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A Man Set Free

by John Butterworth; Written in cooperation with Bill Smith and World Wide Crusades

104 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #04-0401; ISBN 1-4120-2573-7; US$14.50, C$16.00, EUR12.00, £8.50

Ricardo Fuentes believed the God who delivered him from a life of crime could save him now that he lay in a pool of his own blood, but would he?

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about the book      about the author      excerpts      catalogue info

About the Book Fiery preachers have said for ages that God can reach into the deepest depth of the dregs of society to rescue and restore even the vilest of human creatures. That seemed to pretty well define the man known to the California Prison System as Ricardo Fuentes. He grew up fast and hard in San Pedro Sula, the second largest city in Honduras, drinking and fighting his way through the teen years. When he killed a man in a late-night knife fight, Fuentes fled his native land only to find himself living behind bars of California prisons for charges of attempted murder and armed robbery after being set up by a crime partner in an act of revenge. God's faithfulness to answer the prayers of the Christian woman he'd left behind in Honduras reached through prison walls and cell bars to draw the heart of a hardened man to a new life, one that God promised would bring him before multitudes of people to testify about the work of the risen Lord Jesus Christ when he died on a cross two thousand years ago. That new life would prove to be the end of Fuentes' search for meaning. Lying in a pool of his own blood, it would also prove to be one that taught him how his victims felt when they faced danger from the muzzle end of his firearms.

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About the Author A journalist, photographer and adventurer, John Butterworth spent from 1994 through early 2003 working in the newspaper industry. As editor of a small town weekly known as the Benton Bulletin, he reported, photographed, editorialized, designed, laid out the pages and "took out the garbage and swept the floor" for four years. After that newspaper shut its doors, the daily newspaper he competed against, Corvallis Gazette-Times, hired him as the cops and rural beat reporter. Later he covered environmental issues, filled in on the copy desk and served as interim city editor for eight months. But the writer has done far more than write. Accepting Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior as a 20-year-old in 1969, his experience as a Marine Corps tank mechanic took him from Los Angeles to the Oregon Coast where he wound up working in the timber industry as a logger, tree planter, fire fighter, mill hand and timber feller throughout Idaho, Washington, California and Oregon. It was after serious injuries as a logger and timber feller that he returned to college in 1991 to study journalism. During his career in the timber industry, he also spent five years serving as a supervisor and principal in small Christian schools in both Oregon and Idaho. He now feels called to journal the workings of God in the early 21st Century. Along with his wife, Bev, author of a small town monthly "nice" gossip column, he continues to live in their home a few miles outside the unincorporated town of Alsea, Oregon - also hometown for a daughter, son-in-law and grandson, and another son. Two other sons have moved from Alsea to Boise, Idaho where they and a daughter-in-law and three grandsons serve in the Church of the Harvest.

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Excerpts

May 2002:
In the nation of Colombia, Alvaro Uribe gets elected as the new president of the nation. He comes to office with clear mandates from the citizenry to conquer the leftist guerillas, battle corruption within the government and revive a slumping economy. In the United States, missionary Gracia Burnham finally has time to reflect on her rescue from Philippine guerillas by government forces * a rescue that took the life of her husband, another kidnapped man and four guerillas.

CHAPTER 1: Shot, Beaten and Robbed

That day, May 27, 2002, had started so nice: good weather, good companionship and great goals. Now stripped naked and tied face down on the ground by the captors who were shoving a gun to his head and threatening to kill him, Ricardo Fuentes felt confident that his God could and would deliver him from the situation, but he had no guarantee.

Reeling from the pain of a 9 mm slug that crashed through the rear window of the 1994 Toyota pickup and lodged in his skull just behind one ear, not to mention the pain from the beating he and fellow traveler Marcos Jordan received in payment from the bandits for trying to evade the robbery, Fuentes could muster up one main thought.

"So this is how my victims felt."

Fuentes grew up troubled, found trouble at a young age, dished it out and now found it once again coming back to him. But this was different, having since adopted the ways of his Savior. When he became a Christian, he left behind his old ways that led him to kill a man, flee his country and wind up in a California prison for armed robbery. Now he traveled with a mission from the Lord Jesus Christ.

But like his life, this trip was not turning out the way it started. Fuentes and Jordan had begun their journey from San Pedro Sula, Honduras, seven hours earlier, headed for Huehuetenango, Guatemala. Their job was to organize pastors and parishioners in Huehuetenango for an evangelistic crusade scheduled out about 12 months. World Wide Crusades, a small organization reaching out to Africa and Central America from a little Oregon Coast Range community called Alsea, would hold the crusade.

"It was a normal Monday for us, except the next day we needed to be in Huehuetenango," Fuentes recalls. To do that, he and Marcos Jordan would have to drive across a good stretch of Honduran road, in need of repair at best, and then traverse almost the entire east-west reach of Guatemala, nearly reaching Mexico. It would likely be a toss-up deciding which country's roads needed more improvement.

After weeks of planning for the journey, the two men intended to leave their homes around 11 a.m., but numerous delays set back the departure time. Both men are quite adapted to directing their vehicles through the chaotic traffic patterns that suggest that what lane markers do exist are painted on the streets and highways as mere suggestions, rather than driving dictates requiring obedience, so the heavy traffic with its black smoke-belching diesel trucks and buses didn't really create a tardy departure.

"We were late as usual. Brother Marcos is never on time, but we were ready to go anyway," says Fuentes lightheartedly.

Marcos Jordan tended to driving duties from San Pedro Sula to the Guatemalan border crossing, about a six-hour journey. With the sun shining down and the pickup running smoothly, the men talked easily about their families, religion, politics, ministries and other things to pass the time and help keep Jordan awake behind the wheel as he directed their pickup up and over passes and through winding valleys. Having worked together for World Wide Crusades over the past few years, they'd had their share of mishaps and near mishaps as they labored to prepare the way for crusades in Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and their own country of Honduras. But this day, it all looked good.

"Today we were happy, driving to a place where the Gospel needed to be preached," Fuentes said. "We were taking some U.S. dollars to finance an evangelistic crusade which would bring many souls to Jesus Christ."

Fuentes and Jordan have grown accustomed to the sometimes-chaotic scenes at border crossing in Central America. The cadre of shoe shiners made up predominantly from little boys blend their voices with those of the fast food vendors, moneychangers, beggars and anyone else with a product or service to sell, or need for cash. The crossing sites can become a teeming mass of humanity as travelers and drivers from buses, cars, pickups and commercial haulers work their way through long lines dealing with police and immigration officials, turning over more of their precious cash in order to get that final stamp of approval to continue their journeys into another country.

"All kinds of people are trying to sell you something. You see them, but the truth is that they are watching you - all your movements are controlled by somebody," says Fuentes.

After getting their passports checked and paying the toll to enter Guatemala, the men remembered that they only carried U.S. currency and the Honduran Lempiras - neither had the Guatemalan Quetzals they'd need to continue their journey, buy food and gas and pay for lodging. Knowing the danger that can come from revealing your cash on hand, the men looked around the area for a man they felt likely to be the most honest moneychanger at the border. With a quick exchange of cash, they stopped for fuel and more drinking water before heading off with the goal of making it to Guatemala City before dark.

Although Jordan had planned to stop in Guatemala City to avoid driving through unknown mountain roads after dark, something that can prove dangerous because of road conditions and desperate people willing to kill and steal, Fuentes planned to push on the extra six hours to make it to Huehuetenango for a 9 a.m. meeting on Tuesday with pastors.

Most Central American countries use periodic roadblocks to check for stolen vehicles entering their borders, as well as insure paperwork for drivers and vehicle are in order, and enforce the rule requiring drivers to wear a seat belt. That's why Fuentes paid little attention to a patrol car he noticed parked off the road about an hour later. He and Marcos checked to make sure their seat belts were on and Fuentes made sure he was driving the correct speed.

Passing by the patrol without drawing any particular notice, they thought there'd be no problem. Shortly after, though, the patrol car pulled onto the road and followed them for a few miles before telling them to pull over.

"I have been stopped before for by these guys, but I've never experienced something like this. The first question was, 'Do you have any money on you?'" Fuentes said. "What kind of cops are these, we thought?"

When they finished explaining who they were, their purpose for traveling in Guatemala and their destination, the police told Fuentes and Jordan to be careful because 10 miles outside Guatemala City where cars have to slow down on the highway, bandits were making the area dangerous.

"They told us that when the bandits get someone who's not carrying money, they get mad and kill them," Fuentes said. "We told them that we did not have any money, but it seems to me they did not believe us."

At the time, the two men thought the police were just trying to warn them and give them advice, but looking back on it now, they question that.

"I have a sense the police set us up, because when we went through the border, they stopped us and told us to be careful because of the dangers, but something was weird the way they asked us if we had money."

When Fuentes and Jordan were finally allowed to proceed, the journey once again looked as though it would remain a pleasant one.

"I remember we were counting the kilometers left to arrive in Guatemala City," recalls Jordan. "There was 41 left."

Marcos also remembers talking about where they would stop for rest once they got there. But the planned arrival soon met a sinister fate, one reflecting the breezy chill surrounding the approaching nightfall in the Guatemalan mountains.

The thoughts and discussion about the following day's agenda, adding to those of their approach to Guatemala City, sent the warnings and odd happenings at the border crossing about an hour before to the back of both men's minds.

But they came back like a bolt of lightning.

"All of a sudden a compact car was behind us," Fuentes explained. "The motor of this car had to be better than ours because it was coming up on us fast. The headlights were extremely strong so I decided to let them pass, but they didn't want to pass."

Quickly the warnings were resurrected.

"The first instance I knew they were bandits. They were yelling very suspiciously to us," Jordan said. Fuentes agreed.

"Once they were window to window with our car, they yelled at us that they were police. From our experience and the way they were saying it, we knew they were not police. Marcos told me not to stop and I felt the same way, so I pushed them out of the road," Fuentes recalled. "At the moment they yelled at us to stop, they were pointing at me with a 9 mm gun, and they had a flashlight right in front of my face."

Despite the danger they knew they faced, Fuentes still managed to get a glimpse of five people in the compact car - two in front and three in back. His maneuver to run the bandits off the road looked as though it had worked.

"For a moment, we thought that was it," he said. "Something like that happened at El Salvador too, but this was not our lucky day. Just a few moments later they were chasing us again, and this time they were shooting at us. We fought to escape in our car, gun shots were all around, and we were panicked, thinking the worse was about to happen."

In the midst of battle or crisis, the detail of events often stand out distinctly different to each participant. The moments that followed Fuentes seeing a gun pointed his direction took on different meanings for Fuentes and Jordan.

When the 9 mm slug entered through the back window, it may have ricocheted around the pickup cab as Marcos remembers, or it may have simply made a direct hit just behind Fuentes' ear and stopped as if by the hand of God from killing him that instant. Doctors later confirmed that whether or not the slug first bounced around the cab before hitting him, Fuentes came within fractions of an inch from death.

Whatever path the bullet took, it's impact meant more trouble for the two men.

"I felt something cold in the back of my head, and it knocked me out for a few seconds," Fuentes said.

The few seconds when Fuentes lost consciousness seemed like a lifetime to Marcos Jordan.

"He blacked out and fell down on top of my knees in my lap, and because he was driving, I couldn't control it," Jordan explained. "I wanted to accelerate, but his body was laying in a way keeping me from doing that. The car was in second, and I wanted to get it in third but couldn't do it. His body wouldn't allow me to control the gears so the car went into neutral. When I couldn't do anything, I took the steering wheel and pulled the car aside, trying to avoid hitting other cars going along the road."

As Fuentes came to, he saw that Jordan had his hands full trying to get his own seat belt loose, trying to help Fuentes undo his and at the same time telling him to try to keep driving. That did little good.

"The car got stuck," Fuentes explained. "I could not react properly, probably because I was wounded in the head."

Both men bolted from the car, crying in vain for help to passing-by motorists before running into the forest. Fuentes passed up one chance to get away. Bleeding and desperate, he almost jumped into the back of a truck passing through the chaotic scene, but he didn't know where Jordan was - at least for the moment.

Seconds later he turned to see that his friend had returned to the pickup where the bandits caught him as he tried to run into the forest. Fuentes too bolted for the woods, but to no avail. "It was too late," said Fuentes simply. "They were really mad, pointing their guns at us, kicking us in our chest and stomachs. They had all kinds of heavy guns."

After throwing them in the bed of the pickup, one man took the bandits' car and another drove the pickup. Two others took turns kicking Jordan and Fuentes in the back as they drove into the forest and out of sight from any help from the highway.

Stripped naked, hands tied behind their backs and thrown face first to the ground, Fuentes grew aware that his own blood oozed as a hot liquid over his head. He asked within himself, "Why is this happening to us, God?"

He didn't hear an answer from God. Instead, from the mist of memory came the vivid recollection of a similar experience - one where he was holding the gun.

In Los Angeles, California, Fuentes and a crime partner decided to rob someone at a bar. Finding just one man drinking at their chosen site, they waited for him to leave the bar. When he came out, Fuentes demanded his money, but the man had no cash. He had been buying his drinks with a credit card.

"I took him into the van and took all that he had, which was his clothes, his shoes, belt, shirt, everything," Fuentes recounted. "The only thing left was his trunks, his underwear. And I told him, 'Next time make sure you have money or it's going to be worse.'

"And I drop him on the freeway. That's one of the things I remembered when I was being robbed in Guatemala."

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Catalogue Information

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