ARTICLES

Father, Do Not Leave Me Alone

TIJUANA ORDER WAGES CATHOLIC BATTLE AGAINST DRUG ADDICTION

By Ivan Barrera

"I Heard Of A Young Man Who Was Trying To Quit Heroin," recalls Father John Jensen, founder and director of the Missionaries of the Good Shepherd in Tijuana, a Catholic organization dedicated to the rehabilitation of young men trapped in drug addiction. "Somebody told me that I could find him in an old abandoned apartment. It was very dirty. I looked for him, and found him naked on the bathroom floor holding on to the toilet bowl while he was vomiting, covered in his own urine and excrement. He was trembling real bad. I got close and I touched him on the shoulder. He turned around looking upward and said: 'Father, do not leave me alone.' In that precise moment I remembered the words of Our Lord on the cross, 'Father, why have you forsaken me?' "

Father Jensen was born in Saint Charles, Illinois, a small town about 50 miles from Chicago. From 1979 to 1989 he lived in Los Angeles. "It was there where I found out what drug addiction really is and the suffering that it brings to those addicted," says Father Jensen. "Nobody took care of them. There were a lot of people that felt compassion toward them, but there was nobody that actually tried to help them. I knew that somebody had to do something for these people. They cannot help themselves. It is not that they do not want to, but they cannot do it alone."

It was in 1981 the priest came to understand the urgent need to establish a Catholic drug rehabilitation center.

"Several things happened to me that made a strong impact," he remembers. "I met a man in Los Angeles who was in prison because of a drug-related problem. The judge sentenced him to three years in prison or six months in a rehab program. The young man decided to take the rehabilitation program, and so the search for a drug rehab center started. On my next visit to prison he was still there. I asked him why he did not go to the rehab center. He answered that the center told him that he had to renounce two things. He had to renounce his Catholic faith and he had to renounce the Blessed Virgin Mary. They were Protestant. The young man preferred to stay three years in prison. I searched for a Catholic rehab center in California, Nevada, and Mexico, but I did not find any.

"During the time that I was working with the diocesan seminary in Los Angeles, my work was focused on the pastoral concerns of youth. I worked on the streets with the cholos and gangs. I could see their suffering. The Catholic Church had nothing to offer them. There were no programs for them. There was no way out for them. There was no hope. There was nobody to say to them, 'Hey, we are going to help you. We are going to give you a hand so you can get out of this.' There were a lot of rehab programs run by fundamentalists, but none Catholic."

In the mid-1980s someone donated a ranch near Tijuana to Father Jensen so he could start a rehab program of his own. In May 1988 Father Jensen came to Tijuana and presented the rehabilitation project, called Casa Guadalupe Village of Peace, to then-Bishop Emilio Berlie. During the next several months he asked for and received a transfer to the diocese of Tijuana. He returned in January 1989 with one purpose: to rescue young men from drug addiction.

"We know of some other Protestant rehab centers in Tijuana, like Victory Outreach and CIRAAD [a Spanish acronym for Integral Center for Rehabilitation from Drugs and Alcoholism]," says Father Jensen. "There are many. We do not criticize them; they are doing their job the way they think is best. I respect them. But we do not work with them. Experience tells us that the rehabilitation that we offer is much more complete. They use the 12-step method, and that is all. We also practice the 12-step method as used in Alcoholics Anonymous, but there is a need to use other psychological tools. You cannot take one thing and replace it with another. In other words, you cannot substitute drug addiction with religion. The drug addicts have to face the situation. Most of them have very painful problems. We have discovered that about 90 percent of drug addicts have been sexually and psychologically abused. They need to heal their soul first. If they do not heal, they are always going to feel the need to run and escape."

Father Jensen holds a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Cincinnati. He also has two licenses -- in hypnotherapy and as a licensed drug and alcohol abuse counselor from the University of California, San Diego.

"We work in five areas: physical, psychological, family, spiritual, and social," Father Jensen explains. "We first have to know why the drug addict is involved in this situation. In the rehab program we never try to blame anyone. We just say to them, 'Look, you are an addict. We are going to fix it. We are going to work together. Let's go forward.' We work with these young men in all the areas so we can help them overcome their problem."

Located on a dusty, rocky road on the outskirts of Tijuana, Casa Guadalupe Village of Peace offers drug addicts a place to relax and meditate. The quietness and tranquillity at Casa Guadalupe helps bring a feeling of peacefulness. The facility can lodge up to 26 addicts. The drug rehabilitation program lasts between four and six months. Currently there are 17 Missionaries of the Good Shepherd brothers living and serving at Casa Guadalupe. One weekend a month some extra bedrooms are used by young men interested in joining the religious community.

The missionaries are working to start small business enterprises to assist their apostolate. Among those projects are the establishment of a small tortilla factory, a bakery, and a cheese-making business, all inside the grounds of the community. They also will make olive oil and eggnog in the near future. Father Jensen has also begun construction of wrought iron and carpentry workshops so that the men in rehab can obtain vocational training that will help them get a job after they finish the program.

Currently Casa Guadalupe offers the rehab program only to men 18 or older, but Father Jensen says he wants to establish another house to help women and children with the same problem.

Last January, the newly ordained bishop of Mexicali, Monsignor José Isidro Guerrero Macías, asked Father Jensen to collaborate in setting up a rehabilitation program in Mexicali called Dale la mano al hermano ("Give a hand to your brother").

"The diocese of Mexicali asked us to help them start the program about three years ago, but we did not have enough brothers," says Father Jensen. He has sent three brothers to start the project. Fray Ricardo Campos will be the director in Mexicali, and brothers Ramon Hernandez and José Jesus Perez will be his assistants. The brothers will have the support of Rosa Maria Olmos, a psychology student volunteer, and psychologist Adriana Figueroa. Both of them have received special training to help take care of the needs of drug addicts. Both women made the six-hour round-trip drive to Mexicali for the past five years to receive their training.

The rehab center in Mexicali will initially house and treat 12 men. The Missionaries of the Good Shepherd also provide therapy and counseling to family members of the drug addicts at their offices in Tijuana. Father Jensen says it is very important that all of the family members participate in the rehabilitation process.

The Missionaries of the Good Shepherd celebrated their tenth anniversary May 17. Their Tijuana offices are located at Calle Granate #4737 in Fraccionamiento El Rubi, near Boulevard Fundadores. Their telephone and fax number is (011-52-66) 34-5540. The offices in Mexicali are at Avenida San Carlos #95, Colonia Bellavista. Their telephone number there is (011-52-65) 52-6326.

If you would like to help Casa Guadalupe Village of Peace continue their work, you may send a contribution to: Rancho Cultural Tepeyac A.C., Apartado Postal # 246, Zona Centro, Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico CP 22000, or to P.O. Box 432473, San Ysidro, CA, 92173.