Our Blog - Serving a Purpose

Jose (far left) with our sons
Mike and Jon, along with
friends from Ave Maria U
(1/2007)









2005/06 Graduates of Ave Maria U
who have remained close friends
(Jose is sitting on couch - picture
taken Fall 2007)









Jose and his family at

his graduation from
Ave Maria University, 2005






I received a message from Marie about a young man named Jose Urquilla. He went to school with Jon and Marie and is in grad school. He is a truly wonderful young man and he needs the help of anyone who is able, both monetarily and prayerfully. I am going to just copy and paste the string of emails so that you will know his whole story.

I had recently been talking to Jon about maybe bringing the blog to an end, since it has been 2 years and maybe it had run its course. I believe that this blog got started because God had a message of love to share. Ours became a miraculous story and there are many people who were meant to see His signs of love and to see the power of prayer. As to how many, that was for God to decide. Throughout these past 2 years, I also have prayed that God would give me a sign when it was time to move on to other things He needed accomplished. Then I got this story of a very sad situation and I knew that this blog might still serve a purpose. I have to send out a plea for help for another brother in Christ who I know lifted up our family in prayer in our time of need. I don't know how many people are still reading this blog, but I hope God kept enough on board so that another one of His missions will be accomplished. We can let His love come through us in action and prayer.

May God's will be done. Love, Rebecca
rafidero@bellsouth.net
johnnyfid@hotmail.com



___________________________
Dear Rebecca,


Did you ever meet our friend Jose? We have known him for about 6 years. Jose is from El Salvadore. His brother, Victor, 19 yrs old, was murdered last year, and as a result of the stress, his mom spent a while in the hospital with heart problems. Over the last two months, Jose's dad has been in the hospital pretty much non-stop, with heart problems, and just passed away last week. This leaves Jose, his mom and sister, Claudia, who just graduated from High School, in a complete state of grief. Jose graduated with Jon, and works for Brownbecks office here in DC. He is also a full time grad student at CUA. He was sick for a while this year as well, and has had to struggle so much! I wonder if you would post the email from his roommates on the blog? It does ask for money, but mostly it asks for prayers and love. We are trying to set up a paypal account for him, so that he might be able to access the money while he is home. Jose is now financially responsible for his family, and that is a burden that he is in no way prepared to handle. I am going to copy the email from Jose, from his last visit home, and also the one his roommates sent out. If you feel that it is ok to post these, or even just snippets of them, then you can just copy them from my email.
Marie

_______________________________
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

I am back from my trip and yes, I am still legal :-). Again, I want to thank you and everyone else I have forgotten in this email for making my trip possible. My family and I are extremely thankful. My dad was doing a little better but unfortunately learned from the doctor that he needs to have a 3rd surgery in a couple of weeks because the test results were not good. This was a different doctor from the one that operated him the first two times and it seems as if the other doctor did not do the best job. Unlike the US, we cannot do anything about it but cover again those costs. Of course, what we want is my dad to be healthy. Also, it was a little bit sad to be at home these days because it was a year yesterday that my brother was shot and my mom has just been under a lot of stress remembering a lot of things. It was difficult to leave home but school and work responsibilities called me back here.

I will have to go back home in a few weeks, however because my mom needs help with a lot of things she has neglected for the past few weeks and also because with all of this another issue came up. We had to get a loan from the bank to pay for my dad's hospital bills. The bank were giving us a hard time about it but then said they'd give it with one caveat: they don't want to give me the loans for school for next semester (in El Salvador, there is no such a thing as a student loan because the government doesn't want their citizens to get educated, you need to get a private loan, in my case with an 18% interest rate. I can't get a loan in the US because I am not a US citizen.) This is insane because if I don't get the loan, I don't go to school and if I don't go to school, I can't remain in the US which would make it extremely hard for me to pay the loans because I would have not graduated and salaries at home are like $200/month! Therefore, I will have to go back home and meet with some sort of board at the bank and pretty much explain them my situation that this is my last semester in school, that my grandma's property is the collateral, etc. The best I can hope for is they will say they will release the funds at higher interest rate. As you can imagine, time at home was crazy and short and now I have finals and papers due so it will be a little insane. Even though God calls us to not worry about the material things sometimes we succumb to temptation and the stress of having to get another ticket and everything at home will make focusing in my school work very difficult. This next couple of weeks will be crazy so I REALLY ask for your prayers.

I hope everyone had a nice thanksgiving. Again, I can't tell you how grateful I am to have such a great family here in the US.

In Him,

Jose
____________________________________________________

This next email is one that was sent to his household brothers, and then on to us: (December, 2007)





Brothers and Sisters,We have a brother in a lot of distress right now. Jose's father passed away on Monday night. He died of a heart attack after spending a month and a half in the hospital. Jose flew home to El Salvador Tuesday morning. Please pray for Jose and his family.Jose has always had financial needs, but now they are very pressing. He is responsible for providing the money for his father's hospital bills. When he applied for a loan to cover them, the private lender he has been borrowing from to go to grad school said that he would not be able to also get a loan to cover his grad school expenses next semester. Which is how he stays in the United States, on a student visa. He must also pay the funeral expenses. And the cost of flying home. His family's needs that have gone unmet while his Dad was in the hospital. And now he is left as the only one to support his mother and younger sister.We are all members of one body. Now we have an opportunity to help bear some of Jose's burdens, in love. Daniel Son and I are coordinating the efforst to ease Jose's financial burden. We cannot bring his father back, but we can help bear this burden on this shoulders.As Jose's roommate, I think it is very important that we do this anonymously. I've gotten the impression, based on times that I have given him money in the past, that he feels like he is imposing on his friends when he has to ask for money. I believe we can most bless Jose by giving him the money anonymously, letting him know that his brothers and sisters are caring for and support him without knowing who it came from or how much he owes to any individual person. Danielson got Jose's bank account information from him before he left, and we can deposit checks made out to him in it without him ever knowing who it came from. Anyone who wants to give Jose and his family money can write a check to him and get it to either of us, or mail it to one of us as the Jonathan House (320 East Capitol St NE, Washington, DC 20003).Rather than just having money appear in his bank account, we should also write him cards and letters expressing our love and support. It would bless him if he came back to D.C. to know and feel the love of his brothers and sisters. Like any financial contributions, just get letters and cards to Danielson or myself, or mail them to the JHouse, and I'll put them on his dresser for when he returns. If anyone has the contact information for any of Jose's friends from grad school, Ave Maria, Brownback's office, Witherspoon, or anyone else who would like to help, please forward this message to them.Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.





James Sherk and Daniel Son