Fernando

Abandoned child who survived by self-reliance and could never trust God as provider → man who experiences God as a present, personal Father for the first time after 17 years of nominal faith.

Got his GED and attended community college. Raised his oldest son as a single parent; that son later became his best man at his wedding. Married Elisa and has two daughters. Sought anger management counseling. His brother observed the change and said, 'If you change for nothing, God has to be real.' After the car encounter, began experiencing genuine relationship with God as Father for the first time.

That was the beginning of a true relationship with the Lord — for the first time I can see him as a father.

The wet blanket that I've been carrying all these years is finally off — the abandonment, the rage, the self-disqualification, working my way up to earn salvation, never believing my wife would stay, never believing God would do for me what he did for others. Drugs and alcohol before conversion.

For 17 years after conversion Fernando carried a deep wound of abandonment and self-disqualification — waking every morning expecting his wife to leave, believing God loved others but not him, working to earn salvation, and unable to trust God as provider. The healing only began after a crisis encounter in the car approximately four to five years before the testimony.

I work my way up to earn salvation... that's what Society teaches you, you have to earn it in order to get it.

Preaching the gospel everywhere he goes — downtown street evangelism, sharing in multiple places. Now building his legacy and family, and his wife Elisa is involved in ministry. He is learning to operate from his God-given gifts rather than self-reliance.

The power of Prayer — Friend who invited him to church and later revealed he came to share the gospel stood in the gap for Fernando.

A friend Fernando admired for being different from other men he had known invited him to church over several months until Fernando agreed to go. After Fernando began attending, the friend revealed he had come not to raise money for his company but to share the gospel — then left. His departure triggered Fernando's abandonment wound but also his resolve to keep going to church. Years later, a straight-shooting friend asked Fernando a series of profound questions that prompted the car encounter with God.

Pray for anyone who has been serving God faithfully for years but still wakes up every morning waiting to be abandoned — that God would answer the question they have never dared to scream out loud.