Author: Tom Keller

Go Where It Hurts

​​“Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into the places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.”

         – Henri Nouwen, priest, professor, writer, theologian

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Bolivia is a land of heart-stopping beauty and breathtaking variety, but that is not the Bolivia Lincoln Terceros and Lily Fluharty showed me.

I spent yesterday wandering through the Academia de Futbol Tahuichi Aguilera, a huge park turned colossal soccer academy. I must have passed 50 soccer fields, each one full of bouncing yellow, green and orange soccer jerseys almost radioactive in color. So much life was teeming in this park, jammed with boys and girls radiant with energy. Their joy and vibrancy were infectious.

But later, I entered a darker, different world as I wound my way through Santa Cruz’s streets, after sunset, with Lincoln Terceros, a staffer at NOVO Communities residential rehabilitation center for men. Lincoln is something of a local saint to the city’s addicted and homeless. He visits them regularly in the night, offering food and – for those ready for a change – a way off the streets, out of addiction and on a road that can lead to personal and spiritual salvation.

He helped explain the complex street dynamics as he stopped our van at a small shop to pick up bread, before we headed out to give the food to homeless men and women. We were headed to Ramada, a bustling intersection that grows more dangerous as the night progresses.

As we dodged swarming pedestrians and other vans, pulsating with neon lights, Lincoln pointed a finger and said, “This is where you find all the prostitutes.” It can be extremely dangerous at night, he says. “Even if there is a cop standing next to you, you will get everything robbed from your pockets.”

Lincoln is a veteran of these streets. Perhaps that’s why he seems so cool, calm and collected as he describes the dangers around us. He tells me that God moved on his heart, urging him to reach out to the people on these streets. He is unafraid to walk right into the worst slums of Santa Cruz, and one reason is that he’s likely to be known wherever he goes.

Lincoln’s ministry is called Conpasion (compassion), and it is usually just him and one other person from the ministry roaming the streets. One night, nine years ago, Lincoln was out in streets on an especially rainy and cold day. He people out living on the streets, wet and cold, and was overcome with a conviction to help these people. So he started a coat drive to help give these people a fighting chance to brave the weather. From there Lincoln has become the go-to for street outreach in Santa Cruz, even training other missionaries in the underground knowledge of neighborhoods.

As we move through neighborhoods, it seems every person we see gives Lincoln a fist bump. He’s earned his respect here. At one intersection he tells me how he was surrounded here one night by street children planning to rob him. But once he lowered the hood on his sweater, they recognized “brother Lincoln” and left him alone.

Another night, using his cell phone light to dress the wound of a homeless boy, some other boys snatched Lincoln’s wallet and phone from his hands. But when the wounded boy scolded the group they returned his belongings on the spot. This is clearly a neighborhood where it pays to be known on the street.

In the streets where the homeless live, they huddle under tattered blankets, sniffing glue fumes. A block away, a line of prostitutes beckoned to “johns” to find a room in one of the many nearby hostels. Lincoln pointed out a transaction happening in front of us. “You see, they are negotiating right now to go to a room,” he said.

A man on the street jumped up, exploding with joy when he saw Lincoln approaching. Later we found the man and his girlfriend huddled under a blanket, openly sniffing glue fumes out of a bottle. Lincoln called his buddy out, saying, “You have a blanket. You don’t need that [glue] to keep you warm.” Lincoln interviews his street friend, who shares his story of going out on the streets at 10 years old. He’s now 29 and has never left. The man points to another group of intoxicated men across the street. He explains that he’s now “solo” on the streets with his girlfriend, no longer hanging with his crew because it’s easier for him to stay sober on his own. Lincoln offers each group he meets an introduction to NOVO if they ever want a place to go turn their lives around. One man in the intoxicated group across the street turns out to be an ex-NOVO resident. Lincoln pleads with the man to come back to NOVO, but he’s clearly intoxicated and is ambivalent to return.

Next to the couple, a man emerged from under a maroon blanket. He was bruised and swollen, with scabs all over his face. His name is Ramon, and he’s sick because he has stopped drinking and the withdrawal from alcohol has thrown him into a violent fit of vomiting. Lincoln bought Ramon a Powerade, telling him to drink fluids with glucose to counteract the withdrawal symptoms. Down the street, another homeless group told us that Ramon “stuck his nose into something he shouldn’t have” and got beaten up.

Lincoln pointed out nearby hostels that have been converted into vagrant shelters, brothel accommodations, and all-hour wifi hubs, where young people spend all night playing video games or watching pornography. Then they return to their street “homes” and sleep during the day. As bleak as these scenes have been, Lincoln informed me that next week, we will be going to the most dangerous part of the city to do outreach – the favella – a patch of jungle, deep within the inner city, that has been converted into a homeless community.

There are various tiers of street life in Santa Cruz. Some children stay in the all-night hostels and internet cafes, making money on the streets and able to shower daily. However, there are many that can’t afford the street hostels and spend their days and nights in the city’s many empty lots and canal systems. Some of the children have run away from home, finding they can make some kind of living on their own by washing windows or selling candies on the side of the road.

But many others were born on the streets.  Josue, currently a resident at the NOVO Communities rehabilitation center in Santa Cruz, tells me his mother lived on the streets, and he and all his siblings were born homeless. All he has ever known is the life and culture of Santa Cruz streets. Another man on the streets tells me that he ran away from home when he was 10 years old. He’s now 29 and has been living on the streets ever since. For many children, working the streets is essential for survival; their families can’t afford to support them. They might be just 10 years old, but they need work. And if they stay at home while working the streets, abusive parents may take the money they earn. Thus, they choose instead to run away and live on the streets, on their own.

The day after my journey with Lincoln, I joined Lily Fluharty, one Lincoln’s trainees out to the city’s drainage canals where children shelter. Lily leads me to the edge of a drainage canal and bends down beneath a concrete slab. Inside two small tunnels are children and teenagers, huddled together, hiding from the wind under blankets.

One of them comes stumbling out, holding a plastic bottle of glue. Known as “hermana,” sister in Spanish, she’s street royalty. She’s been immersed in street culture and its slang for so long that she sounds like a gangster when she speaks. Lily gently rousts the kids out of their blankets and rubs each one on the head. She knows them all by name, what they’re up to, who they hang with, what corners they sit on, what they’re struggling with.

Lily, now 28, first came to Bolivia 10 years ago. She tells the story about how she always wanted to open an orphanage, even as early as 3 years old. She had made big plans during her gap year after high school to travel to the African continent, but her plans fell through. After a couple from her church told her about Bolivia, she prayed and googled the country. What started as a 3 month trip extended to 4 months, “and now 10 years,” she says. She explains that after a short time of watching drug-addicted children living on the streets, she felt God had called her to Santa Cruz to work with them. She knew this was where she was going to stay, and she and several partners, Ellie Veldhuizen and Anelise Schrammen, established a ministry, Anchor of Hope, to run daily street outreach in the Santa Cruz slums. Anchor of Hope just moved to a tidy, two-story home, which functions as a community center where the children can come for classes, do artwork, play games, hear devotionals by local pastors, be connected to other services and ministries, have healthcare visits and seek counseling or mentorship.

Both day and night, it’s not uncommon to find Lily, Ellie, Anelise, or Romina Mendez, their social worker, roaming city parks, talking with  homeless, intoxicated teens and children, dressing their wounds, playing cards, taking them to hospital, and praying. On my journey with Lily, we met a 12-year-old boy who’s the leader of some 20-30 street children. He distributes drugs to them, but also enforces rules, keeps order and beats up anyone who dares to mess with a member of his group.

The boys in this group have no reason to trust anyone. They are trained in street crime, and most are hooked on drugs – glue, marijuana, cocaine, and a new crude form of crack that has infiltrated the street groups in the last two years. Lily roams the edges of their “favela,” hoping to pick off some of the kids before they enter the urban jungle and its violence and heavy drug abuse (though there is violence here, too – Lily reports that a child who stole drugs from one group was recently murdered, shot in front of other children to deliver a message).

Once they leave the tunnel and enter the woods, Lily says, these children may be lost for a long time. But the love is tangible when she is around. She buys each boy a lemonade and an empanada. She pulls out a stack of Dos cards (the Latin American version of UNO), and with her gentle manner she brings out shy smiles, laughs, and warm hugs from these street-toughened kids.

Seeing these children leaves me and Jony (my translator and a longtime counselor at Yeldall Manor rehab in the U.K.) feeling a deep unease. They are so young, and so highly intoxicated. One young teenage girl whom Lily pulled out of a drainage tunnel reminded me of a childhood friend. It was hard to look at her, even harder to look away. 

Lily pleaded with the girl to join her for a medical checkup the next day, but the girl was apprehensive. She and her boyfriend were afraid they were being tricked into a pregnancy test. Most of these children consider their street groups their family. Who else takes care of them when they are sick, hungry, tired, or hurt besides their street family? They are taught a deep mistrust for the police, organizations, and missions in the streets to help them. Lily, though invigorated in her work, clearly empowered to undertake this mission, shares her frustrations at how slow and fruitless it can sometimes feel. But redemption comes, she says, when she sees a smiling face, or when a child rooted in deep mistrust and pain begins to share personal feelings.

A few days later, Lily shares that she returned to the park where we had found a group of street children roaming the streets, pickpocketing and highly intoxicated. She had encouraged a few of them to stay sober, and many were coming to her sharing their struggles and confessing their crimes and concerns. Though she had referred a few clients to NOVO and seen major success with kids coming to her center and getting off the streets, this night she left to find a few of her “kids” still living on the streets had relapsed. She shares that it was a night of tears, confusion, and a broken heart. She shares with me later that one of her children had died, a devastating blow to the Anchor of Hope family. She boasts 300 children of hers living on these streets, and her heart is anchored to each of them. Many of them have her personal phone number or social media contact, which she gladly makes available for these kids to call or text her at 2 or 3 am.

Lily shares that, “It’s hard to see them hurting. They have become like my own sons and I’ve become like their mom. I wish there was more I could do… Sounds crazy but as I love and pursue these kids I see God’s love and it’s easy to forget that God is loving and pursuing me in that same way. He meets me in my weakness and loves me when my heart aches.” She has come to the conclusion that no matter how crazy or tragic these kids behavior is, no matter how much it pains her to see them making destructive choices, she is going to meet them right where they are and love them. This is how she feels God has met her in her life.

Click the Image Below to Watch Video with Lincoln

We discuss what the anchor of hope from Hebrews 6:19 truly signifies. One of the children explains that an anchor keeps a boat from being lost in a storm. An anchor goes to the depths and holds us secure. People like Lincoln, Lily, Claudia and their teams are the anchor, going to the darkest places bringing hope and love. The arms, hands, and feet of Jesus. Both knew when God told them to pursue these ministries and they return day in and day out to find even one that is willing to change. Lily explains that it is the small success that have become her joy. She recently referred three clients to NOVO. She explains that it took four years of building a relationship with one young man until he was willing to even consider leaving the streets. He’s visibly guarded, shifting his gaze at us in the NOVO center, arms wrapped around himself, hard look. I mention Lily’s name once and he immediately lightens up and smiles, a bounce enters his step. A heart has learned to trust, even if just one person on the earth, it is still a victory.

After a month in Bolivia, I have met those who are bringing hope to those who have been left on the margins of society, crushed by addiction, trauma, abuse, poverty, and affliction. God asks us to go where in hurts, to join those in their suffering, not afraid to risk ourselves in the darkest places on earth. Sometimes those darkest places lurk within our own hearts. Therapy, psychology, and spirituality seek in many ways to heal and create cohesion out of a fractured identity, but it is very hard to come by without guides who are willing to walk the path with us. These guides are tasked with sharing a love that transcends what this world has to offer, holding us as our Father holds us. As we represent a God who is a loving Father, we are tasked with being a father to the fatherless, a friend to the friendless, close to the broken-hearted, and fully immersed in the broken condition of humanity. Many times, our own inadequacy leads the way. In this way, the places of greatest darkness and pain in our own hearts become shining tools for the benefit of others, written into a greater story of redemption that go far beyond ourselves.

Lily explains, “God is truly the Father to the fatherless and brings beauty from ashes.”

There is something very clear about this type of ministry. As when the Master of the banquet calls his servants to “go out to the street corners and invite everyone you see.” There’s little theology here, just Spirit, dirt, hands, feet and hearts. In this space, you don’t have time to pick and choose who gets to come to the table. Just go to the darkest place, find the most broken person, love them, welcome them, give them affection, and help them heal. Jesus walked through crowded streets to broken individuals, grasped them with his loving hands, and headed straight for their heart. There’s no show here, just Spirit, hands, feet, dirt, and hearts.

There are very limited mental health resources in developing countries. There is a major imbalance in the amount of available mental health resources in proportion to the ever-increasing number of clients requiring treatment. A key reason for this underestimation, according to WHO, is the rising gap in health service capacity in different countries. WHO estimates that more than three-quarters of people with severe mental disorders in low- and middle-income countries never receive any treatment for their illness. (World Bank Group, 2018).

These conditions are reflected in the mental health care situation in Bolivia. The International Journal of Mental Health Systems published an overview of psychiatric care in Bolivia, its history, demographics, and background. Unlike other countries in the region, Bolivia only recently adopted a universal healthcare system, one reason why it has lagged so much in providing mental health care (Jaen-Varas, 2014).

Alcohol abuse and mental health account for a large majority of hospitalizations in the country, according to Jaen-Varas, and the country has very few licensed mental healthcare professionals.  Jaen-Varas reports that before adopting universal healthcare, Bolivia had a dire lack of “well-structured mental health networks” for care (Jaen-Varas, 2014, 2). In 2008, Jaen-Varas reported, Bolivia documented 39 outpatient facilities, seven of which were for children; nine psychiatric hospitals; and no mental health services at all for the incarcerated (Jaen-Varas, 2014).

In 2008, the most frequently reported cause of admission to psychiatric hospitals in Bolivia was substance abuse, with “alcohol consumption… responsible for 90% of these admissions, in addition to being a major cause of deaths in traffic” (Jaen-Varas, 2014, p. 3). Jaen-Varas also reports suicide as “disproportionately high in Bolivia” (Jaen-Varas, 2014, p. 3). Suicide was the cause of 40% of youth mortality in one Bolivian city, Alto.

Jaen-Varas, D., Ribeiro, W. S., Whitfield, J., & de Jesus Mari, J. (2014). Mental health and psychiatric care in Bolivia: What do we know? International Journal of Mental Health Systems, 8. https://doi.org/10.1186/1752-4458-8-18

Kohrt, B. A., Mutamba, B. B., Luitel, N. P., Gwaikolo, W., Onyango Mangen, P., Nakku, J., Rose, K., Cooper, J., Jordans, M. J. D., & Baingana, F. (2018). How competent are non-specialists trained to integrate mental health services in primary care? Global health perspectives from Uganda, Liberia, and Nepal. International Review of Psychiatry, 30(6), 182–198.

Pan American Health Organization. (2018). The Burden of Mental Disorders in the Americas: Country Profile [Plurinational State of] Bolivia. PAHO.org. https://www.paho.org/sites/default/files/2020-09/MentalHealth-profile-2020%20Bolivia_Country_Report_Final.pdf.

World Bank Group. Moving the needle : mental health stories from around the world – summary report of symposium (English). (2018) WBG Global Mental Health Initiative Washington, D.C. : World Bank Group. http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/617351529998944991/Moving-the-needle-mental-health-stories-from-around-the-world-summary-report-of-symposium

Walking through the streets of Santa Cruz, Bolivia, is a journey through a cacophony of car horns, blaring inside an endless cloud of dust. The sizzle of barbecue and saltinas (something like a chicken soup empanada) beckons from sidewalks, and roaming dogs of all shapes and sizes offer a surprisingly warm welcome to this incredibly diverse country.

In some ways Santa Cruz resembles the urban sprawls of Nairobi or Accra or Tijuana. Roundabouts teem with crisscrossing vans, 4×4 vehicles, and brilliantly colorful 80’s Honda motorcycles. It’s chaotic to watch (or to try crossing the street), but somehow there is a method to the madness.

The Bolivian countryside offers a landscape kaleidoscope, sometimes resembling terrain familiar to Americans from western states (Zion National Park in Utah, or Hanalei Bay, Hawaii), sometimes taking your breath away with majestic, Montana-like mountain traverses, sometimes taking you back to a scene that could have come from the Greek countryside or the sculpted red rocks of northern Arizona’s Navajo country.

Now imagine all of that – and more – compacted into a country one and a half times the size of Texas. Mile after mile of sand and gravel roads connect these incredibly diverse scenes, taking you past small mining towns that resemble the 1800s Wild West in America, or into the heart of a landscape that seems far closer to Iceland or the Scottish Highlands.

An hours-long drive through red, Mars-like desert brings you to Uyuni, a small city at the edge of Bolivia’s iconic salt flats, an endless white sea of salt where sky meets earth – somewhere very far off in the distance. Space and time bend here; you feel suspended in a place between heaven and earth. Uyuni itself feels more like Star Wars’ Mos Eisley than an actual city. Half-built brick structures, Soviet-style industrial statues, hordes of boisterous dogs disrupting traffic, colorful markets, and parades of off-road trucks can make you feel you’ve landed in a Mad Max film. Life here is an adventure, sometimes a wild one. Bolivia is a wilderness that neither Che Guevarra nor Butch Cassidy could conquer.

Below the surface of these landscapes and urban scenes, there are deep cords of struggle. The vistas are beautiful, but the people are longing for deliverance from poverty and turmoil. On yardsticks measuring health, malnutrition, poverty, education, and other social conditions, Bolivia ranks near the bottom among Latin American countries.

Politics have hit Bolivia hard in the last few years, beginning with the 2019 ousting of President Evo Morales, and the COVID pandemic has damaged health and economic well-being, as it has everywhere. There are rising political tensions still; every city wall, it seems, is stamped, painted, or stenciled with the blue and while crest of the socialist party.

Now on to why I am in Bolivia. I do business development and outreach for Roadworks Collective and Latitude Recovery Center in Carlsbad, CA. We are establishing a partnership with NOVO Communities rehabilitation center and ministry here in Santa Cruz, exploring ways to make behavioral healthcare, addiction services, and treatment modalities available around the world. Bolivia is our first stop toward this ambitious goal. For the last two weeks I have been settled at NOVO Communities rehabilitation center, a whitewashed compound known as the “Quinta,” living with the guys at the program. Community meals, late night soccer tournaments (where I successfully ripped my new pants and twisted my ankle during a flying slide tackle on the colorful concrete), listening to the guys create poetry and worship songs to Jesus, playing with one of the many dogs living on the premises, making empanadas, and many late night Spanish-dubbed Alpha course videos and cheesy US actions movies are the norm here at the Quinta.

Last week I facilitated a group session with the men, sharing my own personal testimony of addiction, sobriety, and salvation. I answer any questions they may have for me during their daily therapy groups. I have also been participating in the clients’ relapse prevention plan groups.

​​As a developing country, Bolivia has few services like NOVO. A 2014 study of psychiatric care in Bolivia, published in the International Journal of Mental Health Systems, noted that alcohol abuse and mental health accounted for a large majority of hospitalizations, while the number of treatment facilities and licensed mental healthcare professionals was tiny. That report cited earlier research showing that substance abuse was the most frequently reported cause of admission to psychiatric hospitals in Bolivia, with “alcohol consumption…responsible for 90% of these admissions, in addition to being a major cause of deaths in traffic.”

I have had plenty of time to talk about all of this – with Oscar Hurtado, NOVO’s staff psychologist and a local professor, and with Bruno Ramirez, NOVO’s group facilitator and addiction counselor. They tell me that, as in many developing countries, there is still a cultural stigma around mental health care in Bolivia. More tolerant attitudes among younger people reduce stigma, but there are still very serious barriers to receiving care. Openly acknowledging you have mental health issues, and seeking care for them, is considered a sign of weakness to many Bolivians. And Bolivia does not provide good public health services, so those who can afford Oscar’s private therapy practice are usually wealthier and have structured established lives – unlike many poor and homeless people in need of dire care. Many Bolivians still visit shamans to address issues like alcoholism – including the alcoholic who recently phoned Bruno for help, ater a shaman failed to reduce his symptoms. 

The center’s staff plan to visit churches and develop training courses for local pastors and congregations to identify and address addiction. The men working with NOVO’s clients say that many churches and pastors tend to over-spiritualize mental health issues. The NOVO team agrees that addiction treatment needs to be holistic – absolutely spiritual, but also psychological, social and emotional. Addicts don’t fall neatly into a single category, as the factors that lead to each individual’s addiction are unique. The odds of finding this type of individualized approach to addiction and mental health care elsewhere in Bolivia are slim to none.

David Salazar, NOVO’s onsite manager and milieu director, is known as “pastor” by the residents. He has a desk piled high with documents he is preparing to present to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) – the agency that recently visited NOVO. The center was also recently visited by Robin Shackell BEM, Deputy Head of Mission for the British Embassy in La Paz to discuss needs, accomplishments, and struggles.

David worked for many years running Christian summer camps for children in Bolivia. This weekend I went with him and the NOVO residents to Dios con Nosotros, a large local church here in Santa Cruz where David’s wife works as a counselor.

I have been out witnessing street outreach ministry with Lily Fluharty and her team at Anchor of Hope. Lily had big plans from a young age to open an orphanage, and after doors closed for her to travel to the African continent, she decided to come to Bolivia. An initial three month trip turned into 4 months, and she has now been in Bolivia for 10 years. They make daily rounds in the streets, pulling drug addicted children out of storm drains and off of curbs, inviting them to their community center and helping them find new life. At their center, the team provide devotionals from local pastors, community meals, mentorship and family counseling, connections to rehabs and other services, art classes, games, and competitions. Most importantly, they provide a safe, clean, family atmosphere for the street children to get away from the street life. Her team, Ellie Veldhuizen, Anelise Schrammen, and Romina Mendez have dedicated themselves to walking alongside these children in their struggles.

The Anchor of Hope staff were largely mentored by Lincoln Teceros, another NOVO staffer and leader of Conpasion, a veteran street outreach ministry in Santa Cruz. I’ve also gone out with Lincoln on a late night adventure through the Santa Cruz slums, reaching out and ministering to the city’s homeless and addicted population. Lincoln, Lily, and the others are the local rebel saints of Santa Cruz. Rarely do we meet such people that carry a fearlessness, willingness to take risk, and enter the darkest places. Their love is tangible as they roam the canals, internet cafes turned drug dens, the violent tent encampments in Santa Cruz or hostels turned into brothels and shelters littered with street children, high on glue and cocaine. The dark places they explore are the trauma, hurt, and neglect these people endure day in and day out. People like Lily, her team, and Lincoln are there on the front lines, literally sticking their hands into storm drains and pulling out children, providing them a tether, a relationship, a hope amidst the chaos.

I’ve also visited Alalay Foundation, a 30-year old organization and ministry, founded by Claudia Gonzales, that has housed and changed the lives of thousands of street children in Bolivia. Kids from ages 6 to 18 bounce around in fresh soccer jerseys donated by the Real Madrid Foundation, which has trained Alalay to educate the children through soccer camps. Each player wears a jersey naming a different value they are expected to uphold on the team – responsibility, unity, communication, emotional health. Classes are taught before each practice. Soccer camps are also used as outreach to the many addicted children living on the streets. At the homes run by Alalay, social workers and counselors coordinate with children’s families and teachers to ensure comprehensive long term care addressing trauma, addiction, sexual health, hygiene, emotional regulation, artistic expression, and vocational skills. Alalay has recently partnered with Many Hopes, a multi-national organization addressing vulnerable children across the globe.

I had the pleasure of attending the Trinity International Church, a small congregation with a mix of Bolivian families and ex-pats where Andy Partington, NOVO director, once was pastor. The current pastor delivered a powerful and apropos message on one’s identity in Christ as a chosen child of God, a message I will be sharing with the Quinta residents. Andy, like his father before him, is the former director of Yeldall Manor, a well known Christian rehab center in the UK. He’s adapted many of the therapeutic, addiction treatment and discipleship curriculums of Yeldall, to NOVO Communities here in Bolivia. Years of experience working in the Christian recovery world have given him a unique perspective on the Church’s role in alleviating this issue. We are both very excited to see how resources can be brought to more ministries and rehab centers abroad.

Overall, I have been thrilled and challenged connecting, partnering, sharing, documenting, photographing, and most importantly, participating in the diverse and multi-faceted network of ministries here in Santa Cruz, Bolivia.

We are preparing to leave Monday, July 12 for Bolivia to visit NOVO Communities rehabilitation center. Watch this video to learn more about our South American partner and the work they are doing. We are so excited to spend a month with NOVO leadership and clients, staying at La Quinta, the NOVO center. We will be documenting and exploring the lives of NOVO leaders, clients, and families, learning about the struggle of individuals, families, and communities facing addiction, abuse, alcoholism, and poverty. We look forward to sharing compelling stories and content from our month on the ground connecting Roadworks Collective to NOVO Communities digitally and in-person.

Written by James Galt, Nations Media

May 15, 2021

I almost flew off the back of Warren’s juggernaut of a BMW motorcycle when he cranked the throttle and sent the front tire careening into the air. 

Afterwards, while my heart rate lowered, I considered how that was the most suitable way to describe Warren. He goes full throttle with everything he puts his mind to.

After relocating to Bolivia, Warren helped establish Novō Communities, a center for men struggling with addiction. Not long after, he committed himself to the creation of Refugio, an idyllic nature preserve which employs residents of Novo. To tie it all together, Warren was a founding father of Novo Adventures, a cross-country motorcycle tourism company that financially supports Novo Communities.

Most notably, Warren’s high-speed pursuit of a trauma-informed practice has placed him underneath the wing of world renowned physician, Gabor Maté. Responsible for pioneering research in the fields of mental health, Maté is helping to develop Warren’s understanding about how trauma and addiction are interconnected.

How has the pandemic impacted people who struggle with addiction or who are at risk of addiction?

Globally, people self-identifying as having a struggle or addiction to substance abuse has gone up over COVID. I think that’s an indicator of addiction as a response to isolation and trauma. Circumstances arise that have people separated from each other. In lots of cases [the pandemic] can undermine people’s economic stability. Those added stresses increase the possibility that someone is going to go out and find some way to medicate those feelings. 

Photo by James Galt

What is the correlation between trauma and addiction?

I’m very close to adopting Gabor’s philosophy, which is that every addict is somebody trying to cope with trauma. Certainly, I have not yet run into somebody who doesn’t fit that definition. 

[Imagine] something difficult occurs in your life: it could be extreme—they call that capitol T trauma, like rape or physical assault or significant abandonment—but actually it could also be small t trauma. Say you needed emotional support in some key moment and it wasn’t there and you were really wounded by that. The idea is that the addiction is an adaptive response to the pain caused by that trauma. Say I feel profoundly lonely because I don’t know how to connect with others in the way that I want to, so I choose to use X or Y substance or X or Y behavior as a way to temporarily escape that sense of loneliness.

Your model of ministry and addiction rehabilitation is very unique. How does Refugio tie in to the core work of NOVO?

Refugio has been a really fun and exciting opportunity for me. I initially bought into it with a few friends, primarily as an interesting side project. I just really loved the property. I wanted a place for my own kids to spend time outside the city, to spend time off the internet. 

The more time I spent out there, the more I realized that getting people together in nature, in small groups, is really important. It’s proven to be important for me: it’s changed what I look for in friendships, the kind of depth that I find in relationships, the kind of depth that I find in relationships with people whom I can spend time with in that more intimate environment. 

And it’s become kind of another job creation location for guys from NOVO. A lot of guys who are in the program at various points will go out and work on the grounds at Refugio, and the funds that come in from that help subsidize the cost for their rehab.

Do you think that this pattern of ministry—with revenue-generating programs—will start to become more common?

I hope it does. I think it has lots to offer. I think it keeps the people who are investing in the ministry engaged. It feels like a different sort of invitation to be part of a revenue-generating thing. I think it invites people with different skills along. Some of the people who have been involved in planning and investing in NOVO Adventures are business guys in Canada who felt a real sense of excitement, of privilege, being able to bring their business knowledge in to benefit a ministry. 

Certainly, situations like COVID will and have already led to many ministries being closed. Because if those ministries are primarily reliant on donations from churches and churches see their money going down, then those ministries don’t have anywhere to draw funding. I think people who want longevity in their ministries will be looking for some way to have at least a business component at the core of what they’re doing. 

Photo by James Galt

The people who visit Refugio on retreats or book a tour with NOVO Adventures come from wildly different backgrounds than the men who participate in the NOVO community. How do you facilitate relationships between those two groups?

The majority of guys who come on NOVO Adventure trips are middle to upper middle class. It’s unlikely that a Candadian at the bottom of the income bracket would have the resources to fly internationally to go on a motorcycle trip. You’re already getting a selection of people who have more disposable income than most people do. Thankfully our experience as a whole has been that those people are extremely generous and are looking for a way to have an impact with their funding. 

One of the key reasons to get them on the ground is so they can have a chance to see first hand the work that’s being done, who’s doing the work, and to build the credibility—because many of them at some point or another have been involved in a ministry where they felt misled. We recognize that the responsibility is really on our end to communicate with integrity what work is being done. 

We’ve had beautiful encounters between people in visiting groups and guys in the program. We make sure the guys on the program have the right to privacy, which means they’re not obligated to receive and engage with visitors from the outside just because they’re in rehab. By and large, most of the guys are quite open and enjoy the opportunity to meet the people from somewhere else and to thank them for investing in a project like NOVO.

I don’t know that the average [visitor] can ever fully put themselves in the shoes of most of the guys that come through our program. I certainly can’t. I’ve been in Bolivia for over a decade but I’ve never lived under a bridge in a gutter, ever. There have been times when we weren’t sure how we were going to cover groceries, but we were trying to figure that out from inside our comfortable home, not on the street struggling to survive. You have to engage with a lot of gratitude for the path that your life started on that you realize you didn’t pick, it’s just the one you were given. And a lot of grace for the guys who have grown up in circumstances that are incredibly difficult. 

Do these in-person encounters feel like a more effective way to connect supporters with some of the needs Novo addresses in Bolivia?

You know, going to Canada and putting on a powerpoint presentation with pictures of people just doesn’t have the same impact as coming down, sitting face-to-face with someone, eating a meal with them, taking the time to really hear their stories, looking them in the eyes when you hear it, and realizing: this is a person who is as infinitely valuable as I am but by circumstance of birth, their path has been so much different than mine. 

I think it’s a privilege in the ministry to be able to be that liaison between two worlds. I think it’s one of the reasons why the church still needs international workers. They really can bridge the gap between two cultures, two worlds, in a way that someone who has never lived internationally just cannot.

What are your future plans for Refugio and NOVO?

My hope with Refugio is really to see it become a retreat center. A place where people go for healing. [Even] before that intention was clear to me, people really experienced it that way. I would have people go out with their families for a few days and reach out to me afterwards and say, “Wow I really feel like we had a bunch of conversations that we never would have had in the city. This being offline and in this place together, eating together and walking together, has just had a real impact on us.” 

As I began to see the impact of it on my own with my family, my kids and friends, it became something that I really wanted to develop intentionally. So I hope to see retreats out there with the specific intention of helping people work through their emotional and spiritual issues. I see an interesting team coming together around that. I think NOVO will continue to be involved, with residents working out there and potential resident employment.

Photo by James Galt

You’ve talked a lot about the importance of intimate, vulnerable relationships. How important is community when it comes to addiction rehabilitation? 

I don’t know that I could overstate it. I think it is maybe impossible to recover without community. Certainly borderline impossible. I think that emotional trauma has as a main feature: isolation. You end up closed off from others and closed off from yourself and kind of locked away. The path out of that has to be in a loving and graceful community with other people. 

At this point I can’t conceive of the Gospel in any other terms. I just don’t see a compelling reading of the Bible that makes space for a gospel that’s primarily about my individual salvation. I just don’t see it. I think it has to be something that’s understood as a function of God’s grace in community. [At NOVO, we believe] that we encounter this personal transformation in communities. It’s not devoid of the work of God in your life, but rather it recognizes that one of the key ways that God works in your life is in your relationship with others. Vulnerable, open community is a place where your broken hearts can find healing and where your healed parts will be tested. In coming through that testing, you can actually find some new life and new hope for a different future. 

Is there a lack of community among those who don’t struggle with addiction?

I see many many people whose lives from the outsides look objectively okay by the metrics that society asks for. They’re well dressed, they show up to work on time. They pay their bills. But their inner world is a dessert. There’s trauma and isolation that prevents real relationships and healing and I think it’s epidemic. I think the number of people who really have vibrant, rich community that they can depend on, where they can feel authentic and open, is very few. 

I think the church in particular has a lot of work to do if it wants to be that kind of community in people’s lives. Because my experience of it, and I have a fair bit, is that a lot of times, it’s a group so intent on communicating that God has already done this work in me, that I can’t really be open about what I struggle with because I’m supposed to already be better. That need to look like, “Everything is okay with me,” is a real blockage of authenticity for people to come forward with the parts of their lives that don’t make sense to them, because they don’t see anybody else doing that, and so it doesn’t feel welcome.

Photo by James Galt

What are some action steps we could take to foster a healthier community?

The choice to open up to the people closest to you about those parts of you that are struggling and don’t fit has to be where it begins. I also think it’s really practical stuff like a shared table. I think the idea that we are divided off into private households where we privately eat and privately watch TV and privately go to bed and privately struggle is not the best way for us to live. I think [it means] opening our homes to one another in a way that doesn’t require a lot of formality, but says “Hey, we care about each other. You’re welcome in my home and I’m welcome in your home.”

…I also see churches, some of them, really taking the initiative in the time of COVID to set up plans to care for each other. To have communal kitchens and such to look after people who are struggling. I think it would be beautiful for those types of programs to reach everybody and not just the people who are in a precarious position. The idea that we should come together as a community and rally help people once they’re in grave risk seems to me to be waiting to do surgery until the infection is so bad you almost have to amputate—rather than recognizing that coming together and caring for each other is something we would all benefit from if we started it even when we’re thriving, especially when we’re thriving.

James Galt

James is a California native who is spiritually gifted in the game of corn hole. When not on the road, you can usually find him in the Pacific Ocean. He carries a subtle appreciation for how everything he owns is covered in sand. View his work at galtvisual.com.

Meet our Resource Team: Jackson Hale and 360 WELLNESS

Jackson Hale is all about connections. He started making them during his physical therapy studies at Azusa Pacific University. To connect his lessons with real life experience, he went on Instagram to offer nutrition counseling or physical therapy sessions to dormmates and friends. Soon, he offered the same to clients at North County San Diego gyms.

As he gained experience, Jackson began to connect the injuries and issues he saw to what was causing them. At least 80 percent of the problems he treated, he believed, could have been prevented with proper coaching. He began to integrate his training and experience, melding mind, body and spirit into treatment approaches designed not just to heal, but to set clients on a path to long-term health.

A post-college backpacking trip in Southeast Asia sent Jackson deeper into thinking about spiritual health. And when he returned to Carlsbad a visit to a revival sermon at a San Marcos church opened the door to a new connection: a personal, experiential connection with God.

The next step was connecting this spiritual awakening with the profession he’d chosen in physical therapy. Jackson spent 500 hours working toward his license in massage, sports medicine and training. As he practiced, he increasingly saw that work as just one element of healing. Clients “were in pain, they weren’t eating well, they weren’t mindful, they were stressed, they were anxious, they were depressed,” he says. “I stepped out in faith and passion reaching out to these people in need,” adding prayer and words of encouragement to connect his physical therapy with spiritual healing.

Faith, says Jackson, is “that missing piece that I knew wasn’t in healthcare, that I believe is the solution.” Without it, healing is “not complete.” It lacks “that power, that love of God integrated into it.”

Jackson searched for an organization where he could integrate his faith with his physical therapy. When he couldn’t find one, he created his own: 360 Wellness. Faith “wasn’t something I was advertising or marketing, but it started to open the door with my clients,” he says.

As his own practice grew, Jackson made 360 Wellness a nonprofit center that hosts other fitness and wellness professionals in the Christian community. He’s sold his gym equipment, moving away from physical therapy to more personal, spiritual counseling. Clients now come to him for help resolving family conflicts, or dealing with issues such as mental health or addiction. Through donations to the nonprofit, he can cover costs for those who have few resources but need counsel and ministry.

What began as a massage therapy studio has transformed into a center for connection – connection to classes and counseling, prayer and mission study, with Jackson or other Christian wellness and fitness professionals.

In all of these connections, says Jackson, health and wellness professionals shouldn’t lose sight of their need to stay inwardly connected as well. It’s easy to let ambition push us so hard we burn out; the road to healing others starts with self-care, with keeping ourselves healthy – physically and spiritually.

Jackson has now set his sights beyond 360Wellness to extend his reach to support other ministries, organizations, start outreach programs, and support missions abroad. His missionary journey has brought him to South Africa, Botswana, and Uruguay for outreach, ministry care, and support. He is excited to be a part of the Roadworks Collective community to make a greater impact on those in need.