God Will Take Care of You

“When they speak to you, don’t say anything. I will do the speaking,” said the man who was transporting us. Everything had started on a Wednesday morning, May 15, 1985. We had been flying for three hours from El Salvador to Mexico City. We were in Mexico.

The day before we departed, I had fallen on my knees and I had told the Lord, “Lord, I don’t want to go, but if this is what you want, help me.” I had to say no more. The Lord took care of me, not only during the trip to Houston but for many years ahead.

My mother had borrowed money from a person she worked for. My mother was a woman of great faith. She had asked the Lord to save us and to let her get us out of the country. I was 18 years of age and that was the age in which I had to go to military service. The country was being thorn by a merciless civil war. My great future in El Salvador was to be in the army or be in the communist guerrilla killing other Salvadorans or be killed by one of those two sides. My mother did not want that for any of her children. So she prayed. The Lord responded. She got the money to get me out of El Salvador and I left.

Two months earlier, I had gone to the Mexican Embassy in San Salvador to get a visa to travel through Mexico. They were denying it to 80 to 90 percent of the people asking for it. I was one of the last ones to get in. I observed and observed everyone coming out of the interview. Most of them had expressions of disappointment on their faces. I prayed to the Lord to help me get my visa. I entered the office, trembling because it was a major task for me. They interviewed me for about five minutes and suddenly the officer said, “You’ve got the visa. Welcome to Mexico.” I could not believe it! I, an seventeen-year-old kid, had gotten a visa! Most of the rest of the people asking for it were older and definitively in a better financial situation than I was. But I had the visa and not them. I knew then that was a miracle of the Lord. The Lord was with me! I could do anything!

But the intervention of God did not stop there. On the morning of May 15^th I departed from El Salvador to Mexico City. Once there, we had to take another plane to Monterrey, Nuevo Leon. But there was a problem with the flight and we had to wait for about six hours to take the next plane. During those six hours, I walked around the airport. It looked like I was reading different billboards there were on the walls. But I was praying and reciting Psalm 91. When it was time to embark, I went to the employee who was checking the boarding passes. He looked at me and asked me, “How old are you?” “seventee…eighteen” I said nervously. The man looked at me suspiciously. Then another man came, moved his head in disapproval of what he was doing, took my documentation and told me, “Have a nice trip.” It could have not been other than God’s intervention.

I flew to Monterrey. From there we went in bus to Matamoros. Most people tell tales about Mexican migration officers checking buses to catch any person traveling illegally to the U.S. However, in our trip nothing like that happened. We arrived to Matamoros around 9:00 AM of May 16, 1985. We went to a hotel Presidente in Matamoros and waited there. In the afternoon, the person in charge of us, went to get us. He took us to a very humble house. We spent the night there. Around 3 or 4 A.M. of may 17, the same man with other two men went to get us. They took us in a car with no seats to the Rio Grande, at the border with Texas. We waited and waited. As we were waiting, a boat passed by and someone said “silence, migration police.” We were all quiet hiding behind trees and bushes. I felt my heart pumping and of course I continued praying. A man, who was watching, told us the boat had passed already. When they were sure there were no U.S. Border patrols, they told us to go to the river to cross it. The river looked muddy, not like the rivers there were in El Salvador. They put me on a tire tube and on top of me they also put a girl who probably was around 16 or 17 years of age. They took us trough the river and rapidly we got out of the tube. Immediately we changed clothes and started running through a field that was about two football fields long. Then we dropped in a ditch. We waited one more time. Then somebody said, “Run to the Taxis.” There were three taxicabs waiting for us. The taxi drivers took us to a La Quinta Inn and we stayed there for the night.

On the morning of May 18, the leader of the group went for us. He drove us to a wooded area near the “garita” (immigration check point).  The men went to check at the checkpoint because at certain time the guard would change and it would take them 30 minutes for the other guards to arrive. They made us wait in the wooded area until it was safe to go. We waited about six or eight hours. Then, they went to get us. – let’s go, let’s go! -  was the leader telling us. As fast as I could, I ran and jumped a fence and kept running to the car that was waiting for us at the edge of the highway. They put me in the back of the station wagon acting like if we were coming from camping. Some of the passengers sat on the front seats and some in the back seats. They drove for about ten minutes, passed the checkpoint and nobody stopped us. About an hour later they stopped. Other two cars stopped behind the station wagon I was in. They distributed the passengers and continued our way to Houston. I remember looking at the pavement of the highway and how bright the divisions between lanes looked. They drove and drove and drove. Around 9:00 PM we stopped in a city called Refugio. We stopped to eat pizza at a Pizza Hot. Outside the pizza place there was a coke machine. I remember some of the men in the group had never seen one. Neither had I. But I had no money to buy anything. One of the men took 50 cents out of his pocket and bought a soda. He was doing that for the first time. They were astonished because the machine could give them the soda when they deposited 50 cents on it.

After dinner we got in the vehicles again and continued our trip. The long drive continued. I remember noticing that it was around 8:30 when the sun started going down. In El Salvador the days are of 12 hours and so are the nights. So, always the sun goes down around 6:00 PM. Finally, on May 19, 1985 around 1:00 AM we arrived to Houston. It was a Sunday. We slept in the house where this man lived. The next morning (still Sunday), my cousin went to get me.

The Lord continued blessing me after my arrival. I rapidly learned English and the Lord’s guidance, made me think on educating myself. So I decided to go to school. He prospered me. I never went hungry because he was with me. Yes, I suffered poverty, but the Lord always supplied what I needed.

The point of this story is not to tell you how to get from El Salvador to Houston illegally. The point of this story is to show you the intervention of the great Lord in every step of my way, in every part of my life. It is also to show you that He can intervene in your life also and He can make it greater than you ever imagine. I traveled for about four days to get to Houston. I have heard horrible stories where the travelers traveled for weeks and months suffering hunger and thirst. Then, many times, the corresponding authorities capture them. Many times they even die trying to come to this country. I never suffered hunger, or thirst. During my travel, I did not even see immigration officers. That showed me one thing: God wanted me to be here. I knew that eventually everything would be all right. God protected me, He helped me, He kept me under his wings.  This showed me that if a person trusts God, there is no problem that person cannot resolve. If a person trusts God, there is nothing impossible for him or her since nothing is impossible for God. Now, while many politicians play with our destinies by using us to get votes from one group or another, the Lord continues protecting me from such people since now the Lord granted me the citizenship. I know that if an authority reads this they will say – we gave him the citizenship – It’s understandable they think this way because they cannot see more than their human eyes can see. They don’t see that they are instruments like all of us and that God uses us according to His will. God uses us because He is in control. That’s why He already won all the battles and all the victories are in Him.

God has protected me. He has called me His son. I am sure that all of us would love to have that protection. You can have it dear reader. May be your problems are not about the legality of being in a country. May be they are other types of problems. But the Lord who has protected me and solved all my problems, can protect you too. All you have to do is accept Jesus in your heart and you will be called not a servant of God but His friend. In addition, more than His friend, you will be called His son or daughter.  You will have His protection. He will be with you in every area of your life.

Just do it by saying: “Lord I repent of my sins. I invite you to come into my heart. I recognized I am a sinner and I want you to wash my sins with your blood. Now you are more than my God. You are my Heavenly Father. Thank you Lord for coming into my heart and calling me your child, your  prince(princess). Amen.”

Go to a bible based church. Do not be afraid or ashamed since the Lord is with you. All you have to do is believe. Know that He is with you at all times, even when you do not see His actions, He is still working on your behalf.