REFLECTIONS
May 14, 2006
 
 
With God we will gain the victory,
and he will trample down our enemies.
Psalms 108:13
 
 
Feeding Sheep and Making Shepherds
                       
                  Robert was lying on a bottom bunk in a large room filled with bunk beds. Two men wiped perspiration from his face while a third man sat on the next bunk reading the Bible to him. Robert was a drug addict. He had entered Victory Home to recover.
                  Men and women come to Victory Home suffering from drug and alcohol addictions. Most of them have supported their habit by becoming robbers, murderers and drug dealers themselves. They come to the Home to find a new life. 
                  Victory Home was founded by Freddie Garcia just for that purpose. Freddie himself once lived a life of crime to support his own drug addiction. No treatment had succeeded in conquering Freddie’s addiction until someone brought Jesus into his life. Jesus healed him. And from that time, Freddie committed his life to Jesus, and he has devoted his life to help others overcome the life of an addict. But he gives them more.
                   They find Jesus. When these men and women walk through the door of Victory Home, they receive warm beds, home cooked meals, and love they have never felt before. They are encircled by care and blanketed in the warmth of prayer. They are never left alone as they are nursed through the worst of withdrawal. And someone reads the Bible to them so they can hear how much God loves them. The Bible is the key. That’s how Freddie feeds his sheep. The Bible walks them through green pastures and leads them beside still waters. They emerge from the shadow of death with their soles restored. And for the first time in their lives, they fear no evil because they have overcome it. 
                  Those entering the Home come with an illness. Victory Home feeds them with celebrations in worship, with Bible study, and with the love of Jesus. They are healed. But Freddie is not content with feeding sheep. Freddie is making shepherds. If you walk through Victory Home today and select any man or woman to tell you about Jesus, they can, and they will. As sheep they are fed by the love of Jesus. But they have become shepherds who lead others to him as well. 
                  I have lost track of Robert since that day I watched the love of Jesus being poured on him by the men in Victory Home. But I know this. Even as those men were feeding one of God’s sheep, they were also set on helping him become a shepherd. When Jesus commissioned us to feed his sheep in all the world, He also called us to make them shepherds. Freddie Garcia knows that. Victory Home is a great model to follow.
                 
“You are the light of the world,”
Richard  Ì

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