Paint the Wall Black: The Story of Nini's Deli with Bonus Features

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What's up, everybody? My name is Juan Elias Riesco, and my family and I, together, we own Nini's Deli. Cancel Nini!

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Cancel Nini! Cancel Nini! Cancel Nini! Cancel Nini!

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One of the restaurants that has been on my list for quite some time is Nini's Deli. I'm finally getting to try the famous Nini's Deli.

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Nini's! See what happens when you play with me, Lonnie? I'm gonna expose your whole f***ing life!

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The term social justice concerns me now because I've seen it on the ground level and what it actually looks like.

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A popular deli in downtown Chicago is no longer in business after a campaign to destroy their business was launched when they didn't fully support the

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Black Lives Matter movement. There was a lot of comments that said, you could have avoided all of this if you just said

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Black Lives Matter. I had to say, verbatim, exactly what they wanted to hear.

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And then, just then, they said, I would be able to still exist if I would allow them to tie me up, speak their words, and bow down to the social justice movement.

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The biggest coward in Chicago! Lonnie, the biggest coward! And the pastors that I've met with who have come from communist countries, like one of my dear friends from Romania, shared with me that what we are now facing as a church, whether it's from the justice movement or BLM, or from the politicians using, abusing their authority from the

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COVID pandemic, this was a full frontal attack of the communist values and the communist propaganda.

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I definitely believe the church needs to stand against it but not play nice with it. It went viral, almost 300 ,000 views.

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And so I sat up in a bed that night and I was like, hey, look at this picture. Look at everybody, they connected to this church.

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Let's go on this website, remember? And I was like, oh my gosh, they stand against homosexuality? Oh my gosh, they stand against abortion.

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Of course, those aren't the only sins, right? Everybody, but see the church, they speak on all those other sins but they won't speak against those too because of the social justice that's going on right now.

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Because everybody is attaching themselves to homosexuality and they wanna make them feel loved and accepted but that's basically one day will take them to hell if you don't speak up and actually love them and tell them the truth.

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And I'm like, man, these people are unmovable. They are unshakable in their faith. That's where I wanna be.

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Yeah, Jesus loves you, bro, Jesus loves you. Jesus loves every single one of you. The crowds were like right on this whole area right here and just surrounded us.

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And they kept asking us why we're racist, why we're homophobic. We're trying to just reassure them, no, we love Jesus but at a certain point, the atmosphere got so bad, people were so angry.

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They threatened to burn down our building and they were gonna kill the Rioscos. Juan Elias Rioscos' family owns

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Nini's Deli, a bright pink neighborhood staple that's been in West... My mom's family immigrated from Mexico in the 60s.

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I was born in Tampico, Tamaulipas, Mexico. My father came to America as a typewriter mechanic.

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When my mom saw how much money he was sending home, she thought there's a better life for us there so she gathered us all up and she brought us to America.

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I turned six years and went to school here, learned the language just like my father said we would all learn and be law -abiding citizens.

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And my dad's family immigrated from Cuba and my grandfather was a political prisoner in Cuba because him and his friends were trying to overthrow

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Fidel, of course, they got caught. My grandpa did about 10 years in prison. I had a summer job,

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I worked on the corner of my home and that's when my husband and his family had bought the neighborhood grocery store.

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And so yeah, so we met and then we married. We just became a real institution in the neighborhood.

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And then we reopened again as Nene's Groceries, which is my daughter's nickname. I remember growing up that I had always had this yearning for more inside of me.

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If I were involved in anything, I always wanted to do it to the nth degree. So when

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I was young, I got into shoplifting and that turned into shoplifting every day after school because I always wanted more.

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When I got into high school, I would hook up with women and then I realized I just want more.

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And that turned into hooking up with men. And that turned into a lifestyle of homosexuality.

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Everything wicked that I can do and get my hands on, I did. I literally wanted to be a career criminal.

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And honestly, those were things that peers of mine wanted to do as well. When I would share my aspirations of hooking up with countless people and shoplifting really expensive things,

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I mean, I would find affirmation in my friend group. I had decided to go live in San Francisco where I thought

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I could pursue my sexual identity, pursue my lifestyle of criminality.

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I was confident that I was a good person. If I had shoplifted five things,

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I would make sure to give away a couple. On my way to go do graffiti, I would pray to the sun and the moon beforehand.

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And I was convinced that the sun and the moon were protecting me. I was convinced that stars were my lookouts.

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I had no real spiritual direction. I had created my own religion. And I was even sharing that religion with other graffiti artist friends of mine.

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Like we should always pray to the sun and moon before we go out. And I don't even know where I got that from. I really thank

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God for my parents. They didn't know the Lord at that time, but they knew that I was clearly not living on the right path.

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I go out there to see him and he's not doing school. So I said, then you gotta come home.

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You gotta come home. And by the grace of God, he listened. And my parents said, you're gonna work at the family business.

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I said, you have to work. And he says, what in the mess you guys have downstairs? Because we lived above the business. And we said, yeah, and here's the keys, fix it.

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I didn't see a future for myself there. We had, there was talks about closing it. He got rid of all the groceries and focused on our food.

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He says, mom, dad, you know, they come for your food, not the groceries. So our menu reflects

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Cuban culture with Mexican roots. And we kind of brought it all together to make our own style of Latin cuisine.

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Order up. One day my mom was on the road and she was kind of wrestling with this idea in her head.

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Like, is my son gay? I don't know what's going on. I thought I was fooling my parents. Like maybe they didn't know or something.

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And her car like spins out of control on the highway. And she hears in her heart something that says,

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I saved you because you need to save your son. And I think, I now understand now that that was weighing heavy on me and that I refuse to see it.

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And so that happiness was taken off of me. You know, the reality that he was in trouble is what

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I call that. Couldn't even say the word homosexuality. And he just said, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, this is who

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I am. And I said, no, this is not who you are. You know, this is evil and this is wrong and we're going to fix it.

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She knew that what happened to my brother, the radical change from being an ex -game banger, also criminal, to now loving the

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Lord, being gentle in his ways. She knew that whatever he had experienced was real. And I also needed that.

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And so what are we going to do? I says, we're going to go to church. I love being a pastor, serving

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God's people. I see myself as an elder to a congregation that gets to operate in all the different gifts of the ministry.

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I've been in the city of Chicago since 04, started pastoring our church in 05. My heart for the church in Chicago is to be based on connecting people to Christ, mentoring them with the things of Christ and then sending them out.

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And by doing that, we've impacted a lot of different communities. The makeup of Metro Praise International is young adults, diverse, but heavy on the

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Latino side. And most of them are first generation. If someone came to our church, it would look pretty much non -denominational.

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For me, I have to be where the people are doing the ministry as I saw Jesus do.

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I like to go to the downtown area where you can meet a little bit of everybody. The lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, the pride of life comes not from the

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Father, but from the world. Before I gave my life to Jesus Christ, I had a lot of lust in my eyes.

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I was a homosexual man before I gave my life to Jesus. I lusted at anything that had legs, anything that had eyes, my flesh craved it.

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But when I gave my life to Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the

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King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. When Juan first came to us, he had pretty much the worldview of a young adult in this community, but he came to church with an openness to hear what

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God was doing because he saw what God was doing in his brother's life and he wanted to see if this would be something that would be applicable to his life.

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And I remember getting on my knees and just asking the Lord, if you are real, would you just touch me 110?

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And I felt the Holy Spirit's presence on my heart. God opened his heart and brought him to himself and Christ began to do a work in his heart to make him an outspoken disciple.

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He started bringing in others to church, probably in his first year, he brought more people to church than anyone else in our time pastoring in Chicago.

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Juan just started working so hard and I just saw the growth in him as he gave his life to the

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Lord. And I remember kind of sensing if you serve every person at Nene's as if you're serving

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Christ, there would be blessings here. So here

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I have the slow cooked shredded chicken empanada, with the cucumber salsa. I would take that approach as if I was serving

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Christ with every person. And I remember when we would have one, two, three customers every hour,

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I would go so hard for them, make sure their table was good, welcome them into my family space, tell them parts of our family story, explain the concepts behind the menu, get to know their families, their allergies, where they lived, how they traveled, if they rode their bike or took the

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CTA to the shop. For the first three years, I did that tirelessly. It got to a point where we would have a line of people out the door and I knew

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Joe, I knew Kevin from Texas, and I had a customer,

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I remember it was his first time coming, and he said, how do you know every person in line and their orders and their family's names and their family's family's names?

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And I said, when we were slow, I didn't see them as customers, I saw them as people

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I could love. And it wasn't me, it was Christ using me to befriend and to love and to serve the people that came in.

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And it was really that approach that allowed us to become, over the years, the highest rated restaurant on Yelp in Chicago.

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Why is NeNe's Chicago's Best? What makes NeNe's truly Chicago's Best is our love for people and our love for our community.

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Every time I come in, they treat you like your family. I like that they're so personable. It's like being in your family's house. Kewanee just makes this a really welcoming environment.

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Due to the success the Lord had given us at NeNe's, organizations wanted to work with us. So, for instance,

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Adidas called on us to collaborate on a t -shirt and to help promote their new store, which was super cool.

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It was their largest flagship in the nation. Nike had hit us up to design our own

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NeNe's Deli Air Force One, which was pretty cool. I got to design all the colors, the insole, the tongue tag, and all those things, and then they released it just for NeNe's Deli employees and friends and family.

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And I had a brand that I ran concurrently with NeNe's. That was called Chicago Native. Yelp came and did a whole treatment of our story and our family business because we were rated top 100 in the nation three years in a row.

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I got private tours of the United Center, which is where the Bulls play. I was able to give a keynote presentation at the

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Apple Store. I had passed a TED Talk to my assistant because I didn't feel like doing a

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TED Talk that week. We were on Spanish News. We were on WGN, the

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Tribune. We did a marketing campaign with the Chicago Fire soccer team, where they took pictures at our restaurant and they put us all over different Chicago Transit Authority buses and train stations.

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And we did a commercial with the Chicago White Sox. I mean, I had Derrick Rose wearing clothing that I designed.

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Chance the Rapper wore clothing I made on interviews he did with Complex Magazine and things like this.

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Those organizations, those very people that were so grateful for my work in the community that were so happy to partner with me were some of the first people to publicly denounce me.

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Everything was like back to back, right? Like George Floyd, that incident hit. The internet blew up.

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Everybody started to take their stamps. We were attending a church at the time right before they started closing down all of the churches.

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The preacher was basically, you know, in a pulpit and he was, that's all he would talk about.

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You know, it's social justice, social justice. Black this, black that. Black this, black that. Me having such a personal relationship with Jesus, I never was concerned about my color.

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Like I never was concerned about him looking at me and accepting me because of my blackness. You know, so it threw me off.

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We started seeing people become very passionate about race, about color.

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It was very heartbreaking to watch our city burn. It was very heartbreaking to watch people trash a city that we grew up in, that we love, that we do ministry in.

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When you see BLM protesters burning down a city in the name of an injustice, they have now created another injustice that some would argue is even worse than the injustice that they're facing.

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I drove down Milwaukee the day all the rioting started happening. And it was like, this building's getting smashed by rioters.

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This building's getting smashed by rioters. It was like five o 'clock. There was just like planters turned over, glass in the middle of the street.

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We lived above Nene's. That's where our apartment was. So I knew at any moment

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Nene's was gonna get bricked and stuff too. By the grace of God, it didn't.

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So I had to take the street to get home. And it was just, it was like a nightmare.

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Look at Black Lives Matter. It's like, if you don't put Black Lives Matter on your restaurant, it's just guaranteed to get destroyed.

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And I just wanna kind of put into perspective how destroyed this community has become. They're still closed because of COVID restrictions.

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And then on top of that, when all the rioting started happening, they all got smashed. So a lot of them still have their windows boarded up.

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I mean, this is from June. Some of the restaurants that are considered like institutions in Chicago got destroyed.

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BLM on the windows right there, boarded up BLM over here. This business, gone.

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But of course, hey, at least there's black art up. That's helping.

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G -Star, gone. Probably never to return. This store has everything on sale.

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This store right here used to be a jacket store, gone. I remember when they opened up Vintage Underground.

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Looks like it's gone. Of course, put the fist up and then we won't throw you down.

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Juan started being propositioned by some of his Instagram followers to show support for the

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Black Lives Matter movement. Because he himself is Latino and has always worked in the minority community of Chicago, they really wanted him to share

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BLM, post up the hashtag, do something along those lines. And they were disappointed that he wasn't.

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I remember when organizations and every person, Christian, secular, professor, factory worker, whoever it was, started to bombard social media with the black square.

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People were told in the BLM movement to look at businesses on Wednesday that hadn't shared a black square.

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And so Juan had not shared a black square and now his post on Wednesday was getting blowed up.

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We were a restaurant focused on service and food. We didn't post any type of political movement, social movement, that was never who we were.

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I was very adamant about staying in our lane. And I was having people that were close to me trying to out me over text or trying to push me to make some sort of public statement over text.

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I noticed right away that Juan was getting a lot of attention, not good attention on Instagram and Facebook.

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By Wednesday, I was getting bombarded heavily. People were commenting, why haven't you posted

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BLM? Why haven't you shared the Black Lives Matter website where people can donate? Why haven't you given money to the organization?

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I knew a lot of eyes were on me. I knew these corporations were like, what is Juan gonna do here? And I had to make a choice.

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I actually reached out to him and helped him write the statement that he put out, just letting them know that we love our black brothers and sisters.

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We really tried to communicate that. We made a post saying, we believe all lives matter because all lives are made in the image of God.

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And when I posted that, all hell broke loose. People were so angry, so upset at Juan.

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They didn't like that it was so hard for him just to go along with BLM and they just couldn't understand it.

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So they missed the entire nuance that he was trying to make. Emails, death threats, one -star reviews started flooding in.

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My phone was just, one -star reviews, one second. One -star reviews, other seconds.

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People started trying to extort me, saying you and your family need to crack open your wallets and give the

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BLM movement money. We're gonna come riot. We're gonna burn Nene's down. You are racist.

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How could you ever say all lives matter? This has nothing to do with all lives. This is only about black lives.

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When I saw Nene's deli and how a lot of people were attacking Juan on Twitter and Instagram, just seeing how people were just so forceful and trying to make him do something, you know, like it was just, it was very hateful.

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Before Blackout Tuesday, I had companies like Nike calling me saying, we wanna schedule the next 12 months of work with you.

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It was very interesting for me to see just how fickle that relationship really was.

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You know, Nike publicly denouncing me. The Chicago Fire soccer team saying that they denounced the things that I've said, that, you know, they denounce all forms of racism.

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Topo Chico hit me up to tell me I'm canceled within moments, you know, gone.

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So one business after another, Nike, et cetera, went out there and denounced them. So they just lost all their business partnerships for having this stance.

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Countless comments came in. And I saw all of those comments as an opportunity to preach the gospel.

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No matter how vicious they were, I knew these people needed

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Christ. I took some time to individually respond to the hate messages and share the good news of Jesus Christ with them.

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And it got to a point where it was a bit overwhelming and I couldn't respond and I couldn't keep up. I said to one, why don't we come out to your store tomorrow?

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We'll preach, we'll give out free empanadas and everybody can meet you, they can meet us and we can have discussion.

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They had essentially laid out their game plan to me. If you don't give us money, if you don't say what we want you to say, we're gonna come protest.

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Someone might burn you down and I'd let them know if y 'all are gonna come protest, we're gonna come preach.

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Mic check, mic check. All right, good morning. My name is Jose Riesco. I'm here to share the good news about Jesus Christ.

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We love you. So day one, all my employees had all quit already because all their friends were pressuring them.

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So I said, thank y 'all for coming, shook their hands, let them go. And I told my brother, they're gonna come. It's eight in the morning.

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He's like, bro, there's no one here. I'm like, dude, it's eight in the morning. Rioters, they need a little bit of time to sleep in.

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Within the first five minutes, a young man walks up and says, what are y 'all doing?

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And my brother looks at him and says. Did Jesus Christ die on the cross for your sins and rose again? Have you ever heard that before?

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You never heard that before? He said, no, something like that. Like, no, not really. Now the thing you have to come to grips with is that you're a sinner.

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Then would you agree that you're a sinner? That's everybody. So my friend, Jesus died on the cross for your sins and rose again.

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Do you want to put your faith in him and be forgiven of your sins? And the young man was like, yeah. Oh man, we'd love to pray for you.

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Hey bro, let's go pray for this guy. A young man, David, gives his life to Jesus, shared a gospel, John 3, 16. I told him to repent and believe in the

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Lord. We love you, David. Man, this is not an accident. Here, give him one of these. We thought at that moment that we were going to see a real life street revival.

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You're suppressing the truth by supporting homosexuality and things of that nature. You're suppressing the truth by supporting abortion.

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These things are sin in the eyes of God. You need to put your faith in Jesus Christ. What I've seen

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Juan do that day, it was like he went out there with boldness, with courage.

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Like he was standing up for the righteous. That really encouraged me to just trust

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God. That week I gave my life to Christ. That week I gave my life to Christ because that faith that he had,

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I wanted that. That faith, that courage that he had, I wanted that. That boldness to go out to preach, to spread the truth of the gospel.

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Our intention was to have an open mic as we normally do when we go out and preach, to allow people to speak, to interact with them.

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Give it to him, give it to him. Give him the mic, come on, give him the mic. Go ahead, what's your name, miss? Jesus loves everyone.

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He does. Especially black people, especially gay people. He loves gay people more, so he's a pro -racist.

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Black lives matter! Black lives matter? You preaching hate, you preaching hate. I'm telling the truth, my brother's not gay, he's been straight in Jesus' name.

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My brother's married and has kids, what are you talking about? That's just, that's wrong. You only hop in on this pad wagon for this one moment, but you don't see, but you don't understand that black people are killing black people on the west side.

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Do you think the police are actually gonna go to jail? Yeah, he should go to jail. Right, what about the rioters, too? They should also go to jail. So does it matter what color you are?

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No, it doesn't. It don't matter, man. Tell these people, tell them, who made everyone? Tell them. God created everyone. It says in the

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Bible that God created the heavens and the earth. So God created us for a purpose. Slowly, people started to come and then, boom, there was about a hundred outside.

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You're not Jesus, you're not Jesus! You know you're not! You're a piece of,

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I don't believe. This guy's being more respectful than the rest of them.

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So we don't support Black Lives Matter as a movement because they support abortion, which kills more people than anything else in the world.

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More black lives are lost to abortion than anything else, and they support homosexuality, which is a sin. Y 'all profit off of black culture.

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That's what the fuck y 'all did. Okay, now you're cussing, now you're cussing. No, man, y 'all profit off of black culture. I'm gonna burn that Nene's Deli, sir.

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Wow, now he said he's gonna burn, wow. Fuck Nene's Deli, that's what we want, too. When I got there, I had noticed just the crowd that was forming.

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I had noticed Jose preaching. So we started having dialogue with people, and that's where I kind of hopped right in.

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I started evangelizing some of the guys that were there. When I was talking to one guy, there was just a lot of anger, a lot of assumptions.

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He was talking about Juan as if he was a racist, and I was just reassuring him, like, no, he's just a

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Christian, and this is what we believe. And as I began to quote scripture, I found out that the people really had a problem with the Bible.

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They had signs talking about Black Lives Matter, Black Trans Lives Matter. We had someone that had a flag up, and it had 666, the stars were marijuana plants, and it was in rainbow colors.

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And I'm thinking to myself, I thought y 'all were BLM. Like, now it's 666 gay flags?

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And so that was really, for me, you know, I was like, this ain't even BLM, this is all the demonic realm. You know, and that's why we really knew it was not a physical matter, it was totally a spiritual matter, because all different flavors of sin came out to stand against the gospel.

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We believe people hate the gospel, and churches like our church that are gospel -centered, because they're unregenerate, and their hearts are darkened, and they're unable to see the light of Christ, and they willingly suppress the knowledge of God by their wicked behavior.

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But we believe, as sinners, we were all that way. So even when a mob forms against us, whether online or in person, we believe it's the

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Christian's duty to stand and present the gospel. The gay became fools, and exchanged the glory of their mortal

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God for images made to look like a mortal human being. You say, I don't worship human beings. You worship yourself.

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Therefore, God gave them over to sinful desires of their hearts, to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.

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So because of your wickedness, God has gave you over to these wicked desires. Look at this, sexual morality, porn, sex out of marriage.

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Let me make it very clear, the only sex that God blesses is one man, one woman, and holy matrimony. Every other sex outside of that, sin.

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Even their woman exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. See, see that? That's the wrath of God.

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Lesbianism. Do you love homosexuality? That's your God, but we worship the true God. Come on now, repent and believe this good news.

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And the police had to come out, and at this point now, it was just all threats against Juan. It was threats against his family.

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People kept taunting him. I felt a little bit of fear,

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I'm not gonna lie. Like, I was a little afraid. They were being very aggressive with us, spitting in our faces. A lot of people was really offensive because I was

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African American, but I was standing with my church. I was called a coon by a white person. It wasn't like, it was literally a white person calling me a coon.

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I didn't even know what that word meant until I looked it up online, and I was just like, oh man, they're actually calling me a racial slur.

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And they stand for Black Lives Matter. And also had people throw water and cans in my face because of me preaching

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God's word. When we were standing in front of those people, and I heard the threats coming, I began to think to myself, can

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I die now for the gospel? And I felt a great fear come, like, I don't know if I want to die right now.

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And I had to pray and become at peace with becoming a martyr for Jesus. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

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You'll be born again, put your faith in Jesus Christ. He's got you on a cross, you know what I mean?

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That's why you received new life, my friend. That's why you received new life. The building was surrounded.

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They were throwing stuff at me, spitting on me. There was people there that we had served faithfully for years protesting against us.

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People I went to grade school and high school with that I love that have my phone number that could have just called me to hear my perspective.

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There were graduates from Bible colleges protesting against us. And it especially hurt when it was people who identified as Christian.

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It became really clear to me that social justice, BLM, was drawing a line in the sand for believers.

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And I was seeing it instantly in the body. I would have fellow brothers message me like,

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God would affirm BLM and affirm social justice and affirm critical race theory.

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And you just don't understand the real gospel. And I had at first taken the bait of those conversations from people who

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I love. They graduated from awesome Christian institutions or at least institutions that I thought were awesome. Saying, if you hear the plan of social justice, you would believe that God was on the side of the social justice movement.

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It was overtly obvious to me that they were saying, you don't understand social justice. And I, as your

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Christian brother, am going to teach you about this movement and how it parallels the move of God.

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I supported you. I was like, make sure you get the women and children out.

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I was like, forget about me. There ain't no one gonna touch me. But make sure you get the women and children out safe. There was only enough officers to ensure that.

30:30

So they got the women and children out safe. And me and one of my brothers from the church, we just walked out.

30:49

Doesn't like gays, doesn't like blacks. Take the wall black!

31:00

Take the wall black! Take the wall black! Take the wall black!

31:08

Take the wall black! Take the wall black! He's right up there.

31:31

Wani's right up there. Yeah, Wani's right there.

32:02

How you doing, buddy?

32:09

Yeah! Black lives matter! Black lives matter now, baby! Black lives matter, baby!

32:15

Who wants to see Wani's license plate? Watch out, let me... This is Wani's license plate.

32:23

Put that shit on his car. Put that shit on his car. Put that shit on his car. Everybody screenshot and share his license plate.

32:48

You gonna run me over, bro? Run me over, run me over.

33:10

Our car got surrounded, police had to come create a barricade to get us out of our parking spot.

33:16

Look at Juan and his family pulling up, motherfuckers, hiding behind 50 fucking cops.

33:24

Then I started getting comments like, where does Juan's family work at, let's message his family's jobs. Just called

33:30

Juan's brother's employer, just called Juan's sister -in -law's employer to let him know that their whole family's racist, that they need to kick them all out of their job.

33:38

So they were already contacting our job, I tried to resign, they wouldn't even let me resign but they made a public post basically insinuating that I'm a racist and homophobe.

33:44

So they contacted the job, my wife was working at a real estate agent, they doxed her, she ended up getting fired.

33:50

My wife said she was getting pictures of people walking through my yard to the front door taking pictures of the window, like the big old window in the front, saying nobody's home.

33:58

Like people are like literally walking there, one guy's talking about killing my kids. When it became for us dangerous is when they kept putting out our address with their threats and how that affected us as a family is my wife began to get concerned for our six children, what's going to happen to our family, is it safe to be here?

34:22

They went to our website and began to find out where our home Bible studies were and then they started making threats on those people's homes, they started leaving notes on their cars.

34:33

They started finding out where they worked by doing background checks, they started calling up their bosses and their employers, they protested in front of some of their workplaces, wanted them fired.

34:45

And my pastor calls me, he's like bro they just leaked my address, your brother's address was leaked, they leaked your mom's address.

34:52

I buried my husband in April and I was mourning him. That week right before it happened, the event, in my prayers and in the middle of the night the

35:01

Holy Spirit would wake me up and I'd get two words, get out. And I'm like Lord where am I going?

35:06

I don't understand, I'm a woman in mourning, I have no business traveling. And I leave town that Thursday morning and I learned everything after the fact.

35:15

And friends were calling me and texting me and said where are you? And I says I'm away and they're like no you need to get home and I says no

35:21

I don't. And then it just turned off my phone. At that point

35:27

I had a 10 month old daughter, my wife is pregnant. I don't know if any of these threats are real, if they're empty but in Chicago we don't really wait and see if they're real.

35:38

We just kind of assume that they're real. And so we left in the middle of the night.

35:45

So yeah within 24 hours then we had upped and left everything, upped and left jobs, upped and left homes.

35:50

And the next day is when the protestors came out to Nene's by the thousands.

36:22

When I think about BLM all

36:29

I see is just a violent raging spirit, very unforgiving, very belittling and always you know pointing fingers and condemning.

36:39

So the Black Lives Matter movement doesn't represent me at all because it stands with things that are against the Bible, stands with the

36:45

LGBTQ community, stands with abortion, stands with Marxism, stands against the family, the household of the home.

36:52

Me growing up with not having a dad, I understand the damage of that and how a child needs their dad, they need their mom, they need the family household.

37:12

These people, they glamorize evil. They totally paint evil to look cute, to look pretty, to look attractive.

37:24

There were some people that the community would consider community leaders who had their businesses destroyed.

37:32

And they would take pictures in front of the glass of their destroyed business on the floor.

37:39

And they would say things in their captions like we can fix this glass but what really needs to get fixed is all of the oppression going on in our government and societies on black bodies in America.

37:54

And if they didn't give a response that basically said thanks for looting my business they would get destroyed again.

38:06

And just about every company that's still open, like if you're still open right now doing good business, you have to affirm what they're doing.

38:14

You have to be putting out emails saying this is how you could support a local black business.

38:20

Like if you're a cafe that's doing good, you have to be regularly putting out information towards cafes that are black owned.

38:26

I don't give a hoot what color the owner of a cafe is. If the coffee's good, the coffee's good.

38:34

It is so ridiculous. Noble Square is tonight a neighborhood saying hate has no place here.

38:57

They took a picture of the live webcast with our worship leaders there and they said they're in the building, burn it down.

39:03

That was one of the things. And I saw it. I was at home with my children. I ended up calling the police.

39:09

We saw people driving by, taking pictures, still making threats. So I thank God for the police, it didn't happen.

39:15

Just all the emails, all the hate mail, all of the threats on Facebook, it was very overwhelming the amount that was coming in.

39:23

It was a very clear divide between who was like, I can't believe this is happening, this is

39:28

Juanita's fault, this is Jose's fault, and we shouldn't have to go through this. If we just stayed quiet, we wouldn't have had to go through this.

39:35

So I would say there was probably about 20 to 25 that were feeling that way. Probably half of that were really important leaders in our church.

39:44

They began to resign and as much as we tried to help them and have the conversations, it just kind of made it worse.

39:53

The same leaders that actually ended up leaving during the riots were the same leaders that had a hard time when we opened up with COVID.

40:02

They were very adamant about masks and this and social distancing.

40:07

So when we first opened up, we're like, okay, we'll do the masks, we'll do social distancing, we'll put marks on the floor, we'll make sure families are separated, we'll do whatever we have to do to stay safe.

40:18

And that still wasn't good enough. I don't really think the pandemic panned out to be as serious as it could have been.

40:25

And it was a test for the government to see how far they could implement communistic

40:32

Marxist things. And I think the church failed miserably. I think it sadly showed the weakness of the church because they had tried to fit in with Babylon so long that now they've become a part of Babylon.

40:44

I don't even think the hordes of hell could have imagined it going so well that so many would fold so easy.

40:52

And this is one of the things that really stood out to me in 2020. Those that you thought would be strong through this thing were actually the weakest.

41:01

2020 really revealed what was in the hearts of the people in our church. And now we can see moving forward that the church has a pressure point that if you push them, they'll give in.

41:14

And so for all these churches that thought they got out of this easy, maybe they just went along with COVID, went along with BLM, and they think they're the better for it.

41:22

And that churches like ours needlessly suffered. What they don't understand is that in six months to a year to 18 months to two years, when these things resurface stronger, they're actually going to be weaker and be brought in faster so that there can be something like there is in China, a state church or like there was in Germany, a partnership with the

41:45

Führer, that there's a weakening and a dumbing down so that it's not in opposition to them.

41:51

They're building a new society and they want to shame people into the closet as they're coming out of the closet.

42:00

People would message my wife and say, how do you feel about the fact that you're married to an ex -gay?

42:06

Like the devil is just bringing up my old past and using it to try to lord over me.

42:12

And by the grace of God, I'm free from those things. And my wife doesn't see me as my old sinful past.

42:20

And I don't see her as her old sinful past. And we see each other as Christ in us.

42:26

And that's how together we're able to live in harmony and have our two children,

42:31

Lord willing many more. We should never look at born again Christians and say, you're still bound to your old sinful life.

42:38

Those things by the grace of God are left on Calvary. And now we are like second

42:45

Corinthians says, a new creation in Christ Jesus. When I think about my conversion from homosexual sun moon worshiper, you know, criminal to unworthy servant of the

42:58

Lord Jesus, there's a lot of things on the internet. When everything happened at Nene's that say Juan went to conversion therapy, his church brainwashed him.

43:07

And I never went to conversion therapy. I just went to the cross. And the cross changed my mind of how

43:16

I saw things. I made my sexual identity, my spiritual identity cross centered.

43:23

All I needed was the gospel. Do I miss everything?

43:30

Was I heartbroken? Yes. My business is lost and my sons and my granddaughters and my daughter in laws are out of the state.

43:37

Yes. I mourned all that. And do I wish I had all that? Sometimes yes. There's been many times that I doubted, many times that I wished none of this would happen.

43:47

But in the end, I know that God's perfect plan will prevail all for his kingdom. One of the awesome things that happened is so many people found us through this.

43:56

So many people walk through the door and not just anybody, I mean, on fire disciples of Jesus Christ that were looking for a church that were unafraid and unashamed.

44:05

And the same reason that many of our trusted leaders walked out that door is the same reason that these people walked in the door.

44:13

This is what warriors in Christ are supposed to look like. The other Christianity we've been doing all of our lives has been, it's nothing but lukewarm, you know.

44:20

And we were just really going, well, I don't know about you, but the music, basically.

44:26

Entertainment. How do your praise team sound? Oh, okay. It sounds good. So I'm there. You know, that's basically what it was.

44:32

It never was about the word of God. But when we came here, they were on it. Like, we got connected with one of the mentors here, and they started doing one -on -one discipleship.

44:41

There ain't nobody just sitting there holding the seats and warming the seats. You know, you're doing something. They want to make sure that you're active for God, you know.

44:48

Through the sifting, we now have people that have found us looking for churches that are willing to stand, and we wouldn't trade those folks for anything.

44:55

I would start over again just with those folks because of their passion. And so what the devil meant for harm,

45:00

God meant for good. People were getting saved. We did over a dozen baptisms after that event.

45:06

As I reflect what the Lord has done with ninis, the integrity that they had to just spread the love to, you know, one another when everybody was like screaming at them.

45:16

You know, everybody was like cursing at them, you know, saying death threats. They're not rejecting Kwan, they're rejecting

45:21

Jesus. I could easily come up with, you know, off the top of my head, like, so many excuses for why

45:30

I should be harboring bitterness or harboring anger towards anybody, but when

45:36

I was still a sinner, Christ died for me. This is what happened to Paul. Look at church history. This is what happened to Peter.

45:42

They got persecuted for the cross of Christ. It's an honor. I would do it all over again.

45:51

It was worth it. The Lord used these moments, you know, for his glory.

45:56

You know, the gospel was preached. So many people were trusting in the Lord that we'll see those same people rioting and picketing against Nini's Deli, slandering us and wanting to kill us on their knees at the altar, worshiping

46:09

Jesus with us. I'm so thankful for what we went through. I believe that there's not one person that remained here that hasn't grown, that hasn't matured.

46:18

And I know that if my husband was alive, he would have been very proud of them, very proud of Juan.

46:25

And I was happy to see him do that. And I've seen him be free of that any fear of man in that sense.

46:31

And now he's even preaching more boldly. So I was happy to be a part of that. And a big scripture to help my brother get away from the fear of man is in the gospels where he says, well, to you, if everyone speaks well of you.

46:42

So to the Christian who wants to just everyone speak well of you, woe and shame on you, woe and shame on you.

46:47

That's how they talked about the false prophets. Now should you be mean on purpose? Of course not. But the gospel is going to offend somebody.

46:53

So to the Christian church, I say, preach the full counsel of God, both the love and the wrath of God.

46:59

And we should be making disciples of all the nations. I would like to urge the body of Christ to examine the gospel that they present.

47:08

Ask themselves if they refrain from sharing certain parts of the message of Jesus from others because of their fear of repercussion.

47:17

If you feel your knees shaking and you have people standing inches from you and they're threatening you, your family, just know that the

47:25

Lord is still your shepherd. He'll see you through that valley. And that what we do here on earth for eternity is what will last.

47:33

You have to think like, is this message that your pastor is giving you, is Jesus the central message of it all?

47:39

Open up the word for yourself. Let the Holy Spirit lead and guide you. And when you fast and you actually take the time out to pray, he will show you that your church may be lifting up social justice rather than Jesus.

47:50

So if you go to a church that is talking about, you know, BLM and what they need to do for social justice, this and lifting up skin color and your dreams, making your dreams come true.

48:02

Jesus didn't say nothing about making your dreams come true. He said to deny yourself. Yes. He said to deny yourself, pick up your cross and follow him.

48:11

Preach the full message of the cross. So my question to my beloved city,

48:19

Chicago. Do you want to live for eternity? Do you want to have

48:25

God's marking upon you, the Holy Spirit dwelling inside of you only through repentance and faith?

48:32

Can you get that faith in the Lord Jesus Christ? Let me let me.

48:40

I would love to share with you what Christ did to me. OK, so I grew up homosexual.

48:45

I grew up a graffiti artist. I grew up shoplifting. I was looking for purpose, meaning in things that would eventually perish and fade away.

48:56

And when I gave my life to Jesus Christ, I felt a love and a passion that I've never felt before in my life.

49:02

Everyone who sins breaks the law. In fact, sin is lawlessness. Y 'all, did you know having sex outside of marriage is lawlessness?

49:10

It's sin. It separates you from God. Did you know that lesbianism separates you from God? Being addicted to cigarettes separates you from God.

49:18

Pornography separates you from God. God is holy. There is no impurity in him.

49:24

Sinners are going to die twice. However, we have

49:37

Juan and Pastor Joe with us now to talk about the documentary, which all of you just saw.

49:44

That was powerful stuff. Juan, can you believe that you actually lived through that? I can't.

49:50

Dude, there's moments when I was watching the film and I was like, wait a second, what happens now? Because I literally forgot for moments that that is the life that the

50:00

Lord had us lived through. I think a lot of people would have a hard time under that kind of pressure maintaining their

50:09

Christian witness because I'm sure there's a lot of thoughts that come into your mind about, you just threatened my family.

50:15

I'm going to lose it. Pastor Joe, I know you navigated this.

50:21

You're Juan's spiritual mentor as his pastor, and there were other people in the church involved.

50:27

Could you talk to me a little bit about Christian witness? Because I think a lot of people watching this just wonder how you guys kept your cool and stayed loving through that.

50:36

I think when we're in those situations, the words of Jesus come really to life.

50:42

Don't think about what you're going to say when you're put before governors or leaders, when you're being persecuted, because I'll give you the words to say.

50:48

I think if I was accosted or confronted by people on the street, making those kinds of threats without the context of the gospel,

50:58

I might react a little bit different, more in self -defense. But even then, you don't know what the Lord will have you do.

51:05

But when you're in the context of the gospel, I really just felt like a sheep.

51:11

I really felt like I was either being led to slaughter and it was the Lord's will, or the Lord was going to be my shepherd.

51:17

It didn't seem like I could fix it by trying to step up as a man and meet their aggression at that point.

51:26

I didn't think that that was going to help in either way, either give glory to God or actually deliver me from the situation.

51:32

So I think we're just having to trust in the Lord in those times. As I said in the documentary, your knees are shaking, your voice is quivering.

51:40

You are feeling at times afraid. Well, at least I was. But you're also feeling the confidence of the

51:46

Lord to stand your ground, to keep preaching. I can only imagine what it feels like to be in those places right now in other countries where they're not even protected by the police.

51:55

We at least had the police there for a great deal of it. Yeah. Well, we see God working through it for sure.

52:01

I mean, you talked about some people who recommitted their lives, who got saved as a result of seeing the Christian witness of MPI Church and Juan, the witness of your family going out there and preaching the gospel there.

52:14

You had said at one point during the documentary, you felt like maybe there was going to be this huge revival, which, of course, it wasn't a huge revival, maybe in the sense that you thought it was.

52:22

But there seemed to be some moments where you could identify positively that God was working.

52:30

I know we got kind of the exterior. We saw kind of what happened on the street, what was on video.

52:35

Could you tell us a little bit, Juan, about maybe what was happening just in your own heart as you're praying about this, as God is comforting you?

52:43

Through the Holy Spirit, how did God grow you through this? Yeah, absolutely.

52:50

There's a scripture or a portion of the gospels that was really made very clear to me through this whole thing.

52:56

And I look back and think that this scripture was really manifesting right before my eyes.

53:03

And it's the portion of the gospels where we read that Jesus approaches a large crowd or rather, excuse me, a large crowd approaches

53:11

Jesus. And he looks upon these people and sees them as sheep without a shepherd. He sees them as abused.

53:19

And because of that, and obviously because he's God in the flesh, he sees these people and approaches them with a gentleness and approaches them with the heart of a shepherd, the heart of love.

53:33

And so through that experience, I really realized that that was my heart going towards these people.

53:40

When they said they would protest and I said we would preach, that was a pastoral heart.

53:47

That was a heart to have the gospel presented to sheep with no shepherd. And I think that that's something that the

53:54

Lord was pastoring through me in that moment even, that that should be my approach.

54:00

And I think that other scriptures that were made really alive to me was, of course,

54:09

I think Romans 1 16, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel, because there's a power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes first the

54:17

Jew and then to the Gentile. And these people have their own gospel.

54:22

They have the gospel of social justice, the gospel of BLM. And that was really what we wanted to show them was that those gospels don't save.

54:30

Even if you think that they have some sort of good moral standing, their gospel, if they think their gospel has some sort of good moral foundation, although we know it doesn't, but even if it did, we would know that good morality doesn't save, but only the gospel of Jesus Christ does.

54:49

And that was really our heart was bringing that gospel to them, the gospel of salvation. So you had a love for them is what you're saying.

54:57

And you viewed them, you didn't view them as enemies in the sense that we usually think of enemies that they want to come after you, ruin your business, ruin you and your family.

55:06

You thought of them as they're being blinded by the God of this world, just like you were.

55:14

I mean, this is kind of a basic Christian question, but what is the gospel? If someone's hearing you and saying, man,

55:20

I don't have a heart like that when people come after me. I want that kind of heart that Juan has. What would you tell them?

55:25

Most definitely. I think the gospel is very simple. All mankind have fallen because of sin and by the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, if we put our faith in that, we can receive forgiveness and salvation.

55:38

And it's really that simple. No person is good without God, but through God's mercy and his faithfulness to his word, if we repent, he will forgive us.

55:51

And that's really the message that we want to share with those people. Amen. Amen. Pastor Joe at MPI Church there,

55:59

I know you have a number of people who are already Christians who are then navigating this issue.

56:04

Did you see a lot of maturity happen at your church as a result of this? People now more prepared, more on fire as a result of taking the stand.

56:13

Oh yeah. It's just ignited our hearts for the Lord. And really, even for myself, starting with the leadership gave us an opportunity to be tested and to see

56:24

God's faithfulness. You know, like how God tested the Israelites. He said basically to know their heart, but we know it wasn't that God didn't know their heart.

56:32

It was for the knowledge to come to them and that they could see what was really in their heart.

56:38

And when we were tested in this time, we got to see in our heart that, you know, we can't do anything in our own self, but through Christ, we can do all things who strengthens us.

56:49

So these kinds of scriptures, we would tease, you know, that that scripture is not just meant for the day you're taking your test and you haven't studied all night.

56:57

Now I can do all things. You know, we always tease as pastors or a greater seed that's in me than he that's in the world.

57:03

As you know, I'm getting mad in traffic or something. We actually saw in our leadership all the way down to the visitors that started hearing about it coming to the church or, or people getting saved through it, that those scriptures just became alive.

57:16

You know, the presence of the Lord, the understanding of the power that's in the gospel, the comfort of the

57:23

Holy spirit, because he's our comforter. So yeah, those testimonies now are lasting longer than those moments of affliction.

57:30

Well, that's awesome. I mean, there's a, I'm sure there's a postscript to this. It didn't happen all that long ago. It was last year.

57:37

But you know, people have matured in their faith. You've seen some people come to the Lord. I know there's some people who left as a result.

57:44

What's the church like now? I mean, I mean, it sounds like it's healthy. It's going forward for people who just watch this and want to know.

57:52

The church is healthy. Our church had always, by God's grace, been focused on discipleship.

57:57

And then from that, we did evangelism and all the other ministries. So we have seen that remain steady, that the disciples continue to grow and new ones began to come.

58:09

And yes, some people did leave. But what's also a testimony since last time we've talked in the documentary was film is that people are starting to come back, that they're coming back with willing and gracious hearts to participate in what the

58:21

Lord is doing here. Some are confessing that, you know, they left in a time of battle. And for their own personal reasons and different things, they're now convicted to come back and support us.

58:31

And I remember meeting with one of these couples and saying to them, you know what, if you have given your heart to the

58:37

Lord and have surrendered this issue to him, and you're being obedient to us now, I feel the

58:43

Lord is not holding it against you. And you can consider this now a part of your testimony because you're not disowning what

58:51

God has done. So, you know, you can look at Peter and say, well, you messed up when he did. And that's true.

58:56

But when Peter came back to Jesus and started preaching on Pentecost, all was forgotten of the past. You know, now it's time for him to live out that new testimony.

59:04

He had plenty more times. He had plenty more times to lay down his life for Jesus. So yeah, the church has been strong.

59:10

It's growing and people are coming even back that had left. And the reputation that we have in the city may be shown a little bit negative, you know, with our reviews and a lot of people still from those times calling us names.

59:23

But what we've noticed is that it's empowered other pastors and Christians who are now starting to get a little bit more understanding of what actually happened.

59:31

And I'm making friends with them. And so I'm encouraged to hear what God's doing in their church and hopefully even through this documentary, other churches, because I see, you know,

59:38

John MacArthur, the pastor in Canada for different reasons, COVID or whatever. This is happening everywhere now in like different spots and different regions for different reasons.

59:48

So I'm glad to be in that now as an encouragement. And they encourage me when I hear what they're going through, because we need to keep getting these stories out.

59:55

And we want to thank you because I don't know if we got a chance in this recording. Thank you for making sure that this story was told appropriately and brought out.

01:00:02

Well, we're so happy to do it. So much respect for the stand you guys took and are taking even now.

01:00:10

I want to remind people who watch this from the Chicago area, because I know many from the Chicago area probably did.

01:00:17

They're familiar with what happened at Nene's. And maybe you just came across your internet browser and it came up, you know, on YouTube or something.

01:00:25

And you watch this, you know, if you want to know more about having a relationship with Christ about maybe you do have a relationship with Christ and you want to know more about NPI Church, you can email info at npichurch .org.

01:00:38

And then the website is at npichurch .org, I'm assuming. Yes, sir, npichurch .org.

01:00:44

And it's in the info section to this video. So you can go click that and check it out. Juan, I need to get kind of the postscript on you because you're not in Chicago anymore.

01:00:53

Walk us through that. You're in Dallas. What are you doing down there? How's the Lord ministering to you and your family in this time?

01:01:03

Yeah, absolutely. I think the scripture that really comes to mind is Romans 5, where Paul says, not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character, and character, hope.

01:01:19

That's been the heart of how we've been moving forward. We are so grateful for the opportunity to be persecuted for Jesus.

01:01:26

I really believe that the Lord has established an even firmer foundation in my family and faith for him.

01:01:34

And so in that we've been able to be launched out by our church,

01:01:40

Metro Prayers International Chicago, to start our second campus here in the

01:01:46

DFW area. And so when everything went down, we felt released from the

01:01:52

Lord to pack our bags and get out of Chicago as all the threats and everything were coming in.

01:01:58

Pastor Joe initially had came with us too, because he was receiving the same amount of threats.

01:02:05

And so we literally packed our bags, packed our families, as we mentioned in the documentary, both my wife and my brother's wife were pregnant at the time.

01:02:13

And we just started driving. We started driving initially towards Florida until I received a message from some people who had hacked into my iMessages saying that we know you're going to Florida and that we have the address.

01:02:26

They had hacked my iMessages, so they were tracking everywhere where I was going. And so we decided in that moment to stop and pray and ask the

01:02:34

Lord, where should we go? If these people know we're going to Florida, maybe it's not worth going anymore. And so we had sensed in our hearts that the

01:02:40

Lord was directing us towards Texas. So we have planted a new church officially by the grace of God here in the

01:02:49

DFW area. Our pastor, Jared Walker, who served faithfully under Pastor Joe for,

01:02:55

I want to say almost a decade, is our official campus pastor. My wife and I are now serving as deacons in the church.

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My brother and his wife are also deacons, soon to be pastoral interns. And we have another family even who saw everything that happened in Chicago and were originally from Chicago and a part of MPI Chicago and got launched, or I'm sorry, left the church for personal reasons, but were in good standing with the church when they left.

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They recently, they moved to a different state and they have joined us too now in Texas. So it's my family, my brother's family, our pastor's family, and this fourth family that we love dearly here.

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Praise God. Well, I know everyone's going to wonder because you have this successful business in Chicago.

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Are you, you know, I know you make sandwiches, you know, for yourself and your family, but are you thinking about maybe getting back into that at all in Dallas while you're there?

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Absolutely, man. I love business so much. And God has blessed me with a job here where I'm working as a barista in a restaurant.

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And it's pretty interesting going from being the owner to sweeping the floors. And, but you know that I do it all unto the

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Lord. I do it with a cheerful heart and I'm just grateful for a job. But yes, without a doubt,

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I know I have to be in business. I know that the Lord has shown me favor in that area of life.

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And I really believe he's calling me back. Now, I want to do that. However, this way, this time the right way, and that's by being a hundred percent gospel oriented, first and foremost, you know, rooted in the word of God and not afraid or not holding back or not being timid in my faith at any point.

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You know, when we had started Nene's, I wasn't saved. When we had started Nene's, I did not know the

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Lord, period. I was living a life for myself in my own wicked ways. As I mentioned documentary and I had dedicated my life to Jesus.

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So there was this transformation and there were these people that, you know, they didn't know the gospel and they didn't know these things. And that kind of made me reserved in sharing my faith sometimes.

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But moving forward, I want to do a business that's glorifies the Lord fully. That is transparent in our beliefs on this wicked generation.

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And I believe that that's how the Lord is going to plan it out. Now I don't, or play it out rather. I haven't made,

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I'm just waiting for the right doors to open until I make that move, essentially. Well, I wanted to mention to everyone who's just watched the documentary or watching this discussion.

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If you live in Dallas and you have maybe business opportunities or you want to contact

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Juan to talk about opening a restaurant or something, his email address is in the info section.

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And of course, if you want to just talk to him about the MPI church in Dallas, you know, I'm sure Juan would be willing to talk to you.

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And I know I speak on behalf of Pastor Joe and you Juan, anyone who's watching this and they just don't have a personal relationship with Christ.

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They want to be forgiven of their sins. They want to repent and dwell with God for eternity.

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I know you guys have both, you're both in ministry and you both would be more than willing to talk.

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And I'd be more than willing to talk to anyone who has those kinds of questions. So go to the info section, check out the websites and email addresses there.

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I just want to thank both of you, Pastor Joe and Juan, for being willing to just put this on camera.

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Most people aren't this transparent. Most people aren't this brave. And we just see the Holy Spirit working through you guys.

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And I just want to say thank you from all of us who have just watched this and been encouraged. Amen, bro.

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Can I share one last verse, brother? Please do. Please do. And then Luke 17 10 says,

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So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, we are unworthy servants.

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We have only done our duty. You know, I really feel like that's the heart of Metro Praise International.

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That should be the heart of every Christian. And despite whether you go through a big situation like what we faced, or, you know, you're going through a personal moment where you're evangelizing to someone you love, or whatever the situation may be, just as Christians, may we never boast in ourselves.

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May we only boast in the Lord. And may we always have this on our lips that we are nothing but unworthy servants of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. Well, with that, thank you both.

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God bless you. And we'll be praying for you moving forward. Okay. Thank you, my brother.