‘May He Watch Over You and All the Homeboys’ : Culture: Neither priest, cop nor social worker, religion teacher Paul Stroup is a maverick who works the streets to bring God’s word to gangs.

Night had already fallen in East L.A.’s City Terrace Park when Paul Stroup locked his 1983 Pontiac Grand Prix and slipped off into the shadows to keep a solemn promise.

The 33-year-old religion teacher was nervous. Had he gone too far this time, entering this park claimed by feuding gangs?

But Chato had asked him to go there. When Stroup visited the 17-year-old gangbanger in Juvenile Hall, Chato had pleaded: “Hey, Paul, will you go find my little brother, tell him ‘what’s up’ for me, tell him what you’re always telling me, about how God loves us?”

Stroup had just about given up hope when out strolled a pack of homeboys led by Chato’s 14-year-old brother, Gizmo. Stroup introduced himself.

“Oh, I know who you are. Chato said you’d be coming to visit us,” Gizmo replied as a pickup cruised slowly into view.

Then Stroup heard a sound like a car backfiring rapidly. The boys scattered. Three shots were fired, then the truck sped off and Stroup picked himself up from the dirt. For him, it was just another Saturday night.

By day, Paul Stroup heads the theology department at Don Bosco Technical Institute in Rosemead, where he teaches high-achieving boys headed for trade school or college.

But at night, Stroup enters the world of Latino street gangs. He goes to their parties, occasionally shares a beer and drives them home if they get drunk. He listens to their problems, offers advice. He visits them in jail, bringing news of their homeboys on the “outs” and reading the Bible.

Neither priest nor social worker nor law enforcer, Stroup is a maverick who works the streets alone, letting gang members know that God is with them. Simply, he is their friend.

“I always felt attracted to finding God in places where people don’t think He exists,” says Stroup, who wears jeans, round glasses and a simple woven crucifix while making his rounds. “I’m very moved by the paradox that in the midst of great violence and poverty, there is also great wealth and peace.”

A devout Catholic, Stroup first noticed the gangs hanging around the south San Gabriel Valley when he arrived at Don Bosco in 1983.

His initial contact with gang members came four years ago, when a former Don Bosco student invited Stroup to visit his neighborhood. Soon, it became a Friday night ritual.

At first, the kids crowded around suspiciously, some pegging him as a narc. The cops who cruised by figured he was a drug dealer. Other adults weren’t sure what to think, except maybe this guy was weird. Why else would he hang out with street gangs?

Gang members introduced him as “the guy who prays for the homeboys. He’s firme --he’s OK.” Then other invitations came: “Hey, when you going to come to our neighborhood?”

Says Stroup: “When I meet a homeboy, I tell him, I’m not here to change you, I’m here to pray for you, walk with you until you reach a time in your life when you can do something else.

“You can tell people, ‘God loves you, goodby,’ or you can share your life with people to change their condition. Not until they recognize the God in themselves will they see a reason to change.”

Although some law enforcement officers and religious leaders call his approach unorthodox, many praise him for getting through to hard-core gang members when all else has failed. He also has earned the respect and love of gang members throughout the south San Gabriel Valley and East Los Angeles.

“Every Sunday, you catch me at my window, looking out to see if he’s coming,” said Jose M., a 17-year-old gang member incarcerated at Los Angeles Juvenile Hall for armed robbery.

Thanks to long talks with Stroup, Jose says he is ready to reform, vowing to earn his high school equivalency degree and learn a skill while behind bars so he can move away from his old neighborhood after his 1994 release.

“He’s helped me calm down, he’s helped me change,” Jose explained one Sunday morning when Stroup dropped by the gated facility. “Not many people come visit us, but he does. I can tell Paul things I can’t even tell my parents.”

This visit ends with a prayer: “May God guide us to make the choices that help us,” Stroup murmurs as he and Jose bow their heads. “May He watch over you and all the homeboys, here and on the outs.”

To help those on the outside, Stroup turned the garage in his former home into a makeshift chapel and invited gang members to decorate it with their placas , or street names. They left offerings and lit candles to homeboys killed on the streets. Sometimes placas from rival gangs were scrawled next to each other. The chapel was neutral turf.

Some might call Stroup naive, but he is under no delusions that he is converting gangbangers into choirboys. When he does meet the rare one who is tired of the shooting, the running, the posturing, Stroup helps find temporary shelter, clothes, a job.

But all too often, he says, that doesn’t happen until they are forcibly separated from the gang, usually by prison.

Stroup has learned that when the gang members say por vida --for life--they mean it. He recalls the story of a boy who called him for a ride home when he got out of jail.

The boy’s parents had moved out of state, leaving him behind. It was the teen-ager’s birthday, so Stroup drove him to a sister’s house. There, he picked up some clothes but got the cold shoulder from his sister. Depressed, the boy asked Stroup to drop him off where his homeboys were partying.

As the boy left the car, his friends hugged him and welcomed him back. Stroup realized that the gang was the only family who welcomed the boy.

Stroup’s self-appointed ministry raises questions. Is it appropriate to drink, even rarely, with minors? What are his obligations if they light up an angel dust cigarette? If they are sought by police in connection with some crime?

James Nelson, a Christian ethicist at the United Theological Seminary in New Brighton, Minn., points out that conventional methods don’t always work with gang members and that even Jesus Christ consorted with disreputable people.

Nelson says adults have a responsibility to steer teen-agers away from destructive behavior, but he adds: “I don’t pretend to pass judgment on how that is done. . . . I assume he has conscientiously wrestled with this.”

Stroup admits the dilemma: He wants to be a role model, but he also wants to win their confidence. “The only access I have is on the street, at parties, at Juvenile Hall,” he says. “It puts me in a bind.”

He has set some rules: To avoid involvement in a drive-by shooting, he won’t get into a car unless he knows the destination. He discourages drug use, particularly of PCP, or angel dust, which many gangbangers smoke.

And he tries to set a good example through words and deeds. It’s a strategy that has the full support of Father Nick Reina, Don Bosco’s president.

“It’s a ministry of presence,” Reina says of Stroup’s endeavors. “Just to be with them and show them that somebody cares is the first step in trying to educate these kids. As the rapport grows deeper, you can begin to influence them.”

Flavio Santos, a detention services officer at Juvenile Hall, shakes his head at Stroup’s tenacity and respects the teacher’s efforts. “We deal them in a strict way; we don’t have time to concentrate on each kid,” Santos says. “But Paul gives them ways to help themselves.”

One Friday evening, Arthur Bonillas, a former gang member in his late 20s, sat on the porch of a south San Gabriel house as Stroup visited with gangbangers in the back yard. A gleeful group of teen-agers peppered Stroup with questions about a friend in Juvenile Hall.

“Many of these kids don’t have a father figure,” Bonillas said. “But they listen to Paul. He tries to teach them right from wrong; he makes a big difference. I’ve seen boys crying when they talk to him.”

Lucy Jabonero, at whose house the boys have gathered, agreed: “He’s a good influence. He helps our boys.”

In many ways, Stroup’s approach is similar to that of Father Greg Boyle, a Catholic priest who works with Latino gangs at Dolores Mission Church in Boyle Heights. The two know each other from Juvenile Hall, where Boyle often says Mass.

“He treats them like human beings first, with dignity and respect,” Boyle said. “He knows it’s naive and unrealistic if you say, ‘Stop being part of a gang.’ What’s ultimately compelling for a kid is someone who’s there through good times and bad and doesn’t put conditions on you.”

Stroup’s years of personal observation led him to write “Barrio of the Heart,” a coming-of-age novel that will be published later this year.

He said he wrote it to reach urban youngsters in the way Huckleberry Finn touched earlier generations. He hopes it will correct the image of inner-city youth, which he said emphasizes crime and shows none of the barrio’s complex humanity.

The book recounts the attempts of a 14-year-old named Little Man to come to grips with his gang, his barrio and his older brother, who has renounced the violent lifestyle. It teems with shootouts, beer parties, drug abuse, a pregnant girlfriend. By the book’s end, Little Man begins to question, however dimly, his direction in life.

In the book’s climax, Little Man and his older brother, Reckless, meet in a cemetery where many of their homeboys killed by gang violence are buried.

“ ‘You don’t get it, do you?’ Reckless asks. ‘The barrio isn’t a place, ese. It ain’t about territory.’ He clenched his right fist tightly and pressed it against his chest like his insides ached.

“ ‘It’s the people--the people in your heart,’ he said. ‘ El barrio en el corazon, ese. ‘ I knew he had said something heavy. I could feel it in my gut, but my mind was overloaded and I couldn’t understand.”

For Stroup, it has sometimes taken all his faith and belief in God to keep going. “The times I’ve been most scared is when they pull up and pull out a gun and you don’t know. . . .” His voice trails off.

Stroup recalls talking to some homeboys in a park one day when a car pulled up. Out came a shotgun. Then Stroup recognized a gang member in the back seat. Their eyes locked, and suddenly the boy whispered something to another boy in front. The shotgun was retracted and the car took off.

“Maybe,” Stroup said, “I made a difference that day.”