A Son Carries On With the Revival of the Spirit : Legacy: Peter Hilst continues the work of his father, who created a retreat for homeless people and drug abusers willing to have faith in God and themselves.

In an age of multimillion-dollar ministries, Peter Hilst is a $50-a-week preacher.

He lives in a mobile home at a Spartan retreat for homeless people and drug addicts that he operates along the parched Sierra Highway north of Los Angeles.

His $200 monthly salary doesn’t go very far, so he moonlights as a sound technician at a local college to buy clothes for his five children.

This is not how the blond, boyish-looking minister had planned to spend his life.

“I wanted to go to a naval flight academy and fly F-14s. But the reality is, if I wasn’t here, there wouldn’t be anybody to run this place. It was the kind of situation where everything revolved around one person--my father,” he said.

Hilst’s father was a noted Los Angeles evangelist to the poor, Fred Hilst, who founded the Bible Tabernacle’s New Life Institute in Canyon Country 10 years ago.

A promising musician who destroyed his career with drugs and alcohol before turning to religion, the elder Hilst ran the retreat on the philosophy that religion and the values it teaches are all that are needed to help substance abusers.

When Fred Hilst died last November, the work fell to other family members, particularly Peter Hilst, 33, an ordained minister who had been helping his father before his death.

Friends compare the younger Hilst to the simple, decent man portrayed by James Stewart in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” who put aside his own dreams to take over the family business out of a sense of responsibility.

In Hilst’s case, he has willingly shouldered the burden of running this retreat nestled in a tiny valley for men who have hit rock bottom.

And he has a healthy sense of humor about his mission and his father’s legacy, freely admitting the 11.5-acre retreat sometimes is like a “circus,” with people coming and going at all times.

The Institute has no professional counselors or occupational therapists to help the nearly 180 drug addicts, alcoholics and homeless men who live in several bungalows and trailers packed with cots and mattresses. Instead, men are given food, shelter, a rigid schedule, hard work and a healthy dose of the Bible.

“Essentially we see the heart of the drug problem as a spiritual thing. There is a void within the human,” Hilst said. “We have been created to have fellowship with Him. Without that, everything is just chaos and confusion.”

“Learning to be dependable, reliable--that’s where it’s at,” Hilst said.

The retreat serves men who have ravaged their bodies with drugs and alcohol, cut off relations with their families, abandoned their jobs, and spent time in jail, in gangs, and on the streets.

Mike Curtis spent five years drifting across the country working odd jobs to support his opium addiction. The teachings at the retreat “gave me a reason to continue with my life,” he said. Curtis, 35, has been at the camp as a staff member for seven years and is in charge of maintenance at the facility.

Don Vuurman, whose toothless smile, weather-beaten skin and tattooed arms testify to 20 years as a “speed” addict, said this program is a “whole lot different” than the drug programs he failed.

Vuurman, a soft-spoken man who spent 18 months on the streets in Nevada and Santa Monica before he came to the retreat seven months ago, said his biggest problem was self-discipline. Now he is “learning discipline all over again.”

Residents follow a strict schedule. The day starts at 5:30 a.m. with 90 minutes of Bible reading; breakfast is served at 8 a.m., and by 9:30 everyone is busy at an assigned task for the day.

New men chop and stack wood for the stoves used to heat the bunkhouses. Old-timers prepare meals, work in the auto body shop to keep the cars and vans running, maintain the grounds, clean the buildings, or work on the construction crew, which is constantly improving the facilities.

Work stops at 4 p.m., but men who violate camp rules must continue right up until dinner time, at 5 p.m. During morning and afternoon breaks, men can read, write letters, or exercise with makeshift weightlifting machines.

There is a mandatory prayer meeting in the chapel each night, during which residents give testimonies. There also are optional classes on witnessing, and rehearsals for the mens chorus. Curfew--at 10 p.m.--is strictly enforced.

A shuttle runs every day between the retreat and the Bible Tabernacle Church in Venice, which also was founded by Fred Hilst, and where Peter Hilst serves as pastor. The church, which provides shelter for 200 men, women and children, is run by other family members, who also are trying to fill the void left by their father.

Fred Hilst, who died Nov. 26, came to California from Illinois in the late 1940s hoping to carve out a successful career as a musician. But, he said in a 1980 interview, he “got hooked on the glamour of the night life.” Soon he was addicted to drugs and alcohol.

The aspiring singer hit bottom in the early 1950s, when he blew a live television appearance because he was drunk and the director told him he would never appear before a camera again. A friend recommended that he visit a church, and Hilst began to study the Bible. He was later ordained as a minister.

He felt his own bouts with drugs and alcohol gave him a special calling to help others in need and he began providing shelter for the homeless in the early 1960s.

The Canyon Country retreat was purchased for him 10 years ago by a grateful man whose son had been straightened out by the pastor.

Peter Hilst has inherited this legacy. He lives with his wife and five children, who range in age from 2 to 13, in a five-room trailer on the site, which is owned by the church. His family eats the same food as the residents of the retreat. He operates the retreat with a staff of unpaid, long-term residents.

Hilst acknowledges that many of the daily arrivals at the retreat are more interested in a warm meal and a roof over their heads than in hard work and spiritual guidance.

Many come to the retreat by chance--after wandering into the Bible Tabernacle Church in Venice----for temporary shelter. Some may leave after just a few days of the stringent schedule.

Others, however, hear of the ranch through friends, and arrive determined to clean up their lives. They can stay at the camp as long as they like, without paying anything. Hilst urges them to make a minimum commitment of three months, and recommends that they stay longer to overcome their desire for drugs.

“You need to be out of the city and off the streets to stay away from that stuff. You need to really change old habits and that is not going to happen overnight,” Hilst said. Still, he said, “it’s something of a revolving door. No one is kept here against their will. They are free to leave at any time, and people are always coming and going.”

Right now, about 65 of the residents have been at the retreat at least three months; 20 others have been there two months.

Hilst does not have any way to measure the success rate of the program. There is no follow-up to count the people who manage to stay clean after leaving the retreat. But Hilst said the numbers don’t matter much to him.

During a lunch break, Wilbur Pratt, 25, a former gang member from East Los Angeles, and two friends, sat under a tree, ate bologna sandwiches and enthusiastically told how their lives have been altered by the camp. Their stories were similar and all are peppered with Bible passages that apply to their own lives.

Before he came to the camp, Pratt said, he was heading towards “either a penitentiary life sentence or death right out on the streets.” Now, he said, he is a devout Christian.

Pratt has been at the camp before, but when he left and re-established contact with his old friends, he began to use drugs again. Fortunately, he said, Hilst and the staff welcomed him back a second time.

“This is the only place that will not give up on you. They open their arms and say ‘come home.’ God is always willing to give you a chance,” he said.