Countywide : Ex-Gang Member to Speak to Students
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Nicky Cruz, a former gang member whose conversion to Christianity was recounted in the popular 1962 book “The Cross and the Switchblade,” will speak at two high schools in Ventura County next week.
Cruz will appear at 6:30 p.m. Sunday at Oxnard High School and at 7 p.m. Monday at Santa Paula High School.
A member of a violent New York City gang in his youth, Cruz rejected street life when he was converted by evangelist David Wilkerson.
Wilkerson told the story of Cruz’s transformation in “The Cross and the Switchblade.”
Pastor Bob Herrera of Victory Outreach-Oxnard, which is sponsoring the free events, said his church has brought Cruz to Ventura County a number of times in the past.
“He speaks to the young people,” Herrera said. “He can relate to the drug addicts, gang members.”
Herrera said some people are uncomfortable when inspirational speakers are overtly Christian. But Cruz, he said, “communicates in a way that is down to Earth because he’s sharing his testimony.”
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