With a splintering crash, Jorge and his bodyguards broke down the door of the house.  Shoving a little boy into the bathroom, they tied the woman of the house to a chair and tortured her husband before her eyes.  “Give us the money”, they shouted.  The wife began to scream!  Tying the husband to a chair, I pulled their son out of the bathroom and pressed the cold steel of a gun into the little boy’s mouth.  “Are you going to pay me?” I said slowly, “Or should I blow his brains out?” Somebody found some money and Jorge left the boy unharmed.  “A drug trafficker does not have a heart,” Jorge explains. “It is a heart of stone.  God forgive me, I had a heart of stone.”

I was the leader of one of the biggest drug cartels in the United States – overseeing Tijuana and San Diego County with contacts in Florida, Chicago and Mexico, owned several houses, apartments, a legal business and had half a million dollars in the bank.  I was jailed in Mexico and the United States, had been tortured and had tortured others.  By the age of 23, “I was pulling in $5,000 to $10,000 a day.” Two years later I started using hard drugs which affected decision making and temper.  One day I murdered a rival gangster in full daylight with six witnesses.  “I took a ‘vacation’ in Mexico while my lawyer sorted things out,” Jorge recalls.  “It was then that I first called out to God.”

I began to miss my family. “I cried out to God, bargaining with Him. God, I don’t know who You are, but I can’t sleep anymore.  I am a heroin addict.  I am tired of sleeping with a gun in my hand.  I beg you to take everything away from me.  I want to remember how to sleep again. I was in pain even in my time of great power.” My lawyer paid off some officials to clear the murder charges, but as soon as I returned to the U.S., police caught me with one-half kilo of cocaine.  Again my lawyer bribed the judge and got the charges dropped.  Everything started going downhill because of my addiction, including my wealth. I was abusive to my wife, and I put my kids through hell.  Drugs made me paranoid. My whole world started changing because of my drug addiction.”

A family friend invited me to church. It was nothing like the religion I was used to.  They were clapping and singing , and some were crying.  When the congregation began to sing a beautiful worship song, the words broke through my heart of stone.  I was thinking about my wife and kids and how much I wanted God to change my life.  Tears poured from my eyes.  I was hoping no one noticed.  Everything the pastor said was about my life.  During the alter call, I fell on my knees weeping,  I am destroying myself. I called out to God… Come help me! Afterwards I

became more addicted than ever. Then the DEA busted me on a big deal in Mexico.  With prison looming, and after 22 years of drug abuse, my brain shut down & I  literally lost my mind.  The doctor said if I came back to reality, in seven years, I’d either be a vegetable or will die.  I did not care, and I went back to using drugs. Again I was arrested.

While spending more time behind bars for possession of coke,  my wife transferred everything into her name and sued for divorce.  I went wild with jealousy, I invited her to be with me just so I could kill her and then myself, so no one else could have her. When I failed to get her to visit me, I overdosed three times to try to kill myself. Finally I decided to return to “The Church Where They Made Me Cry”. I told God I was so tired and I didn’t want to fight with Him anymore.  I gave my life to Christ, and I felt something beautiful.” I knew that to stay clean I would have to leave my old turf so I moved back to Mexico to work on my family’s ranch.  Little my little I got clean .  God restored my mind and transformed my heart. I  married a wonderful woman named Eugenia. We had a daughter, Melissa, and settled in the U.S. for good. Christ gave me hope  & blessed me. For nine months I worked for the minimum in a donut shop.  I swept floors, worked the cash register, spent  time in the bakery – anything to put a roof over our heads.  It was humbling but eventually my wife and I saved enough money to move into a mobile home. Over the next seven years we started a cleaning business, scrubbing floors, knocking door-to-door, cleaning toilets.  Me, the big drug lord, cleaning houses, but it was worth it because of the peace I had in my mind. Jesus always brings peace.

I wanted to make things right with my family. One day we all got together and I apologized to them all. Everyone was crying by the time it was over.  I asked my mother and father as well as my  ex-wife to forgive me. I continue to reach out to children. I have also sought to reconcile with others that I hurt, visiting many in prisons (and leading one to Christ), telling his story to the guys still on the streets, and weekly visiting prisoners throughout Southern California. My plans were to be the drug lord of San Diego County, but God had plans for me to reach the world!  I was supposed to be dead, but now I’m free and alive because of the mercy of God.  My life is no longer the story of Jorge G. the drug-trafficker.  It is the story of the power of God in the man.