Keeping harm at bay

Effective Compassion: Mission brings good news to California’s roughest city | Mark Bergin

RICHMOND, Calif. — Boarded windows. Crooked roofs. Abandoned buildings bathed in graffiti. The downtown section of this Oakland suburb (population 105,000) is a vandalized wasteland. The 1960s race riots and turf wars among drug dealers transformed this once thriving community into the Golden State's most dangerous city per capita, with about 40 murders, 50 rapes, 500 robberies, 500 assaults, 1,100 burglaries, 2,500 auto thefts, and 3,500 larcenies taking place each year.

Hundreds of people, many intoxicated or mentally unstable, wander Richmond's streets every night. But amid the ugliness, hope lives.

On a Tuesday morning in an upstairs room at the local Bay Area Rescue Mission, a dozen program participants wrestle with the spiritual roots of their problems. Valentin Mbong, a rotund African minister, sits at a slightly elevated desk and teaches on the power of the Holy Spirit to change hearts. "The Spirit-filled life is a life of repentance," he tells the class. "It takes a man to admit you cannot do it alone."