Southeast : Ex-Gangsters Join at Religious Gathering

As a self-described former hit man for the Mexican Mafia in East Los Angeles, Arthur Blajos understands why drug addicts and gang members usually duck Sunday morning church services. But at this week’s Victory Outreach Ministries convention in Long Beach, fitting in shouldn’t be a problem.

Blajos and other ordained ministers in the organization--95% of them former gang members and drug addicts--are playing host to 14,000 former and current gangsters and addicts from around the world at the Long Beach Convention Center through Saturday. Said to be the largest such gathering in history, the six-day convention will focus on replacing the brotherhood of drugs and gang violence with the unity of the Gospel.

“If it wasn’t for this ministry, I know I wouldn’t be trusted, accepted [at other churches],” said Blajos, who is a missionary in Britain.

Outreach-oriented classes and workshops are the main fare of the convention, which calls together members, prospective converts and even curious spectators to hear inspirational instruction from urban missionaries with checkered pasts who come from as far as Amsterdam and Rio de Janeiro.

Security isn’t a concern, organizers say, considering that many of the convention’s guards are ex-convicts who look the part.

On Saturday, more than 100 pastors will be ordained and sent out to the world’s neediest cities.

Participants expect the conference to reinforce a rare harmony.

“A lot of us here, we used to shoot at each other,” said Daniel Castaneda, a former gang member from Bassett, who now works full time in construction.