August 7, 2024 • 20 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, coping with the loss of her father as a child, total rebellion could not stop God from pursuing Sarah Gonzalez—even after spending her time partaking in activities designed to instill hatred towards others. Sarah is here to share her story.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories. Up next, a
story told by a young lady from Chicago, Sarah Gonzalez,
coping with the loss of her father as a child.
Total rebellion could not stop God from pursuing her, even
after spending her time or taking an activities design to
(00:31):
instill hatred towards others. Here's Sarah Gonzalez.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
My mother was a school teacher and my father was
a prison jail chaplain, and so I grew up going
to Cook County Jail with my father. Instead of taking
me to school or kindergarten, he would often take me
me to Cook County Jail with.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Food and Bibles.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
And I just remember locking in with the inmates in
their cells and we would have Bible study and my
father would tell me, Sadita, don't forget about your brothers
and sisters in Cook County Jail. And I loved to
be with my father.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
He truly took the role.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Of discipleships seriously. So I had a very joyful childhood.
So at the age of six years old, I remember
we went on a family vacation to Bermuda, and the
last night of our vacation, I got up from the
(01:46):
dinner table, and I threw my arms around my father
and I said, Daddy, sometimes Mommy plays these worship songs
and they.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Make me miss you.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
And my mom recalls that there were tears in his
eyes and she was thinking, why is Sarah saying she
misses him?
Speaker 3 (02:03):
He's right here.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
The next morning, I remember we were getting ready to
go to the airport and I opened the door to
the bathroom and my father was there, and I saw
him vomiting blood into the sink, and I recall that's
the first time I ever experienced genuine anxiety and confusion,
(02:27):
because it was so traumatic to see this strong man
who wasn't afraid of anyone, very bold, now in this strange,
humiliating position, vomiting blood. And so we immediately flew back
to Chicago, and we went to the hospital and the
doctor said he'll be fine, it's just guard tissue. But
(02:50):
ultimately he had a serotic liver and hepatitis sea from
using dirty needles. Although he had been sober since the
day he was born again, there was so much damage
to his organs, and so he died. Before we unpacked
our suitcases. He internally bled to death, and he died
(03:13):
in August of nineteen ninety six, and I was just
starting first grade and my teacher, my first grade teacher
wrote on my first report card that, you know, I
had all f's and that I would just stay out
the window all day. So I think there was just
a profound sense of absence that I didn't really understand, and.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Coupled with now the household was so.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
There was such a sense of hopelessness because my mother
was wanting to die. She wanted to die, and I
knew she wanted to die, and so just a lot
of darkness. But now my belief that God is good
was challenged. If he is so good, then why did
(04:01):
he allow this to happen? And as I began to
grow older, even I remember second and third grade, I
started to become disdainful that my mother was still a believer,
even in her depression. I would still see her reading
her Bible. She was still fellowshipping with believers in church.
(04:22):
And I began to become very bitter because in my mind,
how could you continue to serve a God that I
perceived had completely abandoned me. As I got older, you know,
I continued to entertain these accusations against the character of God.
(04:46):
And oftentimes, you know, as Satan is working in that
way in someone's life, he'll send other people to agree
with your accusations.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
About the character of God.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
And so I gravitated towards peers who also were questioning
their faith. By eighth grade, I was already experimenting with drugs.
I was getting drunk, stealing liquor, selling prescription pills to
other kids who didn't know any better. And so then
(05:19):
by high school I was really dysfunctional. I graduated with
a one point two GPA. I gravitated towards. You know,
my father had been a gang member, and I had
been in and out of prison, and I began to
gravitate towards people who were in that category. I became
very reckless, and I did not care about what would
(05:43):
come of my life. By college, I was exposed to
radical politics and just very anti christ ideologies, and I
embraced those because all of those ideas elogies communicated the
lie that you can be your own God. And because
(06:04):
I felt abandoned by God, and because I at that
point enjoyed my sin.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
I continued that way.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
When I was in college, I began to explore my roots,
or what I thought, you know, were roots, were my
roots that were worth exploring. My family, some of my
family is involved with witchcraft, and it was enticing to
(06:33):
me because although I rejected Christ, I was still there
was a certain allure to the spiritual realm. And because
I had witnessed miracles, I knew that there was spiritual power,
(06:54):
and so I slowly began to gravitate towards witchcraft and
I would see results, I would see things happen, and
I had a sense, a false sense of control. I
had this false sense that I was causing good things
(07:16):
to happen in my life because of these rituals, and
it became such a major part of my identity. In
the year twenty sixteen, I experienced several demonic encounters, and
the first one that occurred was unlike anything I had
(07:37):
ever experienced.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
It was horrifying, and I was also.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
With some friends who were involved with witchcraft and the
activism that I was involved with, and so I didn't
want to call on the name of Jesus. But the
demonic encounter became so all encompassing that I began to
sing the words cover me Jesus, and as soon as
(08:05):
the name of Jesus came out of my mouth. The
demon retreated in God's mercy, he still rescued me from
that demonic encounter. But I woke up the next day
pretending like it never happened.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
And you're listening to Sarah Gonzalez share her story, which
started off well. She had a happy childhood, as she
described it, going to Cook County jail with her dad,
who had a heart, a real heart for prison discipleship
because it had saved him. He was a former gang
member and heroin addict. That heroin addiction, it took its
(08:41):
toll on his body and her dad. She watched him
vomiting blood in a hotel on a vacation, and soon
thereafter her father passed, and that's when her crisis of
faith emerged and got mad at God because why would
he allow something like this to happen to her. In
the eighth grade, she gravitated towards peers who questioned their
(09:03):
faith too. By high school, as she described it, she
was totally dysfunctional, and by college, well, she was exposed
to radical ideologies and continued down a dark path, ending
with witchcraft. The story of Sarah Gonzalez her real faith
struggles and her faith walk continues here on our American story.
(09:39):
And we continue with our American stories. Let's pick up
where we last left off with Sara Gonzales.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
In August of twenty sixteen. I flew to New York
City with one of my friends who was an activist,
and my first night, I experienced another demonic attack, and
I remember being so exhausted by the weightiness of this
(10:11):
spiritual wrestling that was taking place, and I struggled all night.
I remember, you know, coming in and out of consciousness.
And when I woke up in the morning, I had
a text from my mother, who was in Chicago, and
she didn't know all of the things that I was
involved in, and in her text, she said, I want
(10:32):
you to know that the Lord woke me from a
sound sleep, and I don't know what you're involved in,
but there's deliverance in Jesus's name. I called her and
she was expecting me to roll my eyes at her
and say you're crazy, because we had such a tumultuous
relationship because of my hostility. But I called her and
(10:55):
I told her I've been up all night, and she
told told me that the Lord had woken her up,
and he gave her Psalm sixty nine, where it says,
save me, ol God, the waters have come up to
my neck and John ten ten, the thief comes to steal,
kill and destroy. But I came that you may have
life abundantly. What I didn't share is that she was
(11:20):
awakened from a nightmare where I was murdered, and the
Lord told her pray for your daughter and gave her
those two scriptures. And so I was processing all of this,
the fact that I came to New York City for
no good reason, to do nothing good, and my mother
(11:46):
is not even in the same state, but the Lord,
out of his love, alerted her to pray for me.
And I began to think about my life up until
that point. And although I had many accolades in life
and all the right people liked me, I knew that
(12:11):
in my darkest, most horrifying moments, with these demonic attacks,
that none of them could save me, that they could
not do a thing for me. And just witnessing how
the name of Jesus had so much power, I believe
(12:35):
that the Lord used that to show me his authority.
Because I was so rebellious, I was so rebellious, and
he used it to show me I didn't know anything,
I had no authority, and it humbled me.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
He used it to humble me.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
And most of all were not most of all, but
most touching to me was that he showed me he
had been pursuing me. In my rejection of him, in
my idolatry, in my mockery of him, it just broke
something in me. As we know, his word says it's
his kindness that leads us to repentance. And so as
(13:13):
I walked into the hotel room, he just began to
whisper these things to me, Sarah, You're not going to
be the same. I knew that I would never take
a drink of alcohol again. Would I had cigarettes in
my bag, I threw those out. I knew I would
never touch drugs anymore. I knew that this would not
just be I'm going to live a religious life where
(13:35):
I go to church, but I'm going to keep on
with all the other things, and I'll just add.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Christianity to it.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
The Lord made clear that I came to New York
City dead, and that he brought me to life, and
that I existed now to serve him for the rest
of my days.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
And I wanted nothing to do with my former ways
of life.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
I knew that as soon as I got home to
Chicago that I was going to raid my apartment and
tear down all the altars, get all the books of divination,
the sage, the crystals, and it was going to go
in the dumpster. The Lord put that conviction in me, and.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
For the first time I desired to please him.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
So when I was born again, I was a high
school teacher at the time, and I was teaching in
a small alternative social justice high school couple blocks from
cok County Jail, which is where my father had been
a chaplain many years before, and which there was a
(14:52):
lot of gang violence right there, and so during this
time I would end up having four students who are
murdered and twelve were shot within four months. But even
in that the surviving young people were starting to ask
questions about eternity, about goodness, about how do I live
(15:16):
a good life, And for the first time I had
an answer for them.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
I had an.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Answer that there is a God who saves, that there
is no sin that cannot be forgiven. And during this
time we experienced an outpouring of miracles, because as I
would sleep and then wake up with scriptures on my mouth,
the Lord would whisper to me, pray that every gun
(15:44):
used against them jams, pray that the bullets ricochet and
that they'll know the truth of Jesus and that they
will be set free. And so I would be walking
home from school and they would see me on the
street and they'd pull over and I would have the
opportunity to pray that prayer, and they would just look
at me like I'm crazy. But then several days later
(16:06):
they would come to me and they would say, sada
when we prayed the other day, we went to go
do something, and what you prayed happened.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
What was then.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Many of these young people were incarcerated during this time.
They would get arrested, and the Lord began to put
on my heart the desire to minister to them in
the jail. And eventually that led to me connecting with
Coynania House Ministries and Manny Mill, who I met in
(16:44):
DuPage County Jail while visiting a former student, and we've
had the blessing of merging together. My father established a
ministry in Could County jail and we recently merged, and
so this August, for the very first time, I was
able to go into the County jail, into the women's
(17:06):
service and lead that with my mother. And so now
the Lord has just been shaping my heart for men
and women who are incarcerated and the need for discipleship.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
This year, I received.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Audio and video footage of my father that I had
never had access to, and I watched it for the
first time, and there's a clip where my father is
speaking somewhere at a church and I'm one year old,
and he says, you see, my beautiful daughter, my little baby.
(17:46):
She's not going to grow up with a gun in
her purse like my sisters did. She's going to carry
a Bible.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
And one day.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
She's going to be with us in the prisons and
jails and she'll give her own testimony to Jesus. And
when I saw that, it just stunned me. And a
couple months ago, I was cleaning my closet and I
found a drawing that I did in first grade, and
(18:15):
at the very top it says, draw what you want
to do when you grow up, And in the drawing,
I drew Cook County Jail, drew a big cross on
top of it, and there's a drawing of me in
front of it, and it says in the drawing, be
at Cook County Jail with a big heart. And so
(18:38):
that was really the icing on the cake. In Samoe
thirty nine, it says every day of our life is
written in his book. And so I have the joy
of not only walking in the legacy of my father,
but seeing how my heavenly father has perfectly orchestrated all
(19:04):
of these things for his quory.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
And a terrific job on the production editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Hengler. A special thanks to Sarah
Gonzalez for sharing her story her testimony, and a special
thanks also to Don Albert, who was a filmmaker and
storyteller and directed our only documentary, The Streets Were My Father,
(19:31):
And what a story we heard here, a miraculous story.
And on that flight to New York City, her mom
had a dream, and she dreamed her daughter was murdered.
As Sarah put it, the Lord made it clear that
I came to New York City dead. I wanted nothing
to do with my former life after that she'd been
born again. This happens to Americans all over this country.
(19:54):
That's why we tell this story, because they're your stories, folks.
And the story of that drawing, my goodness, draw the
picture of who you want to be when you grow up.
And she was reminded who she was and who she
is the story of Sara Gonzalez a beauty here on
(20:14):
our American stories
And we continue with our American stories. Up next, a
story told by a young lady from Chicago, Sarah Gonzalez,
coping with the loss of her father as a child.
Total rebellion could not stop God from pursuing her, even
after spending her time or taking an activities design to
(00:31):
instill hatred towards others. Here's Sarah Gonzalez.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
My mother was a school teacher and my father was
a prison jail chaplain, and so I grew up going
to Cook County Jail with my father. Instead of taking
me to school or kindergarten, he would often take me
me to Cook County Jail with.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Food and Bibles.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
And I just remember locking in with the inmates in
their cells and we would have Bible study and my
father would tell me, Sadita, don't forget about your brothers
and sisters in Cook County Jail. And I loved to
be with my father.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
He truly took the role.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Of discipleships seriously. So I had a very joyful childhood.
So at the age of six years old, I remember
we went on a family vacation to Bermuda, and the
last night of our vacation, I got up from the
(01:46):
dinner table, and I threw my arms around my father
and I said, Daddy, sometimes Mommy plays these worship songs
and they.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Make me miss you.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
And my mom recalls that there were tears in his
eyes and she was thinking, why is Sarah saying she
misses him?
Speaker 3 (02:03):
He's right here.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
The next morning, I remember we were getting ready to
go to the airport and I opened the door to
the bathroom and my father was there, and I saw
him vomiting blood into the sink, and I recall that's
the first time I ever experienced genuine anxiety and confusion,
(02:27):
because it was so traumatic to see this strong man
who wasn't afraid of anyone, very bold, now in this strange,
humiliating position, vomiting blood. And so we immediately flew back
to Chicago, and we went to the hospital and the
doctor said he'll be fine, it's just guard tissue. But
(02:50):
ultimately he had a serotic liver and hepatitis sea from
using dirty needles. Although he had been sober since the
day he was born again, there was so much damage
to his organs, and so he died. Before we unpacked
our suitcases. He internally bled to death, and he died
(03:13):
in August of nineteen ninety six, and I was just
starting first grade and my teacher, my first grade teacher
wrote on my first report card that, you know, I
had all f's and that I would just stay out
the window all day. So I think there was just
a profound sense of absence that I didn't really understand, and.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Coupled with now the household was so.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
There was such a sense of hopelessness because my mother
was wanting to die. She wanted to die, and I
knew she wanted to die, and so just a lot
of darkness. But now my belief that God is good
was challenged. If he is so good, then why did
(04:01):
he allow this to happen? And as I began to
grow older, even I remember second and third grade, I
started to become disdainful that my mother was still a believer,
even in her depression. I would still see her reading
her Bible. She was still fellowshipping with believers in church.
(04:22):
And I began to become very bitter because in my mind,
how could you continue to serve a God that I
perceived had completely abandoned me. As I got older, you know,
I continued to entertain these accusations against the character of God.
(04:46):
And oftentimes, you know, as Satan is working in that
way in someone's life, he'll send other people to agree
with your accusations.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
About the character of God.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
And so I gravitated towards peers who also were questioning
their faith. By eighth grade, I was already experimenting with drugs.
I was getting drunk, stealing liquor, selling prescription pills to
other kids who didn't know any better. And so then
(05:19):
by high school I was really dysfunctional. I graduated with
a one point two GPA. I gravitated towards. You know,
my father had been a gang member, and I had
been in and out of prison, and I began to
gravitate towards people who were in that category. I became
very reckless, and I did not care about what would
(05:43):
come of my life. By college, I was exposed to
radical politics and just very anti christ ideologies, and I
embraced those because all of those ideas elogies communicated the
lie that you can be your own God. And because
(06:04):
I felt abandoned by God, and because I at that
point enjoyed my sin.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
I continued that way.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
When I was in college, I began to explore my roots,
or what I thought, you know, were roots, were my
roots that were worth exploring. My family, some of my
family is involved with witchcraft, and it was enticing to
(06:33):
me because although I rejected Christ, I was still there
was a certain allure to the spiritual realm. And because
I had witnessed miracles, I knew that there was spiritual power,
(06:54):
and so I slowly began to gravitate towards witchcraft and
I would see results, I would see things happen, and
I had a sense, a false sense of control. I
had this false sense that I was causing good things
(07:16):
to happen in my life because of these rituals, and
it became such a major part of my identity. In
the year twenty sixteen, I experienced several demonic encounters, and
the first one that occurred was unlike anything I had
(07:37):
ever experienced.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
It was horrifying, and I was also.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
With some friends who were involved with witchcraft and the
activism that I was involved with, and so I didn't
want to call on the name of Jesus. But the
demonic encounter became so all encompassing that I began to
sing the words cover me Jesus, and as soon as
(08:05):
the name of Jesus came out of my mouth. The
demon retreated in God's mercy, he still rescued me from
that demonic encounter. But I woke up the next day
pretending like it never happened.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
And you're listening to Sarah Gonzalez share her story, which
started off well. She had a happy childhood, as she
described it, going to Cook County jail with her dad,
who had a heart, a real heart for prison discipleship
because it had saved him. He was a former gang
member and heroin addict. That heroin addiction, it took its
(08:41):
toll on his body and her dad. She watched him
vomiting blood in a hotel on a vacation, and soon
thereafter her father passed, and that's when her crisis of
faith emerged and got mad at God because why would
he allow something like this to happen to her. In
the eighth grade, she gravitated towards peers who questioned their
(09:03):
faith too. By high school, as she described it, she
was totally dysfunctional, and by college, well, she was exposed
to radical ideologies and continued down a dark path, ending
with witchcraft. The story of Sarah Gonzalez her real faith
struggles and her faith walk continues here on our American story.
(09:39):
And we continue with our American stories. Let's pick up
where we last left off with Sara Gonzales.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
In August of twenty sixteen. I flew to New York
City with one of my friends who was an activist,
and my first night, I experienced another demonic attack, and
I remember being so exhausted by the weightiness of this
(10:11):
spiritual wrestling that was taking place, and I struggled all night.
I remember, you know, coming in and out of consciousness.
And when I woke up in the morning, I had
a text from my mother, who was in Chicago, and
she didn't know all of the things that I was
involved in, and in her text, she said, I want
(10:32):
you to know that the Lord woke me from a
sound sleep, and I don't know what you're involved in,
but there's deliverance in Jesus's name. I called her and
she was expecting me to roll my eyes at her
and say you're crazy, because we had such a tumultuous
relationship because of my hostility. But I called her and
(10:55):
I told her I've been up all night, and she
told told me that the Lord had woken her up,
and he gave her Psalm sixty nine, where it says,
save me, ol God, the waters have come up to
my neck and John ten ten, the thief comes to steal,
kill and destroy. But I came that you may have
life abundantly. What I didn't share is that she was
(11:20):
awakened from a nightmare where I was murdered, and the
Lord told her pray for your daughter and gave her
those two scriptures. And so I was processing all of this,
the fact that I came to New York City for
no good reason, to do nothing good, and my mother
(11:46):
is not even in the same state, but the Lord,
out of his love, alerted her to pray for me.
And I began to think about my life up until
that point. And although I had many accolades in life
and all the right people liked me, I knew that
(12:11):
in my darkest, most horrifying moments, with these demonic attacks,
that none of them could save me, that they could
not do a thing for me. And just witnessing how
the name of Jesus had so much power, I believe
(12:35):
that the Lord used that to show me his authority.
Because I was so rebellious, I was so rebellious, and
he used it to show me I didn't know anything,
I had no authority, and it humbled me.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
He used it to humble me.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
And most of all were not most of all, but
most touching to me was that he showed me he
had been pursuing me. In my rejection of him, in
my idolatry, in my mockery of him, it just broke
something in me. As we know, his word says it's
his kindness that leads us to repentance. And so as
(13:13):
I walked into the hotel room, he just began to
whisper these things to me, Sarah, You're not going to
be the same. I knew that I would never take
a drink of alcohol again. Would I had cigarettes in
my bag, I threw those out. I knew I would
never touch drugs anymore. I knew that this would not
just be I'm going to live a religious life where
(13:35):
I go to church, but I'm going to keep on
with all the other things, and I'll just add.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Christianity to it.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
The Lord made clear that I came to New York
City dead, and that he brought me to life, and
that I existed now to serve him for the rest
of my days.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
And I wanted nothing to do with my former ways
of life.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
I knew that as soon as I got home to
Chicago that I was going to raid my apartment and
tear down all the altars, get all the books of divination,
the sage, the crystals, and it was going to go
in the dumpster. The Lord put that conviction in me, and.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
For the first time I desired to please him.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
So when I was born again, I was a high
school teacher at the time, and I was teaching in
a small alternative social justice high school couple blocks from
cok County Jail, which is where my father had been
a chaplain many years before, and which there was a
(14:52):
lot of gang violence right there, and so during this
time I would end up having four students who are
murdered and twelve were shot within four months. But even
in that the surviving young people were starting to ask
questions about eternity, about goodness, about how do I live
(15:16):
a good life, And for the first time I had
an answer for them.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
I had an.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Answer that there is a God who saves, that there
is no sin that cannot be forgiven. And during this
time we experienced an outpouring of miracles, because as I
would sleep and then wake up with scriptures on my mouth,
the Lord would whisper to me, pray that every gun
(15:44):
used against them jams, pray that the bullets ricochet and
that they'll know the truth of Jesus and that they
will be set free. And so I would be walking
home from school and they would see me on the
street and they'd pull over and I would have the
opportunity to pray that prayer, and they would just look
at me like I'm crazy. But then several days later
(16:06):
they would come to me and they would say, sada
when we prayed the other day, we went to go
do something, and what you prayed happened.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
What was then.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Many of these young people were incarcerated during this time.
They would get arrested, and the Lord began to put
on my heart the desire to minister to them in
the jail. And eventually that led to me connecting with
Coynania House Ministries and Manny Mill, who I met in
(16:44):
DuPage County Jail while visiting a former student, and we've
had the blessing of merging together. My father established a
ministry in Could County jail and we recently merged, and
so this August, for the very first time, I was
able to go into the County jail, into the women's
(17:06):
service and lead that with my mother. And so now
the Lord has just been shaping my heart for men
and women who are incarcerated and the need for discipleship.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
This year, I received.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Audio and video footage of my father that I had
never had access to, and I watched it for the
first time, and there's a clip where my father is
speaking somewhere at a church and I'm one year old,
and he says, you see, my beautiful daughter, my little baby.
(17:46):
She's not going to grow up with a gun in
her purse like my sisters did. She's going to carry
a Bible.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
And one day.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
She's going to be with us in the prisons and
jails and she'll give her own testimony to Jesus. And
when I saw that, it just stunned me. And a
couple months ago, I was cleaning my closet and I
found a drawing that I did in first grade, and
(18:15):
at the very top it says, draw what you want
to do when you grow up, And in the drawing,
I drew Cook County Jail, drew a big cross on
top of it, and there's a drawing of me in
front of it, and it says in the drawing, be
at Cook County Jail with a big heart. And so
(18:38):
that was really the icing on the cake. In Samoe
thirty nine, it says every day of our life is
written in his book. And so I have the joy
of not only walking in the legacy of my father,
but seeing how my heavenly father has perfectly orchestrated all
(19:04):
of these things for his quory.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
And a terrific job on the production editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Hengler. A special thanks to Sarah
Gonzalez for sharing her story her testimony, and a special
thanks also to Don Albert, who was a filmmaker and
storyteller and directed our only documentary, The Streets Were My Father,
(19:31):
And what a story we heard here, a miraculous story.
And on that flight to New York City, her mom
had a dream, and she dreamed her daughter was murdered.
As Sarah put it, the Lord made it clear that
I came to New York City dead. I wanted nothing
to do with my former life after that she'd been
born again. This happens to Americans all over this country.
(19:54):
That's why we tell this story, because they're your stories, folks.
And the story of that drawing, my goodness, draw the
picture of who you want to be when you grow up.
And she was reminded who she was and who she
is the story of Sara Gonzalez a beauty here on
(20:14):
our American stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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