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By William Torres, formerly El Salvador
Two hours after giving birth to me, my mother passed away. My older sister helped my father with the other six children, but she was too young to care for a newborn. My aunt, my father’s sister, took me to raise. So I grew up thinking my aunt was my mother and my cousins were my siblings.
When I was about ten years of age, my real sister told me the truth. I understood then why the other children preferred each other and were against me, although Mother (my aunt) had always treated me well. Because I didn’t know where I belonged, I was confused and angry.
In my teen years I began to demonstrate my anger and became very rebellious. I didn’t even talk to my cousin who I thought was my sister. She told me that she didn’t expect anything good from me when I grew up and that I would never do anything good. Those words were very hurtful. That cousin was a teacher and she was the owner of the house where we lived. When the situation became too bad for me, I asked Mother to leave with me and go back to the place where we used to live. But she didn’t want to move out.
I really wanted to get away, so I asked Mother’s permission to join my real brothers in the U.S.A. They had been asking me to come and said they were willing to help me. They were concerned that I would be caught in the civil war. The rebels, who had already approached me, and the government army were both recruiting young men. I did not want to get involved in a war situation; it wasn’t worth it. I saw how people died in a moment of time.
Mother wisely said, “William, the decision has to be yours. What ever you decide is fine with me.” At age 17, I decided to leave El Salvador.
In the United States, I lived with my brother and sister and studied English. I could not work as no one would hire me until I was 18. Because my mother was very strict with me, I thought I was now free to do as I pleased. I started going out with the wrong kind of people and began doing drugs with them. I smoked marijuana, snorted cocaine, took LSD and pills—anything that would get me high to forget the feelings I had inside. I loved rock music and would go to concerts that lasted up to three days.
My brothers counseled me to stop my destructive life-style, but I wouldn’t listen to them. After about five years of using drugs and alcohol, I tried to quit, but I couldn’t do it. I could stop for a few weeks but I would always go back.
One day after my friends and I were drinking and tripping acid, we drove quite some distance to the beach. I had bought a car from my sister and had just learned to drive a few days before. We were driving home in the early hours of the morning on the freeway and I was speeding. Suddenly we came to a curve and a big wall in front of us. There were five of us in the car, all high on drugs, and I knew we were all going to crash and die. For some unknown reason, the car made the curve and we all survived.
When one of my closest friends died in a drug-related death, I knew I needed to change if I were going to stay alive. I left our neighborhood and moved to a place where no one knew me. I suddenly felt a strong desire to read the Bible. I borrowed one from my brother and read it every day. I was very interested, but could not understand it. I decided to go to church so someone would explain the Bible to me.
After attending mass for several weeks, I said, “This is not enough. There must be something else.” Then I remembered the invitation a friend had given me to attend her church. I even remembered the address. So I went there and after listening to the Word of God for a month, I responded to an altar call the pastor made. What really touched my heart was the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross to pay for my sin and the power He had.
I knew I was a sinner; I had done so many bad things. I remembered the homeless people on the streets and I thought that’s what I would be in the future if I did not change. I had tried to stop drugs in my own strength, but I could not do it. That night I asked the Lord to change me.
The pastor came to pray for me. He led me in a prayer confessing my sin and asking Jesus to forgive me and wash me in His blood. I gave my life to Him and asked Him to be my Savior and Lord. I began to weep; I cried all the way home while I was driving. I wasn’t crying because I was sad or lost, but because I had so much joy in my heart, the joy that Jesus had just given me.
After I came to Christ I wanted to share what I had experienced with my friends. I was so happy that the power of God had delivered me; I believed they would want to change if they knew how. I invited my good friend, Lewis, to become a Christian and share this joy. He came to church and likewise accepted Christ as Savior, but he backslid and went back to drugs. I tried to help him and disciple him, but he got into drugs again. Finally, he was caught by the police and sent back to El Salvador. Unfortunately, he never did stop using cocaine and died of an overdose. He was just a young man; I felt so very sad. My two closest friends had died such needless deaths.
A year after my conversion to Christ, the Lord called me into the ministry in a unique way at a retreat for our youth group. Several of us were sitting in the front row with our Bibles lying here and there. The speaker picked up one of the Bibles to illustrate a prophetic passage of Scripture. Then he said, “Would you believe God is calling the owner of this Bible into the ministry?” When He said that, something seemed to come over me—over my head and body. He had picked up my Bible.
I went to ask my pastor what had happened to me. He said it was a sign that God was calling me to the ministry. He recommended that I go to Bible school to prepare myself. I attended Bible college in the evenings and worked on construction jobs during the day. God gave me a good job with good pay.
Several of us young people from the church started an evangelistic outreach on the streets. I bought a film projector, a screen and chairs and built a platform. We went out on the streets to present Christian movies, give testimonies and praise God with music. Many people came to hear us. I loved this outreach on the streets. Many church people do not go to preach to the drug addicts, but I had been one of them. I knew that inside they were people with deep needs though they looked tough on the outside.
Doris, one of the young people who preached on the streets with me, became my wife, and together we planted a church after I graduated from Bible college. A year later I was able to leave my secular job and become a full-time pastor.
The Lord has blessed our union with two children, a son and a daughter. When we first married, I told my wife all the things I had done. We were worried that perhaps our children would not be normal because of the hard drugs that I had used for so long. But God must have cleaned my system as both children are well and normal in every way. We praise our Lord for this restoration. He is true to His promise to make us new creations. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation: the old has gone, the new has come” (2 Cor. 5:17 NIV).
Before we went into ministry, both Doris and I answered a call to cross-cultural service. I had told my congregation that we would someday leave to go serve overseas. But I thought I would first plant many churches among my own Hispanic people.
After we had been in the church for eight years, we were challenged again with cross-cultural service through a guest speaker at our church. When he gave an altar call for people to dedicate themselves to cross-cultural work, Doris and I both went forward. The word to me from the Lord was, “You are going to plant many churches, but not among your people. Among the Hispanics, you will plant only one. I am going to take you where there are no churches at all.”
I turned the church over to others and my wife and I have since been preparing ourselves for a ministry to people of a different culture. We hope to soon be on our way to a country the Lord has put on our hearts. We are not concerned about provision, for we have seen how the Lord provided for us when I left my secular job to be a full-time pastor. God is our provider. He did it before and He will do it again.
I am rejoicing that God has given me the privilege of leading two of my sisters and my stepfather to Jesus. I believe the Lord will also bring the rest of my family to Himself. I thank Him for saving me from a life that was leading to certain death and for preserving my life and the lives of my friends when a car accident seemed inevitable. After I came to Christ, the Lord allowed me to know that He had sent an angel to control the car that day. How merciful He is to us even when we are still in our sins.
I am no longer confused about who I am. My identity is in Christ. He tells us in His Word, “To all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:1 NIV).
Through Jesus Christ my Lord and Savior, I am a child of God; God is my Heavenly Father. Now I know to whom I belong.
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