Julieta Segura Hernández

My first contact with God? I remember my mom leaving our home and leaving me with my dad. It’s a memory of God because she left the five of us siblings with my dad. She left, but my dad made us get closer to God because he would take us every nine days to church. That was my first contact with God. From that abandonment, my dad took us to church to know God and to get closer to God. 

There was a test of faith I remember from when I was young. I was about 9 years old. On that occasion, we were kicked out of the room we were renting and we had nowhere to go. My dad managed to get us to my grandmother’s house. We didn’t have enough to eat. That time I went with him. I remember a box of matches, and when I opened it, it had money inside. That money seemed to me proof that God was with us. Not having enough to eat and at that moment finding money, well, I feel that it was partly God’s work.

I was 12 years old when my dad passed away and I became independent. At that age I decided to leave my house, leave my brothers, and go rent a room. At that time, I was there reading the Bible and smoking a cigarette. I fell asleep with the cigarette lit. Sleep caught up on me. The next day, I woke up, my Bible was burned but curiously, the fire never reached the letters. That's why I feel that God has always been with me, taking care of me.

God gave me the greatest and most sacred thing—my children. When I suffered the abandonment of my mother, well, now that I am a mother I say I don’t think I would do what she did to me. And I pray a lot to God for that, because I try to be a better mother for them, a better person for them. And for me too…so that we’re all united.