Member Spotlight: Shalom Sanchez and Great Commission Ministries/Students Run L.A.

Shalom Sanchez didn’t run away from her calling.

She ran to it.

Go to the notoriously violent neighborhood of South Los Angeles, the subject of movies like Boyz n the Hood? A far cry from Sterling College in Kansas, but … OK.

Serve as a mentor to young people at the local high school while training them to run a marathon? She had never been the athletic type before, but … OK.

Share young people’s lives and share with them the Good News of Jesus Christ? No problem.

“Coming out to Los Angeles was definitely something from the Lord,” says the 32-year-old New Mexico native and Samaritan Ministries member. Before she started helping with a Great Commission Ministries church plant in East Hollywood in 2002, “I never had any desire to be here.”

Now her desire is to work with at-risk youth through Students Run L.A., a running and mentoring program that works informally with high school students from James A. Foshay Learning Center.

The program, organized by leaders in her church, South L.A. Christian Life, has four goals:

To train young people to run in and complete the Los Angeles Marathon, the 26.2-mile race held in the city every spring. “They see they can accomplish something if they set goals. It really gives them confidence in their lives about doing other things,” Shalom says.

To develop relationships with the students, most of whom have little if any consistency in their communities or families. That enables the mentors to more effectively share the Gospel. “A big thing about the students we work with is a lot of abandonment issues. They’re used to people coming in and out and not sticking around.”

To help the students develop a more disciplined approach to school and improve their grades. One of the girls in the program became the first in her extended family to finish high school. “In general, students in our program not only finish high school, but go on to college,” Shalom says.

To give them the Gospel of Jesus Christ, hold Bible studies and help them mature spiritually.

“When you’re training for a marathon, it’s all about setting goals,” she says. “You don’t run 26 miles to start off. You run maybe a mile, maybe not even a mile. We talk to them a lot about goal setting. But through it, we get to share testimonies with them. You get to talk about their life, how they’re doing, and you get to share your life with them. Then we talk with them about different verses in the Bible about running.”

Verses like these:

• Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it (1 Corinthians 9:24).
• So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air (1 Corinthians 9:26).
• I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith (2 Timothy 4:7).
• Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. (Hebrews 12:1)

“Our ultimate goal is not only to have them healthy, but to have them receive eternal life in Christ.”

The effort is bearing fruit, Shalom says. The mentoring team has seen young people accept Jesus, family relationships grow, friendships develop among team members, and several of the students complete the L.A. Marathon—11 this year alone. Students Run L.A. takes place during the school year. Shalom and the other four coaches and mentors meet with students four times a week, running with them through the neighborhood and mentoring them in the process. The group usually starts out large in September, with as many as 40, Shalom says, but typically dwindles to between 10 and 15 as the year goes on.

Her roommate, co-laborer and longtime friend Stephanie Miller, isn’t surprised by the positive impact Shalom has on young people.

“She definitely has an intense sincerity,” Stephanie says. “Everyone who comes in contact with her feels that they’re special. She’s got this great peace about her that I think really makes people feel comfortable and willing to open up and share their lives with her.”

The students, Stephanie says, “want to know why she’s the way she is.”

Shalom didn’t foresee being involved in a ministry in one of the toughest and most diverse neighborhoods in the nation when she was a theater major at Sterling College, a Christian liberal arts school in Sterling, Kansas. But on a theater group tour during college through California, she saw the contrasts of life for people in California, from the very affluent to the very poor. Her focus began to change.

“I really saw people hurting and searching and a great need and great diversity that really started working on my heart,” she says. “I felt from that point on called to urban youth work.”

After helping with the church plant in East Hollywood, “which is another rough area,” she moved to South L.A., formerly and infamously known as South Central L.A., to help with another new church five years ago.

She also has worked with a Christmas giveaway program, a transitional home for women coming out of addictive or homeless lifestyles, and a support group for children recovering from abusive situations. Through all of this, she has taught in the public school system as a substitute.

Shalom admits that there have been a couple scary moments since moving to South L.A., and that it’s not unusual to see someone being handcuffed by police or to hear gunshots, but “I have never felt afraid, and I’ve really felt God’s direction and peace about being here.”

The missionary didn’t originally feel God’s direction for her to literally run. That started about two years ago, when she began working with students in the running/mentoring program on core strengthening exercises.

“I started with that, then started running with them. I kept going. The next step and the next step.”

She has taken enough steps physically to finish two marathons and spiritually to see some of her students accept the Lord.

“This last year, we had one who came to Christ the night before the marathon and got the opportunity to share the Gospel with a handful of others,” Shalom says. “It’s the Lord’s job to work on their heart. It’s not our job to save. It’s our job to share.”

She shares not only with high school students, but also with neighborhood folks who buy loaves from Bicycle Bread Co. The creation of two brothers from Florida, Bicycle Bread bakes healthful bread in a neighborhood house, then sells it at a table set up on a sidewalk or corner once a week. Shalom has been involved with the bread ministry for about a year. One of the benefits of the bread company, she says, has been getting students from the nearby University of Southern California involved with the neighborhood.

“There’s literally a wall around USC,” Shalom says. “It’s a very visible wall, a physical wall, and usually the college and community don’t really mix very well at all.”

Regular customers will sometimes stay an hour or two, more hungry for relationships than for bread.

“It’s led us to be able to even start Bible studies outside,” She says. “We have done pizza nights where we meet people during the week through the bread tables and invite them to our homes. Our heart is to build real relationships with people in our neighborhood, giving us opportunities to share the Gospel.”

Runners in the student program have even helped bake bread.

“Our heart is to teach them a skill, teach them a trade,” Shalom says.

One step at a time.