When Tito Trujillo sat down for his first meeting with OCRM Senior Chaplain Ray Green in a little booth at Denny's one morning, he didn't even know what a rescue mission was, much less a case manager. He knew that God wanted to help him, but he couldn't imagine how. As Ray began listing goals that they would work together to accomplish over the next 12 months, Tito was incredulous. Custody of his son, his own apartment, furniture to go in it, food, clothing, vocational training and credit repair were beyond the scope of his imagination. “I'll probably never see this guy again,” he thought.

But Ray proved him wrong. They met together a couple more times and mapped out Tito's course. Having something to look forward to, however, was only a small part of what Ray had in mind. “We start right away with faith in God,” he says. “We give them goals to attain and tell them that God is faithful. I told Tito, ‘These things will happen.’” And they have — all of them.

But it's easy to see why Tito had a hard time believing. Since he was just a child, the only career he ever pursued was that of a drug addicted, alcoholic gang banger, which qualified him for several extended stays in the county jail. He neither knew, nor could conceive of, any other life.

However, when Tito was arrested on drug charges (again) early in 2003, his girlfriend was pregnant and he started thinking about the dire effect his lifestyle would have on the child. When he learned (from jail) that his girlfriend continued her drug use during the pregnancy, he knew something had to give. “It was breaking my heart,” he remembers. “I knew I had to change my life to raise this little boy, because I knew she wasn't going to.”

Consequently, when Tito got out of jail, he entered a three-month rehab program. During his stay, some Christians from a local church paid him several visits and shared with him the good news of the Gospel. He received Jesus as his Lord and, when he completed his rehab, began attending church. “Whatever he [God] had planned for me, I would do it. I tried staying clean on my own before, and it never worked.”

In September 2003, Tito entered a “sober living home” for a period of 10 months, where he participated in parenting classes, counseling and periodic drug testing. During this time, his son, Brian, was born and immediately taken from his mother and placed in the custody of his grandparents. Upon completion of his recovery, Tito received two very important referrals from members of his church. One was to a daycare center to aid him in the ominous task of single-parenting. The other was to Ray Green of the Orange County Rescue Mission.

“Ray is not just someone who's helping me with a program,” Tito says. “I came to really care for Ray. He's become more than just a case manager — he's my friend. And here I am today sitting in my apartment he said I was going to get, that I didn't believe, you know? With furniture they gave us...” As tears fill his eyes, his words die away. They can no longer make their way past the lump in his throat.

Tito now lives in a three-bedroom apartment with his 20-month-old son, Brian, and two roommates from his church. As far as the future is concerned, for now he just wants to advance in a career and be a good example to his son.

For those of you who were wondering whether or not your donations are actually doing any good, listen to the words of Chaplain Ray in reference to Tito Trujillo:

“The dollars that we ask the public for were used to do exactly what we said they were going to do, and exactly what they expect them to do. And that is to take a family, reunite that famiily, reconcile that family from the streets or from the poverty situation that they were in and give them everything that we said their dollars were going to give them. We've taken a man without hope and helped him to become a productive citizen, and a child caught up in the social services system and renuited him with his father. You want a modern-day miracle? Well, this is it!