V for Virtuous - Introduction

People say they want to look like celebrities or like people who did amazing charitable work in the past. I'll be honest with you, I've never aimed that way... It's not that I don't respect what some of they did or do, it's just that I don't really know them personally - how can I want to be like a stranger?

But there's a woman I aim to be like that I know quite personally. In fact, most of my friends all feel the same way about her... she's amazing, a true example to be followed, and I see women moulding themselves like her everyday... she's a true inspiration.

She's the Proverbs 31 woman. The only woman the Bible describes with specifics. The way she handles herself, her family, her work, her time, her money, and her responsibilities. Most Christian women have heard or read about her, and though she's popular with them, there's a bit of controversy when it comes to the things she used to do - it's totally not popular these days anymore...

Let's place her description below, think about it, and start writing about her in the next few days shall we?

10. Who can find a virtuous wife? For her worth is far above rubies.

11. The heart of her husband safely trusts her; So he will have no lack of gain.

12. She does him good and not evil, All the days of her life.

13. She seeks wool and flax, And willingly works with her hands.

14. She is like the merchant ships, She brings her food from afar.

15. She also rises while it is yet night, And provides food for her household, And a portion for her maidservants.

16. She considers a field and buys it; From her profits she plants a vineyard.

17. She girds herself with strength, And strengthens her arms.

18. She perceives that her merchandise is good, And her lamp does not go out by night.

19. She stretches out her hands to the distaff, And her hand holds the spindle.

20. She extends her hand to the poor, Yes, she reaches out her hands to the needy.

21. She is not afraid of snow for her household, For all her household is clothed with scarlet.

22. She makes tapestry for herself; Her clothing is fine linen and purple.

23. Her husband is known in the gates, When he sits among the elders of the land.

24. She makes linen garments and sells them, And supplies sashes for the merchants.

25. Strength and honor are her clothing; She shall rejoice in time to come.

26. She opens her mouth with wisdom, And on her tongue is the law of kindness.

27. She watches over the ways of her household, And does not eat the bread of idleness.

28. Her children rise up and call her blessed; Her husband also, and he praises her:

29. "Many daughters have done well, But you excel them all."

30. Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing, But a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised.

31. Give her of the fruit of her hands, And let her own works praise her in the gates.

That will be 21 blogs about her from tomorrow onwards... you can breathe now.

PS. I'll be posting a picture of some virtuous women I know in these blogs... not all, after all, there are more than 21 of them out there :-)

Dreamy Apartment

It was a beautiful apartment right in front of the beach. The more I looked into the details, the more I envied it... light furniture, wooden floor, white sofas, a small jacuzzi right in the corner of the living room facing the sea, and two floors with an amazing view. The owner must have been a celebrity of some kind, Shane, my little T-cup poodle, and two of my friends accompanied me in this visit. I think I had my mouth open in awe the whole time... it moved like a ship and she said that was one of the apartment's best features, you felt as if you were inside a Yacht. And though I felt like throwing up, I wondered how it would feel like living in a place like this... but something interrupted my thoughts.

The whole apartment moved too roughly, we all fell to one side of it, Shane almost drowned when the jacuzzi's water spilled all over us. We didn't know what to do, what to say, something must have happened and it didn't look good.

'Oh no! I think it's a Tsunami!' the celebrity shouted. Everyone looked at each other, not knowing what to do or where to run, we were on the 3rd floor but the place was moving too roughly. I took Shane in my arms and looked outside the window, and that's when it hit me... the whole building was going down!

CUT, LIGHTS PLEASE!

This was a dream, thank God!

Sometimes in life we need to do the same. When everything is going wrong and you don't see anywhere to go - just do what they do in the movies: 'CUT, LIGHTS PLEASE!' That's what I do, especially when I have nightmares such as these...

Review the whole ordeal, see what you can do differently, and let God in it immediately.

Humble Pie

I felt really privileged when I heard about writing an article. I could talk about loads of good things, but the only three topics that have consumed my thoughts as of late regards the billions we share the earth with, how I am only one, and their need for help.

With 6 billion pulses, heartbeats and personalities on planet earth, we should never think ourselves so wonderful. There’s probably about 5 billion people out there who are smarter than you and me: faster, prettier, wittier, more talented... Now imagine since time began, probably trillions. It’s really enough to bring anyone off their high horse, if you really think about it.

Now in this perspective we must look at ourselves from God’s point of view. The Creator, Master, Founder since the dawn of time, the one who sits on the throne of glory; light-years bigger and more awe-inspiring than you could ever imagine. Who are you compared to Him?

Who do YOU think you are? A mist here today and gone tomorrow...

And to think He came down from His glory to SERVE and die for us undeserving creatures. He loves us immeasurably. But it's so sad to know that so many of us despise, forget, disregard, don’t know, don’t care or betray the Founder of all. That hurts, especially knowing someone is out there right now crying, suffering in a hospital bed, staring at a death, pacing a psych ward or just in their room crying themselves to sleep... Though others at first glance may seem they’re not suffering. They may have family, degrees, a six-figure income or whatever else, but they may have drug addictions or just don't have God. So they will find themselves in trouble still.

But by some miracle, we have been recruited to the army of the living God. You (if you chose to be) and I have been chosen, handpicked! He could have overlooked us, forgotten us but He never did. And what have we really done for him? Have you done the maximum or just average? Have you really thought of your neighbor? Served others rather than yourself? We must ask these questions of ourselves constantly and start to bend like we’ve never bent before. Time is slipping, souls are going to hell. So the question is are we living up to our full potential or denying the One who loved us unconditionally by ignoring His sheep?

He said to him again a second time, “Peter, do you love Me?” He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” He said to him, “Tend My sheep.”John 21:16

Rebeca Rocha, Houston Texas

I was enabled

This week, as I was continuing with my daily work routine, a small yet important detail that must be taken care of without fault each week passed me by. True, I was having a lot of work and had to put all my effort into learning new things to exceed my job expectations, nonetheless, while being too busy with that, I didn’t realize that something had gone wrong. When this mistake was brought to my attention by my boss, it was as if a cold bucket of water had been splashed over me! Instantly, thoughts about how irresponsible I had been, how careless and how I had failed so many who had counted on me, including God Himself began swarming in my mind. Even though I hadn’t purposely done this, the fact was that the error, the mistake was there, and now it was weighing me down making me feel terrible.

I immediately apologized and fixed the mistake, but that wasn’t enough. The guilt for having allowed something small, but of great importance, bypass me remained throughout the day, up until the time of the service.

“God doesn’t choose the enabled ones, He enables the chosen ones.” In those few words God spoke to me clearly. I may be full of mistakes, both big and small, and be far, very far away from being perfect, but because He Himself chose me to be a part of His work, He will give me the capacity, the wisdom to fulfill His plans - as long as I am willing to be molded of course. This process of being enabled consists of learning, sometimes from the experiences of others, and sometimes the hard way: through our own mistakes. There will be times when I will fall, I will make mistakes and hit myself against the wall, which at the moment will make me feel tiny, but the important thing is that I look at these mistakes, see what I can learn from them, and get myself back up ready to continue my journey serving God. After all, God doesn’t look for perfect people, instead He uses what we do have, and is willing to be patient and go through the process of teaching us what we still lack.


If it hadn’t been for this mistake, perhaps I wouldn’t have recognized the importance of check-lists and of double and even triple checking my work. I can trust that even though at the moment I felt incapable and very guilty, through that mistake, I was able to acquire something that I was missing and which will now make me more enabled to fulfill my job. Mistakes have now become part of my learning process, also serving to remind me of how much I depend on God.

Lillian Quezada, Houston Texas

New Beginning in Houston

Our New Home

For two years we've gone without a proper place to hold church meetings in English... it was hard to see  people coming in through our doors and judging us by how we looked. Some overlooked the appearances and stayed, believed, and were blessed... but those were a minority. 

Every single day I'd remind God of why He brought us to Houston, if it wasn't in prayer, it was through my thoughts... we came here to make a difference in the lives of people, especially those who profess the faith and yet don't know how to live it... why is this taking so long? 

TV programs four times a week, late at night, which some times would keep us up until 3am. Evangelism every single day in the streets, sometimes under the rain, other times below the sauna-heated sun of Houston. The calls, the visits, the events, the drive-thru prayers, the marriage courses, and the YPG activities were just some of the ways we've used to reach out... to go where no one goes. We've worked hard, though I'm sure we can still work harder for God's Kingdom, but it has all brought us to this one day... this one single moment of the church in Houston:

Our Grand Opening.

We've finally done it. We can finally work freely on what we've come here for. We'll be open 7 days of the week, including during holidays and bad weather. We'll have 3 meetings a day so that people from all kinds of lifestyles can have an opportunity to attend and be blessed. We'll be there to counsel, to encourage, and to uplift everyone who comes through our doors. 

Our Kids Zone will be taken care by the pastors' wives themselves, thinking of every little detail our children need to grow in their faith. Our Youth group will have its own room and I have a feeling it'll be the best in Houston! 

This is just the tip of the iceberg... it's a huge mountain and I can't wait to climb it!

You're invited to join us this Sunday, February 7th 10am at 7075 Southwest Freeway.

Don't look with your own eyes

The new school semester was about to start and I had no job, if I wanted one I only had four school days to figure something out in order to have my schedule right, and most important I actually needed someone to hire me. At first I felt like not even trying, I told myself “why try I don’t think I have enough time, oh well” but then another voice said “no, nothing is impossible for God, if he promised to answer us then he will”. So that was the voice I listened to, I started immediately with what I could, I told my teacher to send my resume in to one company then another, but nothing seemed to work out, I called in each day to see if there was any news but nothing.

I prayed each day, it wasn’t a long prayer, it was short and straight to the point. I repeated to myself each day two specific words, “Don’t Doubt.” If I doubted for a second I knew I wouldn’t accomplish anything so I kept going. That following week on Monday I went to check again, this time someone had actually called in last Friday and requested someone that was bilingual. I smiled and said that’s mine, that’s the job God sent me, so I was called for an interview, and right then and there I was hired.

I knew that it was all God, because if I looked at things with my own eyes, I would see it impossible, there was no way, but once again God proved to me that for him nothing is impossible, he changes everything, even the way people think.

Faith is so important in our life, it’s believing in what we don’t see, knowing that things will work out because of a promise, it’s one of the strongest weapons we have, and one of the best things we can do with it is make it stronger, use it. I’m sure God didn’t just give it to us to just have it, He gave it to us to use it and Glorify His name through our accomplishments. It’s like having so many shoes but not using them, just have them there to look at them, and dream about wearing them. We all have dreams, and sometimes they seem so hard to accomplish, or so far, but we forget we have what we need to get their; our faith. So let’s go! No time to waste!

Mayela Figueroa, Houston Texas