As a jail chaplain and gang pastor, I believe I am witnessing unexpected transformations among the violent Chicano gang youth of our generation.

So in my project I will weave the narratives of Saul-Paul and Ananias with the story of my own friendship with our valley’s former gang leader, José Israel Garcia, a.k.a. Neaners, who is currently housed in solitary confinement at a Washington State prison.

He and I are currently experiencing a unique fellowship and ministry collaboration, going between church communities and gang networks, building on a rare friendship of six years that began in our jail Bible study. We believe the story of our growing relationship could provide precedence and inspiration for authentic church engagement with gang growth in years ahead.

Together, through personal experience and textual research, we will explore how God is healing a generation of traumatized youth who have both seen and caused too much bloodshed already — and grafting them as new, missional “blood” into the veins of Christ’s Body on this continent. The mutually healing process we discovered in this unexpected brotherhood - and in the telling of our story - will be crafted for a series of articles and a co-authored book tentatively entitled Thicker than Blood: Gangs, Trauma, and the New Family of God.