Nail Scarred Hands Made New: Making Sense of the Gospel in a Violent Latin American Slum

By John Shorack

Cutting-edge missional witness just got bloodier and yet more hopeful than ever!
Many Christians in America have lost loved ones who gave their lives in military service to save the country and the "free world." John Shorack is one of them. His father, Theodore James Shorack Jr., was shot down in Vietnam in 1966. Unlike many, John didn't conform to his father's legacy of military sacrifice for the nation. He found a completely different way to give his life--for Christ and his kingdom among the poor of the nations.

Nail Scarred Hands Made New speaks from the trenches of a violent, Latin American slum. With deeply personal and theologically probing reflections, John speaks to the next generation of mission workers who feel compelled to lay down their lives--in the surprising hopefulness of God's ability to use the good, bad, and ugly of our kingdom-seeking efforts to accomplish his restoration of all creation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Release date: Jun 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781621894971

John Shorack

John Shorack has served with his family in the slums of Caracas, Venezuela, since 2001. His work with InnerCHANGE began in the inner city of Los Angeles, California, where John met his wife, Birgit, who came from Germany and was a pastor in East Los Angeles at the time. Together, they have raised three children in the crazy mix of three countries and cultures. Visit John's blog at nailscarredhandsmadenew.wordpress.com

Book preview

Part 1

Partners at the Cliff’s Edge

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1 / Brother Caligallo

If it’s true that street crime hits in waves, then Venezuela has been struck by a tsunami-like ocean torrent. Some believe the quake behind this began in earnest with the people’s uprising in February 1989, when an IMF-pressured austerity package forced then-President Carlos Andrés Pérez to abruptly and dramatically raise basic commodity prices, including bus fares. In a knee-jerk reaction, thousands from Caracas’ hillside slums took to the streets in violent protest. More than one thousand lives were lost in three days of bloody bedlam in the capital city. One researcher coined a shift in the modus operandi among streets criminals as a move from I will rob you to the more sinister I will rob and kill you. He believes this change took root at this moment in the country’s history.

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In spite of efforts from opposition groups to blame President Chavez for the growing murder rate, no one disputes that the problem known as inseguridad (lack of safety in the streets) topped the populace’s list of most pressing issues prior to Chavez’s ascendance to the nation’s highest office.

Even in the face of widespread danger and violence, our approach to mission in the turbulent slums has been anything but a big splash. Venezuelans have at various times described our work as that of ants (hormigas). We serve unassumingly, without drawing attention to ourselves. We’re small in number, a relative drop in the bucket, yet hardworking and united in effort. At first glance little seems to be accomplished. Yet in the end, no one with eyes to see can deny the profound impact of our consistency.

My wife and I arrived in Caracas with our three children and two teammates in November 2001, two years after a political tsunami brought the larger-than-life populist Hugo Chavez to the presidency. Our teammates returned to the United States in 2004. They were replaced by two others, and then another. These co-workers also left after a three-year period of service.

Caracas street crime didn’t become personal to me in the first year or even the second. When the wave finally hit, it hit hard, as I wrote in the introduction. The two stories that follow come from two teammates that lived through this particularly hot season when the pressing issue of inseguridad in the streets began to burn in our hearts. Corrie Long, a recent graduate from Wheaton College, served on our team from 2004–2007. Ryan Mathis, a young man in his early twenties who penned the second story, worked with us from 2006–2008.

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John’s neighborhood

A Letter from the Slums

Several months ago, I [Corrie] asked you to pray for the surge in violence we were experiencing here. At that time, I was held up by two young street thugs who tried to take the gold ring off my finger. They got the purse off my shoulder, but I put up a fight with the ring and the guy couldn’t get it off. The ring itself is inexpensive, but it was a gift from my parents and I’ve worn it since I was thirteen! I got a bit roughed up and scared, as you can imagine. In my nearly three years in the barrios (slums and barrios are used interchangeably), this was the first time I got held up. Now I want to tell you about an answer to prayer that came out of the experience.

Several weeks ago I found out that one of the malandros in the neighborhood was recovering in a nearby hospital after getting shot. The young man’s name was Caligallo—the very guy who tried to steal my ring. Since that time, Caligallo had been terrorizing the neighborhood. The more I heard, the more I learned of his story.

Caligallo grew up in the neighborhood as an orphan. His brothers are in jail or dead. His sister sells herself up the road from me. With nothing to hope for and no life to believe in, Caligallo fell into what surrounded him: the drugs and violence of the streets. Our neighbors watched him grow up, fed him, and even tried to help him along the way. Since choosing this path as an adolescent, they seem to be waiting for him to be killed off. No one has hope for him. May God forgive him, they say, because we won’t.

News of Caligallo’s situation arrived on a Friday afternoon. My friend from the street, Diana, invited us to visit him in the hospital. When we arrived at his bedside, my team leader John, my teammate Ryan, and I (all of whom Caligallo has robbed) just stood there a little awkwardly, and perhaps a little fearfully. Yet soon we were talking, laughing, even holding his hand. We prayed for him and over him—simple prayers, thanking God for his life. We shared smiles and jokes. We told him that our team was praying for God to spare his life and that this was an answer to our prayers. We told him that we cared about him and his life. The forgiveness in the room came alive, as if God walked among us. We stood there on holy ground, a living demonstration of Christ’s pardon to our wounded