart. Grandpa says no.  “There’s no point in educating a girl,” he says.  “Your only job in life is to marry, have children, and take care of your family.  In the meantime, you can keep my cornfields clean.” You are angry.  It’s so unfair!  You plead with your mom to change his mind, but she’s just as stuck as you are.  Without grandpa’s help and home, you would have nowhere to go.  You cannot defy him, so you are forced to turn the scholarship down.  Life goes on. 

Then it gets worse.  

You leave to work the coffee plantations with your mom, earning next to nothing.  One day you and mom hop out of the bed of the pick-up you were riding in, thinking it was safe to do so, that the truck was in park.  It was not, and it rolls backwards and over your mom.  Fortunately, mom escapes with only some bruises and nightmares.  Everything goes back to normal, except that you now realize how close you came to losing your mother too.  What would become of you if that happened?  You feel trapped.  Held back by your grandfather. Scared of losing your only remaining parent.  You can see the writing on the wall.  You will end up chained to a life of poverty and servitude that you didn’t choose because that’s just what happens to girls where you live.  The anxiety wells up inside you; you have no release.  But anxiety will always find a way out, and it gets you during the night when you least expect it.  You grind your teeth SO hard while you sleep that you wake up swollen and with a pounding headache. You are unaware that you do this during the night, so you don’t understand why you feel so bad every morning.  Maybe you’ll die from this headache just like your father did.  How is it that your life just continues to get worse?  You are in prison, and there is no.   way.   out. 

I wish this was just a poorly written piece of sad fiction, but the fact of the matter is that this is Silvia’s life.  I recently took her to a neurologist thinking she had something horrible; her head was very visibly misshapen.  Bite hard while your hand is on your temple.  Feel that muscle move? Silvia has been biting and grinding her teeth so hard in the night that her muscle had grown just like your biceps would if you worked out every day.  Obviously we are relieved that the situation wasn’t life-threatening, but the only way I can see to fix this—really fix it—is to offer this family some hope by getting them out from underneath grandpa’s rule and into their own place. If that happened,  I could put Silvia in the scholarship program so she’d have some chance at a future.  Mom could work and NOT have to turn over every cent to her father.  They could begin to dig themselves out of this depressing hole they’ve been forced to live in.  

If you’d like to help me bless this family with a simple, one-room home that has actual beds and a vented stove, visit www.cten.org/lynnannmurphy and click on the donate button.  This type of home only takes a couple of weeks to build, and I’d love to be able to get it done before school starts up again in January.  Wanna help me?