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Redemption illustrated
Few symbols could encompass the purpose, vision and native culture of an organization better in a country heavy on both Catholicism and substance abuse. It is an old symbol with a new twist – finding “new life and peace” in the ruins of very old problems.
Victor, 61, grew up in a neighborhood in south Philadelphia that was “very Catholic, very Italian and very Mafioso,” he says. His parents split up when he was 2; an angry Victor was drinking at age 12 and shooting heroine at 17. Knowing what that lifestyle—and delivery from it—is like gives Victor an inside look at the lives of the men who live at Nueva Viva y Paz—men like Sapet.
Sapet, 54, has been living and working at the center for four years. Now a staff member, he was rolling marijuana joints when he was just 8.
“My life was like a disaster, because my mother was one place and my father was in another place, and I was stuck somewhere in the middle,” Sapet says. “I had no good life anywhere. My whole life, I was in vices. I had good opportunities, but I managed to destroy everything.”
Today Sapet works as assistant resident director for the rehab center. He suffers from cirrhosis of the liver and ulcers, living reminders of the life he once led.
“If I was still on the streets, I’d be dead,” he says.
The same probably could be said for Victor. After 13 years of heroine addiction and several arrests for assault, heroine possession and other crimes, he found himself at age 30 in a New Jersey jail, awaiting trial and a probable seven to 15 years in prison for a burglary in New Jersey. Then God intervened.
Waiting in line to use the phone, Victor felt himself move. Only he didn’t really move.
“I felt myself come into the presence of God,” he says. “He said very clearly, ‘I want you to wait in prison until I get you out.’ That’s what I heard inside myself.”
Four and a half months later, he was released into the custody of Mission Teens, a ministry in New Jersey. At Mission Teens, Victor not only kicked his drug habit, but he also met his wife, Chici, who was running the program at the time.
Victor worked for Mission Teens for the next 15 years before he and Chici moved to Guatemala in 1992. They have run Nueva Viva y Paz ever since.
New program, new people
Today the center houses 40 men. The eight- to 10-month resident program walks the residents through abstinence, detox, counseling, group therapy – all the basics. As they progress, they gain responsibility and higher-level jobs within the program—as counselors, resident directors, overseers, and other positions. The program uses no paid staff, so everyone in it also has to work for it.
Those who want to progress beyond the residential program can enter a staff training program that certifies them as assistant counselors after four to six months and then as a full counselor after an additional six months. Some stay on to work as staff graduates after staff training.
“All these people have come up through the program, and they’re taking more and more responsibility,” Victor says. “But they’re hearing the word of God four or four-and-a-half hours every day through counseling, through meetings.”
Samuel is a testimony to the program’s effectiveness. The 24-year-old from El Salvador says it would have been either jail or death for him if he weren’t for his new life at the center.
When asked if rehab program work without Jesus, Samuel laughs.
“No,” says Samuel, who oversees the center’s living quarters. “Without God, it’s just a change of your habits. Jesus Christ will give you a new life. It’s not just repairing your old life.”
Victor believes in the program. After all, it’s the same one that helped him and Chici escape their former lives of alcohol and drug dependence. Chici had even ventured into witchcraft to cast spells on enemies of the motorcycle gang she hung out with.
“It’s funny how God works,” Chici says. “Because I’d been in white witchcraft, and I didn’t know Jesus Christ, I had all these Scriptures that the enemy uses in the psychic world. All that had to be renewed. I just got filled with the world of God so all the old stuff would just go. And that’s where I got spiritually renewed.
“I’ve been serving God ever since.”
Today, Victor and Chici also run a home for abused children and church under the Nueva Viva y Paz ministry. Protecting children, preaching the Gospel or preparing former addicts for a new life, Victor aims to make Christ a living part of everyone within his ministry.
“They’re changed,” Victor says of the men who have made it through the residential treatment program. “There’s a lot of work still going on in their lives. The difference in their lives is that they’ve built a relationship with the Lord. They’re learning to do what God wants them to do. Christ is being developed within them.”
Redemption, illustrated
Barbellas help addicts, abused kids find fresh hope
Barbellas help addicts, abused kids find fresh hope
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A resident of Nueva Viva y Paz reads the Bible in the rehab center's yard.
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By Called and Sent Staff
PARRAMOS, Guatemala -- The sign outside the Nueva Viva y Paz rehab center portrays a crucified Christ reaching down to a man bowing before him.
Few symbols could encompass the purpose, vision and native culture of an organization better in a country heavy on both Catholicism and substance abuse. It is an old symbol with a new twist – finding “new life and peace” in the ruins of very old problems.
Directors Victor and Chici Barbella know all about turnarounds.
Victor, 61, grew up in a neighborhood in south Philadelphia that was “very Catholic, very Italian and very Mafioso,” he says. His parents split up when he was 2; an angry Victor was drinking at age 12 and shooting heroine at 17. Knowing what that lifestyle—and delivery from it—is like gives Victor an inside look at the lives of the men who live at Nueva Viva y Paz—men like Sapet.
Sapet, 54, has been living and working at the center for four years. Now a staff member, he was rolling marijuana joints when he was just 8.
“My life was like a disaster, because my mother was one place and my father was in another place, and I was stuck somewhere in the middle,” Sapet says. “I had no good life anywhere. My whole life, I was in vices. I had good opportunities, but I managed to destroy everything.”
Today Sapet works as assistant resident director for the rehab center. He suffers from cirrhosis of the liver and ulcers, living reminders of the life he once led.
“If I was still on the streets, I’d be dead,” he says.
The same probably could be said for Victor. After 13 years of heroine addiction and several arrests for assault, heroine possession and other crimes, he found himself at age 30 in a New Jersey jail, awaiting trial and a probable seven to 15 years in prison for a burglary in New Jersey. Then God intervened.
Waiting in line to use the phone, Victor felt himself move. Only he didn’t really move.
“I felt myself come into the presence of God,” he says. “He said very clearly, ‘I want you to wait in prison until I get you out.’ That’s what I heard inside myself.”
Four and a half months later, he was released into the custody of Mission Teens, a ministry in New Jersey. At Mission Teens, Victor not only kicked his drug habit, but he also met his wife, Chici, who was running the program at the time.
Victor worked for Mission Teens for the next 15 years before he and Chici moved to Guatemala in 1992. They have run Nueva Viva y Paz ever since.
New program, new people
Today the center houses 40 men. The eight- to 10-month resident program walks the residents through abstinence, detox, counseling, group therapy – all the basics. As they progress, they gain responsibility and higher-level jobs within the program—as counselors, resident directors, overseers, and other positions. The program uses no paid staff, so everyone in it also has to work for it.
Those who want to progress beyond the residential program can enter a staff training program that certifies them as assistant counselors after four to six months and then as a full counselor after an additional six months. Some stay on to work as staff graduates after staff training.
“All these people have come up through the program, and they’re taking more and more responsibility,” Victor says. “But they’re hearing the word of God four or four-and-a-half hours every day through counseling, through meetings.”
Samuel is a testimony to the program’s effectiveness. The 24-year-old from El Salvador says it would have been either jail or death for him if he weren’t for his new life at the center.
When asked if rehab program work without Jesus, Samuel laughs.
“No,” says Samuel, who oversees the center’s living quarters. “Without God, it’s just a change of your habits. Jesus Christ will give you a new life. It’s not just repairing your old life.”
Victor believes in the program. After all, it’s the same one that helped him and Chici escape their former lives of alcohol and drug dependence. Chici had even ventured into witchcraft to cast spells on enemies of the motorcycle gang she hung out with.
“It’s funny how God works,” Chici says. “Because I’d been in white witchcraft, and I didn’t know Jesus Christ, I had all these Scriptures that the enemy uses in the psychic world. All that had to be renewed. I just got filled with the world of God so all the old stuff would just go. And that’s where I got spiritually renewed.
“I’ve been serving God ever since.”
Today, Victor and Chici also run a home for abused children and church under the Nueva Viva y Paz ministry. Protecting children, preaching the Gospel or preparing former addicts for a new life, Victor aims to make Christ a living part of everyone within his ministry.
“They’re changed,” Victor says of the men who have made it through the residential treatment program. “There’s a lot of work still going on in their lives. The difference in their lives is that they’ve built a relationship with the Lord. They’re learning to do what God wants them to do. Christ is being developed within them.”
© 2008 Called and Sent Magazine. All rights reserved.