by Kelli Cottrell
 
EL CAJON - Apply only if you love God and want to share your testimony.

Those are the guidelines for working at the Angels Among Us Cafe‚ in El Cajon where employees are learning to change their lives and share their faith.

"There is a spiritual emphasis here," said Debbie Shepard, who formerly owned her own successful bistro in La Mesa, and was recently hired to manage the three-year-old restaurant. "We want the employees to let Christ be seen through them."

The cafe‚ was located next to the worst drug-infested motel in East San Diego County, according to Set Free Christian Fellowship Pastor Harold Brown, before it was bought by Set Free San Diego.

The Fab7 Motel was purchased and refurbished in 2003 to house needy families whose spouses are incarcerated or going through drug and alcohol rehabilitation at one of the two Set Free ranches on the outskirts of San Diego.

The cafe is located adjacent to the Fab7 Motel.

Those living in the motel are counseled, mentored and ministered to by local churches and social service organizations to help reintroduce them into mainstream society.

Instead of allowing them to survive on welfare from the state, churches in the area have provided assistance and help feed them through the cafe's kitchen.
The employees of the cafe have either come through the discipleship program or are wives of someone going through the program.

Many have graduated from the Set Free Ranch, located at another site, but must attend daily Bible studies while working at the cafe.

"The cafe was abandoned," noted Brown, operations officer for Set Free San Diego. "Many restaurants had tried to make it go and failed. We needed a place to feed the families at the hotel so we used only the kitchen in the back to feed them."

In 2004, the city health department refused the group a permit to use just the kitchen, unless they operated as a restaurant, Brown said.

"We had never run a restaurant before but we opened it up and made a go of it," he said. "We decided to use it as a training ground for cooks, waitresses and those who needed to learn skills like clocking in and being on time to a job."

All proceeds from the cafe support Set Free ministries.

Waiters and waitresses place their written testimony at each table they serve. The patrons have the opportunity to read it and ask questions at their leisure.
But running a restaurant was not as easy as the pastors anticipated.

"We were barely squeaking by financially," Brown said. "We needed to do something different to keep afloat and provide meals for our motel families."
That is why the cafe, open for breakfast and lunch daily, is "going more upscale."

Last year, Set Free hired Shepard, who has many years of experience running a successful restaurant.

"We hired her because she has experience and will take it to the next level," Brown said.

Since Shepard took over as manager in December, she has stopped serving canned soups and other prepackaged menu items  and now sells only fresh, homemade muffins, pastries and meals.

"Everything is from scratch now," said Shepard, who wants to improve the atmosphere as well. "We have a lot of plans and not everyone is happy about the changes but it's for the ministry and reaching more people."

Shepard brought her own recipes with her and has taught the head cooks to make them, she said.

"Our vision is to see people come to Christ through our service and to provide a way for people to make a living," said Shepard, who has a vision to turn the cafe into a Mimi's-style restaurant. "I have seen parents come and watch their kids work here who they had given up on. They see a changed person and go to the parking lot and cry. They really see a change."

Not everyone agrees with Shepard's decor changes.

"Although we took down the crosses and other Christian icons, we want our message to come through ... but subtly," Shepard explained. "We want to attract non-Christians, not just the church members and other Christians. We want to have an opportunity to see the same non-Christians over and over again to witness to them."

Every day, non-believers come in contact with the employees and hear their testimonies about the motel and their personal lives being changed by Christ.
Head cook Bobby Jones needed to make a fresh start in life because of his troubled past.

"I was a non-believer before I had this job," Jones said. "I said, 'If there's a God, use me.' He gave me this skill and now I get paid to serve Him."
Shepard has plans to open the cafe for dinner soon and provide a "coffee night" with dessert and Christian bands.

A separate room on the side of the cafe feeds the 20 families and 90 single men and women staying at the motel. They are fed with donated food not from the cafe menu.

"We try to keep the business and the ministry separated," Brown explained. "At some point we want the cafe to provide enough income to house and feed 20 families a month at the motel."

Although there is no documented proof of how many salvations have resulted from the cafe's ministry, many lives have been touched, Brown said.

"We've had over 400 baptisms and hundreds of people give their lives to Christ since the motel and cafe has been open," he noted. "We touch lives every day."
For more information call the cafe at 619-579-5100.