Putting hope within reach of all

HISTORY OF TEEN CHALLENGE PUERTO RICO

In 1965, the Program Teen Challenge was born in Puerto Rico, with its Founder, the Rev. Peter Oliver. The present Teen Challenge of Puerto Rico has an enrollment of over 100 students in 4 different Centers around the Island.

Currently the organization is presided over by the Rev. Jose Martinez, President/CEO, who along with his wife, Nelly, future Director of the Center for Ladies, are ministers of the Assemblies of God, those who have received from God a vision clear and precise to expand the ministry and continue to provide the proven solution to the problems that control the lives putting hope within reach of all.

Putting hope within reach of all

TEEN CHALLENGE PUERTO RICO

Origins

Teen Challenge had its origin in Brooklyn, New York, in 1958, when David Wilkerson began to treat with the teen members of bargains. This young preacher, who by that time was a pastor of a church in eastern Pennsylvania, he read in Time magazine, an article about seven teenagers who faced a murder trial in New York. This worried his heart and decided to move to the big city to work full-time in the suburban areas where the teens involved in drug formed gangs that clashed violently. Nicky Cruz, the puerto rican leader of the mob, “Mau Mau”, the most violent of New York at that time, was one of the first converts to Christ. The initiative of Wilkerson was known as Teen Challenge.

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Soon Teen Challenge had access to a large house in the Avenue Clinton, of Brooklyn, and began to offer help to those young people caught up in the use and abuse of drugs and alcohol, ready to change your life. There was born the residential program of one year duration (currently extended to 18 months) that continues to help transform lives in centers of the united States and other 90 countries around the world.

The beginning of Teen Challenge is recounted in the book “the Cross and The switchblade”, written by David Wilkerson in 1963, translated into 30 languages. In 1979 he made a film adaptation of the same, with Pat Boone in the role of the pastor Wilkerson and Erik Estrada as Nicky Cruz.

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