Her husband had lost his job, and she needed help with food. John-Michael brought her to the Highland Park CAN food pantry. There Vernon Liverett told him about the Tuesday community dinner.
"It is a free meal," Marroquin thought, "and I am going because I need fellowship."
He also needed a church.
In 2004, while living in Houston, Marroquin was diagnosed with a neurological illness. It shook him, but it did not drive him from his faith. At first, he admits, he lived in denial. Then a friend challenged him to take the Bible seriously.
"Read the Bible. Do everything in the Bible that it tells you to do," his friend said. "I guarantee that in one year your life will change. What do you have to lose? If everything in that Bible is true, you have everything to gain."
Marroquin accepted the challenge. In 2006, he joined Grace Community Church in Houston. Faith became more than Sunday worship. He studied the Bible, prayed daily, and tried to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit.
His life changed. He received a job promotion to general manager, responsible for about 30 accounts. His income grew. So did his faith.
He joined the church choir, though the first rehearsal tested more than his voice. He stood in front and sang with everything he had. One of the men soon approached him. "John," he said, "you might want to go sit in the back."
Marroquin stayed with the 268-member choir. He had come to sing for the Lord. The Lord began by working on his pride.
The illness did not disappear. Stress made it worse, and John-Michael eventually left the corporate work he had once considered a success. "God removed that," he said. "He wanted me to go somewhere else, and I followed Him."
That somewhere else was the road. Marroquin began training for a commercial driver's license. In Waxahachie, discouraged by a test he was afraid he could not pass, he stood outside and prayed. "Lord, why am I here?" he asked. "Where am I supposed to go? What am I doing?"
When he turned around, he saw a woman who was also a Christian. She later became his second wife. They married in 2015, drove together, and talked about God with people they met along the way. Not everyone wanted to listen. They spoke anyway.
In 2016 he was hospitalized while on the road, a year later his wife’s health problems brought an end to their time driving together. So, Marroquin went to work for Greyhound. He drove interstate routes from 2017 until 2022 and called it the best job he ever had. Another surgery brought his years behind the wheel to an end.
His marriage ended too. The divorce was hard. He drifted from the life he believed God had called him to live and searched for a church where he could belong. The search brought him to Baptist Temple when a friend needed groceries. He came for food and found fellowship and the connection to God he always longed for.
"I was led to you by God," he said. "I feel the presence of God here."
When asked what God had placed in his heart, Marroquin did not hesitate.
"To minister," he said. "To spread the gospel, the Word of God, and share it with others. His amazing grace, the testimonies that we have, the things that I have seen. I can say today that everything in that Bible is true.”
“That’s when La Vida Loca started for me,” he says.
LaQue went home, got his brother’s banana knife, and began carrying it. One day he sliced one of the boys in the arm. Later, he and the boys became friends. They ran around together and formed their own little gang.
At age nine, “Lucky,” as he was known, spent a year in juvenile detention for stealing a car. At 13, he used heroin for the first time. The addiction followed him into adulthood.
Then, in early July 1999, LaQue found himself sitting on a curb, stoned. He had been missing for ten days.
He decided he needed to turn his life over to the Lord.
It did not happen all at once. LaQue went to San Antonio for Christ, where the pastor allowed him to stay in a house open to anyone who needed a place. He left, got high, and came back. He did it twice.
Then he stopped.
LaQue made the decision that he was not going to live that way anymore and began attending the church’s worship services. By then, his family had not known where he was for about a month.
As his faith grew stronger, LaQue began telling his story. He completed The Miracle Center’s “School of Ministry." He witnessed to others, preached in prisons, and wherever he went told about the life he had lived and the God who had changed it.
He has now been sober for 27 years.
LaQue left a successful career as a carpenter—“It was too hot outside,” he said—and went to work for Funeral Caring USA. Starting in maintenance, he worked his way up to office manager at the BT campus site. After the funeral director and others have completed their work, the responsibility for making sure the funeral runs smoothly falls to LaQue.
The families he meets are grieving. LaQue tries to make a difficult day a little easier.
He deals with death every day and sees nothing good about it. But he finds meaning in being able to reduce some of the burden families carry at one of the hardest moments of their lives.
LaQue remains embarrassed by his past. He also knows he is a living example of what God can do with a life. God can turn a hurt into a halo and transform tears into testimony.
People in the neighborhood kept telling him about Baptist Temple. They talked about the Tuesday evening meal and encouraged him to come. These were not church members. They were people who knew where to find a hot meal and a friendly face. They all told him the same thing: "Go to Baptist Temple."
One evening, after returning from donating plasma, Laredo had enough of the isolation. He looked at the clock. It was after 5:30. Instead of spending another evening alone, he walked into the cafeteria looking for company.
He found more than a meal. Someone told him there was a Bible study immediately afterward. That was exactly what he had been missing. Laredo knew from experience that it is difficult to walk away from an old life by yourself. He had spent years pursuing alcohol, drugs, and other destructive habits with everything he had. As he put it, he was "full steam ahead." He realized that if he was going to follow Christ, he needed to be just as intentional about surrounding himself with people who shared his faith.
Laredo's journey has not been an easy one. He began drinking at thirteen and describes his life as a roller coaster. He was introduced to Christ as a teenager through the mother of his high school sweetheart, but his spiritual journey has included many starts and stops along the way. Today, however, he celebrates six years of sobriety. He speaks openly about his gratitude to God for bringing him this far.
What stands out most is not what Laredo has left behind but what he has found. He serves at the HP CAN food pantry on the BT Campus, helps with food distribution, and attends Bible studies. He works alongside people he once would not have imagined himself serving beside. Looking at his current life, he shakes his head and says, "This is not me, Pastor." Friends who knew him years ago would be shocked to see him serving others and investing his time in ministry. Yet that is often how God works. The people most surprised by a transformed life are the people who knew us before Christ began changing us.
Laredo says serving gives him purpose. It helps him stay focused and grounded. More importantly, he sees it as service to God's Kingdom rather than simply volunteering. He talks about an urgency in his heart, a desire to stop "flip-flopping" and fully commit himself to following Christ. His heart is in it. He wants to be there.
He said, "This church reaches out to the actual community," observing that churches can become so busy serving themselves that they forget the people living just beyond their walls. Laredo first encountered Baptist Temple because the community knew the church was there. Long before he joined a Bible study or helped distribute food, people in the neighborhood were already pointing him toward a place where he could find help, friendship, and hope.
The Tuesday meal brought him through the door. Fellowship kept him coming back. Service gave him purpose. You never know what God will do with an invitation to dinner. Sometimes it becomes a place at the table. Sometimes it becomes a ministry. Sometimes it changes a life.
