YOUNG PASTOR HELPS CONVERT TOUGHS FROM DEALING DRUGS TO GIVING TOYS

OAKLAND -- Randy McRae and his posse rode a bright red truck along the
hard luck avenues Saturday to deliver a high unlike any they had
peddled before meeting Pastor Keith Clark.

Clark credits God, not himself, with leading McRae, Dre Parker,
Henderson Howard and others at the Word Assembly Baptist Church on
MacArthur Boulevard onto the path that had them giving away toys
Saturday on the very streets where they once ran with drug dealers.

"We all sold drugs," McRae, 36, said before hoisting a sack of wrapped
gifts into a hulking Ford Expedition parked in front of the church.
"We're different here. Now, I'm a DSL technician."

In the nearby church parking lot, church elders wearing Santa caps
sang, smiled and clapped in those moments they weren't handing out
presents to neighborhood children. Wrapped gifts were piled high on
three folding tables and overflowing from a pair of large pails.

"It gives you a good feeling to see kids smile when they get a
present," said Isaac Dutton.

The money for the gifts came from Pastor Clark and elders Dutton,
George Woods, Willie Bryant, Wendel Gilmore, Roosevelt Kelly and
Darnell Smith. The goal was to turn slightly more than $1,000 into
gifts for a thousand children, Clark said.

Victoria Lee, who has three daughters, handled the shopping for toys
for girls. Vareece Barton, who has sons, focused on gifts for boys.

"We went on a shopping spree keeping in mind what we would buy for our
own kids," Lee said. "We went everywhere."

Clark, Lee, Tamika Perkins and others from the church were up late
into the night Friday wrapping gifts for the Saturday morning Santa
session in the parking lot next to the blue and white church.

"You can tell the ones Pastor Clark wrapped because parts are hanging
out," Barton joked.

Victoria Boyd, 10, tightly hugged a soft brown stuffed elk as she and
her younger siblings, Shanice and Derrick, stepped from the church
with their mother, Levina.

Alfonzo Womack, 9, held a western sheriff toy set, complete with
plastic cowboy hat and badge, above his head as he caught up with his
brother, D'Angelo Womack, and a friend, David Wallace.

Alfonzo said he wants to be a police officer when he grows
up.

Sylvester Graham brought his 8-year-old daughter, Shinaka, from a
nearby motel.

Thankful for gifts

The girl's mother is in the hospital and Christmas would have been
stark without the early present from the church, said Graham.

"It's really hard to let your kids see others have Christmas while
they don't," Graham said. "Without this, I'd have to take a
penitentiary chance, and I don't want to take penitentiary chances."

Howard, 20, spoke of being no stranger to a lifestyle that carries a
high risk of winding up in prison or dead.

He said he never knew his father, and met his mother for the first
time only about three years ago.

"I found out she was a drug addict," Howard said. "It was weird to
think she was one of the people I could have sold drugs to."

Howard said he clashed with his strictly religious foster father and
wound up living mostly on the street since he was 15.

History on the streets

Howard said he was part of a clique that roamed the 64th Avenue area
in Oakland. According to his account, he socialized with gang members,
sold drugs and even recruited younger children into the illicit trade.

"The younger kids who I used to give drugs to sell, now I try to bring
them to the church," Howard said. "The ones who look up to me, who I
can touch, I want to teach that there are other ways to make money."

Clark and his family took Howard into their home earlier this year and
treat him as a son.

Howard returned to his former haunts Saturday carrying Christmas gifts
and Bibles instead of guns and crack cocaine.

"Some of the people I used to run with think 'He'll be back,'" Howard
said of his old associates in such places as Sobrante Park and
Brooksfield. "If I go back, it is only to help them understand that
they are doing the wrong things and will end up nowhere with nothing."

Parker, 44, described the church as a magnet for young black men
interested in making the best of their lives.

He's feels much better

"I wouldn't go back to my old life for anything in the world," Parker
said. "I wake up feeling better. I'm not looking over my shoulder all
the time. People living that life are brought into the hospital full
of bullet holes every Friday and Saturday night."

Part of the reason for the church's appeal to young black men could be
that Pastor Clark is 29. He was born in New Orleans the same year the
MacArthur Boulevard church was opened.

"We want to give children reassurance that Christmas is about love and
sharing and giving," Clark said. "Kids know that Christmas is about
Christ, and Christ takes care of the whole person -- spiritual,
emotional and physical."

McRae, Parker and Eldrick Oubre toted sacks of wrapped gifts to
apartments in the Lockwood Gardens off 66th Avenue on Saturday afternoon.

Toys and Bibles

They knocked randomly on doors, giving children toys and adults
Bibles.

"It put a smile on my face," Yolanda Delahoussaye said after the trio
handed presents to the five young boys she was watching over in the
Lockwood apartment.

"I'm not waiting until Christmas," said 71-year-old Edith Brown as she
peeled the wrapping from the book she had been handed. "I'm going to
crawl into bed and read this right now. It is my kind of gift."

Any gifts left over will be given to children at the church's
Christmas Eve services, Lee said.

This is the first year Clark and the elders held a Christmas toy
giveaway.

They plan to expand the event next year by doubling their goal to
2,000 gifts for 2,000 children.