PASTOR KNOWS FIRSTHAND THE PROBLEM OF ADDICTION

Once A Heroin Addict, Flores Now Runs A Recovery Center

As a teen-ager, Jose Luis Flores was a gang member with a $100-a-day heroin
habit.

Today, Flores is clean and sober. And he's more. He's a pastor who operates
New Life Fellowship Home in Corpus Christi, where he works as a volunteer
helping people with alcohol and drug problems recover.

"I do it because I had no hope when I was on the street, and I wanted to
pay back to God," said Flores, 50. "I wanted to give back to my community
what I took from my community."

Flores was 13 years old and living in Puerto Rico when he started using
heroin. At 17, he moved with an uncle to Chicago, but his life didn't get
any better. He got involved in the city's gangs and continued using heroin.
Eventually, he found himself living in an abandoned building.

Flores walked to a park one day to look for drugs.

He found something else.

"Somebody was preaching in the park to the gang members, telling them there
was a way out of drugs and alcohol and out of gangs," Flores said. "I
stopped and listened to him. He converted me."

The preacher, whose name Flores can recall only as Galan, was a former gang
member and drug addict who worked for a Chicago rehabilitation program.

"He related to me, because this message he brought was a message of hope,
and he was not just reading out of a book," Flores said. "He was talking
about his own life."

Galan told Flores he should leave Chicago to get out of his gang. Flores
heeded the advice. That year, in 1973, he traveled to San Antonio and
joined Victory Life, a program that reaches out to people on the streets
"with a message of hope that Christ can deliver them from drug addiction or
gangs," he said.

Finishing the program in six months, Flores then attended Latin American
Bible School near Los Angeles and became a minister.

In 1981, Flores came to Corpus Christi and founded New Life Fellowship
Home. With five locations around the city and a main home at 1207 Craig
St., New Life each year treats about 1,000 drug addicts and alcoholics,
free of charge, with a specific recipe for recovery.

"Our main thing is, we use the Bible," said Flores, who also is pastor of
New Life Church. "The problem of drug addiction is not the drug. It is sin.
When you get right with God, then you have no desire to commit sin or
commit crime."

Juan Lopez was a heroin addict 17 years ago when he came to Flores for
help. It worked.

"He showed a lot of patience with me, and that has allowed me to endure, to
grow," said Lopez, now 53, who helps Flores rehabilitate other drug addicts.

"It's a blessing he's been here," Lopez said. "He's an example. I see how
he lives and works with his family, and these were things that had not been
taught to me, and that has helped with me."

Flores has been recognized as part of the 10th annual Caller-Times/Channel
6 Jefferson Volunteer Awards, which celebrate community volunteerism.

Nominations are accepted throughout the year, and a community panel each
month selects four honorees to be featured in articles and on Channel 6 News.

In April 2001, 10 Jefferson Award winners, selected from among the
volunteers featured throughout the year, will receive bronze medallions
minted by the Franklin Mint for their efforts to enrich their communities
and the lives of their neighbors.