ONE STAPLE AT BREAD OF LIFE CHURCH: REPENTANCE

At Bread of Life Ministries, there's no time for just pious talk.

Almost all of the church members have been in drug-related trouble,
and they don't think they should spare the church any details.

"I'm tired of being locked up. I'm tired of doing the things that are
not of God," says Vicky Smothers, in a tearful testimonial to the
congregation, a typical part of each three-hour Sunday morning service.

Smothers and others among the 20 or so church members cry, chant,
exclaim. They are reaching out for the Lord. They are divorcing
themselves from a life of drug addiction, prostitution and
incarceration.

Despite that kind of talk, "No one even blinks," says the Rev. Mary
Frazier, who founded the congregation after her son, a heroin addict,
died of AIDS. "It's OK to say you've relapsed. . . . We have people
come in here under the influence and we don't kick them out."

Many members are graduates, or participants, at Free At Last, a drug
recovery program that lends the church its back room on Sundays.

Under a broken light fixture hanging by a thread from a ceiling
riddled with holes, each member speaks out spontaneously, voices
overlapping:

We thank you Lord for all that you do for us.

Thank you for waking us Lord.

Grant us food for this week father God.

Nobody but you Lord.

Patsy Wagner, wearing her best red dress and red shoes, tells the
group how she was arrested for what she believes were false reasons.
The warrant had been cleared but she was locked up anyway until she
could get the matter resolved.

A man explains that he's celebrating four years of sobriety as his
contracting business grows.

Another says he's spent 22 years in jail and now he's free and a drug
relapse will not get him down. "I'm recommiting myself to this church.
I'm going to be the husband I need to be," he explains.

Besides listening and praying on Sundays, the Rev. Frazier appears at
the bedside of those who are in the hospital, e-mails devotional
messages to some members and gets calls at odd hours from others in
crisis.

Frazier began services in a Redwood City Howard Johnson's hotel. Now
she meets at Free At Last and on Wednesday at the city's senior
citizen center.

Church member Harry Clinton met his wife at the church as both sought
to put their lives back together after years of jail time and drugs.
When they got married, they went to Reno on Saturday, but they came
back for the 9 a.m. Sunday service.

"This is a place where we feel good. Where we feel like things are
moving forward," said Clinton, dressed in a light blue-gray suit, with
a pink tie and handkerchief.