The group sitting before me could hardly be more different. It’s all men and boys and not a single one of them was “at church” a year ago, ready to listen to an intense message on damning sin and boundless grace! Last year most of these men would have been found in a Lima barrio buying and consuming drugs, often living a life of crime to support their habits. A couple of the men lived in squalor under bridges. Some had sold mom’s jewels and dad’s few tools, even sold themselves, to support their ravenous addictions. Wives were abused, children left unsupported, jobs lost, houses lost, families lost. As virtual slaves to their addictions, these men were all on cruise control, barreling down the wide-open highway to hell. Then, someone in the family, mom, dad, an uncle, the grownup kids, had the blessed good sense to get the addict into a Christian drug treatment center. And that is where the Holy Spirit stepped in and went to work!

Welcome to our Peruvian Lutheran Synod’s Casa Emanuel Drug Treatment Center, now in its third year of operation. Today about forty men and boys sit in front of me not just ready to listen to a sermon, but eager to listen!

Their eagerness is really no surprise. After all, many of these men had perhaps not heard a kind word tossed their way in years. Yes, here in Lima as elsewhere, addicts, dealers, pimps and thieves are considered the dregs of society. Imagine the shock in these men’s minds when they hear us Lutheran pastors tell them:

“Thank you for being with us today. Your Heavenly Father has been waiting for you for a long time. He is ready to forgive you all your sin—your past behavior, the mess you have made of your life—all for the sake of his son Jesus. ‘The blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from ALL sin’ (1 John 1:7b). And when you are forgiven brothers, that means we leave your past in the past! ‘For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more’ (Jeremiah 31:34b). Welcome home, lost children! Your Father is here to reclaim you from the devil himself. ‘There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus’ (Romans 8:1). Through faith in Jesus worked in your hearts by the Holy Spirit, I’ll be looking out at a roomful of the very sons of God!!”

Now to these addicts (or “clients” as we call them) the Gospel message at first sounds simply too good to be true. They have been so bad for so long, they figured it was too late for them; that the “message of the church” was not meant for people as vile as they. For the preacher, this is where the challenge and the huge joy really enter. For now I have the exhilarating task of trying to convince them through the Word just how deeply God loves them, how He has never given up on them, and to what unimaginable lengths He has gone, in order to save them! I happily haul out every metaphor, phrase, story and parable I can find in the Bible, (repeating the above passages over and over again) to convince them of their new status as children of God through faith.

As my sermon nears its end this particular day, I plead and pray that each client be convinced that his Heavenly Father has come for him personally. Some of the clients smile as I remind them yet again of that incredible image God wants us to have of himself: “But while he (the lost son) was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him” (Luke 15:20).

To those clients who still can’t accept that the Holy Spirit is truly interested in them, I offer a final, parting comment:

“Listen closely, brothers! Look down at your hands! A year ago you had stolen money in one hand and a bag of drugs in the other. Today, you have a Bible in one hand and a book of Christian songs in the other. And you’re sitting here quietly, respectfully listening to God coming to you through his Word. Who could ever have imagined it a year ago?! I call that a miracle! I call that the Holy Spirit at work to set you free! It’s the love of God through Christ Jesus coming to you!”

Terry Schultz is an ELS missionary living in Lima, Peru.