Elliot and Mary Tepper had big dreams of evangelizing to university students when they moved their young family to Madrid, but they never expected to end up working with the heroin addicts in the nearby slums instead. In Shooting Up (which is part missionary biography, part coming-of-age story), Jonathan Tepper recounts his fascinating story of growing up as a missionary kid in San Blas, where his parents started a drug rehab ministry called Betel.
This could be a book about the remarkable success of Betel, but that ending never feels inevitable. Instead, we see Jonathan’s perspective as his parents struggle to make ends meet and keep the fledgling program afloat. While he watches some addicts find hope and others abandon it, Jonathan wrestles with his own faith and his place in this strange life he didn’t choose. And just when we glimpse success ahead, the AIDS crisis nearly devastates the Teppers and Betel with loss upon loss.
Part of what makes Shooting Up so compelling is that Jonathan doesn’t glance away from the hard parts. We see through his eyes hard-won successes, stunning tragedies, and lingering disappointments. Not every story ends happily. (On that note, readers should be prepared to encounter foul language, addiction, violence, death, and the inner thoughts of an adolescent boy navigating his place in life.) Of course, Shooting Up isn’t all doom and gloom. Death plays a major role, but Jonathan also teases out the profound beauty and humor of ordinary moments: from his father explaining economics on the back of a napkin or dreaming about the future plans for a dumpy old building, to new residents at Betel sincerely thanking God for a recent successful robbery.
Jonathan and his brothers hand out tracts to addicts while also dreaming of their futures in the world outside, as soccer stars, musicians, or academics. The Teppers instill their sons with a love of learning, and they eventually succeed at Oxford and beyond, but along the way, Jonathan increasingly comes to doubt the God his parents believe in. “I was in awe of my parents and their selfless helping and loving others,” he says, but “didn’t know if I could eat all the other servings—the creation story, the genealogies, the miracles, the afterlife, and judgment day—that came with it” (171).
Alongside these intellectual doubts, death plays a major role too. Tepper’s story forces us to grapple with a God who allows unexplained tragedy, even to his most faithful servants. It’s a striking contrast that Jonathan stops believing in God’s goodness while watching Raul and Jambri die, yet these addicts-turned-pastors grow ever more confident in God as the end nears. AIDS may be stripping away their strength, their futures, and their families, but the love of God seems to shine ever clearer from their dwindling bodies.
For Christians, Jonathan’s departure from faith lends this book an extra note of sadness. In the end, Jonathan attributes the success of Betel to the power of love and comes to hope that “all shall be well,” but this raises obvious questions. Why should all turn out well, and whose love enables such sacrifices and such transformation? Even though Jonathan hasn’t arrived here himself, Shooting Up leaves us longing for the true hope, radical love, and transforming power found only in Christ crucified.