Redeemable at Sal’s Bar

Jerry Martinez stood shocked behind the counter. His father placed a set of keys on the bartop and said, “Here are my keys. The bar is yours.” Jerry searched his father’s eyes, noticing a bright and determined look beneath Sal’s bushy eyebrows.

“Come on, Dad,” Jerry said, “You don’t mean you’re done, right?”

“I am done,” Sal replied. “I want to serve the Lord more than I want to serve alcohol. I’ve seen a lot of crazy things, even guys twice my size who come riding in here on horses with their guns drawn like some movie.”

It was true. They had been on the wrong end of sting operations and had accepted tips in the form of almost any kind of drug. Too often, they turned a blind eye to despicable and illegal activities.

Sal stood. “I don’t want any part of this sin anymore.”

“Are you sure?” It was the only thing Jerry could think to say. Up until that time, it had been Sal’s mission to keep business flowing. He did this by scouting women from other local bars, handing them free drink tickets labeled “Redeemable at Sal’s Bar.” Women would show up for a free drink, men would show up for women and Sal would profit because of it.

“Yes.” Sal’s response to Jerry's question was adamant. He had years of conviction weighing on him from the Bible studies he had been doing with his own father and sister. 

Sal’s father had abandoned the family when Sal was still young. Seeing his mother working hard to take care of him and his 12 siblings, Sal quit school in the third grade and started working laboriously to help the family. But as an adult, he reconnected with his father, who began talking to him about God. Through the father who had abandoned him, Sal came to know and love the Father who would never leave him.

Now, as Sal exited the bar, he looked back at Jerry. “You need this place like you need a hole in the head,” he said.

Jerry picked up the keys and pocketed them. He smiled to himself and continued cleaning the counter. Less than a week ago, he had celebrated three years of marriage and his wife had told him they were expecting another baby. Jerry, dad of two and bar owner. Life was looking good indeed. Little did he know, God’s plan to redeem both him and the bar was already at work.

Bible Study on Tap

Sandi had been one of the recipients of the free drink tickets several years earlier. Jerry served her the free drink. Now married, they were the co-owners of the busiest bar in town. 

If there weren’t people waiting to be served at the bar, they were lining up at the drive-thru. Plus, there were shelves to stock, tables to bus and spaces to clean.

With the toddler and baby upstairs in the playpen, Sandi was operating the drive-thru. She couldn’t see who was coming into the bar, but she surveyed the business with a keen ear: the voices of their morning regulars, the click-clacking of pool tables being loaded up, babbling through the baby monitor. She heard a car coming to the drive-thru, and even as she listened to the order, she heard Jerry talking to a familiar voice at the bar.

The man’s gentle tone stuck out to Sandi. Where had she heard this voice before? She sent the customer at the window away with their order and stepped out to the bar. Sandi knew the man the moment she saw him.  

“Sandi!” the man greeted. “It’s good to see you. How are you doing?”

“I’m fine,” Sandi replied, pocketing the baby monitor in her jacket.  “How are you … ” she hesitated, “pastor?”

Sandi and Jerry had met Paul Lutz when they visited the Valencia Spanish Seventh-day Adventist Church at Sal’s insistence. The church was okay enough, but Sandi wasn’t interested in religious talks and didn’t see the benefit of it. Also, she didn’t speak much Spanish.

Sal had tried talking to them about spiritual things on his own, but Sandi and Jerry’s questions were too hard for what he knew. So Sal decided that if they wouldn’t come to church, then perhaps the church would have to go to their bar.

Pastor Lutz walked into Sal’s Bar mid-morning on a Tuesday wearing a striped suit and carrying a Bible. “Would you indulge in a Bible study?” he offered.

Sandi and Jerry exchanged glances. “I guess we could,” Jerry finally said, so as not to be inhospitable.

“But,” Sandi chimed in, “it can’t disrupt business. Our customers need to be served.”

“Of course,” Lutz promised. “If someone needs you, you can step away.” Sandi and Jerry joined Lutz at a nearby booth, and he began teaching them about the Bible.

Sandi and Jerry were polite and responsive to his prompts, but overall, they were uninterested. They got up to help customers several times, their language with the customers was full of cursing and derogatory remarks, but still Lutz stayed. They came back to the booth perfumed by beer and cigarettes, but Lutz was not deterred. This was the first time Jerry and Sandi had seen a person so secure in a place where he obviously didn’t belong.

As if oblivious to their lack of enthusiasm, he ended the study by inviting himself back. “I can come back at the same time next week for another study,” he said.

“Yes,” Sandi responded, surprised that Lutz hadn’t been baited by their impassivity. “As long as our business stays running.”

‍A Bitter Truth 

Every week, Lutz came into the bar, never ordering anything. After the first month, Jerry and Sandi decided to close the drive-thru window during the hour that he came so they could pay better attention. 

One week, Sandi asked, “Aren’t you afraid your church will see your car parked at a bar?”

“No, I’m not.” Lutz seemed genuinely unconcerned. “When you work for God, you don’t worry so much about what other people think of your vehicle placements.”

By the sixth lesson, Sandi and Jerry locked the bar door during Lutz’s visit, deciding that whoever happened to be in the bar at that time would also listen to their study. Soon, Sandi and Jerry were engrossed in God's Word.

Jerry and Sandi began to think that something spiritual had been missing from their lives. As the weather grew colder, the studies were nearing their end. Then came the unsettling blow. “You can't be willing to sin and be baptized,” Lutz said. “You have to be willing to die to yourself and give up your sin to be baptized.”

A third child was on the way. Jerry and Sandi needed the income more than ever. They couldn’t imagine parting with the bar. 

“Then I guess we won’t be getting baptized,” Sandi said.

Nevertheless, Sandi and Jerry started attending church. They believed that it was important, but they felt increasingly conflicted about being there because of their sinful livelihood. The women of the church planned a baby shower for Sandi, but she didn’t attend. How could she accept their gifts and not their faith?

Then, one spring Sabbath, shortly after the baby was born, Jerry and Sandi saw a sign posted on the church door reading: “If your child is crying, please take them outside.” Sandi was upset, believing the sign was meant for her. They got back in their car and stopped attending church.

Months passed, and life continued much as it had before the Bible studies. Then on one fateful day in autumn, Sandi noticed Vinnessa, her 4-year-old, sitting at the bar. “Why are you sitting here?” she asked. Vinnessa lifted her little hands, showing her mom that they were full of quarters. “Where did you get all those quarters?” Sandi pressed.

“These men are giving me them to be their girlfriend,” Vinnessa replied.

Suddenly, like a movie reel, Sandi saw mental images of a horrible future for her girls. If people tipped their bartenders in drugs, what would they tip pretty girls? She saw unreal moments of violence and filth flash before her eyes with her precious girls at the epicenter of it all. Sandi’s heart pounded as she took Vinnessa by the hand and went upstairs to collect the babies. When she came back down, she passed Jerry by the bar and said, “I’m taking the kids home. I’ll talk to you later.”

Jerry arrived home in the early hours of the morning. Sandi was sitting at the table with a serious expression on her face. “What’s going on?” Jerry asked.

Sandi showed him the quarters and recounted the day’s experience. As Jerry pulled her into a hug, they agreed that the bar had to go.

Life on the Rocks 

The next morning, Jerry and Sandi reached out to a real estate broker and listed the building, the land and the liquor license for sale. Jerry decided to operate the business until it sold while Sandi stayed home with the kids. 

While Sandi and Jerry recognized that the bar life was no good, they were still not set on attending church or being baptized. They had felt scorned by the church once before and were not interested in experiencing that again. They allowed Vinnessa to attend with Sal, but never went themselves.

The bar was not selling. Since the incident with the quarters, life at the bar had intensified. Jerry had been shot at. (The shooter had missed Jerry, but hit a pregnant woman.) He had been threatened with a lead pipe after cutting off an intoxicated man. And, on a slow day, when Sandi had left the kids with a babysitter to help at the bar, she was threatened by an angry man wielding a cue stick who tried to rip the payphone off the wall. There was also the wild, wild wedding that ended in an all-out brawl, with Jerry spraying mace indiscriminately at guests to get them out of the bar.

The place that had once seemed like Jerry’s promised land, was now feeling more and more like a death sentence. The day before Christmas, Jerry locked the bar doors for good.

There was no immediate plan for his family, but Jerry trusted that God had a plan. Jerry and Sandi had a few months' savings they could use while Jerry studied for his contractor’s license and Sandi studied real estate. Jerry would collect aluminum to recycle if he had to. After those few months had passed and spring was well underway, Jerry and Sandi were no longer able to buy food, let alone make their mortgage payments or pay any of their utility bills. The little bit of money they got from collecting cans on the roadside went to immediate necessities, and there were many meals that Jerry didn’t eat.

One Sabbath afternoon, Max Martinez, pastor of the Belen Seventh-day Adventist Church where Sal was taking Vinnessa, stopped by the house and encouraged Jerry. “You are becoming a contractor, and one day our church is going to open a new church building,” he said. “We are going to need you.”

Jerry and his family were still not attending church at this time, so he tried to keep the conversation polite but short. Then in May, Martinez and his wife, Mary, stopped by Sandi and Jerry’s house after services and encouraged them to attend church the following Sabbath. “Please come,” they said, “Vinnessa is going to be singing in the Mother’s Day program, and it would be very good for her to be able to sing to her mom.”

Sandi agreed. She attended the Mother’s Day program, but didn’t stay for the entire service. Now she could say that she had tried church again, and even though they believed in God, church just wasn’t for them.

But when Vinnessa was going to be part of a Father’s Day program, Jerry was not going to miss it. He was also not going to go alone, so he and Sandi took the whole family to church. They sat in the row closest to the door and left when one of the babies began to cry.

“Why did you leave so early?” Mary asked, stopping by their house after church.

“The baby was crying,” Jerry said, “and we didn’t want to disturb anyone.”

“Don’t mind that,” Mary told them. “I’ve never met a baby that didn’t cry.”

“Why don’t you come next week?” Martinez invited, and without a reason to say no, Jerry agreed to bring the family to the following week’s service. 

Sandi and Jerry hatched a plan. They would go to church on Sabbath morning and sit in the same row closest to the door. That way, if one of the babies would fuss or cry, they would leave right away again.

They settled into their seats and Mary greeted them, except this time, she held their youngest daughter and said, “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of this one so you can stay and listen.” Mary took the baby with her to the first row. There was no way that Sandi and Jerry could leave now. Even if their other baby fussed or cried, their youngest was lovingly being held captive at the front of the church. To their surprise, both babies slept for the entire service.

Beginning his sermon, Martinez held up a pair of brass knuckles. He explained to the congregation that they were his weapon of choice when his family owned a bar. The sermon gripped Sandi and Jerry. They could relate to Martinez’s life story, and they saw the correlation of events that brought Martinez from his rebellious life of sin, the same way they had been led from theirs. They knew God had a better life waiting for them.

Tight Tabs 

Sandi and Jerry began attending church regularly. After a short time as church-goers, they saw God working in their lives. One friendly church member spoke with Sandi and said, “Vinnessa tells me you don’t have bread at home.”

Embarrassed, Sandi confirmed, “We have food, but not bread.”

“Well, I have bread,” the woman said, “Stay here and I’ll bring it to you.” The woman went home and packed a basket full of food for the family.

Without electricity or gas, nights became too cold to sleep separately. Jerry hung blankets over doorways and entry points of their living room to keep the cold out, and the family shared their body heat under a large, thick blanket.

One day a church member asked how they had been getting by. “We’re making it,” Sandi said, unsure if her voice seemed confident enough.

“I’ve been praying for you, and I have something that will hopefully help you make it,” the church member said, presenting Sandi and Jerry with a generous monetary gift. It brought tears to Sandi’s eyes.

“I can’t accept this,” Sandi said.

“Yes, you can,” the church member said. “I’m glad that your family has been coming to church.”

Through that summer and into autumn, Jerry and Sandi's new careers had yet to come to fruition and the bar hadn’t sold. Then they received notice that their house would be foreclosed if they could not make a payment.

They prayed leading up to the court date and again outside of the courthouse.

The mortgage company stated its case first: “Your honor, the defendants have not made any attempt at a payment in over nine months. We have properly served them. The promissory note states that at this time, the property becomes the asset of the mortgage company.”

“Your honor,” Jerry responded, “we have made a change in lifestyle and careers. We need a little more time to get the money together. Please give us the time. We will do it.” 

In an unprecedented action, the judge turned to the lawyers of the mortgage company and said, “I trust what Mr. and Mrs. Martinez had to say. I am awarding them another month of time to redeem their home.”

A Full Measure

Two weeks later, the phone rang, and Jerry answered. “Hello Jerry,” the realtor greeted in a deep, friendly voice, “I have some good news and some bad news about your listing for Sal’s Bar. Which would you like first?”

Jerry called Sandi over and responded, “Let’s start with the bad news.”

“Well, we’ve received an offer, but it’s not what you’re expecting.” Jerry and Sandi didn’t have high hopes. The offer was likely well below the worth of the building and license, but given the circumstances, they were ready to accept it. “A supermarket is planning to open, and they’re wanting to buy only your liquor license.” At this, Jerry and Sandi were deflated. The building and land wouldn’t be sold at all.

“What’s the good news?” Jerry asked.

“The good news is,” the realtor continued with emphasis, “this company is offering the highest price that has ever been paid to date in the state of New Mexico for a liquor license.”

After hearing how much the offer was and accepting it, Jerry and Sandi were ecstatic and speechless. They marveled that God had provided for them once again! He had seen them through their period of fortification, sustained them during their transition in lifestyle and career and also equipped them with the means to redeem their house from foreclosure. But most importantly, they could accept the baptism that Martinez proposed now that the bar was truly gone.

The day before their baptism, Martinez met with Jerry and Sandi to make sure they understood the Seventh-day Adventist fundamental beliefs, reviewing each belief one by one. On the day of their baptism, Martinez encouraged them, saying, “I know, without a doubt, you are going to be pillars of this church.”

The bar and bar life were long gone. Fully redeemed by God, Sandi and Jerry were baptized.

Decades later, the congregation outgrew their building. As construction began on a new church, the old one was sold to cover the expenses. Yet the church would not be homeless.

Jerry and Sandi’s building had been dormant for years. It no longer contained a stock of alcohol, pool tables, poker tables or the stench of beer and cigarettes. God had redeemed not only Jerry and Sandi, but He’d saved the building for this great purpose. They donated the use of their building as a temporary home for their beloved church. 

With the new church building nearly completed, the family is eager to worship there. The first service will be held in the new building early this year. 

The life that Sandi had been shown for her daughters never came to be. Jerry is a church elder, and Sandi is the church treasurer. Their three daughters are all actively involved in multiple ministries, including serving on the Children’s Ministries Committee for the Texico Conference. 

The building that used to be Sal’s Bar will soon be empty again, but the lesson that began there continues to be lived out in the lives of the former bar owners: by the grace of God, there is purpose in everything. Everyone is redeemable.

By Victoria Martinez. Martinez is the daughter of Jerry and Sandi Martinez. She and her entire family are members of the Belen Seventh-day Adventist Church.