Barrio Prophets: Recounted

READ: Barrio Prophets intro + (a), (b), (c) and (d).


As with the recounting of any event, there are the stats and there are the stories. On Friday, at the Cumbre de Alabanza - The Heart of a Barrio Prophet, the stats were exciting:

• over 130 people attended, including:
• students & staff from at least 13 campuses,
• plus youth leaders & pastors from 5 or 6 churches,
• and a dozen or so Latino alumni from IV,
• even a few parents & families,
• and 35 to 45 people that stood up, saying "I want to be a Barrio Prophet" in their barrio or campus or in their family.

And then there are the stories. In his message, Abner held up a stuffed bear from Starbucks that was wearing a frog suit. [Read "Osito, que paso"] He said, "When I think of a bear, I think ‘majestic, big, beautiful, ferocious’. Bears rule the forest: they eat berries, they punk bees for their honey, they even punk happy campers out of their food, bears eat trout and salmon."

"But you see, someone at Starbucks corporate headquarters in Seattle Washington thought it would be a cute idea to put a frog suit on this guy. Frog! Frogs are at the bottom of the food chain, they spend their lives hopping away from every predator in the forest, and they eat worms and mosquito. A frog suit!"


"You see, someone put a frog suit on this bear, and in doing so they robbed him of his dignity, of his potential, of his rightful place in the grand scheme of the forest. Every time you and I settle for less than what we are—when we don’t live up to our god-given potential, when we go out and protest the system without having solutions to the problems, when we let others define who we are—we put on a frog suit."


At the end of the night, student after student came down the center isle to pronounce their verbal commitment - "I want to be a barrio prophet," - making the stand to tear off the frog suit and uncover the potential God has put in them - not just for themselves privately, but publicly for the campus, their families and the barrios, neighborhoods and place where they live.

And all of the students' stories. The story of Natalie, our only student in attendance from CSULA, said, "We really need to have something like this on campus." Or the story of Carlos, a youth our church that came, said, "I never realized how much I was like Jeremiah, or how much I had to learn from him."

Or the story of Stacey, a student leader from Redlands who I got to pray for, who shared, "I know that the Lord is leading me to be a Barrio Prophet and to come on staff with InterVarsity." Or of Cindy, another student from Redlands, who brought up her friend Hedi, to pray for healing for her brother who is in the hospital, praying "Give her your peace and show her your love as you heal her brother."


There is the story of Francisco, a student leader from the UCLA La Fe Bible study that provided all of the snacks for the event, who told me, "We all felt challenged with joy to give this as our offering - free of charge - so that the money raised could go to help out future La Fe events." Or the story of Lupita, currently a 4th grader, saying "Yes, I will" when I asked her if she would be part of the next generation of Lation college students.

These are stories of God raising up a generation of barrio prophets - called from the barrio, called to the barrio, or to their campus, or their families - to be God's messengers of hope.

La Fe logo - InterVarsity