Yoselin Lopez Ortega, at left, with her mother and one of her three brothers, standing in front of the shack that is their home
Besides food, the one thing that impoverished people around the world desire for their children is an education. They know that education is their children’s only hope to escape the cycle of poverty. In many developing nations, however, public education is not free. Consequently, we receive many requests for tuition assistance.
I want to share with you one such request that we recently received from a 13-year-old girl from rural Mexico named Yoselin, whose family Heaven’s Family has served in the past through the ministry of missionaries Jason and Nicole Fitzpatrick. Heaven’s Family director David Servant personally visited Yoselin’s family last year at their tiny shack in the village of Nexapa.
With our help, Yoselin has just finished 6th grade. She is the first person in her family to have completed Elementary School. Hoping to continue her education into 7th grade at age 14, Yoselin recently wrote to us (translated by Nicole Fitzpatrick):
May God richly bless you. My name is Yoselin Lopez Ortega and I would like to tell you my brief testimony.
It was in the beginning of 2010 that Jesus Christ came to my family’s heart. My mother, brothers and I began going to church services at my grandmother’s house, but my father wanted nothing to do with Christ. See, my Dad was an alcoholic and he would come home drunk and beat us all, especially my Mom when she would defend us. He did not care if we had food to eat or not, so my mother would have to work to put food on the table and then Dad would get even madder and say bad things about her. We suffered a lot because he drank, but we asked God daily to please change him. I cried out to God to save my Dad. It was not until the drinking began to harm him physically that he began to seek God. We sent for Bro. Jason and Sis. Nicole and they came to pray for him and he finally repented and gave his heart and life to Jesus.
My Dad became radically born again and went to live at The Village [Jason and Nicole’s Christian community] for about 6 months. He began to preach the Gospel with the brothers in the villages all around us. My Dad would come home and tell me that he wanted me to study a lot so that one day I could teach the Bible to those around me and help people live their lives for God’s glory. He would tell me that often. But then suddenly the sickness took a hold on him and he died of cardiac arrest on April 16, 2012.
My desire is to continue studying, continue seeking God and learning His Word so that I can be a teacher one day and go and do whatever He sends me to do. I am writing to ask if you can please help me go through another year of school. I know you have already done so much for our family, for both my mom and my grandmother who is also a widow. Thank you so much for allowing me to complete my junior high education. I graduated from the 6th grade 3 weeks ago because of your generosity and support and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I am the only person in my family to have ever accomplished this and it is a blessing to us all.
Thank you for considering giving me a chance I would never have otherwise. I pray for you everyday.
Nicole and Jason, at left, with Yoselin and family members inside their home
Yoselin at her birthday celebration
Our hearts were touched, of course, by Yoselin’s story and request. Thanks to gifts to Heaven’s Family’s Education Fund, we are able to commit to paying most of Yoselin’s education expenses for her first year of Junior High. What is lacking, Yoselin will earn from a part-time weekend job selling french fries! Thank you for helping to make Yoselin’s dreams come true.
