"The Real Life of a Chicago Police Officer" w/ Luis Varela

Luis Varela had a 31 year career as a Chicago Police Officer. He also served a total off 33 years between the Marines and Army Reserves were he served as a drill instructor. He grew up in the West Town neighborhood of Chicago. He grew up in an era of the late sixties and early seventy's were there was a greater racial divide within the communities of Chicago. Growing up he begins to see some of his friends heading down the wrong path and the consequences they begin to experience because of the wrong choices they are making. A neighbor introduces him to the neighborhood Boys & Girls club were he encounters mentors who begin to help and encourage him in many ways. Being bullied most of his young life he is drawn into sports like boxing and swimming there at the club. There he meets and sees a young Marine in full uniform and at the moment he says, "this is what a real Man looks like." He joins the Marines right after high school. He is home on leave one summer night sitting right in front of his parents home when all of a sudden he hears a woman start screaming right across the street. Her purse has just been stolen and the perpetrator is running away. Luis takes off after that man, catches him and ends up returning the purse to the woman. She is crying and so happy to have here purse back. This ends up becoming a decisive moment in his life were he acknowledges that he likes how this feels. To be able to help and protect his community. But being a police officer takes a toll on those who encounter all types of crimes and violence on a regular basis here in the city of Chicago. Many people don't know this but police officers have one of the highest rates of divorce and suicide in the country. Tune in to hear this real life story of a Chicago Police officer. 

Transcript

Omar: 0:15

Hello everyone. And welcome to another episode of wrong to strong Chicago. I'm your host. My name is Omar Calvillo. And tonight I have my guest here. His name is Luis Varela. Uh, I met this brother Luis at, uh, RTO, which is a radical timeout ministry, which is part of a Koinonia house, national ministries. Uh, we, we met there, um, through, through the meetings, you know, a few times, talk to him. And, um, man, well, welcome to the podcast, brother.

Luis: 0:42

Yeah. Thank you. Glad to be here.

Omar: 0:44

Hey man, you want to introduce yourself a little bit, you know.

Luis: 0:47

My name is Luis Varela, born and raised in the heart of Chicago, uh, just south of Humboldt Park. Uh, my family, I have one younger brother and I have one older sister. The three of us, we, uh, we grew up there in an area that was predominantly Italian. Uh, I got away with except for when my hair started to grow, I had an afro and then. People knew, you know, the Italians knew that, that ain't, that ain't an Italian.

Omar: 1:16

So you're saying you were passing off for an Italian for a while?

Luis: 1:18

Yeah, with my eyes and the color of my skin.

Omar: 1:21

You know, the people probably can't see your eyes. Well, what color are your eyes? Hazel. I got

Luis: 1:25

hazel eyes, so they're confused. And light

Omar: 1:27

skin?

Luis: 1:28

And light skin. Everybody say, el guero. But, when my hair started to grow, it grew as an afro, and it kind of gave it away, that boy ain't Italian, you know.

Omar: 1:41

Well, it looked like a bird's nest. It looked like a bird's nest. I thought

Luis: 1:43

it was something good, you know. Back then, I thought it was good. And I couldn't tell my mom otherwise. She said, cut that stuff. And she's like, no, no, no. Don't cut my hair.

Omar: 1:51

Yeah. And so, so what, what, uh, um, you know, I don't want to age you, but, uh, what, when were you born? What were years were this? And she goes, you know,

Luis: 1:59

that was, uh, 1962. I was born in 62. Hit the streets of Chicago at about 10 years old is when I actually started to open up my eyes to really see what was out on the streets. Uh, we moved from one neighborhood, which was. Started off on Ashland and Augusta in that community by Wells High School. And we moved a little further south to Grand in Ashland, where my mom actually still lives in that community now. Oh, no way. Yeah. She's still there, uh, to the glory of God. I still have my mom. And, uh, I started to open up my eyes. I started to see the things in the streets. I started to, uh, I was, I was a, uh, a skinny little. Puerto Rican kid with a big old Afro. The biggest thing about me was my Afro. And you

Omar: 2:46

know what, before we talk about you, like hitting the streets at the age of 10, how, how, how are things at home? You know, like, did you have mom and dad in the picture? How did that look?

Luis: 2:53

Yes. I had both my mom and dad. My dad worked, um, industry. He worked at an apex paper corporation until he almost broke his back. A crate fell on him and he was hospitalized for a while and he was never the same after that. But, uh, he worked there for many years. That I could remember and my mom, uh, she had a, a night job, so they would kind of tag off with us. So dad would go to work early in the morning and then he would come home around three o'clock. And mom would take off and go to work from three to like midnight. But I was blessed to have both my parents there. Um, no complaints about that. I had a good childhood. Um, we would probably look at that today and say, Hey, that was a poor family. That was a poor family. But I thought we were rich.

Omar: 3:45

You mean like financially? Financially. Yeah. Yeah. Gotcha. Right.

Luis: 3:48

Cause there wasn't a lot of money, but mom managed the money and mom is a miracle worker. You know what, that the story in the Bible where, where they turned, uh, three loaves of bread and they fed 5,

Omar: 4:00

000.

Luis: 4:01

That was mom. That was mom. Mom always had food on the table. It didn't matter how much we struggle financially, but mom always had food on the table. She always had a gift for our birthdays. She always had something for us on Christmas, no matter how the financial, uh, picture looked for us. We were blessed in as kids. You don't, you don't realize that that kind of stuff, but my God, I think about it now. And. I mean, like 10 times as much as she did. I was like, I can't do what she did.

Omar: 4:29

Got you. Yeah. I'm a miracle worker, man. That's awesome. You know what it in, in, in, I'm sure when you're older, you appreciate all that. Right. Although the struggle and the, you know,

Luis: 4:39

we flip the script and we have to take those positions when we become parents, when we become responsible and financially and paying all the bills and, and until you step into that, that seat, you really don't realize. How tough of a job that really is you can't appreciate it until

Omar: 4:59

you're there

Luis: 4:59

till you're there.

Omar: 5:00

Gotcha. Okay. So, so now let's go back Okay, you're you're growing up there. You mentioned your siblings. So okay age of 10s. You start seeing what's going on in the neighborhood What would you start off seeing I guess what what's going on out there?

Luis: 5:11

I started to see a lot of racism So this

Omar: 5:15

was in the late 60s 70s

Luis: 5:18

Okay, all right, all right We moved to that neighborhood and then for some reason or another I was told you can't go west of Damen Avenue And you can't go south of Grand Avenue, and I thought to myself. Well, why?

Omar: 5:34

Who's the one that's telling you this thing

Luis: 5:36

people in the neighborhood? Okay, gotcha the people that be that befriended me as soon as I came into the neighborhood. They go you don't don't go that way It's like why what's over there? Now, you know, I'm like Christopher Columbus, I wanna experiment, I wanna, I wanna see what's going on. Explore, yes, I wanna explore like, what's going on, what's over there. And it always, you know, as a, like any child's gonna pique your curiosity. And it got me in trouble a couple times. One time I got my bicycle stolen by the guy on the other side of that, one of those streets. And uh, now I had to come home and tell my mom that I went somewhere where she told me not to go. And I got my bike stolen. So that was kind of a eye opener. Um, I was bullied a lot when I was little, I was a skinny little Puerto Rican kid running around. And the best thing that I did was run. I became a great runner and I was a great runner because I ran away from a lot of fights. Uh, I didn't like how it felt to get beat up. So I did a lot of running and I became a good runner. Yeah. That didn't last too long after a while, I was like, man, I'm, I'm tired of this. And it was a boys and girls club where that new community. And I started playing sports. I started getting into boxing. I started getting into swimming and I just, it was a new world for me. Things that I never experienced prior to moving into that neighborhood. And it, it, it helped to mature me and I had a lot of good leaders and mentors there. That whatever they taught you, they didn't teach you to bully someone else. You know, if you learn to box, the guy who was teaching boxing, he was, he was very adamant about, he don't ever want to hear you going out there and bullying anybody else with what he taught you. So he had some great fundamentals and all the leaders at the boys clubs. We're amazing. They treated us like we were their own kids and they cared about us. So it gave me something that I wasn't used to.

Omar: 7:52

Right.

Luis: 7:53

So it helped open up my eyes a lot in good ways, mature ways, and just being responsible.

Omar: 8:01

Gotcha. What ages are you there at the Boys Club? From what age to what age?

Luis: 8:06

From, you know, I don't know the earliest age, but I know, uh, once you get into high school, then you're no longer a member. Oh, okay. So they kind of put you out after that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. But most of the high school kids don't want to be there anyway.

Omar: 8:22

Got it. Okay.

Luis: 8:23

A lot of them came back to work there when they got to high school. Right, right. That was an advantage also that they had. They had a lot of great programs.

Omar: 8:31

Yeah. No, no, you know what? I know you mentioned, you know, skinny, always running. And then you started getting into sports, little boxing. So I'm sure that was in your teenage years. So how, how did your teenage years look maybe in the school neighborhood? You know, how, how, how was life for you out there?

Luis: 8:48

Coming into the neighborhood, I was a scared little kid and a lot of the older boys took me under their wing. My next door neighbor, a great guy, um, he's about three years older than me. And he's the one that introduced me to the boys club. So I kind of followed, you know, in his coattails and, uh, got me involved in all the sports and things, uh, but because he was three years older, obviously he's hanging around with his friends and I had to make my own friends. One of the things that, um, I found myself is kind of falling into the wrong crowd. Some of them were good. Some of them were really bad and I had to make my own decisions. I didn't really know how to do that.

Omar: 9:39

Okay.

Luis: 9:40

I didn't have a whole lot of friends at that time. When I moved into the neighborhood, I had one friend. One friend from the neighborhood that we came from, Ronnie Weathers, God bless him. Cause that, and he was the one that used to protect me from the other bullies. So I remembered him and I remember going to his house and picking him up for birthday parties and just bringing them into our new neighborhood. I didn't want to lose touch with him. Um, so here I am in a new neighborhood and I'm meeting new people. And again, some of them were good. Some of them were not so good. Some of them were pretty bad influence. I had a grow up pretty fast. Some of them are dead today because of the decisions they've made. Uh, some of them are professionals. One of the guys is rich today. So, um, God bless him. He just, He's a guy that we should always tell him, Hey, Victor, shut up. He gets paid to talk today.

Omar: 10:48

Hey, man, hopefully it'll be me one day, man. Cause I ain't making no money doing this.

Luis: 10:54

It was an interesting, diverse group of young adults that I found myself surrounded with. It opened up my eyes. Some of them were in trouble with the law on a regular basis. And I had to make the decision whether I wanted to be part of that. Or not. And as much as I like hanging around with some of those guys. I realized that I don't like how handcuffs feel.

Omar: 11:26

Were you ever placed in handcuffs? Yes. Okay. Yes I was. Like at what age? What age did you experience that?

Luis: 11:34

Uh, that was probably my freshman year in high school. So maybe about 15. Gotcha,

Omar: 11:38

alright.

Luis: 11:39

Put handcuffs on me, took me into the station, booked me, processed me, uh, the whole nine yards. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Gotcha. I got a taste of it. Yeah. I can never say I've been locked up. Right. But I did get a taste of it. To the station. Yeah. Yeah. What it felt to spend the night. Yeah. On cold steel.

Omar: 11:57

Yeah. And

Luis: 11:59

I thought, this is not fun.

Omar: 12:01

Yeah.

Luis: 12:02

And you know, as, as tough as I might've thought I was at that, at that age, I wasn't that tough. I was far from tough. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I realized that, you know, that night that I spent in jail, it made me realize I'm a punk, I'm a punk. And I, I had to be honest with myself. I'm not for this. I don't know if I can deal with this. So I made some changes and I stopped hanging out with certain people because of it. Hey, you know what, you know, my brothers, you know, my friends, whatever, you know, and I still communicate in passing, but I'm not hanging out at their homes anymore. And they're not hanging out at my house anymore.

Omar: 12:44

Yeah.

Luis: 12:45

And

Omar: 12:45

things change.

Luis: 12:46

How, how,

Omar: 12:47

how hard was that for you? Like, uh, to disconnect. Okay.

Luis: 12:50

It was very difficult. Uh, I remember being in a, in a circle with my friends one time and they're smoking and they're drinking and that bottle will come around almost like a football huddle and when it got to me, they will bypass me and go to the next guy because they knew I didn't drink. And when the smoking came around, they would bypass me. And one of the guys says to me, Hey, Louie, do you think you're better than us? Cause you don't drink with us and you don't smoke with us. And he put me on the spot and I'll never forget that day. It felt like I was under a heat light and it might've been just for a couple of seconds, but it seemed like an eternity. And what this guy did was he put me on the spot and I had to make a decision. If I say, okay, well then I'll drink and I'll smoke. I'm doing what I don't want to do. And if I say I don't want to drink or smoke, then. I'm going to be put out of this circle and I, I thought about it for a while. And I thought, you know, I don't want to smoke and I don't want to drink. So I told him, yeah, I am better than you guys. I said, I could watch. And my exact words, I could watch you guys act like idiots and still have fun with you guys. And they laughed and they kept going like nothing. And I thought to myself, wow, that was amazing. I thought it was going to go really bad. Go south. Instead it, it, it went really well. That day helped me to make better decisions the rest of my life because I knew I don't have to be like the rest of Them to enjoy their company,

Omar: 14:29

right?

Luis: 14:30

It made a big difference in my life after that.

Omar: 14:32

Gotcha

Luis: 14:33

from that that point on I sought To be different. I wanted to be different.

Omar: 14:38

What, what, what, uh, what, uh, choices did you end up doing? I know we talked before we started, uh, recording, but you said you've seen some of them start getting in trouble, right? Start, I don't know, you want to share that? Like

Luis: 14:50

I got to see some of the guys, one of them die. I got to see one of those guys, actually three of them go to jail. And the ones that went to jail, I don't think they were ever the same when they came out. They went in and they did probably about five years, five to 10 years, somewhere in there. I don't really recall how much time, but those guys never came back the same. And those are the guys that were, I could say were my brothers.

Omar: 15:19

The

Luis: 15:20

ones that I hung around with 24, seven and I get up in the morning, go to their house or they're in my house, you know, and it was always like that, but I saw that and I, I didn't want any part of that. So I had to find myself. This was probably my third year of high school. I find myself alone in high school because none of the guys that I hung around with grew up with were in school anymore by our third year. They were all gone. And I thought, well, I can either follow them and get thrown out of school or get thrown in jail or something like that. Or I could just change. And I thought the easier way would be just try and change. So I had to find new friends, new people to hang out with. And people who were interested in graduating from high school, it worked, it changed my life.

Omar: 16:15

Man, so some of these friends, okay, so you're in high school, What, uh, what, what did you end up, what would you end up going after high school? I

Luis: 16:24

graduated from high school and I went right into the United States Marine Corps.

Omar: 16:29

What, what, what propelled you there? Did anybody like in your family, did you come from a family background, military or who, who's, who like guided you or pushed you in that direction?

Luis: 16:38

Some of the older guys that were in the boys club, I remember seeing one of them come back from the Marine Corps. And I thought, wow, I was, I was so impressed by the uniform and I thought, that's a real man. I didn't, this is, this is what I'm thinking. And, uh, for some reason, another, the way he carried himself, his demeanor just impressed me. It was unbelievable. And I thought to myself, man, if one day, if I could grow up to be like that, I would feel. Inside to me, that that's a man, that's a man.

Omar: 17:19

What were some of those traits or qualities that you've seen in them that

Luis: 17:22

you're like, man, I want the confidence in him. I look at him today. He's short. Um, he's kind of out of shape, like most of us are. But when I saw him as, as a young man, when I saw him coming out of the Marine Corps. He looked like a giant to me. I said, the way he wore that uniform, the way he spoke with such confidence and just such authority. And it wasn't like an authority where he's talking down anybody. It was an authority with such respect. I was so impressed by, by seeing him. And I, about a couple months later, I saw another one of the guys from the neighborhood in the same uniform. And I was like, Oh, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta do this. That's the toughest thing that I could think of doing. Yeah. And that to me, I could prove to myself, I'm a man. If I could do that.

Omar: 18:20

Gotcha. So, okay. So in your mind, you're like, I'm going to do it. How did, how'd it go for you? Like when you had to tell mom and dad, were they forward against it?

Luis: 18:29

I don't remember my dad's response, but I remember my mom thinking I was crazy. Are you sure? Are

Omar: 18:37

you the oldest or my sister's the oldest? Okay. Okay.

Luis: 18:39

My sister's the oldest. She's older by one year. Okay. She had already, you He left to college. So when I graduated, she had already been gone for a year. And my mom's like, are you kidding me? I, are you, are you sure this is what you want to do? And mom's always been an encourager. She's never been one to really talk you down, but she's definitely going to make sure that you, is this the, are you sure she's going to ask and she's going to ask you again, are you sure you want to do this? And I says, yeah, this is what I want to do. And she said, well, I'll support you, but make sure this is what you want to do. They were, they were, you know what, for them, I guess the way they looked at it was I'm growing up and this would be my first time out of the house away from home and no mom, no dad in the middle of California somewhere. And, uh, they can't come running to help me.

Omar: 19:43

Yeah. So, no, no. Pick me up. I don't feel well.

Luis: 19:47

There's no, pick me up.

Omar: 19:48

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Luis: 19:49

Help. Yeah. Yeah. There's no help. There's no phone call.

Omar: 19:52

Yeah. Yeah.

Luis: 19:53

Um, and I think about it, it was a, a, a, a psychological prison, you know, because here, everything that I knew growing up, all the privileges that I had, that I really didn't even think about. I got to be stripped away from it now. I don't have the right to get up and go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. I don't have the right to sit down and enjoy my meal the way I want to know. I'm going to be told when to get up. I'm going to be told when to go to sleep. I'm going to be told when to brush my teeth, everything rude awakening.

Omar: 20:32

So how was that experience? How many years did you end up doing in a military?

Luis: 20:36

Six years in the Marine Corps, the

Omar: 20:38

Marine Corps. Okay.

Luis: 20:39

And then I, I got out for 10 years and after 10 years of being out, I felt the need to put on a uniform again and I became a drill instructor for the army after that completing 33 years total with both branches. Man, and

Omar: 20:53

so you went from the marines then to the army.

Luis: 20:56

Yes.

Omar: 20:57

And 33 years total, huh?

Luis: 20:58

33 years total. Man.

Omar: 21:01

So, okay. Let's let's, I know we're like jumping ahead that you're already, I think you mentioned you retired just recently, right? Uh, what, 2021 or 22 or 22. Okay. So that was 33 years, but okay, let's go back. So you're in the military, but that, that's not all that you end up doing. Right. You came, uh, could you explain the transition of coming back and then can you tell us what, what you got into afterwards? Like,

Luis: 21:21

well, when I got out of the Marine Corps, I was working for a cable company.

Omar: 21:27

Okay.

Luis: 21:28

And I actually traveled from Chicago, I started off in Chicago and then from Chicago I went to New York. They had a spot open for me there and uh, so I went and helped stand up the cable company in New York. And from New York I came back and I've always had a desire to be a police officer. I took a test just to see where I would rate or where I would score and uh, with the Illinois state. And I didn't do so good. I didn't do so bad. But I didn't practice for it. It wasn't something that I knew I was going to do. I just did it on a whim. So a friend of mine that was in the Marine Corps with me, we both went and took the test. He made it. I didn't.

Omar: 22:12

Okay.

Luis: 22:13

So I just kept testing. So every time a test would come up in the state of Illinois, I would go and take the test. Whether it was a suburb, uh, I tested for the city of Chicago. And a few years later, Chicago called me and says, Hey, I'm You're to report to the Academy Monday morning.

Omar: 22:30

Wow. What, what year is this?

Luis: 22:31

Uh, 1992.

Omar: 22:33

Okay, man. I was in eighth grade at 92. Yeah, I was already

Luis: 22:38

halfway done with my

Omar: 22:40

career, but

Luis: 22:41

no, that was 92. Uh, June 29th, 29, June 92 to be exact. And, uh, here I am reporting to the Chicago police Academy Monday morning. Something I had always dreamed of. Something that I always, people thought I was crazy because I took a pay cut from the job that I had with the cable company because I was in upper management and I was making some good money traveling and enjoying life. Right. And I gave that up to become a police officer for the city of Chicago.

Omar: 23:18

What, what, what, what, what, what, what was it that made it easy for you to say, man, forget the money. I'm going to do this.

Luis: 23:25

It's something I desired to do for probably at least 20 years prior.

Omar: 23:31

Okay.

Luis: 23:32

I don't know, something about being a police officer and helping people. I think the big deciding factor was one day I came home from the Marine Corps and it was a nice summer day, we're sitting in front of my mom's house and my dad was out there, my mom was out there, it was kind of like a summer evening and I think I had just recently got back from one of the schools, I'm sitting in front and all of a sudden I hear an older woman screaming and hollering right across the street from the house. And I look and here's some guy pulling on her purse and he snatches her purse from her and he takes off. And all I could think was, man, I just finished running hundreds of miles. I just came back. He ain't getting away from this. And I went after him and all I could think was, I'm going to kill him when I catch him. I wanted to beat him. I just, I had this desire to hurt this person because I couldn't believe he's, he's, Taking this old woman's purse from her and I caught him. I caught up to him. I grabbed him and not such a godly way. And all he could do was beg me not to hurt him. And I recognized him. He called me by name. I grew up with his family. Here he is strung out on drugs and he's doing things that he shouldn't have been doing. And all I could think of was, man, I want to hurt you so bad. And I, I did, I snatched the purse from him. And I remember bringing that purse back to that lady. And when I handed it to her, she couldn't stop crying. She was so thankful. And I thought, man, this feels so good. It feels so right. I said, I got to do this more. I said, there's, there's a reason why, why this is happening. I didn't know Jesus. I didn't know God at the time, but I knew something was telling me that's the direction you need to go in that feeling you have it right now. There's more where that came from. Wow,

Omar: 25:33

man, that's like a defining moment. Who would have known that one, one moment in the situation would have, you know, speaking of Jesus. What was your faith background? Like, as far as your family growing up, how did faith look in your family? My parents

Luis: 25:46

were Catholics. And I always sarcastically say Catholics go to, you know, you know, somebody is a Catholic when they go to church three times, uh, Christmas, Easter. And when somebody dies that you liked, and if you didn't like you went twice, but that's the typical Catholic there. I realized today that it's

Omar: 26:07

Ash Wednesday.

Luis: 26:09

That

Omar: 26:09

was mine too. That was my big one. I had to go get the ashes, man. Yeah. Go ahead.

Luis: 26:14

Yeah. If you think about it, most Catholics, you know, they, they believe in God and they believe in Jesus, but they don't have a relationship. And that's the thing that was missing in my life. I didn't know. I knew of Jesus. I didn't know Jesus. And I always felt there was something missing in my life. And, uh, so, you know, you go to church because somebody else wants you to, not because it was from your heart and, and that didn't feel right. It didn't feel right. So I kind of distanced myself from the, the biblical side of the house. My parents, you know, were pretty much the same. They're always working. Um, mom was working. Dad was working when dad wasn't working outside the house. He was working on something inside the house. That man was always busy. I always saw him doing stuff. So they didn't have a whole lot of time for Jesus, not in our house. So every now and then they would tell us a story, something biblical, but it was, they were very few and far apart. Somebody had to die before the story came up. You know, it had to be some critical incident in the house before we got a biblical story, something of God or of Jesus, or even the Holy spirit. Yeah.

Omar: 27:36

Yeah.

Luis: 27:37

So that was the only time we ever, we ever heard stories like that.

Omar: 27:40

Okay. Yeah. So, so that was your, you know, like growing up as far as faith goes now, now back to that moment. Okay. You said you restored the purse and you, something happened in the inside where I got to do this. So take us back, man. You, you go to the academy. You know, obviously you, you pass, right? Like, so how did it feel? Like once you became a police officer, like where, where, where, where did they send you? Like, as far as, uh,

Luis: 28:03

the first, uh, um, assignment was my training assignment, which was in the 14th district, which, uh, shakes, they call it the Shakespeare district.

Omar: 28:13

Well, where was that by where? Like, uh,

Luis: 28:15

it's, uh, California and just, just South of Fullerton there.

Omar: 28:19

Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Luis: 28:20

So. There's a new building there now. Uh, there used to be an older one that was same neighborhood, but they always called it the street. There was Shakespeare. That's why the district was called the Shakespeare district. Uh, but that's the 14th district. I did my, my training there. And that was interesting. That was very interesting. Uh, I knew a lot of cops. Uh, that had grown up with me and a bunch of them were in that, in that neighborhood. And everybody kept saying, Hey, Hey, Louie, you know, who's, who's going to be your field training officer, you know, FTO, who's your FTO, who's your FTO. And I finally, when they, they gave me his name, cause they wouldn't give it to you until you got ready to go there. And then finally I get it and everybody's, Oh no, not him. And I thought, Oh, you gotta be kidding me. Did, did I get somebody who's really bad? As a rookie cop, a trainee, your biggest fear is getting connected with somebody who's corrupt, dirty. Uh, doing wrong things out there, uh, because that, that could end a rookie's career instantly. There's no, there's no mercy there. Crooked cop, he could get suspended, but he'll come back.

Omar: 29:35

But he's already like established, right? He already got his years under the belt

Luis: 29:38

the union will protect them. You have no protection until you, you're out of your training, your probationary period. Yeah. Yeah. So anything goes wrong, it's your fault and you're out of there. And there's, again, there's no mercy. So when they, they tell me about this, this officer and like, Oh no, that's bad news, he's this and he's that. And they started saying a lot of things about him. I was in fear. I was like, you gotta be kidding me all these years. I've been waiting to get this job and, and now they're going to hook me up with someone who's going to get me fired. How

Omar: 30:11

old are you at this point when you're in the academy?

Luis: 30:13

Uh, 30,

Omar: 30:16

32. Okay. Got it. About 32.

Luis: 30:18

I have a little common sense at that day, but, uh, you know, the first thing this, this instructor tells me, he asked me, do you speak Spanish? And I said, yes. And I'm thinking, you know what? I'm excited. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm finally going to be riding around in a blue white. And he says, the reason I asked you if you speak Spanish, because I'm going to tell you right now, don't speak Spanish while you're with me. And one of the things they told me about him is that he's a racist. And all I could think of was, Oh no, he didn't. You gotta be kidding me. He's going to pull the race card right from the get go. He didn't give me five minutes. He said, and then he explained why he doesn't want me speaking Spanish. He said, I don't speak Spanish and I don't want you to get into a conversation that's heated and heated. Put you in danger and I'm not aware of it and it made all kinds of sense and I was like, okay I need to back off.

Omar: 31:26

Yeah,

Luis: 31:27

I went in there like ready to fight and the first thing he said to me really cooled My jets is like hey, maybe this guy is is alright. Maybe he is trying to protect me It made all kinds of sense when he said yeah So I finished my, my 10 weeks of training with him. And then they, they sent me to the 15th district, which is used to be on Chicago Avenue and Laurel. Um, everybody knows it as, uh, uh, Chicago Avenue and central. And that was the Austin District.

Omar: 31:59

So for those that are not familiar with that area, can you explain? You know, there's a lot of people that listen, not from Chicago, but Austin.

Luis: 32:06

The Austin District, it was predominantly a black community. It was 12 blocks from Division on the north side to Roosevelt on the south side. And it went from Austin, which is the divider of Chicago and Oak Park to Cicero on the East side of the district. It's a perfect square, 12 by 12. And, um, one of the biggest districts for drugs, gangs, killings, homicides back then. And as small as it was, it held its own for numbers. Most police officers go to a district and it might take them a year before they do it. All the different kinds of report in that district. You did pretty much every report there is to do within the first 30 days.

Omar: 32:57

Well, there, you mean that every type of crime,

Luis: 33:00

every type of crime, it happened there. If it was a murder, there were murders on a regular basis. There bank robbery, all the time, drugs, all the time, guns, all the time. Shootings all the time. The dispatcher got to be pretty funny and pretty, you know, they, they got to be really close to us. The dispatcher, I remember her sometimes saying, Hey, get your crayon out. Cause I got four or five of them for you. Write them all down. That's how fast the jobs were coming. So we did a lot of learning and really fast there. This

Omar: 33:39

is in the nineties, man. Chicago was like, I mean, Chicago was always crazy, but I mean, in the nineties, I remember being really, really bad. I know, like in a lot of, a lot of areas, a lot

Luis: 33:49

of areas were really bad. Yeah. And there were a lot worse than people realize because politics will cover up a lot of the crime that goes on because more crime means that somebody is not doing their job. And the last thing you want is the politicians to have all the constituents knocking on their door going, Hey, why is this happening? Why aren't you doing anything about it? And you want to hear that. So what do they do? They try to cover it up.

Omar: 34:20

So not, not, not maybe expose what's really going on or, you know, Not even highlighted, I guess, like in the news, maybe just.

Luis: 34:27

Yeah. There's a lot of stuff that you'll never hear on the news. Right. Right. That goes out every day. And that's my first exposure to it.

Omar: 34:35

Gotcha.

Luis: 34:36

And I have to learn how to deal with it. And there's no one out there teaching it. There's nobody out there telling you, Hey, this is how you deal with

Omar: 34:42

this. No, no, no, no deal with it. Like in what sense? Like, what are you referring to? Like, uh,

Luis: 34:47

when you see a dead body, when you see somebody mangled up, it doesn't, I don't care what you think the police officer, you know, they could be sitting there laughing. You could see a police officer, you know, having lunch or whatever. That's how they deal. That's how they cope. That's a coping mechanism because they're, they don't want to acknowledge what they're looking at. So they're, they're basically shielding their hearts from the reality of what's really there. So, again, nobody teaches this stuff. So, I'm seeing dead bodies, I'm seeing people stabbed, I'm seeing people shot, I'm seeing all this stuff that, and it, it started to affect me. And one of the biggest stigmas, police officers for, since the beginning that I can remember, there's always this stigma that all police officers go to the bar and hang out and drink and get drunk. And that used to be a reality. And the bosses expected you to join them at the end of your shift to go drinking. And if you didn't go with them, you were pretty much an outcast.

Omar: 35:54

Now going back to your circle before, huh? Kind of. Back to the circle. I

Luis: 35:58

found myself getting pulled right back in. And when you first start off, you kind of think, well, I got this. You know, I don't have to get drunk. I'm not going to have a, how many times have you said, I'm just going to go have a couple of drinks. Yeah. Yeah. And then four o'clock in the morning, you're still drinking. And if you think that that doesn't impact your family, your wife or the husband and you know, your family that's waiting for you at home, wondering if you're out there dead as a police officer, because that's the biggest fear that they have that something happened to you.

Omar: 36:32

You know, let me ask you this. I know at this point you're like 32, you know, years old, 33. Or are you married kids at this point? Or how does your life look for you personally?

Luis: 36:41

Married. Okay. Three daughters at that time. Oh

Omar: 36:43

man. I wouldn't, wouldn't, uh, what age did you get married? Um,

Luis: 36:52

around approximately. I got together with my wife, uh, the year before I went into the academy.

Omar: 36:56

Oh no. Okay. Okay. Got it. Okay. So

Luis: 36:58

one year before I joined the police

Omar: 37:00

department. All right. And three

Luis: 37:02

daughters,

Omar: 37:02

huh? Three daughters. Man. Okay. So. Okay. You're, you're, you're serving police officer, drinking, coming, you know, you say four in the morning and what, what, what are the effects? How does that start to affect the wife and kids or the family? Well, the personality

Luis: 37:15

starts to change at home, you know, what, Hey, you know, what are you doing out there? And then you start questioning and then here you are a police officer and you got your wife questioning you. It's like, well, I'm the man of the house and now all of a sudden egos start to come into place. And if you don't have that under control, it's going to destroy your house. If you don't realize that your wife is not asking you questions because she wants to control you. She's asking you questions because she loves you. And she's worried about you. She doesn't know. She didn't know that, you know, if you, you survived the shift last night and, but we don't think that way. The first thing we, you know, pride gets in the way. And we were like, why are you asking me all these questions? I'm a grown man, you know, and, and attitudes like that come in and police officers have the highest divorce rate. Yeah. And they also have the highest suicide rate. A lot of people aren't aware that why anybody would want to be a police officer just beyond me, if it's not in your heart, you know, because genuinely you want to do it. There's so many other jobs that pay a lot more and there's so much more gratitude in the job. There's no gratitude in being a police officer,

Omar: 38:30

especially nowadays, the way they're, they're viewed. And, uh, you know, but, okay. So you're there, obviously, you know, it starts affecting you. Yeah. Um, how does it, how does, um, your life look, uh, serving and does anything happen where maybe it gets like too bad in a certain sense, where you're drinking too much or like, how does, I guess, how does it look as you go along?

Luis: 38:54

One of the things that we do notice, and I think every officer notices it, is when they go from serving the community. To almost serving themself. There's, there's, um, it's kind of like a crossing a threshold and you realize that, you know, somehow another, you kind of got off track, you went in for the right reasons, you went in, you're doing the right thing. And somehow another, you're, you're being shifted or pulled to a direction that you're not really comfortable with anymore. Um, and a lot of that has to do with the leadership. You know, when you got bosses and, and one of the thresholds was when they allow me to wear my jeans and gym shoes and civilian clothes. To come to work. And I thought, man, this is Starsky and Hutch, man. You know, and

Omar: 39:49

this is not like a detective. This is just, no, no,

Luis: 39:52

no. This Europe blue and white. You're you're, you're a police officer. They call them tactical teams.

Omar: 39:57

Yeah.

Luis: 39:58

And they have gang teams also within the district and they're both, they're both officers. They don't have, it's not a promotion. But it's a different duty responsibility. And I was able to work on one of those teams for a very short time. They put me on a team and I, all I wanted to do was learn. I didn't know really how to do all this police work, but I'm learning. I'm learning. And I'm, I'm very excited. Eager and I'm, and I just want, they used to call me, Hey Varela, you want to come in? The next shift is here. Bring the car in. And I was like, wait, one more, one more, one more. I wanted, I had to do another stop. I was so excited about being a police officer. And I was so, I guess you would call fragile. And these bosses have the authority and power to mold you at that time. You're so, so vulnerable and it's important that a good police officer get a hold, you know, they have to take, they have to be very cognizant about who they make field training officers. They can't just give that position to anyone because they're molding the future police department.

Omar: 41:16

So

Luis: 41:17

if you put garbage in, you're going to get garbage out. You know, that's just a fact of life. And I was excited to be the police. I didn't want to go home. I just, I just wanted to do more. I just wanted to rescue somebody else. And I, this was just a major adrenaline every day. And that's addictive to adrenaline and cause you to do things that you don't necessarily, when you put on the uniform, there's, there's a certain risk that comes with it, but a lot of the risk that's taken is not necessary. And it could mean the difference between you going home or being carried out of there at the end of the shift. So, and no one's teaching that no one's teaching you have to control that adrenaline. You have to control the direction that you go in. You know, there's people who come out and they talk about it on the surface. But what is it doing with your heart? Nobody's nobody's looking at people's hearts.

Omar: 42:14

No

Luis: 42:14

one's testing your heart and see where your heart truly is. So, and it's important. It's important that we understand that these guys, they're human. They're just like you and me, like everybody else. They just want to do the right thing. Somebody's got to teach him what right is because that's the right. You know, I heard somebody say, you know what they had, they had a choice to make between right and wrong. That's easy. But what happens when you have to make a choice between wrong and wrong? That's where the problem comes in. And it's there all the time where a police officer has to make a choice between one wrong and another wrong. There's no right there, but he's got to make a decision. Yeah. That's a problem.

Omar: 43:00

Yeah. That's deep. Now I know, um, earlier we were talking about like some, some, you started taking some classes in a certain sense, because I know you mentioned the heart right now. Uh, how did you end up, uh, guess reflecting on the heart? Uh, well, when did that happen in, in your life where you started thinking about that, like things like that, you know,

Luis: 43:19

I think when I went back into the military, I went into the reserve when I joined the army in 97, I joined the army as a drill instructor, but on the reserve side of the house. So I could keep both jobs. One of the things, one of the amazing things, the Army puts you through all kinds of schools. If you want to go to school, you can go to school every month. You finish one school, sign up for another school. And I did. Excuse me, I try to make it a point to go to at least one school every year and all of this leadership school. So it's good stuff. It's good stuff. Things that, you know, back then I thought, Hey, you know what, this will help get me promoted. It was intentional. But today I said, all of this stuff that I learned, there's a bigger reason for it.

Omar: 44:08

So, so, so how many years of schooling did you do like in a military

Luis: 44:12

military? I have hundreds of credit hours, college credit hundreds before I retired. I know they pulled up a sheet and they were like counting all the hours. That's a lot hours, but it, for me, that's easier way to go to school because when I go to the school. With the military, I leave my home, I leave my finances. I leave the bills. I leave the children. I leave everything behind. And I focus on school a hundred percent. If I had to go to school today, I go to school for a few hours and then I come home and I have to do all the stuff at home and then go back to school. And I don't do so good. So the military was the perfect platform for me to continue my education,

Omar: 45:01

be disciplined, and you got the time. Just say, this is all you got to focus on. And that's it.

Luis: 45:06

Oh, if you did a class in the military, 15 hours was nothing to do in one day for a particular course.

Omar: 45:14

Gotcha. Okay. So, so you're learning all this, getting all these certificates. I know you mentioned the heart. Um, what, what, what happens that transitions you maybe on the path of seeking God or start, you know, like dealing with the heart issues, maybe mind issues or whatever it is you were going through.

Luis: 45:31

I love to. Afghanistan.

Omar: 45:34

Okay. Like what, what, what year was this

Luis: 45:36

that? 20, 20, 11 and 20, 12. So during that time I left to Afghanistan and before I left to Afghanistan, I left my wife and my youngest daughter left for college. And when she left, I decided I don't want to do this. I don't want to be a husband anymore. I don't want to be a father anymore. I don't want to do this anymore. I would just. Fed up and just tired of everything. I just felt like there's something else in life and this is not it. So I left my wife and I went out and I found someone else and, uh, I betrayed the people who love me the most, but I was searching for something that I. Didn't know where to find it. And I thought, well, you know, if I go find a younger woman that, that, that would, that would make me feel like a man that make me feel complete. And, uh, because of that woman, it made me open up my eyes and realize that, that, that was very short lived. That feeling of satisfaction was very short lived. So I left, uh, Afghanistan when I got there, I realized this is a, I made a big mistake when I left my wife, but I made a bigger mistake when I came to Afghanistan.

Omar: 46:56

Whoa.

Luis: 46:58

Here I am in a country and I realized I started to realize that the problem was not me leaving Chicago The problem was me and no matter where I went there I was and there was the problem So wherever I went I took the problem with me And I started to realize that so when I came back from Afghanistan, I came back really broken and I didn't feel I had, um, I didn't have anything to live for.

Omar: 47:29

How much time did you spend out there in Afghanistan? A year. Okay.

Luis: 47:32

I spent a year in Afghanistan. So when I came home, I remember a good friend of mine, Rosa Sena. We grew up together. We were in grammar school together, high school and everything stupid that I did. Rosa was there with me.

Omar: 47:45

Gotcha.

Luis: 47:46

That was one of those kind of buddies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, uh, Rosa had let me know while I was in Afghanistan, she almost died twice that year that I was gone. They had to rush her to the hospital for emergency surgery and, and had she not gone to the hospital at the time she did, she would have died. There's no doubt about it. Well, after that, she gave her life to Christ. So when I came home, she's like, Hey, Louie, you got it. You got to come to church. And I'm like, man, every Sunday, Hey, Louie, you got to come to church. Like, I'm not going to church. I'm not doing this Jesus thing. Right, right. And one day she threatened me.

Omar: 48:26

That's the best way to get somebody to church. That's

Luis: 48:28

it, man. And she convicted me. Rosa's a big girl. Okay. And Rosa said, I know where you live and you know, your mama's going to let me in the house and I'm going to drag your butt out by your ears. And she might've used a few other words, but she got the point across. And, uh, as she tells me, I'm going to pull you out by your ears, but you're coming to church this Sunday. And I said, all right, listen, don't come to the house. I will meet you at the church. And at the time it was a new life covenant. Uh, they were having their services out of Clemente high school. So I meet her at the church and, uh, the stage, when you go into the Clemente auditorium, you walk in off the street and the stage is down.

Omar: 49:08

Yeah.

Luis: 49:10

So we were there maybe 15 minutes early and I remember just sitting there and just having a conversation with Rosa and down there and there's a man all the way like maybe in the front seat and he's playing with a baby and he's lifting the baby up and and he's bringing the baby down and I didn't think anything of it I was just kind of staring in that direction and after a little while I come to realize that that man and that baby The baby's my granddaughter. The man is my son in law. And to his left is my second daughter, his wife. And I look to her left, and there's my wife sitting there in church.

Omar: 49:54

Now, let me ask you this, before you left them, was your family in church?

Luis: 49:59

No.

Omar: 49:59

Okay, okay.

Luis: 50:00

None of us. Yeah. My, my kids did not grow up in a, in a Christian house. Yeah, yeah, okay. If we said Jesus, it was usually in vain. Yeah,

Omar: 50:09

yeah, I got it. Okay, so you're there. So we're there. And you see them.

Luis: 50:12

I see them, and I'm like, I had no idea. And I guess my daughter sees me and she goes, Mom, is that dad up there? And all of them turned around and looked and they see me sitting there. Well, at the end of service, they were having an altar call and they said, Hey, if you're feeling broken, if you're what the pastor said was exactly what I was feeling. He was, it almost felt like he was speaking about me. And I figured I have nothing to lose. I have absolutely nothing to lose right at this moment. I could care less if I live or die. I decided to take a chance and I walked down to the altar and some man, an older man put his hands on me and he started to pray over me. And when I heard this man speak, I heard words that sounded so similar to my dad's words that I just started to cry. He just, it grabbed me like I've, I don't, I don't think I've ever been touched like that before. I couldn't stop crying. I'm all I'm thinking is that, man, I'm a police officer. I'm a retired Marine. I'm a drill sergeant here. I am like a punk crying in front of all these strangers, but I didn't care. I didn't care what that man spoke. He spoke such words. And I said, I heard my dad talking. My dad had passed away in 2001. And here we are, you know, 10 years later and we're better and I'm listening to this man talking and all I could hear was my dad talking to me and I left there and the parking lot for, um, the church at that time was across the street. So I walked across the street, sat in my car. I must've cried for another hour. My car, something was going on. I, I couldn't put my finger. I didn't know what was going on. Something was going on. What, what man, that that's deep,

Omar: 52:11

uh, man, man, when you're saying that, man, as like, I could. Almost like, like I'm there in the moment, man, for real. Like, I, I, I, I know what that feels like when, when God meets you, when you know it's him. When he begins to do something. What, okay, so you're in the car, you're crying. How, what do you feel begins to change? What, what, what, what happens like the next day? The following. How I

Luis: 52:35

have a desire to come back to the church. It's no longer threat. You don't have to threaten me. Now. It is me. I want some more of that. I wanna, I wanna know what, what's going on. Yeah. I'm curious, you know. I want to be in church now. So I started coming to church every Sunday and then I start serving the church and they find out I'm a police officer. So now I started doing security for them. I started, you know, volunteer for, you know, just, I just want to provide more service. I want to be of service to the church. Use me in any way you can.

Omar: 53:12

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How does, uh, okay. Uh, do you get like, um, like getting into the word, like studying Bible studies, things like that. Okay.

Luis: 53:21

I got invited to a retreat. I did a retreat with New Life Covenant. And it was an amazing retreat. Uh, and the enemy is such a liar. And I gotta, I gotta share this testimony. Because my first retreat ever, I didn't even know how to spell retreat at this point. You know, and somebody said, Hey, you need to come. And I said, alright, you know, I'll go. I volunteered to go with a couple other guys. The day comes and the other guys aren't going, so now I'm, I'm on my own. I said, well, I've never done one of these before. So I'm, I'm scared. I can, I can say that now I was scared and. Things just didn't line up for me what I wanted to go to the bank and get some money up And I I didn't know what to pack because I didn't I've never been to one of these is a casual Do I do I dress up or no information? And then I get to the church There's a bus there and there's a woman who's gonna be the bus driver and I tell her says listen I'm driving my car. You're the bus driver I don't, I've never been to this place. I don't know where we're going. So I'm going to follow you. So please take it easy. This woman gets on the highway and it was like Indy 500. I'm like, you gotta be kidding me. She hits a toll booth and just, she's gone. And I'm thinking to myself, man, I'm just going home. I was so, my heart was just not, it was just, I wanted, I was defeated at that point. I remember finding this place. And there was no parking and there's all these signs, no parking on the grass. You know where I parked my car? I parked it on the grass.

Omar: 55:17

I'm

Luis: 55:18

like, man, there's no parking. I'm gonna park. And I get in there and somebody must've seen it in my face. And they say, Hey Louie, it's okay. We haven't started doing anything yet. We're going to be starting in about 20 minutes. So just go ahead and grab yourself a meal, get something to eat and just, take it easy. And it kind of just helped calm me down. And there was a young man there and the young man the next morning, you know, they gave, they They did a service that night, the next morning they give you instructions. Okay, first thing we're going to do, everybody get dressed, come get some breakfast. And I remember we're waiting outside the breakfast building and there was a young man and he looked at me and he looked, you know, kind of fancy dresser. He looked like a punk from Humboldt Park. And uh, I looked at him and my mood was horrible, horrible. Just the Antichrist himself standing there. I remember this guy, he said something I said, and, and I thought to myself, what is this guy telling me? And I was like, what? And he says, he said something like, is this your first time here? And I was like, whoa. I'm, I'm like, I'm 10 and this guy's just trying to be nice to me. I hung out with that guy the whole weekend, man. What? What an amazing guy. He, I think he's a pastor now.

Omar: 56:42

No.

Luis: 56:44

But this is the mindset, how, how easily we can be distracted and swayed away from, you know, what God wants us to do from the blessings, man. A lot of times

Omar: 56:56

I feel like the enemy hits us the hardest, right. When we're going to get to like a breakthrough, right, right. When we're getting somewhere where we know we need to be and he'll, he'll prevent you because I know those retreats are like very powerful, man. They've been, I know in my life, they've been like life changing, man. Some of those, the, the messages or you mentioned just. The fellowship, man, just connecting with somebody that, that you, you know, you needed to be around. Maybe they prayed for you, they encourage you, or they're going through something that you're going through, or it's just, there've been definitely blessings, man. So I know the enemy will try to prevent us from man, from getting those breakthroughs, man, those blessings. Amen.

Luis: 57:33

And me being a young Christian at that time. I didn't know that that was an attack from the enemy. And I, I'm just, I was just frustrated. I didn't get to go to the bank where I wanted. I didn't, I didn't pack the clothes that I wanted. I didn't get my parking space there. And I was scared because I have a hard time seeing at night driving at night. And here's this crazy bus driver driving, like, you know, Al Unser, you know, I was so frustrated by the time I got there that. I felt defeated. I wanted to give up. I thought to myself, it'd be so much easier to just quit right now and just go home, go home and chill.

Omar: 58:10

Well, can you share what, okay. You made it through, obviously through the retreat. Um, like I guess once you leave, like, well, what did you, what did you receive? Or like, what were some of the blessings from, from going to a retreat?

Luis: 58:23

That retreat there, now, if I remember right, was, I'm all in. And one of the things that, um, that they brought out was God doesn't like wishy washy. You're either on his side or you're not. You can't have one foot on one side and one on the other side. That doesn't work. They definitely brought that out. Um, and I start realizing that that's how I was living my life. My wife is on one side, and I have all this other junk on the other side. And, and I was living my life with one foot on one side. And how do I dare come to God? How do I pray to God? How do I ask God for anything when I can't even make up my mind if I want God or I want the things of the world? And it really, really, you know, just captured my heart. I realized I have to make the first decision. God's there, now it's up to me. What am I going to do with this? And they said, are you going to leave here and go back to your ways? Or are you going to leave here a changed man? I had to make some changes in my life. And I did. Because after that retreat, I realized what I was doing to my wife was wrong. What I was doing to my children was wrong. What I was doing to my family and all those who loved me was wrong. I had to make it right.

Omar: 59:53

What, what, what did that conviction lead you to do? But what were some of those steps that you took, I guess, afterwards? Like, well,

Luis: 1:00:00

I remember my wife was out of town that week, that weekend. And I came home. I, I was living at my mom's house at the time, so I, I pulled up in front of my wife's house, my old house, and I parked there and I just pondered and I let the Holy Spirit, I didn't know it then, but I was like, what am I supposed to do now? And what I did was I broke ties with all these other women that I was having relationships with. I said, I, it's over, it's done, never to be returned again. And I started changing the things in my life that were not godly. Strictly of the world. And we got rid of our old house. My wife and I moved back in together. We got this beautiful apartment. We renewed our wedding vows. We promised each other that we're going to take care of each other. She didn't know God. She didn't know Jesus at the time that we were, when we were together and I didn't know Jesus before, right before. And what was interesting is we had to be apart from each other, find Christ. And through Christ, Christ brought us back together again. Beautiful. Amazing, you know, just how God works. Do I struggle? I struggle. Do I get angry? I get angry all the time. I pray to God, you know, help me, help me. I know I have a helper and that's Christ Jesus. I realized that today. And it's been getting stronger and stronger. My wife was my, my, my Christian advisor. So she got into the ministry about a year before I did. I didn't know about it. Uh, so she started just learning and all this stuff. So when I was, when I had all these questions, she was like, Oh no, no, no. This is over here. Look, look in this verse and look here. She was my spiritual advisor.

Omar: 1:02:06

They call it the second Holy spirit, the second Holy spirit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Luis: 1:02:10

Sometimes she thinks she's number one, but it's all right. I love her

Omar: 1:02:14

anyway. No, they're blessing, man. I could, I could attest to that. A lot of the blessings that I have in my life, man. Come, come through my wife, man. Like definitely I'll go to her that if it comes to, to a big choice, I gotta make. I definitely want her input. Cause I know, man, they, they just, I don't know, they have discernment, man. Like God speaks to them through them and man, they're there for, to be a blessing to us. You know,

Luis: 1:02:36

a lot of times I'm stubborn and I don't want to hear it from her. I want to, well, why don't you tell me

Omar: 1:02:41

Lord?

Luis: 1:02:42

One of those, I

Omar: 1:02:43

will receive it better if it came through somebody else. Somebody a little bit higher up,

Luis: 1:02:47

you know, struggle. I do realize that my wife is, is not, not, not only my best friend, She's also my spiritual advisor and sometimes, you know, I just want to bless others and I want to do things and she'll be the one to say, Hey, don't do it like that because it's going to have a bad outcome. And she's right. You know, she'll see things that I can't see because I'm too engulfed in certain things.

Omar: 1:03:16

Yeah, no, I definitely got a, got a, you know, listen, man. Hey, you know what, man, I just want to, And those are some bold steps that now, now it makes even more sense why you were attacked so much, you know, like from going to that retreat, you know, to be prevented. Cause man, those are some huge steps that you took afterwards, man, like to cut off the ties, you know, with the past, like the, you know, relationships and, and forgot to change your heart towards your wife to want to restore that marriage, man. That that's huge, man. How does that look like going forward? Like, I guess from that day, maybe till now, like how many years has this been? Yeah. Since that day, like, or moment till now, it's

Luis: 1:03:52

been about nine years. It's been about nine years. How have

Omar: 1:03:56

those nine years been like,

Luis: 1:03:58

Oh, I'd be a pastor. Choco used to say, shame the devil and tell the truth.

Omar: 1:04:03

Okay. But

Luis: 1:04:05

there's always ups and there's always going to be a down. And my, my perspective today is when I'm up, it's great. It feels good. You know, God is providing. But he's also providing on those downs because when we're down, I look at it today, like that is a learning point for me. I struggle because I'm supposed to learn something here. And my wife always says, Well, if you're repeating this, it's because you didn't learn it the last time. So I'm trying to learn it the first time. So I'm, uh, those struggles are for a reason. Every, every struggle, every, even death, you know, people say, well, you know, if there's really a God and, and this one, I'm almost starting to understand this concept. People say, well, if there really is a God, then why would, why would he allow these children to die? Because I believe in my heart. The only reason he allows them to die is so that you can learn to love, so that others can stand up for those who can't stand up. If those things don't exist, then we would cease to exist. We would cease to stand up. We would cease to stop doing for ourselves and for others. We would stop blessing others because God's already blessed them. When we see someone else struggling, we have the choice. We can either go help them or we can just walk past them.

Omar: 1:05:34

Right. No, that, that, that's deep. No, that, that's very true. You know what, let me ask you this. Like I said, we, when we first started, I said that, uh, that I met you at RTO radical timeout, which is basically a prison ministry. So how does a career police officer, military man, how do you get drawn into prison ministry?

Luis: 1:05:52

I'm going to blame New Life Covenant Church. No, I had heard that they were doing prison ministry, but I don't know what about it. Um, there was a couple of guys that were working that, some of my brothers over there, and they were like, man, we're doing this, and they were like really excited about doing this. And they're like, man, would you ever be interested in doing a prison ministry? And I thought about it, and I was like, you know, that would be so different for me. And it felt almost like natural, I didn't really think about it a whole lot. I was like, yeah, yeah, I think I could do that. And I remember the first time going in, no gun. No star, no weapons going

Omar: 1:06:39

in. Where was this? To

Luis: 1:06:40

the prison at Cook County, Cook County jail. Okay. Gotcha. All right. I'm going there, you know, as a police officer, you know, everywhere you go, most police officers carry the gun out. They sleep with the guns.

Omar: 1:06:48

Yeah.

Luis: 1:06:49

Uh, and now you're going to go in somewhere where you can't have a gun. You can't have a weapon. You can't have anything. I said, man, now you talk about being vulnerable, learning to be vulnerable. Yeah. In the flesh this was it I said, you know, this is true faith I'm gonna put my faith in God that he'll cover me when I go in there that he'll protect me that I don't need a Gun that I don't need any of these weapons. God will cover me when I step beyond these walls And he has and he also put a a zeal in me that I can't wait till next week to go I started going with them. It used to be, I think, on Thursdays

Omar: 1:07:35

and

Luis: 1:07:35

I couldn't wait till Thursday. They would pick names because there's enough of us where they would pick two names every week and go, okay, Louis and somebody else. I would go every week, whether it was my turn or not. And I asked the other guys, whether

Omar: 1:07:48

they called you or not,

Luis: 1:07:49

I'm going anyway. You know, I said, I want to learn. I was so excited about going there and learning and, and, and being able to, to minister to these men. So I would go every, every week, whether it was my turn or not, there was weeks I would just go and I would just sit there and listen to everybody else. But that's how I learned.

Omar: 1:08:06

Well, what, what, what was it about? These encounters or these meetings, you know, with, with these guys that are locked up, what, what, what happened inside you that made you want to go every week? Like, well, what was your mindset, your heart, I guess? There was a transition

Luis: 1:08:23

from police where they're the bad guys to that's somebody's son, that's somebody's child. And I, my heart went from being hardened to being softened and realize that I never asked these guys, what did you do? That's one question I never asked. And I've been doing it for quite a few years now. I never asked, what have you done? If you want to share it with me, that's fine. I'll, I'll listen, but I don't ask anyone, what did you do? Because I don't want to find myself judging them why they did it. You know, what was, I'm not there to judge them. And with new life, I would, they would allow me to bring in the, like the opening word and then the pastor would, the, uh, the, the sermon. And. I found myself digging every week, what can I tell these guys that, that could inspire them, could open their eyes, can, can motivate them, can give them hope. And I, I, I had such a desire to, to, to give them something. I wanted to provide something for these guys that I didn't even know. One week we had like maybe five to 10 guys and. Then the next week, maybe 10 to 15. And before 2020, we got those numbers almost to a hundred. No way in

Omar: 1:09:52

one meeting and

Luis: 1:09:52

one, that's a lot. That's a lot. And one of the, uh, the big sheriffs came in and saw, he's like, Oh no, we're going to cut this and have this anywhere because this is unsafe.

Omar: 1:10:02

Yeah. Cause you got guys from, uh, we, we got to share this from different gangs, different tiers that that's a, that's a large group.

Luis: 1:10:10

It's an, uh, a potential for something to go side. And I, and we, and we respect the officers there. Their job is tough enough without us coming in and adding to problems. But I was excited to see. Our numbers growing and every now and you know, you would have guys in there They would just sit in the back and just kind of chit chat They would take the opportunity and I was the pastor over there would always say hey, this is the marine If you want to challenge him on push ups, go ahead take him off to the side And he would always, you know, say this, I'm thinking, I haven't done pushups in years. What are you talking about?

Omar: 1:10:49

He would

Luis: 1:10:50

always have me like as the disciplinarian and I would always tell the guys, I'm going to respect all of

Omar: 1:10:56

you,

Luis: 1:10:57

but here's the deal. You know what? Don't disrespect us. If you came here just to chit chat, go somewhere else. And we won't be offended if you got up and left right now, but if you came to hear the word, respect my pastors and allow them to, to share the word with you, allow them to, to, you know, to share their love with you. And I wouldn't be bold or disrespectful to them, but I always put that out and say, Hey guys, you know, if, if I have to ask you again, I'm going to ask you to leave.

Omar: 1:11:26

Yeah. Yeah.

Luis: 1:11:27

And, uh, and the guys were really respectful, you know, what, some of them will give you a funny look and that's all right. You know, I'm like, okay, I'm not looking at that guy. Cause I want to go over the choke room or something that, you know, my worldly mentality would come through, but

Omar: 1:11:40

you know what? That I had a brother on here, uh, that they, we interviewed on the podcast and he said that. He went to a Bible study just so he could get out of his cell. He's like, man, he's like, man, I don't want to hear what he wanted to talk about. He's like, he's like, I believe he said he even went one time, man, you guys got water, you guys got snacks, something, but he said he went there, the guy was preaching, he's like, eh, whatever, you know, in his head, but he said he went back to his cell and he was like, And a question, just a question that was implanted in his mind. That's why, man, I, I, even the ones that come with a, with the wrong, I guess, um,

Luis: 1:12:14

attitude or whatever, or

Omar: 1:12:15

for the wrong reason, sure. They're around the word, I mean, the word's going to do what the word's going to do, man. You know, even if they could That's a seed.

Luis: 1:12:23

Yeah. And if we can get past the thought that we have to make the change Nah. We don't make change. Yeah. It has nothing to do with us. Oh, we're called to plant the seed. Yeah. The change is between them and God. Yeah. And, and God knows when that time comes. It's got, sometimes we're fortunate to see it, but most times we're not, and that's okay. And we have to be okay with that. And that way we can make progress. So all you have to do is plant that seed and we'll pray. Keep that person in prayer.

Omar: 1:12:53

You know what? I've been, uh, joining a Koinonia House since, uh, I think September, we're going into the County. And I told my wife, like my, my, my, my desires is not even to see them. You know, you know how people made that altar call to raise their hand, man. I want to accept Jesus Christ. Yeah. Like, I don't need to see it. My desire is when the word is shared, you know, through everybody, all the volunteers that are there that are praying for them, ministering to them, that when they get to their cell, even if it's by themselves, getting on their knees and crying out to the Lord, like we, like I'm at the point where I don't got to see the fruit, you know, like you mentioned, I just want to go sow the seed. And man, God, you're going to do it in your timing or not. Cause I know when I, when I was behind bars, when people used to minister to me, And I was still like, kind of like you mentioned one foot in one foot out cause I was still living that life, you know, but man, those seeds, man, eventually they, they bore fruit, but, uh, man, that, that, that's awesome. So how long have you been doing a prison ministry now for,

Luis: 1:13:49

I came back to from Saudi Arabia, 2020. 22. So from two, three years with Koinonia House. Gotcha. And, uh, it's interesting'cause a, a police officer that I used to work with, um, Dave Herrera, got rest his soul. He's gone now. And, uh, when I got back he's like, Hey, you used to do prison ministry with, uh, with New Life, right? I said, yeah. He said, would you be interested in doing it again? And I, you know, I said, sure. He said, why he said, cause I know this crazy Cuban, you're going to love him. I, and I want to introduce you to him. And I said, all right, hook it up. You know, and I, he, he set it up and I, I showed up one, one day at the Kona Nia house and the rest is history.

Omar: 1:14:44

Who's the, who's this crazy Cuban you're talking about, man,

Luis: 1:14:47

Manny Mills, Manny Mills, the crazy Cuban, but you know, God bless his soul. Yeah. He is a powerful man of God. Another man who spent some time behind bars. Uh, he found themselves submitting to the ways of the world and because of his mother's continuous prayer and she never gave up hope for her son, Manny. That one day that he would turn all that around. And he did, he surrendered to the FBI who was looking for him. I don't know if he made the top 10 most wanted little, but, but he was wanted by the FBI and he surrendered to the FBI did some time and now he is a man of God going back into the prison to minister.

Omar: 1:15:30

Yes, sir. Yeah. I know we, we had him on the podcast, you know, got his story out there. Oh yeah. But pretty interesting story, man. Just is. It's a hard, uh, for the Lord and for the prisoners and their families, you know, that's another big thing is not just a prisoner is for the entire family. But, uh, one thing I wanted to ask you, uh, I know we talked before, like at RTO and I believe we were even talking, we went to Cook County. We, we served the officers and you were talking to him about, man, if you guys ever need to talk to somebody, you know, Hey, I'm here for you. Could, could you share that? Cause I know you have a heart for that too. You want to talk about that, that, that, that aspect or like, you know, sure.

Luis: 1:16:08

Well, one of the things that I trained in for over 10 years with the, uh, the military was suicide awareness and prevention. Uh, we were at a, um, a mission in Wisconsin, Fort McCoy, Wisconsin. About 5, 000 soldiers partake in an exercise. And usually the exercises go about 14 days. And about halfway through the exercise, they just kind of stopped the exercise. And I couldn't understand, why would they stop an exercise in the middle? I've never had this happen. Well, apparently one of the young soldiers had been left behind when they went out in the field and he hung himself

Omar: 1:16:48

in the field.

Luis: 1:16:49

No, no. He stayed behind. Oh, he stayed in the barracks.

Omar: 1:16:51

Yes.

Luis: 1:16:52

And he hung himself. And I was furious. I couldn't believe as a leader myself. How do you move from point A to point B accountability is one of the biggest things that we preach in the army. In any branch of military accountability, you don't move anywhere. If you go from point a to point B, if you had 10, when you started off, you better have 10, you know, when you get to the other end. Or you better go back and check where's your, your missing soldiers. You don't leave anybody behind. And here we are in a leadership school training and they leave somebody behind and he hangs himself. And somebody said, Hey, if you feel that adamant about it, why don't you do something? And I, I, I remember being so angry. I said, what can I do? And he said, why don't you go to the suicide prevention school? And I did. I went to the school and. I took such great pleasure in learning and, and I went all over the United States teaching suicide awareness and, uh, prevention to doctors, lawyers, to all different. People think that, you know, it's just a soldier or it's just a guy with a rifle in his hand, but we have all walks of life in the military. Every profession that you can think of is in the military and I would go out there and bring them to a higher level of understanding and education. So that was an honor. And. I came home and I, I share with anybody who knows me, if you ever have an issue where you think you're, you're having suicide ideology, call me, I don't care what time soldiers used to call me at three o'clock in the morning. Hey, my girlfriend broke up with me. All right, come on, cry on my shoulder. You know what? I don't care. It doesn't matter what time, but what does matter is human life matters. And when you think that number one, that you're alone. That's a myth. You're never alone. And that it's a secret. It's not a secret. Everybody knows, you know, so let's talk about it. The minute you start talking about it, it's no longer a secret. So that myth is dispelled. So sometimes just talking is all you need to get you past that, that, that, that point, that sticking point in your life,

Omar: 1:19:16

man. So that, that man is the one tragedies drove you to anger and then it drove you to, to action. What would you say to somebody that maybe has those ideas, you know, those thoughts, those feelings, like what, who could they could reach out to, is there maybe a number, website, or how does that look like? What would you tell somebody like?

Luis: 1:19:38

Number one, Number one, my name is Luis Varela, and I am the only Luis Varela at RTO, Radical Timeout. Uh, if you call Koinonia House, they have my name on file. We're not gonna give out my direct number for, you know, obviously security reasons. But if you go through Koinonia House, they will get a hold of me, and I will get a hold of you. If you say you need some help, don't worry about what time it is. You know what? It doesn't matter if you need help, reach out to me, let me give it a try. Give me a chance to help you. That's all I ask. Give me a chance to help you. I can't guarantee anything. I can't guarantee anything, but I can listen and I can give advice. And if you need someone to just hang out with for a little while, you know, I'm sure my wife will be okay with it. I'm retired today. So I don't have a nine to five.

Omar: 1:20:35

Yeah. Yeah. So you have more of availability. Yes,

Luis: 1:20:39

I am available. So if someone needs just to talk, then let's talk.

Omar: 1:20:43

Yeah.

Luis: 1:20:45

You know, suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

Omar: 1:20:51

That's deep. Yeah. You know what? Um, one thing I want to share, um, like if you reach out to, uh, like on social media, um, Facebook, you can send me a DM, uh, email wrong. The number two strong Chicago at gmail. com. Send the email, direct message, and I'll be able to, you know, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll send them like the message to you and, uh, but yeah, and, uh, prayer, if you guys need prayer, man, the one thing we're, we're, we're here to is, uh, man, help people draw closer to God. I mean, you, you heard my brother's story of where he was at in life and how man, God touched him, God spoke to him and, um, man, you said a temporary problem, man, don't, don't, don't take that as a solution. That's not a solution, man. There's There's hope for you and, uh, man, I just want to share that God, God loves you. God has a plan and a purpose for your life and, um, definitely reach out, you know, like, uh, like what you said, don't, don't keep it a secret because I think that's one thing that that's one of the tricks of the enemy. It is. He, he, he tries to make you feel like, man, you're the only one that's going through that. If you, if you share those feelings, people are going to think you're crazy, but not that you're

Luis: 1:21:58

weak. That's the biggest thing with men. For some reason, another week we equate, uh, Having a conversation with someone about our struggles, we equate that with weakness and that's a life in the pits of hell to be able to talk about it. Show us strength.

Omar: 1:22:16

Yeah, definitely. That's one thing I've noticed since, since I've been doing this. It's man, when, when men are vulnerable, I've had men call me, message me. I've been on phone calls for like over an hour and because somebody shared their story. Let's say a similar trauma, similar situation. It made another man open up about his childhood, his traumas, because he heard another man doing it. And I think that's, we, we, we need more of that. You know, I had a brother on here the other day. He said, uh, about week, he said, cause the Bible says, right. When, when I am weak, then I am strong, right? He is strong. Yeah. When he becomes our strength in our weakness, but if we don't, uh, If we got our pride or, you know, like we're puffed up.

Luis: 1:23:06

Yes, yes, yes. And where does pride come from? It's not of God. So you got to think the things that the enemy gives you, they come with a big price. If the enemy is giving you anything, he wants something in return. So pride is from the enemy. You know, you can walk with your chest puffy and, you know, your chin all up in the air and this, you know, you, you won't hear anything from anybody else, but you won't hear anything from God either, because that's a tactic that the enemy uses. If he can separate you from the love of God, God says you can't do that. But if you turn your ear away from God, then you're not hearing God, God speaking. You're just not hearing it. Well, you're listening to different kinds of music. That's like changing the station on the radio. God's telling you, I love you. And Satan says, change that. And now you're listening to something that has a real nice beat to it. And, you know, it's uplifting. It's all satanic. You got to remember who is the master of music in heaven, Satan. So what a better tool to use than the music. So what you allow in your ear, is it coming from God or is it coming from Satan? The master of music. It might sound good. It might want to, you know, do a little salsa dance or whatever, but if it's not of God, it's of the enemy.

Omar: 1:24:47

I'm thinking about something you said earlier, garbage in garbage out. We've got to be careful who, who, or what we listen to. Right. Yes. And definitely might got to be sensitive to, to the. To the voice of God, I guess, but, um, man, brother, anything that we didn't get a chance to talk about that's on your heart, maybe something God's been doing recently or something you wanted to share, you know, with the people that are listening.

Luis: 1:25:11

I also do a men's group the first Saturday of every month at, uh, real life church in West Chicago, nine o'clock in the morning. And every man is welcome. You can come with problems. You can come as someone who can help solve problems. You can come and just want to hang out. We have amazing group. Sometimes it's just one and I've had amazing conversations one on one. And then we've had a group, a couple of pastors come and, and that's beautiful too. There's no agenda. That's the thing. You know, if you come with a problem, I want, I'm putting my agenda on the side. I want to hear your problem. I want to see what can we do. And when I say we, I don't have the answer to everything. I have my own problems. Sometimes I go there looking for answers. So we need answers. All men show up, come on down, what we might take it right from the church to, to the restaurant down the street, or maybe this summer we'll take it in my backyard. I got a big back patio and I love making pancakes, all kinds of pancakes. I learned how to make some great pancakes while I was in Saudi Arabia. Oh yeah. So we can make it a, you know, a backyard breakfast.

Omar: 1:26:31

Gotcha.

Luis: 1:26:31

It doesn't matter the location, but what does matter is. If there's men that are out there hurting and you think that you're alone, you're not, you're not alone. Uh, and the, the problems that you're going through, it's not just you, we all struggle and you might have the answer that I need to help me get past some of the struggles that I have with my wife, with my family, my friends, just my personal self.

Omar: 1:26:56

But

Luis: 1:26:57

when we share that's, that's where our power comes in.

Omar: 1:27:01

Amen. Am I, you know what, uh, uh, speaking of like, um, like learning from other people or like you, man, somebody might come and help you with issue. I interviewed a guy last week, uh, 28 years old, been married for under a one year. And he started talking about marriage, man. He started, man, I started learning from him, you know what I'm saying? Like, man, we, we, we gotta always be humble, teachable. And man, God could speak to us through somebody older, younger, you know, I mean, just be, I think it goes back to not, not having that pride. Like, man, that's humility, man. Like, uh, let it go. There's

Luis: 1:27:39

so much to be gained when we let go of pride as men. We, one of the biggest things we struggle with is the pride. And if you ask someone, where do you get your pride from? Well, my dad, you said you, you, uh, you took in these characteristics because you love your dad and there's nothing wrong with loving your dad, but there's something wrong with his tactics and that's okay not to take those things. It doesn't mean you love him less. And that a lot of times we think that if, if I don't act the way my dad did, then I don't love him. No, that's if you recognize his flaws, you love him because his flaws were just that his. They don't have to be yours, but only the Holy Spirit can reveal that to you and realize, Hey, that, that's, that was your dad. That was, that, that was back then for that time. And maybe that worked for then, but it doesn't work now. And it's okay. We have power and authority given it to us. God said when he made man, he gave us dominion. We've surrendered so much of our dominion to this world. Because of the lies of the enemy it's time to get our dominion back. God gave us power and authority It's time to take it back and we do it by strengthening each other up.

Omar: 1:29:05

Amen We

Luis: 1:29:06

got to get up stand up and be the men that were called to be by God not by the world

Omar: 1:29:12

Amen, you know speaking of dominion a lot of men might think oh, yeah, you know dominion. That's that's awesome One way that we take dominions by serving,

Luis: 1:29:21

by

Omar: 1:29:22

serving, man, one thing Jesus did, took that apron, you know, wrapped it around them, began to wash feet as men to serve, man, it starts in the home serving our wives. You know, a lot of times, Oh, we think dominion. Oh, that sounds good. You know, I'm going to dominate. Nah, we lead by, by serving, man. That's absolutely.

Luis: 1:29:40

So you have to soften your heart. You can't make, first of all, it says take captive every thought. So The reason he tells you to take captive every thought because most people say, well, you know, I do things, you know, God knows my heart. Yeah. He knows your heart, but he also said that out of the heart comes all this evil and wickedness. Yeah. He knows your heart. That's why he said that it's written in the Bible that from the heart comes to wickedness. So don't follow your heart. That's what the world wants you to do. You got to follow what the Holy spirit, you have to be led. And that requires being teachable, that requires a surrender, surrender to the things of this world and accept the things of this world. The Holy Spirit first was God, and he sent his son and the son sent his spirit. And then the Bible says greater is he who lives within you than he that is in the world who lives within you. It's the Holy Spirit. Most of us, Hey, Holy Spirit, come. I need you. He's there already. Put them to work. How do

Omar: 1:30:59

we put them to work, brother? Well,

Luis: 1:31:03

my prayer, prayer, surrendering, having faith. Things that you can't see, have faith in it. That's the hardest thing to do. You know what? For a man who grew up in Humboldt Park, who was a police officer, who was a Marine, who was a drill sergeant, that's the hardest thing to do. Surrender? I have to know everything. I've always, I'm always used to being in charge of everything. You

Omar: 1:31:29

can't make a move without knowing.

Luis: 1:31:31

Let it go. You know what? Everything that I thought I was in charge of. I wasn't in charge of any of it. Everything that I thought I was in control of. I wasn't in control of any of it. And it took. 62 years to come to that conclusion. You don't have to wait 62 years. You can do that, you know, sooner.

Omar: 1:31:50

Amen. Amen.

Luis: 1:31:51

Let it go. Let it go. Because none of it belongs to you. It's all, it all belongs to God. And when you surrender it and give everything up to God, then he is the one who gives you everything.

Omar: 1:32:03

Perfect words right there, man. Hey, brother, any other thing you want to share before we close out and maybe any final words, and then if you could close us out in a prayer, you know?

Luis: 1:32:13

Absolutely. God loves you and we have to really believe that because if when you look at the Bible from Genesis to Revelations, that's a love story it's a story about how much this being this spirit could actually love and it it goes way beyond anything that we Can comprehend most of us understand the word agape love and and and we sit and take comfort in the word agape well agape is an unaltered changing love Well, I think we're cheating God when we call his love agape. His love goes so much, It's so much greater. It goes way beyond agape that we can, the best word we have is agape. We're cheating him. Multiply that by a million times and you're still cheating him. Try and comprehend that. If you can comprehend his love, Then you're cheating him of his true love. Never ending, never changing, unadulterated from the beginning. He loved you then he loves you now, and he will love you forever. The only variable there is you. Amen, brother. We want to close out in a prayer. Ah, Father God, we thank you for this opportunity to fellowship. We thank you for the opportunity to share your word. We ask that you bless our hearts, Father God, remove these hearts of stone and give us a heart of flesh, Father God. Help us to understand your word, Father God. Bless us in your love, your grace, your mercy, and everything that we do, Father God. Let us put you first in our life. Let us give that a try. Those who don't know you, Father God, help us to bring them to you. We know that we have no say so in this relationship. It is strictly between each and every one of us individually. And you is a personal relationship. Many of us come with corporate prayer. I asked for personal prayer from each and every member who sees this podcast, who hears our words, God, let them have a personal relationship with you. Let them love you the way you love them. Let them receive your blessings. Father, God. Let us put faith in you and only you and everything that we do, Father God. Father God, we ask that you shine your light upon our path so that we never walk in darkness, Father God. Continue to bless us, bless our family, bless this world, Father God. Every leader that is in this world is there because you put them there, Father God. Some way, some how, some form. We don't need to understand. It's all right. It, there, there's safety in not knowing because we put our trust in you, we put our faith in you. In Jesus mighty name, amen. Amen.

Omar: 1:35:05

Amen. Amen. Amen. Brother, man, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for sharing your story. And there's so much of your story we could have went into. I know you mentioned Saudi Arabia and all these places you've been to, but, uh, it will do a part two later on, but, uh,

Luis: 1:35:17

absolutely.

Omar: 1:35:17

Before we close out, brother, uh, can you share what church you go to again and what day you meet? Amen.

Luis: 1:35:23

We go to, I'm a member at Real Life Church, which, which is in West Chicago on Nettle, nettle Road, uh, which is 59. It's right next to the, the army of the VFW over there, the big airplane in the front. Uh, so if you're driving past that, it's the building right next to them where there, uh, we meet. On the first Saturday, the men's group meets on the first Saturday of every month. We're meeting there at nine o'clock this Saturday. Everybody's welcome. Everybody's welcome. You know, I come in, you know, grab some coffee. You know what, I might go ahead and buy some donuts or whatever. You know, just something just, it's just men getting together and just having a good conversation.

Omar: 1:36:11

Amen. Amen. And I know you mentioned people reach out to you. Another place that somebody could reach out to you too is that RTO. You want to share what day and what times that is those meetings?

Luis: 1:36:20

RTO meets on Thursdays every week. Uh, and that's at Compass Church in Wheaton, Illinois. And that meets at 6 p. m. is when we start the first Thursday of every month. We actually have a dinner and that dinner starts at 5. 15. So if it's the first Thursday of the month, Come and grab you some, some dinner. It's it's free. You know, great social, uh, opportunity meet other men who are, have like, like minded. Um, and these are all people like you and me, there's pastors there. There's, there's ministers there. There's men, women, there's people who have. Members who are incarcerated, who come and join us also. It's not just a select group, it's for everyone. So come and join us there if you have the opportunity. Just hang out for a little bit, let us get to know you, get to know us. Maybe you want to be the next pastor in one of the prisons. Be a blessing to others, that's all I say. Just be the blessing to others.

Omar: 1:37:28

Amen. Amen brother. So yeah, definitely. I would, man, I will highly recommend you guys. Check it out. RTO has definitely blessed me. Koinonia house ministries, definitely a blessing. Great people, all types of fields, um, people from all types of churches go there. And man, it's, it's, it's definitely a great group to be around. Amen. So with that, man, we're going to get ready to close out. Um, uh, Matthew four 16 reads the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light and upon those who sat in the region and shadow of death, light has dawned alongside my guests. My name's Omar Calvillo. We are wrong to strong.