Shot, Stabbed & Addicted: How a Former Gang Member Became a Pastor | Mando Vera

Pastor Mando Vera was once known as “Monster”, a gang member caught in violence, addiction, and incarceration. Today, he returns to the same streets with a message of faith, forgiveness, and hope.

In this episode of Third Man in the Ring, Popeye Ray sits down with someone he personally knew from the neighborhood. Mando opens up about growing up in an abusive home in Bassett, California, entering gang life at a young age, being shot and stabbed, battling drugs and alcohol, and reaching a point where he nearly lost his family and his life.

Mondo also shares something many testimonies leave out: after first accepting Christ, he fell back into addiction. That relapse cost him his job, car, home, and almost everything that mattered to him. What he expected to be a few months in a Christian recovery home became two years of restoration, leadership, and preparation for ministry.

Now an ordained minister, evangelist, and chaplain, Pastor Mando serves people in hospitals, jails, recovery homes, and neighborhoods that once considered him an enemy.

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