THE MOST WONDERFUL EQUATION!

Have you ever read Mathew 24:12? “And because lawlessness (Love-lessness) is increased, most people´s love will grow cold” and then find encouragement in the following verse: “but the one who endures to the end, he shall be saved (consoled, encouraged, given peace, blessed?) And then, led by the Holy One gone to Galatians 5:13; Romans 12:9-21; Proverbs 10:12; 1 Peter 4:8?

When you analyze all these statements about love, you cannot but end in the wonderful equation of generous hearts linked by such a love does not have any other result than gratitude to one another because of gratitude for the grace and mercy of the Lord!

When you go down into the valleys of despair the Lord sends you messages through your friends and those you lovingly serve. What I will describe below, starting with the 2 pictures of our first high school graduates Juan-José Martínez and Juana-Aurora Espinoza Gutiérrez, already enrolled in college, is the most beautiful gratitude message I and we as a ministry have received in a very long time. It will be Juanita´s words as boys are shyer when having to state their inner feelings, but I am sure his heart is also full of gratitude for all of us, us and you their sponsors and friends.

2007

As I translate Juanita´s words dedicated to us, I visualize all those of you, generous hearts, that behind us, with your prayers, care and support, enabled us to see this wonderful girl arise from her past of dire circumstances to flourish into the first fruit, along with Juan, her male counterpart in this ministry success. Let´s enjoy her words and the glimpses of their developing stages while among us. Here are her words!

Dear grandma and grandpa. Dear girls, tutors and sponsors. I want to dedicate these words in this so significant a day for me. There have been already many years in my life and most of them I have shared them with you all, years where many unforgettable things happened and moments that taught me a lot about life.

2003

Grandma and grandpa! I am grateful for all that love, patience and support you have given me!

I am grateful because you were always there with me during all my arduous growing up and walking in the midst of successes and failures because we all fail sometimes, but you taught me that the losers are those who quit and the conquerors are the ones who persevere and endure, raising up again after every failure, with greater desires to fight and go on, learning the lesson and convinced that nothing nor no one will be able to stop them.

I am grateful for all your time, so valuable and unrecoverable that you lavished on me. You gave all of yourselves so I could become who I am.

Thanks for all that I have been able to accomplish until now because you never gave up, you did not desist and tenaciously fought so I would be able to overcome.

Thanks for your advice, for your correcting me, sometimes with a smile, other times in a loving stern way, but maybe these last ones were the ones who shook me out of immaturity and complacency.

Thanks, grandpa and grandma because at your side I learnt the meaning of the most beautiful word: LOVE!

Thanks for every candle you and me blew out in every one of my birthday celebrations!

Thanks for every whole night you spent praying and stayed awake when I was confused or sick. Thanks for those nights you spent at my hospital bedside because of my painful migraines.

Thanks for the happy times you shared with me and the times you helped me to overcome my recurrent sadness
Thanks because you tried everything and did not allow that loneliness feelings were my only friends and companions.
2004

Thanks for the times you did not go to bed until you were sure I was healthy or out of danger

Thanks for the time that you should have spent together and sacrificed the things you liked to do so you could invest on me

Thanks for the times you looked at me with joyful pride when good things were told to you about me

Thanks because you encouraged me always so I could fulfill my greatest desire, that of graduating from high school so I could enter college which is the greatest dream in my life.

Thanks!

· Because only your love kept me upright when everybody had abandoned me!
· Because only your love trusted me when no one else believed me!
· Because only your love forgave me when anyone else misunderstood me!
2005

But alongside gratefulness there must be the willingness to ask to be forgiven. Please forgive me for all the disagreeable times I made you go through for the sadness you felt because of my selfish at times behavior, for the times you thought that probably was not worthy anymore to keep on sacrificing because I did not appreciated what you kept on doing for my benefit.
2006

Dear grandma and grandpa. Dear girls, psychologist and tutor mothers.

Maybe I did suffer innumerable disappointments in the arduous walking of my life but I finally understood they were not so important when compared with the loving actions that I saw you doing for us

Maybe I was not strong enough to make all my ideas a reality but because of your untiring support I never felt defeated

Maybe I knocked down myself but you encouraged me so I would not stay too long crying helpless on the floor of auto compassion

Maybe some times I was unjustly treated but you taught me that I should never accept the role of a victim

Maybe I was deceived many times but I will never stop believing that here was a place with people who deserved my trust. Maybe I am not the greatest expectation of yours but I will always try to be up to your desires for me

As time passed I recognized I made many mistakes and I ask you forgiveness for them, because I will not desist from keep on walking ahead.
As time passed I lost many friends but I learnt that the true friends I will never lose them, because today you are here, at my side.
2007

Maybe there will come my way times when I will feel weak and tired but every morning I will wake to start again doing what I have to do even if in a different way than the day before

Maybe I never learnt all the necessary lessons you tried me to but I am conscious that the real and important teachings are indelibly printed in my mind, my heart and my spirit

Maybe the temptation to quit and leave everything behind became my nagging and always present companion but instead of running away I ran and chased all the goals I wanted to accomplish

Maybe I did not have reasons for great remembrances but I never stopped enjoying all my accomplished little successes.

Maybe I am not still the girl I would like to be but I have peace in being the person I have become

But at the end I know that even in the midst of my unending doubts I was able to set down the foundations of a better and positive life

And if I still not convinced is because I believe that have not yet reached the end of the road.

Now there is a new life phase that I am starting. It is a new and very joyful start but at the same time plagued by doubts, fears and constant personal struggles, but I know that at the end of this road I will always be grateful to all of you because we reach our successful goals along with the loved ones. You are the ones who will give me the triumphal applause and this is what really counts!

My dear friends probably this is one of the most emotive testimonies I have ever had the blessed opportunity to listen, read and translate.

I could not move myself to edit it just to fill the everything in one minute challenging limits of today communication fashions.

Please rejoice and pray for Juan next Sunday the 25th. when he and my wife walk together to receive his high school diploma, and the next December 1st. when I will walk the aisles proudly taking Juana to the stage to receive hers. And keep on rejoicing because both of them are already enrolled in college.