BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

Only this time it was different. This time, the work wasn’t for his survival. It was part of an assignment he had received from God to help others survive. “I’ve found my purpose,” Sergio said, smiling brightly as he unashamedly wiped away sweat that masked an occasional tear. “God has called me to take the message of hope to a hurting, dying world—to throw out a lifeline to the children of Juárez—to reverse the curse in their lives, just as He did for me. “I was a product of my environment, and there was no one there to help pull me out. Finding out about God—that He loves and cares for me—is what saved my life,” said Sergio, now a minister and part of the ministry team at Kenneth Copeland Ministries. “His Word gave me new life. It gave me hope and victory. That’s what these children need. They need to be shown the way out—the way to escape. That’s what we’re here to do! “The city of Juárez is considered one of the most dangerous cities on earth. Many of its children are still trapped in a vicious cycle surrounded by drugs with no way out. God has called me to help, and one of the ways He is helping me do that is by building a church right here in Juárez—a place where young children can find hope through God’s Word.” We first told you about Sergio and his plight in an article we published in March 2014. As a child growing up in the heart of drug-infested Juárez, Sergio watched helplessly as his alcoholic father abandoned the family when he was 2, and his heroin-addicted mother turned to prostitution—lifestyles that eventually led to early deaths for both of them. Like almost everyone born into that culture, Sergio never saw himself living any way other than in poverty—surrounded by drugs and early death. “We lived in an area called Heroin Alley,” Sergio recalls of his plight in his recently released book, "Prophet of My Own Life." “Hundreds of people routinely crossed the Mexican border almost daily from the U.S. to buy heroin in Heroin Alley. The entire area was, and still is to this day, drug infested—littered with bars and brothels, and crawling with prostitutes. On any day, people could be seen sitting in public—smoking dope, shooting up with needles and syringes, or cooking crack cocaine in spoons over open flames. “As a child growing up in Juárez, this is what I saw every day. By the time I was 6, I understood what poverty was. I also realized that we were steeped in it. We moved around a lot because my mother had problems paying the rent. One of the houses we lived in had no roof, no cement floors and no windows. When it rained, we got soaked. We got heat from kerosene lanterns and the cooking stove. There was also no refrigerator. “Most of what I know about my mother is firsthand. I lived it,” Sergio says in the book. “But there’s so much I don’t know, and so much more I sometimes wish I didn’t know.” About his father, he writes: “To say my dad was an absentee father would be too generous. My dad left us when I was 2 and moved to El Paso. I saw him less than a dozen times after that. One of those times was the night he died.” 12 : BVOV

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