1. In a room resonating with passionate, individual prayers, Bobby Mendez seeks rebirth and a chance to escape the violence of gang life at Victory Outreach ministries in Spokane. Photos by Torsten Kjellstrand/The Spokesman-Review
2. Former prostitute Fonda Cosner, who runs the Victory Outreach women's program, feeds her youngest children, Mary, 2, and Victoria, 4, at a communal church meal.
3. Trolling Spokane's streets for lost souls last winter, Bobby Mendez offers a hot meal, a warm cot and a dose of salvation to Jimbo, a homeless Vietnam veteran. "We reach the lost at any cost," Mendez says.
4. Once inside Victory Outreach, Mendez spouts tough street talk to deliver a message of acceptance to Jimbo.
5. At left, he annoints the sore feet of the homeless man with scented powder. Jimbo was reluctant to take his feet out of the boots he had worn for many days until offered a new pair of socks.
6. A tattoo of his children symbolizes family ties instead of gang ties for Bobby Mendez. He was married eight years ago through the thick glass of a county jail visiting room and became a father soon after he was released.
7. Bobby and Ruth Mendez participate in a service at Victory Outreach. Ruth brought their four children from Vancouver, Wash., to Spokane in January so they could spend more time with their father.
8. "Work is prayer," says Bobby Mendez, who tends to yardwork in November outside the converted nursing home in Hillyard where Victory Outreach members plant the seeds of their ministry.
