Salvation at the Citgo

June 10, 2006

By Jason Hardin
Greensboro News-Record

GREENSBORO, NC—It's not exactly a fancy church, but when it comes to salvation, the Citgo on Phillips Avenue is just fine with Victor Benavides. 

He's standing on the side of the road in front of the convenience store talking about Jesus with a young man in a baggy white T-shirt. They're getting stares from residents of the public housing complex across the street and a man who spends part of the morning digging through a trash container in the parking lot. A car creeps by, the driver yelling, "Hallelujah!" and cackling madly, but Benavides keeps his focus.  "Jesus died on the cross for your sins," he tells the young man.  After a few minutes, they pray together, and Benavides hands him a New Testament.  They'll meet in heaven one day, he tells him.  One more soul for the church.

It's street evangelism, and many of the thousands of Baptist in town for the Southern Baptist Convetnion have spent the past week hitting the pavement.  Much of their focus is on the city's poorest neighborhoods.  For Benavides, who on Friday sported a backpack full of literature and a T-shirt with a picture of a crucified Jesus, it's fertile ground.

"They're desperate for something good to happen to them," he says. "One of the guys out here today who's a gang banger could be the next Billy Graham."

It's a full-time job for Benavides.  Based out of Georgia, he travels the country and beyond for the North American Mission Board, which is associated with the Southern Baptists. It can be draining work, mentally and physically.  Many people are open and willing at least to listen.  Some can be less friendly.

"When people do resist us, we just leave," says Howard Everett, a hulking preacher from San Diego.  "This is probably the most sweet-spirited group of evangelisst you'll ever meet."

At another apartment complex on Phillips Avenue, one man does grumble, accusing them of arrogance.  But resident Gussie Austin welcomes the evangelicals.  "It's time for good news," she says. "These are perilous days." She then points them to a nearby convenience store.  There are "lost souls" there, she says.  Drug dealers.

Benavides and Everett stroll across the street to the store, joking that they look too much like the vice squad and sometimes dealers scatter.  There are several young men hanging out at the store, the smell of marijuana is in the air. Most do scatter, although it's not clear whether it's because they think police or preachers are coming.

Amoung them is the young man Benavides talked to earlier.  He vanished along with his friends.  A few stick around for a minute, one debating whether marijuana is really a drug—the young woman insists it isn't because "it's grown" - and then they're all gone. 

Benavides says he isn't too discouraged.  The young man seemed sincere, he says.  Besides, it isn't always that easy.

"It takes time," he says.