Passionate Resonance: Cruz Cordero Meets Dirk
Willems
by Laurie L. Oswald
 Twelve
years ago, Cruz Cordero felt the fires of suffering as his family
broke apart and he searched for belonging on the streets of North
Philadelphia.
Today, Jesus Christ is transforming those ashes into a life
of beauty, Christian rap music and the testimony of a 28-year-old
young man who finds courage in the stories of the early Anabaptist
martyrs to live his life as passionately as they lived theirs.
When he was a teenager his mother left his father, a gifted
artist who got involved in drugs and alcohol and turned abusive
in the home. That brought betrayal to Cordero, who had experienced
a relatively stable home and a father who cared. His mother and
two small sisters moved to Florida, while Cordero and his older
sister stayed in the city and roamed from temporary home to temporary
home.
Like a prodigal, he searched for a home in the hip hop culture
and answers to his questions about who he was and why he was
here. But he found no answers, until the day he ran across a
Mennonite girl listening to Christian rap. That's when he felt
for the first time that there was a God who would understand
his songs, his pain, his dreams.
"I was asking God why I was suffering so much, when I
met Rhonda Miller, a girl at the High School for Performing Arts
where we both attended, who was listening to a headset. I asked
what she was listening to and she told me 'Christian rap.' I
didn't even know such a thing existed.
"She handed me the headset and when I listened, I heard
words and music that spoke my language, a God who spoke my language.
For the first time in my life, I felt that I had God's undivided
attention."
Since that time, God has turned Cordero's trials into a faith
of gold. He is now a rap musician and college student in St.
Petersburg, Fla., and is connecting in good ways again with his
family. His dreams are go to Bible school and into full-time
ministry in Philadelphia, where he hopes to teach at a learning
center being developed by the Cross Movement Ministries. It ministers
to youth and young adults in the hip hop culture.
The transformation began after Miller, the daughter of Naomi
and Freeman Miller, longtime Mennonite leaders in the city, invited
Cordero to the Diamond Street Mennonite Church youth group. That's
where he became a Christian at age 16 and experienced the love
and support of mentors such as the Millers and other church family.
Freeman Miller is the former pastor of Diamond Street and bishop
for the Lancaster Mennonite Conference churches in the city.
As Cordero spent time in the Miller's home, their mentoring
enabled him to struggle through years of learning difficulties
at school and emotional difficulties in relationships. But over
the years, Christ has helped him to push through these obstacles
and to write the kind of Christian rap music that reaches the
kind of youth he once was, he said.
After he graduated from high school in 1995, he joined the
Cross Movement, a Philadelphia-based Christian rap group that
brings the gospel through rap to the city streets across the
United States and Jamaica. The stories he heard for the first
time at Diamond Street about the early Anabaptists martyrs have
resonated with his own story.
"I draw a lot of encouragement from those martyrs,"
Cordero said. "Whatever I've had to go through, their fires
were hotter than mine. Their lives were a reflection of not only
what we have to go through but also a reflection of what we can
be if we allow those fires to purge us and be a reminder of the
peace that can be ours in Jesus Christ."
The intensity of Cordero's testimony shone bright as gold
the night he shared a Christian rap song, "Onward Martyrdom,"
that he wrote and performed for the audience April 4 at a conference,
"Philadelphia Stories: Kingdom-Building in the City."
As he moved to the strong beat of the music, people heard his
cries and those of the martyrs. He poured his emotions into pulsating
street poetry depicting the lives of such martyrs as Dirk Willems.
He sang, "Facing execution this man was willing/ to extend
a helping hand to the man pursuing him/to do him in, so those
rulers can ruin him/'cause was an Anabaptist who was walking
in unison/with the person of Christ, immersed in his life/obeying
his sermon is what turned him into a furnace of light."
Naomi and Freeman Miller were two people in the audience who
felt particular joy over seeing God's love and light burst into
bold testimony through this young man, who has become their spiritual
son. Cordero received a standing ovation at the April 3-5 conference
focusing on the multiracial Mennonite community in the city.
Cordero is quick to recognize the Millers as his spiritual
parents, as well. "God has used them to reflect his love,
and I am so grateful," he said. "God has bestowed his
love on them, and they have chosen to bestow it on me. We all
need to be embraced and loved by people, as well as by God."
That love has taken firm root, as he is now an example to
others, Naomi Miller said. "Cruz has an amazing inner strength
and determination-he never quits," she said. "We have
learned so much from him about perseverance in difficult times.
His unshakable commitment to Christ and to the Anabaptist vision
has grown very deep roots. ...
"He reminds me a bit of an oak tree sapling, which, after
a long period of almost imperceptible growth, becomes an unshakable
solid tree. Cruz is like that oak tree. We could not grow for
him. He is the one who did the wrestling with God, trusted him
and kept on going when the road ahead looked impossible.
"He now mentors two or three young friends in Florida.
They are where he was a number of years ago and he wants them
so badly to see what they need to do to grow. So the baton is
passed on to Cruz, and he is beginning to mentor others."
Cordero has gained a prophet's voice, as well as ideas for
rap lyrics, from his connection to the martyrs. His mentoring
is full of the passion of someone who has known the emptiness
of the streets and wants people to embrace the fullness of Christ.
"What people need most is not to be tutored, counseled
or lectured," Cordero said. "What they need is a conversion,
redemption. People aren't wounded by sin. They are dead in sin.
Men and women need a resurrection if they want a relationship
with God.
"And I think the early Anabaptists have a lot to tell
us about not taking the teachings of Jesus Christ lightly, but
applying the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes. It's not
only a belief in creed, it's a belief in practice."
Laurie L. Oswald is news service director for
Mennonite Church USA.
Photos/captions:
21-Oswald.jpg-Cruz
Cordero, Christian rap artist with Naomi and Freeman Miller,
his mentors. (Credit: Laurie L. Oswald)
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