My Story

Hello!

I am pretty excited to greet you through this letter hoping you are doing well. My name is Victor Leonardo Morente Simaj. I am eight years old, and I am a second-grade student. I receive face-to-face classes and hand in homework every week. I like this study method because this allows me to learn step by step. In my spare time, I enjoy playing with my toys along with my youngest siblings. Let me tell you that my father strives a lot to cover our family expenses. He makes a living as a day laborer or farmer. Moreover, he travels to the coast for harvesting coffee beans, and in this way, he gets extra money. On the other hand, my mother works hard doing the chores as well as raising sheep and pigs for selling. Besides that, she plants some herbs for selling, and she uses what she earns to help my father with the income. I love my family so much, and what we enjoy the most is eating a snack and talking about many things in the afternoons. All of us live in our own house; its walls are made of sticks and dry corn cane. The roof is tin sheet, and the floor is concrete and dirt. Our home only has a room which we use as a bedroom and kitchen at the same time. At home, there is running water, but no electricity, so we use candles to light at night.

My family and I love Christmas, and during this pandemic time, we have celebrated by preparing “tamales” (this is a typical dish made of dough, tomato sauce, spices, and meat wrapped in large banana leaves) and burning firecrackers. However, the virus affected my family economically because my father could not work for some time. Thankfully, none of us has gotten Covid-19, and we moved forward with food parcels that Living Water gave us. We are pretty grateful to the Lord because despite all the difficulties, He has not left us alone. My family and I are members of Christ Church which is a five-minute walk. When the virus spread everywhere, our church did not close as many others did because our leaders organized services behind closed doors. As you know, the feeding program was closed for a long time to prevent infections among many children like me. Fortunately, this is opening again, and this is making me happy because I missed the tasty fried chicken; the program is a fifteen-minute walk. Lastly, I want to tell you that my mother gave this information to an evangelism team member to share my last news with you. I say goodbye to you for now, but if you want to know something else about my life, feel free to ask me. May God reward you for being a good-hearted person!

From the bottom of my heart,

Victor Leonardo Morente Simaj

Translated by: Hillary Popol, AAC Secretary/Antigua