From the Streets to Destiny: Prophecy, Purpose, and Mondo De La Vega’s Incredible Transformation #132

Mondo De La Vega—author, TV producer, and former gang member—for an unforgettable conversation about redemption, forgiveness, and the transformative power of faith. 
Mondo shares his raw and emotional story, from a traumatic childhood in Central America and the streets of Los Angeles, to his miraculous escape from gang life and his rise as a leader in Christian television. Discover how prophetic words, the love of family, and the grace of God changed the trajectory of his life forever.
Key topics include:

• Overcoming trauma and violence
• The power of forgiveness and letting go of the past
• Finding purpose and calling through faith
• Behind-the-scenes stories from Christian TV production
• The importance of fatherhood and consistency

Whether you’re seeking inspiration, hope, or a deeper understanding of the power of transformation, this episode will move and encourage you. Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more incredible stories!
#Testimony #Forgiveness #Faith #Redemption #Podcast #ChristianTV #MondoDeLaVega #AlongTheWay

Transcript

Mondo De La Vega: 0:00

My father turned into a monster right before my eyes, I saw a different man. He went after and started trying to beat the door down. The door opened. She escaped through that door. Little did I know that was the last day I will ever see my father. From that moment on, all I wish was when I get older, I want to come back and kill this man. We were a bunch of knuckleheads with no leadership, and we went wild. And when I came back up from that beating, I came back like a fierce Wolf. I saw a lot of people that were trying to be gang members, but wannabes don't last. The gang told me, Don't make plans past 18 years old, because you're not gonna survive. You're not gonna make it past 18 years old. My crazy life, which is the tattoo I have here, represents three destinations that the gang leads to prison, death or in the hospital. And I told my homeboy in front of me, I said, we can't leave him back there. And he said, We have to leave him back there. Let the dead bury the dead homie. And she began to prophesy. And she said, What if God is real? What if prayer works, and what if you have a different destiny? Who would ever thought that an ex gang member will help rescue a televangelist that fell from grace? Who would ever thought that a former ex gang member that the world said, lock him up, throw the key away, will be the catalyst of helping Jim Baker get back to television. So I began to fall in love with the calling of God, yet I was missing the will of God, and the will of God, for my life was

John Matarazzo: 1:37

mondo della Vega. It's great to have you here on along the way this, this conversation has been a long time coming from the first time that you and I connected through an interview with charisma and this conversation we're going to talk about your crazy life. But one of the things that I'm really excited to talk about, too, is the the thing that you and I really connected with is TV production. I was a TV producer for a daily program in a Christian station in Pittsburgh called Cornerstone Television Network from 2015 to 2021 so six years doing a daily program, that's a lot. And Brother, you have been producing the Jim Baker show, which is, which has, I think, is worldwide, and everybody knows about Jim Baker. Love him or not. People know about Jim Baker, and he's gone. He's got an amazing testimony as well. Oh, man, the pressure, right? Pressure, the pressure, so, but brother, that just talking about production and TV stuff, we're gonna have a good conversation here, but thanks for joining me along my way. Oh,

Mondo De La Vega: 2:45

man, thank you for finally connecting and stepping out to do what you're supposed to be doing. You know, every now and then you meet people along the way in life that your background may not be the same, but we have something in common that we love, and that's people. That's production, and it's figuring out how we can get the message out there. And I really believe that it's time, it's time for people to connect with other people and network and step out in faith and do it. And I think you and I have a lot of years of production of what can go wrong.

John Matarazzo: 3:28

Oh, man, what can go wrong? That's a That's an understatement. It's what can go wrong and how you overcome that in the process. But man, we're going to talk about some of these stories now. We can't name names, per se, but we can tell stories, right? Brother,

Mondo De La Vega: 3:43

yes, absolutely. Here. We're not here to expose anybody behind the scenes. As a matter of fact, it's all about experiences that you learn that as people, Oh man, we're some messed up human beings.

John Matarazzo: 3:59

Yeah, definitely. And one of the things that's great about TV production and the role that you and I, that we've, that we've been in, is that you are, or we are, helping people share their stories in the best way possible. And everybody has a story. Everybody has a life journey, but sometimes people don't realize that. And one of the, some of the fun moments for me as a producer has been pulling those stories out of people that they didn't even realize that they had like they would be, they would be ready to do an interview about one thing, but then you find out this other facet, which is really interesting. And then you try to, you tell the host that, hey, make sure you ask about this, because they're all so excited about this, and it just kind of either brings breaks down a wall or something like that. So brother, we're going to talk about those, those kind of stories, but I want to hear your story about your crazy life. So oh man, I'll just kind of ask questions as as as the Lord leads me, but tell me. About Mondo de la Vega and how God's brought you to where you are today.

Mondo De La Vega: 5:04

Man, I feel like you're about to give me a job, and I'm doing an interview for a job, a position, and a job is Tell me about yourself. It's like you forget about everything you're gone through in your life when someone asks you that question. But you know when I stop and think about my whole life? And it's funny, because when you write a book that has to do about your life, it forces you to go back to some of the greatest moments, but also some of the most painful moments that you have encountered as a human being that makes you who you are today, whether it be something that has to do with trauma, or it has to do with having a good time, they all lead to this moment in time, right now, and you know the subtitle of my book, my crazy life, and the moments that brought a gangster to grace, because I believe that the moments in our lives is what makes the whole picture is what makes everything happen in their little moments and their big moments. But at the end of the day, the beginning part of my whole entire life begun in Central America, and thinking that I had a good life, my mom, my father, my family, we were all together all the time, and as a six year old little boy, you think that everything is perfect because your mom and dad protect you from their own problems. They protect you from their own demons that they're fighting. Yet my father was my hero. My father was everything to me. You know, John, it's funny because my father never once raised his voice at me. He never once cussed at me. He never once beat me. He never once nothing. He was the most gentle person towards my sister and I, and therefore, the moment when I saw my father turn into a monster towards my mother, changed the trajectory of my image of who my father was. And in my book, I detailed. I couldn't detail the whole entire process, because it would be impossible, but I detail one evening we were all sitting in the in the kitchen and having a good time, as we did every single night with our cousins and our aunts and our uncles. You know, life in Central America is much different than America in America. You know, everybody has dinner. You know, they schedule dinners with family. They schedule in our in our in our country. Life just happens. And they come into your home and your aunts stay around, it's just a different atmosphere.

Unknown: 7:45

What happened was my father

Mondo De La Vega: 7:50

turned into a monster right before my eyes, my sister and I were supposed to be sleeping, and all we can hear is my father began to cuss at my mother like we've never heard him cuss before. Begin to beat her like we never seen him beat her before. We I saw a different man, and in her distress, my mother was able to escape that room and go into the bathroom, and my father, man, I don't even know how to explain it. He, he went after her and started trying to beat the door down. And my mother, you know, the door open, and she escaped through that door and found herself in the corridor where it's dark, there's no one else in the home. All the adults had left the home. Everyone went home, and it was just my mother and my father in the corridor in the middle of the night, and my father began to beat my mother with the same broom that my mother has sweep our home for years, that

Unknown: 8:58

broom became the very object of her demise. If I can say that

Mondo De La Vega: 9:08

my father didn't realize that I was looking from afar at what was taking place, and hear my mother screaming for help, and no one can hear her, I was six years old, six years old, wow, and I'm watching my hero fall apart right before my eyes, and I'm watching, and I wish I can help my mother, but I stood there paralyzed John. It paralyzed me because I couldn't help my mother, and I was hoping she wasn't dead. She looked dead, she wasn't moving. She was trying to get out of that situation, and for some reason, my father was able to stop long enough to walk away, and all I saw was my sister run and begged my father to stop. As my sister was going to help my mother to try to help her and clean her up, my father began to walk towards back to the. Bedroom, and I'm thinking, if I don't go back under those sheets, I'm afraid my father is going to beat me to death as well. How can I go in 24 hours thinking that my father was my hero, and in 24 hours, my father became a person that I began to hate with a passion, and I couldn't communicate with him what I was feeling, because in those days, it's not like today, John, where you can communicate your feelings and what are you feeling today, Little John, how does that make you feel back then you couldn't share your emotions. So I had to carry that anger, that frustration, that fear, and that fear paralyzed me to the point that I didn't recognize myself little that I know John. That was the last day that I will ever see my father. It was the last day that we will be a family. Because my mother, in her moment of despair, had to make a decision, do I stay here, or do I take this kid out of this place? Because if I stay here, either he's gonna kill me or I'm gonna kill him. That moment changed the trajectory of of my whole entire life, because I began to carry an anger. And you know what's funny, John that when we left that home, I left a little note, because I was able to write. You have to understand, I I was born with the gift to play soccer, and my father was behind me, trying to coach me and get me to be a professional, and signing me up on every team and and I was gifted, and he recognized that gift, and then, and he encouraged that. And he again, he was one of my he took me everywhere. He was proud of me and and I was proud that he was my father. He was a very respected man in our community. My father was one of the, one of the one of the top coffee producers in Central America. His father, which is my grandfather, had been a mayor for two terms in our town. They were involved with politics. They had a lot of connection with the military and the police. So my father was a very well connected, influential man in our town, and he told my mother, if you take my kids away from me, I will hunt you with every military and every police person before you even think about taking my kids away from me. Yet my mother in her desperate moment. Now, you have to understand, and I detail it in my book that my mother tried to commit suicide three times in her marriage, I didn't realize how bad her marriage was until I strike, until I started writing this book. Really, I didn't realize the abuse that my mother was suffering for nine years. Before I even knew what was going on. All I knew is that in that little letter that I wrote my father, little note and it said, When I grow up, if I find you, I'm going to kill you. A

Unknown: 13:05

six year old boy,

Mondo De La Vega: 13:09

the moments that changed my life. That was the beginning. I believe that fathers have such an influential part in developing the character of a little boy and a little girl in a way that it shapes their thinking. It shapes the way they carry themselves. It shapes the way you communicate with other people. And my father was a frustrated man, a man that did not know how to communicate love, a man that was frustrated and took it out on my mother. I share in my book that I didn't even realize that as a six year old little boy, I had defiled my mother because of what how I saw my father treat my mother, John, I never called my mom mom until we came to America, from the moment I was born all the way up to six years old. I was not allowed to call my mother Mother. I had to call her by her, by her middle name. I couldn't even call her by her first name, let alone anything else. My mother was not allowed to own even a pair of keys of the house she lived under a turmoil relationship, yet she hid it from my sister and I so we can be happy. But that evening was the last straw that my mother could bear, and it was the moment that shifted everything John and anger was birth, the pain, the abandonment, the rejection, the last words I heard my father say to me,

Unknown: 14:44

and I never thought that I would hear those words was I don't want them anymore.

Mondo De La Vega: 14:50

The rejection I felt like a knife pierced my heart and my soul. From that moment on, all I wish was when I get older. I. I want to come back and kill this man. That moment, John was the beginning of the future that laid ahead, and that was a perfect candidate for the streets of Los Angeles, California that became the breeding ground in America for gangsters. Now, America was used to seeing mobsters and gangsters from Chicago, right from Philadelphia, Russian mob, Italian, Italian mobs, uh, Chinese mobsters. But they never, they weren't and they were not expecting the influx of gangsters from Central America, South America, let alone Chicanos and Mexican Americans, that was birthed in the late 80s and be exploded on the scene in the 1990s I was that perfect candidate for that

Unknown: 15:54

moment. So you

John Matarazzo: 15:56

just mentioned a different like several different gangsters, mobsters, the different types there. What would you say makes the gangster type that you are, the the Latino gangsters? What makes that different than like the Italian mobsters, or some of those other things? What just kind of explain that for people that don't quite understand?

Mondo De La Vega: 16:20

Yeah, I think one of the difference you will know is, first and foremost, the organization of the Italian Mob, for example, were different than the Central American and the Mexican culture later on, you know, the Latino gangs became more organized than the Italian Mob and all that. But when you go back and look at the history like John Gotti in them, they own pizza shops. They own, you know, trash companies. You know, they dealt with in the community. Here, you had a bunch of immigrant kids from South America, Central America, and then you had your Chicanos, which is your Mexican American and your Hispanic American culture that was already here from the pachuco era, that got rejected by society in California, that were forced to breed protection from society itself. Here we were just a bunch of broken kids that came together to be able to survive in the streets with the rejection of the culture. Yet, when you look at the mobsters of Chicago and New York, they were more organized than we were back in the 80s and 90s. Again, we became organized after a while, but they became the poster child of how we should conduct and do business right. The difference was the way we dressed, the way we talked. We became more ruthless. Now you have to understand the Italian mobsters. They were ruthless, but they were more of the behind the scenes. We were in your face, the Latino culture gang members that were in your face, you knew that you were gonna get in trouble right at that spot. Versus, I think the best way to describe it is the Italian mobster words were more intentional with their crimes. We were just emotional about it. We reacted too fast, until we got organized, and we became more intentional in how we did things in the streets.

John Matarazzo: 18:24

Do you think that that has a bigger thing to do with the absence of fathers? 100% 100%

Mondo De La Vega: 18:32

when you look at the Chicago mobs and the New York mobs, you had a lot of influential father figures within that circle, older men, the godfathers, is what they call them. When we were growing up, you had 20 year olds being the shock callers that were not as organized and father figures. You have to understand, most of us had no fathers. Then on the other side, you had, you know, people that were born into the gang. Gangs have been around for a long time, the pachuco gangs and, of course, the biker gangs and all that. And then we became an extension of that that became more rebellious than the former culture of the gangs. But the problem is now you had a bunch of knuckleheads without leadership, without father figures, the Italian monsters in them, they had father figures that corrected them. And if they fell out of step, they got corrected immediately. We got corrected later on, but we were a bunch of knuckleheads with no leadership, and we went wild. We were discovering what being a gangster was, until we figure out the way we dress, the shoes we have to wear, the colors, and all of a sudden, every street, every neighborhood, was split into different gang. And within one mile, you can have 10 different gangs fighting for one territory. Wow, that's the. Difference.

John Matarazzo: 20:01

So how did that affect your life? Like, what was your involvement with that? What was your role in the gang?

Mondo De La Vega: 20:07

Oh, my goodness, this is, this is a great question, because every gang member starts as a peewee, as a rookie, right? And as a rookie, you begin to develop a heart, to be able to know if you have the heart, to be able to deliver the expectation that the gang culture develops for you and has prepared for you. In my book, I write about the making of an LA gangster, I have another chapter that it talks about not everybody has their heart to be one, and I saw a lot of people that were trying to be gang members. But wannabes don't last. Either you had the heart to pull the trigger, either you had the heart to stab someone, either you had the heart and the ability to have the courage to fight on site, to defend your neighborhood and to defend your people and to defend the colors that you're representing. And here I was my first initiation for them to say that kid has heart, and I detail it in my book, my first experience in the Los Angeles Unified School District. And I was standing in line waiting for roll call, and a young kid begins to make fun of me and starts laughing at me. I didn't speak English. I didn't know what this kid was saying, and the only thing I was able to do is turn around, and this kid next to me looked like he was. He can speak Spanish, but not everybody that looks Spanish speaks Spanish. You understand? So I took a chance, and I asked him, What did he say? Why is he laughing at me? And he looked at me scared, and I said, and I demanded, tell me what he said, and he told me, and I can tell you that he was not inviting me to his birthday party, let's just say that he started mouthing a lot of bad words, and in that anger, all I saw was my father. I took my backpack off, and I went back, and with everything I had inside of me, I punched this kid, and I broke his nose, and I began to jump on him and hit him. What saved that kid's life and what saved my life at that moment was an amazing teacher

Unknown: 22:18

came and pulled me off,

Mondo De La Vega: 22:20

took me to the principal's office, and the principal got ready to call the police, and I was getting ready to go to juvenile hall, and that teacher intervened for me and believed in me. I knew then that God had already a purpose and a plan for my life. I just didn't understand it. But it was not enough to keep me away from the lurking and the calling that the gang culture was giving me. Everybody in the culture, especially in the gang that I was around, saw what I was doing and said that kid, that kid's spunky, that kid has heart on me, that kid right there, is who we need. So I one of my first jobs was to recruit, recruit other kids, because other kids were in the same situation as me, with no father. They needed protection. They wanted to feel like they belong to a family. We were dealing with depression. We were dealing with anxiety. Today, we identify him as that, but back in the 80s and 90s, we didn't know they had names. We were dealing with mental health issues, yet we couldn't identify what we were going through, because we were told, you don't do that. The weakness of a warrior is love and compassion, and if you have love and compassion towards one another, then you're a weak warrior. You're no good to us. So I became one of the first recruiters. I became a mule, which is, you know, transporting, uh, bags of drugs one place to another without asking questions. And I slowly began to go up the ranks and understanding what is, what it was going to take for me to earn the spot of the shot caller. What was going to earn me the spot for the leader of the gang. Now, I knew it was going to be an impossible situation, because everyone is is driving towards that, and a lot happens in between all that, but that was the beginning of my development of what it was to be a gangster. So how

John Matarazzo: 24:17

old were you at this point where you you dropped your bag, and you started beating that kid, and then you were responsible to recruit kids as well. So if you're a kid at this point and you're recruiting kids, how old were you and how old were some of the kids that you were recruiting?

Unknown: 24:32

What's so funny is that, you know, society has built that

Mondo De La Vega: 24:40

by 1314, years old, the gang culture comes after you. I happened to get ahead of the game, and I wasn't jumped in to the gang just yet, but I was already identified as one, and I'm talking about I'm 910, Eight, 910, years old. John, by this moment, I was exposed. The moment I arrived to America, we lived with some of our family members, but that only lasted for a few months until my mother gathered enough money after working and found herself in a place where she can go get her own apartment. She came home one evening, and we were staying at my uncle's house, and she said I got enough money to get us a place. I thought she was going to get us a beautiful house. You know, we had a we had an amazing looking house in Central America. We had an amazing family atmosphere. Now, we were living with people. We were being transported from one place to another. We didn't have a home for a long time. We have traveled for 12 different homes, 12 different cultures, 12 different places. Nothing felt like home. And I feel like I felt lost as a little boy. So when my mother had enough money to buy her own, you know, get her own apartment, we showed up to this apartment complex, and I'm looking at her, and I'm thinking, Where are we? What is this? Oh, this is our new home. You're going to love this, and we're going to have our own place, and we're going to be our own family. We walk up the stairs, and as I'm walking, I see the gang activity on the first floor, and as I'm walking up to the second floor, and we she opens the door to the apartment, and it's a it's not even a one bedroom, it's a studio apartment. And I asked her, where's the bedroom? Where? Where are we going to sleep? Where's the where's the living room? Where? Where? That's the kitchen. I felt so embarrassed, and I felt so ashamed that we went from having this family atmosphere in this home to now we're living in this box. Yet she was so happy. But yet, on the other hand, I'm embarrassed, and I'm ashamed to even let people know where we live, and I began to grow in anxiety and hatred towards my mother, and by this time, I'm between eight, 910, years old, and my first experience to witness someone else get beat right in front of me was a gang. The gang that was downstairs was disciplining one of the gang members, and they were disciplining him because he broke the code. I explained this in my book to set the set the foundation of what it was to witness someone else get beat. This time was a baseball bat instead of a broom. Now you have to understand John during that time, in the late 80s and early 90s, Central America went through one of the hardest civil wars to this day, and as we're running away from my father and fleeing from him, we had to flee to another country to hide from him. But in that transition from leaving my home and landing to another family member, another family member's home, I witnessed the Civil War take place till this day, I can close my eyes and I can still hear the sounds of war. I can see women being raped. I can see men being beat down and and people's houses burning. And at a young age, I was already seen more violence than most adults were seeing at that time. So by the time I landed in Los Angeles, my heart was already too hard to even have compassion. So when I saw this kid being beat and being disciplined, it gave me a sense, instead of fear, this time, it gave me empowerment that I want that power. I don't ever want my life to ever be in the hands of someone else's choices. I want that power, and what do I do to get that power by the time I'm 11 years old? There's a chapter in my book that I titled it the baptism of the Spirit, or the baptism of the soul, is the only way I can describe it. And Christians understand that the connection of what happens when you get baptized in the Spirit, when you get baptized underwater, what happens John, your submission underwater, you go in feeling one way, and when you get dunked underneath the water and you get back up, how do you feel? John, you feel brand new. You feel like you're born again. You feel like everything's different. You feel like your mind is different. You feel like you can love the world, and you feel like you're indestructible. You feel like the king of the world, right? I felt the opposite. And the baptism of the soul is when you have six guys, eight guys, depending on who they put and they beat you and they kick you and they want you to feel the pain that way, if you get ever get caught up and get beat down from another gang that you can withstand. That beating, or if you get in the hands of the cops and they want to beat you to get information out of you that you can handle that beating as a little boy, I went down as a little boy,

Unknown: 30:13

innocent little boy,

Mondo De La Vega: 30:16

and when I came back up from that beating, I came back like a fierce Wolf, with more hate, with more pride and more narcissistic pride to be able to have that survival mode. But yet, I was still feeling broken. I was still feeling depressed. I was still feeling confused. On the other hand, they were cheering for me. Hora le, homie, you're one of us. Homie. Now your job is to live and die for the neighborhood, homie. Your job from this moment on is to die for us and to work for us and to take this gangster world and expand the Billy Graham style,

Unknown: 30:58

and that became my mission. Oh, wow.

John Matarazzo: 31:03

So how long were you in the gang? And what was the catalyst that brought you out of this? Because obviously your your book is called my crazy life, and now you're not in the gang anymore. Praise the Lord. Yeah, yeah. Quite the turnaround with the thing that your teachers saw in you, that you kind of saw in yourself, that God had a call in your life. You just didn't know what it was then, but you even felt it back then. What like tell me about this journey, about how you, I mean, you were in the gangs for several years, right? Oh

Mondo De La Vega: 31:38

yeah. I mean, we were there for a long time, but I want to remind people about this. In my book, I detail that even though I didn't know it at the time writing this book, I discovered that God had been speaking to my mom and my sister and I prophetically during the transition, and I'm just going to lay the foundation to how I got to where I got because I didn't want to write a book John about another gangster story and make people think that I was Pablo Escobar or I was John Gotti. And no, that's one out of 10 that will ever be able to accomplish that. The rest of the gangsters that are out there. We look tough, we want to act tough, but inside we were little boys crying for help. We were little boys that all we were trying to do was just survive, hoping that no one ever found out what we were feeling inside, and we had to create an image in order to protect that little boy. And if I can keep you as far as I can from knowing what I was really feeling, then I can keep myself guarded. But what happened was when my mother, when my mother fled with my sister and I God, began to speak to my mother, prophetically, my grandmother was involved in witchcraft, Santeria, and that affected her own marriage with her, with my grandfather, eventually, she left them and she she went to church, and she's the reason why. Then her her entire family

Unknown: 33:12

knows Christ today,

Mondo De La Vega: 33:15

and my grandmother told my mother, hey, we're going to go to church this Sunday. Do you want to come with me? And my mother said, Ah, you know what, that's not for me. I don't even want to go to church. Please don't talk to me about church. I don't even want to hear it yet. After a second, my mother said, You know what, I don't have nothing left. What if that's the only thing that works right now? And she said, You know what, let's go, kids, let's go. We didn't know what we were doing. We never been in church like that. It was a big mega church, a charismatic church. No one knew who we were. And I detailed this in my book, because I wanted people to understand that in your crisis, God has been there all this time. God had made a way for you, God had been involved yet, just because it doesn't feel like it, it doesn't mean that God had been absent. Instead, God had been more present than I ever even imagined. We showed up to that church where everybody's singing and dancing and all that. All of a sudden, that church quiets down and they begin to speak in tongues. I didn't know what that was. I didn't understand the church lingo. All of a sudden, someone else stands up and begins to interpret to what this person had just spoke. And that person said, there's a woman here with two kids, a boy and a girl. God wants you to know that God has taken you out of your Egypt, out of your misery, and I'm going to make a way for you, and I'm going to take you to the promised land, and I'm going to use your son. I have called your son, I have called your daughter,

Unknown: 34:57

and I have called you,

Mondo De La Vega: 34:59

and I will lead. You through the borders, and I will get you to the Promised Land.

Unknown: 35:04

While this is happening, I'm watching my mother, and she's saying, That's me. That's me. You're talking about me. It must have been 10,000 people in that church. And she said, That's me. You're talking about me. You're talking about my son and my daughter. After the church service was done, John, they told her,

Mondo De La Vega: 35:29

Would you like to get baptized? That's That's how you know that's a good church. They lead you to Christ, and then they'll baptize

Unknown: 35:36

you immediately.

Mondo De La Vega: 35:38

My mom says, we're getting baptized. I'm looking at her. What is baptism? I don't even understand what that is. All I knew was it was a nice pool. We're going swimming.

Unknown: 35:49

She had us baptized.

Mondo De La Vega: 35:52

Yet we thought things were going to get better. Things got worse. Yet, God's word was prophesied. We went to another nation to hide from my dad trying to get my mother wanted to do things the right way, John, meaning she had an option to immigrate to America, going through Mexico and cross the borders, just like I'm seeing hundreds, if not millions, of my people do right now, fleeing horror, fleeing a horrific situation in their own nation, yet my mother said I can't do that. I can't afford not during the Civil War. I cannot afford to be raped. I cannot afford for them to steal my children. My mother was born in Los Angeles, California. She was a full US citizen, yet my sister and I wasn't, but she wanted it to do it the right way for her family. I understand why people leave and cross the border. I'm not judging that, but I wish our nations in Central America will make a better way to do it, the right way for our people. And I believe there's an answer for that, but it costs 1000s of dollars, and we had to wait for a whole year, John in order for us to get our paperwork to be processed. And the middle of that, we got bad news. We were denied, denied and denied over and over and over again. My mother lost hope. She said, if I can't get this, then I'm going to have to immigrate. But there's no way I can go back to that home. She's sitting in the poolside we're swimming,

Unknown: 37:23

another prophetic word comes to my mother,

Mondo De La Vega: 37:27

and I detail it in my book. A famous Christian singer approaches my mother while she's at the pool, and she says this, miss, I know you're gonna think I'm crazy, but God gave me a word for you, John, it was the same word that God had given my mother at that church.

Unknown: 37:47

The very next day,

Mondo De La Vega: 37:49

my mother receives a call from immigration and said, We need to see you right now. You need to come right now. She arrived, and the same man that denied her over and over for almost a whole entire year. Hands are three envelopes with my sister's name, my mother's name and my name, and it says, your son and your daughter are now full American citizens. Wow. Welcome to America. Wow. Only God is able to do him. That set the foundation of why I believe in prophetic words for your own life. Why? Because what changed my life, John, the catalyst. And I'm gonna go back to your question. I apologize for being long winded, but it goes back to this.

John Matarazzo: 38:35

I knew what to expect, asking you to be on this podcast.

Unknown: 38:39

I hope you have time.

John Matarazzo: 38:41

We're good, we're good. But

Mondo De La Vega: 38:43

I want to tell people this

Unknown: 38:45

God spoke to my sister prophetically, and she he told my sister, before the year is over, your brother's gonna come to Christ.

Mondo De La Vega: 38:59

And my sister said, God, there's no way he can make it out. My brother's lost John. Again, I detail it in my book. Death was around the corner. Death was death was stalking me. Death every time I left my house, death was always stalking me. I can feel it. I can sense it. I knew I was going to die because the gang told me almost every other day, don't make plans past 18 years old, because you're not going to survive. You're not going to make it past 18 years old. Either you're going to be dead or you're going to do life in prison or you're going to be in the wheelchair in the hospital Vida Loca, my crazy life, which is the tattoo I have here, represents three destinations that the gang leads to prison, death or in the hospital. Fighting for your life. Mi Vida Loca, my crazy life, yet we lived it knowing that you know what. Yeah, my life may be crazy, but I'm thankful for it. My life may be crazy, but I'm glad I'm still here. I don't know how much more time I have left, but I knew that death was around the corner and I was being set up. And I detail in my book how I came close to dying. I came close to being killed. I came close yet God had his hand on my life, and I didn't even realize it. My sister began to pray for me. She began to fast for me. She began to contend for me before she even approached me, because she knew I didn't have time to hear this nonsense. I didn't have time to hear anything. I was so narcissistic and so enthralled with myself just trying to stay in survival mode that I couldn't see anything. But I knew that all I wanted to do, I wanted to die. I wanted the misery, the pain, the anxiety, the depression, the rejection. I wanted all to end yet I was still surviving to stay alive.

Unknown: 41:02

Three things. My sister walked into my world, and she began to prophesy. And she said, What if God is real? What if prayer works, and what if you have a different destiny? She prophesied those three statements, and that pierced my soul, because a few hours before I was supposed to be dead, yet I am wondering, why am I still alive? What do you mean? You were here. You were supposed to be dead. How you remember when pagers were around? Yeah, the

John Matarazzo: 41:41

little beepers, you get the number shows up, and then you got to go to a pay phone or somewhere, and you got to call, and

Mondo De La Vega: 41:46

this looks like a beeper, right? I had a beeper. We got inside of the low rider, and I was waiting for instructions to go do a hit. And the OGS gave me instructions, and I needed to make sure I got this work done, or I got this job done because I wanted Google. I wanted to go up the next level in the ladder. I wanted to earn my respect in the streets. You got to earn your way up. And you earn it by doing crimes. You earn it by doing crazy things all the way to where it almost gets you killed. The ultimate price you can pay, maybe I look at the three dots, some will experience one out of three. Some will experience two out of three. But the ultimate is to experience three out of three. Here I get we're in the low rider. We're listening to ice cube. We're cruising down the Whittier Boulevard. And I get the page, and it's time for me to call my homeboys that are driving in front of me, and that one of them was the driver, and my other homeboy, Snoopy, was on the other side. They begin to argue. They were older than me, and they begin to argue. And I say, stop the car, homie. We need to, I need to go make this call so we can go take care of this hit. And one of the older guys looked at me and said, You need to shut your mouth. And man, we got we get into this argument. And I said, if we don't go take care of this, now we're all going to be dead. We started going back and forth when he pulls the gun on me and I pulled my gun on him. Finally, he snatched the beeper out of my hand. He said, I'm going to go take care of this. I said, That's my job, homie, that I'm supposed

Unknown: 43:22

to be doing that.

Mondo De La Vega: 43:24

Finally, he walked out to go make the call, and walks all the way up to the pay phone. We're sitting in the low rider, We're smoking our cigarettes, listening to ice cube, and all of a sudden we hear gunshots.

Unknown: 43:41

The homeboy that's driving

Mondo De La Vega: 43:44

puts the car into drive and peels off. And I'm looking at my homeboy, and he's dropping dead with bullets raining all over him, golly, and I told my homeboy in front of me, I said, we can't leave him back there. And he said, We have to leave him back there. Let the dead bury the dead, homie.

Unknown: 44:06

And I'm thinking in the adrenaline,

Mondo De La Vega: 44:10

we can't leave him back there. We're homeboys. We're down for one another man. We made a pact. And at that moment, I realized, when the adrenaline came down, that should have been me. That hit was for me. I was being set up, and I asked my homeboy who who was trying to set me up, and he couldn't say anything. He couldn't say he was nervous. I knew something was wrong. I knew that someone had a hit for me, even in my own gang. I knew death was around the corner. Everywhere I went, death was around the corner. I give a chapter called That is unbelievable, because I detailed this, and I talk about the deadly combination, and I write about chapter 10. When you get my book, you read it should have been me. Three, and then it leads into chapter 11, that is called Blood Red, where the cops beat me up and they took us in. But the weird thing is, they didn't book us the way they normally booked people that were going to go to jail. Instead, they took us underneath the division department, and they begin to beat us to try to get information of something that they had done yet we were trained never to talk to the police. And their frustration, they started beating us. And in that beating, it's amazing, because this is another God moment,

Unknown: 45:43

I hear the radio go on, and who's singing on that radio? The Lennon sisters,

Mondo De La Vega: 45:51

famous Lennon sisters from the Welk Show. You'll Google them if you have to, but I want to tell you something. Dick Clark started saying you're going to be hearing from the Lennon sisters, and there's going to be the Lennon sisters hour, and they're going to be sharing family stories, and they're going to be singing and data. And I'm thinking the last thing I want to hear is family stories. The last thing I want to hear is this. Lennon sisters talk about how wonderful their life is. And here I'm on the on my deathbed, waiting to go get dropped off on another neighborhood so they can kill me. That was the protocol of this corrupt cops. Now I believe that most cops are amazing. We need the police in our society, but they're bad apples like this, people that beat me and beat us, and they grabbed three of my homeboys and they beat us, and they knew they couldn't get information, and what they did, John is they dropped us off in different neighborhoods because they knew they were going to kill us. I was dropped off in the blood neighborhood up in the valley. But guess what happened two weeks before, there was a young black kid that was getting jumped and harassed by another Hispanic gang, and for some reason, John, I felt compassion for that black kid, and I intervened for him, and I saved this life, not realizing that God was going to use this same kid to save my life when this cop dropped me off in The blood neighborhood, this this book is filled with stories that will leave you hanging, but at the same time leave you knowing that God's purpose in my life and in your life, whoever's listening and watching that God had been in your crisis all this time, but because the life that we live blinds us to even know that God is even involved in what we're doing. Sometimes he has to take a young girl like my sister and give her the authority and the courage to walk into my world and prophesied. What if God is real? What if prayer works? And what if you have a different destiny? That was the three catalysts that began to give me the courage to find a way to walk away from the life that I was living. It's

John Matarazzo: 48:10

like those three points are the counter to the three points of my crazy life. And it's definitely, speaking prophetically to each of those, that's just kind of what I'm what I'm feeling as you're talking about this. So tell me about you actually coming to know Jesus. Because, I mean, we've talked a lot about your time in the gang is, because there's a there's a lot to talk about, for sure, but I really want to get to the point where you you've met Jesus. Your life has changed. You become a TV producer for a Christian a Christian personality, a Christian leader, who's he's been in Christian TV forever, and then God's open up a lot of doors for you, like your sister was totally right. She, whenever you she said, God had, what if God has a different plan for your life? Brother, tell us about how God brought you to that other plan.

Mondo De La Vega: 49:06

God brought me in an amazing place. Because, again, I detail in my book chapter 13, stop the car, homie. Is the title because I was on my way to go do another hit, John, but that morning, when my sister prophesied those three again, what if God is real? What are prayer works? What if you have a different destiny? It made me think I was never caught up on drugs. I tried them, I sold them a lot. I didn't like drugs. I didn't like what drugs were doing. I had a homeboy that was my mentor in the street, and he said, Don't be emotional in the streets. Be intentional. Emotions will get you dead. Emotions will give you life in prison. Be intentional. Stay away from drugs. Stay away from that. He began to give me guidance, and I stayed away from a lot of that. Stuff that we were using to sell and make money, but I never used it. I didn't like what it was doing to the to my own people, right? Yet, my sister said, I want you to come to church tonight, and I want you to listen to the man that is going to be giving his testimony. And I looked at my sister and I said, I can't be at that church. I can't be seen at church. If I'm seen there, my reputation is gone. You don't understand I can't be there. It's going to ruin everything that I'm working hard to attain, and everything that I'm working hard that I've already attained. And but she said, promise me.

Unknown: 50:37

And I said, You know what? I'm gonna promise you, I'll be there tonight. I forgot that we had a hit to do that night, and as I got in the car, things

Mondo De La Vega: 50:49

got intense. Something felt different, something and uneasiness came. I just didn't I just knew I had to get a get out of that car to make sure I want you to read my book so I don't want you to, I'm not going to tell everything. I found myself. I found myself, and you gotta, you gotta read the book to know what happened in that vehicle, because in that vehicle was the last time I saw those guys, and I never looked back. I walked up to that church, and I was scared. I was scared of hope, John. I was scared that I was going to find a new way out. I was afraid to leave what I thought was my identity. I showed up with my bandana on my gangster Lopes on my white t shirt, black Dickies, my Nike Cortez shoes. People knew I was a gang member, just by the way I looked, and by the way I had my nine millimeter with me, just in case someone recognized me and I was going to be set up. As I'm walking towards that church,

Unknown: 51:55

I'm hearing the sounds that I'm not used to, and as I'm walking up the stairs of that church, is a hot environment. There's no air conditioning. As I'm walking upstairs, I look to my left and the room is packed,

Mondo De La Vega: 52:14

but I'm look to my left and I see a bunch of gang members there, and I grab my gun, and I'm thinking, my sister set me up. The difference is those gang members had their hands raised, what I know now is called worshiping God. I look to my right and I see the OGS are dressed in suits,

Unknown: 52:39

and they're crying. At

Mondo De La Vega: 52:41

this moment, I'm not seeing my sister anywhere, so I'm thinking, she set me up, and I grab, I grab my nine millimeter tight, and I'm thinking, if anybody sees me, I'm going to react all of a sudden, the man that gets on stage, I recognize him as a former gang member in one of my enemies. And I'm thinking, this guy isn't gonna this guy's gonna kill me. My sister set me up. But this man began to talk about a guy named Jesus. He began to talk about Jesus in a way that I had never heard Jesus being spoken of in a way, the way he spoke about him. And when he began to speak about Jesus, he he locked eyes with me. And as he began to speak, he got louder. And the louder he got, the tighter I got to my gun, and the more he began to walk towards me. It's as if he forgot the room was filled with other people. And he he focused in me, on me, and I'm realizing I got my looks on, but it's like he can see through my glasses,

Unknown: 53:46

my sunglasses, and I'm thinking, How does he know what I'm feeling?

Mondo De La Vega: 53:53

He begins to give this message like I've never heard before, and he begins to ask me a question, and I write about it in my book because I thought it was, it's the PROLOG of my book, because I thought it would be important to add it. Because he said, What if you leave this place and a bullet with your name on it is that is designated for you, not realizing that a few hours ago, a few days ago, and a few weeks ago, bullets with my name on it were designated for me, yet God spared my life.

Unknown: 54:30

He said, What are you going to do? You're going to leave here knowing that you heard the gospel for the first time, knowing that you heard all that to say, he touched my heart in a way that I never saw. Never saw it coming. I was getting ready to walk out of that room.

Mondo De La Vega: 54:52

There were no fog machines, there were no fancy singers, no fancy band, he said, as I'm getting ready to walk out. I began to hear this song that I was not used to hearing at the cross, at the cross where I first saw the light,

Unknown: 55:12

and I began to cry. This guy invited me to go up to the front to pray for me, and I'm not going to give you the details, but it was a wrestling match, yet that was the moment that I came to Christ.

Mondo De La Vega: 55:32

The next day, I was called in by my OGS, and I knew that I had to give an account of where I was. Now, you have to realize the guys that I was in the car with John, I didn't know what happened to them. I found out when I showed up to this meeting that they had been arrested. They had been set up by the FBI, yet God spared me to get out of that car that moment, I never saw them. It's been 26 years, and I've never seen them ever again. The decision for me to accept Christ and to follow Christ was not at that moment, at that altar, the moment that I knew that following Christ for me was going to be life or death, was when I had a shotgun in my back, a pistol in my temple and a pistol on my chest, and they wanted to know where I was the night

Unknown: 56:26

before. Yet I couldn't respond quickly,

Mondo De La Vega: 56:31

because I knew if I said the wrong thing, my brains were going to be blown away. But at the same time, I couldn't deny the feeling I felt the night before that change the greatest miracle I've ever witnessed, John is not someone that can grow an arm is not cancer going away. I've never witnessed a dead man come to life. I never witnessed miracles like people talk about but the greatest miracle I've ever witnessed was the change of heart of an ex gang member that fell in love with Christ and felt compassion and peace that surpassed every understanding of this world, and I stood with those guns, not being afraid of where I was going to go and end up instead, I was confident with the authority that God had given me the night before that my only job was to let them know what Jesus did for me the night before that was going to be my ticket out of that gang. Fast forward to where I am today. Who would ever thought that an ex gang member would help rescue a former a televangelist that fell from grace? Who would ever thought that a former ex gang member that the world said lock him up, throw the key away would be the catalyst of helping a name by the name of Jim Baker. Get back to television to where, where he once started. Guy used me John to save Jim Baker's life, because Jim Baker had just got out of prison and nobody wanted to be his friend. He was feeling depressed. He was dying in depression at the Dream Center, and I don't have time to tell the story about the Dream Center where God called me to serve the inner city of Los Angeles, the Dream Center with Pastor Tommy Barnett and Matthew Barnett in the heart of one of the biggest rivals of my gang. Wow. And I can't wait to you, for you to read that story, because it's an unbelievable because miracles took place. Yet that was the place where I met Jim Baker. We began to dream about doing television again and building Morningside, and never understanding what my life was going to be or where I was going to go. I didn't have a job. Nobody wanted to hire me, so I said, God, I'm going to give my life to you, and I don't know where I'm going to go, I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't have anything to offer. But yet, God knew that I had a dream as a little boy to be on television, but I couldn't tell anybody that, because I was afraid people were going to laugh at me. Yet God puts me next to the pioneer of Christian television. Later in life, we found ourselves launching the PTL network all over the world. Relaunching the PTL network, and it's syndicated all over the world. In America, over 10 million homes in America and and growing. And here I have my own television program, hosting it, and then co hosting the Jim Baker show next to this man that impacted the Christian world like never before, here we were two broken guys and God brought us together to restore one another. He became a father to me. He became my mentor to me. He became someone that a confidant, not real. Imagine that 26 years later, I'm sharing my story to millions of people every single day. Yeah, that's a miracle for me. That's the craziest part of life. Yeah,

John Matarazzo: 1:00:12

you had some crazy things from the world's eyes happen earlier in your life, but since you've, since you've given your life to Jesus, the crazy path that he's brought you on, that he's held your hand with, is really something that is more crazy, because in the world's eyes, it makes no sense. How does God take a gangster, a former gangster and a former televangelist who, as you said, fell from grace? There's a lot of things that happened, and there's still people that have grudges and they have issues of unforgiveness, but that's they need to work that out, because God is using Jim Baker in a powerful, powerful way. But brother, I got to hear about you stepping into TV production, because that's one of the things we talked about as we just got started here. That's where you and I really connect, kind of, you know, when we're not sorting, but like, tell me about some of this, and then I got to ask you my official along the way questions too, but tell me about no getting into TV production, because that is, that is something that I just I loved that season of my life.

Mondo De La Vega: 1:01:22

You know what's so funny about how I got to what I'm doing now? And I've been doing television for 26 years, from producing to hosting to directing, and, I mean, you name it, lighting director. But when Jim Baker wanted to come back to television, very few people stepped back in and said, I will help you, Jim. And you would think that the pioneer of Christian television was going to draw a lot of the production crew that he once had. He was considered the number one television personality and at one time and had the very best productions. He was it man. He was he was what everybody envy. Well, fast forward to where we were in life in 2002 very few people came along to help us, good people and but they didn't stay long enough to help us.

Unknown: 1:02:13

And you know what

Mondo De La Vega: 1:02:17

a man without a vision perishes, and without vision, people perish, and without having the work ethic behind the vision, people perish. And I told Jim, I'm going to help you. I don't know anything about television, I said, but if you give me the weekend, we will be on television by Monday morning. And sure enough, I took the weekend, and I had my dear friend Michael Phillips, and he trained me over the weekend how to direct, how to produce, at least the foundation. And then other people, like Dale Hill came along and started training me in production, and and other people came and they began to see this ex gang member wanting to see Jim Baker get back to what God had called him to do, because my destiny was tied to his gift. My destiny and my purpose was tied to the fulfillment of what God had called him to do. Because inside of me, I wanted to be on that chair next to him, co hosting and sharing the gospel around the world, but the Bible says, in order to lead, you must learn to serve first, right? And I began to serve, and I began to when everybody else left, I stayed afterwards, and I learned lighting, and I learned the lighting directing, and I learned how to direct television, and I learned how to produce, how to research and and I read a lot, and all of a sudden I began to train other people from we didn't have enough camera people to even run cameras for the production, so I looked around the audience that would come and be a part of the show, and I asked the question, how many people want? Who wants to be a camera person? Five people. I said, I need five people. With five people raised their hand, have you done camera before? No, we never ran camera. I said, Well, do you have good eyesight? Yes. Do you know how to hear yes, I can use you. So my production crew were smokers that were coming in, people that were in the audience that wanted to see where Jim Baker was, and if how Jim Baker looked? Yeah, God told me, use what you have the miracles in the house, Tommy Barnett said, years ago, and the miracle of the production was right there in the middle of this audience. My little brother Ricky, was nine years old, and he couldn't reach the camera, and I got a milk crate, and he's standing up running camera. He's helping. How

John Matarazzo: 1:04:48

old was Ricky? How Ricky was nine? How old were you at this point? Oh,

Mondo De La Vega: 1:04:52

my goodness, how I was in my mid 20s. Okay, no. And all of a sudden, here I am. Editing the show. I don't even know how to edit, but I learned how to break and then I found somebody that knew how to edit. I brought him in and and I said, Can you help me edit the show? Can you do help me do voiceovers? Hey, can you help me put this on? Hey, can you be the audience, person that the floor director? And I'll tell you a little story, a very famous theologians daughter became one of our main floor directors. She never been on television before, and she was from London, England, and she came and served under our ministry, and she said, Well, I can help you. I said, Can you do floor directing? No, but I'll learn. And I began to teach her how to floor direct. I taught other people how to run camera and how to run the gym. I taught one of one of the best lighting directors in the country right now. I trained him. He started work. He was 19 years old when he came to the studio, and he started as a database entry person. And he said, Hey, man, I went to college, Junior College for six months, but I have a passion for television. Can I learn? I said, if you want to learn, meet me after work. I'll be here all night. I didn't think he was going to show up. This kid showed up today. He's one of my best friends in the world. Jason Rico, one of the greatest lighting directors, one of the best directors. I train him as a director, lighting director. He's one of the top colorists in the industry right now, one of the best people in production. But he started because he had passion, and I trained him every day how to how to light a set, how to dress a set, how to build set, but I learned it from Jim Baker. Everything. Jim Baker will share stories of how PTL and heritage USA, how they would do productions, and the little he knew. He taught me how to backlight, how to how to background, light the key, light the fill, light the backlight. And Jim and I, he was sick for hours teaching me the trade. He says, someday, you're going to need this. Someday, when I'm gone, you're going to be hosting your own show, and you don't want people fooling with you. You got to know your craft. Yeah. Hours and hours John and I spent dealing with production people. I remember one of the top moments in my life was to re to be a co director for the Larry King Show. You remember the Larry King Show? That was a big deal? Yeah, so the Larry King wanted to do a live satellite from from his studios, and wanted Jim Baker on the show, and he said, I need another director. Do you have one? I said, I am the director. Man. I got to direct the Larry King show from here. Unbelievable. God has used me in so many different ways to be able to help Jim fulfill his calling all the way to fulfilling what I'm doing today. But guess what? I learned by working hard and learning one step at a time all the way to where I am today and still producing. I'm hosting, co hosting, but I'm also producing other programmers and helping them and consulting other people. I have my own business on the side, where I do consulting and production for non Christian industry, thing things and and hiring me to come and consult how to do television and programming and data. And I'm thinking, Man, my experience is nothing but School of the hard knocks.

John Matarazzo: 1:08:42

Yeah, man, that's That's amazing. And so you just, you just made yourself available and obedient to the things that God opens up to you. And I just find it interesting that how we look at at Jim Baker's fall from grace as you know this, this horrible thing that happened, and there's bad things that happened with that. He's re he's repented, he's been restored, and I thank God for the grace of God. But if it wasn't for that situation in his life, he would not probably have ever met you at the Dream Center. No, never. Then changed the trajectory of your life, and now you're impacting so many people through the Jim Baker show, through the Mondo show, and now through your my crazy life book, as well as all these other things that you that you mentioned, you know, Mondo, the theme of this podcast. It's called along the way, because it's themed after the Emmaus road story how in Luke 24 the disciples are walking on the road to Emmaus, but they and they're depressed. They've got that Jesus has been crucified. There's kind of rumors that he is alive again. But people. They don't know what to think. And so here comes this traveler, and they he asks, What are you guys talking about? And they say to him, they say to this traveler, are you the only person in Jerusalem that has no idea what just happened? And then he, the traveler, just continues to tell them, like all these things needed to happen so the scriptures could be fulfilled. And they continue walking for the seven to 11 miles. Whatever it is that they finally get to Emmaus, and it says it was time for for the meal, the evening meal. And so they get there, and they invite him to come in. The Bible says that he would have kept on going. So they sit down at the table, and it's Jesus. He breaks the bread. He blesses the food. He breaks the bread. Their eyes are open. They realize that it's Jesus, and it's been Jesus this whole time walking with them, and then poof, he's gone. And they turn to each other in Luke 2432 and say, weren't our hearts burning within us along the way as he was revealing the Scriptures to us. And the fun thing about that is that even though it took them probably two three hours to walk that they ended they were at sunset. They ran back to Jerusalem because they were so excited about this news that they had Mondo as you're looking at your life, and we've covered a lot in your life, and there's so much more that we could talk about, maybe we'll have to do another one, focusing more on the TV side of things. But Mondo, where do you look back at your life now, and you didn't realize that Jesus was walking with you, but now you can look back and you see Jesus really was there.

Mondo De La Vega: 1:11:46

I think the part is emotionally. I didn't think I was available in life.

Unknown: 1:11:52

I was a living, dead walking man. I was a dead man walking

Mondo De La Vega: 1:11:59

I had no idea that I can love I didn't have an idea that I can even be a father, because I grew up without a father, and I never wanted kids. I never wanted to get married. I didn't think I was good enough. I didn't feel good enough to even be a father, be a husband, be an employee. I only felt good sitting at the table with killers, gangsters, shock callers, pimps and hustlers. I thought that was my only life, and I thought that was only good enough just for that

Unknown: 1:12:34

yet,

Mondo De La Vega: 1:12:37

God is in his amazing ways. Reminded me, even back then and writing this book, not realizing that

Unknown: 1:12:46

he had been there when everyone walked away,

Mondo De La Vega: 1:12:51

he reminded me in ways that he never left me.

Unknown: 1:12:55

The key was

Mondo De La Vega: 1:12:58

I never thought that I had anybody have plans for me? And the scripture of 2911 of Jeremiah says, For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord,

Unknown: 1:13:10

and I stop right there. I

Mondo De La Vega: 1:13:13

don't even have to keep reading the rest of the verse, just the fact that he had plans for me, just the fact that he took the time to orchestrate a plan for me, let me know that he wanted to make things right with me, that he was crazy about me

Unknown: 1:13:31

today,

Mondo De La Vega: 1:13:33

one of the best things that's happened in my life, because I've traveled all over the world. John and I didn't even speak on this, on my book, I had the opportunity to travel all over the world, almost every continent, to share my story, and I spoken in crowds of 50,000 people. For six months straight, I was being invited to conferences. I've been yet. I walked away from all that because I wanted to know Christ in an intimate way. I wanted to know him because I fell in love with him. And God brought people like Gary Smalley. God brought people like Jim Baker, Rick Joyner, people like Steve Strang. And I want to thank charisma for believing in me and helping me write my book story, because I met Steve Strang, the president of charisma and the founder of charisma, 26 years ago, and he told me, one day we're going to write a book together. I never thought about it after then, and then a few months ago, he called me and said, Are you ready? The whole thing is this, God never forgets your dreams. God never forgets your desires. God never for I thought God forgot about me John, yet God reminded me every single day that he was with me. Yet I was too blind to see it. But I reminded today, when I have one of my best friends is called Jim Baker, one of. My best friends was the late Dr Gary Smalley. One of my greatest mentors was the late Gary Smalley, trying to give me advice about relationships and getting married. And I said, Gary, I don't believe in marriage. Stop giving me marriage advice. He said, No, one day you're going to need it. Well, that one day came and the girl that changed my life became the girl that was the daughter of one of the Lennon sisters, the same group that I heard in that jail cell on my way to my deathbed. That's a miracle. And then God blessed us with twins, a boy and a girl that changed my life, John, if you asked me a few years ago,

Unknown: 1:15:43

I thought that my job was to win the world for Christ. I thought that my job and my duty and my mission was to win the world for Christ.

Mondo De La Vega: 1:15:55

Today is not a job. It's a gift that I get to do. My job is to raise my kids and to lead them all the way up to adulthood and walk with them all the way to adulthood and be with them every single moment of their lives when they need me, when I'm there 24 hours a day, seven days a week, my job is not to win the world and lose my only kids. I rather, I rather love the world and keep sharing the gospel, but my greatest investment that I can do is to walk my daughter and my son, my twins, all the way up to adulthood, and see him succeed, and see him walk with God and see him fall in love with God on their own. Me as guiding them, correcting them, disciplining them, but also being with them all along the way. Because if my father would have stayed to walk me all the way up to adulthood, my life would have been different. My life would have ended different. I see it because 13 years of my kids being alive, they are the sweetest twins you will ever meet in your life. I'd be working in my office or having dinner and the kitchen table, and they're walking by and they say, Dad, I love you. Dad, I love you. Dad, thank you for being in our lives. Dad, thank you for being with us. Dad, we're so proud of you, dad. All day long, 13 year old kids, it's because I decided, my wife and I decided that I don't want to go and win the world and lose my kids. I'll share the Gospel for the world, and I'll give whatever I can to the world to give them Jesus. But the greatest calling and the greatest job I can have is to walk my kids all the way up to their

Unknown: 1:17:47

adulthood life and my success is granted at

Mondo De La Vega: 1:17:53

that moment, and then stay there if they need me back. But I believe that the thing I learned was stay consistent with your kids, stay consistent with the call of God, because you want to know something. John, the gang was the only consistent thing in my life. That's why the gangs became part of me. That's why the gangs were so deep ingrained in me that I was willing to die, live and die for my neighborhood, yet they didn't give me anything back. It was false. It was a lie, but I believed it because it was the only consistency that was in my life today,

Unknown: 1:18:33

for my kids,

Mondo De La Vega: 1:18:36

man, I want to be the most consistent man in their life, the most consistent, passionate guy that loves Jesus, not by preaching to them, but by walking it out. I don't ever preach to my kids. I let them watch me, watch me when I fall, watch me how I pray, watch how I worship, watch how I serve people. Watch how I go to the and share the gospel on television, how when other people are not watching, how we help restore other people privately. And yet, the greatest gift that I learned that I didn't realize that was with me, was that God had been there all this time. He never left me, he never walked away, and here I am. I feel I am the happiest I ever been with my wife, with my kids, with my ministry, with Morningside. We build the PTO network. We even did that. I didn't know how to build a television network yet. Here I am. God used me and my team and my family and Jim adopting five kids from the inner city of Phoenix, and here you got a bunch of ghetto kids like myself and God used us to build a 24 hours a day television, PTL Television Network. Wow. We don't have education, but we have, yes, God, use me. God, I'm available. God, that's so good. I'll learn. God, and that was the key. And today we have a 24 hour PTL television network where we're syndicating television program all over the world, 24 hours a day, and continue to build new programming and hosting and CO hosting and serving, but I can always get down from that ladder and serve as good as anyone else in the ministry, because none of that faced me, none of that glamor, none of that man being with someone like Jim taught me. Hey, don't fall in love with the gift. Fall in love with Jesus. Don't fall in love with the calling of God. Fall in love with the will of God in your life, everything else will fall into place.

John Matarazzo: 1:20:43

Amen, that's such a good answer. You covered a lot of ground in that. But knowing that, you can look back and you see that Jesus has been always there, and there's so many times in your story that it you can see like how Jesus was was there as you're telling it now, and I appreciate you being open and vulnerable to share that and to write it in your book as well. My follow up question that I always like to ask is Mondo, with what you know now, with your life experience that you have now, if you could go back in time and cross and meet up with yourself at a younger age and your timeline at some point, what advice would you give yourself and what's going on in your life at that point that you would actually want to receive it? Now I'm imagining that you might want to go to that time where you were six years old, or maybe it was a time where you saw that kid getting beat up, or, you know, whatever this is. But I just wanted to hear from you, what advice would you give yourself if you could go back in time and what, what would be going on that you would want to receive that, or need to receive that?

Mondo De La Vega: 1:21:55

That's a fantastic question. And I've thought about this question for the last, um, umpteen years of my life, and is this I would tell my younger self learn to forgive.

Unknown: 1:22:10

If I could have learned to forgive earlier in my life, I would have lived a happier moment in my life

Mondo De La Vega: 1:22:19

if I could have had the opportunity to make things right with my father before he before he was murdered, if I could have learned to forgive my mother, I would have had a better relationship with her. If I had to learn to forgive my enemies, I would not have been this angry young kid that was lost in anger and hatred and despair and confused, and I think about the power of forgiveness. My book, if you really want to know what my book is about, it's not about a gangster story. It's about a kid that learned how to forgive through the trials and tribulations of life. And how is it that a guy, by the one of the greatest theologians in the world, got brought into my life to teach me about the power of forgiveness? Dr, RT Kendall, one of the greatest theologians in the world, became one of my closest friends for a period of time, and God used him to teach me how to forgive. Not only that, if I could have learned how to forgive from my heart as a kid, I think my life would have ended up a little bit different, because I didn't learn how to forgive. I didn't learn how to forgive till later in life. Even as a Christian, it was a process, and God had to teach me the power of forgiveness is the key to unlocking the will of God in your life. The Bible says that if you don't forgive, My Father will not forgive you everything if you want to get into heaven. It's not how well you can preach, it's not how many followers you can have, it's not how many missionaries you can help, and not how many things and wonderful and dynamite things you can teach, how many books you have and and the acclimate no is to you have the ability to forgive your father, that you have the ability to forgive your mother, that you have the ability to forgive your husband for cheating on you so you have the ability to forgive your kids for hurting you. The power of forgiveness is what unlocks for me to understand what the will of God was in my life. John, at one moment, after being saved and after going to church and being in Christian ministry and traveling all over the world. I thought that Christian world was about developing the gifts that God was giving me and the gifts that God gave me because people were inviting me to speak at their conferences, people started noticing that my story can do this and my story can do that. Then I fell in love with the calling of God, because everybody. He said, Man, you got a great calling and and you're like Nikki Cruz. And so I began to fall in love with the calling of God, yet I was missing the will of God. And the will of God for my life was I had to learn to forgive my father. I had to learn to forgive myself, the power of forgiveness, if I could have had that knowledge back then, oh, man, if I knew then what I know now, it would have changed who I was as a person, because it destroyed me for years. It's taken over 20 some years to undo the emotional trauma that the gangster world, that my father's decision and the moments that changed my life is taking 20 some years to forgive from my heart, the Bible says, As a man thinketh, so is he. But the heart, the Bible says, is very deceitful, and my heart deceived me for a long time, yet it was when I dealt with the power of forgiveness,

Unknown: 1:26:06

man, I was able to make peace with my past that's so good.

John Matarazzo: 1:26:10

Mondo. You know, I always like to look for opportunities to ask my my guests, to be able to minister to the audience. And I was originally thinking that you know people that feel like they don't they don't know what their calling is, or they feel like they don't have a call, but something that you said about forgiveness basically releases or opens up or reveals your calling. Could you just pray for the people that are that have been with us, watching this or listening to this, and just pray that they're that as they understand forgiveness, that they would walk into their calling, their plans that God has for them.

Unknown: 1:26:55

Absolutely,

Mondo De La Vega: 1:26:57

if you're listening to my voice or if you're watching right now, I believe there's two things that we're after in life. One is peace of mind. Number two is we want to be loved. Love and peace of mind. But it starts from forgiving from your heart. There's a lot of turmoil in your heart. There's a lot of a lot of things and trauma from the past, abuse that has taken place someone close to you abused your emotions. Maybe they abused you physically, or maybe even deeper than that, they abused you sexually, and they took advantage of your innocence, and it changed the trajectory of your life, and somehow, by ignoring it has not gone away. I pray that you would lead your way to a place where you can learn how to forgive from your heart, and I pray that when you once you understand the steps of learning to forgive, that the frustration of not knowing what your purpose is, not knowing what you were called to do not knowing what gifts you have. I'm like you. I didn't know I had gifts. I didn't recognize the fulfillment of my life. I didn't know I had a purpose. I thought my purpose was to die in prison. I thought that my purpose was to be dead by the time I was 18. Yet it was far more than that, and I'm praying that you will find peace of mind, that you will find the forgiveness, the power to forgive from your heart, not to get even I'm not asking you to forget what they did. I'm asking you to forgive what they did. You don't have to forget. We will never forget what people done to us, but we can learn how to forgive, so we can find the will of God for our lives. And I pray that as you're listening to this prayer, that the peace of God will come over you and teach you ways that will lead you into a place of forgiveness and the brokenness of who you are, even if you're successful already, even if you own multiple businesses and you have your Lamborghini, maybe you have a private plane, or maybe you have a mega ministry, but you're still holding on to the trauma of the hurt of the past, and if people knew the real you, and they found out who you were, you will lose Everything. Well, I want to tell you that ask God to forgive you from your heart, because the forgiveness will unlock the true peace that the Bible says that will surpass the understanding of this world.

Unknown: 1:29:35

Amen. Amen. Amen.

John Matarazzo: 1:29:37

I just want to encourage everybody that's watching it or listening to write in the comments what God was speaking to you, and how you're going to act out this forgiveness. You're going to walk out what Mondo was just talking about, because that's something that you don't just want to let this sit back in your in your life, and just kind of let this moment pass, do something a. About it. Make that thing stick in your life. Make that decision a prominent one, not just a passing one. Make it powerful and purposeful, because you're everything can change in a moment. As Mondo was saying, this, forgiveness is something that he wished that he would have learned a long time ago when he was a kid, his life would have been a lot a lot more peaceful, a lot more purposeful, and thank God for His forgiveness and his and his grace in our lives, because God's been able to bring him to where he is now. But there's things that you can do and releasing forgiveness, forgiving others and forgiving yourself that will bring freedom to you, and in no other ways. And so Mondo, thank you so much for allowing me to come and have you on my podcast. And this has been a blessing so much. And I want to do just an episode with you, just talking about TV stories. We talked a little bit about that, and I know we've gone a long time already, but maybe we'll have to do another show of that, because those are just some fun stories. Because actually that's one of the things that I would love to do more of is actually you and I both are really good about helping people pull the stories out of each other. Yeah, we could talk about that for for another time. So everybody you know look out for that. Make sure you subscribe and you like do all that stuff, and make sure that you you enjoy joining us along our ways. Amanda, thank you for allowing me to

Mondo De La Vega: 1:31:42

come and thank you. Thank you for allowing me to share my story and for talking this long. And I just love you, man. I appreciate giving us, guys like myself that have a message and have a story to share on your platform. I wish you the very best of success everything that you're doing to help people like me and help other people get their message out there, because it is so important that you are the next Jim Baker. You are the next generation of of broadcasters that are breaking ground in the new technology and the new way of television and the new way of how to stream things, and man, keep doing what you're doing, because you're a legacy of the pioneers like Jim Baker and Pat Robertson and and some of the pioneers of the 1950s that brought television to where it is today, and now our generation and the Generation below us are now taking it into the streaming world and doing something much bigger than what the pioneers did. And I'm amazed. I'm just so happy that you know what the gift of what those old timers had is now going into what you're doing. And I wish, I wish you much, much success, and don't stop, even when it gets hard, even when it feels like you don't want to do it no more. And just keep pushing through. Because, you know, the old timers used to say this, don't give up on the brink of a miracle, and your miracle is just around the corner. If not. Listen, keep pushing through, because we need you and we need more voices like you,

John Matarazzo: 1:33:23

amen. Amen. Oh, man, Mondo. I said it or I said it earlier, but I'll say it again. Thank you for allowing me to join you along your way.

Mondo De La Vega: 1:33:33

Hey, I appreciate you, and don't forget to get my book. My charisma shop, I think, is called Get the book. You can go there, my charisma.com and listen, the thing is this, that when you go there, I think you're going to receive 25% off the original price that you will get on Amazon and other places. So that's a little thing that a lot of people don't realize that, uh, charisma is doing something special. And I appreciate charisma. I appreciate Steve Strang and joy Strang and you, John, all of you at charisma for believing on this ex gang member that God has done something amazing, and your team and everyone in charisma believed in me to get this book out there. And I'm an accomplished author now. I.