After serving six months in jail on burglary charges and then being transferred to the mission, Jairo was miserable. “I didn’t want to come here,” said Jairo. “I had so much guilt on me for basically putting my wife and all my daughters on the streets.”

Jairo’s sister let his wife and seven of his daughters move in to her apartment while he was in jail. For six months, the eight of them shared a room with four of his nieces. “I just wanted to get out of jail and get to work so I could start to recover all the things I lost. So I could find a place for my daughters to live.”

For the past 15 years, Jairo has moved all over the country in an effort to avoid arrest for crimes he’s committed along the way. He worked hard to support his family—roofing, driving, construction—but turned to stealing to pay for a growing drug habit. Jairo would go into the fields in the middle of the night and steal hoses and chemicals. He stole cars. A low point for Jairo was when he started stealing from his mother-in-law. “She had so much trust in me,” he said, ashamed. “She couldn’t even imagine I would steal from her.”

“I sold everything I had—all my tools, gold. At the end, I was selling our TVs, my daughters’ laptops. To remember that is hard and sad. It’s good to talk about and remember those times—I think it will help me never be like that again. I don’t want to lose my family. This time I didn’t—I just lost all the material stuff. But I probably won’t get another chance.”

After five months at the mission, Jairo knows he went to the right place. “I’ve learned to rest on God, give all of my problems to him. I pray every day—not every day—every second. I want to be a better dad to my daughters. I want them to know that they have someone they can count on.” “I was praying for God to forgive me and make me a better person,” Jairo said. “He did. He’s doing it.

I could’ve gotten killed in the fields when I was stealing. I know God was with me. He gave me this opportunity to change my life because I think he wants something more. He wants me to do something with my life.”