By HILLARY DAVIS
Sun Staff Reporter
Saturday, June 21, 2008
*To see this story as it originally appeared in the Daily Sun, click here

Neil Gallegos was 16 years old, filled with rage and strung out on meth when God spoke to him.

He had just had an argument with his mother. He lay back on his bed and heard a voice -- a voice he'd never heard before. A voice that washed over him with peace. "Don't worry. Trust me."

And he did.

Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity. (Timothy 4:12)

Neil spent about three rough years in and out of the Coconino County juvenile detention facility. He used drugs, got in fights, boosted cars, ran with gangs. When he was 15, he got a street tattoo on the web of his hand that says "Sunnyside" in blue script. The ink is still there, faded.

These days, some five years after his salvation, Neil still goes to juvenile. But now, he's not a delinquent -- or, for that matter, a minor. He's a chaplain.

And in the past month, he and co-chaplain Leandra Burnett have launched an outreach program that follows youth to "the outside."

The children in juvenile, he said, are "broken." They have no structure or boundaries at home and think they can do whatever they want, even if they get arrested. Some parents just don't care, he said, but some do, and just work too much to ensure their kids stay on the right path.

The incarcerated youth don't always listen to the chaplains, being rebellious by nature, or at least habit. But they identify with Neil. When they say nobody understands them, he gets it.

"There are people out there that really could see past what they're wearing, see past what they're saying, and really see them and just see the struggle," he said. "Why would they say, 'I hate my mom, I hate my dad, I don't have a reason for living,' all that? Why would they say that? I know why they feel that, especially if they've been on drugs. I know why they're saying that."

METH AND THE BARREL OF A GUN

Neil started slipping when he was in eighth grade.

He was hanging out with the wrong crowd and smoking marijuana. Then he saw a cousin "off-the-wall high" on meth.

Neil followed suit. He was 13 years old.

"I decided I was gonna smoke crystal meth," he said. "It wasn't a little bit the first time. It was a whole lot the first time."

After that he was a "goner." He smoked daily and fell into a life of street crime. Police readily recognized him as a "gang-affiliated" youth.

He had scrape after scrape with the law. One, at 15, almost cost him his life, he said.

He recalled getting high at the baseball fields in Sunnyside late at night. He left the park on a stolen bicycle and flew through an intersection, causing an officer to pull him over.

While standing no more than a body length from the officer, the teenager decided to dispose of the bong he was carrying. He whipped it out of his pocket and hurled it into the night.

In the dark, a bong can look like a weapon. The officer drew his gun on Neil.

The boy was amped up and ready to fight. But the officer stumbled and fell to the ground. Then he called for backup.

Neil ran and hid in an alley, watching the swirling police lights as other officers descended on the neighborhood, looking for him.

He popped up from his hiding space behind a small refrigerator, defiant. But he forgot the marijuana pipe still in his pocket. He went back to juvenile.

Neil recently shared that incident with a boy who took it to heart.

"He says, 'I'm still that little kid and I still look up to you.' He said, 'Neil, if you can make me wanna do drugs; Neil, if you can make me wanna gangbang and put in work for the neighborhood, then why can't you get me to do this' -- and he touched his Bible. It was an invitation to say, 'Hey, I'm here, I wanna change, I need your help,'" he said. "And so it was real humbling."

'TRUST ME'

That night, squatting in an alley hiding from police, wasn't his turnaround moment, though.

When he got out of jail, Neil resumed his life of drugs and crime. And so he'd go back in.

This angered the boy more and more. He didn't like the rules of juvenile. He had no respect for authority. He laughed in court and wouldn't rise for the judge.

A desire for change gnawed at him -- it often did, he said. He was dejected and self-loathing. He had lots of what he calls "sounds good" thoughts, but nothing stuck.

Change began happening in a motel room.

He was in the room with a drug-addicted cousin and her "dope man" when the dealer interrupted their private conversation. Neil twisted into a fury that he took home with him. He stormed into his mother's house and immediately began arguing with her as she sat by her small fireplace, hurting over what her son had become.

After their row, Neil went to his bedroom.

Then he heard that voice. "Don't worry. Trust me."

"This is what I heard: 'What you need, your parents and nobody else can give you. He's like, only I can give you that," he said.

"I know that was God," he said, striking his palm with his fist.

He went back out to his mother, and asked her for help.

He turned himself into authorities. When he got out, he went to church. He's not sure how he got there, but he found himself at Church of the Blessed, a tiny church on North Fourth Street. Pastor Larry Lopez had him rapt with his testimony of overcoming his own run with drugs and gangs.

Neil said he was never the same. He wasn't perfect -- he went on another drinking and meth bender that lasted a week or two, but he was scared.

"I have been almost shot, I've been almost stabbed, I've been almost killed a lot of times. And really, I was never afraid as much as I was afraid when I went back and got high," he said. "When I knew that God was like, 'You don't have to do that. I took it away from you.' But I went and did it anyway. To me it was so disrespectful to Him."

He thought, this is worse than before.

"After that I never got high again."

That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. (Romans 10:9)

After his transition, Neil wanted to help his friends. When he began reaching out to people in his neighborhood, they didn't immediately trust him. They knew his criminal side too well.

But now, he said, they ask him to pray for them or talk to their troubled children. He said he doesn't push his faith on people, but sits down with them when they're ready.

People ask Neil how, or why, he changed.

He knows his parents loved him. But he also believes only Jesus Christ could have helped him with the plan he had for his life.

"I grabbed hold of it and I won't ever let it go because I remember where I came from. I remember the struggles that I had. I remember the hurt that I had in my heart," he said. "It was me. The problem was me. The problem was not my mom and dad, the problem was not the way I was raised, the problem was not nothing like that. It was me. I was the problem. I made bad decisions."

He said he made those poor choices because he was lured by the streets.

"The gangs and the streets, this is what they'll do: They'll sell you a dream. They'll sell you a promise of a great life and what happens is, that dream becomes a nightmare and before you know it, that nightmare is there and you're stuck and you really need help. You really need help," he said. "But the funny thing is, you don't even know how to ask for help once you're there. When you're on drugs and you're mixed up in the gangs you don't know how to ask for help. You become so hard and independent on your own and you know everything ... you're so gone. Your mentality's so gone it's really not even you."

It was a bumpy ride. But now Neil is 21 and about to be ordained. He married and has a daughter Madisson, almost 2. His wife, Dee Dee, is pregnant with their second child, due this winter.

He wants his children to know about his past. He wants them to be compassionate.

His father, Steve, was racked with pain when his son was a terror on the streets. Fed up, one day he told the boy off.

Now, he fairly sparkles with pride. He recently threw Neil an ordainment party, and he seeks his son's guidance.

"He's not down there no more. He's up there," Steve said, lifting his hand up. "I look up to him."

Hillary Davis can be reached at 556-2261 or hdavis@azdailysun.com.