About me

This is my life story (thus far), condensed.

I don’t really know how to write this post. I want to write it for personal record and to make the patterns in my life easier to see. My life has been at the very least, interesting. I am very grateful to God for that. I’ve lived in several places and met a wide variety of people. The changes have been hard to deal with but they’ve made me who I am. The circumstances have tested my dedication to the people I care about and the values that I hold. Even though I know the changes are good for me, I’ve never accepted them without complaint. God has been so patient with me. Every time he presents a new situation I start worrying and whining. I always question the move and months later I come to accept it. I’ve improved a little each time but the fact that he has had to repeat the lesson so many times says a lot about how stubborn I am. I imagine it is what forging a sword must be like. Having to heat the metal, hammer it to shape it and make it slim, bend it and start the process again.

The changes and circumstances I’m talking about have a lot to do with all the times I’ve moved in my life. I started out in Cuba. My life was not exactly stable there. My parents, grandparents and I lived in a house for about 3 years until the government took it and gave it to one of its employees and gave us two apartments as a replacement. I lived there for about 5 years. My dad worked as a meteorologist on a commercial fishing boat and also as a college ministry leader at one of the universities (He was not allowed to work on TV. The government offered him the opportunity to work on TV but he had to sign a contract denouncing his faith in Christ). He was usually gone for a couple of months at a time. This had an up/downside. He could bring us stuff from South American countries that were not available in Cuba but he was away from us for much of the time. Needless to say, my mom and grandparents raised me during this part of my life. In 93 my dad left Cuba for good. It wasn’t until two years later that I saw him again.

--Side notes: My mom went to the Cuban embassy on a nearly daily basis asking for permission for our family to leave the country, she was told by the government that we would never see my father again. My dad was working at $2-4 an hour for around two years. He saved $17,000 dollars to pay for our exit. Months before we had gotten permission to leave Cuba, my mom’s friend told my mom that we would leave on August 13. She had no way of knowing but she and my mom had been praying for years. I can’t attribute it to anything but God. Days after her friend had told her, my mom got permission from the government and we left on August 13, 1995.

Moving to a new country was definitely challenging. My dad had developed some English while living in the country but he was pretty busy. By this time he had started working at a company and we were renting a house. My mom, sister and I spoke no English. Learning the language was not too hard. Learning the culture and being successful in school was a different study. Ironically, we were in a part of Miami that did not have many Hispanics. This forced me to adapt very quickly. I faced some slight racism and I was definitely an outcast. Two years later, I had developed a stable group of friends and most of the people started accepting me. I was doing well in school and things were becoming stable. I was only like 10 so I hadn’t thought about God in a serious manner. I believed in him but faith had not yet become a personal relationship. An interesting thing happened during these years. We met a lady, who is now one of our close friends, she prophesied that my dad would take the place of John Morales (Channel 23 Weatherman, Univision network). We ignored what she said, in fact we thought she was kind of crazy. My dad got a call from a friend at The Weather Channel and traveled to Atlanta for an interview. This would change everything, again.

My dad got the job and a few months later (midway through 6th grade) our family moved to Georgia. This was pretty crushing for me. I had a good group of friends and I had learned to be successful in the Miami culture. Marietta was very different. I did well in school but I didn’t fit in with the people very well. It took until about 8th grade for me to start making good friends again. I got into a good high school program and the years between 8th-10th grade were probably among the easiest in my life. Things went pretty well. We moved out of the apartment we were renting and my Dad purchased his first house. I really love that house :), it’s small and quaint and I have great memories there.

During this time we started going to “Church of the Apostles.” I believed in God during my childhood and early teens but my faith had never become personal. I had seen God working in our family and circumstances but I didn’t have a personal relationship. I didn’t even realize that was missing until I saw the pastor here. Something about him was different. I started wondering what it was. I was pretty much a loner at the church. Most of the kids were rich private school kids and they had their own social group. I never really fit in. Sometime during my 15th year on this planet :P, I decided I wanted what he had. Hearing him talk made me realize it was a personal connection to God. I’d read the bible and prayed and done all of the religious stuff but I didn’t have what he had. I then prayed what has been one of the main prayers of my life. I asked that I would have a heart that longs after God’s heart. I want to love people the way he does and share in the life that Jesus gives. I didn’t want a crutch for life. I didn’t want something to help me deal with my emotions or circumstances … I wanted a companion to show me how to live the way he did. Little after I had made that prayer and decision … my dad was laid off. The Weather Channel decided that they were going to close their Spanish department. He somehow wasn’t worried. He spent some time in prayer and a week later Univision called him. They offered him an interview. As you may guess, he got the job and replaced John Morales. My family was a little more than weirded out by how everything had happened. We had mostly forgotten about the prophesy. We then moved back to Miami.

I landed in a new high school and things went downhill. I did pretty poorly in my classes.

I’ll continue later.